The Fever Dream

by Sam Jones

  “No one’s getting the stains out of your old one. Got you everything expect a tie,” said Stan.

  Where did I put my other one?

  Black looked at the suit and nodded with satisfaction. “Much obliged.”

  “What job are you working?” Stan asked. “Managed to get yourself drugged over it, so it sounds like a good one.”

  “It’s not. The client’s gone missing.”

  “Missing how?”

  “Missing. As in gone. I don’t have the slightest clue where she is.”

  “What was the detail?”

  Black drew in enough breath for the story—

  “I was supposed to knock off her husband. First, some guy tries to get the drop on me at the motel I was posted up in. I got rid of him, grabbed the client, tracked down her husband… Next thing I know, he’s dead in a shooting frenzy, the client’s gone, along with my stuff and the Commitment Waiver, a building blows up, and then my ride back into town tries to poison and shoot me.”

  Stan nodded, dutifully listening and making sure that Black had finished venting—

  “You get her number?” he asked.

  Black tossed his old pants down on the floor and ran his hands through his hair. “I had a few grand in my pockets. You see it anywhere?”

  Stan, without making eye contact, produced an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Black. Black opened the flap and peeked inside to find his cash. Dried, bloody fingerprints and a few smudges were across the top layer. He pocketed about a thousand dollars and handed the envelope back to Stan.

  “Send me the bill for the rest,” he said. “You got my address in Fleetwood?”

  “I do. Gracias.” Stan didn’t bother counting the contents before stuffing the envelope back in his jacket pocket. He pulled out his pack of smokes, and (surely enough) lit one up. Black, completely awake, couldn’t help but stare as the light reflected off the plastic coating and recalled Stan’s offer to have one.

  I haven’t smoked in two days.

  I should just have one.

  No. Let it go.

  Stan picked up Black’s pants.

  “I’m going to burn your old clothes,” he said. “PS, I left you a bag in the bedroom with some replacement gear. Tito said you didn’t have anything on you but your piece and your phone.”

  “Who’s Tito?”

  “The Cleaner. After he couldn’t find your stuff in the car, I assumed you had lost it.”

  “Circle gets the square.”

  “I got you ammo, gauze, tape. Pretty much all of your usual stuff. I assumed you hadn’t changed your gear layout, so it’s 9-mil ammo. I even gave you a gift card.”

  Black smiled. It would come in handy.

  ‘Gift cards’ were credit cards that Stan had a hacker friend of his set up. The cards drew money out of random accounts. The ones that got ripped off were usually those that belonged to prominent, white-collar businessmen, like the Koch Brothers or swindling, semi-prominent men of religion who took their salaries out of donation plates. The guy was good at tracking them down. Last person Stan had his hacker buddy link a gift card to was some ape named John MacArthur.

  Each gift card held a five grand limit and a seventy-two hour expiration date. Essentially, you had five thousand dollars to drop on whatever you wanted. How the hacker pulled it off was something Stan Hope could only speculate: the card was able to scramble the origin of where a purchase was made. Essentially, if you bought dinner in Austin with the card, it would show up as something along the lines of a movie ticket purchase in Seattle. Three days later, the charges would show up on the real card and the card would expire. It was a nice, little bonus for people like Black who needed a gift card to pay for a meal, buy equipment, or book a room someplace. It was Stan’s stocking stuffer.

  He went to the kitchen and returned with Black’s Beretta. Greased, polished, and shined. Black racked back the slider and inspected the entire thing over, inch-by-inch. Stan then handed Black the suppressor, also polished and gleaming.

  “All this going to cost me extra?” asked Black.

  “Asshole.”

  Black pointed to Stan’s earphone. “What’s happening? Is your horse still losing?”

  “No, I was calling you an asshole.”

  Black smirked.

  “You’re too damn thrifty,” Stan said. “Just consider the gear I got you a goodie bag.”

  “Where’s my phone?”

  “In your bag in the bedroom. I cleaned it for you. Quick tip: you shouldn’t bleed on electronics. Just a heads up.”

  Black reached for his new suit and peeled off the plastic covering.

  “What’s your plan?” Stan asked him as he headed for the kitchen.

  “Don’t know. I have no way of tracking the girl down.”

  Stan returned from the kitchen, a bottle of whiskey in hand, the copper liquid catching the light as he waved it about.

  “Maybe she escaped,” Stan said.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Black. “Plus, from what I’m hearing, she’s pretty valuable to somebody. Think that somebody took her.”

  “But you took care of the husband, it sounds like.”

  “Nope. Bad guys took care of him for me.”

  Stan arched an eyebrow.

  “Come again?” he asked.

  Black stood up and removed the blanket, nothing but his boxers on underneath. He slipped on the new pants as he recapped Richie’s demise—

  “My idea was to go in the club,” Black began. “Get this guy pissed off, and have him take a walk outside. You know, ‘settle this like men,’ bullshit. Instead, the place turns into a shooting gallery. I don’t know how I made it out of there.”

  Stan unscrewed the cap from the liquor bottle and filled his glass to the brim. “How the hell did you make it out there?” he asked.

  “I worked my way into the kitchen. Then the place goes silent. Some mystery guy calls up, everyone drops their guns, and the guy tells me to get stepping… Few people died… Even the girl on the stage…”

  Stan’s smile, for a brief moment, turned into a concerned frown. He took a sip of his whiskey, swirled it like mouthwash, swallowed, and looked at Black. “Marty…” he said with grave concern.

  “Yeah?” said Black, on the edge of his seat.

  Stan took a step forward and pointed a condemning figure.

  “Was she hot?” he asked. Flat. Serious.

  “For crissakes, Stan, it’s not funny.”

  “It’s kind of funny.”

  Black put on the dress shirt and started buttoning it, bottom to top. It was almost a little too starched, the fabric felt slightly itchy on his skin.

  You’re being a little bitch.

  “Then you got out, girl is gone, and the building blew up, yeah?” Stan asked.

  “That’s what happened.”

  “Then what?”

  “I was going to dodge town. Then I wised up, once I realized I didn’t have the Commitment Waiver signed. Trask felt compelled to remind me.”

  Stan squinted. Lemons in his mouth. “Oh, God,” he said. “That dingbat Trask is the walking incarnation of Pazuzu.”

  “Is that the creepy white face from The Exorcist?” asked Black.

  “Yup.”

  “Trippy flick, man…”

  “So,” Stan said. “Let me get this straight: you don’t have your client’s signature on the Commitment Waiver.”

  “Or the money she owes me.”

  Stan looked weak in the knees. He braced himself against the wall. Took another sip. “Holy shit,” he said. “You got problems.”

  “I know, Stan, thank you.”

  “Trask knows what’s going on, yeah?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Shame on you… How’d you get roofied, by the way? You never covered that part.”

  “I was leaving LAX, after I talked to Trask. Girl there offered to share a ride with me. Said her name was Cassie. We went to a bar. I knew she was wit
h the other team almost right away. I thought she got the drop on me. I was wrong.”

  Stan laughed. He hacked, and coughed, and chuckled. He put his hands on his knees and doubled over laughing, careful to not spill his drink as he did so.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Black.

  “I think you had a run-in with Cassie Palizzi. She’s a contract killer. Freelance.”

  “How do you know it was her?”

  “I was the one that got her roofies…”

  Black tensed up.

  Stan took one of the butts out of the blue cup and saw that there was enough tobacco left in the paper to get a few decent puffs out of it. “Relax, kid. I didn’t know she’d be slipping them to you. I might have said no if I knew she was… maybe…”

  Stan lit up the butt and hid a grin by pursing his lips on the filter. “I’m freelance. I don’t take sides, remember?”

  Black thought it over.

  “Well,” he began. “The guy who let me go wants me alive. Otherwise he would’ve tried to take me out at the club. That’s why Cassie was holding back in that fight… But what the hell would he want me alive for?”

  Stan thought of something.

  “How many people ate it in that club?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Hmm…”

  “What?”

  “Local news covered the blast. Police issued a report yesterday saying that fourteen people had died from gunshot wounds. Few others injured.”

  “What? No. It was eleven. Plus, it’s only been a couple days. How would they possibly know all that already?”

  “Seemed fishy to me, too…”

  Black shook his head.

  No…

  There were eleven bodies…

  I counted…

  “They said fourteen?” Black asked Stan.

  Stan nodded.

  “Fourteen.”

  Black tucked in his shirt and rolled the sleeves up. Stan could see his eyes starting to wander.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked Black.

  Black sighed as he reached for his shoes. “What’s your theory?” he asked Stan.

  “Fuckers!”

  Black clapped his hands together. A tight, forced smile stretched across his face. “Stan, for the love of God, will you turn that thing off?”

  “Don’t get your panties in a bind. The race is over. My horse just lost.”

  “Help me out here. Tell me what I’m not seeing.”

  Stan crushed out the recycled butt in the cup and then reached for his pack. “I gotta meet Lawrence White in Philly in three hours,” he said.

  Lawrence White. Fellow Trust employee. Likes to use knives.

  Kind of a prick.

  “Please, Stan. Just give me a minute to bounce all this off you. I’m running in circles, and I got to figure this thing out.”

  Stan checked his watch, grunted, and lit up another smoke. He grabbed a spot on the sofa and plopped down.

  “You know, The Trust tends to poke their heads into my world every now and then to check in, being that I help a lot of their people. So, what am I supposed to say if they come around ask me about this conversation?”

  “You lie and tell them whatever it is you’ve always told them. Stan, I’m not sure what’s going on. Ever since I botched the Koogan bit, things have steadily snowballed. And now, this contract has run so far off the reservation that I’m pretty sure a Re-Val is in my future.”

  Stan, though he was a private contractor, knew about Re-Vals. It was a word that Contractors rarely mentioned. Black’s certainty that he was about to be dished one made him ease up, a little.

  “All right,” Stan said with a sigh. “You said you saw eleven bodies, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Cops reported fourteen bodies. Way too soon. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay… Maybe someone, who knows who, planned to blow up that club and leave three bodies in the wake that night.”

  Black thought about it. It fit. It was odd, far-fetched, but it somehow fit. “And I just happened to wander into the club that night? Eleven bodies get added to the mix. Accidentally,” he said.

  “Hey,” Stan said, taking another swig. “Shit happens.”

  This guy… he needs her…

  “And the girl,” Black began. “Richie said that he, whoever ‘he’ is, needed her. Not sure what it meant.”

  “That’s why you think she was kidnapped?”

  Black bent his thumb and index finger into a faux gun, cocked it, and shot a muted bullet at Stan.

  You got it.

  “I’m just not sure where to start looking,” he said, “assuming she’s still alive.”

  “And you didn’t hear of anything? No repeated mentions of a specific town? City? Another booby bar maybe?”

  Black scoured his brain.

  He chuckled.

  “What?” asked Stan.

  “I’m a fucking idiot,” replied Black. “I know where. The guy I talked to told me exactly where she is... He said ‘Sin City’ on the phone. If drugging me had gone as planned I would be there already.”

  Stan smiled.

  “Vegas! My kind of place!”

  Stan looked eager, ready to hop in the car, and make that three-hour drive to the world’s sketchiest hub of human activity.

  “Even if that’s where she is,” said Black, “how do I track her? I just wander the boulevard screaming out her name?”

  “This guy, Mister Bad Guy Leader, does he know your name?”

  “Before I even had a chance to tell him.”

  “So then he’s good. Two steps ahead of the game, kind of guy. If he knows you, if he wants you alive, if he thinks you’re a threat, and if he thinks there’s a chance you’ll come around, he’s gonna have people looking for you…”

  Black connected the dots; the plan that Stan was hinting at was now perfectly visualized inside his head—

  “I go to Vegas. Book a room. In my name,” Black said.

  Stan raised his glass. One last toast. “Atta boy,” Stan confirmed. “Like I told you before: if he’s looking for you, that’ll be the best way to flag yourself down. If this dude has some vested interest in you, I’m positive he’ll end up finding you.”

  “Then kill my way to the girl.”

  “See? Wasn’t that far a walk around the block. Just did your job for you, too… You must be a pretty shitty hitman.”

  “Stan? You think I’m slipping?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In general, I… I’ve had three contracts. The first one: cake. All my training, all the stuff those Nazi asshole instructors taught me had paid off. It was easy. Then that last gig in Minneapolis, the one where the punk rock kid flipped out on me. I told you about that… I couldn’t anticipate it. I don’t know what happened. The Trust puts me on suspension… and then I meet Amanda Dubin. Somewhere along the way, something happened to me. I’m not efficient. I’m not as good… Yet, somehow, some way, I’m still alive… For now.”

  Stan killed his whiskey. Fuel.

  “You know where you went wrong?” he said.

  “Enlighten me.”

  Stan held his words for a moment. His looked at his glass and stared at the smudges from his fingers.

  On that one day in June…

  On that beach in the middle of nowhere…

  You know what happened.

  “Lizzie,” Black said. It was a repressed memory so vibrant with heartbreak that it sobered him up quicker than a cold shower.

  Black remembered spilling the story out to Stan about six months after it happened, in a drunken stupor where he called up Stan and offered him ten grand for a night of his company. It was the offer of free booze that sold Stan. Stan knew all the details, because Stan was the closest thing he considered to a friend.

  “Only takes the wrong one,” Stan said, marveling. “The wrong one, and that�
�s it…”

  Stan stood up and placed his hands on Black’s shoulders.

  “Quit being a pussy,” Stan said. “It doesn’t suit you. Now, I gotta use the can. Got a breakfast burrito from this morning that’s barking back at me.”

  “I need a car.”

  Already en-route to the bathroom, Stan tossed a set of keys to a sedan that slid across the table and landed in front of Black in almost perfect coordination.

  “Let me know where you leave it so I can send someone to pick it up,” Stan said, his voice starting to trail.

  He then grabbed the whiskey bottle on his way into bathroom, his own form of a laxative.

  Stan was inside maybe three minutes, humming some Rolling Stones. When he came back out, he discovered that Black was gone.

  Along with the car keys.

  “Same to you, asshole…”

  Roenick was in a dark tunnel. The space was so tight that his elbows nearly brushed the walls. Wherever he was, he was underground. There were no windows and no sources of illumination, other than the string of light bulbs that hung to the concrete ceiling overhead, all of them connected by a thick, orange-coated wire plugged into some generator that was out of eyesight.

  Escorting him was a large woman, in terms of height, as well as her muscle-tone. She sported cargo pants and a thick, long-sleeved thermal. Olive skin and dark eyes indicated traces of her Palestinian heritage. Along with the thick boots on her feet, she looked like some sort of military personnel. High and tight ponytail. All business. Her name was Prophet.

  “Did you secure Amanda?” Roenick asked her.

  “She’s held up in the safe house. I have O’Reilly watching her,” replied Prophet in her silky, exotic voice.

  “Check in with him, as often as possible.”

  “O’Reilly is reliable.”

  “So was Gregory. He was the one who was supposed to be watching her. He’s dead. Amanda has now gone through two babysitters in the course of a day. It’s the cost of it more than anything else.”

  “I understand. You did make the decision to kill Richie, sir.”

  “That I did… What about the equipment? Is it en-route?”