Love Lies Bleeding

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Then, as if remembering to act the part, he tossed his gun off to one side. “Out of bullets,” he said, as he turned and pawed through the rolls of toilet paper that occupied the closet’s middle shelf.

  “You just leave your gun? Isn’t it easier to get more bullets than replace —”

  Erwin retrieved a gun from behind the paper towel rolls and checked the magazine.

  “I guess not.” Pamela, terribly confused, stared at the shelf that yielded the weapon.

  Erwin snapped the mag back into the gun, then once again grabbed Pamela’s upper arm. “I’ve got you covered. Just remember who to thank when the time comes.” He pulled her from the closet.

  •••••••••

  Back in the corridor, there was no evidence of the apparent gunfight that had taken place while Pamela was in the closet.

  Erwin, carrying the laptop, dragged her behind him. She stumbled to follow quickly enough, but his angry stride was difficult to match in a meringue wedding dress. They swerved off into another hallway, which was distinguished from the previous only by the fact that it ran in the opposite direction.

  Phil, enjoying a lemon cream donut, rounded a corner ahead. He paused with his mouth full upon seeing Erwin and Pamela. “What?”

  Erwin raised his gun. “Give me an excuse. Jesus, I would love an excuse.”

  “I … I … I …”

  “Come on, fatso. Let’s see how quickly you can drop the donut and pull your gun.”

  A look of horror crossed Phil’s face.

  “Oh, Jesus. Where the fuck did you leave it? With a suspect on site?” Erwin indicated Pamela with a wave of his gun. “You stupid fuck.”

  Pamela placed a placating hand on Erwin’s shoulder. “Maybe we should just go back.”

  “You are so fucking thick,” Erwin shouted in Pamela’s face. He couldn’t seem to decide who he hated more, Pamela or Phil.

  “Hey, now. That’s not nice,” Phil said.

  Erwin shoved the gun in Phil’s face.

  Phil, rather stupidly in hindsight, decided to maintain his false bravado. He dropped the donut with a deliberate thrust. “Now, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but the lady needs to come with me.” He made a move for Pamela.

  Erwin started to squeeze the trigger.

  Pamela, in terror of Erwin shooting Phil, yanked open a nearby door and swung it into Phil’s face as he crossed to her. Phil stumbled back, clutching his face. Blood seeped from between his fingers. “My nose! My nose!”

  Erwin choked, then coughed out a laugh. “You … you stupid fuck.”

  Pamela glanced at Phil, who continued to stumble around and clutch his nose, and then back at Erwin, who was now busting a gut, laughing so hard he was weeping at the same time. “I’m so sorry …” Pamela all but pleaded for forgiveness. “But —”

  She grabbed the laptop from the distracted Erwin, spun in a swirl of ivory and pink-flowered fabric, and fled down the hall.

  “Whoa, look at her run! And you, moron fuck, thought she was so innocent.”

  “You scared her.” By his nasal tone, Phil’s nose was obviously broken.

  Erwin, rather unconcerned, jogged off after Pamela.

  “This is all going in my report!” Phil yelled.

  Erwin flipped Phil the finger as he turned the corner. Phil, morose and rather bloody, just stared after his partner.

  On the floor, the lemon filling had spattered out of his half-eaten donut. Phil kicked at the donut, missed, and slipped in the powdered sugar that now coated the immediate vicinity. Once he'd regained his balance, Phil felt bad about the mess, so he retrieved the donut with the hanky he carried in his breast pocket. It would have been smarter to use the handkerchief on his broken nose, but Phil always had a difficult time putting his own needs first.

  •••••••••

  A car, parked perpendicular across a proper spot, waited in the building’s otherwise empty parking lot. No traffic could be seen on the nearby road. It was still sunny, which was unusual for this time of year in Vancouver. The car was perhaps the one Erwin and Phil had used to pick Pamela up from the cemetery, but also could have just been a good match. The haphazard parking seemed oddly deliberate.

  Pamela, laptop clutched to her chest, slammed through a steel double door and stumbled out of the building, momentarily blinded by the sunlight. She’d exited through the wrong side of the door, so it didn’t latch properly behind her.

  Shielding her eyes with her hand, she spotted, then crossed around the car. The driver-side door was locked. She crossed back to the passenger side, but found it locked as well.

  Erwin, his pace deliberately unhurried, exited the building. He pushed the propped steel door open with his right index finger as if this was intimidating. It wasn’t. Pamela didn’t even see him as she tried the lock on the back passenger door.

  “Oh, good, you found the car,” he called. He remote-triggered the locks.

  Pamela jumped, and then a little belatedly, attempted to flee.

  Erwin, laughing, snagged her around the waist. “Come now, Pammy baby. Let me get you safe, and then we can share secrets.” He started to drag her back to the car.

  “I don’t want safe! I have to get back, back to —”

  “There’s no back. You know how screwed I am for breaking you out?” Erwin reached for the door handle, but Pamela’s struggling kept him from making contact.

  “Please, please understand,” she begged.

  “And who do we both have to thank for this situation?” Erwin grunted as Pamela unintentionally hit him in the gut with an elbow. “Grady.”

  At the mention of Grady, Pamela slumped in defeat. “Oh, Grady.”

  “Oh, yes. Grady and his plots.”

  The laptop slipped from Pamela’s grasp. Erwin, even while holding rag doll Pamela half upright, managed to snag it one handed before it cracked on the pavement. With edgy bravado, he muttered, “Whoops, let’s not lose that. Then we’d be completely screwed.”

  Erwin managed to open the passenger door. He quickly shoved Pamela inside the car. He slammed the door shut, but her dress was caught in it. He reopened the door and tried to stuff the remainder of the dress inside, but was unsuccessful.

  Now livid, Erwin slammed the door shut, despite the dress sticking out of it, crossed to the passenger-side back tire, and kicked it repeatedly. He then crossed to the driver’s side, climbed in, and started the vehicle.

  •••••••••

  Inside the car, Erwin clutched the steering wheel and took a few deep controlling breaths. “All right then, Erwin. Let’s just get this done,” he muttered to himself, as he started the engine. He then glanced at Pamela, who slumped, and stared out the window. He tossed the computer into her lap, hit the gas, and zoomed away.

  “Hang on,” he all but yelled, as he took a sharp corner. “That should lose them.”

  Pamela rallied long enough to flick her eyes up to the passenger side view mirror. No cars were on the road. “Lose who?”

  “Exactly. I hate to pressure you, Pam, but —”

  “Pamela.”

  Erwin gritted his teeth. “But time is getting a little tight for you and me,” he spat out, then paused as if for effect. “If I don’t get some answers, we’ll both end up like Grady, in the cold, hard ground.”

  Ending up in the cold, hard ground, was exactly what Pamela wanted … finally someone was talking in terms she could embrace.

  Erwin veered off the road and stopped.

  •••••••••

  They were parked by a seemingly abandoned warehouse. It wasn’t actually abandoned; someone just wanted it to look that way. Appearance was everything, most of the time. It was rare that anyone wanted to know what was on the inside. Pamela didn’t even spare the building a glance, even though she formally prided herself in being very insightful.

  Erwin, utterly frustrated and completely fed up, swiveled in hi
s seat to face Pamela. The steering wheel kind of got in his way, but he attempted to ignore it. “You might think you have nothing to live for. But you think Grady would want his best friend and partner, myself, to die and his sacrifice for his mission to go in vain?”

  “And we never met, because?”

  “I’M A SECRET AGENT. GRADY WAS A SECRET AGENT!”

  “Yes, so you said.”

  Erwin placed a hand on the computer, which still rested in Pamela’s lap. “Help me take this information to the proper authorities. Help me break the code and put the bad guys in jail.”

  “I don’t know any code.”

  Erwin grabbed the steering wheel and wrung it as if he was fantasizing it was Pamela’s neck.

  “Could you please just take me back to Grady?” she asked. “That’s were I belong.”

  Erwin turned, his hand in the air as if to slap Pamela. But then he noted something outside, just over her shoulder. His lip curled into a sneer as he wrapped his hand around the laptop. Then, his mouth just inches from Pamela’s ear, he whispered, “You know how I know these emails are a code?”

  Pamela, not noticing whatever Erwin had seen over her shoulder, turned her head sharply toward him, which caused him to back off slightly but didn’t dissuade him from speaking his mind.

  “No man loves a woman that much,” Erwin said.

  “You’re wrong,” Pamela replied, as she held and challenged his glare, determined to uphold her true love.

  Erwin, tasting victory, bared his teeth in a nasty smile. “Remember those bad people I mentioned?”

  Pamela’s door suddenly opened. Shep filled the space beyond.

  “This is Shep. And now he’s going to hurt you.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Shep said, and bared his teeth in his typical hyena grin. He grabbed Pamela by the back of her neck and hauled her from the car. At the same time, Erwin yanked the laptop from her grasp.

  Pamela didn’t even bother to shriek. Though she’d broken a French-manicured nail on the edge of the computer.

  THE TORTURE

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Warehouse, North Shore

  On closer inspection, the ramshackle-looking warehouse was actually solidly built. Bordered by a large spread of seemingly old-growth forest. The view from the parking lot suggested they where probably somewhere near the Capilano River Regional Park, which was known for its year-round hiking and salmon spawning grounds.

  Shep dragged Pamela away from the car, toward, and into the building.

  Erwin, looking rather pleased with himself and carrying the laptop, followed.

  Around the back of the building, a white, one-ton panel truck was backed up to a loading bay.

  •••••••••

  Boxes of stolen goods were piled everywhere inside the warehouse. They could have held legitimate goods, but, to judge by the mix of TVs, pharmaceuticals, and dried shark fin Pamela could see poking out of them, that seemed unlikely. Gritty windows high on the walls repelled the outside light, while bare bulbs illuminated the inside. No dust covered the boxes. They obviously hadn’t sat there for long.

  To one side, various hoodlums were grouped around a large HDTV in a makeshift dining and kitchen area. A hockey game played. Oddly for this late in the season, the Canucks seemed to be winning.

  A large, very sturdy crate sat near the open loading bay door, as if waiting to be moved onto the truck. Its rectangular shape suggesting a coffin, it was standing lengthwise up on one end.

  As he passed, and with Pamela still in tow, Shep snagged a chair from the nearby table and dragged it into a clear spot in the center of the cavernous room. He then roughly shoved Pamela into the chair, momentarily knocking the wind out of her.

  “Tsk, tsk, Shep. A little decorum would not be a waste.” Mr. Doyle, the elegant man from the funeral, spoke with an English lilt, though his accent tended to broaden and then drop when he became emotional. He could have been anywhere from forty to sixty-five years old, but he didn’t bother to celebrate his birthday. He treated himself to something everyday. His head was bald but his face was mostly unlined. He prided himself in a well-cut suit, and always used a handkerchief rather than Kleenex. A barber blade-shaved him every morning. Routine was paramount. His eyes were dead green.

  Shep grunted in response.

  A hoodlum, the driver from the cemetery, jogged over with some rope and knelt to tie Pamela to the chair.

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Erwin said as he handed the laptop to Mr. Doyle. He then continued to mock Pamela. “She’s not interested in rediscovering life.”

  “Which makes Shep’s job a little more difficult, I suppose,” Mr. Doyle replied dryly.

  Shep grinned; difficult sounded good to him. “Tighter,” he ordered the driver.

  The driver cinched the rope, and Pamela couldn’t help but suck in her breath with a miniature moan.

  “Ah, a screamer. I like that,” Shep said.

  “Everything we need is on the computer?” Mr. Doyle asked Erwin, never taking his eyes off of Pamela.

  “As far as we’ve figured.”

  “But you have been unsuccessful in breaking the girl or the code.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “It’s not like you gave me a whole lot of time, and truth serum wasn’t —”

  “You bore me.”

  Shep grabbed Erwin, covered his mouth with his hand while pinching his nose, and slammed him down across his bent knee. Having taken him unawares and then knocking the wind out of him, he had no problem pinning Erwin to the ground while smothering him.

  Erwin fought madly, but with Shep’s knee on his chest, he was unable to throw off the much larger man. It was difficult to thwart someone who killed so casually.

  Pamela’s eyes widened, she couldn’t tear them from Erwin, watching him start to convulse as his body struggled for air. She began to breathe heavily as panic threatened to consume her.

  Erwin stopped flailing.

  Shep stood and gave Erwin’s supine body a light shove with his foot. Erwin didn’t otherwise move. “No point in wasting a bullet,” Shep said, but there was no sense of malice in his observation.

  “Please …” Pamela gulped for air, inhaling just enough to beg. “Please … I …”

  “How delightful. I think she might plead with us, Shep. Save your energy, darling, we haven’t even gotten started.”

  “Hey!” Shep yelled toward the group of hoodlums. The driver and another hood hurried over to carry Erwin’s body toward the loading bay and onto the truck. They attempted to keep one eye on the game while doing so, tossing Erwin in the back of the truck like he was just another box.

  “Now, some tea perhaps?” Mr. Doyle said sweetly. “No, that won’t do; Shep will sulk if I loose your hands. Really, Shep, we could have observed a few pleasantries. The girl looks like she has had an atrocious day. Though originally that wedding dress really was a pretty pick.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But dragging about in it seems a little … morose. Shall we find you something else?”

  “No! Please, I mean, no thank you.”

  “I say she starved herself for a month to get into it,” Shep said with a snort as he crossed behind Pamela. She squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation, but he simply picked her up, chair and all, to gauge her weight.

  “What diet, dear? Atkins?”

  “Um, no. I’m just naturally slim.”

  “Really, with those hips?”

  “Ah, yoga.”

  “I see.”

  Shep dropped Pamela back to the ground with a grunt. “The dress could be adding ten, twelve pounds.”

  “You see the problem is your weight. If we don’t know it, we could overdose you before we want to, and then we wouldn’t get the answers I seek.”

  “One hundred thirty-five pounds.”

  “Have you weighed yourself since Grady’s death?” Mr. Doyle asked. Pamela’s fac
e fell. “Have you eaten since Grady’s death? Not much I’d say. That’s true love for you. Tragic really.”

  “We go traditional,” Shep declared. “I like that better.” He wandered away.

  “You … you could just ask me questions.”

  “And would you give me the same answers you gave dear Erwin?” Mr. Doyle clasped his hands, looking expectantly down at Pamela. Pamela rapidly tried to think of something she could say or phrase differently, but she had no other answers to give. “Hmm, I thought so. Shep’s method is much more satisfying.”

  Mr. Doyle closed the space between himself and Pamela. “It’s too bad. You are lovely, in a common sort of way. One cannot help but to touch you.” He reached out to stroke her cheek, but then thought better of it. “Best not to get too attached. You would have been a good match to Grady. All his fire would have had a good hearth to burn in with you keeping his home.”

  Pamela could barely bring herself to be surprised at this revelation, it seemed today that everyone was claiming to have known Grady. Still, she yearned to speak of her love, even though the pain at each mention of his name was a knife in her heart. “You knew Grady?”

  “I offered him a job once. He turned me down. Erwin, as you saw, was much more accommodating. Or greedy, if you prefer.”

  “I thought … Erwin said he was working for the government, but Grady was a medical officer.”Mr. Doyle smiled. “Poor dear. You really haven’t figured it all out? What do the government and armies have in common?”

  “War?”

  “Very good. And what does a war need?”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Why, weapons of course. Unfortunately, the largest difficulty with sustaining a war long enough to truly profit is a soldier’s mortality. And morality, of course. Grady had a problem with what — or rather, who — we were developing. So he went sniffing around, stealing secret formulas —”

  “You killed Grady.” It wasn’t a question, but a quietly pained statement.