Time to Steal

by John Gilstrap

  Looking at him standing there in the shadows of the little phone alcove, Nicki felt her gaze grow hot. “You lied to me,” she said.

  He looked shocked. “What are you talking about?”

  She pushed past him, heading out toward the pier. “Hey,” he called, hurrying after her. “Where are you going? What’s wrong? What did he say?”

  After the stifling heat of the restaurant, the chill of the torrential rain made Nicki gasp. She didn’t know where she was going, but anyplace indoors had become too crowded. She needed space, fresh air.

  Brad kept with her step for step as they hurried out onto the pier. Their clothes became saturated within seconds. “Nicki, come on. Talk to me. What happened? What did your father tell you?”

  She stopped short, causing a collision. “Don’t ask me what he told me,” she spat. “Cough up what you didn’t tell me.”

  Brad was oblivious to the water cascading down his face. His eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what Nicki was talking about. “Give me a hint,” he said. “Give me a place to start.”

  “Well, you could start with the other murder,” she said.

  Chapter Eight

  Brad’s eyes launched sparks of fear. Then it was gone, leaving just Brad again, back in full control of his emotions. “I didn’t lie,” he said.

  “Bullshit.” She turned away.

  He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back around. “I never lied to you,” he said. “You never asked, and I never told, but that’s not the same.”

  “You said you never killed anyone!” But for the rain, the loudness of her voice would have stopped traffic.

  “This isn’t the same,” Brad said. “This isn’t what we were talking about.”

  Nicki looked amazed, her brows scrunched as she grunted out something that might have been a laugh or a cough. “So, what, I have to itemize things now? Have you murdered so many people that we have to talk about them one at a time?”

  “I’m telling you it’s not like that,” Brad said, his voice more forceful. “In the world, it’s murder. In prison, murder is different. In this case, murder did the world a favor. It was about me staying alive.”

  Nicki laughed again. “Oh, you’re a piece of work,” she said. “Always the victim, right? It’s not your fault—”

  “No, it’s not,” Brad said. He was angry now, and he cut her off in mid-sentence. “It’s not my fault. I did it, and I admit I did it. Hell, the whole prison knows I did it, and there’s not a soul alive who would want it a different way.”

  This time, Nicki’s laugh was less dismissive. She wanted to punish him for hiding details of his life, but she could see from the heat of his expression that she’d trod on private ground.

  “You want to hear the story?” he said. “Is that what you want? You really want to hear the details? Because if you do, I can sure as shit share them with you.”

  No, she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know any of this. Hell, she didn’t even want to be here; certainly not like this, not with all the crap that was swirling around them. But she nodded anyway. “I think I have a right to know,” she said.

  “I think you’re right.” Brad held out his hand. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “In the rain?” No sooner had she asked the question than she realized what an idiotic one it was.

  “What, you’re afraid of getting wet?” Already, they couldn’t get any more soaked if they dove off the end of the pier.

  Brad led the way back toward the restaurant, his hand gripped around hers. It was as if he wasn’t going to let her go. Before they reached the doors to go inside, though, he veered off to the left, and from there, it was a steep climb through scrub grass and rocks down to the beach below. So near the pier, the air smelled of creosote.

  “Where are we going?” Nicki wanted to know.

  “We’re going where we can have some privacy,” Brad said.

  In rain like this, no place without a wall could be dry, but at least the space under the towering pier was a little less unpleasant. Brad led the way to one of the pilings, where he leaned his back against the splintery wood and examined his toes as he collected his thoughts. Nicki helped herself to a seat atop a rock.

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard about prison life,” Brad began, “but whatever it is, reality is worse. I was mainstream general population from day one. Guys who can afford good lawyers to lose their cases for them can at least draw isolation for a few weeks till they figure out how the place works, but not my public defender dickwad. I was GP from the very first day. You can’t believe how much violence there can be till you’re locked inside with it. There was one guy, his name was Chaney. He led a group called the Posse. It was a gang of killers. There was no limit to what they were capable of.” His voice trailed off as he remembered the details.

  Brad relayed the details of Derek Johnson’s murder and the way that Lucas Georgen just allowed it all to happen. It took the better part of fifteen minutes to tell the whole story, and with each additional word, Nicki edged ever closer to asking him to stop.

  “After Derek was dead, and I denied him to his mother—to the one person in the world who seemed interested in pushing a little kindness my way—I hit bottom. I just didn’t give a shit anymore about anything. And then they came after me.”

  Nicki’s eyes grew wide. “Were you . . . Did they . . .”

  Brad chuckled. “It’s the first thing people always want to know, and it the one thing that the media has right. You take it wherever they want to put it or they cut your throat. Sometimes, they cut your throat anyway. There’s no sense fighting. All it does is make everything hurt more for a longer time.

  “But then they think they own you. They think that you’re their property to lend out or to sell however they want.”

  “Sell?”

  “For cigarettes, mostly. That’s another thing the movies have right. Inside, cigarettes are cash. Even if you don’t smoke.”

  Nicki screwed up her face. “But why would they sell you? What were people buying?”

  Brad gave her a look that said, “Duh.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “But I knew after that first attack and that monster Georgen just stood there and watched—I swore that they were going to die. I knew I couldn’t get them all, so I targeted Chaney. He was the leader, and he was the one I hated most. If I’d had time, Georgen would’ve been next. Looking back, I wish I’d done it the other way around.”

  “So you killed Chaney?” Nicki said.

  Brad didn’t answer at first, retreating to that place in his mind where she’d seen him go before.

  “Brad?”

  “I waited in the same corner where the Posse liked to wait for people. It was like one of two spots in the whole place that nobody could see unless they were looking for it. Chaney used to work in the prison library, and his thing was to take the rolling cart of books all over the place, and in the process, he’d collect his protection money. Thing is, it was the one time when he used to travel alone. I waited for probably fifteen minutes. A couple of people saw me there, and they had to know what I was up to, but nobody squealed me out.

  “My boss thought I was going to the infirmary to get my hand stitched.” He displayed a ragged scar on his palm. “I told them that I’d cut myself, but if I didn’t show up soon, they were gonna come looking for me.

  “I waited and waited, and then I heard the sound of the book cart. It had these crazy wheels that always rattled and squeaked whenever you pushed it along. Nothing else in the world sounded like that cart. So, I heard it coming, and I just waited.

  “I saw the cart first, and then I made my move. Chaney tried to step back, but he wasn’t fast enough. I stuck the knife in his belly right at his belt line, pushed it all the way to the hilt.”

  Nicki could tell by his expression that Brad was back there again, reliving the moment in vivid detail. The expression on his face was anything but the revulsion she felt at hearin
g the story. His expression was all pleasure.

  “He tried to fight me for maybe two seconds, but then I guess the pain got the better of him. I started sawing with the blade, in and out, a full thrust every time. It was a goddamn sharp knife, too. I spent hours putting the edge on that thing. Christ, you should have seen the blood. It spilled out of his gut like I’d burst a water balloon. He tried to fall, but I wouldn’t let him. I pulled him closer and kept sawing until I hit the underside of his ribs. I had no idea how hot blood is when it comes out of a person. It’s like spilling coffee down the front of you when it pumps out like that.

  “I think he died then, standing up, with me supporting his weight. I was looking right at him, too. Right into his eyes, and it’s like this light just goes out. It’s there one second and then it’s gone.”

  Brad looked up, saw Nicki’s expression of revulsion, but beyond it, lying under the surface the way cake sometimes peeks out from under the layer of icing, he thought he saw a glimmer of understanding.

  “He deserved it,” Nicki said. From her tone, Brad couldn’t tell if she was reassuring him or herself.

  “Yeah, he did,” Brad agreed. “When it was over, I looked up and there were all these people staring at me. Inmates, all over the place. They weren’t cheering the way they normally do in a fight like this, and nobody was coming in to break it up. They just stood there, watching. It was like they were afraid of me. Like I was back in middle school, where people were afraid to step on my shadow. Then somebody said, ‘You’re toast, dude,’ and I knew that he was right. Way too many witnesses. If the Posse didn’t kill me before dinner, then the state would get to it in a couple of years. Prisons don’t mind letting the violence escalate to the point where you have to kill, but when you do it, they call it murder, just the same as if I’d gone to some school yard and shot the place up.

  “So, I’d had all these ridiculous plans to break out of there through tunnels and shit—stuff that I’d never in a million years have been able to do—and there I was, with a need to get out of right-by-God now, and I had no idea what I was gonna do. I just ran. Had no idea where I was going, and there was the laundry cart. It was just sitting there on the loading dock. I dove into it and pulled clothes over top of me. I knew I’d be caught. I mean, really, who’d have thought it could be that easy?

  “I was gone before anybody even moved the son of a bitch’s body. I just wish I’d taken the extra time to hunt down Georgen. That would’ve made it all worthwhile.”

  “They’d have killed you,” Nicki said.

  “They’re gonna kill me anyway. At least then, the books would be settled.”

  He stopped talking. There it was, out in the open, just the way Nicki said she wanted it. “Sorry you asked?”

  Nicki reached out and took his hand. “Yes.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Nicki looked at him hard. For the first time, she sensed that he’d shed all the masks. She was seeing the real Brad. There was more to this man than kindness and love. There was violence, too. And pain.

  She loved him even more.

  “There wasn’t any tape in the security recorders,” she said. “Daddy told me. They’re looking for us as the killers, just like she said in there.”

  Brad winced.

  She forced a smile. “How are you coming with those getaway plans?”

  As if lifting a veil, the pain evaporated from Brad’s face, replaced by one of his patented smiles. “I’ve got a good one, I think,” he said, “but I don’t want to tell you about it till it’s done.”

  Nicki cocked her head, wondering.

  “It means breaking some more laws,” he explained. “Some big ones. And you don’t want to be part of it till it’s over.”

  To be continued . . .

  Don’t miss the next exciting episode of Nick of Time:

  TIME TO DIE

  Coming soon from Lyrical Underground!

  Bonus for fans of John Gilstrap’s

  Jonathan Grave thrillers!

  Keep reading to enjoy a preview excerpt from

  Friendly Fire

  Coming from Kensington Publishing Corp.

  in July 2016.

  In part two, Time to Hide, the second chapter of Friendly Fire was previewed. As a special treat for readers of the Nick of Time series, the preview that follows picks up where that excerpt ended . . .

  Chapter Three

  Ethan sat in that damned car for a long time—long enough for his left hand to go numb from the handcuffs. Finally, a uniformed cop slid in behind the wheel, glanced at Ethan in the rearview mirror, and then dropped the transmission into gear and drove off. The fact that the cop never asked him any questions made Ethan wonder if Hastings had shared with her crew her advice for him to stay silent.

  The ride to the police station was short, maybe ten minutes. The cop drove around to the back, where they waited for a garage door to open. They pulled through, and then waited for the door to come back down before the driver got out, walked around to the back of the cruiser, and opened Ethan’s door.

  “Come on,” he said. “Time to get you processed.”

  Processed is what you do with sausage, not with people, Ethan thought, but he said nothing. As he shifted position to get out of the vehicle, he realized how full his bladder was. “I need to pee,” he said as he swung his legs around to stand up.

  “Go ahead,” the cop said. “They’re not my pants.” He put a hand around Ethan’s right biceps and helped him to his feet. “Thanks for the warning, though. Most prisoners aren’t that courteous. They just piss on you without notice.”

  Ethan considered asking the cop for a little help, but as soon as the image formed in his mind of a cop messing with a prisoner’s zipper, he knew it was a stupid idea. As was the idea of letting him out of the cuffs just long enough to do what needed to be done. He’d just have to endure.

  Saying nothing, he allowed himself to be led from the garage and into the basement of what he assumed was the local jail. The door through which he passed certainly looked thick enough and heavy enough to be part of a jail. And Ethan knew what he was talking about. This wasn’t his first rodeo, after all. The cops would soon find out about his previous history of breaking and entering and his two DUIs. A few abortive attempts at drugs, but the drugs never bent reality enough to be worth the risks. The high wasn’t worth the expense. Not when you could buy beer by the quart for a couple of bucks at 7–11.

  He’d done this processing thing in each of those cases, but he’d been released on his own recognizance on the B and E, and let go from the DUIs after the mandatory six-hour stint in the drunk tank. The judge had warned him of dire consequences if he didn’t straighten up and fly right, and he’d been trying. Really, he had. He even thought maybe his life was back on a normal track.

  Until the monster. Until this nightmare. It was all still very new, but looking back on it from the perspective of a couple of hours downrange, he’d have done it again. The monster had to die. Had to. Surely these people would understand that.

  The heavy door slammed shut. Beige concrete blocks surrounded him on both sides as the cop led him across gleaming white linoleum that reflected and multiplied the glare of overhead fluorescent light. Fisheye cameras on the ceiling watched their every step. The hallway was narrow, and it terminated at another door, as heavy as the first, but this one sported a thick glass window.

  The cop made eye contact with a guard at a desk inside, and the door buzzed. The cop pushed it open, and Ethan felt hope evaporate. He sensed that he’d breathed his last breath of fresh air for a very long time.

  In that vacuum of hope, he felt the hot urine stream down his right leg. It soaked his socks before it showed through his pants, and it streamed over his shoes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the cop replied. “It happens more than you might imagine. At least you don’t have to feel like you’re going to explode.”

  “It’s e
mbarrassing.”

  “It’s jail,” the cop said. “There’s a lot more embarrassment to come. Just try to keep it in perspective.”

  The man at the end of the hallway sat at a window, reminding Ethan of a receptionist in ugliest medical practice in the world. He wore the same uniform as the cop who escorted him. The receptionist cop smiled as they approached.

  “So I see we’ve got a bed-wetter,” he said. “I’ll have to make a note for rubber sheets.”

  “Give him a break, Vince,” the cop said. “This is Ethan Allen Falk. We’re booking him on a homicide.”

  “Ah, the big one!” Vince declared with a smile. “Bring him in and sit him down so we can get down to business.” The door with the window buzzed.

  “Can I change clothes?” Ethan asked his escort at a whisper.

  “Soon enough,” the cop said. “Really, don’t worry about the little stuff.” Ethan glanced at the cop’s name tag. He wanted to remember the nice cops. There was Hastings out there in the parking lot, and now this one. His name tag read Bailey.

  The open door revealed an elaborate warren of doors and concrete block walls. The light in here was dimmer, and there was a lot more noise—the sound of many people at work doing many things. Officer Bailey led Ethan to a long metal bench. “Have a seat,” he said. “This will take a while.”

  “Nathan, I haven’t seen you in what, a week?” the deputy said. “You been on vacation?”

  “I took the kids to see Mickey down in Florida,” Bailey said. “Fifty thousand screaming tourists and two-hundred-degree heat. I’m back to take a vacation from my vacation.”

  The small talk went on for twenty minutes as Ethan sat on his bench, crossing and re-crossing his legs as he tried to find a comfortable posture. Nothing seemed to work. By the time he was called up to the tall desk, the bench had filled with five more men in handcuffs. They all looked way tougher than he, and none of them had pissed their pants.