Dead On My Feet - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 1)

by J. A. Konrath

  I don’t know if I’d ever been truly normal. Normalcy had been snatched from me at a young age. But when I was dating Annie, I felt part of the human race. An average Joe, with an average girlfriend, and a quasi-average job, meshing with society rather than sticking out like a brush-hair cowlick.

  This isn’t normal.

  Earl was getting quieter. The tramadol was ball-gagging him.

  Normal people have family.

  I tried to ignore Earl and focus on my driving, which required paying closer attention because the roads had gotten blurry.

  Normal people have friends.

  The XLS was an interesting machine; a sports car disguised as a luxury car. The gas pedal was fat and panting to be floored.

  Normal people will be missed when they’re gone.

  I got onto a long stretch of highway, next to a forest preserve, and pinned the pedal.

  The response was automatic. Instant speed. I squealed tires at forty miles an hour. With one hand on the wheel and one on the bottle, I got it up to a hundred within four seconds.

  It woke me up, my sphincter tightening, the tiny hairs on my arms pointing stiff, my throbbing hands pinging with adrenaline.

  And the adrenaline really hit a peak when the tire blew.

  There was skidding, the Caddy’s computer quickly adjusting to the loss of traction but not fast enough to keep me on the road. I swerved right, dug through the grass, up a small hill, into a snarl of shoulder-high bushes before thumping to a stop when the front end hit a tree.

  POP! went the airbag, hitting me like a front end tackle, then everything went wiggly and dark.

  “He dead?”

  I didn’t recognize the voice. It was male, and gruff, and sounded far away. I thought I might be asleep and dreaming, but my eyes were open and my vision filled with white.

  Airbag. Car accident. Hit a tree.

  Was I hurt?

  Couldn’t tell. The tramadol was killing pain like the pain killer it was.

  Someone grabbed my throat with one hand and began patting me down with the other. Cop? Paramedic? Consciousness was a slippery thing, refusing to allow me a grip.

  Whoever it was, they weren’t being gentle. Didn’t emergency services in this burg know about spinal injuries? Or lawsuits?

  Then the white was being pushed away—someone cutting the airbag with a switchblade.

  A switchblade?

  I began to suspect that I wasn’t being rescued. As I focused my blurry eyes on the two men standing next to my open car door, my suspicion was confirmed.

  One of them was bald as me and had his arm in a cast. The other was older, heavyset, and on crutches.

  Neither appeared concerned for my well-being.

  “We been hoping to get our hands on you again, asshole,” said Crutches.

  I grinned. Part of it was the drugs. Maybe some of it was a minor concussion. But the majority of my mirth was self-directed. I hadn’t been my usual, paranoid self, and had missed a tail. Strike one. Strike two, the guys standing there were the same two guys I’d worked over with my baseball bat for trying to scare Dr. Griffith out of business. And strike three, I was tripping balls and unarmed.

  “You shot out my tire.” My voice didn’t sound right. Mumbley and echoey.

  “We didn’t shoot shit. You were driving like a maniac. Ran over a beer bottle. Practically did our job for us.”

  That prompted a chuckle from me. This situation was completely avoidable, totally my fault. Earl wasn’t going to kill me. Neither was substance abuse. I’d spent the majority of my life being hyper-aware of every potential threat, and I let my guard down for a few minutes and get into a car wreck while being followed by the bad guys.

  Which is pretty freaking hysterical.

  “You think this is funny?” asked Cast. “I’ll show you funny.”

  That made no sense, because what he showed me was a punch to the side of my head, which I didn’t find funny at all.

  Maybe he was trying for sarcasm.

  “Put your hand on the steering wheel.”

  “What?”

  He hit me again. I didn’t find that funny, either.

  “Hand on the wheel.”

  I obeyed, reaching for it with my left hand. He used a plastic zip tie to fasten my wrist to the top of the wheel assembly, so tight it pinched my skin.

  “I’m pouring the gas,” Cast said.

  He lumbered off. Probably to pour the gas.

  I fumbled for my seatbelt, and got a jab in the mouth for my efforts. “Ten metal pins in my leg, you asshole. You know how many hours I spent in rehab?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Because every time you go to rehab, I’m at your house, nailing your wife.”

  See? That was funny.

  Crutches obviously didn’t think so, because he stuck his switchblade in my cheek, so deep it clicked my molars. If I hadn’t been popping tramadol like candy, that shit would have hurt.

  “Easy!” Cast yelled. He was holding a red gasoline can. “We need this to look like an accident.”

  “Maybe he accidentally ate a knife.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “You telling me to not be stupid? You told me to tie his hand to the wheel. That gonna look like an accident?”

  “It’ll melt in the fire.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  The blade was removed from my face. I kept eye contact with Crutches, but my free hand was feeling around on the passenger seat.

  “Where’d you dump Griffith?” I said.

  “Someplace he won’t be found. But don’t worry. They’re gonna find you. They only gotta follow the smoke.”

  He grinned, and it was an ugly thing. I didn’t locate the tequila bottle, which was probably on the floor. I chanced a look, saw it was out of reach.

  Too bad. It was heavy, and would have made a good weapon. It also, miraculously, landed upright. A sip or two would have been swell.

  “I have money,” I said.

  Crutches held up my wallet. “You got thirty lousy bucks.”

  “How about a hundred grand?”

  “A deadbeat like you ain’t got a hundred grand.”

  I was trying to figure out how to convince him the Picasso in the trunk was worth that much, without telling him about the Picasso in the trunk because he’d just take it and kill me anyway, and then my lap was cold, and the stench of gasoline curled my nose hairs. Cast finished shaking the last few drops onto my pants.

  I reached for the empty can, but he pulled it away. As I fumbled for my seatbelt, Crutches lit a matchbook on fire and held it in front of my widening eyes.

  “I hope it hurts,” he said.

  Then he dropped it on my knees.

  He slammed the door as I slapped my thighs, trying to put out the flames. But as accelerants go, gas was a good one, and the fire was spreading faster than I could put it out. I managed to unbuckle my seat belt and then I tugged at my wrist, trying to pull it free.

  No good. Those plastic ties were tough. That’s why cops used them as handcuffs.

  Only a few seconds had passed since I’d been flambéed, but now I was starting to feel the heat. All the opiates in the world weren’t enough to squelch the agony of burning alive. I couldn’t pull away from the steering wheel to roll onto my belly and suffocate the flames, which were climbing up my shirt, but I had a millisecond of clarity in the midst of raw panic; McGlade dumped asparagus pee on himself to put out the fire.

  My bladder was, sadly, empty. But I remembered my last bouncing job, specifically one of the bartenders—an elitist pretty boy who insisted on calling himself a mixologist—who did a lot of flaming drinks to impress customers. In order to set a drink on fire, he would float a bit of Bacardi 151 or Chartreuse on top. Those liquors were overproof, meaning they had a higher alcohol content than the regular booze.

  Because regular booze wasn’t boozy enough to be flammable.

  At least, that’s what I remember him saying once. The guy was a prick, and I
didn’t pay much attention to him.

  Hoping my frantic semi-memory was correct, I reached for the remainder of the Patron—still half a bottle left.

  It was just out of reach.

  I remembered my tool belt, then remembered I’d put it in the trunk with the painting, and I almost started laughing again.

  Life. It’s a hoot.

  I twisted the steering wheel, gaining an inch before it locked, but it wasn’t enough for me to reach the bottle.

  At least I’d die in a luxury car.

  A luxury car…

  I felt around the steering column, and there it was; a tilt lever.

  Pulling it allowed me to tilt the steering wheel down, gaining another two inches, which was just enough for me to barely get a finger in the bottle neck, pulling it to me. Then I took a tequila shower.

  The hunky mixologist had been correct. I didn’t become a human torch. Instead, the expensive tequila soaked my shirt and pants and put out most of the flames. A few judicious slaps finished the job. But even though I was no longer burning, I was still in serious trouble. The car’s exterior was completely on fire, and smoke was filling the interior so quickly I was losing visibility.

  I reached for the keys, turning the ignition. The dashboard lit up, but the engine didn’t start. I felt around the door for the window controls, opening all four, and the smoke poured in like flood water. Then it hit my lungs, and I was racked by a coughing fit.

  I yanked on my arm, jerking and pulling and straining. I practically dislocated my shoulder, but I couldn’t break the plastic. It was going to stay looped around my wrist until it melted off, like Cast said.

  Not a bad idea. Maybe I could help speed the process.

  Reaching blindly for the dashboard panel, I located the cigarette lighter and pushed it in. I counted to five, my stinging eyes squeezed shut, unable to stop coughing, and then popped it out and pressed it, by feel, to my wrist.

  The tramadol wasn’t enough to stop the pain, but I held the lighter there until the plastic tie melted. Then I crawled over the passenger seat, opened the door, and fell to the ground, hacking and spitting, hoping I wouldn’t be spotted in all the smoke.

  I did a kind of half-crawl/half-roll, getting away from the burning vehicle. My lungs felt like they’d been scrubbed with steel wool. Tears, snot, and blood dripped off my face as I pulled myself into some heavy brush.

  The car didn’t explode. But it burned pretty good, perhaps the most expensive car fire in Illinois history.

  So long, Picasso. Nice to have known you.

  I heard sirens in the distance, and much as I needed another trip to the ER, I didn’t need another trip to the police station, so I pulled myself to my feet and wandered into the woods.

  Crutches had taken my wallet, but he’d somehow missed my cell phone.

  “McGlade. Talk, it’s your dime.”

  “I need a ride.”

  “Call a taxi. You’ve got thirty bucks.”

  “Wallet is gone,” I told him. “Some guys tried to kill me.”

  “And apparently they suck at it. Where are you?”

  “Some forest preserve.”

  “No problem. I’ll just type ‘some forest preserve’ into my iPhone and be there in five minutes.”

  “It can do that?”

  Harry sighed, big and melodramatic. “No, Phin. It can’t do that. Find an intersection and call me back. I’m at the clinic with Pasha. It’s closed, but they’re doing repairs.”

  I hung up and hiked in what I thought was a straight line. I eventually found a side road, and followed it to a main road, which I followed to an intersection.

  The intersection had no street signs.

  I walked another few blocks to a gas station. Many cars passed me, slowing down to gawk at the bleeding guy with the burned shirt and pants. None offered me a ride.

  At the gas station, I called McGlade back.

  “Talk, it’s your—”

  “Enough with the dime. I’ve had it with the dime.”

  “Says the guy who needs a ride.”

  “I’m at a gas station on Higgins and Remington Heights Road.”

  “I can be there in three hours,” Harry said. “Pasha and I are having sex.”

  “No, we aren’t!” Pasha yelled in the background. “Wait, did you say three hours?”

  “I meant three minutes. And by three minutes, I really mean fifteen seconds. Honestly, it’ll be so quick you won’t even feel it.”

  “I’m sorry, Harry. But I need more than fifteen seconds to have an orgasm.”

  “Women have orgasms?”

  “Could I speed this process up if I said I was bleeding and burned?” I said.

  “Probably not. But now I know to bring towels so you don’t mess up my car. On my way.”

  I touched my cheek, which hurt like hell. The mile walk through the forest preserve, and the half a mile on the road, went a long way toward killing my tramadol buzz.

  I stood on the corner, away from the gas station, lest they call the police. While I was waiting for McGlade, I watched an SUV pull up. The total suburban family stereotype. Young couple, two toddlers, big furry dog. Dad started the pump, then went inside the shop and came back with popsicles. Everyone was smiling, and they looked like they were actually enjoying themselves.

  So that wasn’t optimistic bullshit. Some families liked each other.

  Bet it was nice.

  I thought of Pasha. Maybe she’d have something similar to this, someday. But I wouldn’t. The only reason I’d never gotten a Born To Lose tattoo was because I’d probably die from an allergic reaction to the ink.

  Back to your pity-party?

  With the drugs wearing off, Earl was back.

  “It’s been a rough day.”

  How would you know? You’ve had your head up your own ass.

  “I don’t want to have this conversation.”

  What conversation? You don’t really think you’re talking to a tumor, do you?

  “Shut up.”

  What do you think is more likely? That your cancer has become sentient? Or that you’re hallucinating because you can’t stay sober for more than a few hours?

  “Shut. Up.”

  Here’s the big question: do you think your death sentence is the cause of your drug use? Or a convenient excuse for your drug use?

  “SHUT! UP!”

  Suburban Dad stared at me, his smile dropping off upon seeing the crazy bleeding scumbag within shouting distance of his beautiful family.

  You’re losing it, man. You know you’re talking to yourself, right?

  I didn’t answer.

  The SUV drove off.

  I prodded a first degree burn on my stomach, trying to feel something.

  Some pain was more than skin deep.

  McGlade finally arrived, pulling up to me in his Corvette.

  “Christ, you look like you got gang-banged by a forest fire. I should have brought more towels.”

  I climbed into the passenger seat. Harry had draped bath towels over everything. Quite the empath, that Harry.

  “So how do the other guys look?” he asked.

  I answered honestly. “One has a broken arm. The other has a broken leg.”

  “Were they like that before they kicked your ass?”

  “Do you enjoy this? Adding insult to injury.”

  “It’s one of my hobbies. You’re slurring.”

  “Been a rough day. Where’s Pasha?”

  “Reinforcements arrived.” Harry made an exaggerated sniffing sound. “Wow, you smell… delicious. I’m suddenly craving a bacon cheeseburger.”

  “My Bronco is in a supermarket parking lot.” I gave him the address.

  “Are you serious? That’s like three blocks away.”

  I thought he was bullshitting, but forty seconds later we were at my truck.

  “I want my money,” I said. “And my coke.”

  “Or else, what? You’ll bleed all over me?”

  I
made a fist, ready to punch him in his flippant little face. “Do you really want to see what I’ll do?”

  Harry put the car in park. He gave me what I’m sure he thought was his serious expression. “You want to do this? Really?”

  “We can step outside and I’ll show you.”

  “Why go outside. We can do this right here, in the car.”

  Harry unzipped his fly.

  “What the hell are you doing, McGlade?”

  “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? A dick wagging contest?”

  I let out a stiff breath. Because he was right. I was acting like an ass. I unclenched my hand, and my whole body seemed to unclench with it.

  “You need to make a decision, Phin. Right here, right now. I can help you with Pasha. Or I can help Pasha. Without you.”

  He didn’t say anymore, because he didn’t need to. I knew what he was implying. I needed to go cold turkey, or get the hell out of Dodge.

  My decision was pragmatic. I wanted the money. All the money, not just the half I’d already been given.

  “Can I have coffee?” I asked. “Or do I have to say no to caffeine as well?”

  “Caffeine isn’t a drug. It’s a way of life.”

  I nodded. Then I sucked it up. “Look, Harry… I’m—”

  “Don’t tell me you’re sorry when you’re high. It’s worthless.”

  I opened the car door, and McGlade made no move to stop me. “You’re going to let me drive? I thought friends didn’t let friends drive wasted.”

  “It’s okay,” Harry said. “We’re not friends.”

  Ouch. And for my next humiliation…

  “I need money,” I said.

  Harry fished into his pocket, gave me the bankroll and another stern look.

  I got out. He drove off.

  The most obnoxious man on the planet can’t stand to be around you.

  “Just shut up, Earl.”

  Crutches had taken my Bronco keys when he frisked me, but I had a spare in a magnetic box under the front bumper. I let myself in, not even bothering to check if the tape was intact.

  If there was another bomb in the truck, no big loss.

  After not blowing up, I went to a drive thru, choked down a large coffee and a shitty burger, cleaned myself up as best I could with some wet wipes and napkins. My burns weren’t bad; I’d had more severe sunburns. But the cheek wound was nasty, and it hurt. From under the seat I fished out the medical supplies I’d taken from my earlier hospital visit, and gave myself a few lidocaine injections in the face, and in my hands, which had resumed throbbing.