by Sam Jones
Get on the freeway.
As he made a left and followed another side street leading towards the freeway entrance, Black could see that the interior of the Benz was turning into some kind of crime scene you saw in news segments or deranged, late-night Internet searches. Thoughts ran to OJ Simpson’s Bronco.
I need to burn this car.
I need medical assistance.
I need HOPE!
He reached into his pocket and fumbled around for his phone, losing his grip on it every time he went to pull it out, the slickness of the blood on his hand and general malaise were starting to get the better of him. Eventually, he wrestled the phone out of his pocket, and feverishly searched through his contacts. With each scroll he made, red streaks smeared across the screen.
He arrived at the ‘H’ section. Only one name was resting in the column—
Stan Hope.
Black dialed.
It rang… and rang… and rang… The longer it went on, the closer the on-ramp came into Black’s field of view, and the closer he got to it, the more his vision started to blur.
Pick up… Pick up…
He was going numb. More tired, than anything else. If he passed out now, the cops (maybe even Cassie) would definitely catch up to him, and the events that followed would be nothing shy of a shit show.
Come on, Stan… Where are you…?
The on-ramp was about thirty feet away.
Jesus, my stomach!
He cramped. The pain so severe he was trying his best not to double over. It was like a thousand knives jammed into his belly.
This SUCKS. This feels like menstrual cramps.
I think…
If it does, then to all the women of the world, I am SO SORRY…
STOP! FOCUS!
Black closed one eye and focused on the yellow lines on the road to guide him towards the on-ramp, much like a drunk driver would in a misguided attempt to show the world (and themselves) that they ‘got it covered.’
More ringing… More ringing…
Black’s head began to throb. Stomach cramps were getting worse.
Stan… Come on…
The line picked up. A smoker’s cough. A smoker’s voice—
“Yellow!” they greeted.
“Stan… It’s… Martin Black… I need your help…”
“Jesus Christ,” Stan said, following up with another hacky, smoker’s cough. “You sound worse than I do. And I’ve been drinking since this morning.”
“I’m shot… drugged… stole a car… driving it now…”
“You got drugged? Where are you? You said you stole a car? Wait… You’re calling on a burner phone, right? If you’re not, then I do not know who the fuck this is, sir!”
“Stan! Come on, man… I’m bleeding out here.”
“Damn it, Marty!”
Black could hear what sounded like cans being sorted into recycling and glass dishes and plates being stacked violently to the side in the background. In his mind, he saw Stan, caught up in the middle of more domestic duties.
“I told you to call me before you did something stupid,” Stan said. “Where are you? Exactly?”
“The Valley... LA…”
“Put me on speakerphone,” Stan said. “You need to use both your hands.”
Black put the phone on speaker. Dropped it in his lap, Stan’s voice now sounded lower, louder, and slightly harsher.
“Stan… I’m headed towards the Freeway.”
“No! Stay away from the freeway! Find a shady spot. Hidden.”
“Okay… okay…”
Black drove past the on-ramp and stayed on the street, his motor functions focused on the steering wheel and gas pedal. Occasionally, the car would sway side-to-side from Black’s teetering consciousness and hands slipping off the wheel. He attempted to keep the needle hovering at 20 mph.
“I’m still on the streets,” he said.
He spotted it. Up ahead and to his left, about a hundred feet away: a residential street that curved into to a dead end. A freeway overpass ran over the roofs of the houses on the end like a thick cloud made of concrete, metal, blood, and sweat. It casted a shadow over the entire street.
“Think I found something…” Black said, every word a mission to project out of his mouth. “Street… Overpass above it…”
I’m going numb…
“Where are you? Specifically?” Stan asked.
“The Valley… somewhere in The Valley.”
“Christ. I’m in Arizona, you know that, right?”
“Stan!”
“All right, all right, all right. Relax. I can get there soon. I’ll get Hinny to drop me off at the airport or something. I got a guy on retainer out there who can help you while I’m on my way. I’m gonna call him.”
“More… the merrier…”
A few moments passed while Stan went to use another phone. Black was positive he heard him whistling a Rolling Stones song while he did so.
“Call out a sign,” Stan said. “Landmark. Something.”
Black looked around and spotted a two-story structure made of wavy tin painted yellow and blue to his right, a sign on a marquee across the roof read—
“Brinkley Storage Co.,” said Black.
“All right. Hold the line, please.”
Black could hear the phone being placed down, but he could still make out ambient noises going on in the background – A sink being shut off. Shuffling. Someone grabbing something made a paper. Another cough. A click of something made out of metal. Paper being singed with fire. A thick exhale. Another cough.
“Stan… Are you lighting up a cigarette, right now?”
Another exhale. “Cool your tits, Marty, it takes two seconds.”
Jesus…
“Where are you shot?” Stan asked.
“Shotgun blast… lower part of my blick… on the left.”
“Your what?”
“My blick…”
“Your back. Shit. You’re slurring your words.”
Black looked around at the red-soaked interior.
“Man, my head is killing me,” Black said as he felt his stamina falling below five percent. Everything in front of him was turning into smudgy colors instead of defined images. He let the needle drop to 10 mph on the dash as he signaled and turned into the street with the overpass.
“On the street… I’m pulling over. What am… what am I doing?” asked Black.
“Park the car.”
Black slammed on the breaks and threw the Benz into park. Wherever he was, it was dark. Brief glimpses of the overpass were above his head. As he went to shut off the engine, his hand dropped limply into his lap, his body slumped, and he fell to his side.
He saw a figure outside the car. It was a blur, but Black could tell it was a woman from the curve of her hips.
I know you…
“Stan… I’m fading, here…”
“Shout out the address closest to you.”
Black was losing it. Nothing in his body was responding. Everything in his field of vision was nothing more than a giant, swarming, sea of colors.
A color… Lost in a sea of other colors…
The figure opened the door to the car.
I’ve seen that dress before…
“Marty? Where are you?”
Time slowed to a creep.
“Please don’t tell me you’re dead…”
Colors.
“Marty…”
The woman poked her head into the car.
“Marty!”
Black.
“Don’t hang up… can find you…”
The woman scowled at Black.
It’s Lizzie.
Oh shit…
I’m dying.
Martin Black was still alive. He awoke; his eyelids peeled apart, light flooded through a window in a messianic display that made him squint in pain. His eyes readjusted, his senses slowly started to recoup. He felt a familiar mental reset that followed a good night’s sleep o
r a well-timed siesta.
He was in a room. Small. Maybe fifteen by fifteen feet. Drapes were closed. There was no furniture around, save for the tattered, beige couch he was lying on. A crocheted blanket was on his legs. Purple. White. Green. Something that somebody’s grandmother or anti-social aunt would have made. A metal fan was rotating from left to right in a slow and condescending ‘no’ fashion. A pleasant, humming, gust of wind from the spinning blades blew on Black’s face and dried the thin level of perspiration that had gathered on his brow.
“Wakey! Wakey! Wakey!” someone said with forced, high-pitched delight.
Black sat up and looked to his left to find none other than Stan Hope, a balding, shorter man in his preferred style of wardrobe: a baggy suit, loose, big-knotted tie, and bowling shoes. All of them variations of pastel colors. He was dressed like a sophisticated carnival clown. The glass of whiskey in his left hand and cigarette in his right somehow complimented the image. He was a character through and through. Whenever he entered a room, it was with a stride that a seasoned, drunken, stand-up comedian had when he went to grab the microphone and rip into the audience. Confident. Grinning. Red-faced from an astronomically insane amount of alcohol that was in his system.
“Oh, shit,” Stan said in his nasally, smoke-choked voice. “You bled on the couch. Fuck. Louie’s going to be pissed.”
“Who’s Louie?” replied Black.
As his dry lips parted, he could taste a chalky residue in his mouth. He stuck out his tongue and saw a thin black streak running down the center.
“Why’s my tongue all black?”
“Charcoal,” replied Stan Hope. “Soaked up the stuff in your stomach. Cocksucker!”
Stan stomped his foot on the ground. Whoever was living down below pounded on the ceiling with a fist and shouted—
“Quiet up there!”
Stan got on all fours, cupped a hand to the floor, and shouted back—
“Fuck you!”
“What are you doing?” Black asked, hands moving to cover his ears.
Stan stood up. Black spotted an in-ear headphone in Stan’s right ear attached to a cord that ran over his pastel suit before disappearing into his pants’ pocket.
“Sorry,” said Stan, pointing to the ear bud. “I’m listening to live feed for a horse race that I got money riding on. If I’m out of pocket when this is over, I swear to God…”
“Who’s Louie?” asked Black. “You mentioned someone named Louie.”
“He owns this place,” Stan Hope said as he held his hands out and spun in a circle. “He’s a piece of garbage.”
“Are we in a safe house?”
“Yeah. Technically it’s just a shitty one-bedroom apartment.”
“Where?”
“Hollywood.”
Stand leaned down and looked into Black’s pupils to check the dilation. The horse race feed in his ear a bit more audible to Black the closer he bent in. Black could make out the up and down pitch of an announcer calling the race, play by play.
“Blurred vision?” asked Stan.
“Not really.”
“Nausea?”
“Not as bad.”
“You had a heavy dose of Flunitrazepam in your system. Fraternity levels.”
Black shut his eyes as he thought back to Cassie and the tainted beer.
“I can’t believe she roofied me,” he said.
Stan Hope started chuckling. His face turned red as he doubled over and nearly spilled his drink.
“You are pretty,” said Stan. “I checked your behind parts. No one had their way with you. You are clear until prom night.”
“You’re a funny guy, Stan...”
Stan Hope was a welcomed asset that Black had hooked up with through a referral given to him by a fellow Contractor by the name of Nicky White.
“He’s the best. Guy’s connected to everybody. If you’re in trouble: call Stan Hope.”
Black, though he wasn’t quite sure of Stan’s background, was almost positive he was in the military. He walked like an army man. He also had that thousand-yard stare clinging to the edges of his aging, alcohol-soaked eyes. Two or three or ten drinks in – the man still knew how to suture a wound. That’s what made him the best field doctor out on the market: effective, even when he was boozed up to a ten. Plus, he had contacts all around the country, all with different areas of expertise, all of them in most of the major cities (something that indicated to Black that Stan was most likely a part of the CIA at some point). Stan Hope was a good resource to hit up if you found yourself in a bind. He was the guy that knew a guy.
Hope in a cheesy suit.
“Just lucky we got to you in time before the bad guys did, huh?” Stan said to Black as he puffed on his cigarette.
“Born under a good sign, I guess,” said Black as his head began to throb.
“You must have been seeing stars while you were drugged. You have any crazy hallucinations? Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if you still are. Must’ve been quite the fever dream.”
Black perked up.
“What did you say?” he asked Stan.
“Fever dream. It means—“
“I know what it means I just…”
Black shook his head.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
Stan shrugged and continued on. “I gave you an IV on top of the charcoal. Replenished your fluids. All that awesome, healthy crap.”
Black could make out flecks of cigarette ash in Stan’s thinning, receding hairline. His face was a little sweaty, a tad puffy, and he was half-grinning like he was about to crack a joke. Which, knowing Stan Hope, was more than a possibility.
“You look less shitty,” Stan said. “Seventy-two hours of sleep didn’t hurt.”
“I was out that long?”
“Dickhead!”
“Excuse me?”
Stan pointed to the bud in his ear—
“My horse fell behind,” Stan said as he produced his pack of coffin nails.
“You want a cigarette? I’m having another cigarette.” He used the butt of his last smoke to light up a fresh one.
“I called the Cleaner after you fell off our call,” said Stan. “We tracked you by your phone.”
“How the hell did you do that? It was a burner.”
Stan Hope smirked at a secret he would not deluge.
“I’ve got my ways, kid… Aside from the phone, the Valley Storage thing you called out helped a bit. Cleaner got to you just in time. You managed to park at a dead end street, near an overpass. Nice job. I mean, you double-parked the car like an asshole, but it was still impressive, considering the circumstances.”
“I’m tired as hell,” said Black. “I feel like I was hibernating.”
“Sleep’s good for you, boy. Take it where you can get it. Jesus, I’m lucky if I ever get two hours.”
Stan put the cigarette in between his lips and stayed crouched over. He began swatting at Black’s feet. Slap-slap-slap-slap.
“Help you?” Black asked, irked.
Stan replied through puffy, gray breaths of the cigarette wedged between his lips—
“Move your goddamn feet. I’m poppin’ a squat.”
Black sat up and gave Stan some room.
“How’s your head?” he asked Black as he reached for a blue cup that had been serving as an ashtray, a small collection of cigarette butts gathering in a slow but steady pile.
Black took a quick self-analysis of his physical symptoms—
Head’s throbbing.
Stomach’s a little achy.
Back’s a tad bit sore, and I feel like I’m in a dream…
Black filled his lungs to the tippy-top and exhaled a deep gust of air that tasted like charcoal.
“Think I’m okay,” he said. “What happened? I was shot…”
“You’re good,” Stan said. “It was just a flesh wound. I pulled the bb’s out pretty easily.”
Black noticed he was shirtless and started searching for the holes on his b
ack. He found white gauze cut and folded in square patterns and taped over his wounds. Same with the cut on his left ear. All of it in done in a neat and thorough military fashion.
“What about the car?” asked Black.
“Cleaner took care of it.”
Dead body you need to ditch?
Hire a Cleaner.
Bullet-ridden car you need to hide?
Hire a Cleaner.
“Where is he?” asked Black.
“He left, about two hours ago. I paid him, so don’t sweat it.”
“You’re the man, Stan…”
“Make sure you write that on my Yelp review... Man, I’m fucking hilarious.”
Stan cackled.
Never short on the comebacks.
Stan raised his whiskey and toasted Black. He took a long, hard sip.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“Can’t remember.”
“I got you rehydrated, and what not, but eat something soon.”
“What’s the damage for all this?”
Stan reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin, creased-up notebook that looked like it lasted well past its due date. The thing fit like a perfect mold into the palm of his hand as he flipped to a page labeled ‘Black’s Shit.’
“Uh…” he trailed off, his eyes scanning the paper, nose turned up, front teeth sticking predominately out as he looked for the figure.
“This one’s gonna cost you… Five grand.”
“Jeez, Stan…”
“Prices have gone up, my friend. This kinda work ain’t cheap.”
Stan tossed his cigarette in the cup of butts and killed what was left of the whiskey from the glass. He belched. Patted his stomach. For a moment, he wobbled, the whiskey getting the better of him. “What do you do with a drun-ken, sailor? What do you do with a drun-ken… sailor…?” Stan sang as he did some kind of in-place dancing.
“I’m going to have to pay you part of this now and mail the rest in when I get back to Fleetwood,” said Black. “I’m in the middle of a job.”
“How much can you front right now, sailor boy?”
“Where are my pants? My old ones?”
“Please hold.”
Stand headed to the back bedroom, continuing to sing as he did—
“What do you do with drun-ken sailor? Eeeeeeeeeerrr-lie in the mornin’…”
He returned with Black’s blood and sweat-stained pants that he had been wearing when he passed out. Stan tossed them underhanded to Black, who began searching the pockets. Then Stan threw down a folded up package wrapped in clear plastic: a new suit in Black’s favored color of off-gray and silver.
