Start Shooting

by Charlie Newton

  “Pocho, you there? We seeing Barlow, right?”

  Goose bumps, a bad, bad sign. “Okay.”

  ARLEEN BRENNAN

  SATURDAY, 7:00 PM

  “RITA! RITA!”

  My hand steadies against the back bar and my Valium OD. If Bobby and his band don’t do an encore these rugby girls may tear the L7 apart.

  “RITA! RITA!”

  Bobby Vargas—be still my beating heart—and just over there behind Julie’s office door. Love it he didn’t lose those kind, mischievous eyes or the crooked smile that stays there when he sings. The wide shoulders and tight jeans are new—

  “RITA! RITA!”

  We were all of nine when it started in earnest, but I’d already loved him since the first grade; I think all the girls did. Coleen, too. Bobby was gentle but sort of fearless; inquisitive, thoughtful. When we were eleven we’d plan sick days and stay home from school; Bobby and I would sit on the stoop. Mrs. Logan or Mrs. O’Hearn would walk by and growl, then threaten him with their sons and husbands, but Bobby wouldn’t shoo; he’d be scared, but he’d stay. I liked that. On the stoop, Bobby taught me to draw using chalk and rocks—portraits, caricatures of our neighbors, but nice even when the neighbors weren’t. I liked that, too. When the Irish boys skipped school, too, I made Bobby run; told him he couldn’t cause me more trouble with my da, but Bobby would stay by me till the very last second.

  How different would today be if I’d told Bobby that it was me who was his girlfriend … if I’d snuck back to the window after Coleen … told him about my father, what I knew about the police and the troubles in the Four Corners. Blink. Swallow. Only wondered that a thousand times. But I didn’t because my da and the Four Corners would’ve killed Bobby. Like it did Coleen.

  My hands keep hold of the bar. The Valium OD makes it tough to focus.

  Bobby Vargas … Not exactly the way I sketched him when I first arrived in sunny California, whenever I was hungry and scared—in the flesh he’s less invincible but kind of better. And the hands … those were some hands, there, playing that red guitar, and for the first time in the longest time, a man’s hands like that didn’t put me off, actually wondered what they’d feel like … Bobby could play that guitar, couldn’t he?

  Julie’s stereo booms on with “Margaritaville.” Commotion at L7’s front door. Men barge in, colliding with riot-tested rugby girls. I duck and the bartender on my left reaches to keep me upright. If the men are Koreans or cops I’m so dead—no, it’s baseball fans. Crash—six stacked chairs clatter into the back wall of the L7. Jesus Christ rugby girls can party. Julie steps up and yells in my ear: “Naked chair bowling.”

  “What?”

  “Make a lane. Stack six chairs, three on the bottom, then two, then one, then bowl.”

  A naked girl untangles from the chairs and stands into backslaps and beers. Thirty of the players have created a bowling lane on Julie’s floor and sloshed the floor between them with beer. Julie yells in my ear, “Convince the rookies to get naked. One after another they bowl themselves down the lane into the chairs.”

  The chair bowling is a good diversion to no encore, but if Julie had a fire hose I’m sure she’d use it. The front bar is my protection; I’m safe behind it, wobbly, but safe; no telling where I stand in the rest of the world. Other than the Shubert Theater Company. In sixteen hours I’m their next Blanche DuBois. Blurry squint at the door, then the windows. Tighter grip on the bar. At least Tracy Moens is gone.

  Chicago’s star crime reporter said we have to talk, tried to tell me why she supports exhuming Coleen. I told Moens to crawl back under her rock. Almost mentioned Ruben, thinking I could somehow walk a tightrope between a scorched-earth reporter and a Homicide cop who already wants to kill me … testimony to what twenty milligrams and one whiskey can bridge. There has to be leverage in Tracy Moens somewhere, but I don’t know how to use it.

  My phone rings twice, but it’s dead when I answer. The door to Julie’s office opens; out pops Bobby Vargas with his guitar case. My phone rings again—my agent’s ringtone—and I fumble it to my face. “Sarah! Is … everything okay?”

  “Could you come by the theater? Informal, but it’s important if you could. Now.”

  “Who? Why? Sure I’ll be there.”

  “Two of the investors for Streetcar.”

  Well, that’s a first—investors. I spin to use Julie’s back-bar mirror. “Sarah, I’ve been at the Cub game … take me a few minutes to fluff.”

  “No time. Don’t worry, investors understand makeup and lights.”

  “They say they do, but—”

  Tone drop. “Arleen—”

  “On my way.” I grab one of Julie’s Cubs caps off the back bar. “Traffic won’t be easy; I’m still at Wrigley.”

  “Fast as possible.”

  “Leaving now, but—” Sarah clicks off before I finish. Bobby and I lock eyes as he slices through the crowd toward the door. I step out from safety and fight through cheering, sweaty, half-naked bowlers toward the door. He gets there first. I yell “Bobby!” but he’s out and I’m still stuck at the door. The “Kesey Does It” girl grabs me and yells something in my ear. I jerk loose and jump out onto the sidewalk crammed with Cub fans. “Bobby!”

  He turns and three men stumble into him. Bobby goes down and they tumble him over his guitar case. One bitches, one apologizes, and they keep schooling south. Bobby stands, grabs his case and steps back to the wall. The case has a long scuff down the front.

  He’s smoothing at the scuff when I get there. “Sorry. My fault.”

  Bobby frowns, red-faced, holding back temper and embarrassment.

  “Loved you and the big finish.” I’m grinning like the teenagers we were, amazed that I can and can’t help it. “Sorry.” More grin. “And you fall like a stuntman.”

  Bobby exhales and loses the anger. “Only I would do that. With you watching.”

  “Should’ve said goodbye.”

  He stares, starts to say something, and I step in, kiss him lightly on his scarred cheek, and step back. He smells, I don’t know, good.

  “Wow, ah, thanks. Didn’t know … you know … what you thought. The Herald and all.”

  “The Herald?”

  “Me and Ruben, and you know, Coleen.”

  “You’re mentioned with Ruben?” It feels filthy, awful just to think it.

  “But I, we … didn’t do that. We—”

  “The Herald’s a bankrupt tabloid. You’d never hurt someone that way. I knew you, Bobby, heart to heart. Better than any boy I’ve known before or since.”

  He actually blushes. “It’s … God, I don’t know what to say … really great to see you.” His hands fumble and he hugs his guitar case.

  Cub fans pass, loud, raucous. Bobby and I stare across three feet and twenty-nine years; his brown eyes have the light; they have dark, too, but the hopeful little boy is still there. I want to touch his hands, his arms above the elbow, but don’t. He smiles at me like he used to, twenty-nine years and I remember that smile, how weird is that? My boyfriend and I on a stoop, the world rushing past … Peter Pan’s Neverland in our future, the whole world waiting to help us be happy.

  “Arleen, I, ah, well, I don’t know what to say. That simple.”

  I step in again and put my hands lightly on his. We’re eighteen inches apart, eye to eye, only the guitar case between us. “Ask me out.”

  “You’ll go?”

  “If you ask.”

  He smiles, boy mushrooming into man, sort of. “That’d be … swell. I mean, great, good, I mean—” He laughs, adding composure. “We could get a drink, tonight?”

  “Can’t. I’m at the Shubert, leaving now, then—”

  “We could eat lunch tomorrow.”

  “How about dinner? More drama at dinner. I audition for Streetcar at eleven.” My hands make two sets of crossed fingers on top of his guitar case. “Should be a star by midafternoon; you could be my date to the party; we could stay out all night, midnight pi
cnic at the lake. Tell each other twenty-nine years of … of whatever we want to tell.”

  Siren pop. Bobby and I jerk to the street. An unmarked Ford pulls to the curb. I have a murder weapon in my purse.

  Bobby says, “I’m in. But can I call you?” He nods at the Ford. “I have to figure something out first.”

  I’m backing up to run from the police. His hand stops me, brushing my purse, his eyes confused at my movements. No one exits the car. I suck a breath I’d forgotten to take and tell Bobby my number. He punches it into his cell phone, breaking into a comfortable grin. “This is like the coolest day of my life. Never ever would’ve believed it really would feel like this.”

  He blushes at the admission. I blush back and half laugh. “You thought about me … all these years?”

  Now he blushes solar. “I’ll be the handsome prince calling you.” Bobby slides the phone into his front pocket. “Bearing gifts and food and—”

  Red hair and athletic shoulders slip in between us like a referee. Tracy Moens beams. “My goodness. The two of you know each other … in the present?”

  Bobby steps back, something I’d bet Moens doesn’t see a man do often. The siren pops behind us again. Moens smiles at Bobby, then me, trying to read my expression.

  Bobby steps around Moens and touches my shoulder. “Call you tonight, okay?”

  I nod, fast like the high-school girl I never was. Suddenly I’m buying a prom dress.

  “Good luck at the Shubert. You’ll get it.” He taps his heart and grins. “I feel it; Peter Pan.”

  Moens moves to block his exit. “Officer Vargas—”

  Bobby says, “Excuse me,” loops us and streaming Cub fans to open the back door of the unmarked Ford. He carefully slides in his scuffed guitar case as a trapped Chevy behind the Ford lays on his horn. Bobby jumps in the Ford’s front seat. The driver pops the siren of what has to be a plainclothes police car, veers into oncoming traffic, and drives off.

  Tracy Moens shark-eyes me. “Care to explain?”

  “Officer Vargas?”

  “He’s a gang-crimes cop in District 12—the Four Corners, Greektown. The driver’s his partner, Jason Cowin. They were in a shootout that killed four people last night.”

  Bobby Vargas is a cop? Like his goddamn murderous brother? My heart ramps through Valium, prom night, and a murder weapon with my fingerprints. I stumble and Moens reaches for my shoulder like I might fall. Her hand is man-strong.

  “Arleen?”

  “I’m late.” I shake off her hand and slide south into the crowd. Moens stays with me.

  “I’ll give you a ride. We can talk.”

  “No thanks.”

  Moens hangs at my shoulder but is sheared off by a large man. She jumps around him and back to me. “I can help.”

  “Help? Leave Coleen alone, that’ll help.”

  “I know who killed her.”

  The crowd splits us again. Moens is pushed three-deep but fights her way back to my shoulder.

  “Don’t you want to know who murdered your sister?”

  “Already know”—glare, shoulder bump—“and so do you.”

  “No, you don’t. Trust me, you don’t know.” She steps a half step ahead to stare at my reaction. “Or if you do—”

  No cabs, tons of traffic; I’ll never get to the Shubert. I jump into the street and start running. My purse bangs my hip. Gun. I still have the gun, a murder weapon. Moens jogs next to me like she runs crowded sidewalks every day.

  “My car’s right here.” She grabs me off stride and pulls us to a stop. A uniform cop smiles from near a red Jaguar’s fender. She hair-flips him. “Thanks, Tommy.”

  The cop leers politely and says, “My pleasure, Ms. Moens,” and moves on.

  “Hop in. No questions, just a ride. If I’m lying, get out.”

  SATURDAY, 7:30 PM

  The Jaguar smells like money and power. For the last nine blocks Tracy Moens has placed a red/blue flashing light on the dash that complements the siren she blares when looping into oncoming traffic. “What time at the Shubert?”

  “Now.” I make a ponytail and slip it through the Cubs cap.

  “Business or pleasure?”

  I glance at her question.

  “ ‘No questions’ doesn’t mean we can’t talk about anything.” Moens smiles at the windshield. “C’mon, I got a $500 ticket for this last month and I was looking good that day.”

  Exhale. “I’m up for the lead in Streetcar. The investors want to meet me.”

  Moens eyes my jeans, shirt, hair. “Don’t take this wrong—you look good, you do—but we could stop; you could primp a little? I can—”

  “—drive the car? That’d be great. I’ll worry about my career.”

  Moens overtakes a bus, brakes hard, weaves through three cars, and runs the last of a yellow light. “I know your director, Anne Johns.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Anne’s a good friend. We go way back, still share a trainer when I’m in Santa Fe.”

  “And you’ll help me any way you can, right?”

  “Don’t know about that, but …”

  “Stay out of my life. Stay out of my sister’s life, what little the Four Corners let her have.”

  Moens drives us another five blocks of serpentine roller coaster. “I’m sorry about Coleen. She’s why I became interested in the story. That’s all.”

  My eyes roll at the passenger window.

  “Then the other evidence surfaced—the Twenty-Treys, the Vargas brothers—and in good conscience I couldn’t leave it alone.”

  “Pull over.”

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Shut up or pull over, one or the other.”

  Left turn onto Monroe. She drives the block and slows approaching the Shubert marquee. “Arleen, I can be the confidant you and Coleen never had … I know the truth about what happened, We can talk about it.”

  I jump out, skirt behind the trunk, and run across traffic toward the Shubert’s front doors. Wish I looked presentable, smelled better. My purse bangs against my hip. Wish I hadn’t shot anyone, either. Sarah’s outside with two women, neither of whom I recognize. Sarah smiles, glances past me to the red Jaguar, and asks, “Is that Tracy Moens?”

  “Yeah.” I beam at the two women, me, the full actress-in-waiting loaded on Valium and gunfire. “Hi, I’m Arleen Brennan.”

  They introduce themselves, say Sarah was just telling them about me. One offers good luck; they excuse themselves and Sarah does an air kiss with both. Sarah watches them walk toward Tracy Moens, phone to her ear in her shiny red Jaguar. Sarah blinks, recalling what she knows about me, where I’m from in the city, and what she’s read in the Herald. “Coleen Brennan was your twin sister?”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Sarah hugs me. “I didn’t know.”

  “Not many do. But that’s about to change.”

  Sarah glances at Moens again. “The Herald’s exposé, while painful … could be a help. One never knows, and investors want publicity if it’s positive.”

  Frown. Now I’m thankful for the Valium. “Sarah, I want to be Blanche DuBois with my whole heart and soul. Would die for my chance. But Coleen being murdered is not part—not now, not ever.”

  Sarah hesitates again. “I understand completely, I do. But this tragedy will be revisited in the Herald no matter what we want. And likely on every channel if there’s actually a new story there.”

  A Ford Crown Victoria turns onto Monroe.

  My eyes lock on the windshield. No, please. Fight-or-flee ramps up my back. I force myself still. Doesn’t have to be Ruben Vargas; Ford made millions of—Threat radiates off the car. I step back, flex to run—Ruben eyes me over his sunglasses, slows, then notices Tracy Moens and accelerates. Sarah feels the adrenaline in my posture, thinks it’s stage fright, and turns us to the Shubert’s doors. “Not lions, investors. Let’s show them their next franchise.”

  Ruben passes between Moens and me.
Poise. Be the lead, not the victim. I take three steps away from murder world—bury it; be Blanche. Be Blanche—and into the Shubert. My eyes acclimate, framing … Renée Zellweger? She’s at the lobby bar chatting with a ring of admirers. If they can afford Renée Zellweger as Blanche DuBois, why am I or anyone else here?

  Sarah guesses and presses her hand into my back. “Not Renée. She flew in for tomorrow’s Olympic benefit.”

  I feel Ruben in the shadows, somehow, and turn to look. “Who, then?”

  “Right after we meet the investors.” Sarah turns me back, focusing our attention forward. “Ladies of the South don’t worry, or perspire.”

  Two men disconnect from the bar group and walk toward us, one late forties, the other early sixties, urbane summer suits, one with tie, one without, both with 2016 Olympics pins. The one without the tie used to be the theater critic for the Sun-Times. He eyes my Cubs hat and extends his hand. “Ah, a Cub fan; you know betrayal.”

  I megawatt smile and shake his hand. “Arleen Brennan.”

  “Kevin Nance, we’ve met before.” He points. “This is Peter Steffen.”

  In person Toddy Pete Steffen is a shock. He could be Robbie, if Robbie had class and education. Six foot two, sturdy shoulders, lean hips, kind eyes, perfect haircut in white. “The Peter Steffen?”

  Mr. Steffen smiles and offers his hand. “Let’s hope you mean that in a good way. You’re Ms. Brennan, Arleen, as I remember?”

  “Yes.” I take his hand. “Sorry. Yes, in the best way. For … thanks for supporting Streetcar and all the other productions.” He hasn’t let go of my hand. “Without you and Mr. Nance we wouldn’t have theater companies in Chicago.”

  Toddy Pete Steffen, father of a son I left bleeding in an alley six hours ago with two dead Koreans, extends his arm lightly around my shoulder and says to the others, “I saw Arleen in Jersey Boys and Chorus Line but didn’t know you’d cast … were considering her for Blanche.” He hugs my shoulder. “Wonderful in both. Absolutely magnetic for such tiny roles.”

  His arm feels fatherly. I smile past him toward Anne Johns. “Please tell your director.” His son has to be alive or Mr. Steffen wouldn’t be here, smiling. I want to glance for Ruben but don’t.