The Complete Matt Jacob Series

by Klein, Zachary;

  We remained quiet for the next few minutes while I contemplated Salmon Rushdie’s life, but Cheryl stomped on the romance. Hard.

  “What about the Irish?”

  “Say what?”

  “That Color It Green program sounds like a front. Plus, your description of the church’s visitors. They don’t sound like social workers.”

  Cheryl’s verbalization of my earlier suspicion sent a chill through my emotional restraint. I tried to match my assailants with the men at the church, but the bush hadn’t given me a clear view. I hoped it had been the bush. It might have been the fear. “What would Color It Green front for?”

  “I don’t know. Guns. How does the IRA grab you? That neighborhood has always been involved in the war.”

  It was common knowledge that an underground existed between my city and different factions in the struggle to liberate Ireland. But common knowledge is not the same as fact. Especially one I didn’t want to hear. I shrugged and fought the idea, but my dread was listening hard.

  “What difference does it make if it’s white supremacists or the IRA?” Cheryl asked, accurately perceiving my rising tension.

  “The IRA doesn’t make sense,” I said stubbornly.

  “But a national white supremacist group does?”

  “I don’t know.” I stood, walked softly to the window, pulled a slat of the blind, and looked into the alley.

  “Do you hear something?” Cheryl whispered. She didn’t sound scared.

  I patted the slat back down and returned to the table. “Just the sound of my panic.” I forced a smile and said, “Let’s say Color It Green is a front and I did brush up against the IRA. Why would they come after me? Hell, I’m just working the Avengers and everyone knows it. What connection could the IRA have with Kelly? No, sweetie, odds are I got real Americans here.”

  I wasn’t willing to lay mortgage money on my logic, but somehow neo-Nazis seemed like the easier do. “Can I get you anything?” I said, debating whether to retrieve bourbon or grass. I decided on both.

  When I returned to the table Cheryl shook her head. “Cigarettes, dope, booze. Shit, you’re a walking death wish. I don’t know why you’re scared of anyone else.”

  I finished rolling the joint before I looked up. “Walking is the operative word. I almost buy it and you’re hassling me about dope?”

  Cheryl’s voice grew soft. “I like you, Matt.”

  Her simple words broke through the numb and cunning I’d been using to hold myself together. I tried to light the joint but my hand wouldn’t stop trembling. My body broke into a clammy sweat and I felt bathed in layers of fear. I tried to speak, couldn’t, and dropped the joint on the table. I covered my face with shaking hands as the entire evening’s tension exploded, my body twitching like I’d just plugged into 220. For the first time since this endless night began, I stopped holding on and burst into tears.

  Cheryl stayed where she was and let me sob myself out. Eventually the crying and shaking eased. I took deep breaths until I regained a semblance of calm.

  Then Cheryl stood, walked close behind me, and cradled my head against her breasts. I felt my pulse quicken, closed my eyes, and let my hands reach back and slide down her flanks. I pictured her naked, lying across my outstretched body, replenishing my fear and fatigue with her youth and vitality.

  I rose from my seat and faced her with open eyes. All my fear, my desperation, was replaced by a burning desire. The rest of my kitchen was gone and the only thing I could see was the welcome of her stance, the invitation of her body, the pulse of a tiny vein in her neck. I reached out to pull her into me but stopped when the casts on her hands curled onto my chest. I immediately felt awkward, silly, and confused. Suddenly more protective than impassioned.

  And almost jumped out of my skin when the telephone’s bell slashed through the moment.

  I grabbed the receiver with a mixture of disappointment and relief. It was Richard. “We just spotted Julius. Charles is going to open the door and I wanted to let you know.”

  “Thanks.” My throat was dry but I forced the words. “Will you ask him to come down?”

  “Sure. You sound strange. Are you okay?”

  I looked at Cheryl. “I’m okay.”

  “You never told me why you came over,” I said, after I hung up the phone.

  “Yes I did. I told you that I like you.”

  “Yeah, well there’s problems with that,” I answered gruffly, retreating. “Like twenty-some years’ worth.”

  “Those years disappeared pretty fast a minute ago.” She smiled. “You make yourself out to be an old man and me a young kid. Neither is exactly true.”

  I lowered my shield and tried to return her smile. “We probably have to talk but now ain’t exactly the time or place. My friend Julius will be here any second and I’m going to ask him to take you home.”

  I was spared her protest by a light tapping. I motioned for Cheryl to sit, grabbed the gun from the holster, and opened the front door.

  Julie stared balefully at the barrel, stuck his finger out, and gently pushed the gun aside. He stepped inside the door and stood motionless while I locked up. “Dug in pretty deep, here,” he said. “Who you waiting on?”

  “I’m not sure. I got run off the road by professionals. They wanted to take me out. And they had an Avenger with them.”

  “He thinks white supremacists, I’m thinking Irish. Maybe the IRA,” Cheryl called from the kitchen.

  Julius glanced at me. “Sounds like you got the fort well supplied.”

  “I’ve had enough problems for one night,” I said. “Cheryl was here when I got back. I want you to take her home.”

  “You expecting more trouble?”

  “Not expecting, but anything is possible.”

  Cheryl stepped out of the kitchen shadows. “I haven’t agreed to leave.” She lifted her casts. “These don’t mean I’m a quitter.”

  I shook my head. “Cheryl, you can’t pull this now. If I’m going to get out of this jam I can’t be concentrating on your safety. Please? Let Julius take you home. As soon as I find out what’s going on I’ll tell you. I promise.”

  For a moment I thought she was going to resist but suddenly a smile cracked wide across her face. “Guess I’d have trouble with a trigger anyway. Okay, big bad Black man, I’ll get my coat.” I started to explain who Cheryl was. Julie waved me quiet. “The casts speak for themselves, Slumlord. You just keep your head down while I’m gone.”

  I called Richard to tell him that Julie and Cheryl were on their way out. He told me they would check the street from their window. Smart man, my neighbor.

  As soon as Cheryl and Julius left, the apartment felt cold and empty. I was momentarily sorry they had listened to me, but better judgment prevailed. I went through the house, gun in hand, checking the windows. The third time through I began to relax.

  By the time Julius returned I was fairly certain the night’s surprises were over. Almost had me wishing I hadn’t sent the lady home. Then I flashed on her casts and my awkwardness and wasn’t so sure.

  I nodded us to the kitchen table and lit the joint. “Cheryl fill you in about the night?” I asked.

  “Enough.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think the sister makes sense. According to Phil, Washington Clifford was involved before you trashed the Avengers. Easy to see him sinking his ugly teeth into the Irish business.” Julius liked Washington even less than me and without having tasted Clifford’s fist. Less afraid of him, too.

  “Well, that could be true.” I glumly told him about Clifford’s visit and warnings.

  Julius nodded. “Then I’d bet she does have it right. Here’s a little more. I looked into your boy Kelly. His conversion was a relatively recent event. Not even a couple of years.”

  “And before?”

  “Before is interesting. He was behind a long trail of burglaries.”

  “Armored cars?”

  “Predominantly.”

/>   “So he was a thief.”

  “A long string of complicated successful burglaries.”

  “A thief with talent?”

  “A whole lot of talent, Matthew. But since The White Avengers, people never saw much sign of the same successes.”

  “He stopped his heists?”

  “Not completely. But cut way back once he started the Avengers.” Julie pulled two cigarettes from his pack and handed me one. “Something else strange. These White Avengers came out of nowhere. Like Kelly got hit with religion and the next day he was out preaching.”

  “Were the Avengers the same pack he’d been running with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We sat quietly while I tried to make sense out of his information. What stuck was Clifford. The IRA, or some other renegade faction, would indeed garner his interest. “If Kelly were involved with the IRA why the hell start the Avengers? Why would he want that kind of attention?”

  Julius just grunted and shrugged.

  Occasionally, different aspects of a case present themselves like puzzle pieces. Information to shift around until it fits. This case was different. I had been jumped, fired from my job, shot at, and still couldn’t find the damn game board. “I’m floundering, bro. If Kelly was connected to theIRA while he was involved with the Avengers, then the Avengers’ actions toward the Hasids somehow figure in. Hell, the shootings figure in.” I shook my head. “It’s a whole lot clearer if my pros are Nazis.”

  “Indeed. Only you don’t know enough to be clear about anything. Slumlord, if you’re serious about tracking this shit down you got to change the way you usually think. You look for a person’s reasons when something happens. This isn’t like that. These folk act for organizational reasons. Whether we be talking swastikas or initials. Nothing personal going on here.”

  “I don’t know, man, the night felt plenty personal. Julie, what fucking connection could the IRA have with a Hasidic Yeshiva?”

  Julius looked out from under his half-masts. “I’m guessing that’s what you’re gonna find out.”

  I telephoned Charles and Richard and called off the alert. Julie lived on their side of the building and I knew he wasn’t going to sleep.

  After he left, my apartment once again felt empty. Somewhat surprising—given its usual configuration of one. Of course, this wasn’t a usual night. As time continued to drift and Itrudged through a series of window checks, my fear of invasion lessened. And with it, the clutch of alone.

  Enough to take a long hot shower. I was filthy from my dirt eating forage behind the abandoned ice skating rink, my body caked with dry sweat and blood where the thorns had ripped skin. At first, the hot sting of water against the scratches conspired with rivulets of dirt torevive my anxiety. Especially when I picked tiny glass splinters from my hair. But as the dirt dripped to the tub floor and the tiny cuts numbed in the wet heat, I broke through the shell of fear that had invaded me since I’d looked down the barrel of Blue’s gun. I got pissed.

  The thought of Blue led the way. That little prick kept me freezing in a tavern’s cooler, broke a nice kid’s hands, and came within a bush of sending me to the Great Beyond. No matter who was pulling his strings, Blue had overreached.

  But the notion of a nameless, faceless enemy sent me on another intense window patrol: the idea of IRA involvement, or even a supremacist organization, was sobering. Too sobering, so once I finished the last safety check, I gathered my stash, bourbon, and .38, settling in for a hard night on the easy chair.

  Maybe it was the adrenaline drain or the cul de sac ending each bright idea, but my eyes grewheavy. The closer I drew to doze, the less I worried about invasion…the more I thought about Cheryl.

  The room was familiar though reminiscent of another age, another lifetime. The hint of something unpleasant hid nearby but, as I looked around and saw twin beds, a blond wooden dresser with stenciled flowers, a shelf overloaded with tiny glass figurines, the unpleasantnessdrifted away. I saw myself lying on the far bed when the door opened and Cheryl stepped quietly into the room, finger to her lips. The next I knew she had slipped in lightly beside me. I thought she was wearing something sheer, something gray, but now, lying next to me, the only contrast with her dark skin was my large white body.

  I started to speak but she put her fingers against my lips, leaned forward, and kissed me gently on my forehead. I opened my mouth and captured the tips of her fingers between my lips. She rested her mouth against my head. “They’re free,” I heard her say. “They’re finally free.”

  I kept her hand in my mouth exploring the skin between her fingers with the tip of my tongue. I opened my eyes, saw her other hand slide over my body, and watched myself harden as her fingernails dug into my flesh. I took her hand from my mouth, stretched it past my head, and traced the graceful, inside curve of her arm with a string of gentle kisses. Her eyes were closed and her hand had stopped its relentless squeezing. I thought she had grown frightened, but she shifted her slender body and we were suddenly breast to breast, belly to belly.

  Heat spread between our legs bathing our bodies with a thin layer of sweat. I leaned forward, kissed her closed eyes, then gently wiped away the perspiration just above her mouth. I felt her tremble so I wrapped my arm around her back and pulled her closer, tighter. She opened her eyes and moved her lips against mine.

  We lay there, eyes open, motionless, for a long moment. Then the unpleasantness beckoned, its oice a thick ugly whisper. A whisper that I silenced by closing my eyes and letting my tongue slide across the fullness of Cheryl’s mouth. I heard her breath quicken, felt her hard nipples push against my chest. Again Cheryl’s hand searched my body, though now her fingers were light, fluttery, eager to discover, touch, continue. My tongue explored the inside of her mouth while I roamed down her smooth back until my hand rested at the top of her tight round buttocks. Cheryl’s mouth opened wider, her lips and tongue in sudden sync with her thrusting body. I felt a burst of added desire as she hungrily bit at my lips. I slid my hand lower.

  She pulled her head back and for another moment we stared into each other’s eyes. Again I heard the disquieting call; again I ignored it, waiting for the sound of our breathing to fill the room. I knew somehow that I should be paying attention to my growing unease, but I sightfeasted on the hills and valleys of Cheryl’s lush, slim torso. So young, so Black, so beautiful. Her long legs, her smooth belly, her breasts marked by dark aureoles and nipples semi-sweet in her sleek chocolate skin. Together we watched my fingers dance lightly, whitely, over her sweatdampened front. Cheryl’s mouth was open, moaning, as my hand stretched toward the stiff curled hair between her legs.

  She grabbed my hair and pulled my head tight to her breast, her rush of moistness drenching my hand. I shifted my body and slid to the foot of the bed. Off the bed, knees on the floor, I lifted her feet, pressing her soles against my face. Listening in the darkness to her loud gasps and my silent desire…

  We stayed foot to face until I could no longer stand the blindness. I opened her legs and pulled her down to the edge of the bed. I heard a louder cry that reverberated but just closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, Cheryl was sucking her fingers. But her skin somehow seemed lighter, her body smaller.

  I leaned forward and squinted. Cheryl’s body had grown even tinier and her pubic hair had changed from black to blonde. I struggled to my feet wiping at the crazy film in front of my eyes, but the transformation refused to disappear. Horrified, I watched the rest of her body whiten. Cheryl’s hair, fanning across the pillow, straightened before my eyes. In a desperate attempt to silence my screaming mind, arrest my hallucinating vision, I jerked my body from the bed and looked away. But something forced me to turn back, forced me to look at her face…

  I bolted upright on my easy chair, my body shaking and sweating, my gun clattering onto the floor. I grabbed my cigarettes, lit one, and tried to calm down. Damn. I just kept getting jumped by ghosts of my dead daughter.

  Ghosts I�
�d hoped I had left behind…

  I leapt to my feet, swiped at my forehead with my damp tee shirt, and trotted from window to window. I had trouble enough without sharing the night with Electra. Eventually, the dream’s after-images dissipated, leaving just the cold and uneasy sweat.

  I stood at the window and stared. The sky had a pre-dawn gray, and I had the beginning of the blues. Something I couldn’t possibly afford. There was a difference between dreams and reality, and my situation hollered for action, not depression. Problem was, my rest had left me depleted rather than refreshed.

  I walked into the bedroom strung between fatigue and fear of another dream. I searched the night table’s ashtray, and found a decent sized roach. Valium would be better for sleep, but if I slept I wanted to be able to wake. I smoked the roach, then filled a pipe with more. I swung my legs onto the bed, smoked the pipe, then slid onto my back holding the gun on my chest.

  I was shocked back to consciousness by the trill of the telephone. I shoved it next to my ear before the second ring. “Who?” I barked, slapping the night table for smokes.

  There was no answer. Just the faint hollowness of an open line. “Who the fuck is this?” I demanded. Again no one answered, just a click.

  I swung out of bed, lit a cigarette, and thought about evacuating the building. Someone had checked to see if I was home—though they had stayed on the line longer than necessary. Before I’d arrived at any decision, the phone rang again. I lifted the receiver and heard Cheryl ask, “Matt, are you there?”

  Her voice instantly recalled my dream and I took a long pull on my smoke. “I’m here,” I said glumly.

  “You don’t sound too good.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t sleep much.”

  “It wasn’t a criticism, Matt. I’m worried about you, that’s all.”

  “Well, don’t be. Right now I don’t need your worry. I need to be left alone.”

  I understood her silence and immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t Cheryl’s fault I was a sick puppy. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. Someone just called and hung up on me. Was it you?”