A Devil's Bargain

by Jonathan Watkins

  Now, the panic storm stirred. She felt it in the base of her skull and behind her eyes, the first ghost-winds gaining strength with each dismal thought she summoned. Sometime early on in their relationship, Darren had supplanted her professional ambitions in order of importance. She knew that if she had spoken that fact aloud to him, Darren would have counseled her otherwise. He would have insisted that she not allow his own penchant for reckless decisions to undermine or jeopardize her own goals.

  But Darren didn’t understand. What harmed him harmed her. They, the two of them together, were her goal. Just as surely as she knew he would hurl himself in front of any danger that threatened her, she knew she would do the same for him.

  Returning the suitcase was out of the question.

  “Then that’s not what you’re going to do,” she said and got back on her feet.

  She changed out of her night shirt and into a sky blue knee-length sheath and a pair of open-toed sandals. Minutes later, Issabella was heading out the door with a reciprocal saw balanced on one shoulder, a stolen metal suitcase trailing behind her, and a tentative belief that she could live with the consequences of the path she’d set herself upon.

  * * *

  In the time that it took to be seated at Ringo’s Joint, for the food and the drink to appear and be partially consumed, Darren told Theresa everything he knew about Gil Sharps, his brother Luther, and the as yet unfruitful task of discovering what secret lie within the metal suitcase that’s key was curiously missing.

  Around them, hard plastic tables with rain-stained umbrellas were unoccupied. They were the only two diners on Ringo’s outdoor patio. Beyond the deck, on the other side of Cass Avenue, a newly erected health-food supermarket stood in seeming defiance of the greasy steak and spirits vendor.

  Ringo’s Joint had persisted for decades as an unabashed source of large portions, strong drinks, and blue collar prices. The health-food supermarket was an interloper, as far as Darren was concerned. This area had been known as the Cass Corridor for far longer than he had lived in Detroit. Like much of the city, it had always been a gamble. You could find a place like Ringo’s to eat, sure. But you didn’t stroll around. It was still Detroit. Every oasis of civilization was surrounded by stretches of boarded-up buildings and overgrown lots. The potential for danger had always existed here, if you were curious or unwary enough to think that the good cheer of the restaurant extended beyond its walls.

  No longer. Now, Cass Corridor was rebranded. Midtown. That was what the young hipsters and communal-minded artists moving in called it. Midtown. A place for urban, white millennials who would greet the health-food supermarket with open arms and open wallets. In any other city, they would call the influx of socially conscious, progressive, and well-intentioned Caucasians gentrification. In those other cities, it might be pointed out that the rising cost of rent in the renovated apartment complexes and freshly erected condominiums of the neighborhood was pricing out and banishing the unfortunates who had called the place home for generations.

  Not in Detroit. In Detroit, any sign of life with a bank account attached to it was a welcome oddity. If families who had made their home along this stretch for decades were now elbowed aside to make room for kids with graduate degrees in fine arts and an appetite for kale salads, none of the news outlets were bothering to make much of a fuss about it.

  Darren sipped his Crown and Seven and idly wondered if he was more like one of those millennials; an interloper who could take in the pockets of culture the city offered without ever being required to live down there with the rest of the unlucky and left behind. He felt vaguely guilty, in an undifferentiated sort of way, and knew it would pass.

  It was at that point, as he finished filling her in about Gil Sharps and the suitcase, when Theresa paused in the act of sawing at her huge T-bone steak and stood up.

  “Gimme your keys,” she said with a palm extended between them.

  “You ditching me? I was going to get you the lava fudge sundae for dessert, if that makes any difference.”

  “Funny. Keys.”

  Darren passed his car keys to her and ordered another drink once she was gone. When the waitress was gone as well and he was utterly alone, he sagged in his chair, and put his head in his hands.

  Was his friend a killer? Had Theresa been confronted with Gil Sharps as he tried to break in to her home? Had she stabbed Gil in the throat one minute, concealed the weapon, and calmly phoned Darren in the next? Was she lost to him? Was his friend just another life to be fed into the criminal “justice” machine, never to be seen again by those fortunate enough to live free of its appetite for the poor, the darker hued, the mentally ill, and the uneducated?

  Darren rubbed at his eyes in an attempt to scour away not just his exhaustion, but the gloom that had been born in him when she had revealed that she already knew that the dead man outside her door was connected to Darren. Theresa had been lying from the start.

  The waitress, a fiftyish black woman with kind eyes and a gloriously untreated full Afro, set his drink down in front of him and cast him a sympathetic frown.

  “Baby, you look worn thin.”

  “I’ve been thinner.”

  “You want some coffee?”

  “Nah. I’ll hit the sack soon. Thanks, though.”

  She lingered for just a second and Darren felt a warm flush pour over him that he hadn’t felt in as long as he could recall: the feeling of a maternal fret, that kind of beautiful concern that lead to blankets tucked tight to the chin and soft palms gauging the heat of your forehead.

  “It’s just a weird day,” he said.

  She opened her mouth and he knew she was about to say something for his benefit, some dollop of caring wisdom, but the door of the restaurant flung open and Theresa’s sudden presence dispelled the moment.

  “Alright, then,” the waitress said and disappeared back inside. Darren watched her go and wished he’d said something nice to her about her hair. Something that maybe she could smile to herself about later in the day when he was long gone and her feet were sore from the job.

  Theresa took her seat and sawed off another strip of T-bone. She dipped it in the congealing yolk of her eggs and popped it in her mouth. She didn’t look riddled with tension anymore. After half a dozen cigarettes and some red meat, she looked as centered and imperturbable as ever.

  Darren tested his drink and said, “What happened last night, Theresa?”

  She sawed another strip of steak and said, “I was going to tell you. But Izzy was there and I didn’t know if I should. Then you went outside and left me with her and I just decided I’d keep my trap shut until I could get a second alone with you.”

  “Theresa, Izzy’s your friend. You can tell her anything you’d tell me.”

  She wedged the strip of steak in her mouth and gave him a flat stare.

  “Yeah? Okay. It’s just, you know, when I heard a guy say your name and then a minute later that guy’s dead body is stuffed in an old car I sort of figured I should be discreet about it. But good to know. Next time I think I should keep things to myself I’ll just blab them all over the place.”

  As she talked, Darren began to understand.

  “When you called me on the phone you weren’t looking for legal help.”

  “Nope. I thought maybe you just killed a burglar behind my bar. I hear him say your name from the other side of the door, then I get the shotgun and go looking. He’s dead. It ain’t a stretch to think maybe you got in a tussle that went really bad. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Gil Sharps said my name. That’s all you heard?”

  She shrugged and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

  “I only heard the tail end of whatever was being said. He said something else but I don’t know if you want to hear it.”

  “What’s that mean?”


  “I heard him say your name and I heard him say another name before that.”

  “What name?”

  “James Klodd.”

  Darren leaned forward and he grabbed hold of her hands in his. He saw her wince and he forced his grip to relax, but he did not let go.

  “Theresa, what exactly did you hear?”

  “Let go of me, Fletcher. I’ll tell you. Just let go of me.”

  He did. He eased back in his seat and waited while Theresa took a long sip of her pop.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “It’s okay. I knew you’d freak out. I kind of thought it’d be worse than that.”

  “Tell me.”

  “All I heard was the guy say, ‘You’re in it just as far as I say you are. James Klodd. Darren. All of it.’ That’s word for word. I was at the back door. Him and whoever killed him were right on the other side. Soon as he was done talking I heard them start fighting. Not voices. But like, a tussle? I don’t know. But it wasn’t more than a few seconds before I heard someone kind of shout. Like a half a shout and a half a sigh, if that makes any sense. I think that must have been him right when he got stabbed in the neck. So I went to get the shotgun.”

  She took another bite of steak and chewed while Darren tried to digest what she’d laid out. He couldn’t. It didn’t make any sense in the moment. But it stirred the outrage and guilt that was ever with him. James Klodd. James Klodd. A missing girl and the name of the monster who’d stolen her. He didn’t understand why that name had been spoken aloud by Gil Sharps.

  “Anyway,” she said. “When I first heard it, I thought he was talking to you. Like if I said to you, ‘James Klodd, Darren’. But once I got off the phone with you it was real obvious you hadn’t just killed a guy, so I figured he was telling whoever killed him that they were involved with Klodd and you, both.”

  Darren put his head in his hands and closed his eyes against the swell of confusion. In that moment it felt like all the world was conspiring against him, that he was caught up in some keenly vicious design that was bent on ensuring his brother’s past sins would never come to light, his friend would be carried off to prison, and the demonic shadow of James Klodd would forever linger over him, just out of reach but always felt.

  He heard something plink down on the table and he opened his eyes.

  Theresa had finished her steak and was lighting a cigarette.

  “I know I know,” she said. “Smoking ban. They already got me for murder, so what do I care? Anyway, I found that in the grass a few feet from the dead guy. I don’t know why I picked it up. I was gonna give it to you but then they arrested me. That’s why I had to run out to your car just now. It was in the envelope they gave back to me with the rest of my stuff when you bailed me out.”

  Darren looked at what she had set on the table between them.

  It was a small silver key.

  Chapter Nine

  Issabella thumbed through the keys on her ring until she found the one for the front door of Winkle’s Tavern. She’d had it for a few months, but had never had cause to use it before. Standing on the sidewalk outside the bar, she recalled what Theresa had said when she pressed the key into Issabella’s hand.

  “Let’s be honest, chances are high that someday somebody’s gonna find me keeled over in here. If anybody’s gonna find my body, I’d prefer it be you.”

  “Because...?”

  “Don’t overthink it, Izzy.”

  She unlocked the front door, hefted the saw back onto her shoulder, and wheeled the suitcase inside.

  Once the door was locked again, she turned on the ceiling lights. The bar was a mess. The contents of every drawer had been poured out, sifted through, and left that way. She guided the suitcase past the rows of booths and through the doorway that lead to Theresa’s private rooms.

  The short hallway she stood in terminated at the steel back door of the building. If she turned right, she’d be in Theresa’s bathroom. If she turned left, Theresa’s bedroom. She had never been inside either before.

  One other doorway was farther down on the left. Issabella walked through it and found the light switch. Metal kegs of beer were stacked along two of the walls. Shelves contained boxes of liquor and other bar supplies. The far wall was dominated by a huge wooden worktable. More bar supplies were stacked all over its surface.

  Issabella saw the vise, bolted to the edge of the table.

  “Alright,” she said out loud. “There it is. Are you doing this?”

  To her mild surprise, she was. She watched the jaws of the vise slowly spreading wider and wider as she spun the handle.

  “Or you could take the suitcase back and leave it for Darren.”

  The handle came to an abrupt stop and would spin no further. The jaws of the vise yawned wide like the maw of a hungry predator. Issabella collapsed the suitcase’s handle and crouched down to get her hands under it.

  “What do you think you’ll do after they disbar you? Wait tables, maybe?”

  Once she had the suitcase in her arms and off the floor, it was easier than she’d imagined to position it until it rested in the jaws of the vise. By keeping herself pressed against it, she was able to keep it level while she started spinning the handle in the other direction. Slowly, the beast’s maw was closing shut.

  “Or maybe they’d let you speak to law school classes as a cautionary tale. Can you make a living as a cautionary tale?”

  There was an outlet on the wall to the right, so she plugged in the saw and was immediately greeted with a glimpse of the future. In that brief snapshot, she saw herself tearing into the suitcase’s locks. The saw screamed and ground down into its meal. Slivers of razor-sharp steel flew in every direction, including where she stood.

  “You’re going to blind yourself, dummy.”

  She set the saw on the workbench beside the vise and scanned the room. She needed safety goggles. A pair of them did not leap out and announce their presence, so she started poking through the piles of haphazardly stacked bar supplies.

  “You know, there was a pair in the living room with all the other tools he bought. You just didn’t think to pick them up.”

  She crouched down and started opening boxes.

  “Yeah, I do know that. And you can shut up already.”

  * * *

  Luther took his Cessna Citation X up to forty thousand feet before using the GUI panel to engage the autopilot. The sky was clear, wind from the northwest was negligible, and his cherished jet cut through the air so smoothly that anyone not watching the occasional cloud pass beneath them would swear they were standing still.

  “Carmen, fetch Dick and I’ll brief you both on what we have to accomplish today.”

  Carmen Ras stood from the co-pilot’s seat. As soon as the three of them had boarded the plane at its private hangar at O’Hare, she’d asked to sit in the cockpit with him. No, she did not fly. She wanted to see what it was like.

  She hadn’t spoken a word since sitting down. Now, she hesitated, standing there in her suit. As short as she was, with her close-cropped hairstyle, Luther thought she looked like a slight young man. Which, he supposed, was probably intentional.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Nothing. It’s just...”

  “Carmen, we have fifteen minutes before I need to pay attention and prepare to descend into Detroit. If you have something to say, do it with some measure of expedience.”

  “I wasn’t fired from the Service, sir. I don’t know why it says that in my personnel file. But it isn’t accurate.”

  Luther scanned the avionics panel, mentally checking off every gauge and read-out. A small number of pilots had reported problems with the Citation X’s autopilot. He had never experienced such problems, but he remained on the lookout.

 
“It doesn’t say that in the file. I lied to startle you. I wanted to see if you were alert when Dick pulled his weapon. I wouldn’t have hired you if they had let you go.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  She turned to go and he added, “Why did you leave them?”

  “They were sloppy. A frat culture.”

  “The men who are charged with the safety of the most powerful man in the world are sloppy. That’s your version of events.”

  “I can’t speak for the Presidential detail, sir. Most of the Service isn’t assigned to him. I was detailed to the Chilean embassy in DC as part of the Uniformed Division.”

  Luther turned in his seat to face her. Even staring at his back, he realized, she had been standing stiffly straight, her face a mask of neutral attention. Whoever she really was, she certainly had mastered the robotic blankness of a soldier at attention.

  “I gather you didn’t assimilate to this ‘frat’ culture,” he said.

  “No, sir.”

  “I suppose that’s a point in your favor. Fetch Dick and we’ll begin.”

  Carmen exited the cockpit and Luther reached in his vest pocket for his phone. He swiped in the alphanumeric code that unlocked it and saw that seven calls had been forwarded to Farah’s desk while he was busy taking flight. He scanned the list of re-routed numbers and got to the third one before stopping.

  That caller’s area code was 313. Detroit. For the briefest of moments, he entertained the hope that Gil Sharps had finally called to report in, that he was using a local phone to do it. In that moment, Luther’s number of vexations was halved.

  The moment passed as he recognized the remaining seven digits of the phone number. It was not Gil who had called.

  Carmen and Dick crowded into the cockpit as he stared at his phone and tried to summon a reason his brother would have called him that was not, in itself, a prelude to some new catastrophe.