by Claire Perry
“Maybe, but the work you do is of crucial importance, FYI. Your valor is a scarce commodity anymore, my friend. It’s finally paid off, I think.”
“Did you get the report back on the assassin I bagged today?” Matt stood bolt upright, eyes shining like a toddler given crayons. Claudia laughed.
“Yes. That and more. I can’t really talk about it considering our location.” She looked over her shoulder as suspicious characters began to congregate on the sidewalks surrounding them, selling drugs and trading other commodities of the underground.
“Where’s a good place to discuss murder and mayhem, Ms. Nagant?”
“Mm, how about the mall? Everyone’s there shopping or on visits with friends. If we talk murder and mayhem there, they’ll think we’re screenwriters or something. Because this story is old Hollywood gossip if ever you’ve heard the like, sir.” She blew a strand of stray hair out of her face.
“What about the Cornwell Galleria? It’s got better business than it ever did after our dear Alice’s reputation went straight to hell. Makes for a swell of people pushing through. Noise and distraction that will drown out our inner city opera, yeah?” Matt took Claudia’s arm.
“Good idea. They have a wonderful bakery in there. Care for a New York-style pretzel, my friend? Perhaps a soda to go with that? It would almost be like we were only going for a nice visit, forgoing the business of murder and mayhem.”
“Sounds like a plan to me, Cee.”
“Good. You didn’t walk here did you? Good Lord, you did. Prepare to look like somebody’s little girlfriend. We’re taking my bike. I’m driving.” She pulled him out of the alley and into the sun.
---
Matt sat admiring the massive skylights of the glass dome over Cornwell Galleria’s food court while Claudia ordered their snacks. She approached with a large blue tray donned with fresh baked salted pretzels and sodas a few minutes later. He tried to hop up and help her, but winced at the pain in his abdomen.
“Settle down. I’ve got it.” She sat it in the middle of the table and folded her hands in a quick prayer of thanks for the food. It was all in Hebrew, but he bowed his head as well and nodded to her words. He was grateful to still be alive, and the thought that she might have finally found the answer to their riddle made his soul shine like the sun’s plasma with enthusiasm.
“Did you remember the cell phone jammer in case we run into a little bit of curiosity from the crowd? Don’t want the wrong phone lines braiding into this grapevine, do we?”
“I’ve got it right here. Shouldn’t have trouble, though, unless Joe sends personal contacts into the mix. He usually isn’t that audacious.”
“Mm, with words like that, perhaps you should have been a teacher?”
“No, that was always my sister’s dream. If only she could have been allowed to see it through for many years.” They fell silent. Claudia clutched his hand in her own.
“Today, with the intel we’ve acquired, we’ll finally be able to put her to a proper rest.” She smiled and swallowed. He nodded.
“Hit me with it.”
“The killer that you took down today is one of a family-operated criminal syndicate within this city…” Claudia got off to a shaky start. Matt nodded, goading her to go on. She took a quick sip of her soda and tried to compose her nerves. He looked up and drew close to her.
“Is it close to Halloween or something? I never keep up with the holidays anymore.”
“No, Halloween’s in the fall, remember? It’s summer now.” Claudia eased herself to her feet, following his gaze.
“I think someone’s decided to flash mob us to death, Cee.” Matt balled his hands into fists. This was no place to produce a piece, even though he was armed with two different pistols and a knife.
There was a lineup of 15 different guys heading toward them at a New York clip. They each had their faces covered in colorful masks of various different characters. Some were wearing pirate costumes. Others were dressed like comic book characters. There was even one wearing a banana suit. People twisted around to see what the commotion was about. Children laughed. A girl plucked out her cell phone, switching it to camera mode anticipating a flash mob.
“Ready when you are, Matthew.” Claudia posed her fists. Matt plucked out a TV remote he’d rigged to function as an electromagnetic device. He punched the menu button on it and tripped the fire alarm system throughout the whole mall.
The mob stiffened. The nearby patrons looked at one another in confusion.
“We should have picked another Galleria, Cee. This will just add to the Cornwell record.” Matt hung his head.
“Well, let’s try to color within the lines. Our blood is enough. There’s no need for civilian casualties.” Claudia spun around.
“Everyone clear out!” She began to scream at the top of her lungs. The flash mobster in the banana suit unzipped his costume to reveal he had a machine gun concealed and pressed against his chest. People began to scream. Claudia watched their eyes as they witnessed the terror.
She struck a martial arts balancing pose. It added just enough angle to her body to avoid the first wave of semi-automatic rounds.
Matthew spun himself in front of her and caught her around the waist. It looked like they were dancing the waltz to the eye of the security cameras. He leaned around her producing the Taurus 380 he had concealed close to his chest. They were firing on him now. There was no choice but to retaliate. He shot at the automatic wielder’s kneecap. He wailed and hurled his gun in a smooth arc through the air. Claudia caught it midair and trained it toward the massive crystal skylight. She opened fire on the glass. Shards began to rain down on the mob. They cursed and reassembled.
“Call off your vixen, fool, or I’ll bleed you seven different shades of red.” The obvious ringleader, a man in a white and red devil’s mask and a long purple trench coat, stepped forward.
“How much did they pay you for the cheesy one-liner?” Matt waved his pistol in the air.
“Careful, Erickson. My boss doesn’t take kindly to dropping science. To him, it’s bitter medicine. A rock-hard pill to swallow, not gonna lie.” The man plucked a curved dagger from his belt.
“If we wanted metaphors, we would have ordered fortune cookies.” Claudia rolled her eyes.
“Whatever. I think we’ve all pretty well figured this out. Cornwell’s attorney sent me, dog. To clean you off the street.” The Ringleader snickered and swung the knife between both hands.
“I know you aren’t talking about Alice Cornwell’s attorney. That only leaves Mr. Joseph Cornwell to employ such a heinous individual. If I let you come away from here, you can crawl to him and tell him that I’ll bury him in the rubble of this city for his sins.” Matt stowed the pistol back into his shirt and plucked the knife free. This would be mano y mano.
“Ringleader to Psych Lemur – deal with the scene while I teach this punk to mind his manners.” The ringleader dove forward. “Psych Lemur,” a man with a faux fur tail affixed to his pants and a scream mask covering his face, plucked out a grenade. He was about to pull the pin when Matt moved forward out of instinct and knocked it high in the air, plucking Psych Lemur off his feet and holding him by his throat midair.
Matt had dropped the knife in the process. The Ringleader dove for Matt while he held his boy in the air, siphoning the breath out of him. Matt dropped the boy on the ground and looked up just in time to see Claudia dive in, brandish the knife from the floor, and zero in on the Ringleader with a series of rapid cuts that deflected his attack and backed him away from the fight.
The Ringleader sliced out. It happened faster than Matt could register. Claudia was quick, but he’d secretly had two matching knives. He plucked the other free with his stray hand and drove it into the small of her back. She rolled away, eyes fluttering closed.
“You son of a–” Matt swung out both arms, knocking six guys back with each in his fury.
“Shh, don’t over-do it, pal. We want to keep gentlemen’s deco
rum about us. This is merely a transaction.” The Ringleader plucked a cigarette from behind his ear and moved to light it.
“Well, then take this to the bank.” Matt charged Psych Lemur as he lay on the ground. Where there was one grenade, there had to be more. Already, several of his companions were scrambling for the strays that had rolled out of his pockets. Matt cut his vest open and revealed the timed IED he had bolted to his chest.
“Last resort self-sacrifice for the good of your business and to make the press believe this was another act of jihad, eh? Smooth, but not peanut-butter smooth, my friend. I know how to skip the clock on one of these things. This is how this will work. You’re going to go back to your boss and tell him that I don’t play games with little dogs like you. You do that, or I’ll blow this guy and the rest of us to hell before you can clear the food court.” His voice rattled off the walls.
“You wouldn’t kill yourself to escape. That doesn’t make any sense.” The Ringleader laughed hoarsely.
“Think this is about escaping, you fool? No, it’s about sending your boss a valuable message. I’m more than willing to sacrifice myself to clean you off the street. My sister’s in the grave, stupid. If I trip this trigger, I go and see her again. I’ll have my answer and have spread you like jam all over this god-forsaken city. It’s a win-win for me any way you slice the apple. Take these many food references back where you came from and do lunch with your employer.” He clicked his tongue with a dismissive wave of his free hand.
They all looked undecided.
“What about your friend? You’ll kill her, too.”
“You’ve taken care of that for me. You have no cards left to play. Beat it!” He peeled open the plastic box that Psych Lemur’s explosive vest was covered in. He began to dig his fingernail into the plastic casing surrounding the live rounds. The gang scrambled and disappeared.
“Okay, since you’re still alive and I haven’t done jack to the bomb, but will if you fail to cooperate–” Matt pulled out a ring of handcuffs and chained Psych Lemur to himself.
“You’re going to help me carry my friend. We’ve got to get her to a hospital.”
Matt knelt next to Claudia and ripped his rain slicker off, wrapping her wound taught in it.
“That was brave stuff, sister. No worries. I’m gonna get you out of here.”
Chapter 3
She moved with the wind that rolled over the outside wall. Making guess work off the wall’s percussion, she felt the wind with her mind, even if her tactile skin couldn’t feel it encapsulate her. Could she still taste the citrus light around her lips even if she couldn’t see it? These motions, this inner peace she struggled for, was enough to live vicariously through her imagination in a world from which she had been severed.
Alice Cornwell stood in the center of her solitary confinement cell. She moved with the Tai Chi poses she remembered from the class she and Anders had taken early in his cancer to help him retain his calm. She was going to need that death’s door peace herself now. She’d been thrown in here to die and she knew it. If Joe had his way, it wouldn’t be long before a guard came to the door to lead her to an execution chamber.
This was injustice at its finest and proof that money couldn’t purchase security. She was not guilty. Over the years, she’d exuded every cognizant effort to retrace her steps through the night of her arrest. It had replayed like an old movie projector in her mind until her inner eyes were blind. Regrettably, to no avail. She just didn’t have sufficient evidence from that night to prove her innocence.
“A queen come down from her throne. It’s a ripe pleasure for me to see you this desolate, Alice Cornwell.” A voice spoke through the door slot. Alice craned her neck to hear. Either this was early onset schizophrenia finally breaking through the defenses of the metaphoric alabaster box she’d stored her precious sanity in, or someone had dared to approach her door. It would be the first time in eight years that this corrupted county detention facility had afforded her a visitor.
“I suppose super powers such as seeing through metallic doors would be pleasant, mister. What can I do for you?” She clapped her hands together, concluding her exercise.
“Aha! Still so feisty after years locked in a box. Soon, my client and I will lock you in a smaller box for eternity, know what I mean?”
“Well, duh, you think I piloted a jewelry empire in my husband’s absence for six years by being stupid?”
“Of course not, Mrs. Cornwell, of course not. Which is why I trust you understand the final outcome of these years tilling away time behind these metallic walls.”
“Sure I do. I have faith in my friends, mister. You’re a little too preppy for a turnkey, aye? I can only assume that means you’re Joey’s lawyer. Nice to meet you. My own lawyer and private detectives are on the case. Pretty soon, they’ll get me out of here and then I can spend the rest of my miserable days sacrificing you to the voracious press.” She reached into her jumpsuit’s pocket and pulled out a rubber ball and some jacks she’d gotten in the mail from an anonymous letter sender she assumed was Claudia Nagant. She hurled the little jacks at the door and they stuck to the door slot’s frame like daggers, barely evading the single crystal eye that peered through the hole. Alice turned away from his peering gaze, retracting herself into the shadow she’d almost blended with in her eight years of waiting.
“Prison usually changes a person. Makes them fragile. Gives them time to erode their faith. You have not, and this concerns me. Not for my own ends, but for yours. You see, Mrs. Cornwell, the end of your life’s story will only manifest in greater brutality by the severance of hope you will experience when you do, at last, emerge from this close-quartered exile. Because you will die, regardless of the court’s verdict.” He paused, pressing his wan lips to the hole so that she might see his sickly grin.
“Oh, I see, you’ll have me whacked. Letting you eat cake wasn’t good enough, roadie? Now it’s time to take my head off Marie Antoinette style, aye? Cool story. Say, do you think you could ask my guard if maybe you could make me a sandwich? I haven’t had a sandwich in eons…” She tossed the little ball against the wall above her cot and felt it bounce around the room. The little rubber sphere had become an extension of herself, like nerve endings for her soul trapped away in here. She was so hungry, bored, and lethargic. Lonely… There were no words to describe the cavity within her left by the lack of companionship.
“Did you even hear me? It’s this exact devil-may-care bravado that landed you in such a mess to begin with. No matter how you leave this cell, Mrs. Cornwell, when you are where I can physically reach you, I am going to brutally kill you. Joe wants me to ensure that you get the electric chair. He even hopes to buy off the County Commissioner with a few million to make this happen, as this old facility happens to still have an electric chair, go figure.
“I, however, find this to be a bland punishment for such an extravagant lady as yourself. I’ve been looking into ancient torture methods and even some mythological pursuits of the study in causing human pain, for it is an art. You should know this well by now, ma’am. An art at which I am prolific. I’ve already hired radical extremists the world over. Have you ever heard of the Door to Hell in Derweze, Turkmenistan? It’s a chasm of fire opening in the midst of a valley like a blistering sore or some such. The stuff of urban fantasies, my dear – only it happens to truly be of this earth. I have the proper contacts arranged with Joey’s people. Easily, I could have you spirited away, brutally executed by my own hand, and then thrown into this pit by extremists and have the whole deed blamed on ancient desert wars and hatred for the wealthy. No one would much care to pursue it either, as you are a condemned felon, no matter how you slice the pastry.” He lit a cigarette. The smoke wafted through the door’s slot and constricted her lungs. The first breath of outside this dungeon she’d had in eight years and it had to be cigarette. There was no release until she left this world.
“I’m resigned to the fact, mister. It won’t stop me fro
m holding out, though. You see, I have nothing left but my hope, and I’ll be damned if I let some joker in a tuxedo trash talk me out of it! What you say might be the facts, mister, but reality is often a lot stranger than fiction. I could still slip through your fingers. When I do, which I believe I will, it will give you such hell as to vindicate me for all the years I’ve rotted in here completely guiltless of your charges.”
“Are you guiltless? Am I supposed to take your word for it? You’re the criminal here, not me. I’m an attorney at law. It’s my word they’ll believe every time, no matter how dirty my hands get in the process.”
“They can believe in your words all you want them to. My silent hope is stronger.” Alice was losing her resolve. She kept her voice steady, but she was sinking. They both knew it, and the knowing made it worse.
“Well, you hold fast to what you know then, darling. Perhaps at the right time, you’ll reap a harvest if you don’t lose heart. I have a few calls, a few meetings. You know how it is. When you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself. What I want is for you to die a slow, agonizing, news making death. That’s what I’m working on, overtime. With that comforting thought, take care.” He walked away. She could hear his heels clicking along the floor of the decrepit county building’s tiles. Even with the torment he’d inflicted on her with his words, she was reluctant for him to leave. Scarce few human voices entered her dark world. When he was gone, she would be alone again. She stumbled to the door and clutched at it. Let someone come. Let this be over now.
Her heart was crushed. She slid down the door, tears falling free now. The sobs were almost silent, yet echoed like cannon fire off the cramped enclosure.
“Claudia… Matthew… Kenneth…” She still had hope, though distant. That hope was christened with the names of her friends. As long as they were out there, she still had a chance.
