by Mike Gomes
The Fixer
The Falau Files, Volume 1
Mike Gomes
Published by Mike Gomes, 2017.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE FIXER
First edition. September 7, 2017.
Copyright © 2017 Mike Gomes.
ISBN: 978-1974681761
Written by Mike Gomes.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Additional Information
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For Lynne. Glad you enjoyed it.
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Chapter 1
ICE RATTLED OFF THE side of the glass from the shaking of his hand. No matter how hard he tried, he just could not stop the shaking.
Taking a long pull from the glass of whiskey he hoped to control his fears, but still the shaking wouldn’t stop and he knew he could not drink himself blind while he still had a job to do. Calming his hand for just a moment he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his front pocket and patted the side of the box; a habit from years of smoking, though he never really knew why he did it. Struggling to get the cigarette into his mouth he took a deep breath and attempted to regain composure again. Lifting his hand, the cigarette fell from his trembling fingers and hit the floor as if discarded.
“Damn it!” he growled to himself.
Trying to fight was no use. It was going to happen, like it always did, but now was the worst possible time.
“Come on man! Hold it together.”
Digging his fingers into the arms of the chair sweat began to drip from his face and run down the back of his neck. The anticipation spiked his anxiety. Thrashing his head from side to side he tried to keep the flashbacks away, but for Michael Falau this had all become a torturingly regular way of life. He could feel the horror coming on and had yet to find a way to combat it.
The large man was built like a doorway, stronger than most and more cunning as well. With dark hair and dark eyes, he bore a scruffy exterior. An unshaven face and second-hand clothes were what most people saw first, just before they’d cross the street to avoid him. But now he sat in a wooden chair fighting the demons in his mind and praying they would leave him alone just this once.
Falau’s eyes rolled back into his head as bits and pieces of the flashbacks started shooting through his mind like lightning bolts on a hot summer’s night.
The image of a beautiful woman looking at him entered his head. He could see her sitting facing him in the passenger seat of the car. She smiled with a deep love in her eyes. Whispering words he could not hear, he desired to lean closer to her and hear her voice and feel her breath on his neck. Laughing along with her he turned to face her too. No woman had ever looked more beautiful in his eyes. As she shifted herself to lean back against the car door, he pulled to stop at a red light and leaned in to kiss her. Instead she grabbed him around the neck and hugged him, whispering, “I love you,” into his ear. As she leaned back again the light turned green and he hit the gas, rolling into the intersection. Glancing back to her with a smile he watched as she tilted her head slightly to the side and gave a coy, playful smile in return.
Without any warning, he saw a pickup truck speeding toward them over her shoulder through the window behind her. Falau’s expression changed to horror, as confusion spread over the woman’s face. Her eyebrows furrowed at the center above her nose, causing a crinkle in her skin.
The pickup truck made no attempt to stop, crashing into them and impacting the passenger side door. The tortured screeching of twisting metal and shattering glass filled his ears.
Falau jerked in his chair from the impact of his flashback as if he were living through it all over again. Letting out a pained moan he could feel the painful dream letting him go. It had done its job of abusing him. His eyes started to refocus as the last images of blood and pitiful screams filled his head. Gasping hard for air like a man who had just surfaced from too long underwater, his heart raced and he felt like he was going to vomit.
Looking down at his hand he was still clutching the whiskey glass and shaking like an out of rhythm drummer. He lifted the glass hard to his lips, refusing to drink as his hands shook. Tilting his head back the glass crashed against his teeth. He forced the glass to his mouth and drank the remainder of the whiskey in one hit and dropped the glass onto the table next to him as if he had just defeated it in battle.
Clearing his head back into working order he reached over to the table and took a towel and wiped the sweat from his face. He wanted to scream into the towel and expel some of the frustration he felt, but now was no time for self-pity. Taking two deep breaths, he regained control of his breathing and finally felt like himself again. He stood from his chair and walked to a wooden door to his right. Leaning into the door he held his ear close, listening for any sound.
He heard a muffled moan. Falau looked down at his watch.
Right on time, he thought.
Picking up a backpack that rested next to the chair, the groans from the next room got louder and the sound of a man’s mumbling voice cut through the air.
Picking up his glass again, he refilled it and downed the whiskey.
“Now is the time. All he needs is a little proper motivation. I can get the money and get the hell outta here.” Falau downed another whiskey in a single large hit.
“I can do this,” Falau whispered to himself.
Chapter 2
TURNING AND CLOSING the door behind him, Falau entered a room that looked like an average basement in every home. The floor was made of cement and together with the stone walls formed the foundation of the structure. There was only one door to the room and the half windows were boarded up. The space was wide open and free from anything other than a table and a foldout chair.
Walking over to the table he laid his backpack on it and open the flap, but removed nothing. Pushing his hair back from his eyes he turned and sat down, laying his eyes on the man he captured just hours before.
The man on the floor looked at Falau, trying to get his eyes to focus properly. He was young, only in his twenties. His hair was dark and his eyes a deep brown. He was handsome by any person’s standards, but not so much that it set him apart from the crowd. He wore jeans and a t-shirt but was missing shoes and a belt. He looked like any other twenty-something trying to shake off a hard night of drinking.
Falau pulled out his pack of cigarettes and banged them against his hand, popping one from the opening. Hands now steady, he drew one from the pack using only his lips. Striking a match, he cupped it in front of the cigarette and lit it.
“Oh, excuse me,” Falau said, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and holding in front of him. “You mind if I smoke?”
A look of confusion and anger passed over the face of the man sitting on the floor. He leaned back and looked down at his hands, handcuffed to a thick chain bolted deep into the cement floor. The chain was no more than two-feet long and had links that could not be destroyed by the biggest of bolt cutt
ers.
The man pulled up the chain, frantically trying to yank it from the ground. Grunts and groans flew from his mouth as he put every shred of energy he had into trying to remove the bolt from its deep cement hole.
Rising to his knees he grabbed the chain low and leaned back with all the strength. Once, twice, three times, but still nothing. The chain dropped from his now bleeding hands as his chest heaved up and down from his rapid breathing. Sweat dripped from his nose and chin to the floor as he looked down at the ground.
Falau sat motionless in the chair with his legs crossed and the cigarette still perched between his fingertips as he held it out in front of him.
“All you had to do was say no.” Falau smiled, putting out the cigarette on the table.
Breaking his gaze from the cold hard cement of the floor, the man lifted his head and locked eyes with Falau.
“Why?” the man asked, holding his bound hands out in front of him. Confusion filled the man’s eyes as he stared at his captor.
“You made this happen. Not me,” replied Falau in a matter-of-fact tone.
The man shook his head and looked side to side. He pulled again at the chain but with less force than before.
“I made this happen? Me? How could I make this happen?”
Falau reached for his backpack and turned it to him. Sliding one hand inside he removed a half-filled bottle of water.
“You made it happen because of who you are. The kind of person you are. You have only yourself to blame.”
“You’re insane. You have the wrong man. I’m just a normal guy,” explained the man, turning to Falau, his voice changing from anger, to pleading, and finally begging to be understood. “Are you going to kill me?”
Falau felt a pulse pound hard through his temples. It was the flashbacks again. He strained his eyes to maintain his focus and not regress back into the horror. A female voice echoed inside his mind. You did this. You killed me.
Falau quickly stood up, shaking his head. “It’s up to you if you live or die.”
“What? You mean I can just say I want to go and I can go?” questioned the man.
“I didn’t say that. I said it was up to you if you die. You need to be smart and work with me.”
“What do you need to know?”
“What’s your name?” asked Falau, now sounding more like a detective interrogating a prisoner.
“William Jefferson. But everyone calls me Billy.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“Tridon. In the city.”
Falau started to pace back and forth in front of the man, occasionally glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. Bring his hand up, he scratched at the scruff that covered his chin after a week without shaving.
“Tridon. They are known for a lot of wild parties. Bet that you have some great stories after four years there.”
“Well, yeah. We all had a lot of fun. Why do you want to know about that? It was a long time ago.”
“Tridon is an expensive school. You must come from some money.”
“Yeah. My parents do okay... Money I can get you. Just let me go, and I’ll get as much is you want.” Halting his pacing, Falau turned to Billy and crouched down into a low squat. “One of those parties got a little too fun, didn’t it? You had a few too many drinks one night and hopped in the nice little BMW mommy and daddy got you and you drove home.”
“No! I would never drink and drive!”
“You killed a girl less than a quarter-mile from your parents’ house. A girl who lived in your neighborhood all her life.”
“No! Noooo!” screamed Billy and he started to yank hard on the chain again. “That wasn’t me. I was asleep when that happened...”
Rising up from his crouch Falau methodically walked to the table and reached into the backpack again.
“Please don’t kill me! I didn’t do a thing. I swear it!” yelled Billy, Falau not even flinching.
Turning around and walking back to Billy, Falau held a plain tan folder in his hand.
“Billy, you’re making this very hard on yourself. Look at this picture.”
Falau held up a picture of an attractive young female, perhaps in her late teens. Her brown hair fell onto her shoulders and she smiled the smile of someone without a care in the world. She wore a cheerleaders’ uniform and had one arm raised into the air. The all-American girl next door.
“This is Erica Snell. But you know that, don’t you Billy? She was killed the night you hit her with your car.”
“No! No! It wasn’t me,” Billy cried, shaking his head and starting to wail.
“Billy, look at this other picture. That’s your car... look at the damage to the front passenger side. You hit something while going very fast. What was it you told the police you had hit?”
“A dog. And it’s true. I did hit a dog! They run all over the place in my neighborhood! Nobody keeps them chained up!”
“That must’ve been one hell of the big dog. I have hit deer by accident, and my car did not have that much damage. From what I understand the police never came to question you that night. The car was seen by the insurance company the next day, and was in and out of the shop in two days. When I hit the deer I was stuck in a rental for over a week.”
“My dad knows the guy who owns the auto body place and told him that I needed the car for school. Please believe me... I would never kill that girl. I even used to babysit her.”
Climbing to his feet Falau walked over to the table and tossed the file on it. Pausing to get his thoughts, he felt no oncoming rush from the flashbacks. Taking a sip from the water bottle he turned back around to question Billy again.
“Seems that your father knows a lot of people in town. He’s a real estate developer, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Lots of money in that field. You can also make other people a lot of money if you tell them the right projects to get in on.”
“I guess so.”
“Permits, and getting things by inspectors, means a guy needs to know a lot of people at City Hall. Contacts like that would be very useful when his son kills a girl with his car.”
“I said I didn’t kill her!” screamed Billy, his voice again switching from fear to anger, and again, he yanked on the chain.
Falau was sure if he had broken free he would have attacked him rather than run for the door. He was losing his composure and being broken down bit by bit. Falau smiled.
“It’s a fact that he owns the building the repair shop is in. ‘Daddy’ built the development that most of the cops, including the chief, live in. Did he give them all a break on housing costs due to their public service?”
“My dad is a very well-respected man. He does wonderful things for people!”
“Like letting you get away with murder! You killed Erica with your car! Just admit it!”
“No! I never did that! I hit a dog!” said Billy looking down at the ground, his voice becoming softer and softer. “Some other person hit Erica, not me. I was asleep.”
An exasperated sigh left Falau’s mouth and he stood up. Shaking his head, he walked over to the backpack and pulled out a folded towel.
“What do you have there? What are you going to do?” asked Billy, flinching at the sound of metal hitting metal.
Without turning or lifting his head, Falau unrolled the towel to reveal several tools.
“Proper motivation.”
Spreading the tools out on the towel Falau took inventory of what he had. Pliers, hammer, clamps, nails, and the straight edged razor.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” barked Billy.
“It means I’m going to help you find the truth,” replied Falau, turning around with the straight edged razor in his hand, opened and in the locked position. The blade was 4-inches long and shone, despite the limited light of the basement.
Terror fell over Billy’s face. “No! Come on, man! Whatever you want I can get a for you! Just don’t do this!”
Fala
u walked over, slowly closing the gap between Billy and himself, the razor held firm in his right hand and his eyes locked on Billy’s.
“Did you or did you not kill Erica Snell with your car when you were drunk driving?”
“No! I didn’t do it. What, do you have cops watching me, trying to bust me for that? I didn’t do it! What the hell was she doing out that late anyways?”
As Falau moved closer Billy got to his feet, but the chain kept him from standing up straight. His hands were still down by his thighs and he was unable to raise them any further. He yanked the chain in desperation, trying to rip it from the ground.
Immediately Falau kicked as hard as he could, directly into Billy’s stomach. He dropped to his knees and gasped for air. Falau set himself again, and kicked Billy hard in the face, spraying blood from his nose and knocking him to the floor.
Moving with explosive speed Falau stepped on the chain close to Billy’s feet, and used his knee to drive him onto his back on the ground.
Falau held the razor within an inch of Billy’s eyes. Twisting the blade side-to-side, Billy’s eyes locked on the unyielding steel that could do so much damage.
“Do you remember killing Erica Snell now?”
“Yes!” screamed Billy “It was late! Why would she be out there at that time of night! She should’ve been wearing something bright! I couldn’t see her! It wasn’t my fault!”
Falau stared down at Billy, now starting to cry. Leaning back Falau rose to his feet and pulled Billy to his knees.
“So, you admit you killed her?”
“Yes. I killed her. I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
Slowly turning away, Falau suddenly reached back and grabbed a handful of Billy’s hair, pulling himself in close. He ran the razor down Billy’s right cheek, leaving a laceration 6-inches long and very deep. For a moment, it looked like a valley between two mountain ranges, but soon the valley filled with blood. Billy screamed out in pain as Falau pushed him to the floor.
