by Wilson, Tia
The diner was dimly lit with a few fossilised patrons sucking down bowls of soup. Brad sat in a booth that gave him full view of everyone that came and went. The walls were the kind of brown that was never in fashion in any era and several pencil drawings of long dead celebrities from another country hung on the wall. The framed drawings were yellowed and sun damaged and the one closest to Brads booth had a long dead wasp trapped between the drawing and the glass front. An african american in his seventies with a limp filled Brads cup of coffee for the third time. Brad nodded and the old man reciprocated and shuffled away. This was the kind of place that Brad felt comfortable in, somewhere he could fade into the background and not be noticed. In his line of work the less attention he could draw to himself the better. He sipped at his black and oily coffee and took out his notebook. He held it tight in his hand like a sick man might grasp the bible. To Brad the thin scrawls contained in the pages were his salvation. Every time he got to cross another debt off the list and close another door to the hungry wolves he felt one step closer to the chosen land, a place were he could put this life behind him and truly start over. His sins would be washed away and he would be reborn. All he had to do was keep it together for the next six months to a year, continue to take out the trash and clean up after the men he worked for, then and only then could he grow a conscience.
He told himself that this wasn't the time for weakness, the notebook was becoming lighter in his pocket every time he scratched off one more debt, and yet he was beginning to doubt himself and the things he had done. He had no other options, curl up in a self pitying ball on a dirty mattress in some flop house and pretty soon those snarling and rabid wolves would catch up with him and rip out his throat in a spray of red. No one would mourn for him, there would be no funeral with a doting and heart broken wife being held on unsteady legs by a caring family member. The most likely end for Brad if he quit too soon would be his brain blown out by a gun with the serial number filed off and the trigger pulled by someone who would disappear like a ghost. No one would mourn Brad, he knew this. What really burned in his gut like a broken bottle jammed into him and twisted, what really hurt him was he knew his daughter would be relieved that he was gone. She could finally relax knowing that he would never turn up on her doorstep again making promises he would never keep and repeating the same lies she had heard a hundred times before. He thumbed the pages of the notebook and thought to himself, soon I will be free.
The door to the diner opened and two men entered. A cursory glance would tell you that they were both either brothers or closely related. The older brother Serkin had a grey streak running from front to back in his always slicked back hair. His younger brother was called Roman and he usually said very little. They were both short and squat with ruddy cheeks that gave them the look of two angry chipmunks. Thin noses and even thinner lips that never smiled made most people glance quickly away from these two men. They wore cheap track suit bottoms, bright white trainers and heavy black leather jackets that looked like they had been dragged behind a truck for several miles. They spotted Brad and nodded in his direction. Brad could see them subtly checking out every angle in the diner, where the exits were situated, how many customers were in the place, what the staff were doing and a hundred little things that someone who was in this business long enough observed any time a meet up was called.
The two men sat across the table from Brad and they both nodded to him in unison. The older brother spoke, he was usually the only one who did when Brad had any dealings with them.
“Whats the job?” Serkin asked. Brad could never place the accent, to him all eastern europeans sounded the same. All he knew was they always sounded serious and ready to get down to business straight away.
“Snatch and grab. Two college aged girls. My boss wants to speak to them as soon as possible. I left all the info in our usual drop off spot. We need this done as soon as possible,” Brad said.
“Ok we can do that,” Serkin said.
“Look when I say we need them straight away, my boss wants them already gift wrapped and waiting in his office. Don’t wait until night time to grab them, if you see them act on it straight away,” Brad said.
“You know it’s extra for this kind of work during the day, more people, more variables, more chance to be seen,” Serkin replied.
“I’ve taken that into account. There is a twenty percent bonus if you get them by this afternoon. If you don’t have them by eight tonight I have someone else to take up the job,” Brad lied.
Serkin turned to his brother and they spoke to each other in another language. To brad they both sounded angry, always angry and Roman nodded his head a few times until Serkin banged his fist on the table ending the conversation. He turned back to speak to Brad.
“This is all very exceptional. Without time to prepare we think a forty percent bonus should be fair. Otherwise we cant do the job on such a short time scale,” Serkin said.
Brad had worked with them enough times to know that they had already decided on doing the job just by agreeing to the meeting, these where not guys who messed around when it came to work. The one thing he could always expect from them was some haggling over price. They couldn't help themselves and he was always ready for it.
“Deal. My contact details are in the package, call when the job is done. Nice doing business with you as usual Serkin,” Brad said offering him his hand. Serkin shook it followed by Roman and the two left. Now came the worst part, the waiting. His guts churned and that old familiar pain began again behind his eyes. He knew what he had just set in motion and it was not going to end well for those two girls. Think of the notebook and the list he told himself, this will all be soon behind you. It felt like offering a man in a desert a thimble full of water. The pain increased and he winced, he continued thumbing the pages of his notebook like it was a religious icon and his one true path to, if not forgiveness, then maybe freedom.
Brad sat in the diner from another era for nearly three hours, feeling himself slowly seep into the walls like the decades of tobacco smoke. Until he was part of the place, another patron with his head in a cup of bad coffee trying to hide away from his past. He was about to order another cup of coffee when his new phone rang. It was purchased a few hours ago and the only people who had the number were the brothers. Once the job was completed the phone would be smashed and thrown away.
Brad picked up and said, “Speak.”
“It can’t be done. They are both gone. It is possible they have left the country. They were seen leaving in a hurry, both with bags. There’s too much heat around the dorms to check out their room. I have a cousin who can get me information on taxis taken in the area. It will take me an hour or so to get that info. How do you want us to proceed?” Serkin said.
The tectonic plates in Brads mind shifted and then slammed into one another sending sharp thunderous blows of pain throughout his skull. His stomach rolled greasily from the eight cups of coffee and for a second he could feel it pressing down on him. This was the end, this job was going to get him killed and he would never be free. The feeling passed and he refocused as Serkin repeated his name again on the other end of the phone.
“Find out about the taxis and get back to me as soon as possible,” he said hanging up the phone. He took out his regular phone which was always ditched and switched out with a new number on a weekly basis and called Gus. He picked up after three rings.
“Do you have good news?” Gus asked.
“I spoke to my guys. It looks like the girls have gone, possibly out of the country. I’ll know more in an hour,” Brad replied.
Gus let out a long sigh and then spoke really slowly as if he was talking to a child who needed to be chastened, “I don't care if they have hopped on a rocket to the moon. You find those two bitches and bring them to me. You know how my clients are about privacy and if any of this gets back to them, I can assure you Brad that you will be nothing more than food for the fucking seagulls at the municipal dump if thes
e two are not found. Do what needs to be done and bring them here. Keep me the fuck updated,” he said ending the call.
Brad knew that there was no use in arguing with someone like Gus. There was a food chain and Brad was somewhere close to the bottom. He was more trusted than some street corner hustler, or low level thug. He was even allowed to see some of the inner workings of the black empire that he was a part of. This was no comfort to him at all, he was just as disposable as the dealer who tries to fuck over his next in command, in the grand scheme of things Brad was a nothing. He had seen other bag men think they somehow lived in rarified air that floated above the lower down criminal classes. The truth was if you made a mistake, if you tried to skim a little something for yourself, you would get caught and this operation had no interest in loyalty, or who you were related to, they were as cold and unblinking as a shark eating its own live young. Brad was not going to end up like so many before him. He held his notebook in his sweaty grip. He was so close to freedom now, he could not let a pair of college aged escorts, no he told himself call them what they are, a pair of college aged hookers to derail his shot at freedom. I am coming for you both and I will be merciless in doling out my masters wishes, he told himself. What scared Brad the most was that he knew he had no other choice. He waited for the call from the brothers as a storm brewed in his head and he prepared himself to go on the hunt.
A supernova of pain exploded in the back of his head at the words Serkin had uttered. He fished out a half empty bottle of pain killers a backstreet doctor had given him. The pink and blue pills usually obliterated the splinters of pain in his skull although lately he was finding that he would have to choke down two or three of them to have any effect.
“Are you sure,” Brad asked as he swallowed the pills with a swig of cold acrid coffee.
“My cousin has full access to all the taxi records. He has a GPS log for the car and he spoke personally to the driver. The driver picked the girls up a block away from the dorms. They never spoke during the whole trip. The driver said they looked in shock. He didn’t push for conversation. He dropped them outside of the airport and the last the driver saw of them was them going into the departure lounge. We showed the driver a selection of pictures and he picked the two girls out. It was them one hundred percent,” Serkin said.
“Your money will be at the usual drop,” Brad said and hung up the phone. He suddenly felt old and weary and didn't want to get up from the table. He could see how this was going to play out in its grim inevitability. If he stayed put and drank his coffee a version of the world would roll forward where no one had to get hurt and the two girls escaped the grasp of the wrong people who they got mixed up with. If only it worked like that Brad thought, if his inaction stopped dead the events that would unfold once he made the call and everything was set in motion. One minute more he promised himself, he wanted to sit for one minute more and exist in a world were the death of those two college girls was not on his hands. He took his phone out of his pocket and dialled knowing he was making the first step towards obliteration for the two young women.
The call was picked up immediately. “Things have changed. It looks like the girls have left the country,” Brad said into the cell phone.
Gus exploded on the other end and shouted a string of curse words in cuban and german. When his outburst passed he said calmly into the phone, “You know what my client is going to say. You need to find them and close this chapter before it cause any potential damage.”
“I’m about to leave for the airport now. How am I to proceed if I find were they went?” Brad asked.
“You follow them and you finish the job,” he said hanging up the phone. Brad stared at the phone in his hand, you are in it now he thought, you have set the girls death into motion and he knew that there was nothing he could do about it. He got up and left the diner feeling like a man walking towards the open doors of an abattoir.
Chapter 13
Lana was dreaming of a flat grey ocean with low hanging wisps of clouds practically touching the slate grey surface. She was floating above the water and she could see something in its depths stirring, it was indistinct and nothing more than a slight change of colour as it moved below in the depths. Then it began to surface and take form. The first thing she could see clearly was the grey hair and the broad shoulders. It was the figure of a man quickly rising up from the depths, he was wriggling his body in a fluid motion like that of a fish and his speed was increasing rapidly. Please don't let him breach the surface Lana thought to herself. The man below the surface tilted his head back and he had the large silvery eyes of a fish. He reached his hands up before him as he sped towards the surface. Don't let him touch me Lana tried to shout and nothing but silent squeaks came out.
She felt a pressure on her arm and she awoke. She was panicked for a second that she could not see and then she slowly remembered where she was.
“You were groaning in your sleep,” Sara said rubbing her arm, “It sounded like you were having a horrible nightmare.”
The nightmare was already fading away like ash in a strong wind. “I don't know what it was, something was chasing me and it was about to touch me. I didn't want the thing to touch my skin.” She shuddered at the remnants of whatever horrible creature had been stalking her in her sleep. “Thanks for waking me. Are you here long?”
“I came yesterday but you were passed out and heavily sedated. I’ve been here all morning,” Sara said.
“What time is it?” Lana asked.
“Its around midday,” Sara said. “How are you feeling?”
Lana moved in the bed and flexed her arms and legs gently and said, “A little stiff and my head feels like its packed with cotton wool, other then that I feel ok and a little stupid.”
“I was talking to the Doctor he said there are signs on the way to the beach warning about the area with the quicksand. You must have missed them with the fog that rolled in. Seemingly it's a one in a million occurrence,” Sara said.
“I never got to thank the man who saved me. His name was Einar, have you meet him?” Lana asked.
“Oh I meet him all right. He came to the guesthouse to tell me what happened,” she let out a whistle and continued, “You haven't seen him yet. Lets just say you are in for a treat. He looks like some sort of viking from an old story book. He’s big and broad and looks like he could pick you up and throw you onto his shoulder with ease. His eyes are the brightest blue you have ever seen, he's laid back and charming, and so damn handsome. He looks like a model, not someone who farms or fishes. And that accent, it does funny things to me every time he says my name. I definitely thought we had a bit of a moment when he was in our room,” Sara said.
Lana felt a momentary dull pain in her stomach and the slightest hint of jealousy. Of course it was just like Sara to be already homing in on Einar, the country boy probably wouldn't know what hit him. Lana felt the twinge of pain again thinking of Sara being with him but she pushed it aside. What did she think she was living in? Some sort of fairytale where the girl is rescued by the handsome prince and then they walk off into the sunset hand in hand. This was the real world and she was nothing but an escort who slept with men for money and allowed them to fulfil whatever sick and twisted fantasies they had while she lay there unconscious. How could someone like her ever end up with the fairytale ending? She couldn't afford to even allow herself to dream about such a scenario happening.
“What about everything else, are we ok?” Lana said lowering her voice.
“If you mean are there any ninja like assassins creeping about then we are in the clear. No one will find us here,” Sara said a little too flippantly for Lana's liking.
“How can you be sure?” Lana asked.
“Who is going to waste time coming after two high class hookers. We are safe stop your worrying. The doctor said you can get out tomorrow, you need to stay for one more night of observation. I’m going to go and explore the town. Do you want me to pick you up anything while I�
�m out?” Sara asked.
Lana wasn't surprised that Sara didn't intend to stay by her bed and hang out with her. She always had an underlying streak of selfishness and had been accused of being cold and heartless in the past. Lana was used to it and so tried not to let it hurt her too much. “No, I’m ok. Is Einar going to come back to see me?” Lana asked.
