Rose City Free Fall

by DL Barbur

  Somehow I wound up sitting on a rock overlooking the valley, a place I used to spot deer. I sat down there and the hot, bitter silent tears came. For how long I didn't know, but when I walked away from that spot I knew I was going to leave Tennessee one day and never come back.

  Now, I felt the twin tracks of tears on my cheeks and almost couldn't believe it. It had been so long.

  "Dent?" She said, a little louder, sounding both irritated and worried.

  That's when the anger hit. Bolle, Al, Big Eddy, a bunch of people that were criminals, they all believed that I had been set up, that it was all a lie, but Audrey didn't. Al had seen through the lies immediately, but the best Audrey could do was tell me she wasn't sure.

  "Dent? Are you still there?"

  All sorts of things came to mind, ugly, mean spirited things, but I couldn't bring myself to say them, because I could see her in my mind's eye, in better times, laughing, making love, playing the cello. I couldn't square those things with what I wanted to say.

  I took the phone from my ear, and without even thinking about it, flicked it out the open window. In the side mirror, I watched the ghostly green of the display arc through the black, then wink out when it hit the pavement.

  I rolled the window up, drug my sleeve across my face to wipe away the tears. From nowhere, a saying from my military days came to mind.

  "Fuck it. Drive on." I'm not sure if I said it out loud or not, although I probably did.

  I shoved Audrey into a little room in my mind and firmly shut the door. I had a bunch of little rooms like that. My mother was in one, my father in another. James Ellroy David and the other men I’d killed were right down the hall. Sometimes you just had to put things aside so you could go on with business. We had an acronym in the Army, FIDO: Fuck It. Drive On.

  The phone Al had given me rang. It was Henry. He sounded harried.

  "I just locked on to Marshall's cell phone. Listen." There was a click and I was hearing a different conversation.

  "…deliver the package?" The voice was deep, measured, controlled. I figured it was probably Todd.

  "Yeah, I'm delivering the package." A different voice this time, younger, higher. I realized it was Marshall. He giggled and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. "I might unwrap this package before I deliver it though."

  "Look," Todd said. "We need to stay professional here. Just deliver the package, we assemble it with the others and send them off on the next flight."

  "Yeah," Marshall said. "But the little bitch bit me when I went to the back of the van to check on her. She's not going to work out very well for our clients if she keeps that up. Maybe I should start the break-in process myself."

  "You're on a cell phone." Todd's voice was icy, controlled. I wondered if maybe he wasn't above arranging an accident for the boss’s son. I started running what Marshall had just said through my mind, trying to catch up.

  "Oh yeah," Marshall said, then giggled again. "It's a nice package, but it's got some problems."

  "Well, sometimes packages fall off the truck, and that might be what needs to happen here, but don't blow it by doing anything yourself. There's too much heat right now. This is going to be our last shipment for a while. Get the package to the airport, we'll put them all on the plane and we'll make decisions about delivery while we're en route."

  I passed Henry's surveillance van. Up ahead I could see more taillights, another van maybe, it was hard to tell in the darkness.

  "That's a shame…" Marshall trailed off. The vehicle ahead of me swerved.

  "Knock it off, you little cunt!" I heard Marshall yell.

  "What?" Todd asked.

  "She, errr… the package was sliding towards the back door. I'll fix it when I get a chance to pull off. Fix it good."

  "Take it easy,” Todd said. “I can't fix another shipping error like the last one. We almost lost everything on that one."

  "I know." Marshall sounded like a petulant child denied a toy.

  "I'll see you at the airport," Todd said.

  "Ok. I'll be there in an hour."

  One of them hung up, probably Todd. There was a buzz on the line and Henry came back on. "Get that?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  I got that. And more. It was so obvious. Why hadn't I seen it before?

  "Patch me through to Al,” I said.

  The phone clicked again. "Dent?"

  "Yeah, Al. Did you hear that?"

  "We did. We're processing it now."

  "I can process it for you right now. I know what they're shipping to the Middle East. It isn't dope, or guns or even money."

  "What is it?" Al asked.

  “Women.”

  I stomped on the accelerator.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I closed to about fifty yards, my mind racing. I needed to stop that van. I was tempted to just ram the damn thing off the road. But I knew Casey was probably lying in the back of it and didn’t want her to get hurt.

  "Dent? Dent?" I'd set the phone down on the seat beside me. Al's voice sounded tinny through the speaker. I picked it up and put it to my ear.

  “Women, Al. That's what they are sending to the Middle East. Marshall isn’t just in the porn business. He isn’t a serial killer. He’s finding girls to ship overseas.”

  “What?”

  “There are no records, no immigration checks, no security checks because these guys are the air courier for the CIA. What do you think a nineteen-year-old blond is worth to some people?"

  "That’s crazy, Dent."

  "Yeah. Doesn't sound very twenty-first century does it? Look. You heard that conversation he had with Todd. He's got somebody in the van. I think it's Casey."

  He was silent for a minute, then Bolle came on. "We've got you on speaker phone Dent. What you're saying makes sense. What makes you sure it's Casey in the back?"

  "Because she's being such a pain in the ass. They're talking about throwing her out of the plane Al, just like they did with your informant. We gotta stop that van. Where are you?"

  "We're about two miles behind you, Dent. I'm not sure about stopping the van. Henry and his boys aren't shooters. We've got Eddie with us, and could catch up with you, but the rest of my team is even farther back. If we try something it will have to be once he gets off the freeway. It could turn into a hostage situation."

  "We gotta do something. What about the State Cops, can't you get them to do a traffic stop?"

  "This is a sensitive investigation, Dent. We need to consider our security needs," Bolle said.

  "Funny. That's the sort of thing my old boss would have said."

  I shut the phone off but elected to put it on the seat instead of sending it out the window after the last one. I looked at a passing mile marker and consulted my mental map of the interstate. An idea presented itself.

  When you know your enemy, you know his strengths and his weaknesses. I pulled right behind Marshall's van, a bland white job like any one of a thousand others. He was cruising in the left lane, despite the fact he was going maybe five over and the highway was deserted.

  I put my high beams on for a few seconds, then flipped them on and off. Predictably, he gave me a brake check. If I hadn't been expecting it, I would have rear-ended him. I could just hear him talking to himself, "if you want to go faster, you can pass me."

  So I did. I noted the "Rest Area 1 mile" sign as I whipped around the van on the right-hand side, then cut back in right in front of him to give him his own brake check. I did it a little more gradually than him. The last thing I wanted was to get rear-ended by a vehicle that weighed twice what mine did, particularly when I thought Casey was rolling around on the floor in the back. I made him slow down plenty, and when he pulled right to pass me I moved over to block him. When he flipped on his own bright lights, I rolled down the window, stuck out my hand and flipped him the bird. He responded by closing the distance between my rear bumper to his front to a few inches.

  Perfect. Classic road-rager behavior. I saw t
he exit for the rest area coming up and floored the accelerator, leaving the heavier van behind, but not too far. I wanted some distance to get set up but I wanted to make sure he saw where I was going. Thankfully, the rest area was deserted. I laid thirty feet of rubber getting the car stopped. The front tires bumped into the curb, but not hard enough to flatten them, I hoped.

  I left the car sitting there, across three parking spots with the door open. I paused on the sidewalk just long enough to make sure Marshall was following me. He was.

  Dumbass.

  I pulled my hat down low and the collar of my jacket up high. I drew the Glock and held it against my thigh.

  His headlights swept over me as I stepped into the bathroom. It smelled of urine and cigarettes. I checked each stall. Empty. Good. I stood at the far end from the door with my back to the wall. One bank of the fluorescent tubes overhead was burnt out. I palmed my little Surefire flashlight with my other hand.

  I heard the van screech to a stop outside, then a door slam. Something smacked the walls of the bathroom from the outside.

  “I don't know who you are, but you fucked up bad!" Marshall screamed. He sounded like he was enjoying himself. He probably was. After all, Daddy had gotten him out of everything so far. Not this time.

  He was quick coming through the door, an ASP baton in his hand. I was a little surprised by that, not that he had a weapon, just the type. I'd expected either a gun or maybe some kind of martial arts weapon, nunchucks or something stupid like that.

  I lit him up with the light and pointed the Glock at him. The flashlight was bright. He flinched and brought a hand up over his face.

  "Hello, Gibson."

  He was surprised to see me, but he recovered quickly.

  "Officer Miller. Or should I say, Dent? That's what your partner was screaming when I visited her. I think she's sweet on you."

  I almost shot him then. But I knew once I pulled the trigger, I couldn't take it back. I wasn't sure what would change, but something would.

  "Your daddy must be so proud. Does he know you're selling girls on the side or is this something you're running under his radar?"

  Marshall sneered and I hated him. For a second he reminded me of every rich kid I'd ever had to deal with.

  First, there had been the kids at high school, sons and daughters of the middle management at the coal mines. Their parents hadn't been rich enough to send them to private school, but they still liked to look down on us trailer trash.

  Then it had been the frat boys in college. I'd been older and blooded in the Army. The fights had seemed inevitable back then. I had put more than one on his ass, had even relished the opportunity. Then I'd dealt with them as a cop.

  "Daddy's definitely into a higher class of pussy,” Gibson said. “It blinds him to the business opportunities inherent in the classic American street trash split tail. I'm telling you, Miller, they're the commodity of the future. There are millions to be made. We could let bygones be bygones and I could cut you in."

  "You're a piece of shit, Marshall."

  He rolled his eyes. "And you're a dumb cop. I've wrecked cars worth more than you make in a year. What the hell are you doing out of jail anyway?"

  "Pointing a gun at you. Drop the baton."

  He took a step forward. "What? Are you going to arrest me again? Last time I checked they weren't even letting you write parking tickets. People like me do what we want. People like you and that silly cunt in the van are disposable, like the paper I wipe my ass with."

  "Put the baton down, Marshall."

  "What are you going to do? Shoot me?" He took another step forward, sure of himself. All his life Gibson Marshall had done whatever he wanted, with no consequences. He didn’t see any reason why this should be any different.

  "Yes," I said softly.

  He looked surprised when I shot him twice in the chest. He stood there, dumbfounded for the split second it took for me to get a sight picture on the bridge of his nose. Then I stroked the trigger again, careful not to jerk it, and a palm-sized piece of skull and hair leaped off the back of his head and stuck to the wall. He tumbled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

  It always surprised me how my ears didn't ring after a gunfight. As I stood there in the bathroom, the gun dangling at my side, I could hear whatever was in Marshall rustling as it left, then there was the hum of an engine outside, the soft click of a car door. I just stood there, looking at Marshall, not feeling much of anything.

  There was the slightest, barely audible, the scuff of shoe leather and Big Eddie peeked through the doorway, his gun muzzle not quite pointed at me. He saw me and grunted, holstered the gun. He regarded Marshall clinically.

  "What happened here, man?"

  I pointed at the ASP baton. "He made a sudden furtive movement."

  Speaking seemed to break the spell, and I remembered the point of this. I holstered the Glock and walked up to Marshall's body. Bolle and Al were stacked up behind Eddie in the doorway. I bent over Marshall's body and, careful to avoid the spreading stain in the crotch of his jeans, fished out the keys to the van. I shoved past Al and Bolle.

  "Miller, what the hell happened here?" Bolle all but shouted.

  "I told you. He made a sudden furtive movement." I repeated it mechanically. I found the button for the door locks on the van. The lights flashed once when I pressed it. I walked around to the back and pulled open one of the double doors.

  I almost got a pair of Doc Martins in the face for my trouble. Casey launched a kick at my face as soon as I opened the door. I recoiled out of the way just in time so that it just took a little skin off my ear. If I hadn't been on the ball it would have knocked my teeth down my throat.

  Casey was lying on her back in the van. Her hands were cuffed underneath her, duct tape covered her mouth and bound her ankles together. She looked dirty, cold and royally pissed.

  "Casey, it's Dent." I stayed out of leg range until I saw some recognition in her eyes. When she nodded at me I reached in, helped her to a sitting position. I grasped one end of the duct tape on her mouth. "This is going to hurt like hell."

  She nodded again, so I pulled, grimacing at the feel of it coming off her skin and the big angry welt it left behind on her skin and lips.

  "Ahhh! That hurt." She took a deep breath. She sounded congested and I wondered how well she had been able to breathe with the tape on her mouth. She looked around.

  "Where's Marshall?"

  "Dead," I said as I pulled open my knife so I could cut the tape on her legs. "I shot him in the bathroom."

  Bolle, Al and Eddy walked up. They were all looking around the parking lot, for witnesses. It was four in the morning, but we were pushing our luck staying at the rest stop. Sooner or later some freeway traveler, even a State Trooper, would roll up.

  Her legs free, Casey hopped out of the back of the van and almost collapsed. I reached out to steady her. Somehow her personality always made her seem bigger than she really was, but as I stood there holding her up, I realized she couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds. That made me get angry at Marshall all over again. I wished I could shoot him again.

  After a second she got her feet under her and I let go, keeping an eye on her in case she needed help again. I saw that there was a handcuff key on Marshall's ring. Cute. But it did come in handy to unlock Casey.

  Rubbing her wrists and walking stiff-legged, she headed over the sidewalk and towards the men's room. Eddy raised an eyebrow. I shrugged and followed.

  Inside the door, Casey stopped and looked at Marshall's body. She spat on his face, then started kicking the body. She almost slipped in the blood on the floor, then kicked him again, slinging droplets off her bloody boot all over the wall.

  "You know," Eddie said conversationally from behind me, "She's really getting covered in evidence."

  He was right. I put a hand on Casey's shoulder and finally she stopped, just stood there with her fists balled up and her nostrils flaring.

 
"He was gonna throw me out of an airplane, Dent. He and his buddies shot my dog, kidnapped me and then he told me all about how he was going to rape me then throw me out of an airplane into the Pacific Ocean from twenty thousand feet."

  "Yeah. I know. He uh… won't do that again."

  That sounded lame even to me. I'd never been good at this sort of thing.

  I'd never seen somebody so close to crying without actually doing it before. I'd seen plenty of thousand-mile stares in my time, on the faces of soldiers in combat for too long, on the faces of victims of the nastiest things you can imagine, stuff that they won't put in horror movies, but Casey had one of the worst ones I've ever seen.

  "He and his buddies took girls off the streets and sold them. It was all there on the servers we took, not in so many words, but once you figured out what was going on, you could read between the lines and see it."

  "Hey," Big Eddy said softly. "We gotta go before there are witnesses and stuff."

  Casey looked from Eddie to me curiously. "Witnesses? You're a cop, Dent. You’re supposed to shoot guys like him."

  "Well," I said. "Things are a little complicated right now. It would be best if we got out of here, and sort of kept things quiet."

  The bathroom had one of those cotton hand towels on a continuous loop that. Eddie pulled a butterfly knife from a pocket, flipped it open and used it to cut a big chunk of the fabric out of the loop. He laid it on the ground and pointed to Casey's foot.

  "Hey," he said softly. "Let's get that wiped off." His voice was soft, soothing, something I wouldn't have expected from him. He helped her steady herself as she wiped the blood off her foot onto the towel.

  She finished and headed outside. "Which one is your car?" she asked over her shoulder.

  I pointed to the Charger. Bolle's Mercedes was parked a couple of feet behind.

  Al was watching the parking lot. He looked pale and had an odd expression on his face like maybe he was reconsidering whether this whole thing was a good idea.