“Good thing that Sikes fella was a fighter,” he mused, when it felt like the right thing to say.
“You don’t know how good a thing that is,” she asserted. “Listen up. A Detective Beasley told me there was an Internal Affairs investigation looking into the death of the slain cop.”
“But I thought you said the Feds saved him?”
“The cops don’t know that,” she confirmed, with a raised brow. “The Feds plucked him right out of hell’s gate, got him fixed and prepared to suit him with a new identity. Guzman wanted proof of Sikes’s burial before he’d call off the dogs.” Vera could see that Rags’s pulse was racing. “Don’t stress, Guzman’s kid brother croaked him shortly after Sikes disappeared. That’s right, the Feds lost him. Seems he up and walked away before they got him to turn on his drug buddies. There’re only three people who know where he is tonight: you, me and my girl Glow.”
Rags frowned as he ran the series of events around in his cluttered mind. Again, Vera watched as the wheels spun. His mouth popped open like a man who’d been sucker-punched in the stomach. “I hear what you’re saying but I can’t believe it. It’s too much.”
“I’m sure it is and that’s why I had to get you here. Turn around, look into this window and then close your eyes. What was the last thing you saw?”
“Light, a reflection, my reflection,” he answered slowly.
“Yeah, and that’s one of the last things Warren Sikes saw before two shots put him down.” Vera felt a haunting chill skate up her arms and down her spine. “You said the man in your dreams, Sikes, was saying something like “Why?” He knew the only person who could have shot him in the back was his partner. What he couldn’t understand was why? You were going to roll on him. Draper knew that. He had to take you out first. The reason you came to me,” she said, with a pregnant pause attached, “seeing the sign on my building from flat on his back was the last of Warren Sikes’s memories, dead or alive.”
“Bravo,” Detective Draper chuckled, as he stepped out of the shadows near the building’s edge. He cocked his service revolver, wielding it at Rags. “That was one hell of a story. Too bad nobody else is going to hear it. Get across the street before I drop you both.” He aimed the barrel of his gun at Rags. “You know I’m good for it. Ain’t that right, Warren?” Rags stared at Draper, the pistol in his hand, and the predicament staring him in the face. He still found it hard to comprehend.
“You shot Sikes?” he asked somberly. “You tried to kill me?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tex,” Draper rattled disparagingly. “Let’s get along now or I’ll be forced to plug you again.”
Vera noticed how steam had covered the inside of the diner windows, like the restaurant manager said it had when the robbery took place. That’s why no one witnessed the shooting that followed and why no one saw them being held at gunpoint now. Reluctantly, Rags headed for the street. Vera stalled. “Don’t be in such a rush, Warren. Some things never change. He’s going to kill us, you know. After he gets what information he thinks we have.”
Draper snarled. He shoved the gun into the small of Vera’s back. “Another county heard from. Who told you to say anything? I still owe you for the trick you pulled at the bar.”
“I still owe you for that bitch comment,” was her heady comeback. “And I always pay off. That little stunt of mine was nothing. For manhandling me and busting my car window, I’m gonna mess you up.” On the outside, Vera appeared harsh and unscathed. Inside, she counted her every breath, praying the next wouldn’t be her last.
Eighteen
Once inside Vera’s office, Draper held a weapon on Rags while he tied her up with twine. Fear saturated the room. Wet from walking in out of the rain, Vera whispered to her client not to be a chump or it would be the end of them both. When Rags scanned the room for something with which to attack Draper he felt a sharp pain racing through the back of his head. His former partner had clapped him with the butt of his pistol, sending Rags tumbling down to the floor.
“Why’d you have to do that?” Vera squealed. “You might have killed him.”
“No, I just lulled him a bit. He’ll come around but he’s going to have one hell of a headache.”
Vera squirmed as Draper propped Rags in the chair next to her. Within minutes, Rags was bound with both arms constricted. Because he didn’t shoot them right away, Vera was certain of Draper’s plan to walk away with what he’d come for, incriminating evidence against him. She clawed at the ropes around her wrists, trying to loosen them. Draper sorted through boxes of files he’d ripped through previously, thinking he’d missed something. Had he known Vera committed everything to memory that Rags told her, he’d have executed them already and then slinked away clean.
“Where is it?” Draper barked, time and time again. “You’ve been to the firehouse, talking to that goofy chick who took Warren away. You’ve been meeting with Donald Beasley too. Yeah, I saw you. What did you tell the Feds tonight, huh? I should have popped you before you had the chance.” As Draper searched throughout her desk for a second time, Vera felt violated. Fear that previously had a hold on her relinquished its grip. She was filled with anger now. There wasn’t any room for panic.
“You always been the type to go through women’s things?” she asked, purposely antagonizing him. “Hey, Draper, is that your bag? I keep extra underwear around too. Wouldn’t that be more your speed? Cops and perps are a lot alike, both torn by their sickness within.” Draper kicked over a grandfather’s clock standing against the wall. It was the one decent piece of office furniture Vera owned. “Maybe I was all wrong about you. Violence, that gets you off, huh, Draper? I know a lot of cops who get a kick out of hurting women. Sharon Sikes, she like it rough?”
When Vera struck a cord by bringing Warren’s wife into it, Draper charged her with his hand raised in the air. Vera winced as he hovered over her. She yelled out before planting her size ten boots in his groin, Draper toppled over at her feet. “Ahhhh, you bitch!” he wailed loudly, writhing in the fetal position. “I’ll kill you.”
Vera wrestled with the twine feverishly, kicking at Draper to keep him down. “I told you about that bitch stuff,” she heckled, scooting her chair closer to him. “I’m not ready to die tonight. I’m going shopping tomorrow.” Draper staggered to his knees, raising his pistol at Vera. She rocked the chair back and forth, then threw herself against him. Vera, the chair she was tied to, and Draper all went tumbling on to the carpet. Vera sank her teeth into his chest. He fought to push her off. Draper bellowed in pain but she wouldn’t release the hunk of flesh she’d bitten down on.
“Ahhh, let me go!” he demanded furiously, working to pry her mouth from his ravaged nipple. Vera managed to hold on until Draper began pounding on the top of her head with his fist. Eventually she fell off, her eyes watering. The crooked cop howled. His chest heaved in and out while he massaged the patch of skin, bleeding through his shirt. “I knew I should have snuffed you out that day you came to Sharon’s,” he babbled sorely.
Vera’s eyes crossed. She was woozy and disoriented. “You want me to turn my back so you can do it now, punk? Coward!”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong about me. I want to see your face when I blow it off.” Draper cast a devilish grin, raised his gun then steadied it.
“What about the money, Frank?” Rags interrupted, his voice low and hoarse. He’d regained consciousness like the man who clunked him said he would, with one hell of a headache.
“So the dead has risen,” Draper mocked. “I’ll deal with you next.”
“You’ll deal with me now,” Rags replied firmly. “Ouuuch, what did you hit me with?”
“Don’t worry about that. What money are you talking about?”
“Yeah, what money are you talking about?” asked Glow. She had eased in behind Draper and pressed a sharp blade against his throat. “And don’t let your ego get you twisted. If I have to go to slicing, you won’t get to be the same fool twice,” she threatened. �
�Vera, are you all right?” Glow shouted, when her friend began to groan on the floor. She scraped the blade against Draper’s neck to nick him. “Man, I ought to split you wide open.”
“Unh-unh,” Vera grunted. “Not unless you have to. He’s a cop.”
Draper chuckled fiendishly. “Finally, somebody’s talking sense. My whole department is going to be here in a minute. I called for backup.”
“Frank never calls for backup,” Rags smarted. “Vera was right, some things never change. Ol’ Frank never did like other cops around his action. Then he might have to share all that he finds. Huh, Frank?”
“Warren, Warren, Warren,” Draper said, still holding his gun on them. “Always the sap. Let’s see how this plays out. She takes me down and I get you.”
“That suits me fine,” Glow hissed. “This scalpel guarantees you don’t make it. Who knows, Rags might. But, in case he doesn’t, somebody’s gonna tell me about the money he was offering when I came in.” Glow liked to get her kicks. However, she was an opportunist after all. “What gives, cowboy?”
“Glad to see you too, Glow,” he said, slightly disappointed with her tone. “Me and Frank here, we made over three-hundred grand working for Guzman. We had a safety deposit box. I took the money and hid it the day I learned he was sleeping with my wife.”
Glow manufactured a fake frown. “Rags, you’re married?”
Vera sighed heartily. “No, but Warren is.”
“Ohhh, Rags,” Glow sang, playing along. “You’ve been talking in your sleep, sugar, but you didn’t say nothing about a wife. Oomph, and after all we meant to each other. Now I really don’t care if he shoots you.”
Draper’s eyes blinked rapidly, he was deciding on what to do but delayed while he thought it over. “If I hadn’t heard it, I wouldn’t have believed it. Warren Sikes in the flesh.” Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes. “Look at him. The Feds sprung for his new face, new body and new life. Huh, taking two slugs from me was the best thing that could have happened to you. All the booze and blow you sucked in, that old sad sack you tried to pass off as a body wouldn’t have lasted another year. Fifty pounds ago, you weren’t hardly worth a damn. I did you a solid, Warren; where’s the gratitude? You were better off dead.”
“Then that makes two of you,” chided Special Agent Yogi Easterland, with her shiny automatic handgun locked in on Draper’s head. “I just missed busting you when the Guzman family ties got in the way of business, then later got in the way of Bolda’s breathing. What do you say, Frank? You’ve got one choice really, to help me take down Bolda’s younger brother Raphael or not. After what I heard you admit to, you’re looking at life for attempted murder of Warren Sikes, whereabouts unknown.” The federal agent smiled when showing her appreciation for Rags’s help and for a second chance to do right by him.
As Glow tightened her grip on the sharp blade, she glanced up at Yogi. “Nice suit, glad you finally made it. I could save everyone lots of trouble by doing this jerk right now. Warren Sikes is dead and won’t nobody cry over this one for going the same way.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll take the Fed’s deal,” Draper stammered nervously. He flung his gun across the room then threw his hands up. “I know where Raphael’s smuggling drops are and when the shipments come in. Please, just stop this crazy broad from sticking that thing in my neck.”
Agent Easterland turned her gun on Glow and shrugged her shoulders. “What do you think, Glow? You did call me to help sort this out. I would really owe you big time if you turned Draper over to me. I’ve got two units waiting outside. He’ll keep his part of the bargain. I promise you that.”
Vera sat up on her elbow. “Come on, Glow. I’m okay. Stop playing doctor and drop the scalpel.”
Glow considered her options before working the means to justify the ends. “Easterland,” she growled. “Me, Vera and the cowboy, we walk away clean but what about the money, the three-hundred thousand these two racked up?”
“Money?” Yogi said with a pretend puzzled smirk. “What money?”
“Yeah, that’s what I hoped you’d say.” Glow lowered the blade from Draper’s throat. He clutched at his neck then crawled toward Yogi. “Take him, Special Agent Easterland, he’s all yours.”
Draper was handcuffed and taken away. Glow used her shiny manipulator to cut through Vera’s ropes. “Tell me where it hurts, then I’ll tell Bullet for you,” she joked. “Sit up here and don’t move until I get some ice from the diner to put on it.” Next Glow turned toward Rags. “What’s this I keep hearing about you having a wife?” She was very happy to see both of them alive and just as thrilled to be coming into some money on the back end of a very bizarre case. Vera peered over her office. Broken furniture littered the floor and hundreds of papers were tossed about. It hurt a bit when she thought about the way things turned out, but for once, everyone got what they had coming to them and her client got what he needed.
Rags went home with Glow and slept for two days. Although his rest was uninterrupted by terrible dreams, he continued to talk in his sleep. Glow listened to every word. When he awoke rested and hungry, he was reunited with the steel box which she personally dug up in Warren Sikes’s backyard. Glow went on to share how she almost informed his wife that she should be expecting a petition for divorce but thought better of it.
“What wife?” Rags chuckled. He rubbed the knot on his head when his own laughter caused it to hurt. “Warren is history and Rags is single.”
Glow giggled while pulling off her clothes. “Hee-hee, that’s what I hoped you’d say.”
Bullet scolded Vera for excluding him in her plans to shake Draper at the restaurant. He didn’t care how it ended, reasoning that she should have asked him to solve her problem. Just like a man, he felt left out and useless. That is, until Vera felt up to her old tricks, all of which included him. She apologized in every way she knew how. Bullet found a way to forgive her after each one.
One week later, Vera and Rags settled up. He offered to give her a third of the loot but she wouldn’t accept more than fifty thousand. Rags hugged her tightly at the bus station. He was determined to leave town the same way he rode in, on a slow Greyhound so that he’d have time to think. Frank Draper was right about one thing in his summation: Warren Sikes was better off dead than alive. Yogi made good on her long-standing promise to provide Rags with a new identity. With his past tucked in his back pocket, he looked forward to loads of easy sleep from then on.
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The Lazarus Man copyright © 2008 by J.D. Mason
Tomorrow’s Edge copyright © 2008 by Victor McGlothin
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