by TJ Martinell
The gunfire continued from the steps and slowly subsided as we became too small a target. Casey stood alone on the road with his gun aimed at us but the muzzle remained as dark as his face.
***
Throughout the drive, fear kept me from looking back at my father. Or at Jean.
I felt cheated. It was supposed to a victory, my victory. Instead, Cutman had been left to die. Despite what I had told Tom, he was still alive. It was his choice, but that was little consolation. I liked to think death had come for him before the ISA had.
I couldn’t take it anymore and looked at Jean. She had her head rested against the door. When she stirred I felt a tightening around my chest release.
“Can you drive faster?” Tom asked.
“I’m going as fast as it will go.”
His voice was flat.
“You need to drive faster,” he said.
I then noticed how fast he was breathing. His hand was at his side, his fingers curled. His lips were pressed together tightly. He moved his hand away to reveal blood on his palm and near his hip. Too much blood for a single wound.
I started to panic, but he held up a hand.
“Relax,” he said. “Just get us there.”
I stomped down on the pedal, the tires squealing as we took a sharp turn at the corner. My heart labored while I wrestled with our options. There were few. It wasn’t safe to just pull off at the nearest spot. Nor any local towns. Our uniforms were now a curse. I struck the wheel, too furious at myself to speak. It was fate’s depraved humor at work that I alone had come out of it all unscathed.
“What I wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now,” Tom said.
“I’m sorry, Tom,” I said.
“It’s alright. We were sold out, anyway.”
I turned to him bewilderedly. Sold out?
His smile seemed to explain it all. Casey’s appearance, his excuse for arriving with his men in tow. Again, what were the odds? This time, however, it wasn’t fate or luck or chance or providence to credit. It was the work of a snitch. A traitor.
My resolve gave way to tears. Biting down on my lips did no good. I furiously rubbed my eyes, hoping Tom wouldn’t notice.
“Why did you go after Jean? You didn’t have to do it. I could have done it.”
“Like hell,” he laughed quietly. “I didn’t want you two idiots to recreate a real life performance of Romeo and Juliet. You should have seen the look on your face when you saw her there.”
In the rearview mirror, I looked at Jean again. She didn’t appear wounded, just asleep. I wiped my eyes again. This time, Tom saw it. I turned away and rubbed harder, but it seemed to produce more.
“It’s okay, kid,” he said. “You don’t need to say anything.”
“I don’t understand…you know…how you thought of her…
By then the pain had become so great Tom was drifting in and out of consciousness, his eyes rolled back as he concentrated his entire focus on something other than the wound.
“I couldn’t go through it again,” he mumbled to himself. “Carl would understand. He’d understand. I just hope I made the right choice.”
I pressed him for more clarity, but it was all he could get out before he laid his head against the seat and took a long deep sigh as if to sleep and dream of better times.
***
We drove further down the road, onto the interstate highway. The mountains and endless sea of evergreen trees greeted us as we drove between the jagged mountain peaks composing Snoqualmie Pass. The drones above us seemed friendly, and none of the other cars offered a hint of danger.
Tom had woken up and was peeling off the paper shell to a cigarette from the pack he had left underneath the seat. He stopped and dropped it in a cup holder and clutched his side with a profound sense of urgency.
“I hope you don’t think I’ve been a bastard on purpose,” he said. “I just couldn’t deal with it if something happened to you.”
“Why?”
“How could I ever look your old man in the eye again and tell him I let his kid die in front of me?”
More guilt poured into my chest. I had known all along Tom had given me hell for my own good, intervened even when I had resented him for it.
“I never thanked you for what you’ve done,” I said. “I was too stupid to realize you were looking out for me. I wanted to be my own man. I didn’t understand what it meant to a man, I guess. Now I do.”
“Tell me; why didn’t you shoot that ISA friend of yours?”
“Because he’s my friend.”
“You think he was more of a friend to you than I?”
I looked at Tom, smiling weakly. He deserved to hear what I had long held back, what he had long hoped to hear.
“I’ve never had a better one,” I said.
He smiled. “Swell, kid. Glad to hear that. Glad to hear it.”
He leaned against the side, sighing as he dipped his head down.
“Wake me up when we get there,” he said. “When this is all over, we’ll go get a drink together. The three of us. Hell, I’ll even let Jean come along. It’ll be like old times. Believe you me.”
“I will.”
***
When we finally reached Tom’s place, I parked the car in the back where a tarp and some wooden boards helped conceal it. I wasn’t going to risk driving it around Seattle, where it would be instantly marked as an ISA car. I’d later have it sent to Hernandez.
I turned the engine off and nudged Tom. His face had fallen against his chest.
“We’re back,” I said to Tom as though he were stepping out of the vehicle and was still within arm’s reach.
Except he hadn’t moved.
“Tom?”
I shook him. His inert body fell against me like a lead weight. His skin was cold. I struggled to push him up, to lift his head so I could speak to him.
My voice was weakening. “Tom?”
I grabbed his wrist. No response. His fingers were stiff and cold.
“God, no. No. No. You can’t go. No. No. Please, God. Save him. Please!”
I clasped my hands together and prayed, asking for a miracle. He still did not move. I finally stopped praying and held his body against the door. I kept asking God why he could allow this to happen.
In the back of the car, Jean breathed nosily as she regained consciousness. She wordlessly observed Tom, saw my face covered with both hands. She turned my father lying beside her and assured me he was still alive. I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand.
The door on my side flew open. I stepped out with one of Tom’s cigarettes and fought to get a flame from my lighter. I took long drags on it and then tossed it into the mud at my feet, telling Jean to remain in the car with my father.
Someone had to pay for Tom.
And I had a good idea who.
Inside the building, the faint light glowed from around the corner made it evident someone had beat me there. I moved through the hallway, passing my old bedroom and into the main room. Beyond it was the old restaurant and the light’s unknown source. A silhouetted figure sat at one of the booths on the right side of the restaurant as though waiting for someone.
My pistol in hand, I announced myself and told the person if they moved they would be shot.
Other than nod, the figure remained motionless.
I ordered them to raise their hands. They obeyed. Having them to stand up, I walked over to the booth to determine who it was. Their darkened features came into the light as they turned to face me.
Olan.
I almost shot the son of a bitch on the spot.
“Put the piece down,” he said. “Ya got me all wrong here.”
“Have I?”
“Let me chat with Tom. He’ll hear me out. Call him in.”
“You can call for him all you want in a minute after I’ve sent you on to the other side.”
He seemed genuinely astoni
shed. “Tom’s dead?”
“You want to see for sure?”
His eyes widened. His voice sounded desperate. “Kid, ya got me all wrong. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it. Ya gotta believe me!”
“Then what the hell are you doing here? You better start talking sense.”
“Ya want the gist? Alright. I’ll give it to ya. As ya guessed, ya got sold out. And if ya half as bright as I figure ya are, ya already surmised it was somebody from the paper.”
“Any idea who it might be?”
“No. I know exactly who the bastard is.”
“Who?”
“Come on, kid. Who ya think?”
He didn’t have to give the name. I just couldn’t believe McCullen would do it. Then I remembered the kind of man he was. He would do anything to protect his power, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.
“Alright,” I said as I holstered my pistol. “What now?”
Olan smiled, put a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t help admire his deception. He had fooled me completely, and I had the feeling he had also deceived everyone else at the newspaper.
“Don’t act like ya got the whole world on ya shoulders, kid,” he said. “I ain’t a part of ya political crusade, but I don’t it when our man is whorin’ himself out to the ISA like those sluts ya see standin’ outside the library at midnight every Friday.”
“You got a plan?” I said as I retrieved Tom’s gun from his room.
“Yeah. Ya want revenge for what happened to Tom? Ya gonna get it.”
Chapter Ten
The guards posted outside the newspaper did nothing when we arrived. Fortunate for them. At that moment, I was prepared to kill anyone who stood in my way. They had no reason to suspect. We were out of our ISA uniforms, back in our old clothes.
“How are we gonna do this?” I asked Olan.
Olan told Jean to have my father taken to the third floor. He wrote down the name of a doctor and told her to hurry. Several guards helped her take him in. I followed into the lobby but stopped at the elevator. Olan put a hand on my shoulder. The same way Tom would have.
“Come,” he said. “We’ll set things right.”
Taking the steps, I waited for him to produce a weapon. His hands were empty when we reached the newsroom. Glancing at Tom’s pistol in my coat, he whispered that I not do anything rash or sudden.
The security guards stood stiffly off at the back of the wall as he walked past them, seemingly headed for his office. Just before he reached the door, three men with guns came running around the corner and into the room, shouting frantically.
“Anyone seen Farrington or Hayes here?” they asked with panted breaths.
The typewriters stopped. Like a flock of birds, the writers turned to us.
“Hey, Farrington!” one of them said. “You’re coming with us!”
“He ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Olan said.
“Sorry, boss, but orders are orders,” he replied.
Olan leaned against his office door. The security guards raised their chins curiously.
He nodded.
“It’s time, boys.”
The security guards trained their guns at the three men. When the trio resisted, a guard killed them with a silenced pistol, two shots apiece. The writers froze, anticipating a massacre. Some went for their guns, but the guards ordered everyone to hold their hands up or be shot. Everyone obeyed, giving me dirty looks as they did so.
“We ain’t here for ya,” Olan said as he made a short call on his office phone. A minute later, ten more guards were in the room. Beneath us, floors feet stomped and chairs rattled as people were rounded up like cattle. No gunshots, at least that we could hear.
“They work for you?” I asked Olan.
He was smug. “Somethin’ like that. A little switch I made five years ago in the book keeping. Oh, and the bookkeeper is on my payroll, too.”
Another guard came in.
“We have secured everythin’ except McCullen’s office,” he said. “The son of a bitch barricaded himself inside.”
“Good,” Olan said. “I wanted to deal with him personally.”
“I’m coming with you,” I declared.
Olan took the silenced pistol from one of the guards and solemnly led us to McCullen’s office. Several guards were swinging at the reinforced door with sledge hammers. Dents in the faux wood frame exposed the thick steel behind it. Olan took the sledge hammer from one of the guards and stuck at the wall a few feet from the door. It only took a few strikes to break through. Bits and pieces of plaster and sheetrock piled at his feet. He plowed forward and continued smashing away at the last remaining partition between us and McCullen.
One final swing destroyed the remainder of the wall. Three guards rushed inside silently. No shots fired.
Olan set the hammer against the wall and went through the gaping hole. I joined him, emerging on the other side.
McCullen was at his desk with a defiant expression apparent. He embraced his fate the only way he knew. With style. Whiskey in his hand, cigar smoke sifting out from the corner of his mouth. The untouched gun on his desk said he wanted to live.
“Ya pretty funny,” Olan said. “Even now, you’re not begging. I always liked that ‘bout ya. And it’s the thing I’m gonna miss most.”
McCullen smiled as he got up and walked to the front of his desk. “I must congratulate you for your little coup d'état. But if you think you can just walk into my office and take over without any repercussions, you will be greatly disappointed.”
“Where will those repercussions come from?” I asked. “Your handlers at the ISA?”
McCullen dropped the insolent smirk on his face. He put his cigar in the ashtray, tasting the last of his whiskey before he set it down. A quiet laugh came from his lips.
“You live in your little world, Farrington. This is the real world. Everything is based on reciprocity, quid pro quo. If the tracks are properly greased, the wheels continue to turn.”
I had nothing to say.
“You truly are a fool,” he added. “An intelligent one, headstrong, but a fool nonetheless. You want this to be some sort of moral crusade against evil. There is no good and evil. There is only what you can get before you die.”
“You’ve got all you’re going to get. Tom’s dead because of you.”
“I should have left you to rot. Biggest mistake of my life.”
“No. Your biggest mistake was handing off your dirty work to someone else. I don’t intend on making that mistake with you.”
I gazed at the jewels and precious stones on his suit and on his fingers. They sparkled brightly, a status signal of his wealth and power. Yet what value were they to him now?
He smiled what he knew to be his final expression, his death mask.
“How does it feel to be all alone?” he asked.
The gun kicked back like a mule. My arm flew up briefly. The smoke from the muzzle poured out and shrouded the air. The enclosed room made the noise deafening.
I cleared the smoke with my hand, seeing McCullen slumped over the top of his desk, his hand placed near the gaping wound. His last expression conveyed disbelief in his own mortality.He had enjoyed the finest things a man could have. But death had taken him like any other.
Shoving Tom’s pistol down the front of my trousers, I grabbed McCullen’s corpse and threw it on the floor. I took hold of his coat and brought him to the door and pushed back the bolts and undid the locks that had failed to protect him from my wrath. I threw the door open and dragged him out into the hallway where the security guards gawked at him the sort of incredulity as savages beholding a defeated god.
Kicking the corpse in the side, I pointed at the guards. “Take this sack of shit out and tie him to one of the cars. Have a delivery boy drive it through the town like he’s on parade. Tell ‘em to drop it off whenever he feels like. Just make sure he goes through the right neighborhoods first, got
it?”
The guards looked down at the body, then at Olan standing in the doorway.
“Do what he says,” he stated.
They dragged him out like a hunter would freshly-killed game.
“I told you not to interfere,” Olan said to me when we were alone. “He would have been useful.”
“You said I’d get justice. I got it – for Tom, and all the others.”
We went back to the newsroom. It didn’t look like a hostage situation, but the atmosphere hinted at a predetermined bloodbath. The copy and delivery boys stepped behind writers as they looked at me in front of the room with terrified eyes.
“Where’s McCullen?” someone asked.
“In Hell,” I said.
No one spoke.
“Boy, you sure are a dumb sonuva bitch,” an unknown man declared. “They gonna string ya up from a pole.”
“You mean the ISA?”
No one answered.
Some of them were close to my age within five years. Most were older, hardened men. Their weather features reflected the brutal existence of our world. They were not easily frightened. And I was not arrogant enough to think I would intimidate them.
But I wasn’t there for that. The scales of justice were still unbalanced.
I approached each man individually, noting their grave expressions. Across the rows of desks, the smell of black coffee and bourbon whiskey swirled in the air along with the faint traces of cigarette smoke and chaw. Port was the only one apparently pleased, the way a proud father would of his son after a great accomplishment. He offered a hand to me, then took it before I could offer it.
He had a smile I yearned to see on my father’s face once more. A smile I might never see on him again. Because someone had betrayed him. Betrayed Tom. Betrayed me.
I fired from my hip. The bullet left a small entry wound in Port’s chest. He let out a gasp and crumpled into his chair as his head fell back and faced the ceiling.
Everyone jumped in shock. A perfect silence pervaded over the room, interrupted by Port’s gasps as he spat up blood and clawed at the wound. A line of blood trickled down his chest.
My face felt as emotionless as a stone.
