Deadline

by K. A. Tracy

  Joe hesitated.

  “If you’d rather me just shoot you now I will.”

  Cursing under his breath, Joe climbed into the truck, having to draw his knees up in a fetal position to fit. “Don’t try anything stupid, or I’ll shoot your girlfriend here.” He closed the trunk and faced Sam. “Get in. You’re driving.”

  She slid behind the wheel of the spacious car. It was like sitting in an easy chair. It made her think about how much Alpha and Omega loved sleeping on the chair in her bedroom, and for the first time tears welled in her eyes. She closed them and took several deep breaths. This was not the time to lose it. She needed to keep her anger fueled, fearful sheer panic would set in otherwise. George got in and handed her the key.

  “Go down Indian.”

  After adjusting the seat and mirrors, she turned on the windshield wipers and pulled onto the road. George opened the glove compartment and Sam saw a baggie filled with small amber bottles and a pair of night vision binoculars, explaining how he was able to find Jeff in the dark desert. George admired Joe’s gun. “This is a real nice piece. I always wanted my own government issue.”

  Government issue?

  He shoved his smaller pistol inside the glove box along with Joe’s keys and shut the door. Sam concentrated on driving, not letting her imagination stray too far ahead. The mist had turned into a shower, turning the streets shiny with water, the lights from the closed businesses they passed reflecting colorfully off the wet asphalt.

  She glanced over her right shoulder to change lanes and saw a black and gray messenger bag in the back seat. Sticking out of the front zipper pocket was a red shirt. Sam’s breath caught and in a flash of understanding the connections snapped into place. It had been right in front of her all along.

  Sam adjusted the mirror again to sneak a quick look at George. His eyes were glassy, the irises wired, black pools. The silence in the car was ominous.

  “Was it your idea for Anne to use the name Money at the Crazy Horse?”

  George’s head snapped around, and for a moment she thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he laughed. “You want to interview me some more? Sure, why not. It’ll be the last great story you never write. Nah, that was all her idea.”

  “A strip bar in Indio’s a long way from running cross country in the streets of Beverly Hills.” Sam thought of the cocky youth standing next to Anne and tried to remember if his eyes had looked this cruel in the picture. “I saw your class photo at her mother’s house. I was there earlier this evening.”

  “Ah, right, the great Ellen Konrad. Now there is one fine piece of pussy.”

  Sam’s jaw clenched. “Not that you’d ever get any,” she taunted, anger momentarily trumping common sense.

  To her surprise, he agreed. “Dude, you got that right. Turn here and get on Palm Canyon.”

  She fought down a wave of nausea and kept talking. “Were you Anne’s boyfriend?”

  “Her boyfriend?” his voice was bitter. “You know why I had a Beverly Hills address? My mother was the live-in maid for Annie’s next door neighbor. They patted themselves on the back for giving us a place to live: a tiny, three-room guesthouse behind the garage. But I learned to play nice, and Annie adopted me, like I was her little pet. She’d come running over anytime she had a problem, which got to be all the time as we got older. She was so needy, always crying, wanting to know if she were as beautiful as her mom, which of course she wasn’t. For fuck’s sake, what does she think? She’s adopted. To end up winning the lottery by living that kind of life and she’s complaining.”

  George shook his head in disgust. He opened the glove box and took out a bottle from the bag. He unscrewed the top, filled it with white power, and snorted it.

  Sam could see the sheen of sweat on his face.

  “It got to the point where she was just nuts. She couldn’t even sit still. But I have to admit, she was a lot more fun, too.”

  “Being unstable?”

  “She wasn’t unstable when it came to sex. She became insatiable, dude. She wanted to be fucked whenever, wherever, however. She let me do anything I wanted and some things I hadn’t even thought of. I could barely keep up with her. She fucked girls, too, but said they were too soft. She liked it rough. I heard her mom caught Annie taking on three guys at once, and that’s when they finally sent her to the hospital. Of course they kept it all hush-hush.”

  Sam was amazed Ellen had managed to keep it out of the papers and wondered if that’s what prompted the sudden move to Palm Springs. “When did you and Anne reconnect?”

  George did another bump from the bottle. “I emailed her after I moved here. Told her what I was up to but never heard back. Figured she was embarrassed. Then a few months ago she comes in the club out of the blue, and it’s just like old times. We fucked in the car during my break and afterwards tells me she wants to be a dancer, so I hooked her up. Annie always wanted to act but never had the balls to try. Too afraid she wouldn’t live up to mommy. But at the club…dude, she’s the star.”

  Lightning crackled in the sky above the mountains to their left, followed a few seconds later by a low rumble of thunder. They passed Gas 4 Less and Sam saw the night clerk watching a small television inside. A few minutes past the tram, George told her to slow down. “Not this turn but the next one, make a left.”

  Sam knew from the map they were driving up Devil’s Canyon Road. Knowing she was retracing Rydell’s movements on his final night of life made her stomach twist. “Did you meet Jeff through Anne?”

  “He was her latest play thing. Except, he wouldn’t play. She actually thought they were going to live happily ever after. Typical Annie delusion. When he set her straight, told her he was getting married, she lost it and came crying to me like always.”

  The rain and lack of streetlights made it hard to see. Sam drove slowly, in no hurry. As long as they were driving and talking, she and Joe were okay.

  “So everything you told me about him borrowing money from you was a lie?”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Think you of all people would know that,” he smirked. “But he was always crying broke, so as a favor to Annie I brought him in to sell software. Next thing I know he’s buddying up to Marco, showing off how much he knew about computers. He should’ve never gotten greedy.”

  “By sucking up to the boss?”

  “By planning to narc on me,” George said angrily. “He wanted me busted and out of the way, so he could take my place here as Marco’s main guy. That’s where the real money is. That was going to be his big score.” He looked out the windshield towards some lights visible up the hill. “Fucking hick, thinking he could outsmart me. But I got to him before he could set me up.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He would have told me.” His eyes glinted with cruelty and Sam pictured Rydell’s mangled hand and the knife wounds.

  “I meant, how do you know he was trying to get you busted for drugs?”

  “Annie told me. He warned her to stay away from me, said something was going down, and I figured it straight out.”

  George had been right about Jeff’s intention but not his motivation. He had no clue the Feds were sniffing around. His narcissism blinded him to the obvious and made him eager to brag about his crimes.

  “I can’t believe Anne would be happy with what you did.”

  “As far as she knows, I didn’t do anything.”

  “But she was with you.”

  “We drove together to the club after she came up to score some blow and get laid. But she took off as soon as we got back, still all weepy because Jeff didn’t want to be her playmate. When she called all hysterical the next day after finding out he was dead, I told her he left here right after she did and must of gotten mugged or something. She believes me.”

  Sam doubted it. The young woman she saw performing on stage was skating on a fragile edge of self-destructive guilt. It probably wouldn’t take much to push her over.

  The road
dead-ended into a parking lot, past an Environmental Tech Services sign. A flash of lighting blazed overhead, briefly illuminating the area. Sam remembered seeing the main building on the DVD. He told her to park under a carport between a motorcycle and an ATV.

  George held his hand out for the keys. Aiming the gun at Sam’s head, he backed out of the car. “Okay, now you.”

  Even though they were under the carport, she was hit by a spray of wind-blown rain when she opened the door. Another crackle of lightning flashed. She silently counted the seconds…two, three, four…until she heard the thunder. George popped open the trunk, and Joe eased out. “Go inside through the big door right there. Move!”

  Pelted by rain, they hurried inside the warehouse. It was filled with boxes, crates, and machinery, looking much as it had in Jeff’s recordings. The only light came from a lamp teetering on the corner of a desk positioned to the left of the entrance where a wiry, balding man sat smoking a cigarette. He looked to be in his fifties and seemed completely unperturbed by George holding two people at gunpoint.

  “Lou, go grab some chairs in the back for our guests here. We need to have a little chat with them.”

  Lou nonchalantly stubbed out his cigarette and disappeared into the darkness. “I need to make sure what you’ve been up to so I can do damage control if necessary. Marco doesn’t like loose ends.”

  George walked to the desk and pulled a hunting knife and pair of pliers out of the top drawer. As if on cue, a rumble of thunder vibrated the building, the rain sounding like rocks on the metal roof. Sam picked up another sound: a car engine revving. Manuel heard it too and looked up.

  Keeping the gun pointed at them, he walked towards the door. He got there just as Anne, in full strip club attire, pulled it open. For a split second she made direct eye contact with Sam before George blocked the doorway and pushed her back. He turned his body so that the door rested against his chest enabling him to talk to Anne outside and still keep the gun pointed at Joe and Sam without her seeing it.

  “What do you want?” he hissed.

  “Georgie, baby, I just needed to get some stuff,” she pouted. “You were supposed to leave me some and drop off my bag.”

  Manuel kept turning his head to make sure nobody moved. When he looked away, Joe motioned quickly toward the knife. “Just be ready,” he whispered, taking a half-step to his right. “You take Lou. Use whatever you got.”

  George pushed Anne again. “It’s in my car, in the glove. Just take what you need and get out of here. I have some private business to take care of.”

  Anne glanced back inside. “What is she doing here?”

  George grabbed the side of her neck. “I said get the fuck out of here. Go!” He shoved her and slammed the door closed.

  If Marco doesn’t like loose ends, where does that leave Anne? Sam wondered if Anne knew how much danger she was in.

  Above them the wind howled, and a wall of rain pounded the building. Sam watched Lou walk out of the darkness, carrying a folding chair in each hand and pieces of rope draped around his neck. Outside, a car door slammed, and the engine revved again as Anne drove away. George moved back to the desk, the shadow from the lamp turning his face into a demonic mask. Lou opened the chairs and pushed them behind Joe and Sam.

  “Sit,” George ordered.

  At that moment, a bright light flashed directly outside the windows and a tremendous boom shook the building, accompanied by the sound of shattering glass. Joe shouted, “Now!” and dove to his right, grabbing the knife as he rolled past the desk. Sam picked up a chair and swung it. Even though it felt as if her arms were moving in slow motion, she hit Lou hard enough to flatten his nose and split his cheek open but not hard enough to take him down. She crouched and aimed a snap kick at the side of his knee. It landed with a brittle crack. He fell over howling in pain and grabbed for his leg.

  Sam looked up to see George raising his arm. She darted left toward a stack of boxes, arms raised to protect her head. There was a blast of gunfire and she heard a whizzing noise pass directly above her. Squatting behind the boxes, Sam looked down to see that her shirtsleeve was torn. A stream of blood began seeping through, accompanied by a sudden, fiery pain along her right forearm.

  He just tried to shoot me. “You motherfucking son of a bitch!” she yelled furiously.

  Her enraged outburst distracted George just long enough for Joe to rush him. He hit George full force with a shoulder to the mid-section. They tumbled to the ground. The knife skittered under the desk and the gun slid across the floor, coming to rest where Lou was lying, holding his bleeding right cheek, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle. Joe looked around for the weapon but Lou was already reaching for it. “Sam, run!”

  She scrambled to her feet, and they sprinted out the door, nearly knocked backwards by the force of the howling wind and rain. They ran past the gate and onto the road, stopping where it started angling downhill.

  “Which way?” Joe asked.

  The rain blowing in their eyes made it hard to see. If they took the road, the car would reach them in seconds. To the left was the trail that led over the outcrop. It looked closer and easier to navigate but Sam knew it was a death trap. To the right was a steep, cliff-like slope that led to the large wash below. Sam grabbed Joe’s arm. “We need to go this way. This’ll take us to the highway.” They started running.

  The rain had turned the sandy gravel into sludge, and they slipped and slid their way down, stabbing and scraping their hands on sharp rocks and brittle bushes as they made their way to the bottom. They ran steadily, both of them panting hard, breathing in as much water as air. It was pouring so hard the rain stung their faces like pinpricks. They’d been running for at least five minutes when Sam glanced over her shoulder and saw a headlight coming down the hill far behind them.

  Joe looked back. “It’s got to be the ATV; we need to hurry.”

  They quickened their pace, Sam swearing she would never complain about step class again if she lived long enough to take one. The headlight was gaining on them. There was no way they were going to outrun it.

  “When he catches up, I’m going to distract him, and I want you to keep going,” Joe told her.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are? Rambo? And what the hell were you doing with a gun?”

  “Sam, this isn’t the time.”

  “There might not be another time.”

  The ATV was quickly closing in when a gunshot echoed off the nearby rocks. Joe pushed Sam to the side, and they fell to the ground. Beneath her, Sam felt a fleeting vibration and noticed there was suddenly close to six inches of water in the channel. Joe started to get up, but she stopped him. “What? We’ve got to keep moving.”

  The next vibration was stronger. “Do you feel that?”

  Sam could hear a low rumble in the far distance. It wasn’t thunder. She looked around searching for some scrub, but she could barely see a few feet in front of her. “Come on. We’ve got to find some bushes. They’ll be growing up the sides. This channel is about to flood.”

  They ran blindly, the ground shifting beneath them as the next waves of the imminent flash flood flowed past. Joe grabbed her shoulder and pointed. “There.”

  About halfway up the side of the channel was a clump of bushes jutting out from the steep embankment. They managed to crawl high enough to grab the roots then pulled themselves the rest of the way, perching on the thickest branches. Joe wrapped his arms and legs around a sturdy limb, interlocking his ankles and wrists. Sam didn’t trust her upper body strength. Keeping her arms inside the sleeves, she lifted the rest of the shirt over her head and looped it around a thick bough like a lasso then crossed her arms in front. But when she saw the ATV roar into view she knew they had run out of time. Sam wondered who would take care of her dogs and hoped Ellen wouldn’t think she had given up on her when she didn’t call in the morning.

  George came to a skidding stop beneath them, his face smug with satisfaction and anticipation. He got off the ATV
and stood looking up at them, holding the gun with both hands, the water now up to his knees. He yelled to be heard over the wind and rain and a rumble he was oblivious to. “This is going to be like target practice.”

  Sam took a deep breath and closed her eyes, bracing for the pain. But the next sound she heard wasn’t a gunshot. It was a deafening, unearthly wail as a wall of water crashed into them with so much force that it pulled her body almost horizontal to the ground. She tucked her head trying to ward off a barrage of rocks, sticks, and other debris carried along by the cold water. For an eternity the surge swept overhead, her burning lungs screaming for oxygen, her arms aching with the effort to hold on. Then just like that, the rush leveled off, and Sam was able to lift her head out of the water. She gulped in air, the rain now a gentle shower on her face, the current a steady but manageable flow. For the first time in a long time, she was freezing. She looked over and saw Joe surface, shaking his head to clear his eyes and coughing out water.

  Her left hand was numb from how tightly the shirt had been wrapped around her wrist. Sam wiggled one arm out of its sleeve then worked the other arm free. “You okay?” she asked after giving Joe a chance to catch his breath.

  “Nothing a tetanus shot and traction won’t cure,” he winced.

  Sam’s smile faded when a flashlight beam blinded her. She put her hands up to block out the light, assuming it was Lou coming to finish what George had started. She wasn’t sure she had any fight left. But a familiar voice called out from above them. “Is everyone all right?”

  “We’re okay,” Joe yelled back.

  “Stay there, Joe,” Detective Larson instructed. “We’re coming to get you.”

  Sam looked over. “You have got some serious talking to do.”

  • • •

  With the help of some rope, PSPD officers helped them climb out of the channel and an hour later Sam sat on the trunk of a squad car with a blanket draped around her shoulders, uncomfortable in sodden clothes. She couldn’t leave until Larson released her and had spent the last twenty minutes watching the detective talking to a handsome man dressed in black cargo pants and a dark polo shirt. It wasn’t lost on Sam that Joe was dressed almost identically.