BABY WITH THE BEAST

by Naomi West

  “… appears a standoff between the gunman is taking place in several residences, with police en-route.”

  I turn around. Peter is still blocking the door. I march over to him, staring at him with dagger eyes. “Get out of my way this instant. Right now.”

  “You can’t speak to me like that!” he proclaims.

  I lean forward, staring right into his face. “Listen to me, you drunk asshole. If you don’t get out of my way, you’re going to eat your balls off a plate.”

  He laughs, but slides aside. I barge from the office and go straight to Brittany’s desk. Whispering fiercely, I ask her: “Can I borrow your car?”

  “The Princess?” That’s right, I remind myself. I shouldn’t forget her name. She tips her head. “Why on earth would I let you borrow my baby?”

  “Listen to me.” I know my voice is frantic but I can’t stop it. They might have killed him, and I am in no doubt of who they are. Chino’s men, ambushing the prison transport, intent on killing the man who’s been burning down their boss’s buildings. “The man I love more than anything is about to die, and your car can save him.”

  She doesn’t look persuaded by that in the least. I reach into my pocket and take out the fifties, counting them onto her desk. “Here’s five hundred dollars,” I say. “Just to borrow it for a couple of hours. If anything happens to it, you can claim I stole it.”

  Brittany’s eyes linger on the money. “You are stealing it,” she says, rolling up the bills and hiding them in her bra. She drops her keys onto the desk.

  I snatch the keys and run to the elevator, my world feeling like it’s breaking into little pieces. If Diesel dies, my child loses a parent. That’s the thought which hounds me as I run across the parking lot to Brittany’s bright pink Mini Cooper, the pink tinsel wrapped around the steering wheel looking especially tacky. If Diesel dies, I’m an instant single mother. It doesn’t seem fair. The day after he decides to leave the life, this happens. Maybe Mom and Dad dying so young should’ve taught me that life is cruel. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. But as I start the engine and drive toward the clubhouse, I feel shocked. Life can’t be this brutal. It just can’t.

  I drive through the city as fast as I can. Luckily the clubhouse isn’t too far away. I manage to get there in just under ten minutes, all the while aware that even one of those minutes could mean attending Diesel’s funeral. I bring Princess to a screeching halt outside the clubhouse and run toward it, barging through the door with my shoulder and barging through into a large bar area.

  A few men sit around, drinking whisky and dealing cards. They all turn to me, two of them jumping to their feet and drawing their weapons. I recognize the man who hit on me at the bar, with the greasy hair. Maybe it’s because he’s the only one I’ve ever seen before that I address him, trying my best to ignore the guns pointed at me.

  “Diesel is going to die!” I scream. “Diesel, your friend, your brother, a member of this club! He’s going to be killed by Chino’s men!”

  The greasy-haired man waves at the bikers to lower their weapons. “What are you talking about?” he asks.

  I explain quickly about the news.

  “And these are Chino’s men?”

  “Are they yours?” I ask. “Are they the club’s?”

  The man laughs harshly. “The club ain’t in the habit of ambushing police vans. We own quite a few police in this city, sweetheart. What’d be the benefit in killing them?”

  “Well, I guess Chino doesn’t have the same philosophy as you. Listen, we can’t stand around talking. Diesel might be dying. He might be dead. He needs your help.”

  A door I didn’t notice at first swings open, a man almost as big as Diesel stepping out. It’s the man from the photograph in Diesel’s apartment, bald with a monstrous bushy beard. He wears Skull Rider leathers, his thumbs hooked in the pockets. “It took some real balls to come in here, missy,” he says. “You don’t know us. For all you know, we’ll kill you and dump your body someplace. Maybe that’s the sorta men we are.”

  “No,” I say firmly. “Diesel is one of you, and that’s not the sort of man Diesel is.”

  “Maybe he is already dead,” Grimace says. “How long ago was this?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “And where is it?”

  I tell them.

  “A five minute ride, if we push it.” He sighs, and then nods at his men. “Gather the troops. We ain’t letting Diesel die. I’m impressed with his lady here, I’ve gotta say, and Diesel has paid his dues to the club. We ain’t letting that bastard Chino take him out. Fuckin’ Chino.”

  A minute later, I’m struggling to keep up with ten or so bikers in Princess, trailing behind them, hoping that we’re not too late. I keep seeing Diesel’s face, but instead of a grin or a smile or a look of intense pleasure, a bullet has carved it in half, making his skin red with blood, flapping away to reveal his bone. I think about sitting my son or daughter on my knee and having to explain to them how Daddy died in the same way Mom had to explain to me. I think about standing by Diesel’s gravesite, weeping.

  And then I start to weep. Not uncontrollable tears, not hysterical tears. Silent tears, streaming down my face, and now I’m whispering to myself: “Please don’t let him die; please don’t kill my baby’s father; please don’t be that cruel.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Diesel

  “Where are the keys?” I ask the weasel-looking cop, whose name is Gregory. I only learned that because when I was carrying him from the bus to the nearest house, he kept whispering to me as blood seeped into his uniform: “Don’t forget my name. It’s Gregory. Please don’t forget my name.” The blood has soaked through his uniform now, the bullet hitting him just below the neck. Luckily it was a graze, hitting him side-on, and the bullet isn’t buried in him doing more damage.

  “Left … pocket …”

  We’re crouched down in an expensive-looking bathroom, the door locked, Chino’s men swarming the area. There must be a least ten of them, all heavily armed. The only way I was able to get me and Gregory from the van into this house was because the driver and the other cop were putting up one hell of a fight, even if they died in the end. For now, the house is silent. Outside, the house is a mass of noise: helicopter blades and distant sirens. But in here we’re safe, for now.

  I unlock my cuffs and then take Gregory’s gun, tucking it into the back of my waistband. “We need to stop that bleeding.” I take a towel from the hook on the back of the door, tear away Gregory’s shirt, and press the towel down. I lead his hand to the towel, which is quickly become a dark red color. “Hold that there,” I tell him. “Hopefully the blood’ll stop soon.”

  “I don’t want to die,” Gregory whispers. “I really don’t … want to … die.”

  “Don’t speak,” I say. “You’re wasting your energy. You ain’t gonna die, all right? Just keep the pressure on. It grazed you, is all. Don’t be a fuckin’ coward.”

  That gets some steel in him. His face hardens. “All right, all right,” he says.

  I turn the safety off on the pistol and check the clip. It’s got full ammo, at least. I go to the bathroom window and open it, but it’s one of those that only slides open a couple of inches. Down the street, two patrolmen are starting to set up a cordon. There are already news vans, too. Maybe Willa is there, I reflect. Maybe the mother of my child is there. I grit my teeth. I have to get out of here alive. I can’t leave Willa alone. I can’t let that happen. I return to Gregory and kneel down.

  “We’re gonna stay right here until your backup comes, okay?” For the first time in my life, I want the sound of sirens to get louder. But then the sirens cut out altogether.

  Gregory’s radio buzzes and a frantic voice comes over the line: “Something’s wrong with our cars. Someone’s sabotaged our fuckin’ cars!” “Speak clearly, son! What’s your position? What’s your location? Where are you?” “Half a mile out, and all our cars are dead. Dammit.”

  �
��Chino,” I mutter. I offer Gregory a crazy smile. “I’m guessing all this was planned by him, right, even arresting me last night?”

  Gregory nods weakly, wincing at the effort.

  “Of course it fuckin’ was. All right, then, plan B. I kill Chino and all his fuckin’ goons and get back to my woman and my kid, and when the blood has dried I never break the law again in my life.”

  I press close to the edge of the door, waiting for the sound of footsteps. I wait for around two minutes and then hear the unmistakable sound of motorcycles growling loudly at the end of the street, and for a second I know what it must’ve been like for warriors in the olden days hearing the sound of the cavalry.

  Grimace’s voice reaches me even here. “Spread out! Find Diesel! Find Chino!”

  I can’t get too hopeful, though. On the other side of the door, two men are speaking. “Where is he?” one of the men roars. “Where the fuck is he? What is he—a ghost? How did he get off that van? What is the matter with you?”

  “I’m sorry, boss,” another man mumbles. “We’ll find him. That trick with the car has bought us some time. That was a really good idea—”

  “Do you think I hired you for compliments? Search the place!”

  Footsteps creak toward the bathroom. I hold my finger to my lips, looking down at Gregory. He nods and bites down, quieting his whimpering. When the footsteps are on the other side of the door, I aim the pistol right at where the man’s head is going to appear. The door whines open, and then the man’s head is right there, ready for me to blow into red mist. But something stops me. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s Willa, or maybe it’s the image of a pink- swaddled baby looking up at me. Instead, I smash the man across the skull with the gun, hitting him so hard he collapses to the floor like all the bones have been sucked out of his body.

  And then Chino is on me, charging down the hallway with two pistols. Even after months of setting this man’s buildings on fire, I have had no clue what he looks like until now. I’d always picture a suave businessman type, a suit-wearing man who could slip into a James Bond movie as the villain. What I’m met with instead is a man even taller than me, around six-foot-seven, wider than me, wearing baggy jeans and a baggy T-shirt, his pistols looking comically small in his hands. His jet-black hair whips behind him in a braid.

  I duck behind the wall as he fires, his bullets tearing the bathroom to pieces, the sink exploding in a shower of enamel, the mirror shattering, the toilet bowl breaking open and water spreading over the floor. Then I hear the click-click telling me that Chino’s guns are empty. I leap out, willing myself to shoot him. I should be able to. He’s a slumlord, a criminal. He’s killed Skull Riders, and if Grimace is right, he’s done worse, selling drugs to kids, using kids. All sorts of nasty shit. And yet as I aim the gun at him, I find I can’t shoot. My finger just won’t pull the trigger. It’s like I’m paralyzed. I keep thinking of my kid, of Willa, of the type of man I want to be.

  I jump forward and smack the man across the face. He lets out a yelp and leaps back, but then he’s on me, fists swinging, growling, baring his teeth. “Motherfucker!” he roars. He’s quicker than he looks, his fists catching me in the stomach, the chest, the face. But it’s not the first time I’ve been hit. I take them, ignoring the crushing pain, and dodge his next two punches.

  I manage to fight him down the hallway, into the living room, whaling on him, hitting him twice in the face, three more times in the gut, but he doesn’t fall over like any man would. I’ve hit him hard enough to break most men. Somehow he manages to carry on. It’s damn strange hitting a man who’s bigger than me. I have to lean up slightly. In the midst of the violence, a detached part of me wonders if this is how I look to other people. I kick Chino in the chest, meaning to send him into the TV, but he catches my foot and wrenches it sideways. Too late, I realize what he’s doing. I’m on my back. I try and stand up. Chino slams his foot into the small of my back, crushing me into the carpet.

  Then three men charge into the room, mercenary-looking types, each of them holding a semi-automatic weapon. “The police are getting backup vehicles,” Chino says. “They’ll be here in ten minutes, maybe less.”

  “Fucking pigs,” Chino snarls. “Give me that gun, boy. I need to finish this Rider bastard.” Chino presses the gun to the back of my head, kneeling down beside me. I’ve been in situations like this before, but I’ve never felt the fear which paralyzes me now. Willa, Willa … I wish myself back in time, to the first time we ever met, and turn around when I leave the bar. I won’t burn down her building. I won’t burn down any building. I’ll go back to the bar and get to know this cool, funny woman.

  “You have been a real pain in my side,” Chino says. “I do not like to be taunted, and you have taunted me. Who do you think you are? Do you think you can stand against me, boy? You are an insect. You are worse than an insect. You are a pathetic nothing. And now you will die.”

  I close my eyes, powerless. All at once I’m back in the basement, strapped to the bed, Dad lashing me, spitting on me. All at once I’m that helpless little kid again.

  The gunshot is loud against my ear.

  I see Willa. I don’t feel the shot at first. All I know is Willa. Something heavy is pressing into my back. I should be dead. Why am I not dead? I see Willa and our baby, framed in sunlight, Willa holding our child up to the light. More gunshots sound.

  Slowly, I open my eyes, look around the room. The weight on my back isn’t death. It’s Chino, bleeding all over me, making a gargling noise as blood spews from his mouth. I shove him off and stand up, looking around in disbelief. Grimace shoots the last man in the face, kicks him to the floor, and then grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me to my feet.

  He claps me on the arm and stares into my face, hard. “We’ve gotta go, boy,” he says. “The Riders are gonna head out of the state for a while, maybe go down to our Texas branch. We can’t hang around here with all this heat.” He reads my face. He knows I want to stay here, with Willa. His expression hardens, but I see the old respect in his eyes. “You’re no longer a member of the Riders. I’m banishing you. You’re not allowed to wear the leather ever again, and if you step foot in a Rider house, you’re a dead man.” He claps me on the shoulder again. “Now get out of here.”

  I nod shortly, hoping he knows what I’m trying to say, but can’t with all the men around: “Thank you, Grimace. Thank you for finally letting me go.”

  I stop at the door. “There’s a bleeding officer in the bathroom. He’s just a dumb kid from what I can tell. He doesn’t deserve to die.”

  Grimace nods to one of the men. “Take the kit; patch him up as quick as you can. You’ve got two minutes.”

  I jog out of the house to the sound of sirens, still far away, but getting closer. I pull my jacket up around my nose and take a T-shirt from the clothesline outside, wrapping it around my head so that only my eyes are visible. At the end of the street, the cameras watch, but they won’t see my face. And behind the cameras, I see her, the mother of my child, reaching out as though to touch me. I think about going to her, but it’s impossible.

  I turn and sprint away.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Willa

  “So,” Sofia Silva says, “you’re saying that this Chino character is the one who burned down his buildings?” She nods at the dossier I have laid on her desk, a dossier Diesel and I wrote up together. I promise myself I’ll never do anything like this again. But truth be told, I’d do it one thousand times over to save Diesel. “To claim the insurance money?”

  “I can’t be one hundred percent sure, of course,” I say, making sure to stay vague. “But I’m fairly certain you will find the evidence quite compelling.”

  “Quite compelling,” she says, stroking her chin. “Well, we’ll see. Give me a couple of hours to go over it. What leads are the police following?”

  “The police have closed the case,” I say, grateful to be able to tell the truth. “They’ve concluded that it
was Chino, too.”

  Yes, I think but don’t say. They concluded it was Chino after a hefty bribe from the Skull Rider reserve fund.

  “Okay.” She nods. “Return in precisely three hours.”

  I return to my desk and sit there for half an hour, staring at the Word document, willing my fingers to type. Just because Diesel is back now, it doesn’t mean that the drama in my life is over. Peter walks across the office floor, cradling a coffee, shooting me a look full of hate. I haven’t forgotten about the way he grabbed my leg, or tried to kiss me, or all the horrible sexual things he’s said to me.

  I check the time on the computer screen. It’s almost time for my meeting with Molly. She gestures to me from across the office, nodding at one of the conference rooms. I stand up, smooth down my clothes, and then follow her into the room. My heart shouldn’t be beating as fast as it is, but I can’t help it. Even knowing I’m right, I’m nervous.