Mean Business on North Ganson Street

by S. Craig Zahler

  The detective dialed the wheel counterclockwise, hoping that the new angle would put some dry powder underneath the tires. He tapped the accelerator. The engine rumbled, and the truck lurched from the furrow.

  Snow covered the windshield and was shoved aside by the wipers as the detective caught up to the silver car.

  The convoy sped north. For twenty minutes, Bettinger pondered his wife’s surgery, his son’s death, and Sebastian Ramirez.

  Eight inches of powder were on the ground when the silver car fishtailed.

  The vehicle slid across the road, spattering snow, and slammed against an embankment. There, its spinning tires flung slush.

  Bettinger braked and rolled down his window as he neared the marooned car.

  Taillights flashed, and soon, Dominic emerged from the sedan, holding two big black squares in his right hand. “Floor mats,” the big fellow shouted when he made eye contact with the detective.

  Bettinger parked the truck, grabbed his rugs, and walked outside. Snow needled his scalp as he walked toward his partner.

  “As if things ain’t bad enough already.” Dominic wiped violet precipitation from his face. “Fuckin’ goddamn weather.”

  The policemen put a floor mat under each of the tires and withdrew from the vehicle, dusting themselves. Inside, Tackley scooted behind the steering wheel, shifted gears, and accelerated. The silver car surged out of the slush, jettisoning rugs and ice.

  Bettinger returned to his truck, buckled up, and followed Dominic west until they reached Ganson Street. There, the convoy turned right and headed north.

  Dark rectangles that had once held doors or windows gaped on either side of the Shitopia street, and to the detective, the bleak area seemed no more hospitable with its snow makeover. Despair, violence, and defeat permeated northern Victory like nuclear fallout.

  The silver car reached an intersection, circumvented an overturned van, and disappeared on its far side.

  Seeing the obstacle, Bettinger applied his brakes and turned the wheel. Tires squeaked, and the pickup truck lurched, sliding across the powder directly toward the capsized automobile, which was less than fifty feet away.

  The detective righted the wheel, hoping to gain some traction. Tires gripped fresh snow, and the truck shuddered.

  Fifteen feet separated the vehicles.

  Impact was unavoidable. Tightening his fists, Bettinger braked and cut the wheel.

  The truck slammed into the overturned van, and the detective lurched. His seat belt snapped taut, bracing him as his vehicle skidded. The violet world receded.

  Trailing slush, the truck slid across the intersection. The front bumper pounded a telephone pole, and the detective flew toward the windshield. His body jerked to a stop, and something cracked. A brush fire of pain flared across his left side, and instantly, he knew that the seat belt had fractured his ribs.

  The truck was still.

  A rope of snow dropped from a jarred telephone line and bisected the street.

  Bettinger exhaled an unconsciously held breath, and pain shot across his damaged ribs.

  Grimacing, he shifted into reverse and tapped the accelerator. Wheels flung slush, and the vehicle sank into the snow.

  “Christ’s—”

  Tires screeched, striking pavement, and the truck lurched backward. Relieved, Bettinger slowed down, shifted gears, and drove north on Ganson Street. The silver car was no longer visible.

  Snow covered the windshield, and the rubber blades faltered, straining against the thick accumulation.

  Suddenly, the detective was driving an igloo.

  “Junk.”

  Bettinger dialed his windshield wipers off and on, and the slumbering blades awakened, clearing paths through the snow. The road ahead of him was empty, except for a falling pigeon that disappeared in a cloud of powder like a feathered meteor.

  Leaning on the gas, the detective zoomed through an intersection and up the next street. Little red rubies that were taillights twinkled through the snowfall, and soon, he located the silver car, which was waiting for him at the end of the next block.

  When a distance of ninety feet separated the two vehicles, Dominic continued forward.

  Hail fell, rattling on the truck’s windshield as Bettinger followed his partner north. The speedometer needle returned to the number 50 and did not sink. Slow progress was not an option.

  The automobiles passed apartment buildings that lacked façades—a hive of exposed cubicles in which lay ruined toilets, sofas, mattresses, chairs, pipes, and doors. Each edifice was a five- to ten-story diorama of failure.

  The convoy rolled through a score of intersections, continuing north across the abandoned terrain.

  Thunder boomed, and the silver car’s taillights glared.

  Suddenly, Bettinger was speeding toward the back of Dominic’s sedan, which had come to a complete stop. He raised his foot from the gas and dialed the wheel to the right, hoping to avoid the unseen barrier or pit that had stopped the other vehicle.

  Snow peppered the windshield, and the truck swept past the silver car at a speed of forty-two miles an hour.

  The path remained clear and solid.

  Gently, the detective applied the brakes. The truck slowed and eventually stopped.

  Bettinger toggled the gear, opened the door, and climbed outside. Shielding his eyes, he looked down the block.

  The front of the silver car was below street level—a gigantic pothole (or something even deeper) had ended its journey—and the windshield was cracked. Doors swung open, releasing Dominic and Tackley.

  “Fuckin’ Shitopia,” exclaimed the big fellow.

  Bettinger cupped his hands beside his mouth and called out, “Need some help?”

  “Stay there,” replied the mottled man.

  “Okay.”

  Dominic retrieved a big green duffel bag from the trunk while Tackley claimed the cardboard box and tactical vests from the backseat. Together, they walked north.

  Bettinger returned to the cab of the pickup truck, cleared room for his passengers, and sat back, waiting for them to arrive.

  Outside, the winds whistled, and the violet snow turned white. A crosscurrent blew, skirling, and bright motes veered like wary insects.

  Crunching footfalls sounded behind the truck. The duffel bag thudded against the bottom of the flatbed, shaking the vehicle, and Dominic appeared outside the passenger window. As he opened the door, the clouds shifted, and the landscape turned gray.

  The big fellow slid across the bench into the middle of the cab. Most of his bandages had been removed by the crash and the blizzard, and for the first time, the detective saw the collection of thick stitches, dark scabs, and pale scars that adorned his saturnine face.

  Metal clanked as the cardboard box landed in the flatbed, and soon, Tackley climbed into the vehicle, wiping snow from his silver hair, which had acquired a dark red streak above his left eyebrow.

  Bettinger shifted into gear. The truck rolled forward, carrying three policemen and a wide assortment of unkind tools.

  “How far are the Heaps?”

  “Couple of miles.” Dominic ripped a stitch from his face and discarded it.

  “Leave that alone,” remarked Tackley.

  “It was buggin’ me.”

  “Leave it alone.”

  At a speed of fifty miles an hour, the pickup truck continued north. Bettinger hoped to reach the Heaps before the battle against nature was lost.

  Trembling wipers shoved snow off of the glass, revealing a series of dead condominiums.

  “Remember when they was buildin’ those?” Dominic asked Tackley.

  “Yeah.”

  “Like a different world back then.”

  “It was a different world back then.”

  An unanswered question returned to Bettinger’s mind, and he glanced at his passengers. “How did you get Sebastian to drop the lawsuit?”

  Dominic threw a frown. “What the fuck does that matter now?”

 
“It matters because I want to know.” The detective’s face and fists hardened. “And if you say it’s none of my business, I’ll break your fucking teeth.”

  A heavy silence filled the cab of the truck.

  Bettinger circumvented a dip in the road, surprised by the threat that had leapt from his mouth, but also certain that he could and would commit the declared act of violence. An important part of his life was gone, and an angry, grieving entity that could usurp rational thought had filled the void.

  The windshield wipers squeaked.

  Shifting in his seat, Dominic looked at Tackley, who kept his eyes on the road.

  “You care?” inquired the big fellow.

  Snow turned the windshield into a pane of glaucoma, and soon, the shuddering wipers swept it clean.

  The mottled man shrugged.

  “Okay.” Dominic glanced at Bettinger and then returned his gaze to the blizzard. “When Sebastian came out of his coma, he filed charges against us. We told him we’d bust up his operations—all of them—unless he dropped the suit, but he didn’t care. We closed them down, and Sebastian kept on talkin’ with his lawyers. Week after that, we told him we’d go after his associates’ operations unless he dropped the suit, but he didn’t care ’bout that neither. Nigga just wanted to take us down.” The big fellow cracked his thick knuckles and shook his head. “This motherfucker got a cop—our friend—tortured to death, and there was no fuckin’ way he was gonna take our badges and win.”

  Bettinger could not see more than sixty feet ahead of the truck. Anything that appeared in the middle of the road would be narrowly avoided or run over.

  Dominic glanced at Tackley and returned his gaze to the storm. “So we kidnapped Sebastian’s sister and girlfriend—took them to a place in the fringe. Then we went and visited him—told him the kinds of things that would happen if he took us to court.”

  Bettinger clenched his fists. “Did you tell him they would be raped?”

  “Yeah. And we had some abortion tools—this was before Melissa had her miscarriage. But we wouldn’t’ve done any of that stuff to them—it was just scare tactics.”

  The detective recognized the strategy. “Like you did with Kimmy?”

  “Who?”

  “Melissa’s roommate.”

  “Like with her.”

  “Did Melissa lose her child—Sebastian’s, I’m assuming—while you had her?”

  “Accidentally.”

  “Fucking Jesus Christ,” exclaimed Bettinger. There was a time—not very long ago—when he would have shot or arrested such men. Now, they seemed to be his allies.

  “We didn’t do anything but tie her up and scare her,” defended Dominic. “It was just talk.”

  “Talk can be enough.” Bettinger tried not to think about how his own poorly chosen words had cost him his job in Arizona and affected his family. “You didn’t expect some sort of retaliation after he dropped the suit?”

  “Sebastian was scared. He knew what would happen if he tried to hit back.”

  The detective saw a suspicious lump in the road and dialed the wheel clockwise. Shaking, the weary vehicle fought its way through the elements.

  “And what happened,” the big fellow added, “all this we’re dealing with right now, ain’t no ‘retaliation.’ It’s fuckin’ insanity.”

  “Not to Sebastian.”

  The truck lurched, fishtailing. Dominic and Tackley buckled their seat belts, and Bettinger stomped the gas. Spinning rubber struck dry powder, and the vehicle surged, once again under control.

  “It’s still fucking insane,” added the big fellow. “What he did.”

  “You crippled him, and while he was in the hospital, adjusting to life with a diaper and a wheelchair and one lung, you killed his unborn child and threatened to rape his loved ones.” Bettinger glared at his passengers. “Is there a sane reaction to something like that? When everything you care about is threatened or destroyed by a group of men who are empowered by the state?”

  “He should’ve come at us directly.”

  “And have the entire precinct pick up where you left off?”

  Dominic shrugged, fingering the collection of scars that the shotgun pellets had scored into his left cheek.

  “You want to offer us another critique?” Tackley asked Bettinger. “Tell us what a smart guy like you would’ve done?” The mottled man’s voice was even, but his blue eyes were baleful.

  Bettinger avoided a shadow in the road that might have been a corneal imperfection. “There’s no point. We all want the same thing. Find Sebastian, get the names of the gunmen, kill Sebastian.”

  “That’s it.”

  “I’ll want a confirmation that he’s responsible before we kill him.”

  “You’ll get a confession.”

  “And the women?”

  “They facilitated mass murder.” Tackley’s reply was cold and definitive.

  “Accomplices,” added Dominic.

  Bettinger did not dispute these statements, but he doubted that he could shoot a woman in any situation other than one of self-defense.

  It was clear that his associates had no such limitations.

  Snow poured down, obscuring the abandoned concrete world as the pickup truck sped north.

  Dominic plucked another wire from his face. Blood ran from the wound over sutures and scabs until it reached his chin, where it swelled like a tear.

  Tires boomed. The policemen jerked forward, and seat belts snapped taut. A drop of blood spattered the windshield.

  The rumbling world scrolled east.

  Metal grated against concrete as the vehicle skidded, trailing a wake of slush. Braced, the detective and his associates waited for impact.

  A brick wall pounded the hood. Bettinger’s fractured ribs cracked, and his forehead bounced off of the steering wheel. Somebody’s blood spattered the glass.

  Suddenly, the truck was still.

  The blizzard rushed in through the shattered windshield, and steam rose from the hood.

  Leaning back, the detective looked at his passengers, who were both unbuckling their seat belts.

  “We’re close to the Heaps,” Dominic said as he slid across the bench and followed Tackley outside.

  Bettinger shut off the engine, donned his ballistic apparel, holstered his silencer-fitted guns, pocketed his dog whistle, zipped up his parka, opened the door, and entered the blizzard. Hail rattled upon the devil mask that covered his face.

  XLVIII

  The Heaps

  Tackley withdrew a couple of shiny items from the cardboard box and deposited them in the duffel bag that was slung over Dominic’s right shoulder.

  “That mask fits,” the big fellow said when he saw the detective.

  “Yeah.”

  The mottled man pulled the zipper to its stop, and soon, he and his former partner donned ski masks and tactical vests.

  Snow fell on the policemen as they abandoned the dead pickup truck.

  Bettinger trudged north underneath the gray sky, ignoring the pain in his ribs. His boots disappeared in the white blanket, resurfaced, flinging white clumps, and then vanished again. It looked like fourteen inches of snow had fallen during the last two and a half hours.

  On either side of the road loomed tall gray buildings that had been eroded by years and weather. The wind that blew through these rounded obelisks sounded resentful, if not hostile.

  Bettinger’s corduroys were wet and his shins were numb by the time he reached the next intersection. “How many blocks?” he asked his associates.

  “Four or five.”

  The masked policemen kicked furrows up Ganson Street. Upon a rooftop that was once an enclosed penthouse floor, turquoise toilets and matching bathtubs collected snow.

  Something crunched, and Bettinger looked toward the noise.

  Dominic lifted his left leg from the white blanket. Beige innards, brown ice, and gray-green feathers adhered to the bottom of his boot.

  “I’m real fuckin’ sick of
these things.”

  The trio reached the next intersection and circumvented a garbage bin that had been relocated by somebody into the middle of the road.

  “Glad he didn’t drive into that,” Dominic said to Tackley.

  “Because the building was so soft?”

  Bettinger noticed that the mottled man had a busted lip and a missing incisor.

  The wind keened as it changed directions, and snow flew horizontally. Ice shot directly into the detective’s eyes.

  “How long’s that been there?” asked Dominic. “Never seen it before.”

  “I don’t know,” replied Tackley.

  Bettinger cleared the snow from his mask and looked north.

  Lying on its side across Ganson Street was half of a high-rise building. Structural beams jutted from the massive, snow-blanketed obstruction like the ribs of a dead animal.

  “How’d it get there?” asked the big fellow.

  “Explosives.” The mottled man pointed at an upright building that had been diminished by half.

  “Why? Keep people out?”

  “Who knows why Heapers do anything.”

  Boots sank in the powder and tossed white clumps. It soon became clear to the policemen that the toppled structure would preclude any further progress along Ganson Street.

  “There’s a way around?” asked Bettinger. His feet were numb, and his skin felt unnaturally tight, as if he were wearing a wetsuit.

  Tackley motioned west with his left arm, and all three men trudged in that direction. Ice crunched, and the wind skirled. The weather was not a confluence of elements, but a cognitive and malicious thing that hated humans.

  Bettinger’s right boot slipped on a buried sheet of metal, and his broken ribs clicked. The pain forced a yell from his mouth and drove him to his knees.

  Dominic glanced over. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Bettinger said as he rose to his feet.

  Inexorably, he trudged.

  Numbness overtook sensation in the detective’s appendages, and he tried not to think about things like frostbite.

  The policemen continued along the side street until they reached the next intersection. There, they turned north.

  Bettinger looked ahead, but was unable to see the far end of the block through the dazzling white precipitation. The cold bit his exposed neck, and his numb feet alternately sank in the blanket and flung clumps. He knew for a fact that if Hell existed, it was not a place of warmth.