The Bastille - a Thriller

by Victor Methos

  “I don’t know if I can protect you,” Mickey said. “But I am damn sure gonna try.”

  18

  The figure stood outside of the house.

  In the shade of the large pine tree, he hid like a shadow at night. He stood immobile, his eyes fixed on the window in front of him.

  Through the window, a family sat at the dining table. A father, mother, and one child. They were young, and laughing. They laughed a lot. The father would do something funny and the child would, still not possessing a full mouth of teeth, roar with laughter, delighting the mother to no end.

  The figure watched them impassively. Without lust or rage or joy… just a detached curiosity. Like someone staring at bacteria through a microscope. The figure watched their movements, the way they spoke using their hands and facial expressions, the way the love they held for each other radiated out of every word and motion.

  The figure stepped into the street separating him and the house.

  A car sped by, thumping bass. The figure had to move out of the way or get hit. Two younger men in the car noticed him. The figure’s eyes followed them up the street. One of the young men shouted something out the window.

  “What the fuck you lookin’ at, punk?”

  The figure didn’t move. The car came to a stop, its brake lights illuminating the dark street. The car backed up a good ten feet, until the men stopped in front of the figure. The one in the driver’s seat was bald with a mustache, wearing a white tank top. The figure could see something hanging from their rearview mirror but didn’t recognize it.

  “Yo, you deaf, bitch?”

  “Man, fuck this mutherfucka. He ain’t shit. Shoot his ass.”

  The driver pulled out a pistol.

  The figure moved so quickly that the driver could only get off one shot. The round hit the figure, but it didn’t matter. The driver’s eyes widened as the figure got hold of his wrist. The figure lifted it and smashed it down against the door of the car, snapping it so hard the skin tore open. A small spatter of blood sprayed the figure’s face and the screams of the driver filled the night air.

  The figure pulled the driver through the opening of the window. The passenger opened his door and sprinted up the street without looking back.

  The figure threw the driver as if he were a doll. He hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him. The figure lifted his leg and rammed the boot down into the driver’s ankle. A crunch and another scream. The figure moved towards his head.

  “Please, please, yo. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, aight. I’m sorry… please.”

  The driver was crying. The figure watched him with the same detached curiosity that he watched the family with a moment ago. The driver was praying and begging. He cried for his mother. The figure let him.

  When he grew bored, the figure looked around. Close to the tree was the fence of the nearest home. A wooden fence. The figure went over and tore out one of the boards as though it were a toothpick. He trudged back to the driver and looked down at him.

  The driver was in a full panic now. He was trying to crawl away on his belly like a worm. The figure kicked him so hard in the ribs he vomited and rolled onto his back. The figure lifted the board as the driver screamed… and the wood slammed into his mouth, broke through his teeth, and lodged in his throat.

  He twisted the board so violently, both the board and the driver’s neck broke.

  The figure watched the driver’s eyes a moment, the way they faded and lost their sparkle. He turned away from the body and strode to the car. Before getting into the driver’s seat, he looked to the family again. They were staring at him through the window. The woman held a phone to her ear.

  He got in and put the car in drive, and sped away.

  19

  The car stopped in front of the hotel as Mickey looked for a valet. He saw one dash out from the entrance and the valet handed him a ticket as he got out of the car. Mickey walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for Carrie.

  They had parked her car in the local FBI field office’s lot and went back to her house to pick up a few items before heading to a hotel.

  Mickey followed her into the hotel. He hadn’t had anything authorized on this trip and wanted to keep it that way so he put the hotel room on his personal credit card. He considered calling Kyle and telling him where he was, but he figured it’d be easier to explain everything once he was back in DC.

  “One room?” the hotel clerk said.

  “Two,” Mickey said. “Right next to each other, please.”

  The clerk searched on her computer and then said, “We have one on the fifth floor. Two queens. They share a door and we can open that up for you if you like.”

  “I would, thanks.”

  After retrieving the keycards, Mickey casually strolled through the hotel lobby with Carrie next to him. She was shaken, that was certain, but there was a strength to her that she didn’t recognize. To go through what she had gone through and keep fighting, to even get up in the morning and work through another day, amazed him.

  “You must think I’m crazy,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “For staying in Las Vegas. Cornelius was urging me to move to California.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I felt like… I don’t know. Like he’d win if I did that. That sounds stupid when I say it out loud. But that’s how I felt.”

  Mickey stopped at the elevators and pushed the button. “That doesn’t sound stupid. But when we catch him, I would recommend relocating.”

  “You’re not going to catch him.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because he’ll make you kill him first.”

  They boarded the elevators and didn’t speak as they ascended to the fifth floor. When they stepped off, Mickey looked down both sides of the hallway and followed a little behind Carrie. It was impossible that Tamora would have found out about this place already, but the paranoia that came with a witness detail was already setting in. Mickey had gone through it several times before in cases where a witness’s life was in danger. Each time, things had turned out well. He didn’t know how he would handle it if they didn’t.

  “I’m going to have officers stationed on the first floor,” Mickey said. “And I’ll be here all night if you need anything.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  Mickey waited until she went inside her room. He had an urge to search the room before she entered, but knew that might look odd. When the door was shut, he went into his own room.

  The rooms were clean and organized well. By the balcony was a recliner and Mickey collapsed into it. He stared out into the night sky and saw a plane flying by overhead, its lights blinking red and green.

  He was exhausted and could’ve slept right there in the recliner. But instead he kicked his shoes off and took out his phone. He dialed Angela.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “That was dumb.”

  “I just got sick of sittin’ there.”

  “You could tear those stitches right out getting out of the shower the wrong way. You have to be resting someplace the doctor can evaluate them until they set.”

  She sighed. “Tell you what, you don’t force me to go back to the hospital and I don’t call Kyle and tell him you’re out here. Deal?”

  He grinned. “Blackmail isn’t your thing. I know you wouldn’t call him.”

  “Shit… Fine. I’ll go back tomorrow.”

  “No, not tomorrow. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the MGM.”

  “I’m coming to get you right now.”

  “Well, how about…. Never mind. I’ll be in the casino.”

  Mickey took the elevators back downstairs. At the far end of the lobby, he saw two officers from the LVPD lounging in chairs. He rode the elevators back up and knocked on Carrie’s door. She answered in only a towel.

  “You should probably ask who it is first,” he said.

  “Oh, right.
Yeah. I’m not used to this anymore.”

  “It’s okay. I’m heading out for about an hour. Two officers are downstairs if you need anything.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Mickey turned away from her. A sensation rose in his belly he had tried to suppress for years. Lust. Simple lust that every male felt every day and could indulge in or fantasize about. But for Mickey, that part of his life was over. Condoms weren’t foolproof and he would never put another person at risk of contracting what he had. Sex, for him, only lived in his memories.

  As he passed the officers in the lobby, Mickey nodded to them and said, “She shouldn’t be going out tonight. If you guys need anything, here’s my card. It has my cell number on it.”

  The night air was warm and the sky clear. Mickey stood outside the hotel a moment and enjoyed it. The hum of cars zipping over the nearby freeway would fill the air and then fade away. A young couple stumbled past him, drunk and giggling. He watched them go inside and then he got into his car and pulled out onto the road.

  The Strip, at night, was like a different planet. The manmade lights were far brighter than the stars overhead. The people strolled the sidewalks in a daze, the work of marketing experts and psychologists. Nothing on the Strip was random, nothing haphazard. Casinos spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on psychologists to evaluate everything from what floor patterns kept people awake, to what scents should be added to the air conditioners to make them aggressive gamblers. The floor plan, the employee uniforms, the temperature… everything was constructed very carefully to keep people awake, keep them gambling, and keep them away from any other distractions. Primarily their families.

  He went to the valet at the MGM and then briskly walked inside. The casino floor was wide open, but full of so many people that he had to slip through a crowd to get to the gambling tables. Mickey scanned them. Knowing Angela, she wasn’t the type of person who would be at the blackjack tables. She would enjoy the thrill of pure chance. He caught a glimpse of her at the roulette tables and made his way over.

  “You up?” he asked, sitting down next to her.

  “Down thirty bucks.”

  Mickey took out his wallet and placed a twenty on the table and was given five chips. He placed three of them on black.

  “If you play long enough, you’ll always lose. The house has a two percent edge that just wears you down. It’s because of the frequency of the zeroes. So you just play a few spins and leave.”

  “Not many people can do that.”

  “No, their brains tend to shut off in here. They’re willing to accept making five percent interest in their investments but if they make that here they don’t think it’s enough.”

  The croupier shouted, “Black thirteen.”

  Mickey gathered his chips and rose from the table after leaving one for the croupier.

  “That’s it?” she said.

  “I made ten dollars. That’s enough. Let’s go.”

  “One more drink at the bar.”

  Mickey followed her over to a bar across the casino and they sat at a table overlooking the floor. A group of young men were drunk at the next table over and discussing what they were going to be doing for the night. One of them wanted to go to a club and another suggested they just grab a couple of hookers and go back to their hotel rooms.

  “You all right?” Angela asked.

  “Yeah. Good as can be, I guess.”

  “You look tired, Mick.”

  “I am tired.”

  A cocktail waitress took their order, two Heinekens.

  “Maybe it’s time to hang it up,” she said.

  “Hey, I was fine in the basement running out the time.”

  “But you had to come and check in on me, huh?”

  “Wait until you have some trainees. You’ll feel responsible for them. Anything good that happens, you credit to your training. Anything bad, you think it’s your fault because you didn’t teach them well.”

  “Shit. You sound like my dad.”

  He grinned as the beers came. He took a long drink. The fluid was cold and stung his throat. “You never talked about your parents.”

  “They were okay. Just a normal middle-class couple. My dad was a chemist, that’s why I got my degree in chemistry. He wanted me to get my PhD like him and go work at some university.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  She shrugged. “Not my style. This is a lot funner. I get to have a suit and a gun. Few jobs you can do that in.”

  Mickey drank down half his beer and then set the bottle back on the table. The boys next to them had made the decision that they would go to the club, and if they struck out, would hire some hookers out of the hundreds of advertisements for escorts on every street corner.

  “I have to tell you something about the Tamora case,” Mickey said. “His wife didn’t die. She survived, and she’s here in Las Vegas.”

  Her eyes went wide. “You’re shitting me.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think Tamora is coming for you. I think he’s coming for her.”

  Angela leaned back in her seat. “Wow. Fuck me. That is nuts. Do you know where she is?”

  “Yeah. I have her put up in a hotel. She was on her way out of the city when I got her on her cell.”

  “How’d you even find her?”

  Mickey hesitated. If he told her what the detectives on the case had done, she would be obligated to report it. If she didn’t, he would drag her right into the muck with him. He decided it would be better if she didn’t know.

  “Just good old-fashioned police work.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You’re not gonna tell me?”

  “Maybe soon, but not now. Now, we need to get you back to your hospital bed.”

  She chugged the rest of her beer and belched. “Fine, let’s go.”

  20

  Carrie Fetcher finished her shower and toweled off. She changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and pulled her hair back with an elastic band. She debated putting on makeup and then thought how ridiculous it was to waste time on makeup in this situation. Still, something about it appealed to her. Just the comfort of routine.

  She pulled out her little makeup bag and stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom. She put on light blush and eyeliner with a thin, pink lipstick. She took the elastic out of her hair and ran a brush through it instead. When she was a little girl, she would count her brush strokes. She would pick a random number and then try and stick to that number—no more, no less.

  After fifty brush strokes, she set the brush down and ran her fingers through her hair a few times before stepping out into the front room. A balcony overlooked the parking lot of the hotel and the freeway beyond that. She stepped out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing. Beyond the freeway, the lights of the Strip shimmered like jewels. The city certainly had a beauty to it that rivaled any waterfall or mountain in the world. But there was something sinister just underneath that beauty. A darkness that everyone could feel but couldn’t express.

  When Zain had attacked her and killed their children, she wondered if that darkness had gotten to him. That it had been permeating his consciousness so long that he snapped and lost himself.

  Zain had almost no criminal history other than two arrests as a juvenile. He’d never raised a hand to her or been cruel in any way. When her parents had first met him, they were frightened. Zain had the appearance of a pro wrestler. He had intimidated her parents and they disapproved. In some ways, their disapproval had made him seem more attractive. Carrie had only been seventeen when they met and eighteen when they married. She felt at the time that she knew so much about life and love. That everything was laid out before her and she just had to walk the path in front of her and she would attain everything she wanted.

  She was too young to know that there was no path. There was only a storm, and whenever it wished, it would upend everything you knew and leave you broken.

  A ca
r in the parking lot slowed to a stop underneath her balcony. The windows were tinted and she couldn’t see inside from this angle. Carrie stared down at the car, expecting someone to step out and come inside, but no one did. The car just idled in the parking lot.

  She swallowed, her throat dry. She didn’t want to go inside the room, to hide and cower. But that was exactly what she felt like doing. What she knew she would do. She waited a few more moments and then went inside and shut the balcony sliding glass door and pulled the curtain closed. Peeking out from the edge of the curtain, she could see that the car hadn’t moved.

  Just as an icy fear ran its finger down her spine, giving her chills, the car drove away. Its taillights disappeared and she breathed a sigh of relief. No amount of police officers in the lobby would make that feeling go away. Nothing could make it go away.

  A knock at her door. She gasped and spun around.

  Carrie felt her heart pounding as she stared at the door. Another knock. She scanned the hotel room for a weapon. Picking up a lamp, she instantly felt foolish and set the lamp down and took out her phone. As she was dialing 911, she heard a male voice through the door.

  “Carrie? You okay in there?”

  “Agent Parsons?”

  “Yeah.”

  She opened the door, relief washing over her head all the way down into her toes. Mickey stood with a sack in his hand.

  “I brought you some dinner. You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a relieved chuckle. “Yeah, I’m just fine. Come in.”

  She sat in a chair as Mickey placed the bag on the counter in the small kitchen across the room. She watched him, his movements. He had strength. Even in something as innocuous as putting food on the counter, he moved with confidence.

  “Where’d you go?” she said. “Sorry, none of my business. I just get chatty when I’m nervous.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said, taking containers out of the sack and placing them on the counter. “I had to pick up another agent. One your—Zain injured.”