Shame ON You

by John W. Mefford

  Two guys were leaning up against the passenger-side window. The taller person stuck a hand inside, brought it back, and shoved something into his jacket pocket.

  “He’s buying drugs?” Ivy asked.

  I thought about the demons that had chased Chantel down since she was a young teen. “The drugs may not be for him.”

  Ivy turned my way.

  “This could be both bad news and good news. If she’s alive, he might be buying her drug of choice just to please her in some way. Maybe to get her to do something for him, or to make amends for something he’s done to her.”

  The guys walked away from Patterson’s car and into the darkness. But Patterson’s car didn’t move.

  “What’s he waiting for?” Ivy asked.

  Like I had all the answers. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re going to bring out more drugs. Maybe he’s the drug user and is partaking right now.”

  “Which means that Chantel might be out of the picture,” Ivy said, her hands slapping her thighs. “Dammit, we need to find out if he has her at his house.”

  An idea hit me. “What if we get back to his house before he does? Then I’ll break in and do a quick search for Chantel.”

  “He probably has an alarm system. You’ll be arrested for breaking and entering,” she said, shaking her head.

  “But if I find her, he’ll be arrested.” I put the car in drive again and looked at her. “Yes? No?”

  She opened her lips, but before saying a word, she flicked my arm.

  I glanced out the windshield and saw Patterson drive away and take a left. I was shocked at the quickness in which the turn was executed in his Prius.

  “Does he know we’re following him?” I wondered aloud. I pressed the pedal, and we moved forward, eventually reaching a speed of twenty miles per hour.

  Out of nowhere, something flew over the top of our car and crashed off the hood. I hit the brake and heard Ivy cussing up a storm. “You okay?” I asked her.

  “I think I peed myself.”

  I looked over the steering wheel to see what was lying in front of us. Illuminated by the headlights was what looked like a long two-by-six with nails sticking out of it.

  I got out of the car and glanced round. There was an outline of a home and some trees, but mostly darkness. I wheeled around and noticed a gash on the hood of the car as I approached the wooden board.

  “Who the hell did this?” Ivy had also exited the car and was now leaning over to inspect the board.

  “It was like it was shot out of cannon or something,” I said. “Whatever. Let me move it so we can catch up to Patterson.”

  Before I moved an inch, I felt something round and cold pressed against the back of my neck.

  “You move, motherfucker, and your girlfriend is going to be wearing your blood.”

  I dared not even take a breath.

  32

  Ivy’s face instantly turned pale. Her eyes, as big as saucers, peered over my shoulder.

  “We’re going to teach this motherfucker a lesson about privacy, Devin.”

  That told me there was more than one person behind me. The person who was holding the gun to my neck was probably under six feet tall, judging by the sound of his voice and the trajectory of his hot breath against my skin. And he’d recently eaten some type of Mexican food, which was completely unhelpful information.

  “Yo, Dog, why don’t you just go ahead and waste that motherfucker? Then we can have a little fun with the blondie who’s eyeing me right now.” That was Devin.

  Ivy, to her credit, didn’t take the bait and lash out. In fact, she wasn’t moving, either.

  “Dev, man, not sure we got paid enough to murder someone.”

  So Patterson was guilty of something! He must have seen us following him. The transaction we saw from a distance was probably a payment to these thugs to rough us up or at least intimidate us. I was okay with a little intimidation, as long as Dog didn’t have an itchy trigger finger.

  “You always about money. Sometimes we just got to take justice in our own hands. No one else around this hellhole doing it. And right now, I think the pretty blonde needs to get down on her knees and beg me for mercy.” Devin started laughing. “And while she’s down there, she can take care of some bidness, if you know what I mean.” Dog joined in Devin’s laughter.

  Headlights cut across our space. I couldn’t turn my head, but the spears of lights were higher off the ground. Might be a pickup…and our chance to break free.

  “Crap! Someone’s coming, Dog,” Devin said.

  “Chill out.” Dog grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me toward the curb. “Let’s get them inside the house. You get the blonde.”

  A moment later, the lights flashed across my face and then disappeared. I thought I heard the roar of an engine in the distance. The pickup must have turned down the adjacent street. I could see Ivy’s shoulders slump with disappointment. I would have joined her if my muscles hadn’t been tied in a knot.

  “That’s right—it’s our street,” Devin yelled from somewhere behind me. “Every other motherfucker has been served notice. No one does anything on our street without our permission. Right, Dog?”

  “You got that right, Dev.”

  The Dog and Dev show. Whatever. I just wanted this gun removed from my neck and to get my eyes on Dev. I wondered if he was also carrying a weapon.

  “Come on,” Dog said. “Let’s move.”

  As Dog pulled me backward, I saw Ivy’s hands curl into fists. She reset her feet, as if she were about to fight this guy off. I wanted to give her a signal—a quick shake of the head or something—so she would not attempt that. Devin pulled around me and threw a left hook into my solar plexus.

  Didn’t expect that. I doubled over, trying to catch my breath as Devin hopped around, laughing, grabbing his crotch. He looked young. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. Wearing red high-tops and jeans that sagged. He eventually grabbed Ivy’s arm, but instead of dragging her toward the house, he leaned in and kissed her. On. The. Mouth. She tried to wipe away slobber and then spat on the ground.

  Devin’s eyes looked like he’d just seen ET. “You see that, Dog? Oh, bitch, you’re going to pay for that once we get inside.”

  “Hold on.” Dog stopped and appeared to be thinking for a moment. “Need to move the car first. Don’t want some random cop showing up, wondering why this car’s in the middle of the road. Go ahead and put the bitch in the car, throw that board off to the side, and drive the car around back and park it in the yard.”

  Devin’s face scrunched up. He was confused. I took a couple of breaths and slowly lifted up. I didn’t see a weapon on Devin. That didn’t mean he didn’t have one hidden, though. Dog’s gun wasn’t at my neck. It was against my back, but he wasn’t pressing it as hard. Distracted.

  “Put her in the car first or move the board first?” Devin asked, still holding Ivy’s arm.

  “Devin, you’ve got to be stupidest sonofabitch I’ve ever seen. Can you not listen to what I’m saying?”

  “Fuck you, Dog. You’re stupider.”

  I know I was convinced.

  Devin muttered something and then let go of Ivy. He picked up the board and walked over to the curb, tossing the board just behind me. As he started walking back to Ivy, she shuffled to the other side of the car. Her eyes snagged my gaze for a split second. This was our chance, maybe our only chance to avoid a night of terror, possibly death.

  Devin pulled to a stop. “You gonna play that game? You have no idea how quick I am. First team all-district running back my freshman year, biyatch.”

  He darted out of his stance and cut right. Ivy ran the opposite way around the car. Just as I’d hoped, Dog pulled the gun off my back and lifted it up next to me. He intended to shoot Ivy as she came around the car. A glint of light bounced off the gun. I rammed my arm upward. The gun fired. I suspected the bullet had clipped a nearby tree. Ivy ducked, and so did Devin, who then screamed something I couldn’t understand. I grabbed Dog�
�s arm, pulled it in front of me, and started moving backward, my back pressed against him. Three, four, five steps. Where was the fricking curb?

  Before I completed my sixth step, Dog yelped and then went straight down. I landed on top of him, making sure to jab my elbow into his rib cage to double the impact.

  He yelped again, but this was an octave higher. I looked up, and Devin was between me and Ivy, crouching like a middle linebacker. He didn’t know whether to spit or wind his watch. With Dog temporarily incapacitated, I wrestled the gun out of his hand and pointed it at Devin.

  He blinked, muttered something like, “Fuck this,” and ran off.

  One down.

  I tried to get to my feet, but Dog had a different idea. He pulled my hair until I dropped back to the ground. He went for my gun hand. We wrestled for control. He was spastic as hell. The gun flew out of my grip and landed on the street. I started crawling in that direction. Just before I reached it, Dog jumped over me. I snagged his ankle, and he dropped face first onto the concrete.

  Ivy ran up and kicked the gun into the sewer opening. “Let’s get out of here before Devin comes back,” she said.

  We jumped into the car, and I hit the pedal. As we drove off, Dog was still rolling on the ground, holding his chin.

  Ivy extended her fist. I finished making a left turn, and then I bumped her fist with mine.

  “Maybe we do make a great team,” she said. “To the Bat Cave.”

  I had another destination in mind.

  33

  After stopping at Whataburger so Ivy could use the restroom, she and I debated during our thirty-minute drive whether to call in the cavalry—Brook and the throng of cops that would likely accompany her—or just let it go.

  “I want that fucker to burn,” she said, punching a fist into her opposite hand. “Patterson has to burn for this, Oz.”

  “You sound like a fire-and-brimstone preacher.”

  “I thought you were Jewish.”

  “I hardly went to synagogue, but rabbis don’t do fire-and-brimstone.”

  She took in a deep breath. “Oz, this is our chance to get into his house, legally.”

  “How would that work, exactly?”

  “Well, after we call her and debrief her on what we just experienced, Brook shows up at his front door with some beefy cops—of course, we’ll be on the street waiting to see what they find—and then she goes in and does a search of his place for Chantel.”

  “You’ve been watching too many cop shows. And on top of that, Brook might bend the rules, but she doesn’t break them.”

  She brushed a bunch of loose hair out of her face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  She was riled up. So was I, for many reasons, not the least of which was that a gun had been pointed at the back of my head. “Look, you and I know there’s probably a ninety-nine-percent chance that Patterson hired those guys to intimidate us, hurt us, get us to stop following him. So—”

  “So there’s her probable cause.”

  “She needs to get a warrant, and that takes time.”

  “They assaulted us, Oz. She can march right in because of the imminent threat.”

  “But how can we prove that Patterson is actually the threat? The threat is really more with Dog and Dev, not Patterson.”

  “Who the hell are you working for?”

  I glanced at her with one eyebrow cocked.

  She lifted her chin and released a deep breath. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I know you’re invested in this. I am too.”

  She rubbed her face with both hands. “This might be our only chance to save Chantel before he does something to her or takes her to a different location.”

  “Listen, if this had any hope of working, I’d be right with you. But Brook won’t get a foot in that door. She has no proof of cause to enter his home. And I’m betting that Patterson will have his lawyer on speed-dial, just in case.”

  Splashes of headlights washed across her face. She didn’t have any wrinkles, but the edges were hard.

  “I’ve been where Chantel is, Oz. I’ve been held captive without hope. I can’t sit around and do nothing.”

  I didn’t think it was a forgone conclusion that Chantel was at his house. I told her so.

  Of course, she argued, “She has to be at his house.”

  “Why do you think that? He could have her stashed someplace else, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So we really don’t know she’s there. We just believe he knows more than what he’s sharing.”

  “Couldn’t Brook put some more pressure on him, though?”

  “It’s possible. But you and I will be dragged into it. We’ll be at the police station all night.” I paused, let my words sink in. I hoped they were sinking in.

  “You have another idea,” she said, her intensity finally at a lower level.

  I turned down the street just to the east of Patterson’s house, parked the car in a dark patch, and killed the lights. “You stay here. I’m going to snoop around and try to get a look into a window or two.”

  “That’s your plan?”

  “It’s the first half of my plan. If I find nothing out of the ordinary, then we move on to our next location.”

  I opened the door and pulled myself out. As I turned to shut the door, Ivy was already standing outside the car on her side.

  “Who said you’re going?” I asked.

  “Who said you get to make the decisions?” She smirked and walked around the car, running her hand along the bashed hood. “Damn. I’m going to have to pay out the ass for this damage.”

  “You didn’t get their insurance?”

  She shook her head. “Tried to save money.”

  “I hear you. But I’ll help you out on it. No worries.”

  “Maybe Chantel’s parents will pick up the cost, considering we had our lives threatened at gunpoint.”

  “They’d probably give us the keys to their house if we can bring Chantel home. Let’s just focus on finding her.”

  We walked casually down the block a few houses. I glanced in both directions and saw no cars or pedestrians, so I grabbed Ivy’s arm and cut in between two homes until we were deep in the darkness.

  I was guessing that Patterson’s home was on the other side of the fence in front of us. The wood fence was about seven feet high. I clasped my hands, and Ivy slipped her foot in like it was a stirrup. She pushed against my hands, and I lifted her.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  “It’s the back of his home. I can see the blue shutters on the second-floor windows.”

  “Hear or see any dogs?”

  “Nope.”

  “Cool.” I lifted her up a little more; she swung her legs over the fence and dropped to the ground.

  I grabbed the top of the fence, pulled myself up, and tried to swing my foot up to the fence top. It didn’t make it. “Crap!”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  I gave it another shot, fighting through the stabbing pain in my hip. This time my foot caught the top of the fence. I hit the ground on the other side with an awkward sort of one-legged landing.

  “Are you ever going to see an orthopedic for your hip?”

  I didn’t want to tell her she was nagging me. But it sure seemed like it.

  “You’re not going to answer me?”

  “Okay. When we get Chantel back to her parents safely and we close this investigation, I’ll go to the doctor. Satisfied?”

  “For now.”

  We hustled through the yard, my eyes on the lookout for anything that might bring us harm—a person, an animal, even a camera. Nothing visible. As we got to within ten feet of a sliding glass door, I picked up a waft of fish. I sniffed the air as I looked around.

  “Did you pick up the scent of a killer, Mr. Crime Dog?” She was watching me, hands on her hips.

  “Only if he eats crabcakes.”

  She shook her head and moved closer t
o a window, which had white shutters, closed, on the inside. I pulled up next to her. “Can you see anything through the cracks?”

  “Just that there’s a light on. Nothing else, dammit.”

  We moved to the next window, and this time, I looked. Same result. I stepped back from the house and peered up to the second floor. There was one window with a light on, curtains partially open. A limb from a tall tree dangled close to the window.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said, moving past me.

  I followed closely behind her. “It might be our best hope, though. Don’t you want to know if Chantel is in that room?”

  She stopped and turned so fast, I ran right into her. My hands were up when this happened, and I might have grabbed two things I hadn’t meant to.

  “Sorry.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For…you know.”

  “Grabbing my boobs? Pfft. Look, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were gay.”

  “I look gay?”

  “Not sure what that means, but you’re just Ozzie. You’re…I don’t know, just a dude.”

  “A dude.”

  “And I’m just a girl. Do you have the hots for me?”

  I looked back at the house for a second. “Can I plead the fifth?”

  She smacked my chest. “Are you saying you do?”

  “You’re attractive, Ivy, but you’re just not my type.”

  “Back at ya. See, we’re all good.”

  I walked toward the tree, until she pulled on my shirt. “But if you go up that tree and do your high-wire act on that limb, I guarantee you’ll break it. Then you’ll fall, break your other hip, and Patterson will find out we’re here. We’ll probably end up back at the station getting a lecture from Porter while Patterson’s lawyer figures out how much he’s going to sue us for.”

  I glanced at the tree limb and had to admit it—I saw a lot more risk than reward. “Point made. Let’s try to look in all the downstairs windows.”

  We trekked to the right, found two more windows. Neither had on a light, and both were closed off with shutters. We continued around to the right side. I kept a lookout for neighbors or anyone who might be walking on the sidewalk and see us moving in the darkness. A minute later, Ivy tapped me on the shoulder. “Nada.”