This Is Life

by Seth Harwood

  Jack looks right at Freeman, the friend he thought he could trust, and knows absolutely and completely that he is alone now. All he has is a “trustworthy” cop’s business card and one chance to go upstairs and get the thing he never thought he’d have a use for: a gun.

  The big man checks his watch. “Why you so nervous, Freeman?” Jack asks the reflection. “You got somewhere to be? Is someone waiting?”

  “Can I help you, sir?” Jack hadn’t seen the bartender coming, but now here he is, all starched white shirt, standing right in front of him.

  Jack starts to say that he’s fine, but then Freeman looks right at him, right through the bar’s window and into the mirror, and their eyes meet. The big man squints.

  “Shit,” Jack says. He drops down below the mirror.

  The bartender leans over, looks down at Jack. “You lose something?”

  “No.” Jack stays low and starts moving toward the bar’s other door, the one that comes out by the elevators. The bartender watches as though he thinks Jack’s a freak, but Jack has bigger issues to consider. As soon as he’s past the window, he stands and makes his way into the bay of elevators.

  Right as one’s about to close, he jumps in. Behind him the doors shoot back open all the way. He catches a mean look from an older woman wearing some kind of brown fur hat. As the doors close all too slowly, Jack half expects to see Freeman’s wide arm jut in between them. He counts his breaths, planning to grab Freeman’s arm and break it back against the door.

  Before the doors fully close, Jack sees Freeman pushing his way through the tourists.

  Then the doors close and the car starts to rise. Jack slides to the back wall and tries to avoid making eye contact with any of the other riders. There are two white-haired women talking about something at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and a mother and her teenage son standing in between bags from Macy’s and a few of the other stores around Union Square. The boy’s got his eye on an especially large bag from Niketown. The lady in the brown hat still eyes Jack with disdain.

  Jack watches the numbers light up above the doors: They pass ten, and then twelve, then fourteen, and the car stops. The ladies get off. Then the mother and son pick up their bags, and they get off on fifteen. Jack follows them out. The boy takes a look at Jack and does a quick double take, probably recognizing him from Shake ’Em Down, but when he turns to say something to his mom, Jack cuts the other way down the carpeted hall, taking off for the vending machines and—he hopes—the stairway.

  After a series of turns, Jack finds the entrance to the stairs. He checks the door to make sure it won’t lock him in as soon as it’s closed, and then heads up to the sixteenth floor. He’s quieter now, more careful as he moves through the halls. He stops before rounding the corner to his room and takes a quick, stealthy look. As he’d hoped, no one’s waiting for him in front of his door; it’s a good thing he didn’t use his real name.

  Jack makes the turn and runs the last twenty feet to his room, fumbles with the card key to open the door, and then pushes it closed once he’s inside. Only when he’s done this does it occur to him that someone could have broken in and be waiting inside. But a fast look around shows him that’s not the case.

  Jack crosses to the desk by the window and opens the drawer where he left the small revolver Freeman had given him after taking it off the suit in the alley. He never wanted to come to the point where he’d need it, but you’re better off having a gun and not needing it than needing it and not having it. At least that’s how Jack sees it.

  He pops the cylinder to make sure the gun is still loaded: It is, but with two bullets spent. Jack slides it closed to an empty shell, so that when he cocks the hammer, a live round will rotate into the breech.

  At a knock on the door, Jack wheels and listens. He hears Freeman’s voice. “Housekeeping, Jack. Open the fucking door.”

  Jack looks around but doesn’t move from where he is. Instead he thumbs back the gun’s hammer.

  “I saw you come up, Jack. Open the door, my man.”

  Jack swears under his breath. “Hey,” he says, trying to sound casual. He starts over to the door and stops at the peephole. On the other side, he sees only Freeman, though that doesn’t mean he’s alone. The guy’s big enough to cover a whole window; he easily fills the small amount of hallway Jack can see through the door’s little peephole.

  “You sneaking around on me, Jack?”

  “I should be asking you that, big man.”

  Freeman’s fist hits the door close to Jack’s face, and Jack jumps back, raises the gun.

  “How’d you know what room I was in?” The only way Freeman could know is if he followed Jack up last night after dropping him off.

  “I—,” Freeman says. “Didn’t you tell me?”

  “Yeah,” Jack says. “But I don’t think I did.”

  “Open the fucking door.”

  “You want to leave me ass-out in this mess, Free? Drop me by the side to save your own shit?”

  “Open this fucking door, Jack.”

  “What’re we doing today, Free? Going to see Alexi Akakievich at Prescott Court?”

  “Make this easy, Jack. Face facts: You not going to be solving any big cases here. You not saving the city, your ass, any of that shit.”

  Jack puts his hand against the door, feels the grain of the wood between him and a man big enough to rip him apart.

  “Mills is dead, Free. Your boys, whoever they are, they just blew him in half like they did O’Malley. The fifty caliber cannon, that’s how they did him.”

  “Some shit, ain’t it?”

  Jack feels something hit the other side of the door. He looks through the peephole and sees Freeman pushing against it with his arm. “There going to be two sides in this thing, Jack: the big swinging dicks and the streets. Alexi Akakievich owns the streets. Which side you going to be on, your own? I’m not taking that side anymore. I only gamble when I know I’m gonna win.”

  Jack steps away from the door. He looks around the room. To one side is the bathroom, no exits there. On the other side of the room is a doorway that opens into the room next door. Jack pads across the carpet as quietly as he can, unlocks the latch, and opens the door. Behind it he finds another door, locked.

  “You don’t have a side in this now, Jack. Fact is, your ass gone get squeezed in the middle. I can’t let that happen to me. This my life here.”

  Jack pushes against the locked door. If he could break it down and escape through the next room when Freeman breaks into his, he could possibly make it to the hall. But out in the hotel, with Freeman coming after him and the two Suits waiting somewhere, he probably wouldn’t get to his car.

  “You know I can break this door out, Jack. Why don’t you come open it up now, make things easier?”

  Jack faces the room’s main door. He has his cell phone and Alvin Shaw’s card in his pocket, but neither of them is going to do him any immediate good. Hotel security would never arrive in time. “So what am I supposed to do, Free? What’s Akakievich going to do when you bring me in?”

  “To who?” Freeman’s laugh echoes out in the hall. “To you or to me?”

  “Yeah. So what do I do?”

  “Just open the door, man. Make this easier on us both.”

  Jack raises the gun and holds it with both hands, pointing it at the door. “I’ve got the gun, Free. Don’t make me use it on you.”

  “You serious, Jack? Don’t talk crazy.” Out in the hall, Freeman pushes against the door. The frame creaks, but the door holds.

  “I’m serious, Free.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Jack. This ain’t no movie.”

  “If this was a movie, my friend wouldn’t be selling me out.”

  “Open the door and we’ll talk. You starting to piss me off.”

  Jack moves away from the door. He raises the gun and waits.

  “Come on in, big man. Nothing to do now but take the next step.”

  With an insane yell, Fre
eman smashes into the door and the whole thing rattles. Jack sees the frame move in the wall. Freeman grunts and hits the door a second time, tearing the lock and the chain out of the frame. The door bangs open, slaps against a mirrored closet door, smashing the glass, and then falls closed again until Freeman stops it with his hand.

  He steps into the room, his big face a mask of anger, one hand against the door and the other raised, his fingers spread and clenched like he’s ready to pull Jack’s limbs off his body.

  But Jack’s got him lined up, both hands on the gun and his arms level, the barrel pointed right at Freeman’s chest.

  22

  Jack speaks with all the calm he can manage. “Close the door.”

  Freeman lets the door fall closed against what’s left of the frame. It won’t quite fit into place or lock again, but Jack relaxes a little when no one else comes in.

  “Where are the Suits?”

  Freeman lowers his arms as he stares at the barrel of the gun.

  “Now, Jack, what you really going to do? Just come take a ride real quick. This all can end.”

  “With you and your friends? What’d you do with the Suits?”

  “It’s just us, Jack. That’s how you want it, right? It’s how I do.”

  Jack takes another step away from the big man. He judges Freeman’s reach, steps toward the foot of the bed.

  “What did you do last night after you dropped me off?”

  “Just business, Jack.” Freeman shakes his head, tilts his neck to one side until it pops. “We all have to do what we can do. Now, don’t you see this little police charade ain’t going to pan out? You not going to fix this, Jack.”

  “Who shot Mills?”

  “Ain’t that a bitch, though?” Freeman steps into the room as though this is only a casual chat, shaking his head and smiling at the news of another death.

  Jack steps around the end of the bed, wanting to put the queen-size between them.

  “Put down the gun, Jack. Don’t be crazy about none of this.” Freeman reaches toward Jack, steps closer again.

  Jack feels his way along the end of the bed with his foot, keeping the gun and both eyes on Freeman. At the corner, he moves to the other side of the bed.

  “Give me the gun, Jack.”

  Jack shakes the gun, aims it toward Freeman’s knee. “You remember back at the Coast? How it felt to get shot in the leg?”

  “Yeah. I remember. And I’m still standing.” Freeman pushes out his lips. “You want to shoot me?” He holds his arms out wide from his waist. “Go ahead.”

  Maybe Jack waits a second too long; maybe Freeman gets tired of waiting. He steps up onto the bed to come at Jack, and Jack steps back. As he does, he pulls the trigger.

  The gun goes off, loud and hot, blasting a slug through Freeman’s left knee. Blood splatters onto the bedspread, and Freeman topples over the foot of the bed onto his back on the floor.

  He reaches up as soon as he’s down, clawing at the bed, pulling spread and blankets toward him as he tries to get up. Something awful, a growl in a register Jack’s never heard a person use, bellows out through Freeman’s teeth.

  Jack shot a gun in his movie, went through a complete handgun training course in preparation for his role as Sergeant Mike Haggerty. But the truth is, he’s never shot a person, and it was something he hoped he’d never have to do. Now he’s crossed that line: There’s a before and an after, and he’s just come into the now.

  “Yo, Jack,” Freeman says, his whole face clenching in pain, “now I’m a have to kill you myself!”

  “Violence,” Jack says. “It only leads to more of the same.”

  Freeman shouts his pain, a sound Jack fears will be heard down the hall, will bring people running.

  He steps up onto the bed, but as he does, Freeman yanks the blankets and sheets out from under him. Jack slides down and feels one of Freeman’s strong hands clamp around his foot. Now he’s being pulled toward the big man, and Jack crunches, reaches down toward Freeman’s hand with his gun. He fires again, this time shooting from point blank range into the back of Freeman’s forearm, maybe six inches above his wrist.

  The big man screams again, falls back onto the floor.

  “Fuck!”

  Jack slides off the other side of the bed, stands between Freeman and the door.

  “Let’s call this done now. I walk out that door; this ends between us.”

  “Fuck! You think those fucking Russians aren’t looking for you all over this hotel? They’re coming to get your ass!”

  “What did O’Malley do to fuck up?”

  Freeman rolls over to sitting, still holding his arm. “He couldn’t deliver. People be fucking with Akakievich, and he don’t feel protected. He coming after the fucks who supposed to supply that protection. You hear?” Freeman gets one foot under him, the bad knee still making him wince in pain. It’s his left side: both the knee and the arm. So Jack points the gun at his other side.

  “You think you got any shot at the Hall of Fame?”

  Freeman looks stunned. “What?”

  “You got anything to keep that other knee for, pal? Because I wouldn’t want to have to think I destroyed two Hall of Fame knees today.”

  “Fuck this.” Freeman makes a move toward Jack, a straight on rush with his good hand out and the power coming from his good leg while the other leg trails the bedspread.

  Before he can even think about it, Jack jumps back toward the door and opens it hard, hitting Freeman and knocking his arm out of the way. Jack steps out into the hallway and looks around: He sees no one.

  He yanks against the door, losing what little composure he still has, and feels it knock into Freeman once more.

  Jack doesn’t want to feel the way he does, but his eyes are starting to go blurry and a part of him is raging inside, his blood pumping so loud he can hear it. “This ends between us.”

  Freeman’s eyes are cold and hard, black between his lids, dead set on Jack and as serious as those of an animal trapped in its den.

  “You hear me?”

  When Freeman doesn’t say anything, Jack steps back into the hall. With shots fired, it’s only a matter of time until someone comes looking, whether it’s the Russians or hotel security.

  Jack takes a last look at Freeman and shakes his head. “I didn’t want to do this, man,” he says. “Seriously.”

  23

  Jack pulls the door closed behind him. It hits against the frame but stays partly closed. If the Russians find Freeman, it’s his own problem.

  If they find Jack, he’s fucked.

  At the stairs, he opens the door with care and listens for steps echoing above or below in the stairwell. He hears nothing. Somewhere in the hotel, the two Russians have to be looking for him.

  He starts down the stairs.

  After a few flights, Jack realizes he’s still holding the gun. He tucks it into the back of his pants.

  On the eighth floor, he leaves the stairs and calls for an elevator. He gets a full look at himself in the doors’ reflection: only a slight smear of blood on the side of his mouth. His shirt looks like he scraped it across a sidewalk downtown. It’s his eyes that look the craziest, that hold something he’s not at all used to and doesn’t like.

  The bell chimes, and Jack holds his breath, slips to the side of the doors with his hand behind his back, on the grip of the gun. The doors slide open to reveal a somewhat older woman, wearing a gray fur coat over a low-cut sweater. The cleavage she’s sporting is of the decidedly saggy variety. Cradled in her left arm is a small dog in a wicker bag.

  Jack steps in and farts. He’d felt it coming but does nothing to make it quiet.

  The woman snorts, trains her eyes on the front of the car.

  The small dog barks at Jack.

  “Oh,” he says, “I didn’t realize they let animals stay at the hotel.” Perhaps this is how Sergeant Haggerty would act.

  At the lobby, Jack hides against the wall of the car, giving the woman his bigg
est smile as she gets off fast. He hits the button for G2, the level where he parked the Fastback. If the Russians are smart, that’s where at least one of them will be waiting. But the garage has three levels, and Jack’s counting on them not knowing which one he’ll be on.

  The elevator doors open at G2, and Jack steps out into the bright fluorescent-white garage. He listens for a moment but doesn’t hear anything. Now he’s starting to worry that the Russians have something else going on or they’re smarter than he’s given them credit for.

  This isn’t the time to be second-guessing his luck.

  The Fastback’s still where he left it, in the middle of a row, the parking voucher still on the seat. Out of habit, Jack touches the hole in the door as he opens the lock. He still hates the fact that the Fastback got shot, but there’s something soothing about the way the tip of his finger fits into the bare metal hole. He’s come to accept the imperfections in the car’s shell, like he has the blemishes in his life.

  That, or he’s nostalgic for the days when people shot at him with normal-size guns, when a bullet hole wasn’t a crater big enough to put your whole hand through.

  Then Jack’s knees feel weak and he holds the car with both hands, leans against it. A hot rush of blood passes through his head, and he sees the image of Freeman’s knee exploding in a bloody mess. He sees Freeman’s eyes again, the way they filled with hate and then resignation. He shakes his head, hard, trying to clear it.

  The air in the garage suddenly feels stale, empty. As soon as he gets the door open, Jack collapses into the big leather seat, feels the weight of his body slipping away.

  He takes a few deep breaths, looks down at the black steering wheel and the small indentations around it, then starts the machine. He hears the sound and feels the vibration of the car’s big engine. He gives it gas and listens to the 289 cubic inch V8 purr and then growl. The sound fills the garage, its vibrations setting off a couple of alarms.

  “That’s good,” Jack says. The roar of the Mustang: It’s what he needs to hear.