“Business. Just business,” he said. We stayed close as he opened the closet by the front door and reached inside. He was taking a bit too long. He brought his arm out of the closet too fast, but not fast enough. Graham had already caught hold of the guy’s arm, thrust it up. Aziz squealed, dropped something. I grabbed it. A snubnose thirty-eight revolver.
Graham body-blocked Aziz against the back of the closet, clothes stretched on their hangers, some snapping off with a ping. The girl rushed in from the living room, her head covered this time. I didn’t have time to second-guess. Grabbed her at the waist from behind. Gouged my arm with the steak knife in her hand. I held on. She kicked her heel into my toes over and over. Didn’t phase me. Steel-toed boots versus bare heels. No contest. She struggled and shouted, but I slipped my arm around her neck, applied pressure, cut off the blood to her brain. After thrashing some more, banging her elbow on my stitches, she shut up for a minute and I got the knife out of her hand, dropped it on the floor. I ripped the veil off and used it as a gag.
I asked Graham, “You got him?”
“Yes indeed. You got her?”
“Almost.”
I dragged her into the kitchen with one arm wrapped around while I rooted through drawers with my free hand. No rope, no appliance cords long enough. I found a box of plastic wrap. It would have to do. I pinned the girl’s arms behind her back, shook the tube of wrap from the box, and bound her wrists with it. Then sat her in a kitchen chair and wrapped her tightly around her chest and the back of the chair. A temporary fix at best.
“So,” I said, kneeling in front of her. I was breathing hard, wondering if any stitches had popped. Something sure burned. Three of her floated in front of me. I had to blink a few times to bring just one of those into view. “Your boyfriend has you trained pretty well.”
Her breath through the scarf was loud and wet. She swallowed hard, inhaled through her nose. It whistled.
“If I take this out, I only want one thing from you—the name of the group you and Aziz belong to.”
She stared a long moment, her gaze trailing off towards the blood on my sleeve where she’d cut me. Then, a nod.
I tugged the gag down past her chin. “One thing.”
“Burn in hell.” Not even a second to think about it.
“Your loss.” I forced the gag back in place while she tried to bite me, then took off my shirt to examine where she’d pricked me. Nasty bugger, but nothing compared to what I’d been through already. I grabbed a paper towel, folded and placed it over the wound, and rolled the plastic wrap around my arm. Then I checked on Graham.
He’d moved Aziz from the closet to the carpet in the hall, face down, Graham’s knees on the twerp’s back and neck.
“Anything yet?”
“Paul had told him about you. Even showed him a photo. Without your mustache it took him too long to figure it out.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“At least he didn’t know, you know.”
“About what?” Aziz said. It was muffled in the carpet.
“Shut up.” I tapped his nose with my steel-toe. “Hey, I need to borrow a shirt and jacket. You won’t mind.”
He said. “I’ll sacrifice myself before I help you. They’ll kill us all.”
As I started up the stairs to search for clothes, I answered, “They already tried.”
*
It had taken over a day to get to Detroit. We switched driving duties while the others slept. We ate at truck stops. We pissed and shit at truck stops. We bought truck stop coffee. Kept mostly quiet. Listened to talk radio, set our cell phones on vibrate and ignored them most of the time.
Once in town, we holed up in a Holiday Inn Express, enduring the raised eyebrows of the desk girl when we said we only wanted one room and wanted to pay cash. It was my first visit to Detroit, and I was overwhelmed by industry—left, right, everywhere you looked from the interstate once you hit the outskirts. I’d been more surprised by Michigan on the way over—the woods, trees in bloom, the hills. I’d expected the whole state to be industrial sludge. Live and learn.
Armed with Asimov’s notes and no earthly idea what to do first, or what to do once we found who we were looking for, we talked strategy and ate fried chicken from the gas station next door to the hotel. We debated who to target first. We tossed out the full bore approach because we guessed the Feds and the terrorists both might be on guard.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Drew had said. She was stretched on her side across one of the beds, hand propping her head. “Somewhere around Chicago, though, I didn’t get it.”
Graham and I started to answer. We both stopped. Hoped the other had a better answer. He said, “I don’t want to fight on their terms. I just want them to leave.”
What was the point of going after them? Better than sitting at home to wait for two underlings to rain down death again. Better than watching our little slice of Midwest heaven, as much as I hated it most days, become infected with fear and pointless death. Religion? Politics? Fuck it. It came down to something much more primal—control. And the best way to do that was to manipulate the players. Why else would ‘Roid Ragers listen to the little man in the striped shirt? Who made up these rules, anyway?
I turned to the window when I answered, getting a view of the parking lot, a Burger King, the gas station, an overflowing dumpster. “When I was a kid on the Gulf Coast, all we worried about were the communists. I said something once like, ‘Oh they won’t bother nuking us here. We’re nothing to them.’ And my teacher said, ‘That’s where you’re wrong. We’re very important—a Navy shipyard, an Air Force base, and one of the busiest ports in the country, not to mention spitting distance to New Orleans, plus all the oil fields in the Gulf. We’re one of the first strikes.’”
Graham nodded. “Makes sense.”
“But do you tell that to a seventh grader? Freaked me the hell out. It was on my mind up until the Wall fell, and then Yeltsin took over, threw out the commies. The thing, though, was that until the teacher told me, I thought I was safe.”
“I know what you mean,” Drew said. “Kinda how I feel about terrorists.”
“Exactly. They don’t bother with small town Americana. Not the best use of their resources. Then my goddamn partner, looking for anyone anywhere to give him some attention, tells them all about us. You wonder if they would’ve ever bothered otherwise.”
Graham laughed. “My money’s on these guys having spread all over already. They’re just biding their time, doing things the right way. Patience, planning, invisibility.”
“How does that explain our Malaysians?”
“Could’ve been their first assignment. Go check out the podunk meth dealers in Minnesota. They got overeager.”
“Maybe, but how does that help us?” Drew said.
My turn. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out later.”
I hoped I could keep my word.
*
We made sure Aziz’s girlfriend wasn’t going anywhere for a while¾upstairs in the bedroom closet¾then dragged Aziz out the door. An advantage if the next flunky was a weakling like Aziz.
Graham told him, “You’re going to help us climb the ladder.”
“You can’t. I won’t.”
“What’s the girl’s name?”
It stopped Aziz a moment, eyes flicking back and forth. “Lake.”
“Lake? Like a pond?”
“Like a lake.”
“You love her?”
He nodded once. Involuntary. He caught himself and held his chin straight, teeth clenched. Swallowed hard before he said, “Not that much.”
Graham looked at me, said, “Billy, you want to go do something to make her cry?”
Damn, he even shocked me for a moment. I played along. “Be right back.”
I wasn’t halfway up the stairs before Aziz folded.
“Just, wait, just…it won’t work, so there’s no need to…look, I’ll take you, but we’ll all die.”
I came
back down, tense but ready. “We heard you the first time.”
It was a dumb play. We didn’t have anything to gain. Aziz was right. Not a chance in hell. Guess it was appropriate we were in Detroit, then.
TWENTY-TWO
What was it we wanted? After the first day in the hotel, the stakeout, the planning, well…we couldn’t put it into words.
Drew said, “I just don’t want Ian to have died in vain.”
“Amen.”
Could’ve been anyone. At first I thought we just had some entrepreneurs coming into Yellow Medicine to build on the meth trade. Now look at it. Whoever it was, they shouldn’t have killed Ian, and Heather, and her roommate, and Elvis Antichrist. They shouldn’t have shot Paul. I didn’t really care about terrorists all that much. Seemed far away before this. I mean, watch suicide bombings on the news, watch nutjob leaders slag America, you shake your head and say, “Fucking morons.” What’s the point?
Let’s say they get their way. Worldwide Islamic State, okay? How’s that going to suit them? Nothing left to do but install their theocracy and find out very quickly that without the infidels to kill, their only enemies will be each other. Corruption will set in. Different sects will splinter and mutate and grow anew. Terrorists who don’t get their way will bomb the rulers, take control, so on and so on.
Seriously. History itself backs me. You still think it’s all America’s fault?
I asked Graham while we sat outside Aziz’s townhouse the night before we approached him. My ex-brother-in-law voted for democrats. Blame his big heart, wanting to believe that everyone could make everything fair if our country would just stop being so damn selfish and arrogant.
“Tell me,” I said. “You still conflicted about all this?”
I liked his answer, though. “If we’re not, then we’re pretty much the same as them.”
*
Aziz took us to a video store. Not in Paul’s notes. It wasn’t a chain, more like an abandoned convenience store—you could still see the outline where the gas pumps once stood. Only one other car in the lot. The sign was a homemade paintjob: Tricky Video & Games. Faded posters covered every space of the glass front wall, layered three thick in spots.
We climbed out of the car, looked around at the blight. Broken bottles, broken houses, broken apartment complexes. The only brightness came from the more recent posters and the orange, blue, and green pop bottles crushed on the concrete.
“Before we go in, we just wanted you to know about our back-up plan.”
Aziz’s mouth moved, no words, all confused.
Graham keyed the chirp on his cell phone. “You there?”
It chirped back. Drew’s voice. “All set.”
“Make her say something.”
A rustle, then Drew saying, “Talk.”
Our little blonde terrorist screamed out, “Fuck you!”
Then a loud slap, more rustling, and Drew’s voice again. “Done.”
Aziz still hadn’t closed his mouth. He finally whispered, “You are stupid men. You don’t understand how this works.”
I said, “Seems to me you kill people to impress God. Genius, I’m telling you.”
He ignored me, spoke to Graham. “We speak to Umar inside, and Umar tells us who we talk to next.”
Inside, all my expectations flitted away. I had expected a craphole front, barely enough movies to make it a real store. Instead, it was packed wall-to-wall. And not just your standard American Hollywood “culture killers” either. Mostly these were imports—Mexican, Bollywood, Iranian, Egyptian. Their customers were definitely immigrants hungry for a taste of home, a language they understood. It was a damn good idea. And that definitely made the place look legitimate in the eyes of the law.
The guy behind the counter was a skinny Pakistani, maybe a few years older than Aziz. He was watching a Bollywood musical on a TV that hung behind the counter. He didn’t register us at first, just a quick wave at Aziz, then back to the movie.
“This is the one where she gets kissed. You heard about that, right?”
“Unbelievable.”
“Only here would that not rate at all. You should see the stuff we get from Mexico.”
The clerk finally turned away long enough to see that this wasn’t a private conversation. He looked geekish, one of those computer hacker types. Rumpled white oxford shirt. No smile, plenty of anger as he stared at us like we were dogs. Too late, I realized our disadvantage—he could have guns under the counter, or guys waiting in the back with swords. The whirling dancers on the TV felt like a bad omen.
“Can I help you?” he said.
Graham and I pretended to browse the new release shelves, waited for Aziz to do the talking for us.
“These men are friends of Asimov. He needs our help but couldn’t contact us through normal means.”
“That’s because he’s dead,” I said, cutting our puppet off. The clerk was probably in the loop. Had to be. If he was the one we came to before going up the ladder, then he already knew Paul had been eliminated. “So what are we going to do about it?”
Wide-eyed Aziz looked as though his mouth had gone dry. Croaked, “I didn’t know.”
“Your friend here did, though. And we need to talk to someone about this.”
Graham had made his way to the side of the counter. Neither one of us wanted this guy grabbing a gun.
The clerk grinned, wrinkling his cheeks. “I know you now. You’re the guys from Yellow Medicine County.” The words were dripping. Then he laughed.
“Something funny?”
“Yellow Medicine. You know, like piss. Like you’re all piss drinkers.”
He laughed louder. I caught Graham’s hand sliding towards his pistol. Jesus, I didn’t need a firefight. “Funny shit. Real funny.”
Distract, distract, don’t pay attention to the man sidling up to you.
Maybe my eyes flicked one too many times. The clerk’s followed. He moved.
Ducked under the counter and came out with a shotgun. Full-sized awkward son of a bitch. He would have to adjust to get it on his shoulder, pump the action.
Graham’s gun rising.
“No!” I jumped across the counter, knowing damn well my stitches couldn’t take it. Searing pain across my ribs as I grabbed the stock and the barrel, but fuck it—I held on. The clerk jerked me back and forth. I got a knee up on the counter and slid over to his side, pushed him against a shelf full of DVDs, trying to brace his neck with the gun. I wasn’t strong enough. He kept jerking. Left right left. Finally got me off balance, my hand slipping off the stock. The clerk swung the wood, popped my face and sent me reeling to the ground. Spinning, dizzy, heard the shift of the pump.
I waited for the explosion. I expected it.
And when it came, I didn’t feel anything. Heard glass shattering. Opened my eyes to Graham struggling with the guy from behind, gun pointed towards the front windows. I climbed up. Pebbles of glass, a hole in the center of Sandra Bullock’s head on a Miss Congeniality poster. A scream from outside, a woman, just visible through the hole. A couple, now jumping back into their car, the windshield cracked and scratched with shotgun pellets.
I shook away the pain in my face, stepped up to the melee and punched the clerk in the nose. It bled and he let go of the gun. Graham yanked it away. The clerk slid to the floor.
Time was short. Cops would show up. I pointed at the video cameras in the corner. “You can get that?”
Graham nodded, started searching for the recorder. I looked around until I found Aziz on the floor covering his head. He wasn’t going anywhere. I turned my attention to Umar, the clerk with the broken nose. Goddamn. It hurt to breathe, hurt to move. The whole thing was supposed to be a nice talk, some persuasion. I was getting tired of fighting. But not quite yet. Umar was mumbling, staring at me and mumbling.
“You got something to say?”
More mumbling. Louder, in his own language, Chanting, it seemed. No…prayer. He was praying.
“What, you
want God to strike me down? Want God to punish the filthy American?”
He didn’t blink. Full on stare, still chanting. Chanting. Chanting.
“Stop it,” I said. “That’s enough.”
He kept it up. Louder. Grinning, even, broken nose and all.
“I said that’s enough.” I towered over him. He still didn’t stop chanting, louder still. “Shut the fuck up already!”
The chanting turned to singing. Louder and louder.
I searched for something to shut him up. Pointing guns wouldn’t work. He knew we needed him. I grabbed a DVD case off the counter, opened it and removed the disc. Umar kept singing. I knelt beside him, held the disc to his throat and shoved hard. He coughed but kept singing.
“I’ll slice your fucking throat. I’m sick of it! Slice your fucking throat!” Very nearly ready to do it, too. They sit around and plan to kill, kill, kill, and then think God’s up there giving them the thumbs up. I wanted to slice his jugular, wanted to watch him die, see how he reacted when he knew death was coming for him, not as a martyr but as a helpless video clerk beaten up by two white guys. Keep up the pressure, start sawing into the skin.
Graham came back into the room from the back, saw what I was doing, and shoved me away. I tossed the DVD, slammed my fist on the counter and let out my frustration. Sounded like a lion, but much less confident. I couldn’t take these guys much longer. They would drive me over the edge, and it was bad enough I already had two wheels dangling.
He grabbed the front of my shirt. “What the hell? What are you doing?”
“I’m tired of it, all right? Fucking tired! We just wanted to talk!”
“You think this helps? You think he’s all keen to cooperate now?”
I pulled away from his grip. “None of them want to cooperate! Goddamn it, they loathe us. We’re talking passionate hate. I’m sick of trying to win over someone who won’t budge.”
He turned to Umar, now sitting up, staring at the floor. At least he’d stopped praying.
“He’s not even Arab,” Graham said.
I nodded. “I know. Might as well be.”
“But you…you’re why they hate us, that sort of shit.”
Yellow Medicine Page 16
