“No, I was looking for a woman. Her name’s Sasha Bl—”
I backed up as he closed the distance between us in a flash. I’d been holding my phone up to show him a blown-up picture of Sasha, but he knocked that out of my hands and pulled me by my shirt so I was face to face with him. I tried not to lock up in fear, but my muscles had gone rigid, and I was on the verge of zoning out.
“That’s her name. We all know her name,” he snarled as the door opened behind him. “This is the one she warned us about,” he said as two more men stepped out.
One of them held some sort of knife in his hand loosely, and the other was taking pulls from a bottle of Coors. None of them looked like guys I would invite to come hang out and play Xbox with me, nor did they look very amused to see me here.
“I don’t know what she said but—”
The first man crashed his fist into my stomach, and I lost both my breakfast and my breath in five agonizing seconds as I fell to my knees and made a mess on the pavement. Hands grabbed me and hauled me up. The guy who’d been pulling from the bottle looked me over as the other two held my arms.
“Pretty lady said somebody was in the parking lot following her. Asked us to watch her back. Suddenly you show up…”
The punch hit me square over my right eye socket. His fist had moved so fast that it looked like a blur to me. The blow rocked my head back and I felt my knees buckle. After a moment, the two holding me shoved me forward, letting go of their grip. I went almost face down into the puke and was pulling myself back up when a kick hit me in the stomach, lifting and flipping me onto my back.
I covered my head, ready for them to start stomping me, just like the bullies back in school used to do. I was waiting for unconsciousness or my overloaded brain to just shut down and zone me out when I heard the squeal of brakes. Good, Susan and Peter could take care of this. I heard grunts and a high-pitched scream as people above me grappled.
I squinted between my arms. With the one eye that wasn’t swelling shut I could see Johanna moving, as quick and deadly as I’d been told she could. One man swung the bottle at her, and she stepped into his reach, pulling the arm across her shoulder and using her hip as a fulcrum to flip him over her back. He easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds, but he went flying into the back of the bar, the brickwork scratching him up where he hit face first.
The man with the knife jabbed, and Jo backed up as the man who’d first punched me squared off against her.
“Leave now and I won’t hurt you,” Jo said, her voice low and calm.
“You messed up Frank, and we aren’t done with the creeper here,” the man told her.
“Stay out of this bitch, or I’ll cut you,” the other said.
I got to my knees and was going to tell her to be careful when she reached behind her back and made a flicking motion with her wrist. Eighteen inches of a collapsible baton extended as the man with the knife made a jabbing motion, probably to scare her. Again, Jo stepped in close. She grabbed the man’s knife hand, and using her legs, hips, back, and shoulders to get as much momentum going as she could, she whacked the guy right on the side of the head with the baton.
He dropped like he’d been shot in the head as the final guy bum rushed her and tackled her around the waist. Instead of pushing against the man, she pulled. Their momentum rolled her onto her back, where she rolled her body into a half-circle, and when he was still rolling on top of her, she pistoned her legs back up and used her knees to flip the man off of her and into the brick wall where the first one she’d taken out was trying to get to his feet. They crashed together and went down. Blue and red lights flashed at the edge of my vision.
I fell to my side and threw up again as the cramp wrenched my guts. It might have been the kick or the punch that did it. I felt myself almost passing out, hearing the taunts from my childhood going through my head over and over.
Stupid. Moron. Fucking retard. “Don’t touch me.” The last came in a quiet voice. My own.
“Jarek,” a voice said softly.
I ignored it. My head hurt, my stomach hurt, and I was afraid I’d fallen into my own vomit at least once or twice.
“Get me an ambulance,” I heard a loud female voice say.
That broke through the fog, and I opened my good eye and tried to focus. Flowing brown hair fell in waves in front of me along with dark auburn hair. And I could just make out… freckles?
“Susan? Jo?” I asked as I felt hands under my armpits.
“Don’t, he might have cracked his head,” I heard Susan warn.
“I don’t want him freaking out and going into shock,” Johanna said. “I saw most of it. I couldn’t get out of the seatbelt fast enough… Dammit, Jarek.”
I used my legs, which felt weak as a noodles and I got to my feet with Jo’s help. They walked me to where the Suburban was parked and opened the side door for me to sit.
“Where did he go? Why are you here?” I asked her.
“I lost him. I called Susan, and it sounded like I was closer. I circled around to see if I could find him, but I headed back here when I couldn’t. I’m sorry, Jarek, this is my fault. I never should have left—”
“Is he ok?” I heard Pete’s harsh voice, and I wanted to puke again.
Ralston was the last guy I wanted to deal with, but he put a hand on Jo’s shoulder and she moved aside for him. He gave me an icepack, probably from the first aid kit in his truck. I put it over my eye and saw the carnage behind them. Susan was checking the men for serious injuries, but all of them had been neatly cuffed and zip-tied at the feet.
“Nice work,” I told Jo.
“I knocked them down,” Jo said, pushing the hair out of my face and moving the icepack to see the impressive lump that was forming over my eye. “Peter here made sure they didn’t get back up to start the party over again. One of them is hurt pretty badly, so there’s an ambulance coming for sure. I want you to get checked out.”
I was already going quiet, but my brain was going into overload. The fight, the quick beating… it was bringing back bad memories.
“The guy who’s hurt… did he break his hand?” I asked them.
“No, not that I could tell, why?” Pete Ralston asked as Susan was walking up to us, a worried look on her face.
“Because when I hit his hand with my face, I thought it would have done more damage than that.”
Pretty lame joke, but it caught them totally off guard. Jo snickered at first, and then Pete looked at Susan with an incredulous look on his face as she snickered.
“Is that your first joke? Did I just hear your first joke?” Pete asked.
“No, but I tried,” I admitted. “And I know a ton of knock-knock jokes.”
“No!” they chorused.
In the aftermath of the back alley fight scene, we were told that a patrol car had stopped and detained Sasha Black about fifteen blocks away. As soon as the BOLO went out, an overeager rookie stopped a gorgeous blonde woman and put her in the back of his patrol car when he noticed the car driving past with matching plates. He was smiling a mile a minute and waited there for another car to come so he could take her to the station.
The three men were also taken to the station. One of them was checked out and found to have a mild concussion. He was refusing medical treatment, so off to jail for assault and battery he went until arraignment, just like the other two. The ambulance personnel looked at me and checked my eyes. I’d taken a pretty hard shot to the head, but I wasn’t dizzy and my pupils weren’t dilated. If I had a concussion, it was probably so mild it wouldn’t even register. The reason for the nausea was an expert punch to the gut. The first man had apparently been a former golden gloves champion and was already telling the cops it was a misunderstanding.
A tall, beautiful woman had gone into the bar and told her breathless tale and then fled. A black SUV had been following her, and she didn’t know which of her ex’s it was, but her type seemed to have been the violent type. Of course the three guys she w
as talking to were already drunk and spoiling for some action, so they halfway believed her and had wanted to beat on somebody in the name of justice and bragging rights. I walked right into it, and I should have expected that, just like the back door bathroom dodge that was so common when trying to lose a tail.
“You’re quiet,” Jo said as we rushed back to the GIS building.
“I hurt,” I told her softly.
“You could have gone with the ambulance,” she told me, looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“I’m not hospital hurt, I’m just hurt.”
After a moment, she looked back at me and nodded. For all my quirks, I hated violence. I hated being bullied, and I hated getting beat. It was more than just physical, it was everything. The contact, the filthy cement, failing as a man…
“Thank you again,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For saving me. You always have been good at saving me,” I told her.
Joanna started to say something, then stopped, the words catching in her throat. She tried to talk again and stopped. Shit, I pissed her off again. I put my head down to ease the throbbing in my eye socket and waited until the car stopped.
“Annette is going to help you out while I park,” she told me, opening my door.
“I don’t need Annette,” I told her, a little more forcefully than I meant to.
“You’re wobbly on your feet, and if I have one of the guys come out and help you, you might freeze up, so let me get her to help you.”
“I don’t need Annette,” I told her again. I didn’t want Annette. I wanted Jo.
“You’re being a pain in my ass, Jarek,” Jo snapped. “Get out of the car. Let Annette at least get the door and elevator for you.”
“I don’t like her,” I told her, standing.
“You’re a pain in the ass, Jarek. You know that, don’t you?” Annette said, opening the side door that would put me almost directly at my office.
“Why am I pain in the ass? I’ve done nothing to your ass, though I’ve spanked Jo’s a time or two, just a little while ago as a matter of—”
“Jarek!” Jo said, getting up in my face. “Do not, or I will end you,” she said, once again using a manicured fingernail to point right at the tip of my nose.
“Your hands are dirty,” I told her, and she let out a shriek of what sounded like anger.
Usually I found it was in fact my fault, but it wasn’t always anger in her. Perhaps this time it was frustration.
“You’re a filthy mess, don’t touch me,” Annette said as I stepped into the office.
“C’mon, I’ll have to get the cleaners in here anyways.”
Annette dragged me to the elevator and hit the up button.
“Can you get yourself in and out of your place?” she asked me, her voice hoarse.
“Yeah, I don’t need your help, Annette,” I told her truthfully.
“I’m not about to get fired or have my ass kicked. You call me if you need me,” she said, pressing the button for the second floor and getting out of the elevator.
“Today sucks,” I told the gleaming stainless steel doors as they shut.
8
The hot shower washed away the stink, and I used the body wash three times to be safe. Over the fan and the falling water I heard the bathroom door open and close. There really was only one person it could be. The cleaning staff wasn’t due for a few hours, and my father was dead. His access card and code had been given to…
“Johanna?” I asked, starting to rinse off for the final time.
“I never should have left you alone. It’s my job to make sure you’re ok,” she said, her voice drawn.
“I wanted you to,” I told her, meaning I’d wanted to do it alone.
Divide and conquer. I couldn’t hide behind her forever. I winced as I got my head wet one more time and killed the shower. Thick clouds of steam filled the room as I opened the shower door to reach for a towel.
“Shit, would you quit doing that?” Jo said, looking away from me.
She was sitting on the toilet. It looked like she’d been resting her head on her hands judging by the red shape on her cheek that was quickly fading away.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad, Jo. I just thought I could handle it. Go in, stall her, and Susan was going to be right there,” I said, wrapping the towel around my waist and using the other one to dry off my upper body.
I looked in the mirror. My stomach was already turning purple where the punch and kick had landed.
“Oh Jesus,” Jo said, standing up and examining my stomach with her hands.
“Be careful,” I warned her.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I was warning you.”
“Then why?”
“Because that’s how the wild monkey sex happened last time. You put your hands on my stomach, and we started in the shower, ended up on the bed, halfway on top of the dresser, the floor, and I thought about seeing if the rumors are true about a washing machine on spin cycle when you—”
“Jarek!” she said, but her tone was amused and not angry. I could tell because she was smiling.
“Get dressed. They found a partial fingerprint in the warehouse and one on the laptop. They have the results, and the cops don’t like it.”
“Oh?” I asked her.
“Remember how Sasha Black was a former cop?” she asked, walking with me towards the bedroom and my closet.
“Yeah?”
“The print came back as another cop. One who’s got some black marks in his jacket and is under an IAB investigation.”
“That sounds interesting,” I told her. I dropped my towel and bent down to get underwear and socks out of the dresser.
“I asked you not to—”
“Yes, yes, it leads to wild monkey sex that you rather enjoyed and—”
She smacked my bare ass and I let out a yelp.
“You keep bringing it up, it’ll never happen again,” she said, her face serious.
I thought about that a moment. It amused me to bring it up because she got so furious over it. Then again, if I was deliberately trying to make her furious, I was sabotaging our friendship, wasn’t I? I knew she got mad over the little things I said or annoyed her with, but I thought of it as mild teasing. Maybe I was wrong.
“That would be a mistake on my part. I rather enjoyed the blissful five minutes as you scattered the contents of the top of my dresser all over the floor.”
“Jarek…” she said, her tone unreadable.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” I said, quickly dressing.
* * *
Jo left the Suburban to get detailed after my messy vomit-covered clothing had come in contact with the leather, so we took the town car to the police department where they were holding the three men and Sasha. Now that I knew she was a cop and probably had the same training as Susan, I puzzled over the mystery that was Sasha. She was taller than I was, but hadn’t used her size nor training against me when I was at my most vulnerable. Perhaps she didn’t know much I was involved.
There were some days when I thought I was the worst PI in town, but it was my software and computer skills, and Jo’s relentless nature, that kept me going and helped keep us successful.
“You ok seeing those guys again?” Jo asked me.
“I think they were basically telling the truth,” I admitted.
“So… who are we here to talk to? They’re already grilling Sasha,” she said.
“Well, for starters, I was going to find out why Sasha set me up for a beating. If she knew it was me coming to follow or delay her, then I wonder if we won’t be having any more sex,” I told Jo.
“Of all the fucking inconsiderate, lame-ass, low-down—”
“I was trying to make a joke,” I told her.
“You… you… I’ll beat your ass you, you prick!” Jo yelled and smacked the steering wheel.
Yes, she was still mad. That was ok; I’d promised not to t
ease her about what she considered a mistake. Perhaps she really was embarrassed because, like she said, people mistook friendship for love and relationships. I knew I was free to see and have sex with whomever I liked, but someday I wanted to be able to do it without getting castrated with the verbal equivalent of a rusty spoon.
“See, this is why I don’t tell jokes. I really think I should stick with knock-knock jokes when I’m trying to relieve the tension of a room or a car ride. Like the joke about orange.”
“What are you talking about?” Jo said disgustedly.
“Knock-knock jokes… you know… orange.”
“I’m not playing knock-knock jokes with you.” She pulled into the parking garage and flashed the pass we kept for civilian contractors working with the police.
“Well, there seems to be quite a bit of tension in the air between us. The act that will not be named happened, and it’s caused us to have quite a bit of—”
“The act that will not be named? What am I?! Voldemort now?”
“Maybe I should be quiet,” I told her.
“Yeah, before you get your block knocked off. Again.”
It was an empty threat, one I’d heard off and on my entire life. I think we first heard it sitting in class watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as kids. Lucy was fond of saying something like that.
“No problem, but I’d really like to go back to where we were, like, say… last week.”
“Last week you insisted on me taking you into your therapist’s office so I could tell her the part about when you were a kid. If anything, that was awkward,” she told me stiffly.
“Well, you’re important to me. You always have been, and I really like you as a friend and as an—”
“Jarek, shut up,” she said, cutting me off.
As an employee was what I was going to say. I’d let her assume whatever she wanted, because I had just figured out that I’d been talking too much lately, and that probably annoyed her, which is why she was getting mad at me, and I didn’t want her mad at me!
Kidnapped: A Jarek Grayson Private Detective Novel (Grayson Investigative Services Book 1) Page 8
