Mean Business on North Ganson Street

by S. Craig Zahler

  The detective withdrew the stoma, sprayed vomit and feces into his victim’s eyes, and stepped away from the rank mess, discarding the pouch. His heart was pounding.

  Blinded by excrement, Sebastian Ramirez lost consciousness. It was clear that he would never again awaken.

  “You fucking animals!” yelled Melissa. “You crippled him, you killed our baby, and now—”

  Tackley stepped on her mouth, eyed his associate, and motioned to the door. “Go help Dominic.”

  Bettinger’s blood grew cold. “What’re you gonna do to her?”

  “Go help Dominic.” The mottled man pointed to a set of keys that lay atop a television set. “Find that blue jeep.”

  Melissa turned away from Tackley’s heel and gasped. “Don’t leave me with him. Please don’t—”

  The mottled man kicked the young woman in the stomach, knocking the air out of her system.

  Bettinger’s pulse raced. His voice was hard when he asked, “What’re you gonna do to her?”

  “Stuff.” The mottled man rested his hand upon the grip of his assault rifle. “Take comfort in the fact that you can’t stop me.”

  A red dot landed upon the detective’s thigh.

  “Go help Dominic.”

  Earlier that day, the detective had defined his two objectives: Kill Sebastian and stay alive. He could not risk his life—and the future well-being of his wife and daughter—for a woman who had facilitated mass murder.

  It was time for him to leave.

  Jaw clenched, Bettinger snatched the car keys and walked toward the exit. The smells of blood and excrement filled his head.

  “Meet me on the ground floor of the garage,” said Tackley. “This shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

  The detective covered his face with the devil mask.

  Melissa wept.

  Sickened, Bettinger circumvented Sebastian’s corpse and Margarita’s unconscious body. As he stepped over the duffel bag, he saw the pair of shiny items that the mottled man had taken from the cardboard box of kitchen supplies.

  The objects were cheese graters.

  Bettinger hastened across the floorboards of the pine green waiting area. Something whimpered behind him, and he could not tell if it was one of the women or one of the dogs.

  LI

  Partners

  Suppressing hideous thoughts, the detective walked down the carpeted hallway, crawled through the tunnel, landed in the van, opened its side door, and entered the subterranean level of the parking garage. There, he turned on his tactical light and swung it in an arc. The bright beam divined no inhabitants.

  Bettinger walked toward the exit, passing by rotten boxes and dead cars. A rat scurried from one vehicle to another for some purpose that made no more sense than did any of the terrible events that had occurred in Victory during the past twenty-four hours.

  Ahead of him stood the entrance to the stairwell. A piece of cardboard that Tackley had wedged between the door and the jamb was still in place, holding it open.

  Bettinger pointed his tactical light at the ground directly in front of the portal. Sitting in the luminous circle were familiar paw prints, the tread marks of his boots, and the small footprints of his mottled associate.

  The detective killed his beam, approached the door, and put his shoulder to the wall. There, he turned his ear to the narrow opening and listened.

  Thick breathing sounded inside of the stairwell. The pitch of these ugly respirations was familiar.

  “Dominic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m coming up.”

  Bettinger turned on his tactical light and entered the stairwell.

  Dominic coughed. “What happened?”

  “We killed Sebastian.”

  The detective climbed toward the landing where the big fellow was sitting.

  “Where’s Tackley?”

  “Getting information from Melissa.”

  “You make Sebastian suffer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  Bettinger ascended, his footfalls amplified by the acoustics. “Right now, we need to find that blue jeep.”

  “Okay.” Dominic pulled his ski mask over his lacerated face.

  The detective reached the landing and helped his partner to his feet. It looked like the big fellow had applied an entire roll of duct tape to his bad ankle.

  “You can walk?”

  “Yeah.” Dominic gripped the rail, hunched forward, and began to climb. “Took more of those painkillers.”

  “Let’s get out on the ground floor and go up the ramps.” Bettinger assumed that the doors to the other levels would be locked, and he desperately needed to see some daylight.

  “Okay.”

  The big fellow reached the landing and winced as he leaned against the wall. His shoulders rose and fell like those of a person who had just run a race.

  The detective stalked to the door, cracked it open, and listened. Nothing was audible except for his partner’s heavy respirations.

  Bettinger peered through the opening. Diffused daylight illuminated the ground floor of the garage, which appeared to be uninhabited.

  The detective leveled his gun and walked through the doorway. His partner followed after him, limping, but did not greatly inhibit their rate of progress.

  “Are the Dobermans okay?”

  Bettinger looked back to see if Dominic was joking. Genuine concern showed in his small eyes.

  “Tackley shot them.”

  The big fellow looked down and shook his head. “I guess he had to.”

  “Watch out,” said Bettinger, pointing out a hole in the floor that was a skylight for the nether level. A latticework of rusty pipes covered half of the opening.

  Dominic limped around the hole. “Thanks.”

  “You should stay here.” The detective gestured at the inclined ramp that led to the second level. “I’ll go up and find the jeep.”

  “I can make it.”

  Bettinger shrugged.

  The masked policemen continued across the parking garage. As they passed the beheaded vagrant, the detective accidentally kicked a chunk of ice that had some wisdom teeth.

  “How’d you do it?” asked Dominic.

  “What?”

  “How did you kill him? Sebastian?”

  “Talk to the little guy.”

  “Don’t want to get into it?”

  “I won’t get into it.”

  Together, the partners strode toward the ramp. The sounds of their labored strides bounced in every direction.

  “Well I wanna thank you for what you did,” said the big fellow. “You figured it all out—with Slick Sam and the whistles—and we never would’ve found them if it wasn’t for you.”

  Bettinger slammed a fist into Dominic’s mouth.

  The big fellow staggered backward. “What the fu—”

  The detective pounded his partner’s nose, snapping the cartilage.

  Dominic reeled, stunned by the blow.

  Pain shot up Bettinger’s knuckles, and as he set his feet apart in a fighting stance, he discarded his ballistic mask and his gun. His eyes were stinging.

  Dominic tore off his hood and spat blood. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  The detective slammed a right hook into his partner’s ear, knocking him to one knee.

  Bettinger chambered his left leg.

  “Stop this shit right now,” Dominic warned, “or I’ll k—”

  The detective’s right boot thudded against the big fellow’s tactical vest.

  Dominic toppled, falling backward onto the homeless man. A frozen arm snapped off and slid across the concrete.

  Tears poured down Bettinger’s face. Raising his fists, he charged at his partner.

  Dominic dove forward, grabbed the detective’s legs, and upended him.

  Cold concrete slammed against Bettinger’s hurt side, and the pain that shot through his body felt like a flamethrower burning raw nerves. Agonized, he yelled.


  Dominic slammed a forearm against his partner’s vest, forcing the air from his lungs.

  Bettinger threw a knee into the big fellow’s stomach, and a huge closed fist hammered his right ear. Just as it began to ring, Dominic pounded it again.

  Gasping for air, the big fellow said, “Don’t make me—”

  The detective stomped on his partner’s bad ankle.

  A yell exploded from Dominic’s mouth, filling the garage.

  Bettinger got to his knees, made a claw with his right hand, and slashed his fingertips across the big fellow’s face, tearing scabs and stitches.

  Dominic yelled and slammed on his back, his face bleeding in a dozen places. “That’s it!”

  Bettinger swung.

  The big fellow grabbed his partner’s wrist and twisted it around. Bright pain filled the detective’s right shoulder and exploded when the bone popped out of its socket.

  Shouting, Bettinger collapsed.

  Dominic released his partner’s dislocated limb, gasped for air, and sat up. “For a smart guy … you’re a fuckin’ idiot.”

  The detective pushed at the ground with his left hand and rose to his knees. His right shoulder radiated a sharp screaming pain that filled his entire body.

  The big fellow wiped loose stitches and bits of skin from his face. “What the fuck’s all this?”

  Bettinger lunged at Dominic.

  The big fellow grabbed his partner’s neck and slammed his face into the ground. Cracked concrete was all that the detective could see.

  Dominic spat and pressed a knee into the prone man’s spine. “I ain’t gonna let you up until—”

  The detective threw his left elbow, but a big hand slapped it away.

  Again, Dominic spat. “I ain’t gonna let you up until you’re sorted out.”

  Tears dripped from Bettinger’s eyes onto the concrete. His body was a place where assorted mental and physical traumas had gathered.

  “You through with this?” inquired Dominic.

  The inside of the detective’s mouth tasted like blood and stone, and he no longer knew how to talk. Less than an inch away from his eyes, tears pooled.

  Again, the big fellow asked, “You through?”

  Bettinger thought of Alyssa and Karen, who were waiting for him at the hospital in Stonesburg. Concrete rubbed against his face, scouring it like sandpaper, and he soon realized that he was nodding his head yes. The pressures on his neck and spine disappeared, and big hands rolled him onto his back. Overhead loomed the rotten ceiling of the parking garage and his partner’s tattered face.

  “Take them.” Dominic put two blue pills in Bettinger’s left hand.

  “What—” The detective coughed. “What are they?” His voice was a harsh croak.

  “Painkillers.”

  “What k-kind?”

  The big fellow shrugged. “The kind Tackley’s been on since he broke his back.”

  “When’d that happen?”

  “’Ninety-four.”

  Bettinger sat up. Fires had replaced his insides, and all around him, the garage wobbled. A firm hand landed upon his shoulders, steadying him as he put the blue pills into his mouth and choked them down with blood.

  LII

  Return of the Ugly Men

  Every footstep jogged Bettinger’s dislocated shoulder and injured ribs, but the narcotic made his pains bearable. Hobbling up the ramp, he felt removed from reality, as if he were walking around in an old movie, and he wondered how Tackley was able to remain quick and sharp while under the influence of such powerful medication.

  “That wasn’t because of what I did to your car?” asked Dominic. “Back there?”

  “I’m gonna pretend that question’s rhetorical.”

  The partners soon reached the second level. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, and a heap of rubble sat directly ahead of them.

  Bettinger shone his tactical light toward the left side of the obstruction, illuminating tracks that had been made by a set of off-road tires. The ambling duo followed these around the heap and through a motley collection of cars that were burned or capsized or both.

  Dominic’s beam landed on a warped shopping cart, and the partners paused. Lying upon the rotten blanket that covered the bottom of the basket was a nude black infant. The frozen baby had died with its eyes and mouth wide open.

  “Should we do something?” asked the big fellow.

  Bettinger limped away from the tableau and did not stop until he found the blue jeep.

  * * *

  Heat blew from the dashboard vents, warming the battered policemen as they waited for the third member of their group on the ground level of the parking garage.

  Dominic lifted a hand from the steering wheel, stabbed an index finger into the radio, and wrenched the dial. Static hissed on every station, and Bettinger wondered if perhaps the civilized world had ended during their absence. Eleven hours had passed since he had awakened in the Sunflower Motel, but the elapsed time felt like a century.

  Leaning over, the big fellow opened the glove compartment, looked inside, and withdrew two jewel boxes. “Had pretty good taste in music,” he said as he slotted a compact disc into the console. A bass drum thudded in the speakers, jarring the detective’s nose, ribs, and dislocated shoulder, and black men who might have been tone deaf filled the air with immodest rhymes.

  Bettinger looked through the exit at the Heaps. The blizzard had ended, and the lumpy piles of pure white powder that he saw resembled stratocumulus clouds.

  “It’s like the shittiest Heaven ever.”

  * * *

  Shortly after three o’clock, Tackley emerged from the stairwell, wearing the duffel bag on his left shoulder and the ski mask over his face. A series of quick strides brought him to the driver’s side of the jeep, where he opened the rear door.

  “You get the names of the killers?” asked Dominic.

  “I did.” The mottled man climbed into the backseat, closed the door, and thumbed the lock.

  Bad smells filled the vehicle.

  “The middlemen too?” asked the big fellow.

  “Those were just fiction. Melissa and Margarita did everything for Sebastian while he was in ICU—even went to Florida and Illinois to send the letters.”

  This information did not make Bettinger feel any better about what had happened to the women.

  Tackley slapped the wall of the jeep as if he were killing a gnat. “This thing should be able to handle the snow.”

  “Should.”

  Dominic shifted gears and accelerated. As the jeep rolled toward the exit, daylight shone upon the swollen, bruised, and bloodied faces of the men who sat up front.

  “What the hell happened to you two?” asked Tackley.

  Neither Bettinger nor Dominic offered a reply.

  “You did that to each other?”

  The big fellow shrugged.

  A tire shattered the vagrant’s hand as the jeep left the parking garage. Sunlight surrounded the vehicle, and three cell phones buzzed.

  Bettinger reached his good arm across his body, seized the plaintive device, and tilted his foggy skull. The screen told him that he had thirty-seven missed calls and fourteen messages.

  “Hold on,” said Tackley. “There’s something that we need to discuss right now.”

  Bettinger and Dominic eyed the mottled man through the rearview mirror.

  “The killers are national,” Tackley stated, “and we’ll need to figure out a credible source for their names before contacting the feds.”

  Snow squeaked beneath the mud-terrain tires as Bettinger ruminated. “I’ll say I found a list in that cooler. It doesn’t make complete sense why he’d have it, but he’s guilty and dead, and nobody can cross-examine him.”

  The mottled man considered the proposal for a moment. “That should work.”

  “You’d better dispose of this jeep too.”

  “We know guys.”

  “And leave Slick Sam outside an emergency room.”

/>   “Sure we will.”

  Tackley’s sincerity was dubious, but Bettinger had no interest in getting shot over a felon who might already be dead and frozen in a downtown basement.

  Nobody asked about the women.

  After a brief moment of silence, the policemen raised their cell phones.

  Bettinger highlighted his wife’s name and pressed the connect button. His right ear was still ringing from the two heavy blows that Dominic had landed there, and thus, he clapped the receiver to the opposite side of his head. The rapper boasted about gangbanging a white bitch, and the detective slammed the heel of his right boot into the console, silencing the misogynist.

  Dominic and Tackley exchanged a glance in the rearview mirror.

  “Nigga’s gone psycho crazy.”

  Bettinger listened to the phone ring, thinking about botched surgical procedures and MRSA brain infections—terrorized by his own imagination.

  Somebody picked up on the other end.

  “Jules?”

  The voice belonged to Alyssa.

  Relief flooded through the detective’s body, and a moment later, he relaxed his muscles and remembered how to breathe. “How’d the surgery go?”

  “You’re okay?”

  “Yes. How was the surgery?”

  “Fine. Was asleep until an hour ago—they just brought Karen up.”

  “Dr. Edwards is comfortable with how everything looks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s Karen?”

  “She’s okay. Really quiet.”

  Bettinger knew that he could not talk about his daughter right now. “You feel okay?”

  “Yeah—though pretty numb. Are you hurt? You sound different.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You … did what you needed to?”

  “I did.” There was some satisfaction, yet no pride in this statement.

  “So you’re done?”

  “Completely. As soon as Dr. Edwards says you’re okay, we’ll pack up and go back to Arizona.”

  There was a silence on the line, and Bettinger knew that Alyssa was fighting back tears. The two of them were no longer in any immediate danger, and now they had to face life without their son.

  Snow crackled underneath the tires of the jeep, and the detective cleared his throat. “I’ll call when I’m close.”