by Adam Knight
“Tell me about it.”
“You first.”
Mark took a deep breath and let it out with a slow sigh.
I waited patiently at the foot of the bed.
“So, I go into work last night. Thursday,” he began quietly, looking past me at the far wall. Collecting his thoughts I figured. Or maybe just avoiding my eyes. It’s possible I was in my intense stare mode which tends to throw people off. “Same as the rest of the week. Don’t think much of it at first. Usual people are hanging around; David, Big Mike and some of the others. Just shooting the shit and adjusting ties and whatever.”
“I’m doing a wander around the main bar and I hear voices coming from upstairs.”
“The marble stairs?”
Mark shook his head slightly. “No man, the ones going up to the bar office. Aasif’s office. Anyways, I’m hearing voices and they don’t sound pleasant. Real argument going on. So I go to the bottom of the steps, trying to eavesdrop carefully. You know how it is, people want your help only when they want it, right?”
I nodded.
“So, I’m at the bottom of the steps and I hear Shelby arguing with Aasif. Trying to get settled up on her paychecks before she leaves, saying how she never shoulda kept working at the club. How things had gotten scary and stuff. They’re going back and forth. Finally Shelby has enough, flat out quits and storms out of the office down the stairs to me, Aasif right behind her trying to be all reasonable.”
“Awkward time to be caught eavesdropping.”
“I know right? I thought I was gonna get called an asshole or something.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Fuck you.”
I gave my small smile and motioned for him to continue.
“Shelby passes me by without a word and then stops, turns back and says I should quit too before I got the same thing that Joe did. That you did.” He rubbed his free right hand over his face for a moment. “Said ‘better watch your ass, Mark before they beat you up like they did Joe the other night.’ Then she turned and left.”
Damn.
“Didn’t know Shelby cared.”
“Swinging way over your head with that one, man.”
No shit.
“The hell you say. She’s into me.”
Mark adjusted slightly in his bed, trying to sit up a bit then gave up with a groan. “I grab Aasif’s arm, ask him about what she said. He brushes me off, says I gotta talk to Aaron and chases off after Shelby.”
My guts started twisting, anticipating the rest of the story.
“You talk to Aaron?”
Mark shook his head again. “I didn’t see him. Went upstairs, the marble stairs this time. Ran into the cop guys coming out of the fancy doors.”
“Which ones?”
“Frenchy and the ape.” Parise and Miller. “I try to get past them, tell ‘em I need to talk to Aaron. They stop me, ask what I want to talk to him about. I tell ‘em. Next thing I know the ape has got me against the wall, his arm in my throat. He’s yelling at me and Parise’s trying to pull him off. One thing leads to another and I take a tumble down the stairs.”
My guts stopped twisting and just fell right out of me, down past my boots.
Shit.
“Dude.”
“Yeah.”
“I … I’m so sorry man.”
Mark’s face twisted into a grimace. “Me too.”
“I shoulda told you what happened to me.”
“Yeah. You should’ve.”
“I didn’t think it through.”
“Well … what can you do?”
What can I do?
Silence.
“Joe?”
“Yeah?”
Mark cleared his throat wetly. “What the fuck is going on?”
And that was still the ten thousand dollar question.
I ran both hands through my curly mop with a frustrated sigh. “Honestly, man. I truly am not sure.”
“But you have an idea, right? I mean, they didn’t kick the hell out of you and pitch me down a flight of stairs for nothing.”
I winced at that, my fingers still scrubbing at my scalp. Debating what to tell him. What not to tell him. I’d all but decided the other night to stop thinking about this. Stop worrying about this. People would get hurt if I didn’t let this go. People were still getting hurt because of my nosey questions from earlier. Shelby quit a steady, good paying job. Mark was laid up in the hospital, now completely unemployed. Girls were still going missing. People were dying.
Deep in the pit of my stomach a fire began to build. That primitive, overprotective and childlike belief in “the right thing” that I often referred to as my own personal Neanderthal had begun striking rocks over tinder. Sending sparks of anger raining down onto the kindling of injustice, blowing on those sparks until they began to smolder.
Shit.
“Joe?”
I can’t do this.
“Yeah?”
Mom could get hurt. Killed.
“Give me something man.”
He was owed something. No doubts.
“Aaron and the cops are involved in stuff,” said the words coming out of my mouth. I spoke quietly, but specifically. Keeping a firm lid on the heat rising in my belly, on the tingling at the back of my neck that threatened to race down my limbs.
“Stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Stuff???”
My fingers clenched tightly in my hair, shooting pain down my spine.
“Real bad stuff man.”
“Involving the girls?”
I blinked up at him, quirking my right eyebrow.
Mark rolled his eyes. “Come on, man. I ain’t a P.I. but any moron could see that something is going on with the girls in the club.”
Except this moron, apparently. Not until it was too late.
“Well. Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “But it’s more than that. People are getting hurt.”
“No shit.”
“More than you. More than me.” My hands came out of my hair and gripped the bed railing tight, the smoldering fire in my belly began to flicker as flames began to lick up at the branches of rage laid atop them. “People have been killed, man. And more might end up dead.”
Mark closed his eyes. “Fuck,” he whispered softly, running his hand over his face.
“You sure?”
I nodded.
“Fuck,” he repeated. “And the cops are involved?”
My shoulders shrugged. “I’m pretty sure they’re the ones in charge.”
Silence.
The Neanderthal began his little war dance around the tiny fire, grunting and swaying to and fro, making my guts roll with self-criminations. Or maybe that was just the beer and nachos.
“So what do we do about it?” Mark asked.
“Do?”
“Yeah. Do.”
“Mark …”
He tried to sit up. “Joe, if things are as bad as you say there’s gotta be something that can be done to get these guys.”
I threw up my hands from the railing. “Mark, they’re cops! They’ve been making their problems go away this whole time! If I go to the police with this, without any evidence or anything they will hunt me down.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The fuck I don’t! They threatened me. They threatened Mom. Hell, you got the shit beat out of you for asking a question about me!” I scrubbed both hands over my face. My neck tingled like mad and my guts were so hot I thought for sure that Mark could feel it.
“So what are you going to do?”
My fists clenched tight. So tight I could feel my fingernails digging painfully into the palms of my hands.
The overhead lights began to flicker. Mark blinked up at them in surprise.
Shit.
I turned on my heel and started away.
“I’m sorry, man. I really am.”
“Joe? Where you going, man? Tamara’ll be right back. She was really worried abo
ut you, said she hadn’t heard from you in days.”
More fuel on the fire in my gut. Guilt adding to rage, flames rose in a kerosene-like flare up.
I shook my head.
I can’t do this.
“I’m sorry, Mark. No one’s …. Shit. I’m sorry.”
I stalked out.
Chapter 44
I was in a haze as I stumbled away from Mark’s room, ignoring his voice behind me.
Rage clouded my vision, guilt hammered in my gut and my neck tingled like a live wire. So distracted by the combative emotions swirling inside of me that the hallway lights flickered over my head as I staggered by. Cell phones rang and radios hissed static as I passed, leaving a small wake of confused hospital staffers and family members behind me.
Silence hit me like a wave when I finally hit the double wide steel stairwell door with my shoulder and slammed it shut behind me, walling off the sounds to a low muffle.
It was just too much.
Somehow I found myself backed up against the concrete corner of the stairwell landing. My legs gave way until I slid down and landed hard on my ass. My legs curled up to my chest and I laced my fingers behind my head, trying to bury my face in my knees.
God, he looked awful.
I could picture the whole scene in my mind’s eye. Mark facing off with Miller and Parise. Miller losing his shit like the oversized hothead he is. A scuffle ensues and suddenly Mark gets pitched down the stairs.
Attempted murder at least, right? No way anyone can argue tossing a guy down fifty marble stairs qualifies as simple assault. Right?
Shit.
He’s lucky to be alive.
My memory began flickering in time with the halogen bulb illuminating the landing. Faces. Places. Fists. Shouts. Screams. Noise. All of it noise. Candace Cleghorn. Her brother Keimac, his pistol flashing bullets. Blood. Miller’s sneer as his fists pounded me. Parise with his perfect composure, striking with delicate precision. Tamara’s worried expression, wiping blood off my face. Asian businessmen partying with the women. Faces on a wall. Pictures. Missing Women. Cathy captured by Native Posse members, terror flooding her face. Keimac threatening to kill me. His body loaded into an ambulance. Mom’s look of profound disappointment.
All of this flashed through my head in time with the accelerated pace of my heart.
Over and over again.
“Make it stop,” I pleaded in a whisper. “Please, make it all stop.”
“Joe?”
Shit.
“Joe is that you?”
And the parade of guilt continued.
I peered up over my knees and confirmed what my ears were telling me.
Tamara stood in front of me her wallet in one hand, a steaming coffee and slab of pizza in the other. My stomach rumbled as the aroma hit my nostrils. She looked tired, which shouldn’t have surprised me given our late night visit a few days back. She looked like she’d come right from work, complete with dark yoga pants and her red YMCA tee shirt and a gray hooded sweater over top of that.
Tamara’s long lashed eyes blinked from behind her librarian glasses at me, her expression unsurprisingly worried.
“Joe?”
“Is the cafeteria still open?”
“Uhm ..” She looked at the food in her hands and gestured to me with her slice.
“Just checking.” God, I was hungry. Again.
“Do you … Did you want my …”
I shook my head.
Silence.
Tamara adjusted her food stuffs and wallet before pulling up a piece of stairwell and parking her tight little butt – not that I was noticing, honest – next to me. Our legs not quite touching.
More silence.
Damn that pizza smelled good.
“You didn’t call.” Tamara’s voice sounded small, even for her. It echoed a bit in the empty stairwell. “After the other night … I don’t know. You just left and … I figured …”
“No number, remember?”
“I left my number with your mother each time I called.”
Shit.
“Yeah. About that …”
I trailed off. So much swirling in my head.
Tamara took a sip of her coffee. She had faint circles under her eyes. I’d never seen those on her before.
“I saw Mark. Thanks for calling, telling me about him.”
She shrugged slightly. “Said he had to talk to you. You weren’t returning his calls.”
More guilt. More flare ups on the fire in my belly. The Neanderthal chuckled.
“If it makes you feel any better I wasn’t returning anyone’s calls.”
“Why not?”
My shoulders rolled slightly. Might’ve been a shrug. “Dunno.”
Tamara eyeballed me quietly, her disbelief speaking louder in silence than if she’d stood over top of me and pronounced me a liar. She sipped more coffee.
“This is my fault,” I muttered.
Silence.
My stomach rumbled. Hunger or guilt. Hard to say.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked.
“On?”
I motioned with my head back towards the hallway. Towards Mark.
Tamara’s lips pursed faintly. Concerned.
“Broken leg. Dislocated shoulder. Cracked ribs.” She shook her head faintly, staring down at her Styrofoam coffee cup. “Doctors say he should make a full recovery. Though doctors are thinking he should be pressing charges.”
“Normally, I’d agree with the doctors.” I wondered if my voice sounded half as bitter as it tasted in my mouth. Like sour fruit. “But given the circumstances….”
We said nothing for a long moment.
Tamara put her coffee down on the floor, resting her pizza slice precariously on top of it before turning slightly to face me.
Her gaze was making me uncomfortable.
“What?”
“Something’s got to be done about this, Joe.”
