CrimeSeen2014.06.09

by Michaelbrent Collings

And the same damn song started again. It was “You Spin Me Round” by Dead or Alive. Evan had nothing against the song – it was as good as anything from the late eighties could be – but he had heard it enough for one night.

  “How many times you gonna listen to that?” he said.

  The woman at the jukebox didn’t even look at him.

  “How many times you gonna keep listening to cranks?” she said. Her tones were clipped, almost harsh. Angela Listings, she of the Dead or Alive obsession, was Evan’s partner. She was currently wearing no-nonsense jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket bulky enough to hide her service revolver. But no amount of cumbersome, off-the-rack, shapeless clothing could hide her beauty or her attitude.

  She was the kind of woman that men pursued… for about a minute and half. But most men didn’t like that she could beat them in a fight of wits or of straight-out fists.

  And she was the kind of girl you would take home to mother only if dear old Ma had a strong constitution and found perverse joy in meeting hard-ass bitches.

  She turned to him now. Oval face, with a deep tan that couldn’t quite hide the small spatter of freckles across her nose. Eyes that Evan knew could be wide and inviting when Listings wanted them that way. Now they were at half-mast, hooded like those of a bored viper seriously considering a random strike just because-screw-it-that’s-why. She was waiting for him to answer.

  How many times would he answer these calls? How many times would he trudge down dead ends, follow the same paths that ultimately led nowhere?

  He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. “As many times as I have to.”

  Listings pursed her lips as though considering whether that answer was acceptable. Evan wondered what she’d do if she decided it wasn’t. Probably just sucker punch him or bite his nose off or something.

  Evidently he’d passed the test, though. She sat next to him. He raised his drink in mock salute and brought the glass to his lips.

  She intercepted it. Grabbed the glass away from him in a smooth motion that spilled not a drop of the murky liquid within, and shook her finger at him.

  “If we’re here looking for a killer, then this is official business and you shouldn’t be drinking,” she said. Then she tossed back the drink.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” said Evan dryly. It figured that Listings would be able to throw back alcohol like a Russian sailor, too. She probably wrote her name in the snow, including dotting both “I”s.

  “Lighten up,” said Listings. “We’ve been here for over an hour. I don’t think –“

  “Hey!”

  Listings and Evan both turned to find the drunk standing before them. Up close he was larger than he had seemed when seated at the other end of the bar. He was well over six feet tall, and Evan guessed he was upwards of two hundred fifty pounds.

  He revised his earlier guess – the guy wasn’t a dock worker, he was the dock.

  The big man was weaving, blurry eyes fading in and out of focus as he loomed over Listings. But his finger, which was roughly the size of a horse’s leg, was completely stable and in control as he jabbed it in her direction. “I know you,” he said. He paused, apparently gathering his thoughts.

  Evan took the moment to glance at Listings. She appeared completely at ease, leaning back on the bar, arms loose on the wood/Formica/whatever-it-was. A smile played about the edges of her lips, which worried Evan. It was rarely a good thing when Listings smiled.

  “You’re the bitch that keeps turning on that song,” said the drunk. “I heard it, like….” He weaved again. Evan started to stand, hoping he could keep everyone from losing their cool.

  The drunk shook himself. “… like, a billion times. Bitch.”

  Listings slid off her stool. Evan would have stopped it if he could have, but it happened too quickly. His partner getting to her feet was akin to a country warning off its enemies by priming all its nukes and putting them on a countdown.

  “Don’t,” said Evan.

  Listings flashed him a smile. She was gorgeous, and everything that had happened with Val – not just her death, but the things she had done to him before she died – just made him more aware of that.

  But under the beauty… danger.

  “I got this,” she said. Then turned to the drunk. “Don’t like the song?” she said.

  The drunk drew himself up even taller. Trying to stare down the woman who probably only weighed about half what he did. “Not after the first million times.”

  Listings moved uncomfortably close to the bear-man. In his face, in his space. “I thought it was a billion.” Even drunk, Evan figured the guy had to hear the implicit, “Are you too dumb to even count?” in her tone.

  The drunk blinked. For a moment he looked like he was going to back down. Evan really hoped that would happen. That would mean everyone left without broken bones or torn tendons or unnecessary trips to the hospital.

  Then he blinked again. His eyes both focused on Listings at the same time – a small miracle considering the amount of booze the guy had probably pounded – and he sneered. “Whatever. Hey, I just figured why you like this song. You maybe want me to spin you around?”

  He grabbed his crotch.

  Evan sighed. He wanted to hide his face in his hands. He didn’t, though. Partly because he felt a duty to keep an eye on his partner, no matter how much she didn’t need it. Partly because what was coming was going to have all the horrific fascination of a train wreck. He just couldn’t look away.

  Listings laughed. It was an almost painful-sounding laugh, a rip-rattle laugh that made it clear she wasn’t laughing with the drunk, she was laughing at him. “Classy,” she said. “I assume we’re doing pantomimes because you’re aware the smartest thing that ever came out of your mouth was a penis.”

  The big man’s hand clenched on his own groin, as though shock had caused him to clutch desperately for some tangible reassurance of his own manhood. “Wha…?”

  Before he could even process the first insult, let alone come up with a rejoinder, Listings had waded back in. She snapped her fingers. “Hey, I know you! I told your boyfriend his shoes were ugly and he tried to hit me with his purse. That was you, right?”

  The drunk’s hand remained clenched on the front of his pants. But his leer, which had frozen into a rictus of confusion, transformed to a snarl.

  “Listings,” said Evan. He didn’t know what else he was going to say, what else he could say, but he felt like he should say something.

  He suspected if he saw a tidal wave rushing down the center of Los Angeles, he’d probably feel the same urge to speak. And that it would probably have the same lack of effect.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hit him,” said Listings. For a moment Evan dared to hope that they might get out of here without things turning violent. Then her smile widened – bad to worse – and she turned back to the drunk and said, “That would be animal cruelty.”

  The drunk’s snarl rippled over his entire body. His muscles clenched and he seemed to grow three inches in every direction.

  Evan moved. Too slow. By the time he was up, by the time he had moved into position, it had already happened.

  The drunk growled, sounding like a wounded animal that had turned deadly in the depths of its pain. He flung himself forward, moving faster than Evan expected. Not just big, not just strong, but agile.

  He swung a fist the size of a radiator at Listings.

  Evan’s breath caught in his throat.

  Don’t kill him, Listings.

  Listings moved like a drop of water skittering across a hot stove top. Evan could barely see her, she was so fast. One moment she was right in the path of the fist, the next… gone.

  The drunk seemed as shocked as Evan at Listings’ apparent magic act. She hadn’t moved until the last second, the very final moment before he pummeled her out of existence. Now the momentum behind his punch combined with his inebriation to drive him stumbling forward.

  The drunk slipped. Slammed face
-first into the bar.

  Crunch.

  Evan winced as he heard the unmistakable sound of bones breaking. Hopefully just a nose.

  The drunk slid to the floor between the stools that Evan and Listings had been sitting on a moment ago. His hand covered his face, and his eyes seemed to be spinning independently. He moaned, then slipped a bit lower.

  “Dammit, Listings,” said Evan.

  “What?” A few locks of Listings’ long brown hair had managed to pull loose from the rest of her mane. She pushed them back into place impatiently. “I didn’t touch him. He slipped.”

  She bent over the drunk. Evan considered pointing out the fact that she had definitely arranged the circumstances so slipping would be a bit more likely, but decided it wouldn’t do anything helpful and shut his mouth.

  After five years with Listings, Evan had decided that a good partnership, like a good marriage, was often a matter of just shutting up and letting your significant other do whatever the hell she was going to do. He’d be there if anyone needed help. If not, he’d be there, too. Either way, getting in front of Listings was not a healthy idea.

  “Come on, Betty Ford,” said Listings. “Up you go.”

  The drunk continued his struggle to get both eyes pointed in one direction as he said, “Who you callin’ Betty?”

  He swiped at Listings with one blood-spattered hand. She dodged easily, but her face darkened and her smile returned. “You just don’t learn, do you?”

  “Listings, don’t –“

  Listings wasn’t listening at all now. That the drunk had come on to her and accosted her was one thing. That he had tried to hit her after she had beaten him would be seen as unforgiveable.

  Evan started trying to figure out which was the closest hospital with an emergency room.

  Listings raised her fist. It was a small fist, but painfully angular, and several of the knuckles had rows of scars that attested to the fights she’d been in over the years. Evan didn’t move to stop his partner now… not because he didn’t have time, but because he genuinely didn’t want to find out what a coma felt like.

  Listings’ hand dropped. Fast as a hornet, so fast Evan could almost hear the air split around it.

  But it didn’t connect.

  Evan felt like the world, spinning along in its predictable if generally horrible way, had suddenly reversed course. He had seen Listings in a lot of fights. He had never seen her fail to connect with something she tried to hit.

  It wasn’t that she missed, per se. It wasn’t as though the drunk managed to slide away from her attack, to dodge her punch as she had dodged his only a moment ago.

  No, something – someone – had stopped her. A hand had wrapped around her forearm, stalling her forward momentum, cutting off the attack before it could begin.

  Listings looked over her shoulder at the stranger, her anger at the drunk transmuting into rage that someone would touch her.

  “Let go of me,” she said.

  The man who had stopped her was normal-looking. A bit boring, even. Evan had never seen him before, and even if he had he doubted he would have recognized him. Brown eyes. Brown hair, thinning a bit at the temples and receding a bit along the forehead. And that was the sum total of the man’s physical attributes. Brown on brown, boring on boring. Nothing to hold to mentally, nothing to remember.

  He wore a black coat, and it was memorable. It was long and voluminous, seeming to flow like a living thing around the man’s body, pulling light into it and giving nothing in return.

  “Let go of me,” said Listings again.

  The man smiled. Boring smile. And Evan saw his eyes change. Not in size or shape, but where they had been empty before, now they were full of something terrifying. Madness.

  “No,” said the man.

  “I said, let go!”

  Evan was moving, but again he was too slow. The instant he heard the man speak, heard him say, “No,” he knew that this was the man he had spoken to on the phone. This was the man he had been looking for tonight.

  But Listings was faster again. Faster, and too fast, and not fast enough.

  She swung at the man, a quick cross with her free hand.

  And for the second time tonight, she missed.

  The man ducked. Spun her around.

  Bright light glinted. Evan had his gun out, but the brightness froze him. It wasn’t the brightness of a light being shone, but of something reflective. Something sharp.

  The man had a knife at Listings’ throat. And it was so sharp it grabbed the dim light of the bar and slashed it into a million glinting pieces.

  “Don’t move!” Evan shouted.

  The man grinned. “Or what?” he said. He pressed on the knife. Not too hard, but even the light pressure made blood well around the blade and drip down Listings’ neck. “You’ll kill me?” He giggled. “How do you kill a man who’s already dead?”

  Evan didn’t have time to digest the weirdness of that. Listings’ eyes rolled as though she was mostly irritated with the whole situation. “Shoot him, White.”

  “Shut up, Listings,” said Evan. To the man he said, “You’re the one who called me?”

  The man smiled. A boring smile, a banal smile. The mad, mundane smile of any of a million people who go about their lives quietly each day hoping no one will notice how close they are to breaking. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to,” he said.

  Evan wondered if anyone had called 9-1-1. In this part of town, in a bar like this, he figured the chances were about even. Not good odds. “What do you want?” he said, as much to stall as anything.

  Tears welled up in the other man’s eyes. His lower lip quivered, and Evan thought he might have killed his partner with his question.

  “For it to end,” said the man.

  The jukebox clicked. Listings had chosen “You Spin Me Round” too many times to count, and now the song was ending. Evan was gripped by the sudden belief that if the song she had chosen ended before he got her free, she would die.

  The song was over.

  Another began. And whether it was because Listings had pre-programmed it, or because of some cosmic joke, the same song started again.

  Evan had completely forgotten about the drunk, still laying at the base of the bar, at Listings’ feet. It seemed like the ridiculous spat with him had happened a lifetime ago. Now his attention went back to the man, if only for a moment. The big guy groaned as the music started again.

  The man who held Listings hostage laughed. The same laugh Evan had heard on the phone before, the same laugh that had been pulling his brain apart, pulling apart his memories and laying him bare.

  “I really don’t think he likes this tune,” said the madman. Then, to the drunk, he said, “I’ve been watching you, Ken. You’re a rude pig.”

  The madman moved. He was fast. Faster than Listings, and also… something else. Something more.

  Something that terrified Evan.

  The man’s foot moved. Ken screamed, a single shouted “NO!” that was still too slow and then there was a nauseating crunch that was not bone breaking.

  The madman moved back, and now the drunk was clawing at his throat. The downed man’s mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, but no sound came out. Just a high-pitched whistle that made Evan’s skin writhe.

  He stepped toward the drunk, knowing he had to do something, not know what that could be.

  And Listings seized the moment. She spun away from the madman, a blur as she moved out of range. The man slashed out, his knife seeking her neck, but she seemed to flow under it, grabbing her throat, blood around her fingers.

  She came to her knees next to Evan.

  “Listings!”

  “I’m okay,” she gasped. “Just a scratch. Look out!”

  Evan wasn’t Listings-fast, but he did all right. And in this case he was glad because it saved him from being gutted. The madman had followed Listings as she rolled, and now he slashed at Evan, who moved away in time to a
void evisceration but not fast enough to completely escape injury. Heat seared across his stomach and he heard his shirt rip. Blood rolled over the waist of his pants.

  He knew the instant it happened that the cut wasn’t life-threatening. Maybe he’d need stitches, but that was it.

  In the same moment, he was pulling the trigger. Not realizing he was doing it, just acting on instinct. If he’d had a pillow in his hand he probably would have thrown it, but he had the gun so he pulled the trigger.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  He was moving when he squeezed off the shots. Dodging the madman’s attack, moving out of range of the knife. But even with that movement, he knew he hit what he was aiming at. He saw the front sight and rear sight line up perfectly, saw them both merge with the too-close center mass of the madman’s chest in his black coat.

  The three shots blasted louder than thunder in the contained space. Evan’s ears rang, and he figured he’d earned himself a year of deafness as an old geezer.

  He didn’t care. Because all three bullets hit. He knew it. The madman who had tried to hurt Listings had been blown right out the open door of the bar.

  Evan spun to Listings. She was on her knees, feeling at her neck. Blood sluiced from the long shallow gash along the left side of her neck.

  “Didja get him?” she said. She was looking at the drunk.

  Evan followed her gaze. The drunk – who, if madmen in trenchcoats were to be believed, had been named Ken – was staring up at the ceiling of the bar. He wasn’t moving. Nor would he. One hand clutched as his throat, the other had fallen onto his crotch, as though even in death he was determined to go out as crudely as possible.

  “Yeah,” said Evan.

  “You sure?” said Listings.

  “Yeah.”

  She stood. Walked toward the entrance.

  “Where you going?”

  “I want to know who this nutcase was. And what he had to do with your wife.”

  They left the bar. And as they did, Evan thought, strangely, that they were moving into a darkness that would never end.

  Listings pulled out her gun as they hit the street.

  “You sure that you’re sure?” she said.