Between Two Minds: Awakening

by D C Wright-Hammer

“Did it have something to do with ‘beating it out of him if he didn’t tell you?’”

  “Yeah, how did you—?”

  “You were talking in your sleep. I thought you were awake when I first went out there.”

  “Well, yeah…”

  “Don’t go beating anyone unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “But what if—”

  “Ryan!”

  “Okay!”

  I grabbed my knife in its case and put it in my waistband, grabbed a bandana for my face, and then I kissed Helen on the cheek.

  Her face scrunched up. “Maybe you should brush your teeth before the meeting!”

  “Maybe you should shut up!”

  Leaving the apartment, I bulleted three blocks from the alley with about fifteen minutes to spare. Scoping out the surroundings, I needed to be sure that Junior was coming alone or else things could go south really fast. I walked to the perimeter and looked high and low, not seeing anyone or anything out of the ordinary. I placed the bandana over my face and made my way to the spot. Entering the alley, I was pleased with the location I had chosen. To the left, there was the rear of a flea market that had God knows what in its dumpsters. To the right was a laundromat, already busy spewing the scent of fabric softener into the air. Still, the surrounding area was quiet, making it perfect for the meeting. As I tried to settle on a place to stand to wait for the Padre’s son, a ruckus came from the other end of the alley.

  “Shit!”

  It was just garbage collectors rumbling in their massive truck.

  Shaking it off, I turned around to find him already moving towards me from the alley’s entrance.

  I had to take control of the situation. “Stop right there.”

  He stopped.

  At twenty meters from me, I could see that his frame wasn’t as massive as his father’s and figured it was likely due to being in better physical shape. Regardless, he was anything but small. Otherwise, it was clear that he was his father’s son. He had successfully mimicked the Padre’s appearance with his goatee and slicked back hair.

  “Did you come alone?”

  He nodded.

  Anticipating his response, I asked a silly question. “Where can I find your father?”

  His expression didn’t change even a little. Standing silently, it was as if he didn’t hear a single word I said. “I said, where can I find—”

  A huge, black auto-truck, the only vehicle legally allowed to still use gasoline, made a fast, wide turn to enter the alleyway.

  “Junior, watch out!”

  He reached for his gun as he turned toward the screeching tires.

  I could tell he wasn’t going to get it out of the way in time, so I dashed in his direction. As he turned his sights back to me, the barrel of his gun was nearly pointed right at my head. Just before he could get a shot off, I dove at him at such an angle as to knock him out of the way of the auto-truck swerving back and forth into the alleyway.

  Laying on the ground, he yelled, “Run!” He popped up and grabbed his gun.

  I was already moving toward the same goal, and we both sprinted out of the alleyway. I could hear the truck peeling out, no doubt turning around to chase us. To lose them, we headed right onto Waveland and down the street. The squealing tires of the truck exiting the alley added to my terror as I ran faster than I ever had before. Junior motioned for us to take the next left onto Kent, and then a right into another alleyway. Another thirty meters, and we ducked into a small, rear parking lot with buildings on three sides. Backs against a building, we looked around the corner, and sure enough, we had lost the truck. We both struggled to catch our breath. I stumbled toward a parked car, realizing quickly it had to be Junior’s unmarked police auto-car.

  Junior grabbed me by the arm, twisted it hard behind me, and slammed me up against the car.

  “Ow, dammit!”

  “Who the hell are you, and why are my father’s old goons after you?”

  I tried to stay in character even though I was still winded and my arm was hurting like hell.

  “Ah! I told you, I’m his friend.”

  He twisted my arm harder and pressed more of his bodyweight against me.

  I thought he was going to dislocate my shoulder.

  “I haven’t heard shit about my father in years. Then, out of the blue, I get an anonymous message to meet one of his…‘friends.’ My father had business partners, and he had thugs that worked for him. He never had so much as a single friend. So, I’m only going to ask you one time. Who the hell are you?”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll talk. Just…let me go.”

  He patted me down, then grabbed the knife from my waistband and chucked it across the ground. He gave me one last oomph against the car, then backed away from me while simultaneously pulling out his piece and pointing it at my face.

  Having never had a gun point at me until that day, for a moment, all I could do was swallow hard and hope he didn’t have an itchy trigger finger.

  “Spit it out.”

  I said the first thing that came to mind. “Okay! I used to work for him. He screwed me over on our last job, and I just wanted to get back at him.”

  “No. No. You run like a scared bitch and clearly can’t fight for shit. I don’t believe you ever worked for him.”

  My mind raced as I tried to figure out a way to prove that I knew his father without getting into the strange details. Only one thing came to mind, and I had to give it a try. “Lord, please provide us with your protection as we attempt to complete the job that has been put in front of us. Please provide us with buyers who are of sound mind and soul and ready to make a deal. Please ensure, should something happen, that our resolve is quick and our aim is steady. We ask this in the Lord’s name. Amen.”

  The life drained from Junior’s face as he slightly lowered his weapon. “How the hell do you…?”

  I was surprised it worked so well, but had to move things along before he started asking real questions, and I didn’t want to let on that I knew his father was dead. “I told you. I knew your father years ago. I can’t get into the details. I just need to know where he is.”

  Still in shock, Junior looked around aimlessly, dropped his weapon to his side, and sighed hard. “You get to a point in your life where you think the past is behind you—like you really got through it all and things can only get better from then on. And then a message like yours brings it all rushing back.”

  Taking a couple steps toward me, his expression changed to one of concern.

  I shuffled back against the car to be safe.

  “You just got out of the pen?”

  I nodded.

  “Damn. You must have had it bad in there. What should I call you?”

  Scrambling to think of an alias, a random name popped into my head. “Joey.”

  “Okay, Joey. My father’s been dead for twenty years. Any revenge you want, he already got, tenfold.”

  “Shit. How’d he die?” I could have gotten an Oscar for my performance.

  “Bullet to the head, then he was dropped in the river.”

  “You saw him for yourself?”

  “Yeah, I worked his case even though I was told not to. No one was going to stop me from seeing his dead ass and making sure it wasn’t another one of his schemes.” He let loose a breathy snicker, and then a seriousness returned to his face as he took a deep breath. “Growing up, everyone assumed that I would follow in his footsteps. I even entertained it in my late teens. I felt powerful having people respect—fear me the moment they knew who I was.”

  Junior cleared his throat. “But once I realized what kind of business he was running, I was disgusted. I couldn’t stand to be involved in any of it, and struggled with depression for a while before I figured out how to live with who I was, how to reconcile what my father was doing. That’s when
I applied to the police department, and I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him.”

  “I can definitely relate to dad issues.”

  “Yeah? Poor us, right? I knew I would never get anyone’s pity being his son, but I had it bad as a kid, and it only got worse as I got older. I guess it didn’t help that I got on the other side of the law.”

  Knowing what I knew, I couldn’t hold my tongue. “So, why did you cover for him when he was running a gang in your neighborhood?”

  Pain washed over his face with just the slightest hint of anger. But he quickly went back to a softer look. “He held my mother hostage for my betrayal and said he would hurt her if I ever caused trouble for him. But honestly, he was still always one step ahead of us anyway. Even though he had Mom, I never once broke the law for him.”

  “Damn.”

  “It wasn’t until one of his biggest jobs fell through that I took advantage. He was picked up by the metropolitan city police and temporarily booked. I went straight to his complex, muscled his thugs, and rescued my mom.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Yeah, but once he got out and was given the alderman position, we butted heads for years until he finally slipped up and we busted him for real. I thought for sure he was going down, and that would be it. But he weaseled his way out of that, too. Luckily, it wasn’t long before his business partners finished the job.”

  The meeting was going nowhere, so I had to do something to get more information. “Did you have the case files? Any business partners listed?”

  “Yeah, it’s been public information for years now, why?”

  “Great. I’d like to have a conversation with his associates.”

  Junior seemed like he was mulling it over. “Hell, it’s your life. But know this. If you do what I think you’re going to do, you’ll end up right back in the pen, or worse.”

  “I get it.”

  “And before you do anything stupid, just ask yourself, ‘Is he really worth it?’ It was the only way I was able to live with myself for years.”

  “Will do. Thanks, Junior.”

  He got into his car and pulled off.

  I grabbed my knife and gathered my thoughts.

  Charlie, I’m going to need your help on this one.

  Chapter 27:

  Betrayal Never Comes from Enemies

  “Charlie, I’m going to need your help on this one,” the Padre croaked from the backseat while exhaling his thick cigar smoke toward the windshield.

  “Sure thing, boss. What did you need?”

  “One of the jobs I did—before your time—it didn’t go over so well.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll need you to drop me off at a safe spot for about a week.”

  “No problem, boss. When?”

  “Tonight. Let’s stop by my place, and I’ll grab a few things, then we can head out of the city.”

  That night’s job had been the smoothest. The buyers were prompt, said all the right things, and left immediately after the exchange. Having bought ourselves an extra hour’s worth of time, I didn’t mind helping the Padre out in a pinch since he’d been so gracious to me and mine.

  “I don’t mean to pry, boss, but these jobs seem so routine to me already. What went wrong?” I could hear him taking a big drag off of his Cuban as I asked the question.

  With a puff in my direction, he responded, “Let me tell you a little story.” He pushed his cigar into the ashtray, and the sizzle was accompanied by more smoke making it a little hard to breathe as he started his tale. “I’ve always been fascinated with large predatory animals, and as you could have guessed, dogs are particularly interesting to me. It’s a little-known fact that human evolution was directly impacted by wolves that scavenged on the food and scraps of prehistoric people. At some point, someone decided to repeatedly test these remarkable creatures, and thus began the age-old practice of dog training. It wasn’t long before once-vicious wolves were tamed pets entrusted around even the weakest human children, sick, and elderly. This was because the strongest adults established themselves as pack leaders, and the wolves obeyed.”

  The Padre took a deep breath. “But that only split the species into domesticated and wild. To this day, there are still feral wolves that would do anything to survive. Pack-oriented killing machines created by thousands of years of natural selection and God’s will. They could take down prey much larger than themselves with cunning and ferocity.”

  He cleared his throat. “But even large wild predators like wolves lack reason. They don’t have true ill intent. They just work off of instinct. Still, doubt was cast on that well-known fact in India about twenty years ago. The native Indians living around the West Bengal area began to notice a strange phenomenon. The largest male and smallest female Indian wolves began to show up dead throughout the grassland. At first, the thought was farmers, but quick examinations of the carcasses showed that their bodies had been mangled like meat at a butchers’ school and had no spear or bullet holes. The natives were baffled, and even the wildlife experts that were brought in couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. It wasn’t until a person—one of the Indian’s greatest hunters—was killed that local authorities finally stepped in.”

  Breeeeng!

  The Padre took the call without even pardoning himself from the story. As the backseat lit up from the hologram, I refocused on the road and estimated that we were about ten minutes from the Padre’s complex.

  “Yes, I know the facility isn’t fully operational, but they can still run the tests on me. Now, wait until I get there for more questions.” The Padre grunted in disapproval at the call, then hung up. “Sorry about that, Charlie. Now, where was I?”

  “An Indian was killed.”

  “Ah, yes. Local law enforcement originally declared it a normal animal attack due to the lack of evidence to conclude otherwise. It took one of the detectives and a wildlife specialist to really see what was happening.”

  Breeeeng!

  “Dammit!”

  Tapping his netphone hard, he answered the call, and after a little conversation, got pissed again. “That will have to wait until next week. Don’t call again until then!” Hanging up, he made small talk. “Just when you’re trying to take a vacation, that’s when everyone needs you.”

  “Five minutes from your place, boss.”

  “Thanks, Charlie. Now onto what they found.”

  Breeeeng!

  “Ah, to hell with it. I’ll tell you later.”

  We pulled up to his complex just as the Padre ended his latest call, and he rocked himself out of the car. Leaning my head back, I tried resting my eyes a little while I waited for him to come out. After a couple of deep breaths, a deep relaxation overcame me, and I could feel myself begin to slip into a light sleep.

  “Charlie!”

  Startled, I popped up and grabbed the steering wheel, ready to drive in a moment’s notice. “Yes, boss!”

  “No, Charlie. It’s me.”

  Turning to my right, there sat Ryan in the passenger seat of the black Cadillac. Again, he was in what appeared to be a copy of my body, but that didn’t nearly concern me as much as what his presence meant for the job I was on.

  “What? You can’t be here, Ryan!”

  “But I am, Charlie. I need your help with something.”

  Shaking my head, my curiosity got the best of me. “Help with what?”

  “You’re taking the Padre to a safe place. I need to know where it is.”

  Peering over Ryan’s shoulder, I could see the Padre exiting his place with suitcases in hand, heading for the car. “Look, you can’t be here when he gets in, or we’re both dead.”

  “That’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Charlie.”

  “What?”

  “This isn’t real. I mean, it was real. Bu
t we’re actually just in a memory.”

  “What do you mean it’s just a memory?”

  “All of this. It’s your memory.”

  “Then how are you here? I don’t remember knowing you before…before…well, I actually don’t remember when we met. But I know you never came on jobs with me. And why do you always look like you’re in my body?”

  “I don’t know everything yet, but I can explain what I do later. Right now, I’m trying to figure out if the Padre had any business partners that could have helped him fake his death. I have a list, but it doesn’t mean much to me. When I thought hard about it, this is the…this your memory that came to mind.”

  More than confused, I couldn’t believe that what was happening in that moment was actually in the past. While it felt real enough, there was an odd sense of déjà vu coming over me the more I thought about it, but that brought me more bewilderment than comfort. Considering I didn’t have a better explanation or plan, I just tried to roll with it.

  Lumbering to the Cadillac, the Padre popped the trunk, dropped in both of his bags with a thud each, and swung around to the back door. He flung the door open and dropped onto the seat, causing the car to rock up and down as usual. Terror welled up from my gut to my throat thinking about Ryan as the Padre got settled.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  Swallowing hard, I put faith in what Ryan had told me. If it was all in my head, I called the shots. “Don’t worry, boss. He’s with me.”

  The seconds of silence before his response seemed to take forever.

  My heart was beating out of my chest, and I blinked at least a dozen times, waiting for my brains to be blown out onto the windshield.

  “Now, Charlie, you have to tell me when you’re going to bring guests along. Hello, friend. What’s your name?”

  “Ryan.”

  “Well, Ryan, you can call me Padre.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  I exhaled with relief that Ryan was right. We must have been in a memory or dream or something for the Padre to be okay with him being in the car. It made me delve deeper into my memories of Ryan, and I recalled him being good to me in the…past. Then something else came to mind about him, something that I needed to discuss with him as soon as possible, but it would have to wait until after I dropped the Padre off.