The Inner Circle (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  “Don’t move it.”

  Ian glared back at me. He said, “Fuck you, Ben,” spittle flying from his lips, his jaw grinding his teeth together.

  “But your leg is—”

  “Broken, yeah. So fuck you, and fuck whatever it is you want me to do. It’s your fault this happened.”

  It was clear reasoning with Ian was a lost cause, so I turned to the girl, still moving in a circle, trying to figure a way out. I turned my attention back to the rear driver’s side door, which was now acting as the SUV’s roof. I stood and placed a foot on the side of the Ian’s seat and started to push myself up.

  “What are you doing?” Ian asked, his teeth still clenched.

  I ignored him and continued to climb. I got my feet planted, then extended my right arm as far up as I could, grabbing the door handle and pulling it. This unlatched the door, sure, but gravity was my enemy now, so much so I had to close my eyes and clench my own teeth as I kept my arm extended, holding the door handle out, keeping the door unlatched, and then all at once pushed it as hard as I could.

  The door swung up, enough for some of the drizzle to sneak into the Yukon’s cabin, and slammed shut again.

  “Ben,” Ian said, but I continued to ignore him, planting my feet again, this time extending both arms. Pulling on the door handle, taking a moment to get ready, then all at once pushing with everything I had.

  The door swung open, as far as it would go this time. Gravity started to pull it back down, but I immediately grabbed the side of the doorframe and jumped up, using my other hand to stop the door as it attempted to slam shut once again.

  Groaning, Ian asked, “You got it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I got it.”

  It took me another minute or so before I was able to push the door back to the point where it wasn’t going to try to slam shut. I started climbing, my hands finding purchase on the cold wet steel. I pushed myself up and leaned to the side, started crawling out that way, only my legs still inside. Turning slightly, I could see where we’d crashed. Down near the end of the ramp, right by a small park. The front of the Yukon had gone right into the side of a palm tree.

  Outside now, with the rain damping my hair and glasses and jacket, I was able to smell the oil and gas coming from the SUV’s cracked engine.

  “Goddamn,” said a voice behind me. “Looks like you’ve got yourself quite a mess here, don’t you think?”

  I twisted around so quickly I nearly lost my footing. But somehow I managed to stay in place. Somehow I managed to hold myself there and stare down at the two police officers watching me. They were leaning against the battered police cruiser, wearing rain slickers and hats, their arms crossed.

  One of them pointed at the Yukon. “You better help your friends in there.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was expecting them to pull their guns, to riddle my body with bullets. But they just continued leaning against their patrol car, watching like an SUV on its side in the rain at three o’clock in the morning was no big thing here in Miami.

  The cops had already placed flares up by the entrance of the off-ramp, forcing traffic coming from Miami Beach to find an alternate route. There were a few lights on in the buildings around us, a few silhouettes watching from windows.

  “Come on,” the same officer said. “We don’t got all night.”

  I glanced down through the opening. The little girl was staring up at me, rapidly blinking her eyes because of the drizzle. Ian was staring up at me too, a frown on his pain-contorted face, clearly unaware of our guests.

  I started to slide back down into the Yukon when the other officer said, “Whoa there. Not so fast.” He pushed off from the cruiser and slowly made his way forward, motioning at the front of the Yukon. “Why don’t you come down here and help them out through the windshield. Nice and easy like.” He said this with a big grin, his voice taking on an over-exaggerated southern drawl, like he was a hick sheriff of some swampland town.

  He crossed his arms again, that grin never leaving his long face. I stared down at him for another couple of seconds, faintly hearing Ian calling my name, before pushing myself up even farther out of the door. I pulled out first one leg, then the other, swung them over what had once been the SUV’s roof, and slid down, landing on my feet.

  The cop was less than ten yards away from me, still with his arms crossed, still grinning. He knew there was nothing I could do now, nothing that would save me. Even if I had a weapon and tried grabbing for it, either he or his partner would most likely draw faster and put me down within a second.

  The grin fading, the cop shook his head and glanced back at his partner. “Hey, Gary, can you believe this guy actually lives up to his name? He’s just standing there like a fucking man of wax.” He turned back to me. “Ain’t that right, Man of Wax?”

  “There are witnesses.”

  “Come again?”

  “People are watching from the buildings. You can’t kill us.”

  “One, what makes you think we give a shit about them? And two, who said anything about killing you?”

  I said nothing.

  The cop lifted his chin at the Yukon. “So who else you got in there?”

  Without any hesitation, I said, “The Man of Honor,” using the name Carver had been given when he was unwillingly thrust into Simon’s game.

  The cop grinned, shaking his head again.

  “Uh-uh,” he said. “I don’t think so, sport. The Man of Honor’s ticket has already been punched. Yours will be soon, too. So let’s not put off the inevitable, okay?”

  The drizzle continued. The noxious odors of gas and oil still hung faint in the air. Lightning flickered off in the clouds.

  I slowly turned and headed toward the front of the Yukon. The palm tree we’d hit when we tipped and crashed was broken near the base. Its leaves still swayed in the light wind and rain.

  The windshield was even more shattered than before. There were spots where there was no glass at all. I stepped up close to these spots, very aware that both of the cops were watching me, and leaned down to see inside.

  Ian’s his face was still contorted in pain. “What the fuck are you doing?” he breathed.

  I wanted to say something to him right then. Somehow warn him about the cops waiting by their car. Maybe give him a sign that told him there might still be a chance, as long as he had some kind of weapon on him ... but then I remembered he had already given me his gun and that I had dropped it somewhere in the Yukon when we crashed.

  I said, “We’re fucked.”

  He frowned back at me.

  “They’re here.”

  Ian sighed. He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened his eyes again, I told him to watch it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, but I ignored him and stepped forward, placing the toe of my shoe through the largest hole in the windshield. As gently as I could I began kicking the shards away, the glass tinkling, creating a soft duet with the continuing drizzle.

  Ian closed his eyes and hunched up his shoulders, as if expecting one of the glass shards to find his throat and open it up. As I created a bigger space in the windshield, I noticed the bloody marks on Ian’s face.

  “Hey,” the long-faced cop shouted, dropping the over-exaggerated southern drawl. “Like I told you, we don’t got all night.”

  He placed his hands on his hips, like an impatient parent, and I kicked at a few more loose shards around the windshield and then bent down.

  Ian stared back at me, his jaw working. The pain was still there in his face, but now it was accompanied by fear.

  “Come on,” I said softly, holding out my hand.

  Ian looked at it for the longest time. Then he squeezed his eyes shut as he moved his leg. Seconds later he was moving out from behind his seat, crawling through the windshield. The light wasn’t the greatest, but it was enough to really see what had become of his left leg—his ankle smashed, his pants and sneaker bloody.

  The long-faced cop said
, “Why, Man of Wax, I think you got yourself confused. That’s not the Man of Honor. That’s, that’s”—he snapped his fingers in rapid succession, thinking—“why, that’s the Actor. See, I keep up with this shit.”

  “Shit is what it is,” I said.

  The long-faced cop had been turning toward his partner who was approaching. Now he turned back to me, his face suddenly cold and tight. Not too far away, a faint distinct whine rose up in the night.

  The cop asked, “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “Shit,” I said. I’d helped Ian as best I could, and now I held him beside me, keeping him balanced as he placed all his weight on his right foot. “You said you knew your shit, and I said shit is what it is.”

  “So you’re a smartass, are you?” He looked at his partner. “Gary, I forget. What do we do with smartasses?”

  Gary smiled. “Smartasses? I think the question is what don’t we do with them.”

  The drizzle seemed to increase again. Another brief and short flicker of lightning lit up the dark sky.

  I said, “What do you guys want?”

  That low distant whine grew louder.

  “Want?” The long-faced cop grinned at his partner. “I don’t know, Gary. What is it that we want?”

  The low whine, louder and louder, had become a somehow familiar high-pitched sound.

  Still smiling, Gary said, “We want to get paid, that’s what we want. And bringing you in, the infamous Man of Wax? That’s going to bring a big payday.”

  Light splashed us as someone ignored the flares set up by the highway and came down the off-ramp. Both cops cursed, the long-faced one muttering, “What the fuck does this asshole think he’s doing?”

  A motorcycle sped toward us, now less than one hundred yards away. The closer it got, the louder the whine became.

  The long-faced cop turned and started walking toward the approaching motorcycle, already waving it along. But the bike—a Ducati—skidded to a sudden stop, its tires squealing off the wet pavement. The rider brought a silver-plated pistol out from behind its back. There was a long black tube on the barrel, an incongruous silencer that created only a clapping sound when the four rounds were fired.

  Two at the long-faced cop, two at Gary.

  Each one in the chest, one in the face.

  Then both cops dropped to the ground and it was just me and Ian and this rider dressed all in black, the drizzle beading off the obsidian faceplate.

  The rider put the gun away, cocked its head. It pointed at Ian, then down at its own leg, before pointing back at Ian again. The pointed finger became an opened hand, the drops of rain beating against the flat palm. The rider held it like that for a moment before flexing the fingers up and down, up and down, beckoning Ian.

  “Go with him,” I whispered.

  I could feel Ian, open-mouthed, staring at me. He breathed, “Fuck you.”

  The rider motioned for Ian again.

  I remembered the rider as the one who had stopped just outside of The Spur. I didn’t know why, but for some reason I trusted whoever it was.

  I said, “I don’t think we have any other option.”

  “I’m not fucking going anywhere with that guy.”

  “He just saved us from those two cops.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean shit. He could be working for Caesar too, or someone else.”

  I glanced down at Ian’s smashed leg. Then I looked up into his eyes and said, “Sorry.”

  “Sorry?” He frowned. “Sorry about what?”

  I kicked his left leg, a simple but solid tap. He howled in pain. I grabbed him and tugged him forward, dragging him toward the Ducati and rider much the same way he had dragged me to the Yukon back at the Beachside Hotel. He hopped along on his right foot, trying to fight me, pulling back and cursing, but it did no good.

  I took him straight to the bike and told the rider, “Take him.”

  Ian said, “What the hell? Fuck you, Ben. Fuck you—”

  But by then the rider had inched up on its seat, had grabbed Ian and forced him up onto the back of the Ducati. The end result was not ideal, with Ian lying down on his stomach, his arms on the left side of the bike, his legs on the right, but the rider didn’t hesitate in gunning the engine and sending that high-pitched whine out into the night. The rear tire spun out before catching and then they were speeding down the street, the soft red taillight becoming fainter and fainter, the whine growing softer and softer, like the buzz of an insect as it gets caught up in the wind and is never heard from again.

  20

  Almost immediately sirens rose up in the distance.

  I stood in the rain, listening to them. Watching the spot down the street where the motorcycle had turned and vanished, taking Ian and its anonymous rider with it.

  I thought: What the fuck did I just do?

  I quickly turned and hurried back to the Yukon. I went to where I had pulled Ian out from the front and said, “Little girl.”

  Movement inside, her head peeking up over the seat to peer back at me.

  I motioned at her. “Can you crawl out between the seats?”

  She just stared back at me with her dark green-tinted eyes, and I was sure that she didn’t understand me at all. Then she began to move, first putting one leg through the space, then her body, until she was on the front seat and crawling over the deployed airbag and steering wheel. I realized she was barefoot—her flip-flops somehow lost during the crash—and picked her up and pulled her out and carried her over to a spot in the grass where there shouldn’t be any stray shards of glass. I checked her feet. There were a few minor cuts, but nothing too serious.

  The sirens in the distance neared. It was possible they were headed someplace else, but I doubted it. Caesar was powerful, but he wasn’t that powerful. His people could only redirect so many calls before one of those calls slipped through and reached the proper authorities.

  And besides, we had an audience. I looked around the area again, saw a few silhouettes still watching from windows. Any one of them could have called the police. Especially after witnessing what just happened.

  The two cops lay dead yards away from the parked cruiser. Right now we needed wheels and it was the closet vehicle. But stealing a cop car isn’t always the best choice. Especially when two cops have just been killed. Even if they were bent, the other cops wouldn’t know it, and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t care. Because when one cops gets killed, it opens a wound in the rest of the cops that won’t stop until the person who did the killing is brought to justice. And oftentimes, that justice is done in the street.

  And now there were two dead cops.

  I looked at the little girl and considered just leaving her here. When the cops came, they would find her and take care of her. Assuming, of course, they weren’t corrupt like Gary and Officer Long-Face. That wasn’t a chance I was willing to take, not after already going so far.

  I motioned for the girl to stay where she was and hurried over to the cops. I took both of their guns, their spare magazines. I ran back to the girl and swooped her up and sprinted toward the buildings. The sirens were even closer now. I saw the oncoming flashing lights a few blocks up as we turned a corner and then I was running as fast as I could.

  • • •

  THE KID ANSWERED after only two rings. “Please give me some good news.”

  “I have the girl.”

  “That’s not good news, Ben. That’s old news. What happened with the cops?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “Christ. Now you guys are never going to get out of Miami.”

  “They weren’t good cops. They were in Caesar’s pocket.”

  “Do you think that fucking matters?” I could picture the Kid shaking his head. “Where are you and Ian headed now?”

  I’d been walking for about five or ten minutes, down one random street after another. I was still carrying the girl and the further we’d gotten from the crash site, the more the sirens had faded, and the sl
ower my pace had become.

  “Actually,” I said, “that’s the reason I’m calling you.”

  The Kid groaned. “What the fuck happened now?”

  “Can you track Ian’s location?”

  “You mean he’s not with you?”

  “Can you track his location?”

  “Hold on. I haven’t been watching it since I talked to you last.” I heard the super-fast typing. “Doesn’t he have his phone on him?”

  I paused. “Why?”

  “His location hasn’t moved in the last fifteen minutes.”

  I closed my eyes, immediately fearing the worst. That the rider had taken Ian away only to kill him elsewhere. That Ian’s body now lay in some ditch, just waiting for the crocodiles or alligators or whatever the hell they were in this area to come and feast on his remains.

  “What’s his location?”

  “About two miles away from you, back at the end of the causeway.”

  I let out a breath. “He must have lost his phone in the crash.”

  “What crash?”

  “It’s a long story. Look”—my left arm was getting tired from supporting the girl’s weight, so I clamped the phone between my ear and shoulder and moved her over to my right arm—“this person came out of nowhere, saved our asses from the two cops.”

  “Saved your asses how?”

  “Shot them both dead. Then he took Ian.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Then he took Ian’?”

  “Ian’s ankle was all fucked up after the crash. He could barely walk on it. The cops were coming soon. I made a split-second decision.”

  “So let me get this straight. You just handed Ian over to this guy like he was a fucking puppy?”

  We were out on a main strip now, cars driving up and down, their tiring hissing on the wet pavement. Nobody seemed to find it strange that a white guy was carrying a dark-skinned girl in his arms this late at night.

  “What’s done is done,” I said. “At the time, it made the most sense.”

  Silence.

  “Kid?”

  “I don’t even know what to fucking say to you right now.”