Badlands

by Callie Hart

  The doorman holds the door open for us as we both exit the building. He refrains from saying anything, as all good doormen should, but I catch the bemused look on his face as he surveys my attire. He’s often here when I show up late at night; he knows what I normally look like and it isn’t like this.

  Outside, my cousin’s best friend Cade is leaning up against what appears to be a motorcycle—a big one, with a matte black tank and a polished chrome frame. Another motorcycle is parked next to it—Jamie’s apparently. My cousin collects an open-faced helmet from the seat and puts it on. “Michael, you remember Cade, right?”

  “Of course.” Cade holds out his hand and I shake it. “Sorry to hear about your sister, man.”

  Cade nods, looks down at his boots, and then looks off down the street, swallowing hard. When I was a kid and I would spend summers visiting Jamie and my highly racist, not at all awesome uncle, Cade and Laura were ever-present at the house, always joined at the hip, always joking around and creating too much noise. They were inseparable. It’s clear, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, that’s he’s struggling to keep his shit together.

  “Yeah. Thanks,” he says, his voice, gruff. “We’ll find her. And when we do, whoever took her’s gonna know the meaning of agony.”

  “So you think she was taken?”

  Cade gives me a strange look. “What do you mean?”

  “Well. Could she have just...left? Decided to take off on her own?”

  Both Cade and Jamie shake their heads at the same time, equally as emphatic. “No. No way,” Cade says. “She would never have done that. She was just made partner at our father’s firm. She just bought herself a new house, too. She wouldn’t just go without telling me. And if by some weird twist of fate she did decide to just up and leave, she definitely would have called me by now to let me know she was okay.”

  “Have her cards been used?” It’s reasonable to assume they’ve checked, since it seems they had absolutely no problem checking mine.

  Jamie swings his leg over his motorcycle, producing keys from the pocket of his jeans. “Nothing. Not a single withdrawal or charge since that night,” he says. “Can you follow us? We need your help with something.”

  The sun’s just coming up over the lip of the unseen horizon, long fingers of burnt orange light filtering in between the tall buildings, casting stretched out shadows across the sidewalk. I squint at my cousin, trying to figure out what exactly he needs from me at this ungodly hour of the day. He’s family, though. There was a time not too long ago that we were like brothers. He knows I’ll do anything for him, the same way I know he’ll do anything for me should the need arise. It’s as simple as that.

  “Sure.”

  ******

  I begin to grow uneasy as we head across Seattle. I have this weird, unpleasant nagging feeling in the back of my mind. It takes me about fifteen minutes to figure out why. As I follow behind Jamie and Cade on their motorcycles, the loud snarling of their engines echoing off the buildings surrounding us, waking up the city, I realize that I’ve driven this route many times before. I’ve driven it when I’ve been heading to collect Zee from his employer’s residence out in Richie Rich suburbia.

  As the seconds tick by, turning into minutes, and we make each and every turn, leading us out toward Hunt’s Point, I know this isn’t a coincidence. We’re heading out toward Charlie Holsan’s residence, and whatever they have planned there is going to cause huge problems for me.

  Zeth’s kept me off Charlie’s books. He has his reasons, whatever they are, and as far as Charlie is aware, Zeth works alone. I have a severe headache thumping at my temples by the time we pull up outside the high, wrought iron fence that skirts Charlie’s property. I’ve never met the man but I know enough about him. He’s paranoid, wealthier than all hell, and crazy to boot. He’s put more people in the ground than anyone can really recall; the number of corpses rotting in Washington State because of this English bastard is innumerable. Even I was moderately freaked out when Zeth told me who owned this house the first time I found myself driving past it.

  On a high post above the fence railings, a camera swivels around to survey the two motorcycles and the non-descript black sedan that have just pulled up outside. Jamie gives the camera a wave and I feel like banging my forehead against the steering wheel.

  I do not get out of the car.

  Jaime climbs off his ride, as does Cade, and both men head over to me, hands in their pockets. Did they bring weapons with them? They’re fucking stupid if they did. I buzz down the window, ready to grab my cousin by the scruff of the neck and drag him in here with me so I can beat his ass if need be.

  “Are you fucking insane?” I hiss. “Do you have any idea who lives here?”

  Jamie pouts, looking up at the fencing, hands still in his pockets. He doesn’t seem worried by my question. “How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb?” he asks.

  “Don’t do this, Jay. Get back on your bike and ride the hell away from here. Now.”

  “I’m not riding away from anywhere,” he tells me, shaking his head. “This guy is a shady fucker, Michael. He knows exactly what’s going in the syndicates. And I’m not just talking state-wide. I’m talking nationally. If anyone knows anything about women being kidnapped and disappearing without a trace, it’s him. And you,” he says, bending down to look through the car window so that we’re eye to eye, “You work for the guy.”

  So that’s it, then. His hacker isn’t so behind in the times after all. He knows I’m connected with Zee, and he knows Zeth’s connected with Charlie. “I don’t work for Holsan. I work for Zeth. I don’t know Charlie, and I sure as fuck don’t want to either. And neither should you.”

  Jamie’s eyes, so cold, ice blue, flare. “I don’t have the luxury of doing what I want to do these days, Michael. I only do what I have to. We have to find Laura. We combed Alabama from left to right, state line to state line. No one knows a thing. If some local sicko had taken her and tossed her in his basement, someone would have talked. Someone would have to know. We went after every single suspicious motherfucker we were told about simply to confirm that they didn’t have her, too, and none of them did. Five other women went missing that week. Five women, all from within a one hundred mile radius. That’s either a very bad week in rural Alabama, or it’s a pattern. Your guy inside might know something about it, and so here we are. And you need to get us inside.”

  “I can’t do that. I can make a call. That’s it.”

  Jamie shrugs, slapping his hands against his thighs. “Done. Thank you.”

  I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Zeth will string me up if he knows where I am right now. This whole situation is a nightmare of epic proportions, and I can’t get out of it without letting down my cousin or pissing off my boss. Fuck. I pull my cell phone out of the sweatpants pocket, my mind racing as I try to figure out my best plan of attack here. What the hell can I say to Zee to minimize the damage? Jesus, he’s going to castrate me.

  I dial the number for his burner—not stored in my phone for obvious reasons—and hold my breath as it rings and rings and rings. No answer. I can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Jamie, on the other hand, has clearly decided this is very inconvenient. The lines between his forehead are deepening by the second.

  “I’m going to get a welder down here and take these fucking gates off at the hinges soon, dude,” he says.

  “If you plan on dying today, that’s a really smart plan. Go ahead.”

  Cade runs his hands through his hair, worry visibly pouring off him. He starts pacing in front of the car, agitated and growing more and more so by the second. “God,” he whispers. “This is fucking pointless. It’s been three weeks. There’s no way she’s still alive, Jay. No fucking way.”

  Jamie pushes away from the car and grabs hold of Cade by the shoulders; he looks him straight in the eye, so focused and determined. “She is not dead, okay? We’re not going to stop looking until
we find her. It’s going to be fine. Your sister’s tougher than anyone gives her credit for. She’s going to survive this. We won’t leave a stone unturned until we figure out where she is and bring her home.”

  Cade doesn’t look too reassured. Still, he nods and seems to calm a little. “Yeah. Man, I hope you’re right. I’m sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about what might be happening to her, y’know?”

  God, the poor bastard. That really doesn’t even bear thinking about. Twenty-four hours is a long time to be at the mercy of kidnappers. So three weeks? Three weeks would be a fucking eternity. It’s a shitty thought, but perhaps Laura might be better off if she is dead. I know Cade must have realized this. Jamie, too. I can see it in his eyes when he turns back to me. “Gotta come up with something and soon, cuz. Any ideas?”

  “We have a private detective on side. He’s a disgusting piece of shit but he has a way of buying information other people can’t. We could go pay him a visit. Smarter than hanging around here. I can tell you now, Charlie Holsan isn’t going to help you. Even if he could, even if he has that kind of intel, he won’t. He does nothing for free. He would have to owe you a serious favor to even talk to you.”

  “And we’ll find this P.I. of your up and fully functional at this time of day?”

  “I can’t guarantee that. He sleeps at his office, though. That’s where he’ll be.”

  Jamie stares me down while he thinks this through. “Alright. I’ll work on the serious favor part from Charlie Holson, part. We’re revisiting this idea if your private detective doesn’t work out. Fair?”

  “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

  Jamie grunts. He slaps Cade on the shoulder and then the two of them are climbing back onto their motorcycles and revving their engines. Charlie’s never seen my car before. Most of the time Zeth drives here himself in his Camaro but on the odd occasion he’s wanted me to drive him, he’s had me park blocks away. Charlie will have run my plates by now, though. You can’t pull up outside his residence and loiter there for ten minutes without drawing attention to yourself. That means this car is a write off now. I’m going to have to get rid of it. It’ll get me to Eli’s office across the other side of town first, though.

  I’m careful not to speed as I burn away from Charlie’s place. Takes us thirty minutes to pull up outside Eli Harris’ pokey office. The single room space he rents is upstairs above a very questionable Chinese takeaway, and the place always stinks like stale food. Today is no different. Eli nearly shits his pants when Jamie and Cade let themselves in without knocking. I follow them in and close the door, locking it behind me. Never know how heated things might get.

  Eli—morbidly obese and generally sweat-stained—tries to get up from behind his desk, a mask of outrage on his face, but his stomach gets caught against the edge of his desk and he sits back down heavily in his chair, huffing. “Michael? Michael, you know the drill. You call before you come over here. I could have been with a client. Would you want a group of guys barging in here if you were having a private meeting with me?”

  “The only people ever having private meetings in here with you, Eli, are the hookers you rent out by the hour. Calm yourself, now,” I tell him. “I’ve brought you paying customers. Show some gratitude.”

  “I have plenty of people on my books,” Eli snaps. He gets grouchy when I imply that his business is less than a legit, respectable enterprise. In truth, it’s likely that he does have lots of clients. They’re all on the wrong side of the law, though, or they’re single mothers paying him a pittance to track down baby daddies who’ve skipped out on paying their child support. “You guys need to make an appointment, okay?”

  The sound of soft moaning emanates from his computer, followed by the fleshy sound of skin slapping against skin, and Eli begins to turn a very dark shade of purple. ‘Oh, yeah, daddy. That’s it. Fuck me, daddy. Fuck my pussy so hard,’ a female voice says, much louder than the moaning. Yeah. No doubt about it. We’ve busted the fat bastard watching porn.

  “Jesus, man. It isn’t even nine in the morning yet and you’re jerking it? What’s wrong with you?” Jamie asks, grinning. His humor is edged with a hostility that surprises me. Jamie’s always had a hot temper, but there’s an edge to him, now. A change. He’s not the same man he was the last time I saw him. Maybe being in Afghanistan hardened him to the outside world. Maybe being Louis James Aubertin II’s son finally got to him. Either way, Eli senses the cold malice in his voice and shrinks back into his seat, scrambling to close down the hard-core fucking he was watching on his computer.

  “It’s not early for me, asshole. It’s late,” he says. “I’ve been working all night. And what does it matter to you, anyway? It’s none of your goddamn business if I want to jerk off.”

  “It is if you have your fat little chode out underneath that desk and you were just about to stand up,” Jay says. “No one wants to see that shit.”

  Cade snickers, and I have to bite my tongue. I’m unbelievably good at that. I make it my business to be deadpan in almost every situation I find myself in. Better that the other guy never knows what you’re thinking. Right now, I’m thinking that Jamie isn’t exactly ingratiating himself with Eli, but fuck it. The guy is the worst scum of the earth. He hardly deserves Jamie’s respect.

  “Do you like to fuck little girls?” Jay continues.

  Eli’s head nearly pops off his shoulders. “No! What the fuck? What kind of question is that?”

  “I was just wondering. You’re watching porn with some chick asking her daddy to fuck her. I’ve never understood that. I wouldn’t wanna feel like I was fucking my own daughter. Seems kind of sick to me. Are you sick in the head, Eli?”

  Eli’s double chin wobbles as he smashes his meaty hand down onto his desk, sending a carton of food toppling to the floor, along with a stack of papers, all stuck together and marked with coffee rings. “Michael, I thought you were a smart guy. We’ve always had a solid professional relationship. And now you’re bringing thugs into my workplace? Thugs who insult me? The three of you need to get the fuck out.”

  Cade has been notably silent since we walked through the door, but now he steps forward and leans across Eli’s desk, his expression thunderous. “Close. Your. Ridiculous. Mouth. And. Listen.”

  The man across from him looks like he’s about to have a fit. His jowls start shaking as he vibrates with rage. “Micha—”

  Cade moves without warning, lunging for Eli and grabbing hold of him by the collar of his slightly yellowing shirt. He slams Eli’s head down onto the cluttered desk so that his cheek is pressing down on a chewed Bic biro and a paper plate, which still has a half-eaten slice of pizza, covered in mold, sitting on top of it. Jamie clears his throat. Whether he’s warning Cade not to go too far or he’s trying not to laugh, I can’t quite figure out.

  “Best listen to this one when he tells you to do something,” he says. “He’s got a pretty short fuse at the moment.”

  “I can’t…even…fucking…breathe!”

  Jamie pulls a face, looking sideways at me. “That’s very unfortunate. How long do you think a guy like him can survive with taking a proper lungful of air, Michael?”

  “Not long. Thirty seconds. Forty maybe? With a body that size, oxygen doesn’t go very far.”

  “Fuck you!” Eli wheezes.

  Cade grabs a handful of his hair and picks his head up, only to slam it back down into the table. “That’s not very polite,” he growls. “I have another idea. How about you keep quiet for a moment and we tell you why we’re here. After that, you can tell us what we want to know and we’ll leave. And you can go back to tugging on your pathetic excuse for a dick and forget we were even here. What do you think?”

  “My dick…isn’t…”

  Cade picks his head up and smashes it down again. “What. Do. You. Think?”

  Eli’s hands scramble at the desk, disrupting more dog-eared papers and paper cups, spilling the dregs of long forgotten coffee everywhere and sendin
g a cloud of mold spores billowing into the air. “All right. All right. Jesus Christ!”

  “Good. Now. Look at this woman,” Jamie says, producing a photograph from his pocket. “This woman was kidnapped three weeks ago. We’ve searched high and low for her and found nothing. You’re going to tell us who runs the biggest human trafficking rings in the States. You’re going to give us names and locations, and you’re going to do it quickly before my friend here loses all patience whatsoever and decides to put you down.”

  Jamie says this coolly, calmly, in a flat, monotone voice that doesn’t sound like his own. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him act like this, never heard him speak like this. No matter what kind of shit his father put him through, he always managed to maintain an air of light-heartedness to him, but now that seems to be long gone. In its place is a cold, icy demeanor that doesn’t leave any room for second-guessing. He will follow through on his words if Eli doesn’t comply. He or Cade will kill the man, and I can tell that neither one of them will lose sleep over it.

  I’ve tried to hide this side of myself from my family. From him, specifically. He’s always seemed so innately good, yet right now he’s anything but. Jamie’s been capable of this, being reckless and cold, the whole time I’ve been out taking care of problems for people like Charlie Holsan, and now here he is, threatening to kill someone right in front of me and he’s not even batting an eyelash.

  Good for him.

  Bad for me, since he nearly fucked things up for me with Sara, and god knows what Charlie’s moronic henchmen saw when we were idling outside his place, but hey. Good for him.

  “I don’t…I don’t fucking recognize her, okay?” Eli screeches. “Only big time guys I know running women in the states are Julio Perez and some guys out Chicago way.”

  “We already visited the guys in Chicago,” Cade snarls. “Their head guy lost three fingers before he caved and showed us through his books. She wasn’t there. We told Perez we wanted to buy a girl so he let us look through his stables, and she wasn’t there, either. You’d better come up with some new names, fucker, otherwise I’m gonna go find my cigar cutters.”