Brian Keene

KILL WHITEY

For Tom Piccirilli,

the best big brother I never had…

Acknowledgements

For this new digital edition of Kill Whitey, my thanks to everyone at Cemetery Dance; Kelli Owen, John Urbancik, Tod Clark, and Mark Sylva; Geoff Cooper, for graciously allowing me to reference the Kwan, and for digging this story since its drunken conception and thinking Kill Whitey was the best title since Fuck Around Quotient Zero; everyone who helped me with Russian (there are too many of you to name here); and my sons.

Author’s Note

Although this book takes place in Central Pennsylvania, I have taken certain liberties with the geography. So if you’re looking for your favorite strip club or industrial park, it might not be there anymore—just like in real life.

one

Her name was Sondra, and when she asked me to kill Whitey, I said yes.

What else could I say? If you could have seen her, if you could have watched the way her pouting, glossy lips formed the words, or if you looked deep into her sad eyes, or heard that sorrow in her sweet, pleading voice—you would have said the same thing.

Yes.

Sondra was beautiful. Her dark hair was so black that sunlight got lost inside it. Her eyes were the same color. Her long fingernails were red, matching her lipstick. She had Russian facial features; a Slavic forehead, chin, nose and cheekbones. She was slim, but had a heart-shaped ass and perfect tits. No boob job for her. No way. Sondra’s breasts were one-hundred percent real. You could tell it by the way they moved when she walked. Or arched her back. Or just breathed.

Damn. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I hate to make her sound like a piece of meat. She wasn’t. Sondra was much more than that. And I’m not one of those guys, in any case. I respect women. Like the great comedian Sam Kinison used to say—what are you gonna do without women? Give sheep the vote? You’ve got to respect women. And I did. But put that aside for a moment. Sondra was what she was—a surefire cure for erectile dysfunction. She put Viagra to shame. You know those women that you see—the exotic ones that you could never ever get? Not in a million years? She was one of those women. And I got her.

She was the type of woman that men would kill or die just to be with one time. She inspired the imagination. She was who you closed your eyes and fantasized about when you made love to your wife for the five hundredth time. Straight guys wanted to fuck her. Gay guys wanted to be her friend. And women…some women wanted to do both. Well, except for those that instantly hated her—and maybe even some of them wanted to be with her, too.

Sondra was her real name, too. A lot of those girls—especially the Russians—use stage names. But not Sondra. She didn’t have to. Her presence was more powerful than any name she could have taken.

Shit. I’m not a poet. I’m a fucking dockworker. I don’t know how to make it any more palatable for you. I don’t have the words or the ability. What you need to know is this—Sondra was sex, plain and simple. She exuded it. It was in her aura, in her pheromones. It dripped from her pores and followed in her wake like a vapor trail. Sondra was desire and lust, and I wanted her from the moment I saw her.

Was it love? I don’t know. Maybe I thought so for a little while, but even now, after all this time and everything that happened, I just don’t know for sure. I’d been in love before. More than once. I knew what it was like. How it felt. What it did to a man. In the short time I was with Sondra, it certainly felt like that. But it also felt like something more—or maybe, something else.

I don’t know if I loved her, but I was damn sure crazy about her.

And that’s why I said yes when she asked me to kill Whitey.

Saying it, making the promise, was easy. Doing it was harder.

Much harder…

two

“What’s a Blumpkin?”

We were riding in my Jeep Cherokee. Darryl was up front with me. Yul and Jesse were in the back. It had rained all night, and my tires slid occasionally on the wet pavement, so I drove slowly. Darryl kept giving me shit about it, said I drove like an old lady, but I ignored him and concentrated on the road. It was dark and foggy and my night vision sucked. There were still two hours to go before the sun came up.

My iPod was plugged into the stereo and I had it switched to random play, alternating between Mastodon, Suicide Run, Circle of Fear, Retribution Inc., Nighttime Dealers, and In Flames; heavy music for some heavy conversation.

“What’s a Blumpkin?” Yul asked again. “Seriously.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Yul looked confused, but Jesse was grinning.

“A Blumpkin,” Jesse said, “is when a girl gives you a blow job while you’re sitting on the toilet.

Yul made a disgusted face. “Jesus, dude, that’s some sick shit! Who would do something like that?”

Jesse shrugged. “Different strokes for different folks. Know what I’m saying?”

“That’s not a Blumpkin.” I glanced in the rearview mirror again. “That’s a Dirty Sanchez. They were talking about it on Howard Stern the other day.”

“No.” Jesse shook his head. “You’re wrong, Larry. A Dirty Sanchez is when a girl eats out your ass.”

Yul put his hand over his mouth. He looked like he might throw up. Jesse was still grinning. Beside me, Darryl shook his head.

“That’s not a Dirty Sanchez,” he said. “That’s called getting your salad tossed. I saw it on HBO. They did this documentary from prison. Some crazy shit. This inmate was talking about how he liked to get his salad tossed. He put jelly on his asshole first. Then his cellmate licked it out.”

“Jelly?” Jesse laughed. “Who the fuck puts jelly on their salad?”

Darryl turned around. “Motherfuckers in prison, obviously.”

I frowned. “Well if that’s salad tossing, then what the hell’s a Dirty Sanchez?”

“I don’t know,” Darryl admitted. “But I guarantee you it’s something you white motherfuckers invented. Ain’t no brother gonna ask his girl for a ‘Blumpkin’ or a ‘Dirty Sanchez’. We just want to bust a nut. And if we did ask for one, the sisters would kick our ass.”

A tractor-trailer blew past us, spraying water and road grit all over my windshield. I flashed my high beams in annoyance and then turned on the windshield washer to get rid of the grime. It left streaks on the glass.

“Was that one of our guys?” Yul asked, watching the truck’s taillights fade into the distance.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think it was.”

“Asshole,” he muttered.

All of us nodded in agreement. Our drivers were assholes, for the most part. Most of them were two-week trucking school graduates who got their CDL licenses from the bottom of a cereal box—death on eighteen wheels. They drove around hopped up on speed or meth or tremendous amounts of caffeine, and they didn’t give a fuck about the other drivers on the road. Accidents waiting to happen…

There weren’t a lot of jobs in our part of Pennsylvania, so we were grateful for ours. We worked for GPS—Globe Package Service—specifically, at their distribution center in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. The center served as a hub for all of the mid-Atlantic region, as well as much of the East Coast and southern states. We were only a few hours drive from New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Trenton, Richmond and elsewhere. Because of this, our center was always busy. Darryl, Yul, Jesse and me worked the 4am to 8am shift. We called it the night shift, even though it was early morning when we came in. Only four hours of labor, but at sixteen bucks an hour and with no union dues to pay, plus health insurance once you’d passed your ninety-day probationary period, it was just like holding down a full-time job but on part-time hours. Darryl and I worked in Load Area Seven, loading packages into tractor trailers bound for Virginia. Yul was in Sorting Area Two, scanning the bar codes on the package labels and sending them down the correct conveyor belt so that they ended up in the right truck. Jesse worked out in the yard, jockeying trailers from one Load Area to another. Yul’s job was pretty easy, although he had to be quick and accurate and make sure packages went down the right conveyor belt. Otherwise, a box meant for Baltimore could end up in Boston instead. Jesse’s job was a piece of cake. He had lots of down time and plenty of cigarette breaks. You’d often see him hanging around in the break room, drinking coffee and shooting the shit. Darryl and I had the back-breaking positions. If you weren’t in good shape when they assigned you a Load Area, you would be by the end of your first week—or else you’d be dead. I’d been there almost a year, and had lost fifteen pounds. My beer gut turned into abs, and my muscles became hard and lean. No need to join the gym when you did what we did for four hours a day.

That night, we’d only worked half an hour. Started our shift at four in the morning. Twenty minutes later, the power went out through the whole facility. One moment, we’re busting our ass loading boxes into the trucks, and the next, everything got pitch black and quiet. The silence was the weirdest part. No conveyor belts rumbling or rollers squeaking or people shouting orders or forklifts beeping as they raced around. It was actually a little scary, though I’d have never admitted it out loud. These days, you just never know. Life is unnerving. Terrorists or disgruntled nutcases who want to shoot up their workplace lurked around every corner.

But it wasn’t either of those. We found out later that a car had skidded off the road because of the rain and hit a major power line. Our maintenance guys couldn’t get the back-up power going, so instead of paying us to stand around and do nothing, the company sent us home early. Despite the loss of hours, that was okay with us. People fucking cheered and shit. It was Friday. Even better, it was payday. And since GPS insisted on direct deposit for all of their employees, the money was already waiting for us in our checking accounts. All we had to do was hit an ATM.

Three day weekend, cash in pocket. Life doesn’t get any better than that. Thank you, whoever the hell it was that wrecked his car and got us out of work early. Hope you didn’t die in the process.

The strip club was Jesse’s idea.

Once we found out that we could leave, the four of us met up in the parking lot, debating what to do. The worst of the storm was over. A fine mist fell from the sky. Not enough to count as rain, but enough to be an annoyance. With the power out, the overnight security lights weren’t working and the only light was from the car headlights as our co-workers raced past the guard shack and down the road. Most of them were probably heading home, or to parties at friend’s houses. At that time of morning, the bars were closed.

“Early start to the weekend,” I said. “What should we do?”

“We could hit the Knotty Pine,” Yul suggested. “They got an after hours license.”

“No way.” Darryl lit a cigarette, shielding it with his hands so it wouldn’t get wet. “My ex hangs out in that place. So does her new man. We go there, I goddamn guarantee you they’ll want to start some shit and break bad on me. Prove he’s got the bigger dick. I ain’t in the mood for that tonight. Dude gets up in my face and I’m gonna knock him the fuck out. Don’t feel like going to County tonight for some bullshit.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.”

“The Tourist Inn?” Yul said.

I shook my head. “They’re closed for the night. Last call is at two.”

“What about Thads?” Darryl exhaled a puff of smoke. “They can serve people after hours, too.”

Jesse groaned. “Thads—the gay bar? Fuck that shit. I ain’t drinking in no mother fucking gay bar, even if they do have an after hours license.”

I sighed. “You know, dude, just because you have a drink with some gay guys, that doesn’t mean you’re gay. Why you gotta be homophobic and shit?”

“I ain’t homophobic.”

“Yes, you are.”

Darryl nodded in agreement with me. “That’s some racist shit, Jesse.”

“Being gay ain’t a race.” Jesse sighed. “It’s a sexual orientation. And besides, I’m not a damn racist like those Eastern Hammer skinhead and Sons of the Constitution motherfuckers. You’re black, Darryl. Yul is Asian. I hang out with you guys, right?”

Darryl took another drag off his cigarette and glared at Jesse. “Is this the part where you start listing all your non-White friends?”

“Fuck you. That ain’t what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?” Darryl asked.

“All I’m saying is that I ain’t homophobic.”

“Well,” I said, “then what the fuck? It’s 2011, dude. You work alongside gay guys every day. You can’t drink a fucking beer with them after work?”

“It ain’t that,” Jesse said. “I got nothing against gays. I’m just in the mood to see some pussy.”

Darryl smiled around his cigarette. “Well shit, why didn’t you say so? Now you’re talking.”

Jesse returned the smile. “If I wanted to see dicks, I could just hang out in this parking lot with you guys.”

Somewhere in the dark, a fire siren wailed; probably another accident on the highway. I shivered, wishing we could decide soon so that we could get out of the damp air.

“What are you thinking?” I asked Jesse. “Where to? The Foxy Lady?”

“No. Too many gang bangers and slingers hang out in there. Fuckers got no respect for anybody. Been that way since the Italians sold it. You look at a stripper wrong and they’ll be up in your face. And besides, Foxy Lady closed at two. Ain’t got no after hours license. How about the Odessa, instead?”

The Odessa was a strip joint off Interstate 81, just south of Harrisburg and Camp Hill. Open nineteen hours a day, six days a week, according to their commercials on the radio. Closed on Sundays and a few hours each morning for shift change and clean up. Darryl, Yul, and I had never been there. Jesse went all the time, and never hesitated to tell us about it. It was one of his favorite hangouts.

“Sure.” I shrugged. “I’m down for that. Been meaning to check that place out.”

“We can’t drink there,” Yul said. “They don’t serve beer. It’s BYOB and we don’t have shit. I thought you guys wanted to get drunk.”

Jesse shook his head. “Man, fuck getting drunk. We’re gonna see some pussy, Yul. You like pussy, don’t you?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, okay then.”

Darryl flicked his cigarette butt into a rain puddle. “I’m in. Let’s do it. I drink too damn much anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Yul said. “I’d better not go.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Why not?”

“What if Kim finds out that I went there? She’d be pissed as shit.”

Kim was Yul’s girlfriend of two months, and lately, his world seemed to revolve around her. He spent less and less time with us after work, and more time with her. Apparently, Kim didn’t think very much of us—especially Jesse. She thought that Darryl and I were bad influences and that Jesse was the fucking devil. She controlled Yul in a way that none of us liked. Strings attached, like he was a puppet or something. Lately, Yul couldn’t do anything without checking with her first. To be honest, the rest of us were getting the shits of it. Or maybe we were just jealous, because Yul had somebody in his life and we didn’t.

“So don’t tell her, dude,” Jesse advised. “It’ll be our little secret.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Some things should just stay among friends.”

Looking back now, those words haunt me. Some things should just stay among friends. When I think about them for too long, I start to cry. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have sided with Yul—insisted on going to Thads, or maybe suggested we all just head back to my place and finish off the half case of Yuengling Lager that was in my fridge. We weren’t supposed to be drinking it because a few months earlier, the Yuengling brewery had busted its union and the Teamsters were calling for a boycott of all their products. We were supposed to stand firm alongside our fellow working men. Solidarity forever and all that bullshit—even though we didn’t have union jobs ourselves and worked for GPS. But I still had a case of the stuff at home. And we could have ignored the boycott and drank it.

Yeah, we could have.

Instead, we went to the Odessa.

And that was where I met Sondra.

three

The Odessa was busy, even at that time of morning. The parking lot was packed with cars, and I had trouble finding a space. I ended up squeezing the Jeep between an SUV and a tractor trailer parked out back. We got out of the Cherokee and I thumbed my remote, locking the doors behind us. The electronic chirp of the power locks was almost drowned out by the muffled music drifting out of the building. Hip-hop or trance, I couldn’t tell which. All we could really hear was the bass line. It rolled like thunder.

There were a few other customers in the parking lot. A guy pissed next to a Harley. I hoped it was his bike. Otherwise, if the owner came out, he was going to get his ass kicked. He seemed oblivious as we walked by him. He shook his dick and moaned. We avoided the trickling urine as it spread steaming across the pavement. Two more men stumbled past us, laughing and clutching half-empty bottles of Miller Lite. Because of Pennsylvania’s archaic liquor laws—designed when the Quakers and the Amish were still in charge—the Odessa was strictly a B.Y.O.B. joint. You could bring in your own beer or liquor, but you couldn’t buy it inside and the establishment couldn’t serve it to you. For a second, I considered asking the two strangers if they had any leftover beer they’d sell us. In our state, you can’t just pick up a six-pack at the grocery store or convenience store. You have to go to a bar or a state-licensed beer outlet, and all of those were closed for the night. Before I could ask them, the guys had brushed by us and lurched towards a muddy pick-up truck.

Sighing and thirsty, I followed Jesse and Darryl towards the front door. Yul lagged behind, staring up at the bright, flashing neon sign. The strip club’s name glowed in hot pink letters, and the dark silhouette of a generously proportioned female form stood beside it.

“I don’t know about this,” he murmured.

“Come on,” I said. “It’ll be fun. Kim never has to find out. Just tell her we went to my place. Or better yet, don’t fucking tell her at all. She doesn’t know we got out early. She thinks you’re at work.”

“Maybe…”

“Hey,” Jesse hollered, standing at the door. “You two coming, or you gonna stay outside all night?”

I flipped him the finger and he returned in kind.

We hurried to catch up with him and Darryl. Then Jesse pulled the door open and the four of us walked inside. Immediately, the music grew even louder. I felt the bass thumping in my chest and teeth. It was something by Jay-Z. I wasn’t sure what. I’m a metal head and I’ve never been much of a hip-hop fan, except for some of the mash-ups. A cloud of cigarette smoke drifted towards us (Pennsylvania may have some shitty laws when it comes to booze, but at least you can still smoke in our bars). We entered a small foyer. On the wall were several notices in big, black letters: Absolutely No One Under The Age of 21 Admitted; In Accordance With State Law, We Do Not Serve Alcoholic Beverages—Please Provide Your Own; We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone; and of course, Touching The Performers Is Strictly Prohibited, Violators Will Be Asked To Leave Immediately.

A large bouncer blocked our way. Presumably, he’d be the one who would ask us to leave if we broke rule number four. I got the impression that turning down such a request would be really fucking bad. He looked like a side of beef dressed in a pair of black slacks and a black sweater. Despite the heat and his clothes, he wasn’t sweating. His thin, black hair was plastered to his head with some kind of greasy gel. He had a face like a slab of stone—sullen Slavic features, cold, gray eyes, and a nose that had been broken several times. When he spoke, his thick Russian accent was unmistakable. His voice reminded me of the dude from Rocky IV and I had to stifle a grin.

“Yo,” Jesse greeted the bouncer, “what’s up, Otar? What’s the cover tonight?”

“Ten dollars each. You bring beverage? If so, I check.”

“No drinks for us,” Jesse told him, handing over two fives. “How’s everything tonight?”

“Is good,” the bouncer said, unsmiling. “Is busy.”

I figured that Jesse knew him from his previous visits.

“Ten bucks,” Yul complained. “Christ, that’s pretty fucking steep. And they don’t even serve booze.”

“Shut the fuck up and pay the man,” Darryl said. “You’re gonna spend a lot more than that inside. Just make sure you have some ones on you.”

I dug out my wallet and gave Otar a ten dollar bill. His gray eyes momentarily flashed downward, checking out the contents of my wallet. I stuffed the rest of my cash back inside and put my wallet away. He stamped our hands and then moved aside, letting us enter the club. Jesse took the lead, and we followed.

“Later, Otar,” Jesse called over his shoulder.

Otar didn’t respond. He still hadn’t smiled.

There were maybe forty guys inside the club—rednecks and yuppies, bikers and homeboys, delivery truck drivers and high-powered lawyers—a mix of everything York County had to offer. Some, like us, were in their twenties, but a lot of the businessmen were older. There was one guy that must have been at least eighty. He flashed a toothless grin as he got a lap dance. Like it had in the foyer, cigarette smoke filled the air inside the club. Most of the patrons were seated and drinking, but a few tables were empty. We slid into a booth near the left of the stage. The tabletop was sticky, and a crumpled cocktail napkin was stuck to its surface. The stage dominated the room. A railing ran along the front and sides of it, and guys sat immediately behind that as well—hooting and hollering at the girls.

“What’d I tell you?” Jesse grinned. “Is this the shit, or is this the shit?”

Darryl nodded. “It’s the bomb. Good call, man.”

The music swelled, and we had to shout over it to hear each other. The DJ’s booth was set up in the far right corner of the club. The DJ was a skinny white guy with a receding hairline and the remains of a once proud mullet. He wore Blues Brothers-style sunglasses, even though he was inside. He strutted around behind his booth like a rooster, doing his best to look busy. As far as I could tell, all of his music was programmed into a laptop. Don’t get me wrong. Disc jockeying is hard fucking work. Money is good and there’s pussy galore, but you bust your ass for it. Back in the day, I used to know two guys that did it—Rage and Storm. They were damn good at it, too. Could pack a dance floor like nobody’s business. Always had cash and hot girlfriends as a result. They earned it. But that was before digital technology, back when they still had to use compact discs and records. All this guy had to do was turn his laptop on and make sure his microphone was live.

Next to the DJ booth was a small bar where another surly-looking Russian dispensed plastic cups of soda and water—at five bucks a pop. The club was brightly lit and clean, for the most part. Strippers, each one wearing only a skimpy thong, moved between the tables, flirting and offering lap dances. On the stage, a short Hispanic girl gyrated to the rhythm, slapping her ass occasionally before shoving it into the faces of the guys lined up along the railing. She didn’t do much for me. Her hips were too wide and her backside too big. I’ve never liked a lot of junk in the trunk.

Jesse stood up. “Yo, anybody want a soda? I’ll get first round.”

Darryl didn’t respond. His eyes were glued to the girl onstage. He was a fan of big asses.

“I’ll take a Pepsi,” I said.

“They don’t have Pepsi. Just Coke.”

“That’s fine. Whatever.”

Jesse turned to Yul. “You want anything, dude?”

Yul shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. His attention was focused on a nearby table, where a skinny blonde with huge fake tits was giving a lap dance to a guy in a cowboy hat.

I leaned over so that I wouldn’t have to shout, and elbowed him in the ribs.

Yul jumped.

“You like that?” I nodded at the blonde.

He nodded, still speechless.

Grinning, I scanned the club, checking out the different girls. The Odessa certainly catered to its clientele. There was something for everyone: blondes, brunettes, and redheads; skinny girls and fat girls; babes with back and ones with no junk in the trunk; hot MILFs and barely legal college-age chicks. It was like the internet had opened a strip club. All of the women were naked, except for their thongs. Each time the song changed, a new girl would take the stage, and then her thong came off. The crowd cheered each time. You’d think they’d never seen a woman before. But then again, looking at some of them—they probably hadn’t.

As I looked around, I noticed a few more Russian guys in the room. They were wearing suits, or sport jackets and slacks. Business casual. I wondered what they did on ‘Take Your Daughter to Work Day’. Most of them stood with their backs to the wall, watching the crowd for signs of trouble. All of them had that same stony expression that Otar the doorman had been wearing, and all of them looked like they could kick more ass than a donkey.

Jesse returned with our sodas. I sipped mine and grimaced. It was warm and flat. For five bucks, you figured they’d at least include some fucking ice. Of course, we hadn’t come here for the soda. The four of us sat back and enjoyed the show. The girl ended her set with a simulated orgasm. The music faded. The sound system hummed with feedback.

“Give it up for Sicily,” the DJ said, signaling another change in dancers. There was some scattered applause, along with catcalls, whistles, and rowdy cheers.

“Sicily will be back onstage in an hour. Meanwhile, make some noise for an Odessa favorite. Gentlemen, let’s hear it for Sondra!”

Gwen Stefani boomed from the speakers. The lights dimmed. A red spotlight illuminated the stage. The crowd shouted with enthusiasm. Whoever Sondra was, she had some fans.

“Give it up,” the DJ urged one more time. “Make some noise, ya’ll!”

And that was when I saw her.

Sondra took the stage.

And I fell.

four

The first thing I noticed about Sondra was her black eye, but it was her laugh that really caught my attention.

The DJ was shouting and the crowd was hollering and the music surged—a perfect storm of white noise. It was giving me a headache. I glanced down at my drink, took a sip, and heard her laugh. Even over all the noise, I heard her laugh. I looked back up again and here was this beautiful woman with a bruised, swollen eye, dancing around the stage like she owned it, smiling and giggling and waving to the crowd. It was like she didn’t even know she had a bruise on her face. Despite that shiner, Sondra was still breathtaking—and I mean that in the literal sense. As I stared at Sondra, I stopped breathing. My heart beat faster. I began to sweat.

She glanced in our direction, saw me staring at her, and then quickly looked away. The flesh beneath her left eye was puffy and swollen and purple. It was like a blemish on an otherwise perfect apple. After she’d looked away from me, I started breathing again and averted my eyes to the floor. At first I was embarrassed that I’d been busted gawking at her, but then I realized that she probably hadn’t even noticed. Everybody in the fucking place—male and female, customers and employees—were staring at her, mesmerized by her presence.

“Holy shit,” Darryl gasped.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “She’s something, isn’t she?”

“Damn straight,” I whispered. “What’s she doing in a place like this? She could be a model.”

Darryl nodded, his eyes never leaving her. “No bull-shit. I would kill or die to make love to that woman.”

“Make love?” Jesse shook his head. “Dude, that’s top shelf, Grade-A pussy. You don’t make love to something like that. You fuck the shit out of it and then you fuck it again till your dick falls off. Then you pick your dick up and fuck it some more.”

Darryl laughed. “That’s where you’re wrong, Jesse. That’s why you don’t get laid—because you don’t know shit about women.”

“I get laid.”

“In your dreams, maybe—if the chick is blind. And retarded.”

“Fuck you, Darryl. I know women.”

“You don’t know jack. You’re a novice.”

Jesse shrugged. “Oh, yeah?”

“Hell, yeah. A woman like that—every swinging dick, would-be player in the world is trying to fuck her. Anybody can fuck. Fucking is easy. Fucking is what animals do. You want to impress a woman like that? You gotta be different. You can’t fuck her. You gotta make love to her, instead.”

Jesse sat back and didn’t reply. He seemed thoughtful, as if Darryl had just handed him the Holy Grail. I wondered if he’d use the information, or forget about it like he did everything else in life.

My attention returned to the stage. I grabbed a cocktail napkin and mopped sweat from my forehead. Sondra wound around the brass pole jutting from the center of the stage. The spotlights shimmered over her body as she arched her back and ground her pelvis against the pole. Her long, black hair flowed over her back, swaying seductively. She twirled around the pole and I snuck another glance, checking out her perfect, heart-shaped ass.

It was lust at first sight.

Think I’m being crude? You weren’t there.

I popped wood, and pulled my t-shirt down over my crotch.

Jesse must have noticed my reaction, because he started laughing at me.

“Larry,” he said. “You’re allowed to look at her, you know. You don’t have to be sneaky about it and shit. Fuck, what are you, like twelve years old or something?”

I glanced at Sondra again, watching her glide across the stage. She did a split and I got harder.

“Do you know her?” I asked Jesse.

“Hell yeah, I know her.” He fumbled a wad of bills out of his pocket. “Her name’s Sondra Belov. Russian chick. She started here a few months ago. But before that, she used to turn tricks. Maybe she still does.”

“What?”

“You know Lou Myers? Works out in the yard? The cab jockey?”

I nodded.

“He told me that she used to work at that massage parlor in York. The one on Princess Street. Turned tricks in there. Twenty bucks a pop. I ain’t bullshitting you, man. She’s a ho. He banged her a couple of times.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“Can’t. I haven’t gotten a lap dance yet.”

As if on cue, a strawberry blonde approached our table. She smiled at Jesse and jiggled her hips. Her body sparkled with glitter. She was short, but well-proportioned and really, really cute.

“Hey there, player.” She slid alongside Jesse and ran her fingers through his hair. “I see you brought along some friends.”

“Sure did. This is Yul, Larry, and Darryl. We work together. Boys, this is Tonya.”

I nodded, barely acknowledging her. It was hard to take my eyes off Sondra.

Jesse slipped a ten dollar bill into Tonya’s g-string. “My friend Yul would like a lap dance.”

“H-hey,” Yul stammered. “I d-didn’t…”

I glanced away from the stage. Darryl and Jesse were laughing. Grinning, Tonya began to gyrate in front of Yul. Her hands slid over her breasts, then down to her flat stomach. Yul’s mouth hung open.

“T-that’s okay. You really don’t have to—”

Tonya put a finger to his lips and then sat on his lap, slowly grinding against him. Yul closed his eyes and sighed. Darryl and Jesse slapped each other the high five.

Funny as it was, I turned my attention back to the stage, studying Sondra. Her belly button was pierced and a small diamond glittered in the spotlight. Her stomach was flat and flawless. Jesse was full of shit. Nobody that perfect could have worked as a whore. Especially not for a measly twenty bucks. I’d seen hookers. You could find them in downtown York and Harrisburg, or you could watch them on episodes of Cops. Sondra didn’t look anything like those women. She seemed fresh.

The number of guys around the railing had noticeably increased as soon as Sondra began her performance. They crowded around the stage, waving money and calling out to her. Sondra complied, noticing each and every one of them. I noticed the looks on their faces as she’d move on to the next guy. They all looked satisfied, as if she’d danced for them and them only. Halfway through the song, she shed her thong and teasingly draped it over a customer’s head before tossing it aside. She was partially shaved. Had a nice little landing strip of dark pubic hair and nothing more. Her lips were as full and perfect as the ones on her face. Crouching, she arched her back and spread her legs. Even from where I sat, I had a clear view. It was like glimpsing Heaven.

I melted.

The club seemed to grow silent, like somebody had hit the mute button. The music, the crowd noise, Darryl and Jesse’s laughter—all of it vanished. There was just Sondra and me. We were the only two people in the club and she was dancing just for me, showing me all of her secrets.

And then the sound came rushing back in and my illusion was shattered as some drunken fat guy in a t-shirt and jeans clambered onto the stage and grabbed Sondra’s wrist. The crowd hollered in anger. Sondra tried to pull away but the guy yanked her closer. His other hand cupped her ass.

“Yo,” the DJ shouted. “Yo, yo, yo! Cut that shit out. Security!”

“Here we go again,” Tonya muttered.

“This happens a lot?” Darryl asked.

“Every time Sondra dances,” Jesse said. “Or at least it seems that way sometimes. Fucking guys can’t keep their hands off her.”

The bouncers swarmed, rushing the stage. The fat guy let go of Sondra and held his hands up, pleading with them. Not that it did him any good. Four of them jumped his ass and shoved him offstage. The patrons around the stage scattered. There would be no crowd-surfing tonight. The fat man bounced off some chairs and a table, and then belly-flopped onto the floor. The bouncers leaped off the stage and pinned him. Two of them grabbed his arms. Another seized his hair. The fourth shouted something in Russian. Then they dragged him to the door. I noticed that his nose and lip were bleeding. The bouncers didn’t seem to give a shit. Otar opened the door and they threw him outside.

Their faces were expressionless throughout this. They barely broke a sweat. It was all very perfunctory.

And the music never stopped.

And Sondra started dancing again as if it had never happened. The crowd surged towards the stage again, the altercation already forgotten. I turned my attention back to her as well, but not before noticing another man standing in the rear of the club. He leaned against a door. I guess it led to an office or something. He was watching Sondra, too, but instead of looking lustful, he seemed angry. He was short and pudgy, but not fat; probably in his thirties or early forties. His thick mop of hair was just starting to thin on top. He had a long goatee and mustache. All of his hair—face, head, even his eyebrows, was snow white. Not gray or silver, but ivory colored. There were no strands of black or brunette. He wasn’t an albino. No pink eyes or any of that shit. But his white hair was striking—and somehow unsettling.

Tonya licked her index finger and then ran it down Yul’s neck, leaving a trail of saliva and glitter on his skin. She gyrated faster on his lap. Yul’s hands twitched. He licked his lips and closed his eyes.

“Remember,” she warned him, “no touching. Whitey’s watching.”

“O… okay.”

Darryl turned towards her. “Whitey? Who the fuck is Whitey?”

“The owner,” Jesse explained. “Dude in the back with the white hair. You don’t want to fuck with him. His real name is Zakhar Putin, but everybody calls him Whitey on account of his white hair.”

I continued staring at Sondra. “Putin? Like the Russian President?”

“Same name,” Tonya said, “but no relation. Although supposedly he is related to some famous Russian dead guy. Doesn’t need to be related to anyone, though. He’s hooked up. And Jesse is right. You definitely don’t want to know any more about him than that.”

I nodded. It made sense. All the bouncers at the Odessa spoke Russian, and a lot of the strippers had Russian accents, too (but not Tonya—judging by the sound, she was from Baltimore). ‘He’s hooked up’ Tonya had said. That meant Whitey was in the mob—as in the Russian Mob. I’d heard rumors they were moving into York. There had been a big thing about it in the newspaper recently. According to the police, they were trying to take over York’s organized crime. Our proximity to all of the East Coast’s major metropolitan areas made York desirable, same as it did for our employer. Like they say in real estate—location, location, location. Control York and you controlled a lot of flow. It had always been that way. Back in the day, the Greeks were in charge. They kept things pretty peaceful, and even helped squelch a race riot in the mid-Sixties. Then, in the Seventies, the Marano Family out of New Jersey seized power. But in the early Eighties, when the Italians started turning on each other or getting busted, their reign gave way to the drug gangs—offshoots of the Bloods and Crips and various Hispanic crews out of Philly and Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Things got violent. Bodies dropped. The Italians came back for a bit in the Nineties, long enough to chase the brothers out. The Marano Family took control of things again, but then old man Marano died and his top guy, Tony Genova, disappeared. After that, most of Marano’s crew went to prison or became informants for the Feds. York had been up for grabs since then. The drug gangs came back, squabbling with bikers and local drug dealers, but nobody had seized total control. Now the Russians were making a play.

I’d read that they were into everything. Money laundering, extortion, drug trafficking, weapon smuggling, auto theft, white slavery, prostitution, kidnapping, staging auto accidents for phony insurance claims, counterfeiting, credit card forgery, and of course, murder. I wondered how much of that was actually going on here, as opposed to larger cities. Many of the big bosses were ex-KGB officers who ended up out of work after the Cold War ended. They used ex-Spetsnaz members as their enforcers—Russian special forces. Some real scary, bad-ass motherfuckers. The paper said that they had even recruited an Olympic sharpshooter to carry out hits for them.

Not that any of those big fish were supposed to be around here, of course. This was the first time I’d actually encountered any Russians in York at all. First time I’d ever been close to anything like this—organized crime. Criminals in general, even. Sure, I had friends in York County Prison and one buddy up at Cresson doing three years for multiple drunken driving offenses. We worked alongside guys on parole or work release. I’d even been busted once on an outstanding warrant for failing to pay a traffic fine (I still say that fucking light was yellow). But actual mobsters? I’d never been around them until now, and it was sort of cool. I’d seen The Sopranos and The Godfather and Goodfellas. But this was real life. It was exciting. Forbidden.

Just like the woman dancing on stage.

Just like Sondra.

I wondered what it would be like to get a lap dance from her. Wondered what she smelled like. How she tasted. How her long hair would feel in my hands or spread out across my chest. Or brushing against my thighs…

The bouncers resumed their positions throughout the club. Whitey disappeared, presumably behind that closed door in the back. The music ended and Sondra left the stage. She was replaced by two more Russian girls named Jovanka and Monique. They danced together, touching each other all over. Darryl took a drink and watched. Meanwhile, Yul squirmed beneath Tonya, and Jesse called another girl over and got a lap dance, too. All around us, people talked and laughed and drank. Darryl looked away from the stage and started reciting an old Dave Chappelle routine about strippers, but I was barely listening to him.

Instead, I was still thinking about Sondra, and wondering how she’d gotten that black eye.

five

The Odessa closed at eight that morning, and we reluctantly got up and filed out with the rest of the crowd. The lights came on, flooding the place with dazzling brilliance. Many customers blinked like they’d just woke up, or shielded their eyes. Cigarette smoke swirled around the fluorescent bulbs. A sullen old man appeared on stage with a bucket and a mop and started swabbing it down. Apparently, in accordance with state law, they’d open again at one, just in time for the after-lunch crowd.

I nodded at Otar the bouncer as we left. He didn’t return the gesture. I didn’t expect him to. I was just some blue collar asshole who’d come to gawk at naked women. Just another face in the crowd. He didn’t know me. But still, it felt like I should show him some respect. The dude was possibly a Russian mobster. If that was true, then I wanted to stay on his good side, because there was no doubt I’d be back. And soon, too.

I had to see Sondra again.

The sun was out and the storm had ended. We piled into the Cherokee. Once again, Darryl rode shotgun while Jesse and Yul got in the back. I turned on the iPod. Motorhead’s ‘Orgasmatron’ played softly. It felt wrong, somehow, playing Motorhead at such a low volume, but the bass inside the club had left me with the beginnings of a headache, and I wasn’t in the mood to crank it up. Besides, Lemmy is still God no matter how fucking loud you listen to him.

None of us spoke. I pulled out of the lot and back onto the road. Darryl stared out the window and smoked. In the backseat, Jesse closed his eyes and got comfortable. Yul chewed his fingernails and looked worried. Glitter sparkled on his cheek, leftover from his lap dance. He spat a nail onto the floor.

“Hey,” I said, glaring at him in the rearview mirror. “Spit that shit out the window, man. Don’t fuck up my ride.”

“Sorry.”

Jesse opened his eyes and sat up, wondering what was going on. Darryl glanced in the backseat and then turned around again, shaking his head. Motorhead gave way to Circle of Fear. I drummed along on the steering wheel with ‘Child of a Dead Winter’.

“That’s some nasty shit,” Darryl said.

I stopped drumming. “What is?”

“Yul chewing his fingernails.” He turned around again. “Don’t you know you can get diseases that way, man?”

Jesse chuckled. “He can get ’em from that lap dance, too.”

“Shut up!” Yul punched Jesse in the arm and then scowled at us. “You can’t catch anything from a fucking lap dance. And besides, I had my pants on. There was no contact.”

“Crabs,” Darryl said. “You can get those. Little fuckers crawl right into your underwear. Don’t matter if you kept your clothes on.”

“She was shaved. There wasn’t anywhere for crabs to hide.”

“Sure there was. She had ass hair.”

Jesse and I laughed.

“For real,” Darryl said, grinning. “Bitch had hair sticking out from between her ass cheeks. You could braid that shit, it was so long.”

“No she didn’t,” Yul mumbled. “You fuckers are just pissed because she liked me better than you.”

Jesse’s laughter turned to howls. “What the fuck have you been smoking, Yul? Tonya didn’t like you. She liked your money. That’s all. They’re strippers, dude. Working girls. She likes you as long as you got green. And when your wallet runs dry, then she fucks off and likes somebody else. Don’t make it into something more.”

“Well, she seemed nice.”

Darryl lit a cigarette. “Of course she did. That’s her job. Be nice to the customers. And she’s nice to every motherfucker in there, long as they got money and don’t touch her. You want something more than that, you want love and sharing and shit, then you gotta wait until you get home to Kim.”

“And if you want to keep Kim around,” Jesse said, “then clean that glitter off your face and clothes.”

Yul flinched. “Oh, man. I forgot all about that! What if she sees it?”

“Relax,” Darryl said. “She’ll be at work by now, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So just wash your face and do a load of laundry. She’ll never know a damn thing.”

Jesse grinned. “Unless you talk in your sleep, that is.”

Yul got quiet again. He stared out the window and didn’t respond while Jesse and Darryl continued to tease him. Just sat there taking it, looking guilty and despondent. I felt sorry for him.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” I said, trying to distract their attention from Yul for a little while, “that Sondra was something else. God damn…”

“Yeah,” Jesse agreed, “she about the finest piece of ass in that place. Built like a brick fucking shithouse.”

“But it’s more than that,” I said. “Did you notice how she works the crowd? How people react to her? Her mood was like…infectious. You could see it as she passed by each table. People’s spirits lifted. Their laughter got louder, their smiles bigger. Like she made their day better just by being there or something. Maybe they weren’t even aware of it. Maybe they didn’t notice. Maybe she didn’t either. But I did.”

They were silent for a moment, staring at me, expressionless. Then Jesse kicked the back of my seat and Darryl chuckled.

“Larry done turned into a poet and shit.”

“Fuck you, Darryl.”

Jesse kicked the seat again. “You got it bad, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “She’s incredible.”

“You gonna try to tap that?”

I shrugged.

“Better wrap your shit twice, if you do. No riding bareback with her.”

“Why?”

Jesse sighed. “I told you before, man. Sondra was a ho. Yeah, she’s nice and all, but that don’t change nothing. She worked in the massage parlor. And they ain’t just giving out hand jobs in there. They believe in a real happy ending—the full ‘sucky-fucky, me love you long time’. And some of those girls turn tricks in the club, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she was still doing it there, too. Anybody can get laid at the Odessa. Even Yul.”

“Hey,” Yul shouted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jesse ignored him. “All you gotta do, Larry, is find a girl that’s willing and then pay her for the ‘Forbidden Dance.’”

Darryl flicked ashes into the ashtray. “The Forbidden Dance?”

Jesse nodded. “Yep. Pay four hundred bucks and they take you in a back room and show you the secrets of the Forbidden Dance. It’s a code and shit. Means you want to get laid.”

“For real?” Darryl sounded intrigued.

“Most definitely.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “I can see tricks being turned at a massage parlor, but a strip club is a lot more high profile than that. If it was true, the cops would shut them down.”

“Ask Lou Myers.”

“Lou Myers is an ass-clown.”

“Yeah, but he knows his hoes, too. Dude spends like half his paycheck on them every week.”

I grunted. “It’s easy to understand why. Lou’s never met a Big Mac he didn’t eat. I’m surprised the fat fuck can get laid at all.”

“I heard that. But he does get laid. And he does it at the Odessa and the massage parlor. And the cops don’t do shit about it because they get laid, too—along with some money on the side. Think about it. Why you think a dude like Whitey Putin brings these chicks over from Russia? It ain’t just to dance. He gets them turning tricks. Doesn’t have to pay taxes or health insurance or give them paid holidays. It’s the perfect set-up. And if his stable runs dry, he can always order up some more girls.”

“So—Whitey’s a pimp?”

“Maybe, but I don’t know for sure. I only know that he’s connected and that you don’t want to fuck with him. According to Lou, he finds these girls in Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, and shit.”

“Georgia?” Yul frowned.

“Not our Georgia,” Jesse said. “Georgia overseas—in Europe. Dumb shit. Whitey’s people bring these girls into the States. Smuggle them through the port down in Baltimore. Feed them into the network from there. Send them off to other cities. They don’t have to worry about immigration papers or any of that. In return, the girls turn tricks in order to pay the Russians back. So they put them to work in strip clubs, massage parlors—places like that. Like the ones Whitey owns. He owns other joints, too. Restaurants. Bars. Whitey’s a big man here in York, but he’s small time in the grand scheme of things. Supposedly, he’s connected to a much larger group out of Brighton Beach up in New York.”

“So he’s not just a pimp,” I said. “Tonya was right. He’s Russian mob.”

Jesse held up his hands. “Yo, I’m just talking. That’s all. I ain’t saying shit. And neither should you guys. Seriously, you don’t want to mess with that. The less you know, the better off you are.”

I wondered if Whitey was actually tied into the mob, or if everything Jesse had said was total bullshit. Jesse had a bad habit of exaggerating the truth. Deep down inside, he’d always had some real self-esteem issues. Usually, his lies and half-truths were designed to make him seem more important. More exciting. Like this time. Wasn’t enough that he took us to a cool strip club. It had to be a strip club owned and operated by the Russian mob, and he had to know all the big secrets that the rest of us weren’t let in on.

But Tonya had hinted that Whitey was in the mob, too. Hooked up. Was she serious, or just feeding into Jesse’s bullshit? Playing along with the customer.

I wondered about the club’s name. The Odessa. That wasn’t Russian. It was German. It stood for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehorigen, or Organization of Former Members of the SS. I knew this from watching The History Channel. The Odessa was supposed to be a secret society dedicated to rescuing Nazi war criminals. So how did that tie in to the whole Russian mob thing?

On the stereo, Circle of Fear segued into some Deftones. Jesse had closed his eyes again and fallen asleep. Yul was back to biting his fingernails. Darryl lit another cigarette and nodded his head in time with the music.

Could Sondra really be a whore? It didn’t seem possible. Most hookers that I’d seen, usually on old reruns of Cops, looked used. Broken down, chewed up, skinny, scraggly addicts with an aura of stark desperation around them. They had scars, both emotional and physical, and both were visible to the observer. But Sondra didn’t have that air about her. She seemed…fresh.

Maybe I was naive, but I just couldn’t see it. Sondra seemed above all that. Just watching her dance—she’d seemed like an angel, not a devil.

Jesse woke up when we exited the highway and stopped at the red light. He rubbed his face and looked around.

“I need some coffee,” he muttered.

“True that.” Darryl flicked his butt out the window. “I could go for some Dennys. One of those Moons over My Hammy would be the shit right about now.”

I rolled into the GPS parking lot and dropped the guys off at their cars. Yul was in full panic mode now, wondering if Kim would somehow psychically figure out where he’d been. The backseat was covered with glitter. We fucked with him about it some more and then said our goodbyes. Yul went home looking anxious. Darryl and Jesse headed out for some breakfast. I drove home with a raging hard on, thinking about Sondra.

When I walked through my apartment door, my cat, Webster, hissed at me. He was annoyed. His food dish was still half-full, but Webster has never been a half-full type of feline. He always saw the dish as half-empty and got really pissed if I didn’t keep it topped off at all times. This explained why he was so fat.

I’d had him for years. I used to work at the Harley Davidson plant through a temp agency (no option to hire on, which sucked, because I would have loved to get some of those union wages) and I found him there. He was just a kitten at the time. Figured either somebody had dumped him and left him to fend for himself, or a stray had a litter somewhere and he’d wandered away. One of my co-workers found him hiding beneath a stack of skids. Good thing, too. If we hadn’t found him, he’d have been killed soon as a forklift tried to pick the skids up.

His eyes were barely open, he was so small. His skin was paper-thin and his ribs stuck out. I took him home, got some special milk from the pet store, and nursed him with a doll baby bottle until he was old enough to eat real food. I’d had him ever since. Now he was big and fat and grumpy. Coal-black fur and green eyes, a belly that swayed when he walked, fond of sleeping and eating, still had his claws and knew how to use them—especially on the fucking furniture. My sofa and chair were torn to shit.

Webster hated everyone, especially Jesse. Growled and hissed at Jesse every time the guys came over. But he loved me and I loved him back. My apartment would have been a much lonelier place without him.

I bent over. Webster allowed me to pick him up. I scratched the top of his head and behind his ears. He purred a little, enjoying the attention and forgiving me for neglecting his food dish. After a few minutes, his tail started swishing, the signal that he didn’t want to be held anymore, so I put him down and fed him. Then I checked the answering machine. There were no messages. There never were. Just like my cell phone.

The apartment was quiet. Always quiet. I hated how it made me feel. I turned on the stereo, put in some Machine Head, and tried to kill the silence.

Despite my short schedule at GPS, my social life wasn’t exactly active. Usually, I hung out with Darryl, Yul, and Jesse after work. On Sunday afternoons, I visited my folks and had dinner with them. Mom would always ask if I was dating anybody. Dad would always mumble to himself. I think he thought I was gay. Sometimes I thought about fucking with him, telling him I was, that I had a life-partner named Andre and we were in love. But my Dad’s got a heart condition and that shit wouldn’t have been funny if he had a heart attack.

Occasionally, I’d go see a movie by myself or go to a ballgame or a concert with the guys. But that was pretty much it. No girlfriend. It was hard to meet girls. Sure, I had the occasional fling here and there—one night stands or weekend trysts. But nothing permanent. Nothing meaningful or serious. I’d given up on the bar scene. The women I met in bars usually turned out to be batshit fucking crazy, and most of the time I didn’t find that out until after I’d dated them for a few weeks. They were all drama queens or attention whores or just generally unhinged—and one had been married (she’d revealed this to me on our fourth date, when her husband came home from work early).

There were women working at GPS of course, but none in my load area, and it was difficult to meet them while on the clock. I couldn’t exactly walk into another load area and say, “Hi, I’m Larry Gibson. I don’t know you but do you want to go out some time?” First of all, I couldn’t be away from my trailers for that long, or I’d back the whole line up. And secondly, I didn’t want to look like a stalker—just approaching strange women and asking them out. My Mom once told me I should go to church and meet a nice girl, but I wasn’t a church-going guy and doubted I’d have much in common with any woman I’d meet there even if I had been. Online dating seemed too weird to me. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d tried a singles night at the local Borders Books one time, and that was a disaster. Turned out women didn’t hang out in the hunting section too much, and I had no interest in chick-lit or poetry or current affairs.

Bars. Churches. Bookstores. There just weren’t many places in York County to meet women.

But now I could add the Odessa to my list.

Thinking again of Sondra, I ate two granola bars and washed them down with a beer. Breakfast of fucking champions. Webster stuck his face in his bowl and sniffed his food. Then he turned his tail up at me and stalked away.

“Fuck you, too, buddy.”

My apartment wasn’t much. Bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen—all furnished with stuff I bought from yard sales and thrift stores and Wal Mart. The only really nice things I had were my big screen plasma TV and my stereo, both of which were high end. I’d spent more money on them than I had on my Jeep Cherokee. I had a pretty extensive DVD and CD collection to go with them, as well as complete NFL and NASCAR subscriptions with my satellite provider, and an Xbox and a Playstation. I had a computer that I hardly ever turned on. My email inbox was as empty as my answering machine and I could look at porn and play games on the TV.

That was pretty much it as far as belongings. Everything else was perfunctory. The bare essentials. Bachelor pad 101. The fridge was never full, except for leftovers and pizza and beer. Most of the bathroom cupboards were empty. A few rolls of toilet paper and some toothpaste. There wasn’t even much furniture, really. Most of the rooms seemed bigger than they were, simply because there wasn’t a lot of stuff in them.

It was my home, but it was also the loneliest place in the world.

My crib. My prison.

I finished my beer and then went looking for Webster. I found him curled up on my bed, taking a nap. He opened one eye and looked at me with disdain. Sighing, I lay down beside him and closed my eyes. Webster changed positions, snuggled up against me, and did the same. His fur tickled my nose and his purring rumbled in my chest.

Before I fell asleep, the last thing I remember thinking was wondering where Sondra lived and if she was as lonely as I was when she went there.

six

I went back to the Odessa two nights later, a few hours before my shift started at work. I didn’t tell Yul or Darryl, and I didn’t see Jesse there. I’d thought I might, since it was one of his favorite hangouts. But he wasn’t among the crowd and to be honest, I was relieved. Despite the fact that he came here, too, it would have been embarrassing to run into him. Would have seemed like I was sneaking around. Deep down, I felt like a creepy stalker-type. But it didn’t matter.

I had to see her.

And I did.

Again and again and again. Sondra was my drug of choice and yeah, I was fucking hooked. Jesse and Darryl had been right about my attraction to her. I had it bad. She was more addictive than meth. The Odessa became my new hangout. I went there before work, after work, on the weekends, whenever I had the time and money. Started thinking about picking up another part time job just to pay for all the lap dances and shit. I got at least one every time I went there. I used the time to make small talk with the other girls, to ask about Sondra—what she was like, did she have a boyfriend, how long had she been here—things like that. Most of the dancers were suspicious at first. One even asked me if I was a cop. None of them told me anything useful. But still I tried. And besides—a lap dance is a lap dance.

Jesse ran into me there soon enough. With the cat out of the bag, we started hanging out at the Odessa together. Partners in slime, because despite my libido, I did feel slimy after leaving the place. Still, that didn’t stop me from going back. Sometimes Darryl came with us (but not Yul—he’d felt guilty and admitted everything to Kim, who’d gone ballistic and forbade him to go there with us ever again). Most of the time though, I preferred to go by myself. Being alone in your apartment is one thing. Being alone in a strip club is something very different. I could focus more when my friends weren’t there. Enjoy the lap dances and talk to the girls without interference or being fucked with.

And watch Sondra dance without distractions.

After a few weeks, I guess I was considered a regular. I started showing up even more than Jesse, who still had other clubs he also liked to hang at. Once I’d quit asking about Sondra, the girls warmed up to me. Or at least they warmed up to my tips. Some of the dancers, including Tonya, called me by name and asked about work and Webster and shit like that. Several of the other regular customers recognized me, too. A few even knew my name or shared beers with me. But for the most part, we didn’t interact with each other. We weren’t there to make friends. We were there for one reason only. Women. Still, it was a friendly vibe. The bouncers didn’t glare at me quite as hard. And Otar the doorman would actually return my head nods now when I left. His gray eyes still regarded me like I was a bug, but even a head nod was acknowledgement.

The only two people I didn’t interact with on some level were Whitey—and Sondra.

Whitey was an enigma. I saw him around occasionally, either passing through the club or standing in the rear. I found out he had an office back there, where he spent a lot of time. The Odessa had a second floor, too. I hadn’t noticed it the first time we’d been inside because the staircase was located in the rear, next to the restrooms. Although I hadn’t been upstairs, I was told there were private rooms available where you could go with your favorite stripper and watch her perform the ‘Forbidden Dance’. Turned out Jesse hadn’t been full of shit after all—at least about that part. I was too chicken shit to spring for the Forbidden Dance, and besides, Sondra wasn’t giving them, so there was no point. It was all about her. Even the lap dances I got from the other girls were related to Sondra.

As for the rest of what Jesse had said, I’d seen no indication that Whitey and his employees were mobsters. Hard motherfuckers, sure, but not gangsters. Tonya hadn’t brought it up again and I didn’t ask. The only things I knew for sure about Whitey were that he never smiled, rarely spoke to the customers, and that some of the girls seemed scared of him. Not in a terrified, run away screaming sort of way, but subdued and fearful. Cautious. I never saw Whitey holler at them. In fact, he barely acknowledged them at all. But even so, they seemed to walk on eggshells around him, especially the foreign girls, who outnumbered the other dancers. Dude’s pimp hand was strong.

Sondra was an enigma, too, but in a different way than her boss. Her performances were limited and I sometimes wondered why she didn’t dance more. She only stripped twice a night, fifteen minutes at a time, and when she was on stage, she owned the joint. She interacted with the crowd without ever really getting involved with them. Unlike most of the girls, Sondra didn’t do lap dances or work the crowd when she wasn’t dancing. In fact, you never saw her at all in between sets. She’d disappear backstage and she didn’t appear again until her second set came around. I wondered what she did back there. There was no way I could get backstage to meet her. Two bouncers guarded that area at all times.

Maybe she didn’t need to work the crowd in between her time on stage. She sure as hell made a killing while she danced. Every night, guys (and sometimes women) would rush the stage, crowding around as soon as she came on. They reached for her and she floated just out of reach—an endless ritual. Trying to touch Sondra was like trying to hold gossamer or a cloud. Her admirers were always grasping, never quite touching, fists clenching ones and tens and twenties and more. They’d put them in her g-string. She’d pick them up with her mouth or push her breasts together and collect the bills with her cleavage. And at least once during every set, one lucky individual would get an extra special treat—he’d roll the bill into a tube and hold it upright, and Sondra would squat over it and pick it up that way—not using her hands. The crowd always went nuts when she did this, even though they’d seen her do it before. I didn’t blame them. I totally understood. I went nuts every time, too. I imagined what it would be like to be that dollar bill. I imagined a lot of things.

Was I obsessed? I don’t know. Maybe. Fuck it. Yeah, maybe I was. But if you’d seen her, you wouldn’t blame me. You’d know why.

I sat there, night after night, and watched her. Sometimes she looked at me. Other times she didn’t. When our eyes did meet, no matter how fleetingly, I always wondered if Sondra recognized me or not. Was my face familiar? Did she think, ‘Oh, there’s that nice guy who’s in here watching me every night’? When she did look my way, she always smiled, but she fucking smiled at everyone. Was her smile different for me? Special? Did it hold some hidden meaning or message? No, of course it didn’t, but sometimes it was fun to trick myself into believing so. What else did I have going on in life?

Shit.

So I’d leave the Odessa and think about Sondra. At work. At home. Out with the guys. Even at my parent’s house on Sunday afternoons. Mom asked me if I was seeing anyone. I told her yes and didn’t elaborate. I thought of Sondra when I was in the shower and when I was doing laundry and while I ate and when I laid down to go to sleep.

But my fantasies never became reality.

Infatuated, I remained alone—except for my cat. Wanting Sondra somehow made my loneliness worse. But I was okay with that, because at least I finally had some fucking excitement in my life.

I never spoke to Sondra, until the night she spoke to me first—and then I had all the fucking excitement I could ever want.

Be careful what you wish for and all that.

Here’s how it happened.

seven

Darryl and Jesse were with me. I’m sorry about that. Of all the things I regret in this whole fucking mess, that’s one of the big ones. If they hadn’t been with me, then maybe none of this shit would have ever happened. They wouldn’t have been involved. If they hadn’t been with me, maybe I wouldn’t have even gone to the Odessa that night.

Oh, who the hell am I kidding? Of course I would have gone. Sondra was working, like every other night. So I was there, like every other night.

And things got fucked.

Jesse was already inside the club. He’d gotten a table close to the stage and saved seats for me and Darryl. When we walked inside, he was getting a lap dance from a skinny stripper named Natalia, who I didn’t care for. In truth, she grossed me out. Her black hair was cropped short and she had way too much ink on her body. Even her tattoos had tattoos. Demons and flowers and tribal signs. I hate that shit. Natalia always had dark circles under her eyes, and her arms and legs were usually covered with black and yellow bruises. Rumor had it that she was on heroin. Supposedly, she shot up between her toes so that the customers wouldn’t see the needle marks. In order to feed her habit, she offered rough trade in the private rooms upstairs—S&M type shit. That wasn’t my thing. I never understood how pain was supposed to feel good. Whether you’re making love or just fucking, the last thing you wanted to do was hurt the other person. It just seemed wrong, somehow. Defeated the entire purpose. Years ago, I used to work at the foundry in Hanover. We had this dude there named Sherm and he was into that shit. Used to punch girls in the mouth during sex. Choke them as they came. Said it helped him blow a load. He also said that the girls got off on it, too. The cops shot him during a botched bank robbery. That had always seemed just about right to me.

Maybe Sherm and Natalia would have been a good fit. Then again, maybe not. He’d have probably gotten the shits of her skank ass, too.

Despite all of this, Jesse certainly seemed into her. No accounting for taste. Maybe he was drunk or maybe he just didn’t give a fuck. He barely acknowledged me and Darryl as we slid into the booth. He just kept staring into her eyes, his own lids half-closed. His body was tense, his arms stiff. His muscles stood out taught. Natalia ground against him. Jesse’s breathing quickened. Then he groaned. With a parting smile that was more business than it was pleasure, Natalia snatched a rolled-up twenty from Jesse’s hand and slunk away. Jesse turned his head towards us. He looked spent. I guess he was, at that. There was a wet spot on his jeans.

“Dude,” Darryl said, “you are one sick white boy.”

“Why? What the fuck?”

“Because, Jesse.” Darryl nodded towards Natalia. “That shit is infested.”

Jesse shrugged. “Pussy’s pussy.”

I laughed. “You’d fuck a garden hose if there was enough pressure in it.”

“True that,” Darryl agreed. “He’d fuck a bush if he knew there was a snake in it.”

“Screw you both.”

“No thanks.”

We’d brought a six-pack of Miller Lite bottles with us. Darryl offered him a beer and Jesse accepted. Apparently, Jesse was tired from blowing his load. His eyes drooped and his shoulders sank. The three of us popped the caps off the beers and took a drink. The beers were still cold. That seemed to wake Jesse up again.

“You alright?” Darryl asked him.

Jesse smiled. “Damn straight.”

He had the night off at GPS and was ready to party. Darryl and I had to go in later. Our load area was expected to get hit hard. Jesse bugged us to stick around the Odessa. Said we should call in sick. I considered it. I’d called in sick a few times before, just so I could see Sondra dance. But Darryl wasn’t having any of that. He needed his paycheck—his child support got taken directly out of it and if he didn’t work enough hours, there’d be hardly anything left. And since I’d driven us to the Odessa, I was his ride to work. No way was he letting me call off and no way I was letting him drive the Cherokee. Darryl had totaled three cars in the last two and a half years. I wasn’t going to let him do the same thing to mine.

It was a little after ten. We called Yul and laughed at him. He was just getting home from a flower show at the York Fairgrounds. Kim had made him go along with her. The poor fucker had to get up at three and go to work after spending a night doing that.

We drank beers and watched the dancers take their g-strings off and had a good time. At first, things seemed normal. But after the first hour, we noticed something was amiss.

The first indication that something was wrong was when Sondra missed her dance slot. The DJ announced her. Played her song—Gwen Stefani again. The house lights dimmed. The red spotlight swiveled, searching the stage—but the stage was empty. No Sondra. The DJ called her name again, but she didn’t show. There were a few boos and jeers from the crowd. Some of the bouncers looked pissed. I sat up in my seat and glanced around, confused. The DJ called for Sondra a third time and when she still didn’t take the stage, he quickly covered.

“Change of plans, folks. Sondra will be with us a little later on. You’ll want to make sure you don’t miss her. Meanwhile, please put your hands together for the lovely, luscious Lakita! Let’s give her a big Odessa welcome. Make some mother fucking noise!”

A young black girl hurried out onto the stage. Unlike the other dancers, she was fully clothed, as if caught unawares backstage. She seemed bewildered, and it was easy to tell that she wasn’t used to dancing to this song. But she recovered soon enough and writhed around, losing more clothing with every verse.

Tonya walked by us, on her way to give a lap dance to a customer two booths away. I stopped her as she passed.

“How you doing, guys?”

“Okay,” I said. “But what’s up with Sondra? She sick or something?”

“Awww,” Jesse teased. “Larry misses his girlfriend. Ain’t that cute?”

He and Darryl elbowed each other, snickering.

Tonya ignored them. “Don’t know. She was here earlier. But I haven’t been in the back all night. Maybe she’s in the bathroom or something.”

I nodded. It sounded reasonable enough.

“Got to go,” Tonya said, and then hurried away. The guys at the other booth whistled as she approached them. I turned back to Darryl and Jesse.

“Maybe she got her period,” Jesse said. “Can’t dance if she’s bleeding.”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I got up and started to walk away. Darryl tugged my elbow.

“Where you going?”

“To piss. Be right back. Save me a beer.”

Nodding, he turned his attention back to Lakita, who’d managed to win over the crowd. I headed for the bathroom.

The men’s room at the Odessa was filthy, and I hated it. After the first time I’d used it, it was easy to understand why we’d seen guys pissing in the parking lot. The parking lot was much nicer. Cleaner, too. The restroom had three urinals, three commode stalls, and two sinks. All of them were covered with grime and stains. The toilet seats were pitted and loose. They wobbled when you sat on them. One of the urinals had a leaky pipe, and there was usually a pool of water on the floor beneath it. A paper towel dispenser and a condom machine hung on the wall, along with a cracked mirror. The linoleum floor was pea-green and my shoes stuck to it. The toilet stalls and the walls were the same sickly color as the floor.

There was an old guy using the urinal on the left. He leaned against the wall with one hand, drunkenly swaying back and forth. About every fourth drop of piss hit the floor, rather than his intended target. His nose whistled when he breathed. Ignoring him, I picked the urinal on the right, putting one between us for distance, and hurried to do my business. I tried not to step in the puddle beneath the urinal. I wondered again where Sondra was, and why she’d missed her set.

The wall was covered in graffiti. People had etched it into the paint with keys and knives or written on the wall in everything from black marker to shit. Some of it looked very old—ancient hieroglyphics from the late-Nineties. Other missives looked fresh. None of them had ever been painted over, as far as I could tell. They’d been left for posterity, I guess.

The old man flushed and walked out of the restroom without washing his hands. I didn’t blame him. The urinals were probably cleaner than the sinks.

As I pissed, I read the wall. Some of the graffiti looked like Russian. A few of the letters were written backwards. ‘Chobo Meptbbin’. I wondered what it meant. ‘Ctopoha cnhrk aeno 555-0673’. Gibberish. I read the English graffiti instead. ‘This is shit’. ‘I got the Aids’. ‘Legalize it’. ‘Who farted?’ ‘What are you looking at?’ ‘Tony was here’. ‘For good head, call 555-9081’. And the ever popular ‘Here I sit, broken hearted. Tried to shit but only farted’. Then there was an entire exchange between different people: ‘I love them hoes’. ‘Your Mom is a ho’. ‘So is your mom, fucker’. ‘You fucked his mom, too?’ ‘This is his Mom’. There were several that were either cryptic or crude—or sometimes both: ‘Have you seen Teddy and Frankie… call 555-6667… ask for Kaine… Cash Reward’. ‘My pussy ate my thong’. ‘My crabs have crabs.’ ‘Jesus saves, but Ob rulz’. And then there were doodles—a big-nosed Kilroy looking over a wall, the President with a gap-toothed grin and enormous ears, a smiling dog, weird occult symbols like you’d see on a Slayer disc, a smoking bong, and lots of male and female genitalia, all of them larger than life. Some of them made me laugh. Others made me cringe. Some made me do both.

Finished, I shook myself off, zipped up, and turned the sink on with my elbow. I was afraid to touch the knob with my hand. There was a layer of black scum and pink hand soap on top of it. I rinsed my hands off under the water, and then used my elbow to work the lever on the paper towel dispenser. It was empty, so I wiped my hands on my pants.

As I was heading out the door, a bouncer pushed past me and charged into the bathroom. I had to slink against the wall to avoid being run over. He paused, then turned around and looked at me.

“You see girl inside?”

His accent was thick and I had trouble understanding him at first. He leaned closer. I could smell his cologne.

“Girl,” he repeated. “You see her?”

“In there?” I shook my head. “Just me and an old guy. Maybe she’s in the stalls?”

“Da.” He started to turn away.

“Who you looking for?” I asked.

“No one. You go back to table. Enjoy show. Look at pussy. No worry.”

He walked over to the stalls. Shrugging, I let the door swing shut behind me and made my way through the crowd. There was a lot of commotion. Most of the bouncers had disappeared. I wondered where they’d gone. Whitey was standing outside his office door talking to Otar. They leaned close together. Whitey kept jabbing the bigger man in the chest with his finger, shouting something in Russian. Even though Otar was twice his size, he seemed scared of Whitey. The bouncer headed for the front door. He seemed worried—the first expression I’d ever seen on his stone face. Whitey scanned the crowd. His eyes lingered on me for a moment before moving away. I didn’t like how they made me feel. I hurried to the table and sat down. Lakita was on her second dance, gyrating to the latest by Fergie.

“What’s going on?” I asked Darryl and Jesse.

“Don’t know,” Jesse said, “but it must be something important. The bouncers took off backstage and Whitey looks pissed as shit.”

“About what? Was there a fight or something?”

“Nope.” Jesse shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe one of the girls stole some money or something.”

“Got to keep his pimp hand strong,” Darryl said, his eyes never leaving Lakita.

“You like that?” Jesse asked him.

Darryl grinned. “I hate this fucking song, but damn if she don’t make it better.”

They laughed. I tried to join in, but found I couldn’t. My stomach hurt. I felt tense. First Sondra hadn’t come out. Then that shit with the bouncer in the bathroom. There had to be some connection—but what? Even the other strippers seemed nervous. They kept glancing around the club, looking over their shoulders, distracted. Cowed. There was definitely something serious going on. Something bad.

After that, the fun seemed to go out of the evening. The Odessa’s atmosphere became muted, its energy drained. The customers didn’t clap as loud, didn’t tip as well. The dancers moved slower. Even the DJ seemed off, stepping over songs and fucking up the mix. Darryl and I finished our beers, and left the rest for Jesse to drink.

“You guys taking off?” His voice rang with disappointment.

“Sorry, man,” I apologized, “but I can’t stick around. Darryl needs to go in.”

“Damn straight,” Darryl said. “And so do you, Larry. You keep taking off work to look at pussy and GPS is gonna fire your ass. Besides, your girl ain’t here anyhow.”

Jesse twisted the cap off another beer. “She probably got tired of you stalking her and bailed.”

“Fuck you both. Twice.”

We said goodbye to Jesse, told him to be careful driving home, and then we left. Otar wasn’t at his usual spot. In fact, nobody was watching the door. More proof that something was up; people could just walk in now without paying. Definitely not business as usual. When we got outside, I saw why.

The moon was out and the sodium lights hummed and buzzed. Despite the illumination, it was still dark and shadows lurked between the cars. Whitey, Otar, and the rest of the bouncers were walking around the parking lot. Several of them had flashlights in hand, training the beams on the ground, looking for someone or something. One bouncer glanced at us briefly, but otherwise they paid us no attention. I heard Whitey grumble something in Russian. It sounded like his mood had worsened.

Darryl drew closer and whispered, “Maybe somebody was out here breaking into cars.”

“I hope not.” Immediately, I thought of my iPod. I’d put it in the glove compartment, but if a thief had broken into the Cherokee, they’d probably find it easy enough. “Shit.”

As we got closer to the Jeep, I sighed in relief. The windows weren’t broken and the door wasn’t ajar. The tires weren’t slashed. No signs that vandals had scratched it with a key or anything like that. None of the other vehicles looked like they’d been broken into either. The Russians continued searching the lot, walking slowly up and down between the rows of cars, shining the flashlights along the ground. They didn’t speak. Only Whitey remained motionless, standing in the middle of the lot and watching their progress. The moonlight sparkled in his white hair. He glared at us as we approached the Cherokee. I nodded at him and tried to smile. Instead of returning the gesture, Whitey turned away.

My stomach was in knots and I didn’t know why. It was a terrible feeling. I looked to the sky. Darryl followed my gaze.

“Full moon,” he muttered. “Bound to be some crazy motherfuckers out tonight.”

“True that,” I said.

I pointed my keychain at the Jeep and pressed the button to unlock the doors. While Darryl hopped inside, I walked around the front, checking the hood and grille for damage. There was none. At that point, I really wasn’t expecting to find any, either. Whatever the hell Whitey and his guys were looking for, it wasn’t vandals. Not the way they were going about their search.

Darryl leaned over and opened my door. I raised my leg to step inside. Something grabbed my ankle. It startled me, but I didn’t scream. Not loud, anyway. Instead, I made a strangled little noise in the back of my throat. The Russians were too far away to notice.

I glanced down. A hand gripped my ankle. The fingers wrapped around me tightly. It was a pretty hand. Slender and fair-skinned. The fingernails were long and red. The hand was attached to an arm and presumably, the arm belonged to someone hiding on the ground beneath my ride.

I recognized the fingernails and the hand. Had studied them every night, along with the rest of their owner.

It was Sondra. I was sure of it. For some reason, Sondra Belov was hiding beneath my Cherokee. And suddenly, I was pretty sure I knew who the Russians were looking for. I just didn’t know why.

I took a breath and held it.

“The fuck you doing,” Darryl hollered. “We’re gonna be late for work.”

The bouncers glanced in our direction. The hand on my ankle squeezed harder.

“I stepped in some gum,” I said loud enough so that the others would hear me. “Hold on a second. I want to scrape it off first. Don’t want to get it on my upholstery.”

“Well, hurry up.”

I knelt on the pavement and peeked under the Jeep. My breath hitched in my chest. Sondra stared back at me. Her eyes were wide and frightened. Her face was covered with black smudges. After a second, I realized it was her mascara. She’d been crying. Her lip was swollen and bleeding. There was blood under her nose, as well. She started to speak, but I put a finger to my lips and shushed her. Then I stood back up again, and slowly opened the door. The sound of my knees popping made me jump.

“Darryl,” I whispered. “Be cool.”

“Be cool?” His voice was very loud. “The hell do I care, Larry? It’s your ride. If you don’t want gum in it, then it don’t matter to me.”

“Be fucking cool.” I stared at him as hard as I could, trying to convey the weight and gravity of the situation. He must have seen that something was wrong, because he nodded at me.

“Right. Cool. Like a cucumber.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bouncers. They were all reconvening now, heading back to Whitey. They seemed to have given up their search. None of them were looking at us.

“Okay, Sondra,” I whispered. “Quick as you can, sneak up into the Jeep. Stay out of sight and keep your head and shoulders down. Crawl between the seats and into the back. Don’t let them see you. Understand?”

“Sondra?” Darryl mouthed the word silently.

I glared at him and gave a slight shake of my head.

Sondra slipped the top half of her body out from under the Cherokee and slid into the vehicle, wedging herself between the driver’s seat and the gas pedal. Then she crawled in the rest of the way. She was barely dressed—skimpy blue silk shorts and a matching silk robe, more like a pair of pajamas than clothing. It was very obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra or panties. On her feet was a pair of baby blue high heels. Darryl stared at her, bewildered. Sondra wriggled over his lap and he turned to me. I shrugged. Sondra slid between the seats, and then hid in the backseat, hunkered down on the floor, keeping her head low. My heart beat faster. I glanced around again. The Russians hadn’t seen her.

Darryl was flustered. “The fuck is going on, Larry?”

“Quiet,” I said. “Not now, man. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

I slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door behind me. Then I put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine thrummed to life. I dropped the Cherokee into reverse and slowly backed out of the parking space, trying to drive normally, trying not to attract attention. We headed for the exit. Sondra hyperventilated. I checked the rearview mirror, making sure she was okay. Her robe had come unfastened and her breasts were sticking out. I tried to ignore them. Even though I stared at them dozens of times on stage, it seemed wrong somehow to gape at them now. I stared straight ahead.

“Hey, you!”

“Oh shit.” Darryl looked back over his shoulder. “You done pissed off the Russians, Larry.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror again. Otar was running after us, waving his hands and shouting something. His face was red and flustered.

“What do we do?” I yelled.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Darryl slapped the dashboard with his palm.

In the backseat, Sondra whimpered.

Otar got closer. I heard part of what he was saying. It sounded like ‘lights’. I slammed on the brakes.

“Go, stupid!”

“Relax. He’s not after us, Darryl.”

“Then why the hell is he chasing us? What’s he shouting?”

“The headlights,” I said. “I forgot to turn them on.”

As I grasped for the knob, Otar reached the side of the Cherokee. He was puffing hard. I could see it from where I sat. His cheeks looked like a blowfish. Before I could pull away, he glanced into the back. His eyebrows narrowed. He shouted something in Russian and grabbed the door handle.

“Fuck!”

I stomped the accelerator and we shot forward. Otar held on to the door handle for a moment, and then tumbled face first to the pavement. As we raced into the street, I saw him jumping to his feet, pointing at us and screaming. The rest of the Russians were running towards him. There was a flash of light, followed a second later by a loud explosion.

“Motherfuckers are shooting at us,” Darryl screamed. “Drive, bitch, drive!”

Sondra spoke up for the first time. “They will kill you if they catch you. Kill us all. Please go. Fast. Now.”

“Listen to the lady,” Darryl urged. “Get us the hell out of here!”

I did. The Cherokee’s tires squealed and the vehicle shuddered, as if the engine was going to leap right out of it. The RPM and speedometer needles wobbled back and forth. We sped down the road and took the on ramp for Interstate 81. There wasn’t much traffic; just a lot of tractor trailers. I darted in and out of them, watching for signs of pursuit, but if Whitey’s men had followed us, we’d lost them.

“Why the fuck did you let that guy catch up to the car,” Darryl shouted. “Did you think he wouldn’t see the bloodied up bitch in the back seat?”

“I know, I know. I wasn’t thinking!”

“Damn straight, you weren’t. Jesus fucking Christ, Larry!”

Sondra sat up and I saw that she was crying again. I grabbed some tissues from the console and offered them to her.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks. You are nice to help.”

Darryl shook his head. “Son of a bitch…”

Sondra wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She looked around for some place to put the tissues.

“I can take them,” I said softly. “Hand them here.”

“Is… how you say? Snot… is snot in them.”

“That’s okay. Really, I don’t mind.”

She handed them back to me. I dropped them on the floor at my feet.

“How you know my name?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“My name. You say it to your friend when you help me. You say, ‘Sondra’. How is it you know my name?”

“Oh…” I laughed, nervous. Already, the gunshot and escape seemed distant and unimportant. This—having the girl of my dreams in my backseat—was far more unlikely.

“My name’s Larry Gibson. I watch you dance.”

“Yes.” She nodded, studying us both carefully. “Yes, I see you both at club. You talk to the other girls but you watch me long time.”

“Well,” I said. “I guess I do watch you a lot. I enjoy your show.”

“Me, too,” Darryl said. “And my name is Darryl Moore. And now that we’ve made introductions and we’re all friends and shit, how about you fucking tell us what the fuck is going on and why the fuck you were hiding beneath Larry’s fucking Jeep and why the hell those motherfuckers were fucking shooting at us?”

Sondra pursed her lips. “You curse very much.”

“You’re goddamn right I do,” Darryl said. “Now talk.”

Before she could respond, my hands went numb and I started shaking. I managed to roll the window down, but then I turned on the heat. I felt cold all of the sudden, but I was sweating like a pig. The road blurred. Darryl said something to me, but I couldn’t understand him. His voice sounded like it was far away. He grabbed the steering wheel and I tried to focus on him.

“Pull the fuck over,” he said. “You’re going into shock.”

I was and I did. I felt weak and tired and out of breath. Darryl and I switched places. I wasn’t worried about him wrecking the Cherokee. Not anymore. Such concerns seemed silly and trivial now. It’s not every day that someone tries to kill you. They’d shot at us. They’d actually fucking shot at us. It wasn’t like a movie or a TV show. This was real fucking life.

While Darryl readjusted the seat and familiarized himself with the Jeep, I lay back in the passenger’s seat and tried to get my breathing under control. Sondra leaned forward, staring at me. It felt good, seeing the concern reflected in her eyes. She reached out and touched my forehead.

“Thank you again,” she said. “For help. You good. Both of you.”

Her fingers slowly caressed my skin. They felt cool to the touch. I closed my eyes and sighed. Then her hand went away again.

Darryl pulled back onto the Interstate and fumbled out his cell phone. He flipped it open. The keypad glowed green in the darkness.

“Who you calling?” I asked.

“The cops, man. Who the fuck do you think?”

“Nyet,” Sondra shouted. “You no call police. Very bad. Much trouble if you call them!”

Ignoring her, Darryl began dialing with his thumb. Sondra leaned farther forward and snatched the cell phone from his hand. The Cherokee swerved into the passing lane. A GPS tractor trailer blared its horn at us. Darryl jerked the Jeep back into our lane. Before we could react, Sondra rolled down the window and tossed the phone outside. It smashed against a concrete construction barrier. The trucker blew his horn again.

Darryl gripped the wheel. “Larry, I’m gonna kill your new girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend…”

“Shut up.” He glared at her in the rearview mirror. “What the hell did you do that for? Fucking phone cost me a whole goddamn paycheck. You know you’re paying for that shit, right?”

Sondra’s bottom lip trembled. “No hit me, please. No more. I am sorry. I buy you new phone. Just no hit.”

“Hit you?” Darryl’s voice immediately softened. “No. Relax. Ain’t either of us gonna hit you. We don’t beat on women. We ain’t no chumps. It’s okay. You’ll be okay. Just tell us what’s going on and why you don’t want to call the cops.”

“Let’s get off the road first,” I suggested. I was starting to feel a little better. “I don’t like being out here. If they called the cops and gave them my plate number, then the State troopers might be looking for us.”

“Why would they call the cops? Aren’t they the motherfuckers that shot at us? That doesn’t exactly seem like the behavior of law-abiding citizens, does it?”

“No,” I agreed, “it doesn’t.”

“Damn straight it doesn’t. These guys are mobsters. They ain’t gonna call the po-po. ”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Jesse and Tonya said—”

“Fuck Jesse and Tonya,” I interrupted. “We don’t know for sure if these guys are Russian mob.”

“Yes,” Sondra said. “They are.”

“Oh…”

Darryl chuckled. “Well, that’s just fucking wonderful, now ain’t it?”

We were silent for a few minutes. Darryl took the exit for Interstate 83 and we headed back to York.

“Let’s get off the road,” I said again. “We need to go somewhere and think. Sort this whole thing out.”

“Where?”

“My place. If the cops aren’t looking for us, then we’ll be safe there. The Russians don’t know our names and they don’t know where we live.”

Darryl arched an eyebrow. “Your place?”

“Yeah. My apartment. Sondra can get cleaned up a little and then explain everything.”

Sondra smiled.

I blushed. My ears burned and my cheeks felt warm. Her smile grew broader and so did my embarrassment.

Darryl looked at me and then at Sondra. He shook his head and sighed.

“There you go, thinking with your goddamned dick…”

“Shut up, Darryl.”

That was how I finally met Sondra.

And it was the last time I was ever truly happy.

Things got worse after that.

eight

Webster greeted us with a hiss. His food dish was half-empty again. In protest, I noticed that he’d flipped his water bowl over, soaking the doormat. He sat on his haunches, glared at Darryl, and then growled.

“Don’t growl at me, fur ball. I’ll tell Larry to sell you to the animal testing people.”

Hissing at the threat, Webster retreated to safety beneath the kitchen table. After a moment, he crept out and investigated Sondra, who was busy looking around. Darryl went to the window and peeked through the shades.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Nobody out there,” he said. “We’re cool.”

I didn’t reply. My attention had returned to Sondra. She’d been timid at first, half afraid to come inside. But now she was crouched on the kitchen floor, holding Webster in her lap. She slowly stroked his fur. Blinking, Webster purred. He seemed as surprised as I was. Then he licked her fingers and Sondra giggled. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

“His tongue is rough, like paper sand.”

“Sandpaper,” Darryl corrected her.

“Da. Sandpaper. What is his name?”

“Webster.” I grinned.

“Web-ster…” She looked back down at him. “Hello, Webster. You are fat cat, no? Larry feed you good. You are fuzzy cat.”

Darryl turned around again. “Well, ain’t this just some touching shit?”

Sondra’s face fell. “I sorry. If I make trouble, I leave…”

“No,” I said, shooting Darryl a dirty look. “Don’t mind Darryl. He’s an asshole. You’re fine here. You’re safe.”

“Safe…” She repeated the word like she didn’t know what it meant. Thinking back now, maybe she didn’t.

“Can you tell us what’s going on?” I asked. “Why were those guys looking for you? Who beat you up?”

“Whitey,” she spat. “That son of bitch, he hit me for last time. He is very mad.”

“That’s great,” Darryl said. “Now how about you tell us everything?”

“Can I, how you say…pee first? I get scared in parking lot and almost pee my pants.”

“Sure,” I said. “Follow me.”

I showed her where the bathroom was and turned the light and exhaust fan on for her. Webster waited outside the door. Obviously, he preferred Sondra’s company to me and Darryl. Can’t say that I blamed him. My cat had taste, just like me. I walked back into the kitchen. Darryl was seated at my table. He didn’t speak. Neither did I. Instead, I started brewing a pot of coffee.

“That’s a good idea,” he said finally. “Something tells me we’re in for a long night. Coffee would hit the spot.”

“Yeah.”

“So while she’s in there, let’s call the po-po.”

“No, man. You heard what she said. No police. Let’s at least hear her out. If the Russians knew how to find us, they’d be here by now.”

He sighed. “We’ll do it your way. For now. But hear me, man. After we listen, if I don’t like what she has to say, then I’m dialing 911. Ain’t no way in hell I’m gonna live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for the Russian mob. I got enough shit in my life. I don’t need that, too.”

“Fair enough.”

Sondra came back into the kitchen, cradling Webster in her arms. She’d cleaned the grime and blood from her face, and had wiped most of her make-up away as well. Her lip was still swollen and her bruises had darkened, but she still looked beautiful. Her robe was fastened tight again. The blue silk clung to her curves. Webster purred, lying limp like a rag doll. He seemed content. I wondered if someone had secretly switched my cat for a look-a-like when I wasn’t home.

“Coffee?” I offered her a mug. “Just made some, so it’s fresh.”

“Yes, please.”

“Sugar? And I think I got some milk.”

“Da. Milk.”

I pulled the milk out of the fridge, sniffed it, and made a face.

“Is no good?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

“Is okay. I drink black.”

She sat down next to Darryl. Webster hopped off her lap and wound between my legs, apologizing for his rude behavior when we’d first come home.

“Same way I like my women,” Darryl said. “Strong, black, and just a little bit bitter.”

He and I both laughed, but Sondra just stared at us in confusion.

“I sorry,” she said. “I not get joke.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Wasn’t very funny, anyway.”

I poured coffee into both of their mugs. Then I poured myself a cup as well. After filling Webster’s water bowl again, I sat down.

“So,” Darryl said. “Sondra. You’ve met Larry. You’ve met me. You’ve even met the cat. Had a chance to clean yourself up and calm down. Larry even made you a nice cup of coffee. Feel better?”

“Da, very much. Is nice.”

Darryl smiled, flashing all of his teeth. Sondra smiled back at him.

Then Darryl’s smile faded.

“Now how about you tell us what the fuck is going on. No more delays or excuses. This ain’t an episode of Lost, where they never answer the fucking questions. Tell us what’s up. We want the truth. We deserve that much.”

“Da,” she said. “You do. I tell you everything. It is just…not easy to talk of.”

“Try us.”

“I try. My English is so-so. You tell me if you not understand?”

We nodded.

She took a sip of coffee and sat the mug down. Her hands were shaking. She folded them in front of her and stared at the tabletop. When she spoke again, her voice was low.

“I was born in Russia after Glasnost. You know of Glasnost?”

Darryl shrugged. I nodded.

“When communism fell,” I said. “It was part of Gorbachev’s reforms. I remember it, too. I was a little kid. My parents watched it on TV.”

“I was baby then. All my life, I never know Communist Russia. I just know ‘new’ Russia. Know Capitalism. Is supposed to be great thing, like American Democracy. But is not. Is no work for people to do. No way to support families. I never know good times. Only bad. Only poor. My family, they go hungry lots. No money. No jobs. But the criminals—we call the Bratva—they do fine. They are like your Mafia. The Bratva make money. Their families eat at night and have more to drink than vodka. When Soviet Union fall, the Organizatsiya was there. In old days, they sell Western products on black market. Music and movies and blue jeans. But with all the political…how you say…uncertainty…in my country, they take over quick. They take over the banks. Then the courts. Soon, their people run the corporations, factories, everything. They are lawyers, bankers, even judges. They call themselves vori v zakone—thieves in law.”

“Damn,” Darryl muttered. “Tony Soprano don’t be doing that shit. He just owns a sanitation company.”

“In my country, the Bratva are the real power,” Sondra continued. “They are many. One hundred thousand of them. They control eighty percentage of private business and half of country’s money.”

Darryl whistled. “Are you sure? That seems awfully high.”

“My English is so-so. But I know Bratva. I have known them all my life. The Organizatsiya terrorize everyone—executives, politicians, journalists, common people. First they take over banks and companies. Then they do the things you Americans see on television. Porno. Prostitutes. Drugs. Steal things. Sell weapons. Assassinations. Kidnap. Identity theft. Slaves. All…what is word? Under the ground?”

“Underground,” I said.

“Thank you. They are in secret. In the Western movies, Italian Mafia is known, yes? Not the Bratva. They are unseen. If you tell on them, they kill your whole family. Not just you. They wipe out all enemies. Get very strong.”

Darryl cleared his throat. “How strong?”

“They take over all other gangs. Italians. Greeks. Chinese. Yakuza. Even American street gangs. Soon, I think, they move on the Colombians, too. That is rumor I hear from other girls.”

“And now they’re here in York,” I said. Shaking my head, I sipped my coffee. It was already getting cold.

“Da,” Sondra said. “They are here. They come to America after Cold War. Jewish people flee here. Many from the Organizatsiya fake their passports and come here, too. They settle in Brighton Beach and spread out from there to all American towns and cities. Whitey Putin come to York. He is in charge here. But Whitey is not like traditional Bratva. He is like me—raised on Western culture. He is not secret, like in Russia. He is, how you say? Operating in the open? Is easy to tell he is criminal.”

Darryl sipped coffee. “Then how come he ain’t in jail?”

“Because he is also clever. He give money and women to police and cover his tracks.”

“Sondra,” I said, “if you don’t mind me asking—you seem like a nice girl. How did you get wrapped up with these guys?”

“Wrapped… up?”

“Yeah. It means ‘involved’. How come you’re working for a guy like Whitey? I mean—you’re beautiful.”

She smiled, lowering her eyes. I felt my cheeks begin to burn. Darryl grinned at me. Despite my embarrassment, I stammered on.

“You… you could be a model. An actress. How did you end up dancing in a strip club for some Russian mobsters?”

Sondra laughed softly, but it was a humorless sound. Her expression was sad. Suddenly, her eyes brimmed with tears. She sat down her coffee mug, scooted back from the table, and grabbed a paper towel. After she’d wiped her eyes and blown her nose, she leaned against the sink. She seemed tired. Her shoulders sagged, her head drooped. Meowing, Webster walked over to her and rubbed against her legs. Sondra reached down and scratched his ears. That seemed to make her feel better. Him too.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I… is not easy to talk about. All my life, I watch American movies and shows and listen to American music. Friends. Backstreet Boys. Seinfeld. American Pie. Britney Spears. All are great examples of American culture—of success person can have here in your country.”

“Friends?” Darryl sneered. “No wonder Russia is so fucked up. An example of success? Hell no. Friends is an example of the worst shit our country has ever foisted on the world.”

Sondra pouted. “You no like Friends?”

“No,” Darryl said. “I no like Friends. I think it sucks.”

“I do like. I admire Jennifer Aniston. When I was girl, I wanted to be her. That is why I come to America. To meet Jennifer Aniston and meet man like Ross. On television, they not poor or hungry. They have love. Are happy.”

She fell quiet again, but I barely noticed. I was too busy studying her face, watching the way she spoke, the way her lips moved, the little lines and creases in her forehead and cheeks. Darryl had to tap the table to get my attention.

“Sorry,” I apologized, feeling my face get red again.

“So,” Darryl said, “Whitey promised that you could meet Jennifer Aniston or something? No offense, Sondra, but that should have been your first red flag.”

“Whitey’s people say they can get me to America. Then I can live American dream, just like Jennifer Aniston. So I say yes and start learning English, because coming to America is all I ever want. But is after 9/11, yes? Your country not so good at letting people in. Would have to wait five years for visa.”

Darryl shrugged. “Five years ain’t so bad.”

“Is very bad. There were… problems.”

“What kind of problems?” I asked.

A shadow passed over her face. Darryl and I looked at each other.

“My family,” Sondra said. “My…father.”

“Was he sick? In trouble?”

Sondra shook her head. Her shoulders trembled.

“My…father. He would…touch me.”

I sat up. “Touch you?”

“Da. My mother died when I was eleven. He began touching me a month later. Climbing in my bed. He call me by my mother’s name. Say I look like her. Smell like her. Taste…”

I was speechless. It felt like somebody had punched me in the stomach.

“Jesus…” Darryl sighed. “Never understood that shit. Fucking child molesters.”

“True that,” I muttered.

“When I was little girl, I thought my father was to protect me. Would make things all better. But he was not that. I close my eyes while he is on top of me, pushing, and I dream of America. I tell the Bratva yes. I go to America to escape. It is this magical place, even today. Until you get here. Then you see it is just like any other place. Full of bad men. Like my father. Like Whitey.”

“We’re not bad men,” I said. It was hard to talk around the lump in my throat.

“Nyet, you are not bad men. You help me. But still…you are men, yes? You help me because you find me beautiful.”

I shook my head. “That’s not true.”

Sondra didn’t reply. Instead, she stopped scratching Webster and sat down again. Darryl rubbed his chin and said nothing. I wondered what he was thinking—what they both were thinking.

“I came to America to escape my father,” Sondra said, staring at her hands. “No passport. No visa. There were thirty other women with me. All like me. Young and afraid. Pretty. The men… they put us on ship, inside big cargo container. Keep us hidden from crew and captain. Two men were there to guard us. Twice a day they would let us out to eat. The sunshine… it felt good. I remember it. So very dark inside the box. A bucket for toilet. Very little food or water. So I would look forward to see the sunshine. We come out. Eat. Then they put us back in box till next day. This goes on for long time. Some girls get sick. Finally, we come to America and are let out of box. That is where I meet Whitey. He tells us he has paid for our transport. We owe him everything. We will work for him. If we refuse, he say the Organizatsiya will kill us and kill our families back home. I care not about my father, but I have brothers and sisters. So I do what Whitey says.”

I closed my eyes. It had all been true. Everything Jesse had told us—all true. The things she’d had to endure growing up, and then to come here and suffer an even worse fate, working in forced prostitution and dancing. My head throbbed.

“So why not go to the po-po?” Darryl asked.

Sondra looked confused. “What is po-po?”

“Yeah, you know. The police. The cops. Why not cut a deal, give them enough info to take Whitey and his whole crew down?”

“Do you not listening? Maybe I get rid of Whitey. Maybe he go to jail. But the Bratva are many. Hundred thousand strong. Sooner or later they kill me or my family. I go to police, immigration send me back home to Russia. There, I get killed quicker. Is no good. No one can help me. I must listen to Whitey. I obey. First I work in massage parlor and am hooker. Whitey say I am good at that and would be good at dancer. So I go to the Odessa and am both. I just do what Whitey say to do.”

“Until recently,” I said. “I’m right, aren’t I? He beat you up tonight. Smacked you around. And you tried to escape because of it. That’s why you were hiding. So what changed? Why is it suddenly worth the risk?”

Sondra raised her head and looked us in the eyes. Her eyes were wet.

“Because I am pregnant.”

Darryl and I spoke at the same time.

“Oh shit…”

“Da,” she sobbed. Tears rolled down her cheeks and spattered onto the table. “I don’t know who father is. Maybe customer. Maybe Otar or Evesi or Semion or other one of Whitey’s men. I don’t know. Maybe the police. Whitey make me sleep with them so they not raid the club.”

My anger swelled. Part of me wanted to drive back to the club and beat the shit out of Whitey, Otar, the cops, and everyone else that had ever ogled or used Sondra. But then I remembered that I was one of them. I’d stared at her, too. Every night at the club. Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Darryl spoke up, “you don’t look pregnant. Must not be far along.”

“Not too far yet, but far enough, no?” Sondra wiped her eyes. “Any pregnant is still pregnant, no matter how big is baby.”

Darryl nodded. “True that.”

“I tell Whitey tonight. Tell him I am pregnant. He get very angry. Asks how. I say I was careful but he doesn’t believe me. Whitey tells me we will get abortion. I tell him no. For the first time, I tell him no. It felt good. Then he hit me. And keep hitting me. He kicks. Say he will make me miscarry baby. Say he will make me eat miscarriage to teach me lesson.”

I gasped. “Jesus Christ.”

“You see? He is monster. So I run away and you find me. I am afraid he will be even madder now. Will want to kill me—and you, too. Both of you. And he will. Unless you kill him first.”

Darryl leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

“Well,” he sighed, turning to me, “I guess we better call off work this morning after all.”

nine

Darryl took care of calling GPS. The phone lines at the distribution center were busy and it took him a long while to get through. When he finally did, Darryl told our supervisor, Scott, that the head gasket in my Jeep had blown and we were stranded along the side of Interstate 83 waiting for a tow truck. Scott wasn’t real happy with this news. Apparently, our Load Area was getting slammed with boxes. Twelve trailer shipments of Total Gyms had arrived and they all had to go out immediately. Dock workers fucking hate Total Gyms. They’re heavy, unwieldy, and generally a big pain in the ass. The plastic binding straps can snap if you use them to lift the boxes, and the cardboard has sharp edges that will give you one hell of a paper cut if you’re not wearing gloves. The only thing worse than seeing an endless supply of Total Gyms rolling across the conveyor belts and sliding down your chute is at Christmas and the start of summer, when book distributors like Ingram and Baker & Taylor increase their shipments to bookstores. That’s just pure fucking hell—all those heavy boxes of diet books and How to Get Rich guides and whatever Oprah got wet about on television. Makes for hard days. That’s probably why I don’t read much, anymore. Thank God Oprah’s off the air now.

So Scott was pissed off, but not at us. He was just mad in general. Our department was getting its ass kicked. But he believed the excuse—believed that we were standing alongside the highway with a busted head gasket—and we were off the hook and out of trouble.

Relatively speaking.

We still had that whole Russian mob thing to worry about.

Sondra started crying again. It happened suddenly. No preamble or warning. One minute she was sitting there at the table, petting Webster and drinking her coffee. The next, she had her face in her hands, her body wracked with sobs. Webster hopped off her lap and ran into the living room. He stopped there, turned around, and watched her. Then he looked at me.

“Hey…” I reached for her, but then pulled my hand away. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Sorry your old man molested you,’ didn’t seem appropriate. Neither did, ‘I’m sorry that you became a sex slave for the Russian mob’ or ‘Hope you and your unborn baby escape the psychopath who wants to kill you’. I was pretty sure Hallmark didn’t make greeting cards for such occasions.

I realized that Darryl and Webster were both looking at me now. They had the same expression on their faces: Do something, dumb ass.

So I did.

I got up, walked around the table and put my hand on Sondra’s shoulder. The silk was soft and smooth. Her skin was warm. She didn’t move, didn’t look up or acknowledge me, but neither did she push me away or run off screaming. I patted her shoulder and made empty promises—that it would be okay, that it was alright, all better, she was safe now. Sondra didn’t respond, but after a few minutes, she raised her head and wiped her eyes.

“I am sorry. I not mean to cry so much. I am just very afraid. And very tired.”

“Would you like to lie down for a little bit?”

She nodded. “Da. Just for few minutes.”

I took her by the hand. She didn’t resist. Webster trotted after us. I led her to my bedroom and immediately regretted it. The room was a mess. The sheets were rumpled and covered with crumbs—even a stain from the last time I’d eaten a meatball sandwich in the bed. Webster shed a lot and wads of cat fur covered the bedspread. Dirty clothing and wet towels littered the floor. My dresser and nightstand were a forest of empty beer bottles, joint stubs, half-read paperbacks, plates, bowls, and CD cases. The room smelled like ammonia; Webster’s litter box was hidden in the corner. I hurriedly attempted to tidy up, grabbing an armload of towels and clothes. Sondra giggled.

I turned around. She smiled at me and shut the door behind her. Webster immediately howled his displeasure at being locked out of the bedroom.

“See? You are like other men. Waiting for mother to clean up after you.”

I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or joking. Shrugging, I dropped the dirty laundry in the hamper.

“The bed’s clean,” I said. “Just a little messy. Go ahead and lie down for a bit.”

“I am not wanting to be alone.”

“I’m sure Webster will climb up there with you. He never turns down a chance to nap. As you can hear, he wants in.”

“I like cat very much. He is fuzzy. But you will stay, too, yes?”

“M…me?” I swallowed. “Sure…I g-guess. If you want me to.”

“Da, I want you.”

She lay down on the bed, propped herself up on her elbows, and smiled again. I smiled back. She patted the mattress next to her and kicked off her high heels. Her robe had come unfastened again. Trying not to stare, I sat down on the edge of the bed and unlaced my boots. I jumped when her hands touched my shoulders.

“Shhh,” she whispered.

Sondra began massaging my shoulders. Her fingers kneaded muscles that I hadn’t even known were sore. Her breasts brushed against my back. Her nipples were stiff. So was I. She continued rubbing. The tension drained out of me. Gently, she pulled me down. Her face hovered inches away from mine. And then we kissed. She winced a little and I remembered her split lip.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“Is okay. You are good to take care of me.”

I nodded, too stunned to speak.

“I wish I could stay here,” she said. “Is nice. My apartment is not this nice. You must have good job.”

“Not really.”

She kissed me again. This time, I made sure not to brush against her cut. Her fingers worked their way down my chest, then slipped beneath my shirt and caressed my stomach.

“You are in good shape. What do you do for living? You are not police. Maybe you are in the army, no? Or maybe you are under the cover police?”

I chuckled. Her hands glided up to my chest. It felt good. She toyed with my chest hair, twirling it in her fingers.

“No,” I said, “nothing like that. I’m a dock worker. I work for GPS—Globe Package Service, over in Lewisberry. Darryl and I both work there. That’s who he had to call a little while ago.”

“Oh.” There was a slight hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Why?” I asked. “Does it matter?”

“You seem like dangerous man. The good kind of dangerous. Not bad kind. Like you can protect, no?”

“I can protect you.”

“You can fight?”

“Sure. I can kick ass when I need to.”

And I meant it, too. I hadn’t been in a fight since the seventh grade, when I popped Glen Lehman in the mouth because he stole my Moon Knight comic and gave it to his little brother. The fight was a draw. I’d been in close calls since then—shoving matches and stare downs. But no fists. No beatings. Truth was, I didn’t know if I could stomp some ass or not, but lying there in Sondra’s arms, I felt like I could.

Sondra gently squeezed my nipples and I grew harder than I’d ever been in my life.

“Could you kill?” Her breath was hot on my neck.

I nodded. “Yeah. If I had to, I could kill.”

“You could kill Whitey?”

She slipped a hand into my pants and squeezed my cock. I groaned. Her pouting, glossy lips glistened in the dark. Her eyes were sad. So was her voice.

“Larry,” she pleaded, “you will kill Whitey?

“If he comes after us.”

“You can kill him?”

“Yes,” I said. “If he tries to hurt us, I can kill him.”

“Easy to say. Harder to do. Many have tried.”

“He’s just a man.”

Instead of responding, she kissed me a third time. Both hands cradled my erection, kneading it through my pants.

“Damn…” My breath hitched in my chest.

Sondra nuzzled my ear. “And speaking of hard…”

She slipped off her silken clothes and then slipped off mine. I stared at her in the light. The sight of her beauty took my breath away. I’d watched her all those times on stage, seen every private part of her, and pretended that she was dancing only for me, but this was different. She was here now. Not fantasy, but flesh. Sondra was sharing herself with me and me alone. No one else could be a part of this.

“You like?” she purred.

“Yeah,” I said. “I like.”

We made love then, and despite the fact that I’d been shot at, and we were hiding from the mob, and one of my best friends was in the other room, and my cat was scratching at the bedroom door, and that I didn’t know her and didn’t have any condoms and we both had coffee breath—despite all of that—it was absolutely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had happen to me. It was tender and slow and passionate and fun. It wasn’t sex. Wasn’t fucking. This was something different. We took our time with each other, forgot about everything else and just surrendered. I didn’t know if she really liked me or expected to be paid when we were done or was just rewarding me for saving her life—and in truth, I didn’t give a shit. It was too perfect to ruin with thoughts and fears and misgivings.

Here’s a little fact about guys that you might not know. Men fantasize, too. We don’t just want porno movie sex. Yes, we may be primarily visual creatures, but we’ve got feelings, too. We want to love and be loved. We just don’t admit that shit out loud. But yeah, we want to be wanted. Loved. And lying there, holding Sondra in my arms as we moved together, our bodies touching, our mouths locked, our hearts beating—I felt loved. I’d never felt anything like it before and I didn’t want it to end.

Not ever.

And for that brief moment, it didn’t. Time stopped. The only two things in the universe were me and her. Nothing else mattered.

Until the gunshot.

ten

Ecstasy.

Sensation.

Vibration.

That’s where we were at. If the bedsprings squeaked or the headboard thumped, I sure as hell didn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear Webster’s insistent clawing anymore either. The only sound was our breathing, and Sondra’s soft, passionate cries. We moved together as one, the perfect rhythm, the perfect timing, our hips grinding together at just the right spot with every stroke, gorging us, urging us both on. Our bodies were attuned, our nerves drawn out tight and hurtling towards that harmonious note that all lovers strive for.

In those moments, people often toss around bullshit clichés. ‘Did you feel the Earth move’ is a classic. ‘I might be having a heart attack’ has become popular. ‘Was it good for you’ is a popular stand-by.

These are common.

‘Was that a fucking gunshot’ is not one that easily comes to mind, however.

I was close to coming, trying to hold off just a little bit longer so that Sondra could get off first. I wanted us both to achieve that crescendo. I’d already figured out that it wasn’t going to happen without some clitoral stimulation. Propping myself up with one hand, I reached down with the other and gently rubbed her clit and pelvic bone. That sent her over the edge. Careful not to lose my rhythm, I softly cheered her on. Her stomach muscles clenched. Her thighs squeezed me.

And then Darryl shouted something. I couldn’t tell what. Grinding my teeth, I tried ignoring him, tuning him out. Sondra bucked against me, lost in orgasm. She squeezed her eyes shut and moaned. That was enough for me. My muscles went taut. I surrendered, collapsing against her as all my blood rushed to my groin and I exploded.

While I was in mid-orgasm, Darryl yelled again. I couldn’t react, couldn’t speak. I was too spent. All I could do was lie on top of Sondra, flopping and gasping, feeling our sweat run together. I went limp. The strength drained from my body.

“Wow,” I gasped. “That was something.”

She started to speak and that was when we heard the gunshot.

I didn’t know that’s what it was at first. Just an unidentifiable boom—very loud, very jarring, and very unexpected. It didn’t sound like the shot in the Odessa’s parking lot. That had been muffled and short and sharp. This was more solid. I felt it in my chest. Heard the echoes in time with my heartbeat.

Sondra froze. So did I. Then I heard voices over the ringing in my ears.

Speaking Russian.

I clenched the sheets. “Shit!”

Sondra trembled. “Where is my clothing?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Grab one of my shirts.”

I rolled off her and hit the floor in a crouch. Not bothering with my socks or underwear, I grabbed my jeans and yanked them on. While Sondra shrugged into one of my t-shirts, I reached under the bed and pulled out my baseball bat. I’d always meant to buy a gun. Something like a .357 or .45. I never had, though, and I cursed myself for it now. Fucking stupid. Facing down trouble without the proper firepower. Still, the weight of the bat in my hand made me feel better. I crept to the closed door. There was no sign of Darryl. If he was still out there, then he wasn’t speaking—or was unable to.

The voices drew closer, right on the other side of the door. I gripped the bat tighter. Webster, tough old cat that he was, bought us some time. He hissed. One of the intruders hissed back at him. Then I heard his paws running across the carpet. He’d obviously decided to retreat. While this was happening, I reached out and locked the door.

My bed sat in the middle of the tiny room, the headboard pushed up against the wall. On the far end of the bedroom was the bathroom door. On my side were the closet and the bedroom door. Someone entering the room would see the bed, bathroom door, dresser and nightstand, but they’d have to turn around to see the closet. Sondra crouched down between the dresser and the bed. I scurried into the closet. Keeping the closet door open, I raised the bat and held my breath. My heart thudded in my temples. I really needed to piss.

The doorknob jiggled. Then somebody kicked it. Sondra whimpered. The intruders hammered at the door. Each blow rattled the door in its frame. The cheap wood splintered, and then cracked. The door crashed open and two men rushed in. I recognized them both—bouncers from the Odessa, Vacheslav and Alexander. Both had guns. That was all I had time to notice because then they started shooting.

They fired several shots into the bed, dresser and mirror in an apparent effort to flush us out. The plan worked. Sondra screamed and Vacheslav started towards her.

I lunged out of the closet, swung the bat, and smacked Alexander in the side of the face. There was a sickening crunch. It was like hitting a rock. The shock ran through the bat and into my arms. My hands went numb. Moaning, Alexander dropped to the floor. Vacheslav turned his gun towards me but Sondra threw a beer bottle at him. He swung back to her and I used the distraction to strike him. I bunted him in the nose with the handle, and then kicked him in the balls. Blood streamed out of his nose. He cupped his groin with one hand and struggled to raise the pistol. Sondra grabbed a handful of Vacheslav’s hair and jerked his head back. I struck him in the side and belly with the bat and then gave both his knees a good crack. He sank to the floor, unmoving. Turning, I delivered another blow to Alexander’s head, just for good measure. Teeth flew out of his mouth. Then I dropped the bat and picked up his handgun. It was a Rexio .38 revolver. Cheap piece of shit, according to my coworkers who were into firearms. I didn’t know much about guns, personally. I’d been target shooting a dozen times, but that was it. But despite my lack of knowledge, I knew the pistol was junk. I was unimpressed and a little disappointed. I’d figured Russian mobsters would have much better weapons.

Sondra and I stared at each other—half naked, bloody, and gasping for breath. To be honest, I was stunned. Not having been in a fight since seventh grade, I was pretty impressed with my performance. Maybe it was the adrenaline or survival instinct or my feelings for Sondra. I don’t know. All I know is that in that moment, I felt invincible.

“I’ve got to check on Darryl,” I said. “You stay here.”

“Nyet. We must leave, Larry. The police come. Your neighbors hear shots.”

Out in the living room, Webster howled. I whipped around and ran for the door, shouting his name.

“Drop the gun or I’ll kill your cat.”

Whitey. His accent was noticeable, but his English was perfect.

He sat on my sofa, looking calm and sedate. His clothes were unwrinkled. His white hair shined. He held Webster at arm’s length by the scruff of his neck. Webster kicked and hissed, thrashing in his grip. Whitey’s other hand held a pistol—the kind I’d imagined Russian mobsters to have. There was no sign of Darryl. I heard shouting from the apartment next to mine. A child was crying.

“Put my cat down, you fucker.”

Instead of answering, Whitey squeezed his trigger. The only thing that saved my ass was Webster. Still twisting, he swiped at Whitey’s face, slashing him across the cheek. The shot went wild. The bullet gouged the drywall next to my plasma screen.

I hadn’t checked Alexander’s pistol. Had no idea how many bullets were left. Hoping for the best, I cocked the hammer and returned fire. The Rexio jerked in my hands. Sofa stuffing flew through the air. Whitey dropped the cat and flung himself to the floor, scrambling for cover behind the coffee table. I fired again. Screaming, he flailed on the carpet, holding his shoulder. The gun slid from his grasp. Blood squirted from between his fingers. I felt a sick sense of excitement. I’d hit the fucker.

“Stay down,” I said. “Just stay right there and don’t move.”

Whitey raised his head and grinned. “You’ve been a bad, bad boy.”

“Fuck you, you piece of shit.”

I raised the gun to shoot him again, but Sondra grabbed my arm. She was carrying Vacheslav’s handgun.

“Let’s go.”

Before I could protest, she led me into the kitchen. Darryl lay face down on the floor. His blood had pooled all around him. He wasn’t moving. Something was wrong with his head but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“I’ll kill you both,” Whitey shouted. “You think you shot me? Think again. This is nothing.”

There was more yelling and screaming from the other apartments. Police sirens wailed in the distance. Webster growled from a hiding spot somewhere in the living room. I felt torn. Part of me wanted to run back into the living room and shoot Whitey again and again until the gun was empty. But I had other things to deal with, too.

“Darryl…”

I knelt over his body. His blood soaked through my jeans, a sticky mess. His head was at an odd angle. I shook him, but he still didn’t move. He wasn’t breathing. When I rolled him over, I saw why. Even though I had turned him over, Darryl’s head remained face down. They’d shot him in the neck. The bullet tore most of his throat out, and there wasn’t much left to support his head. Just some flaps of skin and gristle. He’d almost been decapitated. Strangely, I didn’t throw up. Didn’t feel sick.

All I felt was sadness.

The sirens drew closer.

In the living room, we heard Whitey bump against the coffee table. He was back on his feet.

“Come,” Sondra shouted.

“Darryl…we’ve got to do something for him!”

“Nyet. Is too late, Larry. Whitey is coming. So are police.”

She dragged me out the door. I didn’t protest. I don’t think I could have, even if I had wanted to. My mind was numb. We ran to the Cherokee. Luckily, my keys were still in my pants pocket. A crowd of people mingled around. They stared at us. We must have made quite a sight. Both of us were barefoot and almost naked. I only had on a pair of jeans, and all that Sondra wore was one of my t-shirts and her panties. We were both armed, and covered in Darryl, Alexander, and Vacheslav’s blood and the dried remnants of our lovemaking.

“Hey,” one of my neighbors hollered. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Instead of answering, I unlocked the Cherokee. Sondra and I jumped inside and took off. The crowd moved out of our way as we roared out into the road. I stomped the gas pedal. Sondra used the t-shirt to wipe blood from my face. The pistols rested on the seat between us. The iPod played some classic Slayer, but I turned it off. I needed to concentrate. Figure out what the hell to do now.

“The cops—”

Sondra interrupted me. “No police. You promised.”

“People are fucking dead, Sondra! Darryl. Darryl is dead. In my apartment. His throat…And those fuckers…those fuckers did it.”

“Nyet. No police. They will send me away. The Bratva will kill everyone I love.”

I chose my words carefully. “At this point, won’t they go after your brothers and sisters anyway?”

“Da.”

“So then why not get the cops involved? Maybe they can protect you. Protect your family. Work with the Russian authorities and—”

“Do you not listen? The Bratva own the authorities in my country. Is no good.”

“Well, whether we call them or not, they’re already involved. My neighbors heard the gunshots. Somebody dialed 911. The cops were on the way when we left. You heard the sirens. They’ll figure out I lived there and that we fled the scene. Everybody saw us. We’re fucked.”

Sondra crossed her arms and shivered. I turned on the heat. Hot air blew across our bare feet. We needed to get off the road, and fast.

“Not only are we suspects,” I continued, “but Whitey was still alive. I shot him in the shoulder. They’ll capture him on the scene. If we tell them now, they can arrest him as soon as a doctor sews that shoulder up.”

Sondra muttered something in Russian. She wouldn’t look at me. Instead, she watched the night flash by.

“What’s that?”

“I say that he will not be there when cops come. Whitey will be gone.”

“He’s wounded. No way he can flee that quickly. He was losing a lot of blood.”

“He will be gone when they arrive. You do not know Whitey.”

She turned away again and stared out the window. I was frustrated, but decided not to press it. She’d been through just as much shit as I had—more, actually. I needed to be gentle.

I fumbled for my cell phone, glad that I’d left it in the Jeep.

“No,” Sondra pleaded. “You promise, Larry!”

“Relax. I’m not calling the cops. I’m calling Jesse.”

“Who is this Jesse?”

“He’s my friend. I need to let him know about…Darryl. And he’s at the Odessa. I need to warn him to get the fuck out of there.”

Sondra’s face paled.

“What’s wrong?”

“Your friend is at the club?”

“Yeah.”

“Did Whitey and Otar know he is your friend?”

My stomach lurched. I gripped the cell phone tightly.

“Yeah,” I said. “They knew. They’ve seen us with him before.”

“Then your friend is already dead. That is how Whitey find us. We run away from club. He go inside and get your friend.”

“Jesse wouldn’t drop dime on us.”

“What is drop dime?”

“Tell. He wouldn’t tell on us.”

“Da. Whitey have Otar and the others torture him in back room until he tell where you live. Then they torture him more till he dead.”

The pressure built inside of me. My jaw felt tight and my eyes felt like they might pop. My mouth went dry. Jesse. It made sense. Without speaking, I flipped open the cell phone and pressed the speed dial for Jesse’s cell phone. It rang and rang. Then his voice mail picked up.

“Yo, this is Jesse. Leave a message, and I’ll holla’ back at you. Peace out.”

I hung up without leaving a message.

“Jesus…” My lips felt swollen. “Darryl. Jesse.”

“I am sorry,” Sondra said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Da, it is.”

“Right now, let’s just figure out what to do. Let me think for a bit, okay?”

Sondra pouted. “You are angry with me, no?”

“No. I just need to think. I promise. I’m not mad.”

She fell silent again. I focused on the road and tried to think. Once the cops arrived on the scene and figured out who I was, they’d be looking for us. The Cherokee was a big fucking target. Might as well drive around with a flashing light that said, HERE WE ARE. COME ARREST US, PLEASE. I had to get another vehicle, or at the very least get off the main road and stay low for a while. I took the Mount Zion Road exit and turned right, passing by the York County prison. Chances were good that I’d be seeing more of it soon.

I thought about Darryl and the way his head had remained face down when I flipped the rest of him over.

I turned the heat on high. Warmth blasted my feet.

It didn’t help.

“We’ll be okay,” I said. “You’ll see.”

Sondra didn’t respond.

eleven

We navigated down side roads and back roads, going deeper and deeper into Southern York County, heading towards the Maryland state line. We drove through East Prospect, Craley, and Wrightsville—all tiny rural towns without police departments or traffic lights. Even still, I made sure to do the speed limit and obey all traffic laws, just in case the State or Regional police were passing through. At one point, I got out of the Cherokee and slapped a few handfuls of mud over the license plate, obscuring some of the numbers. I followed a service road that ran along the banks of the Susquehanna River, and then turned off onto a hiking trail. It was wide enough for a four wheel drive vehicle, and delved deep into a State park. A brown National Forest Service sign told us that the park was closed from dusk to dawn. We parked, turned off the Jeep, and caught our breath.

“I’ve got to call Yul.”

“Who is Yul? Another friend?”

“Yeah. He’s my friend. Maybe he can help us.”

“Does he have guns? If so, then he can help.”

Despite all the tension, I laughed at the thought of Yul with a gun. It was absurd.

“What is funny?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Look, Yul doesn’t own guns, and I’m not sure what he could do up against Whitey and those guys. But he’s our friend, and I need to warn him. If Jesse gave up me and Darryl’s addresses, he may have told them Yul’s address, too.”

“Was this Yul at club with your friend Jesse?”

“No, but if Whitey wanted to know where we’d go after Darryl and I rescued you, then Jesse may have told him about Yul. I can’t take that chance. He needs to know what’s going on. And his girlfriend, too. They live together. If Otar and those guys are staking out Yul’s place, she could be in danger. I don’t want what happened to Darryl and maybe Jesse happening to them, too.”

“Not maybe.”

“What?”

“You say maybe about your friend Jesse. Is not maybe. Is dead.”

I pressed the speed dial for Yul’s cell phone. He wasn’t picking up, which meant he’d gone in to work. Or at least I hoped that was the case. It could also mean that he was currently being cut up by a bunch of sadistic Russian fucks, but I didn’t want to think about that. I left him a voice mail, asking him to call me right away. Then I dialed GPS and asked for Yul’s department. We had different supervisors, so I didn’t have to worry about my boss, Scott, picking up the phone. Yul’s supervisor picked up on the second ring. I asked for Yul and was told he was busy working right now. I explained this was a family emergency and it was urgent that I speak with him. Yul’s boss sighed and then grumbled at me to hold on. I waited almost two full minutes before Yul answered.

“Hello? Kim?”

“Hey man,” I said. “It’s me.”

“Larry? They said it was a family emergency.”

“It is.”

“You’re not family.”

“Okay,” I shouted, “so I lied to get you on the phone. Shut the fuck up and listen to me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“A lot…” I tried to say more, but there was a lump in my throat. I fought back tears.

“Larry, what’s going on, man? Are you okay?”

“Listen—what time are you getting off?”

“Eight. Maybe a little later. We’re getting killed with Total Gyms today. I hate those fucking things.”

I cringed at his word choice. Killed…

“Larry? You still there?”

“I’m here. Look, meet me in the parking lot when you get off work. Don’t go home and don’t talk to anybody. Just wait for me inside your car. Okay?”

“Larry, I’ve got to get back to work, dude. What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you now. Just meet me after your shift and I’ll explain everything. Please? It’s really important.”

“Sure, brother. You got it.”

“Is Kim at home?”

“Kim? No, she’s visiting her parents in Williamsport. Why?”

I closed my eyes and mouthed silent thanks. At least Kim was out of harm’s way.

“No reason, man. Just didn’t want her waiting up for you and getting worried.”

“Who are you and what did you do with Larry? Did Jesse and Darryl put you up to something? You guys never show concern about Kim. The hell is going on?”

Again, I couldn’t speak. My throat clicked. Tears ran down my face.

“I’ll see you soon,” I rasped. “Get back to work before you get in trouble.”

I ended the call and stared at my cell phone, aimlessly scrolling through the address book. Darryl and Jesse’s names flashed by on the screen. I couldn’t believe this shit was happening. I felt so numb inside. Maybe it was shock, or maybe it was some sort of defense mechanism—my brain shutting down, refusing to think about all that had occurred in the last few hours. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. If they had, maybe I would have felt better.

I realized that Sondra was staring at me. I slipped the phone into my pocket and tried to smile in reassurance. Sondra patted my hand and smiled back.

“What are you thinking, Larry?”

“I wish we’d have taken the car along with their guns.”

“Why?”

“Because it would be a lot easier to meet up with Yul if we weren’t riding in a vehicle that every cop in the state is probably looking for by now. Do you have a car?”

“No. Whitey not let us own things like that. American girls, do. Not Russians.”

I leaned back and sighed. It occurred to me that I should check the guns. The .38 was empty. I’d fired the last rounds at Whitey. Vacheslav’s pistol, the one Sondra had remembered to nab, was a Glock 9mm. It took me a few seconds to figure out how to eject the clip—or magazine. Whatever the fuck it was called. There were five bullets left. I slid the clip back into the weapon.

“What else are you thinking?” Sondra asked.

“I’m worried about Webster.”

“The fuzzy cat?”

“Yeah. The fuzzy cat. We left so quickly, I didn’t even think. When we…when we saw Darryl, I forgot all about Webster. He’s still in there.”

“I am sure he is fine.”

“Maybe. But if the cops leave the door open he could get out. And who’s gonna take care of him? No way we can go back there right now. He could end up at the pound. Or…”

“What?”

“Or that fucking prick Whitey could do something to him.”

“Whitey would get away before police arrive. He not have time to worry about fuzzy cat.”

“Maybe,” I said, “or maybe the sick fuck shoots Webster on his way out. Just to prove a point, you know?”

I ground my teeth. My head ached.

“Fuzzy cat is smart,” Sondra said. “Will hide, no?”

“Probably. But I’ll tell you right now, if Whitey hurt Webster, I’ll fucking kill him.”

Sondra’s laughter shocked me. I stared at her, wondering what was so funny. Was it that I was showing concern for my cat, when two of my best friends were dead, too?

“I sorry,” she apologized, “but what you say…”

“What? Mind letting me in on the joke?”

“You say you kill Whitey.”

“How is that funny?”

“Is not funny.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“Never mind. Is not important.”

Before I could insist on an explanation, she slid closer and leaned against me. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Sondra snuggled against me, laying her head on my chest. Her hand rested on my leg, just below my crotch.

I sighed. “You know what I don’t get?”

She looked up at me. “What?”

“Why Whitey and the others would go through all this trouble. I mean, it’s not like you stole money from them or something. You’re pregnant. Why all this? It seems sort of extreme, don’t you think? Kill a woman and a bunch of other people just because she won’t get an abortion?”

Sondra flinched. Her fingernails dug into my leg.

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to upset you. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Are you sure that you told us—?”

Sondra unzipped my jeans and slid her hand inside.

“What are you doing?”

“No more talk,” Sondra said. “While you are thinking these things, I am thinking about back at your apartment. About the bedroom. Now I am wanting more.”

“Here?”

“Da.”

“Sondra, I don’t know if that’s a good idea right now. The cops…Yul…”

“I give to you blow job. Then we go see your friend.”

I started to protest but then her lips wrapped around me, silencing my words. I forgot all about Darryl and Jesse and Webster, forgot all about calling the cops or hiding from Whitey. Groaning, I slipped inside her warm, wet mouth and my concerns melted.

When it was over, I could barely even remember what I’d been worried about in the first place.

I started the Cherokee and we drove out of the forest. The sun was almost up. The world had that blue-gray quality that exists just before dawn. Not yet light but not total darkness. Gloom.

It suited my mood.

I was worried about the Jeep. We needed another vehicle. If we carjacked someone, we’d just be back in the same situation as soon as they called the cops. Only way to prevent them from doing so was to kill them, and I couldn’t do that. Not an innocent. Not someone who wasn’t trying to kill me or those I cared for. I thought about stopping by a car lot and taking something for a ‘test drive’, but there were no car lots open this time of morning, and Sondra and I weren’t exactly dressed like we were shopping for a new vehicle.

We passed by a home along the river—a tiny trailer with a morose doghouse and sagging shed in the backyard. Both were in better condition than the trailer itself. There was a clothesline in the yard. Whoever had done laundry had forgotten to bring the clothes inside. They flapped gently in the light breeze. I stopped along the road, killed the engine and lights, and quickly nicked a shirt for me, a pair of gray sweatpants for Sondra, and socks for us both. The shirt didn’t fit me very well, but it would have to do. At least we weren’t half naked anymore. Too bad the rest of our clothes were still bloody. If I’d had more time, I would have stolen an entire wardrobe for us.

Finally, I came up with a plan.

In Craley, I pulled behind a convenience store and flipped my cell phone open. Then I reconsidered. I’d watched enough cop shows to know that they could track you by your cell phone, ATM, and credit card usage. I’d used it to call Jesse and Yul. If the cops were tracking us, then they’d focus on that location. Instead of calling, I turned the phone off and opened the door.

“What are you doing?” Sondra asked.

“Getting us a ride.”

I got out of the Jeep. I’d parked next to a garbage dumpster and it reeked. Bees and flies swarmed around me. They were up early, too. The ground was littered with broken bottles, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and used condoms. Then I walked around to the front of the store and breathed a sigh of relief. There are fewer pay phones these days, because everyone uses cell phones. Luck was with us. The store had a pay phone next to the ice machine. I dialed information, got the number of the taxi company, and then called for a cab. I gave the dispatcher our location and hung up. Then I returned to the Cherokee, dropping my cell phone into the garbage dumpster on the way back.

“Come on,” I told Sondra. “We need to be ready. Cab’s coming to pick us up.”

“Cab? What is cab?”

“You know. A taxi cab?”

“Da, I know what is taxi. But we cannot be in front of store. What if we attract much attention?”

I glanced around. “It’s pretty secluded back here. And it’s still early. And I doubt Craley’s got much of a rush hour, anyway. But we’ll wait at the corner of the building. Nobody can see us, but we’ll be able to see the parking lot.”

“What about your Jeep?”

“We’ll leave it here. Soon as some employee comes out back to smoke, they’ll find it. But we’ll be gone by then. The cops won’t be looking for a taxi. We’ll make it to GPS, at least. Then we can get Yul to drive us somewhere till we figure out what to do next.”

I grabbed the 9mm and stuffed it in my waistband. Then I pulled my shirt down to cover it. The gun was heavy and bulky. The metal felt cold against my skin.

Yawning, Sondra got out of the Cherokee. She looked tired. We both were. On a normal day, I’d soon be getting off work. Then I’d come home and sleep until about three in the afternoon. But this wasn’t a normal day. When I’d fantasized about days and nights spent with Sondra, they’d been exotic. Mystical. Hot. Not this. There were no gunshots or pissed off mobsters in those dreams. No death. And yet here she was. Daydreams were now reality.

I wondered if I’d ever have a normal day again.

twelve

The taxi driver, a middle-aged Hispanic guy, couldn’t have cared less about us. He didn’t talk much. Just asked us where we were going, checked out Sondra’s ass in the side mirror as she climbed into the back seat with me, and that was it. I figured he’d at least comment on the dried blood, but he didn’t. Maybe he’d seen worse. Or maybe he just didn’t give a shit. I’d hoped he would have the radio on so I could find out if there was any news about us, but instead, he listened to Spanish music discs. They made my head hurt even more than it already did.

Sondra and I didn’t speak. We rode in silence, except for the music. Occasionally, the driver glanced in the rearview mirror, trying to catch a glimpse of Sondra’s cleavage. Her nipples were taut against the shirt’s thin fabric.

I had the driver drop us about a mile from GPS. I paid the guy in cash and tipped him five bucks. Not enough that he’d remember us, but not so little that he’d remember us either. With any luck, he’d forget about this fare by the time he picked up his next one.

The sun was up now; gray murk gave way to daylight. We cut across a grassy field. Sharp stones jabbed us through our socks and birds took flight, squawking at the intrusion. We slowed down as we approached the parking lot. With any luck, nobody in the guard shack could see us if we approached from this angle, rather than the road. I checked my watch. Yul would be getting out any minute now. It was almost time for shift change. The Glock rubbed against my ass, chafing my skin. Sondra took my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed back.

“I don’t see any cop cars,” I said. “That’s a good sign.”

“Da.”

“Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

We stepped out of the high grass and onto the blacktop. Our socks were soaked from the morning dew. There were a few guys from the day shift sitting in their cars—listening to Howard Stern or smoking one last cigarette or finishing their coffee before they checked in at the guard house and trekked up the hill to the building. None of them looked at us. They were too caught up in their own thing. I was suddenly hit with a sense of longing. I used to be one of those guys. Yesterday, I had been. But not anymore. I wanted to go back to my boring, lonely life. These guys didn’t know how good they had it.

A long line of tractor trailers was backed up at the gate. That was good, because it meant the two rental cops inside the guard shack had their hands full checking seals and bills of lading and weren’t paying attention to the parking lot.

Yul’s car, a red Hyundai Accent, was parked in the corner of the last row at the back of the lot. Out of sight and out of mind. Sondra and I approached it with caution. I studied the other cars around it, checking to see if there was anybody inside them. They were all empty. I tried the Hyundai’s rear door. Yul always forgot to lock his doors, and today was no exception. Grinning, I cast one last look around and then we hopped inside. We ducked down, keeping our heads below the windows, and waited.

“Well,” I said, “so far so good. That went a lot easier than I expected.”

Within minutes, the parking lot came to life as the early shift got off work. We kept our heads down, but all around us were the sounds of car doors slamming, co-workers talking and shouting, engines starting, horns honking, sub-woofers booming bass lines from the latest hip-hop songs. Typical morning.

I missed it. I’d had a thousand mornings just like it, but had taken them for granted. Had dreaded them, in fact. Now, I would have given anything to have them back again. A million work days were better than this.

A shadow passed over us. I looked up and saw Yul standing at the driver’s door. He glanced around the parking lot, looking for us, unaware that we were hiding just inches away from where he stood. He put his key in the door, turned it—locking the door—and then frowned in confusion when the door wouldn’t open. I suppressed a giggle. Shaking his head, Yul turned the key again, unlocking the door. He still hadn’t seen us. He opened the door and slid behind the wheel. Then he slammed the door, rolled the window down, and put the key in the ignition.

Before he could start the car, I said, “What’s up, Yul?”

His body jerked. Arms flailing, Yul gave a startled cry.

“Settle down,” I said. “It’s just me.”

“Larry!” Yul turned around. “Jesus fucking Christ, you scared the shit out of—”

He stopped in mid-sentence, staring at Sondra. His mouth hung open.

“Hello.” Sondra smiled. “You are Yul, no?”

“No. I mean y-yes. I mean…aren’t you the girl from the Odessa?”

“Da.”

“What are you doing in my backseat?”

“Hiding.”

Blinking, Yul turned his head slowly to me and then back to Sondra again.

“Hiding? Hiding from who? Larry, what the hell is going on? You call me at work and say there’s a family emergency. My boss was pissed as shit about that. Then I find you in the backseat of my car with a stripper. No offense.”

Sondra shrugged.

“Where’s Darryl and Jesse? What’s—”

“Yul,” I interrupted, “just shut up for a minute. We’re in a world of shit and I need your help. Darryl and Jesse…”

“What about them? And you’re bleeding! Where did all that blood come from. That’s gonna be a real bitch, trying to get it out of the upholstery.”

“Relax. It’s not my blood. And I’ll pay for the clean up.”

“Did Darryl and Jesse—”

“Yul,” I whispered, “they’re dead.”

He paused before speaking. “What?”

“Darryl and Jesse are dead, man.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure about Darryl and I’m pretty sure about Jesse.”

“How? What the fuck happened?”

Before I could explain, we heard tires screeching. Sondra and I sat up and Yul whipped around. A black Lexus skidded to a stop in front of the Hyundai, blocking us from leaving. Sondra screamed. So did I. Yul just gaped in confusion. The stench of burned rubber filled the air.

Otar leapt out of the Lexus on the driver’s side. Another Russian who I didn’t recognize got out of the passenger’s side. Whitey climbed out of the back. His shirt was bloody from where I’d shot him, but otherwise, he seemed fine. He moved quickly. Calmly. Showed no sign of weakness or pain.

“Who the hell are these guys?” Yul hollered. “That white-haired guy—isn’t he from the strip club, too?”

Instead of answering, I flung my door open and knelt on the pavement, using the car door as a shield. I pulled the Glock and took aim at the guy closest to me—the one whose name I didn’t know. Whitey dived back inside the car. Otar dropped to a crouch and raised his gun. I was quicker. My first shot caught my target in the neck. Blood splattered the Lexus. He grabbed at his throat and fell.

“That’s for Darryl, you motherfuckers!”

Otar squeezed off a shot. The bullet glanced off the pavement at my feet. Pebbles and fragments of blacktop nicked my skin. He fired again, missing a second time. I shot at him and missed too. The trigger surprised me. I barely had to touch it and the gun would go off.

Sondra and Yul shrieked inside the car. Bystanders fled from the parking lot, running towards the guard house and the field. A few of them sped away in their cars. The cops would be here soon, if they weren’t already on their way.

“Start the car,” I shouted at Yul as I fired another shot. The Lexus’s front tire exploded. I had two bullets left.

“What, Larry?”

“Start the fucking car, goddamn it!”

The Hyundai sputtered, belching exhaust as it came to life. Yul was shit when it came to engines and preventative maintenance.

Otar ducked inside the Lexus, huddling beneath the dashboard. I couldn’t see him or Whitey from where I crouched. Their driver’s side door still hung open. Quickly, I shoved Yul into the passenger seat, keeping my head low.

“What are you doing?”

“Stay down,” I warned. “And brace yourselves.”

Laying the 9mm on my lap, I dropped the car into drive and floored it. The Hyundai shot forward and slammed into the Lexus. I threw it into reverse, backed up, and then rammed them again, clipping the driver’s side door. The door snapped off. Our tires bumped up over it. We pulled alongside them, the cars scraping against each other with a horrible metallic screech.

Otar must have been stunned. Before he could react, I grabbed the 9mm, stuck it through the window and shot him in the chin. The entire bottom half of his face disappeared. I’d been aiming at his forehead. Otar flopped in the seat, his hands and legs jittering uncontrollably. Between the seats, I saw a flash of white hair as Whitey jostled to get lower. I took aim and fired again. White turned red. I think I may have been laughing. Whitey screamed.

Yul cowered next to me, sobbing. His legs were curled protectively in the fetal position, and he’d wrapped his arms around his head.

“I got him,” I said. “I got the fucker.”

“No,” Sondra cried from the backseat. “You not kill him.”

For a second, I didn’t understand what she was saying. I thought she was suddenly regretful that I’d killed Whitey. But then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Whitey sat up in the back of the Lexus and pointed a pistol at us. He was smiling. The side of his head was scarlet and gore dripped from his hair. Something dangled on the side of his head, smacking against his cheek. After a moment, I realized that it was his ear. I’d shot his ear off. It hung by just a thin strand of gristle.

Whitey spoke, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

I stomped the gas pedal and metal screeched again as the Hyundai tore free of the battered Lexus. I dropped the 9mm into my lap again. There was a gunshot, and Yul’s back window shattered, spraying fragments of glass all over the interior. For a second, I thought maybe my gun had gone off accidentally, but it was Whitey shooting at us. Sondra screamed, but I had no time to turn around and make sure she was okay. I was too busy steering us towards the exit, making sure I didn’t mow down our fleeing co-workers. The Lexus’s car door was stuck in our undercarriage and we dragged it about twenty yards before it finally came loose and clattered behind us. The Hyundai shuddered. Yul did, too.

“Oh God,” he moaned. “Oh God, oh God, oh Jesus fucking Christ!”

As we bounced out onto the road, I glanced in the rearview mirror. Sondra sat up, picking shards of glass from her hair and brushing them off the seat.

“You okay?” I asked. “Are you hit?”

“No. Am fine. But we must go faster.”

“Fuck that,” I said. “This shit ends now. I’m calling the cops.”

“My fucking car,” Yul cried. “They shot at us. Oh sweet fucking Jesus, what was that shit? Who were those guys?”

I’d never heard Yul curse as much as I had in the last two minutes. Instead of answering him, I focused on the road.

“No police,” Sondra said, pointing behind us. “Is not time.”

I looked up and saw that she was right. The Lexus was swerving out of the parking lot, directly on our ass. Whitey was behind the wheel, driving on a flat tire and missing a driver’s side door.

“Fuck,” I shouted. “What does it take to stop this guy? He’s like the fucking Energizer Bunny!”

Sondra bowed her head. “Da. He is like bunny. He keep going and going till he catch us. Is no stopping Whitey.”

“Great,” Yul groaned. “You picked a fight with the god-damned Terminator. He’ll be back.”

“Shut up, Yul.”

I focused on driving.

Things got worse.

thirteen

Yul threw up on himself. One moment he’d been pawing at my shirt, begging me to stop the car, demanding an explanation, pleading with me to tell him what was happening. Suddenly, he leaned forward and threw up all over his lap. Sounded like he was choking. The stench was overpowering, but I ignored it, focusing instead on Whitey. The Russian hadn’t gained on us. The damage to the Lexus had slowed him down and I didn’t intend on giving him a chance to catch up.

“Pull over,” Yul spat. Long ropes of drool dripped from his chin. “I’m sick.”

“Can’t pull over now, man. Hold it!”

His argument was cut short by another round of retching.

“Is still coming,” Sondra said.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure if she was talking about Whitey’s Lexus or Yul’s puke. Both were insistent. I pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. The engine protested and the speedometer crept to ninety. The car shook, clearly not liking being pushed like this. Behold the inherent problems with a four-cylinder engine. To make matters worse, we had less than a quarter tank of gas left. As I watched it, the needle crept lower, edging into the red.

“Damn.” I slapped the steering wheel with my palm.

Sondra leaned forward. “What is wrong?”

“We might be fucked.”

Yul vomited again. Puke splattered all over his shoes and the Hyundai’s floor. Gagging, Sondra rolled down her window. I hollered at Yul to stop it.

“Listen,” Sondra said. “Is police sirens.”

I heard them, too. They sounded like they were all around us, but when I scanned the horizon, I didn’t see any. We were on a narrow service road, just minutes from GPS and the Interstate. The cops were probably converging on our workplace right now, coming in from different locations around the county. When they learned that we’d fled, and got the make and model of our vehicle, they would spread out and search the area. Probably put up road blocks, too, just like on television. Call in S.W.A.T. or bring out the police chopper and shit. Throw down some of those spike strips. We needed to get off the road and ditch the car immediately—if not sooner.

I made a sharp left and swerved across the road, heading towards an abandoned industrial complex—the natural landscape of Central Pennsylvania. We still had GPS and places like the Harley Davidson and Starbucks plants or the paper mill, but they stood alone, tenacious islands in a post-apocalyptic landscape of shuttered factories and dilapidated warehouses, stubbornly refusing to give up the blue-collar ghost to the Chinese and South American invaders. The North American Free Trade Agreement and others like it were the tactical nuclear strikes that destroyed us in the end. Now, our state was a monument to the shattered dreams of a hundred thousand working class heroes. It sometimes seemed like if you threw a rock in York County, you’d hit a deserted industrial park. A few of them had been rented out or converted into apartments, but most of them were populated only by spiders and rats and other scavengers—homeless people, guys down on their luck, scouring the buildings for copper and aluminum and other scrap they could sell at the junkyard. A day’s work for a day’s pay—enough change for a bottle of cheap booze or some meth. These places were built with blood and sweat, but it was despair that held them upright. Maybe it’s like that all across America. I don’t know. All I know is that it was fucking depressing.

A wire-mesh fence surrounded the site, but the crooked gate hung open, damaged by previous trespassers. We barreled right through the gap. Our bumper side-swiped the rusty gate, sending it crashing against the fence. Behind us, the Lexus slowed, barely making the turn because of the flat tire. Sparks flew up from beneath the car. Whitey was running on the rim. Yet still he followed, pushing the battered car onward. Sondra was right. He kept coming and coming. The Energizer Bunny of Death.

“Larry,” Yul coughed. “Pull over. Please?”

“Just hang on, man. Not now.”

We fishtailed, sending a cloud of dirt flying into the air behind us. I hoped it was enough to obscure Whitey’s vision. Spinning the wheel, I guided us past stacks of old skids, broken machine parts, rusty equipment, and forgotten dumpsters. We raced between two rows of metal drums. The stenciling on their sides was worn and faded. No telling what was inside them. Motor oil. Tomato paste. Toxic waste. Or maybe they were empty like the buildings around us.

Empty… like I’d felt ever since pulling the trigger.

I negotiated through the debris, splashing through puddles and darting between warehouses and sheds without slowing, trying my best to lose our pursuer. The maze of silent buildings swallowed us whole.

“Sondra, is he back there?” I couldn’t see because of all the dust.

“Is hard to tell. There is much cloud in the way. If not now, then not for long, I think. He will find us.”

“If the cops don’t first,” I muttered. “Jesus…”

“You killed those guys,” Yul said. “Shot them without even reacting.”

“In case you were fucking sleeping, dude, they shot at us first.”

He stared at me like he’d never seen me before. “What are you talking about? I was there with you in the parking lot.

“They shot at me first back in my apartment. I wasn’t taking any chances this time.”

“What? At your apartment?”

“It’s a long story, man. I’ll explain later.”

“But who were they?”

“The Russian mafia.”

“Fuck you, Larry. I’m serious.”

“So am I. You remember when we went to the Odessa?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember all those bad ass Russian guys, and the one with the white hair? The one in charge?”

“Yeah. Jesse said he was…” Yul’s eyes got big. “Jesse was right?”

I nodded.

“Does he know?”

“Who?” The Hyundai bounced over a rutted dirt field.

“Jesse. Does he know he was right?”

“Yul.” I spoke softly. “I told you, man. Jesse and Darryl are dead.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. His lips and hands trembled. He took a deep breath and exhaled, breathing out the after-stench of puke. I turned away from him. In the backseat, Sondra watched our rear, looking for Whitey.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It all happened so…it just…”

“They’re dead.” Yul’s voice was flat, toneless. His eyes were still shut. “I thought maybe you guys were playing another joke on me. Fuck With Yul Day. But you’re not messing with me. This is really happening. I went to work this morning and now…they’re really dead.”

“Yeah.”

“And these Russian guys killed them?”

“They…yeah.”

Yul put his hand to his mouth. “I think I’m gonna be sick again.”

I pulled behind an old boiler that some company had left lying out to rust, and turned the car off. I flexed my fingers. They felt numb. Yul flung the door open and collapsed in the dirt. He had the dry heaves.

“Let’s get inside one of these buildings,” I said. “Find a place to hide before somebody sees us.”

Sondra and I got out of the car. I made sure to grab the now empty 9mm, and stuck it in my waistband again. No sense leaving behind the incriminating weapon. I wished for a moment that I’d thought to do the same with the empty .38 back at the convenience store. I should have tossed it into the dumpster with my cell phone. Of course, when the cops found my Cherokee, they’d probably search the dumpster anyway.

Yul sputtered and gagged. As we helped him up, he glanced down at my feet.

“Where are your shoes?”

“Don’t worry about our shoes right now, dude.”

“Hold up a second.” He pulled away from me and went back to the car, rummaging around in the back. He grabbed a gym bag, unzipped it, and pulled out a ratty pair of running shoes. “You’re a size ten, right?”

I nodded.

“These should fit you then. Trying to get in shape for Kim, so I’ve been running every morning after work.” He looked at Sondra. “Sorry, I don’t have a pair that would fit you.”

Sondra shrugged. “Is okay.”

Grateful, I slipped the running shoes onto my aching feet. Then we abandoned the car and hurried towards a nearby warehouse with broken, boarded up windows and faded green siding. The ground around it was covered with bird shit and garbage. Pigeons cooed on the roof. In the distance, we heard a car engine revving. The engine sounded as sick as Yul. Fainter still was the wailing sound of emergency sirens.

“Is Whitey.” Sondra quickened her pace. “We go faster.”

I’d noticed something about Sondra’s usage of the English language. Sometimes she spoke fine, and other times she sounded like she’d just learned her first American words. At first, it was cute. Then it became a little annoying. But now, I’d figured it out. It seemed like the more stressed she got, the more broken her English became.

“I’m dizzy,” Yul moaned. “Wait up a second.”

“Nyet,” Sondra snapped. “I said we go faster. Hurry.”

I grabbed Yul’s arm and steadied him. “Let’s listen to the lady. Come on.”

He looked up at me and flashed a weak smile. “It’s going to be okay, right, Larry?”

“Sure,” I lied. “We’re gonna be fine.”

“I’m worried about Kim. She doesn’t know where I am.”

Even with everything that had happened, Yul’s first concern was for Kim. I thought about how nice it must be to have someone in your life like that. Someone that you cared about above everything else. Someone you’d move mountains for. Someone you’d kill for. I wanted a love like that.

And then I looked at Sondra and realized that I already had it.

“Let’s get inside,” I said.

Sondra and Yul flattened themselves against the side of the warehouse while I reached through the broken glass and pressed on the plywood covering the window. It was brittle and loose, deteriorated from constant exposure to the elements. The windows were low to the ground.

There was still no sign of the Lexus, but it sounded closer than before. As I pushed on the plywood, the engine sputtered and died. There was a faint thump—a slamming car door, and then a muffled shout. Whitey was back to speaking Russian again.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Sondra.

“The many ways he will kill us. None of them are quick.”

“Fuck this shit.”

I walked backwards a few paces and then ran at the wall, leaping into the air and kicking the plywood. It splintered. Even though the window was set lower than normal, I fell flat on my ass. Standing up again, I kicked the plywood repeatedly until it gave way and collapsed. After I’d brushed the glass out of the way, Sondra climbed through the window, followed by Yul. I took one last glance around and then ducked through after them. If Whitey had heard the commotion, there was no sign. He’d gone quiet again. The only sound was the far-off sirens.

Once inside the warehouse, I leaned the plywood back up against the window and braced it with a stack of empty wooden crates. If anybody inspected it too closely, they’d see that it wasn’t nailed, but hopefully it would be enough to fool them at a passing glance.

Our eyes adjusted to the gloom. The warehouse was a hollow, empty shell—just a massive room with miscellaneous debris scattered about. Rows of steel girders, spaced apart about every ten feet, ran from the floor to the ceiling. The concrete floor was cracked and pitted. Murky sunlight filtered down through dirty skylights and dust motes floated in the beams. Spider webs and grime coated everything. The air smelled stale and musty, but beneath it I could smell us—me and Sondra’s sweat, Yul’s vomit-stained clothes. Fear. And something else, bitter like ammonia.

I sniffed. “Yul, did you piss yourself?”

“Leave me alone.” He pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“Kim. I need to let her know that I’m okay. You know this shit is gonna be on the news.” He glanced at the phone, and then snapped it shut in frustration. “Damn it! There’s no signal in here.”

“Come on,” I urged. “We can’t just stand here next to the window. Whitey or the cops will hear us. We need to hide.”

“But don’t we want the cops to find us?”

“No,” Sondra and I said at the same time.

Yul flinched. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Look,” I said. “You’re not in trouble. You can always say we took you hostage. But Sondra doesn’t need any cops right now—and in truth, I probably don’t either.”

We ventured farther into the building. Rats squealed in the dark corners. Flies crawled over the skylights and boarded-up windows, and gnats flitted about. Sondra jumped when a cockroach crunched under her shoeless foot. We listened for sounds of pursuit, but if Whitey was out there, he was keeping quiet. None of us were wearing watches. I asked Yul to check the time on his cell phone, but the building was still blocking the signal.

“You know,” I said, “you could have bought a better cell phone—one that would show us the time without having to be logged onto the network. I don’t know why you have that cheap piece of shit.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know we were going to be hiding from the Russian mob. Next time, I’ll buy a better one.”

Despite our fears, we both grinned. Sondra shivered. It was cold inside the structure. Damp. I put my arm around her shoulder and she smiled.

Maybe I hadn’t lied to Yul. Maybe we would be okay after all.

At the far end of the warehouse was an open door, big enough to allow forklifts to pass by each other with full loads. There was another empty storage room on the other side of it. A concrete stairway led up to a second floor in the rear of the building, and a service ramp on the side headed down into a basement level. It was too dark down there to explore.

“Let’s head down there,” I suggested. “It’s dark enough to hide us.”

“No,” Sondra said. “Is too much like ship. I no like the dark now.”

Yul reached for a light switch but I stopped him, keeping my voice low.

“Even if there is power, we don’t want the lights on. Might as well just shout, ‘Here we are’ until they come running.”

“True that. Sorry. I’m just… look, somebody needs to tell me what’s going on. From the beginning.”

So I did just that. As we searched the second room, looking for a place to hide, I filled Yul in on everything that had happened. All the shit. I left nothing out. He took it pretty well, all things considered. Maybe he was in shock, or maybe it was exhaustion, but he seemed to accept it all—the murder of our friends, the news that the mob was after us, the fact that I’d killed some people and now the cops were after us, too, and the damage to his car—with resigned, sullen acceptance.

In the rear of the empty bay was an assortment of broken skids and cardboard shipping containers, the kind used to package refrigerators, dish washers, and other big appliances. Loops of plastic and metal strapping lay scattered around the pile. We hid behind the stack, crouching against the wall. By the time I’d finished telling Yul about the fucked up series of events that had landed us in this situation, we’d finally had a chance to catch our breath.

“So this Whitey guy wants to force Sondra to have an abortion,” Yul said. “And she’s on the run. And you shot him at your apartment, but when he showed up at GPS, he didn’t seem too fazed by it.”

“No,” I agreed. “He sure as hell didn’t. And I shot him again. You saw me. You both did. I shot the fucker in the head. His fucking ear was hanging off. But he still managed to follow us. Got the stamina of a bull. Or a pro wrestler.”

“Sounds like he’s the Soviet version of Jason Voorhees.”

I grinned. “There ain’t no more Soviets, Yul. Just gangsters.”

“What is this Jason?” Sondra asked.

“He’s the villain in a series of horror movies,” I explained. “Friday the 13th? You never saw those in Russia?”

“They have Jennifer Aniston in these Friday movies?”

“No.” I stifled another grin. “She wasn’t in them. But Jason was. You must have seen him before. Played by Kane Hodder and some other guy.”

“I met Kane Hodder once,” Yul said. “He was at a convention. Wanted thirty bucks for an autographed picture.”

“That’s how those guys make their money,” I said.

Sondra stared at us in confusion.

“I’m sure you’ve seen Jason,” I told her again. “Big dude with a machete and a hockey mask?”

Yul nodded. “He always wears a hockey mask.”

Sondra frowned. “And this Jason is like Whitey? ”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sort of.”

“But Whitey not wear hockey mask. Is very vain. Wears nice clothes. Expensive.”

“That’s not what we mean. See, Jason kills people. Lots of people. He’s a serial killer. Slaughters surplus teenagers out in the woods—and once in Manhattan.”

“And in space,” Yul said. “Don’t forget about when he went to space.”

“That one sucked.”

“Are you high, Larry? That was the best of the series!”

Sondra looked even more confused. I glared at Yul, and he fell quiet again.

“See,” I told Sondra, “in the movies, Jason can’t be killed. He’s murdered all these people—like, over a hundred—but he can’t be stopped. They’ve stabbed him, shot him, hung him, drowned him in the lake, and cut his fucking head off. The FBI even mortared his ass, but he always comes back. Jason just keeps on coming. He’s—”

I stopped in mid-sentence, my words dying in my throat. Sondra’s eyes were wide and frightened. She had that same look I’d seen on her face when she was hiding beneath my Jeep. I reached out and touched her hand. Flinching, she pulled away from me.

“Sondra, what’s wrong?”

“This Jason,” she whispered, “is very much like Whitey. Very much.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d made a weird reference like that regarding Whitey, and despite how I felt about her, I was getting tired of that vague shit. Things were off the hook, too far gone to keep secrets or tell half-truths now. Darryl and Jesse were dead. I was a murderer, even if it was in self-defense. Playtime was fucking over, far as I was concerned.

“Sondra,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and neutral and my body language non-threatening, “is there something you haven’t told me about Whitey? Because if there is, now would be a real good time to tell it.”

She lowered her face, staring at her lap. “Da.”

“What is it? And why wait until now to tell me?”

“Because I am being afraid you not believe me. Is, how you say…difficult?”

“Try me.”

“Okay,” Sondra said. “I tell you.”

fourteen

“In America,” she asked, “have you hear of Grigori Rasputin?”

Yul shook his head. “Never heard of him. Is he another mob guy?”

“Yes you have, man.” I nudged him. “Rasputin, the mad monk? Big ZZ-Top looking beard?”

He blinked.

“You’ve heard of him,” I insisted. “The Russian dude they couldn’t kill?”

“So he is like Jason Voorhees,” Yul said.

“Like I said, he took a lot of damage and kept coming.”

“He is like Jason,” Sondra said. “Not wear hockey mask. Not have same name. But like each other. Hard to kill, no?”

“Jason was hard to kill,” Yul agreed. “But I still don’t remember Rasputin. The name’s not ringing any bells.”

“Rasputin was like a wizard or something,” I said. “Supposed to be some kind of psychic faith healer. He acted as a counselor for Tsar Nicholas.”

“Tsar who?”

I sighed. “Russia’s last royal family? The Romanov dynasty? What the hell did you learn in school, Yul?”

He shrugged. “Not this. And not much else, either. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be working at GPS.”

“The Romanovs ruled Russia,” Sondra said. “Larry is right. They our last kings. Tsar Nicholas, Tsaritsa Alexandra, and their son, Tsarevich Alexei. Alexei had sickness. Had…what is word? When you are to bleed?”

Yul stared at her blankly. “I don’t know.”

“Hemophilia,” I said. “He had hemophilia.”

“Da. Hemo…however you say. He inherit from his great-grandmother. She had, too. One summer, while on vacation, Tsarevich Alexei fall off a horse and bruise his back. He gets very sick and weak. Has much bleeding inside of him. People say he might die. Tsaritsa Alexandra looked everywhere for help. Doctors, faith healers, holy men. Nobody can fix. Alexei gets worse. But Alexandra’s best friend, Anna Vyrubova, tells her that she can help. Anna knew of a wandering strannik in Siberia who was supposed to be powerful healer. Is maybe part of the Kwan.”

“The Kwan?” I hadn’t heard this part of the story before. “What’s that?”

“Am not sure.” Sondra shrugged. “But is not a what. Is a who. Much mysterious. Much said in whispers. Maybe they are magicians. Is said in my country that they secretly rule the world from their black lodge.”

I frowned. The only black lodge I knew of was the song by Anthrax.

“Black lodge?”

“Is place where magicians go.”

“So this Kwan,” I asked, “they’re like the Illuminati? You believe that shit?”

“I don’t know what is Illuminati,” Sondra said. “Is that to turn on lights?”

“No,” I said, “it’s a group of people who supposedly control the world. They own the politicians and the corporations.”

“They say same thing about the Kwan,” Sondra continued. “Maybe is not true. Maybe is bullshit, as you say, but it is what old man in my town used to tell people. I do not know. Maybe the Kwan is not that. Maybe is something different. But Anna Vyrubova thought Rasputin was part of it. She thought he was something special. Says he can help the boy. So the Tsaritsa sent for him. Rasputin prayed over the boy and Alexei get better. Rasputin tell the Tsar and his family to not let doctors bother the boy. Says he will care for the Tsarevich himself. Then, every time Alexei is hurt and bleeds, the Tsarina called for Rasputin to heal him.”

“And,” I interrupted, “that was how he got in good with the family. But what does any of this have to do with Whitey?”

“Much,” Sondra said. “Has much to do. The Tsar put much trust in Rasputin. He came to live with the family, and watched over them, especially Alexei. They say when the boy was attacked by a swarm of bees, Rasputin yelled at the bees and they fly away and not bother the Tsarevich again. Rasputin had much power. He told fortunes. Saw the future. Held much…what is word? Sway? Held much sway over Tsaritsa Alexandra.”

“What did he yell?” Yul asked. “At the bees? What did he say to make them flee?”

“He say, ‘Sting him and you will die.’”

“And that worked?”

“Are you not listening? He had powers. Some say his powers were from books. Others say from his blood—that he was born with special abilities. Maybe both. Or maybe the Kwan. But however he get powers, many in Russia not like it. They say that Rasputin was no man of God. Was man of Devil, instead. Say his abilities are because he make deal with the Devil. And so they plotted to kill him.”

Her voice got louder as she told the story. I cautioned her to whisper, and to hurry up and get to the point. I’d never heard the bee story, either, but it sounded like folk magic to me. Central Pennsylvania was full of that shit. Even today, in some of the more remote parts of the Appalachians, Dutch and German descendants still use powwow magic and folklore, making medicines and spells from The Long, Lost Friend and other weird books. Rasputin’s incantation over the bees sounded like something straight out of one of those books. I guess I believed in it, too, without really thinking about it much. Things like that were just part of the background for me. But I’d seen folk magic in action once, when I was a little kid. My parents had gone away on vacation together, and I had to stay with my Grandma for a week. While I was there, I came down with pink eye. Scared the hell out of me. I thought I was going blind or something. Instead of taking me to the doctor, my Grandma referred to a little brown book, and followed the instructions. Before dawn, she dug up five dandelion roots and tied them together with a white thread. Then she wrapped these up in a clean dishrag, placed it over my eyes, and chanted something out of the book. Sure enough, the infection was gone the next day.

I never believed in God because I’d never seen him in my life. But I believed in my Grandma and I believed in folk magic and I believed what Sondra was telling us.

“Wouldn’t the Romanovs protect him?” Yul asked. “Sounds like he was pretty important to their family.”

Sondra lowered her voice. “Rasputin’s enemies say he is sex fiend, is Satanist, and is having too much political power over the Tsar. When first World War comes, they say he is spy for Germans. And so, many men get together and try to kill him. First, they invite him to big dinner and then poison him. Put cyanide in cakes and red wine and give to him. There was enough poison to kill ten men, but it not kill Rasputin. He ate the cakes and drank the wine and then asked for more. So the men distract him. When Rasputin was turned away, they shot him in the back. One of the men, Felix Yusupov, checked the body. Rasputin open his eyes, grab Felix by the throat, and say, ‘You bad, bad boy.’ Then he fight back at the men.”

I shivered. Whitey had said the same thing to me, back at my apartment. I doubted it was a coincidence.

“Rasputin was still alive. They stab him in stomach and his insides fell out. He had to push them back in. The men beat him badly. Felix strangled him with rope. Hang him from a big tree and his insides fall out again. But Rasputin still alive. He got away and ran. The men shot him three more times. Then they beat him again, tied his hands and feet, put him inside sheet and throw him into the Neva River.”

I shuddered at the image of Rasputin running away, trailing his intestines behind him like he was a fucking zombie or something.

“Jesus,” Yul muttered. “I hope that finally killed him.”

“Three days later, after ice on the river melts, they find Rasputin’s body. Is poisoned, shot four times, strangled, beaten, and stabbed. The authorities did…how you say? Autopsy?”

We nodded.

“They do this. Say the cause of death was by drowning. But they say Rasputin’s hands look like he was alive in the river and trying to claw his way out from under the ice. His fingernails are broken and tips of his fingers are bloody. So he was still alive after all that. Was still alive beneath the ice. Is hard to kill, no?”

“Yeah,” I said, losing my patience. “He was a tough son of a bitch, Sondra, but I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Whitey.”

“Whitey is hard to kill too, no?”

“Sure seems like it.”

“That is because Rasputin is Whitey’s…how you say? Aunt?”

Yul chuckled. “His aunt? You mean he was a hermaphrodite, too?”

“What is that?”

“A he-she,” Yul explained. “A chick with a dick.”

“No,” Sondra said. “Is not that. Rasputin was Whitey’s Aunt.”

“Ancestor,” I guessed. “You mean ancestor, right?”

“Da. To relate. That is word I was thinking of. Related.”

Yul and I stared at her in disbelief.

“Is true,” Sondra insisted. “Whitey is great-grandson of Rasputin, but is…illegitimate? Is that right word?”

“It’s the right word,” Yul said, and then turned to me. “You believe any of this shit, Larry?”

“See?” Sondra pouted. “I say before that you will not believe me. This is why I don’t tell you.”

I didn’t reply. I was too busy thinking about the story. Zakhar Putin, a.k.a. Whitey Putin. Putin—a shortened version of Rasputin. I’d shot the motherfucker twice now, and he was still coming after us, no worse for the wear, far as I knew.

Hard to kill.

It must have run in the family.

Crazy as the whole thing sounded, it made sense to me. What was the alternative? I mean, how else was I supposed to explain all this shit? Sure, maybe you could say that Whitey was on drugs or something. I’ve heard PCP gives you inhuman stamina. The ability to withstand tasers and stuff. Meth-heads can take a lot of pain and keep going. But I’d shot his fucking ear off! Shot him in the shoulder, too. There was no way a normal man would have recovered from those wounds as quickly as Whitey had, even if he was stoned. The blood loss alone should have been enough to put him down.

Yul started to speak, but I interrupted him. I looked Sondra in the eye and said, “Okay, I believe you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do. But let me ask you something? Do you remember back at my place, when you asked me to kill Whitey?”

She nodded.

“You think maybe you could have told me this then? That information would have been good to have before I tried to do what you fucking asked me to.”

“I am sorry. I was afraid you make fun. You are angry with me now?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not angry. Just frustrated—and a little stunned. Got to admit, this was not what I was expecting to hear.”

“Wait a second,” Yul said. “If this Rasputin guy was a monk, then how did he have any kids? Aren’t monks celibate?”

It was a stupid question. Sondra had already told us that Rasputin was a sex fiend. I started to holler at Yul for not paying attention, but then decided he had a right to be a little out of it. We were all pretty stressed. Wasn’t every day people tried to kill you.

“He wasn’t an actual monk,” I told him, “and Rasputin made no secret of being married—or of having other women. He slept around while he was traveling through Greece and Jerusalem. Had a different woman in each port, you know what I’m saying? He had a legitimate daughter, I think, and it’s rumored that he had a whole bunch more illegitimate kids, too. Makes sense. If he slept around that much, then he probably has more bastards than anyone knows about. Guy was a player. Supposedly, he even banged the Tsar’s wife.”

Sondra nodded. “That is what people say in Russia.”

“Shit,” I said, “if I remember correctly, doesn’t Rasputin means licentious in Russian. I think our teacher told us that.”

Yul frowned. “What’s licentious?”

“It means he liked to fuck a lot. Like Jes—”

I paused. I’d wanted to say ‘Like Jesse’, but I couldn’t get the words out. There was a lump in my throat. My eyes burned. Yul hung his head and sniffed. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole. Jesse was dead, and it was all my fault, and here I was using him as the punch-line to some stupid-ass joke less than a few hours after his death.

Sondra must have sensed the tension in the room, because she spoke up quickly.

“Is not what it means in Russian. Is not ‘horny’. Rasputin is from ‘rasputye’ which means ‘place of crossroads. A place where paths meet. A maze. What do you call? Lab…?”

“Labyrinth,” I said. “It’s called a labyrinth.”

“That is what Rasputin means. A labyrinth.”

“You ask me,” Yul said, “it means bad motherfucker. I mean, if this Whitey guy is like his great granddad, then how do we stop him? How do we kill someone that can’t frigging die?”

“He’s not invulnerable,” I said. “He can feel pain. And fear. You guys heard him screaming when I shot him. And Rasputin died, eventually. So we just need to kill Whitey hard enough to do the job once and for all. Make sure there isn’t anything left of him to get back up and come after us again.”

“But how?” Yul asked again.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, “but we’d better figure something out fast.”

“Why?”

“Listen.”

Hammering sounds echoed across the warehouse. Somebody was battering the boarded up windows.

“Oh, shit.” Yul’s face paled. “We are so fucked.”

For once, he was right.

fifteen

The pounding got louder and more insistent. It was the sound of somebody having a really bad day and ready to take their frustrations out on other people.

“What do we do?” Yul cried. “It’s him!”

“Maybe not,” I said, peering out from behind the boxes. “It could be the cops. Or some homeless guy. We don’t—”

A loud crash cut me off. It sounded like the plywood I’d leaned against the broken outside window had just fallen to the floor, along with the wooden crates I’d used to hold it in place. Then there was silence.

We stared at each other, eyes wide. Sondra and Yul tensed, holding their breath. I looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing except for some wooden skids and a tangle of plastic shipping bands and metal strapping, all cut or broken. The skids were out of reach. If I went for one and managed to pry a length of wood free, I’d be out in the open with no cover. That was no good. I could strangle Whitey with one of the shipping bands, or maybe cut his throat if I could find a metal one that was sharp enough—and if I could get close enough to him. Related to Rasputin or not, I was willing to bet that he’d find it hard to survive a slit throat. True, it was a slim chance that I’d get close enough to pull it off, but the 9mm was useless without ammo, except for maybe as a club. Sure. That was it! I could brain him with the butt of the pistol—and then he could shoot me in the face. There was no doubt in my mind that Whitey still had bullets left in his gun. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would leave home without them.

Still tensed, Yul leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “That doesn’t sound like the cops, Larry.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, for one thing, they’d shout ‘Freeze, this is the police!’ or ‘Throw down your weapons’. I’m not hearing that.”

As if to prove Yul’s point, Whitey’s voice boomed across the empty warehouse.

“Come out, come out, little mice. You have been very bad, and it is time to put an end to this. I have other things to do today.”

Sondra reached out and squeezed my hand. I tried to smile at her in reassurance, and instead, I ended up trembling.

“Mr. Gibson,” Whitey called, “I know you are hiding in here. I have a proposition for you. If you turn over the girl, I will allow you and your friend to leave unharmed. The police will be here soon, I think. You can end this whole thing now. Just give me the girl.”

“That sounds pretty reasonable,” Yul muttered. “I vote we do what he says.”

Incredulous, I glared at him. I couldn’t tell if Yul was joking or not. His expression was serious.

“Shut up,” I warned him. “This ain’t no fucking democracy. Sondra’s not going anywhere. And keep quiet.”

Footsteps drew closer; hard-soled dress shoes on concrete. Whitey whistled a mournful tune that I didn’t recognize. The sound chilled me.

“Ah, what is this?” He wasn’t shouting anymore. He was close enough for us to hear without difficulty. “Perhaps you are hiding down in the dark basement? Cowering like little rats. No, probably not. Sondra doesn’t like the dark, do you my dear? Brings back bad memories, does it not?”

Sondra pressed up against me, tightening her grip on my hand. Slowly, I reached out and grabbed a jagged piece of metal strapping. It was about seven inches long and the edge was sharp and pointed. I pressed it against the ball of my thumb and winced. It left an indentation—not sharp enough to draw blood, but jagged enough to part flesh if I pushed. It would have to do. Better than nothing, at least.

Yul started mouthing the Lord’s Prayer. His eyes were shut tight, and his face was even paler than before. The color had drained away, and every freckle and pimple stood out in sharp contrast. There was a tiny scar on the tip of his nose where Webster had scratched him a year ago. The blemish had faded over time, enough that I’d completely forgotten about it, but now I saw it clearly. I let Yul pray. It certainly couldn’t hurt. If I had believed in God, maybe I would have joined in with him and we could have had a little prayer circle right there behind the boxes, all of us holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ and letting the power of Christ prevent Whitey’s bullets from reaching us. Praise His name. The power of prayer and all that bullshit. But I knew better. There was no God. Life had proven that to me a long time ago. This moment—being trapped in an abandoned warehouse with a runaway stripper, my last living friend, and a murderous, invincible Russian mobster—was just confirmation of the fact. If God existed, then the motherfucker smoked crack on a regular basis.

“I am getting closer,” Whitey called. His sing-song voice echoed, bouncing off the walls. He was near. In the room with us. Squinting, I peered through the cracks between the boxes and saw a flash of movement. Sondra squeezed my hand hard enough to make me wince.

Yul’s silent prayer ceased. He opened his eyes and tears ran down his face.

“I know you are here,” Whitey said. “I can sense you, Sondra. Sense the baby. There is nowhere you can hide. Not while you are carrying my child. You know how this will end. How it must end.”

Sondra jerked her hand away from mine and put it protectively over her belly. I felt like somebody had just punched me in the gut. His baby? Whitey was the father. My first reaction was shock, but within seconds, anger overrode all of my other emotions. Anger at Sondra for lying to me when she’d said that she didn’t know who the father was, and anger at Whitey for wanting to abort his own child. Somehow, that seemed even more heinous than before. He had to be lying. Trying to get us to give away our position.

“I am sorry,” Sondra mouthed. There were tears in her eyes.

Before I could respond, Yul stood up. His knee joints popped, startling me. I grabbed his pants leg but it was too late. He yanked away from me.

“Mr. W-Whitey, sir? M-my name is Yul Lee. I don’t want any t-trouble.”

There was a brief pause, and then Whitey said, “Where are you, Mr. Yul. Behind those boxes, I suppose?”

“Y-yes sir. But like I said, I d-don’t want any trouble. I’m…I’m not p-part of this.”

“Yul!” I pinched his leg. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Without looking down, he waved me away. Then he took a hesitant step forward, pushing a box out of his way so that Whitey could see his face.

“I just want to go home, sir. My girlfriend, Kim, she’ll be waiting for me. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve been thinking about asking her to marry me. So, I just want to see her. I’m sorry about everything, but you’ve got to understand, I’m innocent. I wasn’t involved. These guys kidnapped me.”

“Kidnapped you? That wasn’t very nice, now was it? There’s no reason to treat a friend that way.”

“Oh, I-I’m not their f-friend…”

“Yul,” I growled, “you son of a bitch.”

“That is surprising to hear,” Whitey said. “Because Jesse talked about you as if you were a friend. You, Larry, Darryl, and he were supposedly very close. The best of friends. He referred to you as being ‘tight’.”

Yul made a clicking noise in the back of his throat.

“No matter,” the Russian continued. “This has been a costly affair so far, and I am anxious to see it finished. I have lost friends today, as well. So have you. There’s no need for anymore bloodshed. Come on out, Mr. Yul, and leave this place.”

“You…you m-mean it?”

“Of course. I’m a man of my word.”

Yul glanced down at Sondra and me.

“Don’t.” I shook my head.

“I’m sorry, Larry. I really am. But Kim…”

He turned away and pushed the box aside. Sondra and I ducked lower. As we did, I caught a glimpse of Whitey. His chest, stomach, neck, and face were covered in dried blood. His ear, the one that had been dangling off the side of his head, was completely gone now, leaving behind a red, raw stump. My bullet had ploughed a furrow in his cheek. Yul stepped out in front of the pile. His back was to us and I couldn’t see his face, but I could see Whitey’s. The Russian smiled.

“Please keep your hands where I can see them. No surprises, now.”

Yul put his hands in the air. “You promise you won’t shoot me?”

“I promised that you could leave this place. Are Gibson and Sondra hiding in that rat’s nest, as well?”

Yul shook his head, and then Whitey shot him. It happened so quickly. One second, he was standing there shaking, hands held even with his shoulders. The next, blood exploded from the back of his shirt, leaving a hole the size of a light bulb. The fabric smoked like it was on fire. The noise was deafening. My ears rang. I couldn’t hear myself screaming.

The impact forced Yul backwards. He stumbled, then fell, his head cracking against the concrete. His face was turned towards us. His eyes were open, but I couldn’t tell if he was alive or not. There was more blood now, gushing from his mouth and chest and from the gash in his head.

Then my vision was obscured by a cloud of shredded cardboard. Something whizzed by my face. I couldn’t hear it, but I could feel the heat of its passing. Sondra tugged on my arm and shouted something, but her voice sounded like it was underwater. More cardboard confetti rained down on us, and then I realized that Whitey was firing into the boxes.

“Go!”

I shoved Sondra hard, pushing her to the left. Then, still clutching the thin shard of metal, I grabbed a large refrigerator box. Holding it in front of me like a shield, I charged across the room. The box concealed everything but my feet. Whitey couldn’t see me, but I couldn’t see him either.

Sondra stared at me like I’d lost my mind, but she did as I’d told her. She jumped to the left and started running. I guess maybe I had lost my mind. Even as I charged him, a little voice in the back of my head asked me what the fuck I was doing. Whitey had a gun. A cardboard box wouldn’t stop a bullet. But my body overrode such common sense. My feet and legs rebelled, carrying me forward.

Whitey fired at Sondra, but missed. Even though my ears were still ringing, I heard the bullet hit concrete. Sondra dashed across the room, ducking behind a steel girder. Whitey paused for a split second, his attention turning to me. I couldn’t see him, but I could sense the hesitation. Maybe he thought I’d lost my mind, too. Sondra took advantage of the distraction and took off again. At the same time, I hurled the box at Whitey, shrieking with rage. He shot the box and then fired a third shot at me. The only thing that saved me was Yul. Slipping in his blood, I toppled over, landing on my ass. The metal shard slid from my grasp. My teeth clacked together and I bit the inside of my cheek. Warmth filled my mouth. The shock ran up my spine. My eyes watered from the mixture of pain and cordite.

“Go, Sondra,” I shouted. “Keep running!”

My voice echoed, competing with the gunshots.

Whitey coughed. “Very noble of you, Mr. Gibson. Or should I call you Larry?”

I spat out a mouthful of blood and glared at him. Suddenly, I felt very small and powerless and afraid.

“Call me Mr. Gibson,” I croaked. “Bitch.”

Keeping the pistol pointed at me, Whitey reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out his cell phone. I stared down the barrel of the gun, literally. A big, black hole—probably the last thing I’d ever see. But I’d be damned if I was going to let this fucker know how scared I was.

“If you’re planning on calling your mob buddies,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “then don’t bother. Reception is for shit inside this building. You won’t get a signal.”

His aim didn’t waiver. The pistol looked heavy but he held it steady. Whitey glanced at the cell phone. In that second, I put my foot over the fragment of metal strapping, hiding it from him. Scowling, Whitey looked back up at me and stuffed the cell phone in his pocket.

“Told you,” I said. “Asshole.”

“If you’re trying to buy time for Sondra to get away, Mr. Gibson, then you are even more foolish than I thought. She has nowhere to go. Even now, the police are probably entering this complex.”

I shrugged. “It’s a big place. Lot’s of warehouses and buildings in here. Might take them a while to find us.”

“I doubt it. Both of our vehicles are parked outside. I don’t think they’ll have any trouble locating us.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You willing to take that chance?”

“I am indeed.”

“Well, then you’re as dumb as you sound.”

It wasn’t the stinging retort I’d hoped for, but I was having trouble focusing. Fear is funny that way.

Whitey looked me over. I stared back, trying not to flinch. Yul broke the silence when his bowels let go. Cringing, I glanced over at him, and was alarmed to see that his fingers were moving, slowly clenching and unclenching.

“Oh Jesus,” I gasped. “He’s still alive. He’s still alive you son of a bitch.”

“Nyet. What we are seeing is just nerves—the final electrical impulses of an already dead brain.”

“He’s fucking moving!”

“Ignore it. The gas. The loosening of the bowels. The finger gestures. These are all taking place after death. Believe me, I have seen this many times before. I am something of an expert. But if it will make you feel better, I’ll give you an example.”

I stared at him in disbelief. Make me feel better? He’d just shot Yul in cold blood and had tried to kill me and Sondra.

“I’m sure you’ll understand if I’m brief. I once attended a birthday party in East Petersburg. The town in Lancaster County, of course. Not the one in my homeland. It was a gathering comprised of people from my organization. Our families were in attendance as well. Several of the children discovered a large black snake crawling through the yard. An impressive specimen, really—at least four feet in length and very thick. It had eaten well. The children were frightened, so the host grabbed a shovel and cut the serpent’s head off. The body continued to writhe and coil for a full fifteen minutes afterward. If we had more time, I could demonstrate it for you. Cut your dead friend’s head off and let you watch.”

“Do whatever you want to us,” I said. “Just leave Sondra alone.”

“How much did she tell you?” Whitey asked. “Did she tell you where the money is?”

“What money?”

“The money she stole from me.”

I said nothing, trying to figure out if this was some sort of trick.

Whitey sighed. “Did she tell you that she was with child?”

“Why? You gonna promise not to kill me if you find out I don’t know everything? Gonna offer me the same deal you gave Yul?”

“No. I am indeed going to kill you. But I need to know how much damage has been done before I do. I need to find out what you know, and more importantly, if you’ve told anybody else.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not today, I’m afraid. Make no mistake, Mr. Gibson. You are going to die. You can tell me what I want to know, and I’ll end it now with a bullet to the head. Or, if you insist on being difficult, I can torture you until you confess. Either way, you’ll talk.”

“No time to torture me.” I spat more blood. “You said it yourself, shithead. The cops are on their way. Doesn’t give you much time, now does it?”

“I do not need much time.”

He walked closer, covering his approach with the pistol. It felt like there was an invisible line running from the barrel to my head. His shoes tapped loudly on the concrete floor. Still seated on the floor, I shrank away from him, scooting backward and taking the opportunity to drag my foot along the floor, pulling the piece of metal strapping closer to me. Whitey interpreted it as fear. I risked a quick glance to the left. There was no sign of Sondra. The far end of the warehouse was hidden in shadow. I wondered if she was hiding there, watching, and if so, what she could do to help me.

“You care for her?”

“Fuck you,” I mumbled. Again, not the wittiest of replies, and one I’d used already. “How’s the ear? It must hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“You must care for her,” Whitey said, ignoring my taunt. “Love her, perhaps?”

“None of your business.”

“Yes, I think that you love her. Why else would you go through all of this? So much pain, so much death, all to protect a pregnant whore?”

“Don’t call her a whore!”

He loomed over me. I could smell his cologne—heavy, cloying, stifling my breath. He brushed the tip of the gun barrel against my forehead. The metal was cold. I shivered, even though I was sweating like a pig. Then he slid it across my face and brushed against my ear.

“Why not? That’s what she is. Sondra is one of our best. Why do you think I only let her dance twice a day? If she was such a popular dancer, would I not allow her more stage time? Of course I would. But the money she brings in on stage pales in comparison to what she makes in the private rooms. Sondra is our top attraction—and her prowess on stage is only a small part of that. She’s much better on her back…or her knees.”

“You trying to goad me, Whitey? Trying to get me to attack, so you can blow me away like you did Yul?”

“As I said, the expediency of your death is up to you. But it is a foregone conclusion. I’m going to kill you, just like we did your friends. This one…” He prodded Yul’s body with his foot, “and the others—the redneck and the nukka.”

“Nukka?”

“Nigger. Or, if you prefer, ‘journi’ or ‘herp’. We have many names for black men, but in the end, none of them matter. The best name is dead.”

My mouth was dry, and I had to work up enough spit to talk.

“I’m going to kill you.”

Whitey laughed. It was the ugliest sound I’d ever heard.

“No, you are not. But I am going to kill you. Now, let’s make this quick. What did she tell you?”

I tried to buy more time. If I could keep him talking, maybe I could figure something out. “She told me you were related to Rasputin. She said you were with the mob.”

“And? The money? Where is that?”

“She never said shit about any money. She said that she was pregnant, and that you were gonna force her to get an abortion, so she ran away.”

“Did she?” Smirking, he nudged my ear with the gun again. “Did she indeed? Mr. Gibson, why on earth would you think that I’d waste so much manpower, so many resources—not to mention the very good possibility that I’ll be arrested for today’s events—all on forcing a pregnant prostitute to get an abortion? Does that seem like a sound business position to you?”

I shrugged. “The fuck do I know about business? I’m a dock worker.”

“This is true. But a smart dock worker, no? I can tell by the way you speak—the way you carry yourself. You have an excellent grasp of language and you are far more clever than you let on. You are not a stupid man, Mr. Gibson, so don’t make yourself sound that way.”

“If you want to sleep with me, Whitey, you’ll have to sweet talk me more than that.”

“Did Sondra tell you who the father was?”

His voice had changed. It was quieter—more insistent. So far in the conversation, his tone had been calm, almost friendly, even when he’d killed Yul and promised to do the same to me. But now his voice sounded grim and full of menace.

“She said she didn’t know.”

Whitey leaned closer. His breath stank of garlic and cheese. The stench of his cologne became a solid thing.

“Do not lie to me, Mr. Gibson. Did she tell you that I was the father?”

“N-no,” I choked. “Why would she…”

The question died on my lips. The deadliness in Whitey’s voice was now mirrored in his eyes.

“Because I am.”

“Yeah, you tried that lie already. Just a few minutes ago, when you tried to flush us out of hiding. Remember? It didn’t work.”

“But it is the truth, Mr. Gibson. I am the father.”

“You…” I whispered. “You want to kill your own baby?”

“Nyet. I want to save my child. It is that cunt of a whore who wants to abort it.”

“Bullshit.”

His face twitched and I saw it in his stare, knew that he was about to pull the trigger. I started blubbering, doing my best to look frightened and distraught. It wasn’t much of a stretch. I threw my hands over my face and drew my legs up against my chest—sort of a seated fetal position. At the same time, I kept the metal beneath my shoe, dragging it closer still. I put my hands on the floor and begged.

“Don’t shoot me, man. I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry. She tricked me and I love her and I don’t want to fucking die. Just let me go. I’ll get you your fucking money. Let me go and I’ll—”

My fingers closed around the shard. Shrieking, I stabbed it into Whitey’s thigh, pushing it through his pants leg and deep into his flesh. Whitey screamed. The gun went off. Something popped inside my head, followed by an excruciating pain in my right ear. I smelled something burning. At first, I thought he’d shot me, but then I realized it was just the force of the concussion so close to my head. I was deaf in my right ear, at least temporarily. And the smoke was coming from my hair. It was on fire.

I yanked the strapping band free and stabbed him again. This time, I aimed for his groin. The metal slid in easily, and Whitey’s screams got louder. At least, I guess they did. I could barely hear him above all the ringing in my ears. He swung the pistol around, but I grabbed his wrist with my free hand and held it away from me, forcing the weapon over my shoulder. I pulled the makeshift knife out of his crotch and clambered to my feet, still keeping a firm grip on his wrist. Whitey’s face was twisted into a horrific mask of pain and rage. I knew how he felt. My own expression was probably the same.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been in a fight since I was a kid. Survival instinct is some impressive shit, because I fought like a fucking Green Beret. Adrenaline and fear and anger surged through me, and the resulting mix brought out something in me that I’d never known I had. The savagery felt good. Right. Playtime was over. My fuck around quotient had been reduced to zero.

We struggled with each other in some kind of demented two-step—a disco dance of death. I twisted his arm, trying to knock the gun loose. Whitey clawed at my shirt with his free hand, his fingers seeking my throat. I punched him in the kidneys and then kneed him in his already wounded groin. The effect was even better than I’d hoped for. Wailing, Whitey dropped the gun. Spasms shook his body and his eyes rolled up in his head. His knees buckled and he toppled over.

Releasing his wrist, I slapped my head with my hands, feeling my burned hair and blistered scalp. Whitey pushed himself up on his elbows. I scrambled for the pistol. The Russian’s foot shot out, tripping me. I stumbled, accidentally kicking the weapon further out of reach. He grasped at me, but I kicked him on the side of his mangled head, right where his ear had been. That seemed to do the trick. Moaning, Whitey shuddered and then lay still.

Without pausing, I picked up the gun and pointed it at him. I didn’t know what kind it was and didn’t give a shit. All I cared about was that it worked. I squeezed the trigger and found that it did. The gun jumped in my hands. I could barely hear the blast. My first shot hit him in the balls, finishing what I’d started with the shard. The second shot blew a hole in his belly. The third shot hit him in the chest. Whitey flopped around on the floor, his arms and legs jittering. I leapt to my feet and stood overtop of him. His teeth were chattering. His eyes rolled uncontrollably.

“Fuck you,” I said a third time. Overused, maybe, but it summed up the situation and my feelings pretty damn well.

I shot him in the head. The bullet made a very small hole but the exit wound must have been a motherfucker, because his head jerked up off the floor and came back down in a splash of brains and skull fragments and blood.

He didn’t move again, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I fired another shot into his chest. When I pulled the trigger a sixth time, the gun clicked empty. I couldn’t hear the click, of course, but it didn’t jump in my hands the way it did when it fired.

I stood there panting, looking down at his corpse. I’d done it. I’d killed Whitey. Not so fucking hard after all. My head was in agony, but despite the pain, I laughed.

“You die pretty easy after all, don’t you motherfucker?”

I was still laughing when I went to search for Sondra. I didn’t bother to look back.

I should have.

sixteen

When I reached the back end of the warehouse, there was still no sign of Sondra. Despite the anger I was feeling towards her, I was worried. What if she’d been hurt? Or what if she’d been captured by the cops and was telling them everything right now?

No, I told myself, she wouldn’t do that. Sondra’s got as much to lose as I do. More, even…

Still, her absence was unsettling. If she’d called out to me, I doubt I could have heard her anyway. The ringing in my ears was constant, and my head throbbed. It felt like someone was stabbing a hot ice-pick into my ear canal over and over again, and my scalp ached. I peered into the shadows, wincing from the pain. Sondra hadn’t run past us during the fight, so she had to be back here somewhere.

Brushing aside some dangling spider webs, I stepped into the shadows and let my eyes adjust. Water dripped on my head. I looked up and noticed a rusty pipe was leaking. I wiped the wetness from my head, cringing as my hand came in contact with my crisped hair. It felt like steel wool—sharp and brittle. My fingers came away red. If I made it through this, I’d have to shave my head for a while, until my hair grew back—if it even grew back at all.

“Sondra? Are you here? It’s okay to come out now. Whitey won’t bother you again. I killed him.”

More silence. If Sondra was hiding somewhere in the gloom, then she was too terrified to answer me.

I hid Whitey’s empty handgun beneath a moldering pile of old, greasy shop rags. They didn’t look like they’d been touched in years. With luck, they’d stay that way. If I’d been thinking clearer, I would have hid the gun better, but in my state of mind, it was the best that I could do.

“Sondra? We’d better talk, don’t you think? Whitey said something…well, something that’s kind of fucked up. A couple things, actually. I need to know if he was telling the truth.”

No response. I started to get angry with her again. Whitey wasn’t lying. Of that I was convinced. I’d seen his expression. Heard his voice. The baby was his, and he’d been trying to stop Sondra from killing it. It would have been almost noble if he hadn’t killed three of my friends in the fucking process. Pro-life. Pro-choice. Didn’t fucking matter because this time, both ended in death. Sondra had lied to me. And then, on top of all that, there was the little matter of some missing money. Was she planning on stringing me along about that, too? Was that what my friends had died for? Was it worth my life being destroyed?

As I reached the far wall, I noticed a gray metal door, concealed in the shadows behind a pile of debris. I approached it slowly. The dust on the floor around it had recently been disturbed. There were footprints and a large mark where the door had opened and then closed again. I tugged on the handle. It wasn’t locked. The hinges creaked loud enough that even I could hear them. Daylight streamed through the open doorway, temporarily blinding me. Shielding my eyes against the glare, I peered outside. The exit led out into a vacant lot behind the warehouse. Tall weeds swayed in the breeze. All around me were more decrepit warehouses and buildings. I didn’t see any cops. There were no police sirens or helicopters, but given my injuries, I wasn’t sure that I trusted my hearing. Stepping out into the sun, I crouched down behind an empty oil drum and took a good look around, checking everywhere. There was no sign of Sondra—or anyone else. I was pretty sure the coast was clear. The question was, for how long?

“Sondra,” I called. “Where are you?”

Still no answer.

Unsure of what to do next, I sat there for a bit, catching my breath and trying not to shake. I was exhausted. My hands kept trembling, and despite the day’s heat, my teeth chattered. My bloodstained clothes were stiff and sticky and chafing my skin in some places. I needed a shower, a whole bottle of Advil, an ice-cold beer, and twenty-four hours of sleep. After that, I needed to cry. And clear things up with the police, if that was even possible. And bury my dead friends. And cry some more. And check on my cat. And try to return to a normal life—a life that seemed to be slipping farther and farther away with each passing moment.

After a few minutes, the ringing in my ears faded to background noise, even though the pain in my head remained. I tried shouting again, hoping I’d be able to hear her this time.

“Sondra? Come on out now. We need to talk. It’s okay! Whitey’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

My voice echoed back to me. A big crow took flight from a nearby telephone pole, squawking in anger at the disturbance. He sounded as pissed off as I felt. A mosquito buzzed around my face and then landed on my arm. I slapped it, leaving behind a splash of blood. I swept the crushed remains to the ground. One more little death in a day full of them.

“Sondra?” I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Enough of this bullshit! You need to be straight with me. Whitey said something about money. And he said something else, too. He said that—”

Tap-tap-tap…

I glanced around. Something was tapping against glass. I wasn’t sure where the sound had come from. At first, I thought maybe I’d imagined it. But then I heard it again, louder this time.

Tap-tap-tap…

I scanned my surroundings, studying the buildings, trying to find the source. I spotted movement behind a dirty window on the second floor of a nearby building. I stood up and stared harder. There was a figure behind the grime. It was Sondra, and she wasn’t tapping on the window—she was pounding on it with her fists hard enough to shake the glass. Although my hearing was returning, it was far from normal.

I shuffled out from behind the barrel and limped towards her. She beat the window harder.

“What?” I cupped my ear with my hand. “I can’t hear you, Sondra!”

She pointed at me, shouting something. I couldn’t make it out, so I guessed.

“Me? I’m okay. Don’t worry. Whitey’s dead. Wasn’t so hard to kill, after all. Now come on down before the cops get here.”

She shook her head and pointed again. Her movements were frantic.

“I’m telling you, I’m fine, goddamn it! Now get down here.”

She began yanking on the window, trying to open it. I saw her straining, but it must have been nailed shut. Frustrated, Sondra pointed again and screamed. Then two things dawned on me. The first was that Sondra wasn’t pointing at me.

She was pointing behind me.

And the second thing was that I was a fucking idiot.

“Oh shit…”

Slowly, I turned around.

Whitey’s fist smashed into my jaw. My vision blurred. I stumbled backward, my mouth filling with blood again.

“So, Mr. Gibson, shall we try this once more?”

I swore, and then he hit me again.

seventeen

Blood dribbled down my chin. One of my bottom teeth was loose and it wiggled back and forth when my tongue brushed against it. Doing so brought a fresh wave of pain, so I stopped. I curled my hands into fists, spaced my feet apart, and got ready for the next punch.

Whitey was in bad shape. He looked like he’d been dipped in a vat of blood. There wasn’t an inch of his body that wasn’t crusted with gore. The crotch of his pants was a torn and mangled mess. Sunlight shone through the bullet hole in his forehead, and when he started to swing at me again, I caught a glimpse of the back of his head—except that there was no back. His hair and scalp and skull were missing, replaced with a huge, gaping wound. I could see inside of it, and what I saw could only lead to madness because nobody, descendant of Rasputin or not, could survive such an awful wound. His brains were…scattered. Incomplete. And yet here he was, beating the shit out of me.

I dodged the third blow easily enough. His fist swung past me and I felt the air whoosh by the side of my head. What little hair I had left fluttered in the breeze. Whitey staggered, knocked off balance by his own thrust. Taking advantage of his forward momentum, I threw a punch of my own, aiming for his stomach, and connected hard. My fist sank into his abdomen. Whitey gasped and spit flew from his mouth, but instead of collapsing, he grabbed my wrist and yanked on my arm, twisting it behind me. The pain was excruciating. It felt like he was tearing my arm out of its socket. I fell to my knees, unable to do anything except scream.

Laughing, Whitey wrenched my arm further behind my back and shoved me to the ground. My face flattened against the dirt. Stones dug into my cheeks. Dust filled my mouth and nostrils. I couldn’t breath. His foot slammed down on the back of my neck, holding me in place. His grip on my arm tightened. I managed to twist my head an inch to the side, and sucked in air.

“Let go of me, you fucker!”

“Nyet.”

I coughed. He pushed down harder with his foot.

“There is no time to be cruel,” Whitey said. “No time to torture you, as much as I would like to. So, although it is against my wishes, we will have to make this quick. Pity. I would have enjoyed hurting you, Mr. Gibson. You personify everything that I hate about your country.”

My hearing was still wavering in and out, and I could barely hear him.

“Eat shit and die, you Commie fuck.”

“A perfect example of what I mean. Goodbye, Mr. Gibson. I hope that she was worth it.”

The pressure on the back of my neck went away for a second. I sucked in more air. Dirt filled my lungs. It tasted sweet. Then his foot came crashing down again, right at the base of my skull. My loose tooth ripped free and my mouth filled with warm blood. Before I could spit, something inside my neck popped. It was a terrifying sound. As I groaned, my body went numb. My limbs tingled as if they were asleep. My vision blurred again, and when I blinked, things remained unfocused.

Oh shit, I thought. He fucking broke my neck! I’m paralyzed…

Whitey kicked me again, but this time I couldn’t really feel it. Drooling blood, I tried to crawl away, tried to turn over, shield myself, do anything to ward off the blows, but my arms and legs refused to cooperate. My spirit was strong but my body had surrendered. This was it. I was going to die. I didn’t feel regret or sadness. Even the fear was gone. I just felt anesthetized. My surroundings went from blurry to black. Somebody was screaming. I figured it must be me.

“Sondra,” I whispered. “I’m sorry…”

“Ah,” Whitey taunted. “You see? Even now, you call for her with your dying breath. You lift your head to the sky and—”

Suddenly the blows stopped and Whitey grew silent. Sensing commotion above me, I tried to focus and clear my head. Shadows danced across the ground.

“Don’t move,” someone bellowed. The voice was deep and authoritative and not fucking around. “Get down on the ground and place your hands behind your head.”

It was the police. Had to be. Inside, I cheered. I’d never been happier for the cops than I was at that moment. I tried turning my head so I could see them. Pain lanced down my spine, but I managed to do it. Then I wiggled my arms and legs, sighing in relief. I wasn’t paralyzed. I just hurt like a son of a bitch. Once I’d turned enough to see what was happening, I stayed still, urging my body to recuperate.

There were two police cars parked side by side with their doors open and lights on. Blue and red reflections flashed off the buildings around us. Four cops stood behind the open car doors, their feet spaced apart at shoulder-width. Three of them had their guns drawn and pointed at us. The fourth was holding his radio handset. He looked younger than the rest—more nervous. I figured he was calling for backup, but when he spoke, I realized their car radio doubled as a loudspeaker.

“Get down on the ground,” he repeated, “face away from us, and put your hands behind your head.”

Still looming over me, Whitey said, “We will finish this later, Mr. Gibson.”

“Don’t bet on it, you fuck.”

I doubt he even heard me. My voice was barely a whisper.

“You!” The young cop sounded like he was ready to snap. His voice was high and shaky and he spoke with a rapid-fire delivery. I guessed he was a rookie. “I’m not going to tell you again, shithead. Get down on the fucking ground now, facing away from us, and put your fucking hands behind your fucking head. Do it!”

Whitey raised his hands over his head and then slowly turned sideways and faced them. I could still see his expression. He seemed calm, almost serene.

“Get down,” all of the officers shouted at once. “Get down on the ground!”

Whitey’s smile was terrible to behold.

“I am unarmed,” he said, turning his back to me. “And was only defending myself. This man tried to kill me.”

I stared into the exit wound in the back of his head. Flies circled it, looking for a place to land.

One of the cops, an older guy with salt and pepper hair, motioned at Whitey with his pistol. “Mister, I don’t care if he raped your dog and murdered your wife. Get down on the ground now or we will open fire.”

Whitey flattened his hands across his scalp and interlaced his fingers. Still smiling, he took a single step forward.

“Boo!”

The three armed officers were visibly startled. The fourth, the young cop on the radio, dropped the handset and fumbled for his sidearm.

“Jesus,” he gasped. “Look at his fucking head. That can’t be…”

“Down,” the older cop shouted. “Last warning, shithead!”

Whitey took another step towards them. His smile grew bigger.

“His head,” the younger officer moaned. “Look at it, Bakken! He’s been shot. Guy can’t be walking around like that. Half his brains are fucking gone, man!”

“Shut up, Collins,” the older cop—Bakken—snapped. His eyes never left Whitey. His pistol shook in his hands, the barrel bobbing up and down.

One of the other policemen, a beefy guy with red hair, spoke up for the first time.

“Buddy, you’ve got until the count of three to get down on the ground or we will blow you out of your shoes.”

Shit, I thought, how many final warnings are you gonna give him? Shoot the fucker already.

“One,” the redheaded cop said, his voice steady.

“Two,” Whitey answered, still walking forward.

“Oh Jesus,” the young cop, Collins, whimpered. “Mister, you’re hurt. Hurt real bad. Just lie down and let us get you some help. Please?”

“Two,” the redhead counted, apparently disregarding Whitey’s attempt to do the same.

I held my breath. This was not going to end well. Not at all. It was going to go bad real quick and I was stuck in the center of the storm.

Whitey and the redheaded officer spoke at the same time.

“Three.”

Hands still on his head, Whitey kept moving towards them, almost as if he were out for a leisurely stroll. He closed the distance quickly, only a few feet away from the patrol cars. Cursing, the cops opened fire. The redhead shot first, and the others followed his lead, squeezing the triggers. Their pistols spat smoke and flame. The noise was overwhelming. Whitey jerked and stumbled as the bullets tore through him. As I watched, exit wounds appeared on his back. Gore splattered the ground—and me. Screaming, I scurried backwards like a crab. Whitey lurched over, clutching his stomach. Then he straightened up again and continued forward. His hands were slick and red. Even though his back was to me, I was sure that Whitey was still smiling. I could see it reflected in the policemen’s horrified expressions. Their screams matched my own.

Whitey crossed the distance between them in four quick strides. The cops fired another volley. I counted eight shots, and saw the bullets exit the Russian’s body, saw them tear and rip and shred. Saw entire portions of his torso get obliterated. The damage didn’t slow him. Before the officers could fire again, Whitey fell upon them. He kicked the open car door, knocking Collins backward. The rookie careened off the car and fell on his ass. Whitey grabbed Bakken’s pistol. The weapon discharged inches away from his chest. Whitey wrestled it free from the older cop and then turned it on him, shooting Bakken in the chest. Unlike Whitey, the cop stayed down. Blood bubbles popped on Bakken’s chest as he struggled to breathe. Collins gaped. The redhead and the other cop opened fire again. Whitey’s laughter was louder than the gunshots.

Taking advantage of the confusion, I fled before I could see anything else. More police sirens echoed across the industrial park, audible above the screams and gunshots. I heard a helicopter whirring overhead, and the sky grew dark. A shadow passed over me. I looked up and saw a flash of light from the side of the chopper. A second later, I heard the rifle crack. The helicopter swooped lower, kicking up mini-tornadoes of dirt and dust. The engine whined. A police sniper leaned out of the side, clutching a rifle. I glanced back one more time at Whitey and the police. The cops’ uniforms were as red as Whitey’s clothes now. He was repeatedly slamming the car door shut on Collins’ head. There was a loud crack, and blood streamed down the young cop’s face. Mercifully, it looked like the rookie was already unconscious.

I envied him.

Even though it hurt like crazy, I ran towards the deserted building where Sondra was hiding. Turned out it was an old machine shop. The door was boarded up but one of the windows was broken—probably by Sondra. Shards of glass littered the ground around it. I huddled against the wall, my body wracked with pain.

The sniper perched in the helicopter fired again. Plumes of dirt sprang up around Whitey’s feet as the bullets plowed into the ground. For a specially trained police marksman, the guy was a lousy fucking shot. Either that, or Whitey had the reflexes of a ninja. I couldn’t hear the gunfire. The whirring chopper blades drowned out all other sound—except for the dying men’s screams.

I climbed through the broken window, careful not to cut myself. The cops had their hands full with Whitey, but even if they had seen me duck inside, I no longer gave a shit. My body was in agony, and each movement brought a fresh bout of pain. My neck, back, shoulders, arms and legs throbbed. I remembered the sound my neck had made when Whitey was stomping me. Maybe I should stop moving before I fucked myself up worse. Didn’t they say you weren’t supposed to move accident victims? What if I paralyzed myself? But if I did, then I wouldn’t be able to feel anything, and that would be okay. A painless existence seemed preferable at that moment. My blistered scalp tingled like someone was jabbing pins into my head. My ears still hummed. The pain was almost unbearable, and even as I forced myself forward, I really just wanted to lay down and die.

I wondered if Whitey ever wished for the same thing, and if so, how I could make that dream come true for him.

eighteen

I stood there in the wreckage of the abandoned machine shop and tried not to pass out. The room seemed like it was moving, almost as if the building were a living, breathing thing. The walls rolled like the tide. I felt weak and dizzy, and even though it was chilly inside the machine shop, I was covered in sweat. It ran into my eyes, stinging them and further blurring my vision. I reached out and steadied myself against the side of a metal shelving unit. My legs tingled. Slowly, I eased myself to the floor and closed my eyes.

Outside, the battle continued, but the gunshots and screams were distant things that didn’t affect me. I knew I should run, knew that I should find Sondra and get away—or at least get some answers—but I just didn’t care anymore. Gasping for breath, I realized that I was going into shock again. This was the second time in less than twenty-four hours. No wonder my body was rebelling against me. I didn’t like me very much right now either.

Jesse, Darryl and Yul were dead. I would never see them at work again. I’d never drink a beer or watch the World Series with them. We’d never listen to the new Mastodon disc together. We’d never tell each other jokes. Never again would Darryl bitch about his ex-wife. Jesse would never see another naked woman. Yul would never get to tell Kim that he loved her. They were gone. Dead. So were a bunch of innocent cops—slaughtered in the line of duty by some Russian fuck who could still walk around despite the fact that half his brains had been blown out the back of his fucking head. They were all dead, just like my friends.

All because of some fucked up bullshit.

All because of Sondra.

That bitch.

I hated it when men referred to women as bitches. Didn’t like it when I heard it at work or in a bar. Didn’t care for it in my music. Thought it was misogynistic crap that ought to be abolished along with racism and homophobia. But despite my feelings on the term, I thought it about Sondra now, because that’s what she was.

Her lies burned like my scalp.

My vision cleared, and so did my head. I focused on my anger. It kept me strong. Kept me going. Gave me a purpose and reason to live. Then that feeling gave way to fear again.

Something exploded outside, and the entire machine shop quaked. Broken light fixtures swayed back and forth. Huge chunks of yellowed plaster fell from the cracked ceiling. Glass shattered, spraying across the floor. Whatever it was that exploded, it had been big. The helicopter, maybe, or one of the police cars? I heard flames crackling outside, and smelled burning fuel. The tremors continued, rocking the shelving unit I was sitting against, showering me with dust. I sneezed, spraying blood from the hole where my tooth had been. Wisps of black smoke drifted through the broken windows.

Sondra…

The physical pain was nothing compared that what I felt inside. The emotional hurt and betrayal. All of this had been her fault. Because of her lies.

I’d only been trying to help. But what was the old saying? No good deed goes unpunished? I’d been punished—in spades. I’d let my little head do the thinking for my big head, and in the end, a lot of innocent people had paid the price for my stupidity. For my needs.

I’d been lonely. Then Sondra came into my life and I wasn’t lonely anymore.

And now, here I was by myself again, lonelier than ever before. Abandoned and forgotten, just like this building. Falling apart. Friendless. Women come and go, but your friends are always there, standing beside you through thick and thin.

Until a woman comes between you and them.

Yeah, maybe a lot of this was Sondra’s fault. Maybe she was guilty.

But so was I.

That was the worst pain of all.

I closed my eyes and shivered, waiting for the world to stop. Waiting for the cops to arrest me or for Whitey to find me and put me out of my misery. I didn’t care which, as long as it took the hurt away.

Suddenly, I felt warm breath on my face. Cool hands brushed against my forehead and stroked my cheeks, fluttering like butterflies. Fingers felt my neck. Then they were gone. I heard rustling movement to my right and smelled perfume—a familiar fragrance. I slowly opened my eyes. Sondra was crouched at my side, peering out the window at Whitey’s confrontation with the police. Her expression told me all I needed to know about how the cops were faring.

“Hey.” My voice was raspy. I tried to say more, but I couldn’t. Considering how I felt, that single word was like Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Sondra scurried away from me, her eyes wide and shocked.

“Larry,” she gasped, “you are not dead?”

“No.” Blood dribbled down my chin.

“I think you were dead.”

“Not yet.”

She glanced toward the window. “Whitey is not dead, too.”

I struggled to sit up. “Imagine that.”

“We go now,” she whispered. “Get away before they find us. You can stand, yes?”

“No, I doubt it.”

She moved towards me. “I will help.”

“Don’t bother.” I paused, taking a deep, painful breath. “And stop fronting.”

“What is ‘fronting’? I no understand.”

“You understand more than you let on. You know what fronting is. It means stop with the bullshit. Stop with the lies. You don’t give a damn about me or anyone else, so save the phony concern for one of your johns.”

Sondra flinched as if I’d slapped her. Despite my pain, I grinned. It felt good, hurting her that way after all she’d done to me.

“Larry, you are injured. You not know what you say.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying, you fucking whore. You lied to me, and my friends are dead as a result. You strung me along from the moment Darryl and I found you hiding beneath my car. We should have fucking left you there when we had the chance.”

“Nyet.”

“Nyet,” I mocked. “Nyet, nyet, nyet… speak fucking English or die, bitch! You think your hero, Jennifer fucking Aniston, talks like that? Do you think she walks around all day saying, ‘Nyet’? Hell, no. You’re in America. Learn the goddamn language. Half the time you make sense and the rest of the time you sound like a fucking retard.”

A single tear rolled down Sondra’s cheek. She didn’t speak, didn’t utter a sound—just stared at me with those shocked, wounded eyes. I watched the tear slide down her face and fall to the floor. It seemed to take an eternity. Something dark twisted inside of me. I wanted to hurt her the same way she’d hurt me. I wanted more tears. One simply wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even close.

“You are like all the others,” she said. “You are a bad man.”

Then I got my wish. The first tear was followed by more. The floodgates opened and tears streamed down her cheeks. Sondra buried her face in her hands and wept.

For a second, I felt guilty about what I’d said, but then I remembered how Darryl had looked, lying on my kitchen floor, and what Yul had sounded like, breathing his last breath. The darkness swelled inside of me, eating away at my guilt and replacing it with a grim sort of satisfaction. Steeling my resolve, I sat up the rest of the way and took another deep breath.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it Sondra? But you know what hurts worse? You know what’s really eating at me? That I’m guilty, too. That I let you do this to me.”

There was another explosion outside, followed by more shouts and emergency sirens. Radios squawked and flames crackled. More smoke poured into the machine shop. Even inside, we could feel the heat. The single shot gunfire was joined by the concussive buzz of automatic weapons, which meant that the York County Quick Response Unit was on hand—complete with body armor and grenades and hostage negotiators. They even had a remote-controlled robot that was capable of storming the building all by itself. I’d seen it on the news once, when they used it during a bank robbery. The robot could end this whole thing very quickly.

Unless, of course, Whitey had fucked the robot up, too.

“Larry,” Sondra sobbed. “Is not so. I thought you and I were to be special. We were—”

“Don’t pretend you care about me,” I interrupted. “The only reason you came down here was because you wanted a better look at what was happening outside. You said it yourself. You thought I was dead. You don’t give a shit about me. Admit it.”

Sondra shook her head. Her face glistened with tears.

“Is not true. I care very much for you.”

“Oh yeah? Is that why you lied to me? You always lie to the people you care about?”

“I no lie.”

“Then where’s the fucking money you stole from Whitey? Huh? Forget to tell me about that? And why’d you tell me you didn’t know who your baby’s father was, when all along you knew it was him?”

“Da. I knew it was Whitey. But I not let him kill baby. So I get away. I tell you this before. Is not lie.”

“Bullshit. Whitey told me what was really going on. He said that you were the one who wants to kill the baby. He was trying to stop you from getting an abortion. Now, I’m a pro-choice guy, but still…you should have just told me the truth.”

“I did tell truth,” she insisted. “Yes, I should have been honest. Should have told you Whitey was father. But I not lie when I say he want to kill baby. Whitey do. He want to kill baby very bad. He needs to. Especially now.”

Testing my strength, I crawled away from the shelving unit. Every muscle cried out from the strain, but I didn’t pass out, so I continued. The smoke made my eyes water. I wondered if the machine shop could catch on fire. The walls were cinderblock, but what about the rest?

“You must believe,” Sondra said. “Whitey will hurt baby now more than ever.”

“What do you mean?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Why the urgency?”

“Whitey needs the baby. Needs something inside it. Just like Rasputin did. There is secret to their powers. There is reason why Rasputin have so many children. Reason why many were kept secret.”

“What?”

“To… how you say? To grow again? Re something…”

“To grow again—you mean regenerate?”

“Da, that is word. To do that, Whitey needs stem. So did Rasputin.”

“Stem?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

“Da. Stem. They must come from his bloodline.”

Outside, the violence intensified. A stray round punched through the cinderblock wall just a few feet away from us. Sondra screamed.

“Come on.” I grabbed her arm. “Let’s get the hell out of the way before you catch a bullet. I want to hear the rest.”

“And then?”

“Who cares? You’re on your own. I don’t give a shit what happens to you after that.”

“Is not true.”

“Try me.”

Still crouched, we made our way to the center of the room

“We must get out of building,” Sondra said. “Must get away!”

“Not until you finish telling me what the fuck is going on.”

“But we will be killed!”

“Fine by me. Perfect end to a perfect fucking day.”

Crawling across the dirty concrete floor, we avoided broken glass and rusty screws. The machine shop was a mess, even worse than the warehouse had been. Piles of junk and debris lay everywhere. It was murky, but not dark. Enough daylight came through the broken windows and holes in the roof, so we could see pretty well. There were signs of water damage on the ceiling, and pools of sludgy, oily water covered the floor. The oil slicks glittered like rainbows on the surface of the puddles. Black mold clung to the walls and pipes.

We made it to the center of the room. Behind us came the sound of breaking glass as another window was shot out. I searched the room and saw a gray door at the rear of the building. A greasy, broken sign above it advised us that safety goggles and hearing protection must be worn at all times beyond that point. I giggled at the warning. Too late. My hearing might already be fucked and goggles weren’t going to offer much protection against Whitey. The sound of my laughter scared me. It must have frightened Sondra too, judging by her expression. She wasn’t crying anymore. Instead, she looked terrified.

“Come on.” I tottered to my feet, pulling her up with me. “There’s a door over there.”

“You can walk?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out together.”

A third bullet crashed through the wall, ricocheting around the machine shop. Shouting, we both ducked low and waited for it to pass.

“Yeah,” I said when the coast was clear. “I think I’ll manage.”

The doorknob was greasy and slick, but it turned in my hands, unlocked. I hurried Sondra through the doorway.

“Do not push, Larry. You are hurting me.”

“Then we’re even. You hurt me, too.”

I closed the door behind us and then looked around. We were in another empty room, this one darker than the first. There were only a few windows, and all of them were boarded over with thick sheets of plywood or painted shut with black paint. The only source of illumination was from a single dirty skylight. A row of tool benches and work stations lined one wall. Brackets were drilled into the floor at various points, indicating where machines had once been—die presses, drills, vices, and who knew what else. A patch of sawdust covered one section of floor, the remnants of an ancient oil spill. Little piles of mouse shit and dangling spider webs filled the corners. We could still hear the chaos outside, but with the door closed, it was muffled. At the back of the room was a dark, narrow hallway and a stairway leading down to a basement level.

My head started to throb again, and the pain swept back into my joints and muscles. The hole where my tooth had been was starting to clot, but my mouth tasted salty and felt like it was coated with slime. Leaning against the door, I slid to my knees. Sondra crouched next to me. She reached for my cheek but I brushed her away. Her face saddened again.

“You are angry.”

“Goddamn right I am.”

“But I tell you truth. Whitey is to harm my baby. What am I supposed to do? To let him eat stem?”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Sondra. What the hell is this stem?”

“He needs them from the baby.”

“Needs what?”

“The stems. You know, like your President Bush?”

I sighed in frustration. “You’re making less sense than before. What does that idiot Dubya have to do with this?”

“Your President say nyet to them. He sign bill that say no using stems to make people better when they are sick.”

“A bill that… stem cells? Do you mean stem cells?”

“Da!” She clapped her hands together. “Stem cells. That is what I tell you. Whitey needs them. That is why he wants to kill baby. To eat.”

“H-he…Whitey wants to eat your baby?”

“Not whole baby. Just the stem cells. He eat them and his body use them to fix itself. This is how he is able to keep living when he is hurt. Was same way with Rasputin. Can take a lot of hurt. Lot of damage. But needed stem cells to keep alive after that. Is how Rasputin stayed alive for so long. When he was finally put in river, he drowned. But maybe he drown only because he have no stem cells to eat.”

I clenched my jaw, disgusted by what she was saying. My fingernails dug into my palms, drawing blood. It was a minor pain compared to the rest.

“How do you know all this? Did Whitey tell you?”

“Not all. Some is old rumor in my country. Some Whitey tell.”

“Can’t they find another source? Does it have to be from their own…” My voice trailed away. I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Sondra shrugged. “I do not know. Some say the stem cells could come from anyone, but Whitey seem convinced it had to be from his baby.”

“Jesus Christ.” I swept my hand through my hair and sighed. “So let me get this straight. We’re talking about cannibalism here. Some real Jeffery Dahmer-style shit. Whitey is the descendant of some mutant freak of fucking evolution who needs to eat stem cells straight from babies in order to regenerate after they’ve been mortally wounded? And apparently, it can’t just be any baby. Oh, no. It needs to be their own flesh and blood, too. Is that right? Am I missing anything? Are you sure there isn’t something else you’re leaving out? Blood fucking sacrifice or eye of newt or toe of bat? Some bullshit like that? Maybe after he’s done eating babies, Whitey needs to cap dinner off with the blood of a young virgin?”

“See? You are angry with me again.”

“You’re god damn right I’m angry with you, Sondra. Listen to what you’re saying. Whitey wants to eat your baby!”

“This is why I no tell you everything before.”

“And look what’s happened because of that. Look at the fine fucking mess we’re in.”

Scowling, Sondra jumped to her feet.

“I go now.”

“Go?” I snorted. “Where are you gonna go? What, you planning on walking out into that firefight? Gonna let the cops bust you or let Whitey get his hands on you? You’re not going anywhere. You and the baby would both be dead the moment you stepped outside.”

She turned away from me, nose in the air, and headed for the hallway. I reached for her, but I was still slightly dizzy, and I missed. Groaning, I forced myself to my feet and stumbled after her. The room spun. Sondra glanced back at me.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re not finished here, Sondra. Not by a long shot”

Turning her back to me again, she continued towards the hallway.

“You’re not leaving,” I mumbled.

“Da,” she said without looking back. “I am.”

“What about the money you stole? We gonna talk about that? Want to tell me where you hid it? Or do you want to lie to me some more?”

She stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Oh, yeah,” I whispered. “Go ahead and lie, Sondra. I noticed that you didn’t answer before. You ducked the question. Well, guess what? Whitey told me all about the money. And you know what’s really fucked up? At least he was honest with me about it, even while he was trying to kill me. Can’t say the same for you.”

“Your words. The things you are saying. They are very cruel. I was being wrong.”

I took a faltering step towards her. “About what?”

“About you, Larry. You are a bad man, just like others. Maybe worse.”

“Yeah,” I sneered. “That’s right. I’m just as bad as all the other men in your life. Sell that shit to someone else. I’m nothing like your Dad or the men on that ship or these mob fuckers. I didn’t beat you or rape you or force you to do things you didn’t want to do. All I tried to do was help you. And I got shit on and lied to for it. Why?”

I was aware of the pleading, whining tone in my voice, and of the fact that I was beginning to repeat myself, but I couldn’t help it either. I hated how I sounded, but couldn’t seem to stop. It was like my mouth had decided it didn’t like what the rest of me was doing, and had decided to take over on its own.

Sondra was silent for a moment. Her shoulders were slumped and she was breathing heavy. I couldn’t tell if she was crying, sighing, or just out of breath. She still hadn’t turned around, still wouldn’t face me. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper and I had to strain to hear her.

“I know not about any money. If Whitey tell you I take his money, then Whitey lie. If I had money, I would tell you.”

I stared at her, not speaking. The wave of dizziness had passed again and I felt my strength returning. I took another step towards her. When I didn’t fall down, I took another. As the ringing in my ears faded, it occurred to me that the gunshots had stopped. It was quiet outside. No explosions or helicopters or men screaming. The air still smelled of smoke, though. In fact, the smoke was getting thicker.

“We’ll finish this later.”

“You no believe me?”

“It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s head into the back and see if we can’t find another way out of here—or at least a place to hide.”

“Why?”

“Listen. You hear that?”

Sondra cocked her head. “Nyet, I hear nothing.”

“Exactly. My guess is that Whitey won, which means he’ll be coming after us next.”

“Are you…okay to fight him?”

“Sondra, my body feels like I’ve gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson.”

“Who?”

“Mike Tyson. A real bad motor-scooter. A world champion boxer.”

“He owns motorcycle? He can help us to get away?”

“Never mind. It’s not important. What is important is that we stop talking and get the hell out of here right now.”

I studied the door we’d come in through, the one that led out to the front of the machine shop. It could only be locked with a key, so we were shit out of luck as far as that went. A quick search of the room showed no junk heavy or big enough to block the door with, either. Worse, with the machines and equipment gone, there was nowhere to hide, and the tool benches were empty—nothing there that we could use to defend ourselves.

“Shit,” I said. “Come on.”

Without thinking about it, I took her by the hand and led her towards the dark hallway. She squeezed my fingers. I squeezed back.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “About before. I shouldn’t have said all that. I feel like a real asshole.”

“Is okay, Larry. We are both…how you say? Having a bad day?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you can say that again.”

“We are having a bad day?”

This time I laughed. “You’re something else, Sondra Belov.”

“As are you, Larry Gibson. And I was wrong, too.”

“About what?”

“When I say you are like other men, I was wrong. You are not like them. If they say mean things, they not apologize. You do. You say you are sorry.”

“Well, I am. And I do apologize. I shouldn’t have said all that.”

“Once we get out of here, you buy me big dinner and we make it up to each other after—in bedroom. Does this sound good?”

“Sound good? It sounds great. Especially the bedroom part.”

Smiling, Sondra squeezed my hand again. Suddenly, it was like falling for her all over again. Even after everything that had happened, her smile—that perfect, beautiful smile—had complete power over me.

And that was all that it took to suck me back in.

I no longer felt pain. No longer felt betrayed.

Instead, I felt hope.

Women will do that to you—make you feel things that you shouldn’t.

nineteen

Hand in hand, side by side, we crept into the corridor and let the darkness envelop us. The hallway wasn’t much to look at. From what little I could see, it was in the same run-down condition as the rest of the machine shop. The pitted, brown floor tiles were warped and peeling up around their corners, revealing the grimy, dried paste beneath. The cinderblock walls were cracked and covered with mold. Once our eyes had adjusted to the gloom, we were able to see that the corridor didn’t go far. On the left side of the hallway was an old time clock, along with an empty rack where employees had once kept their timecards. The clock hands were forever stopped at three in the afternoon. Quitting time.

The right-hand side of the hallway had three doors. Two of them led into the men’s and women’s bathrooms. We explored those first. Both restrooms were empty of their fixtures. Exposed PVC plumbing stuck out of the walls and up from the floors. The copper pipes had long since been plundered. The walls were covered with fading graffiti. Most of it looked like it had been written a decade ago, referencing politicians and pop culture who were no longer relevant. The crude slogans reminded me of the men’s room at the Odessa, right before we’d found Sondra hiding beneath my Jeep. Already, that seemed like a million years ago. I suddenly felt old and weary. Not tired. Not exhausted. Fucking weary.

The smoke was tangible now. I still didn’t know what was on fire, but I didn’t think it was the building. The air tasted like soot. I wondered how much longer we could breathe it. My eyes and nose were starting to burn.

“Come on,” I said. “No luck here.”

The third door opened into a break room. There were some round tables and a few chairs, none of which looked safe to sit on. Three dusty vending machines stood against the wall, one for soda and two for candy and junk food. All of them were empty of their contents, but otherwise seemed to be in decent shape. I wondered why the vending machine company would just leave the machines here, and decided that maybe they hadn’t. Perhaps the machine shop had owned them instead. An old bulletin board hung on the wall, clinging precariously by one remaining hinge. The board’s cork was slashed and torn in some spots. Yellowed bulletins were still pegged to it—OSHA and MSDS procedures, safety regulations, policies for Equal Opportunity hiring and sexual harassment. All were things that no longer mattered to the men and women who had once worked here. With luck, those employees had gone on to other jobs after the machine shop shut down, and had new OSHA procedures and safety regulations to follow. The alternative was as depressing as our dismal surroundings. Unemployment in early twenty-first century America—a living death in a world where even the telemarketing jobs had gone overseas and the only work you could get was through a temp agency. No room for pride or dignity or a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage. The stock market rose in direct relation to your fall. You were better off dead.

But I wasn’t ready to die yet. I still had a job, hopefully. At this point, it was the only thing I still had going for me. That—and Webster, if Animal Control or the landlord hadn’t taken him after the shootings. I suddenly missed my cat very much, and wondered what he was doing right now. Was he hiding in the apartment, watching the CSI guys and wondering when I’d be home? Was Webster hissing at them in annoyance, demanding that the intruders at least have the courtesy to feed him before they left?

My sigh was heavy. So was my heart.

“What is wrong?” Sondra asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking.”

There were no windows in either of the bathrooms or the break room, and no exit doors either. There was no way out, except maybe through the basement. I figured the chances were good that there were no exits from there, as well. We were trapped.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I don’t know what to do.”

Sondra suddenly grabbed my arm. Her long fingernails dug into my skin.

“Ouch,” I cried. “What the hell is that for?”

“Listen,” she whispered. “I think I hear something. A footstep?”

I held my breath and listened. My ears weren’t ringing at all anymore, but there was no sound. If the cops had stormed the building, we’d have known they were there. The silence meant that we were faced with the alternative.

Whitey was coming.

Thinking quickly, I took Sondra by the hand and led her behind the soda machine. It stuck out from the wall, leaving a narrow crevice wide enough for both of us to squeeze into. Sondra’s breasts and my belly both pushed against the back of the machine. It was a tight fit, but we made it. The space between it and the wall was filled with dirt and spider webs. I held my breath, trying not to sneeze when the dust tickled my nose. The soda machine’s power cord had been cut, exposing naked wires. I hoped they weren’t live. It would really suck to get electrocuted before Whitey could kill us himself.

Out in the machine shop, the back room’s door crashed open. We heard it slam against the wall. Sondra jumped. I reached down and squeezed her hand again, making sure she stayed silent. I waited for someone to shout, ‘Police!’ and listened for the sounds of radio static, but instead, there were only footsteps. Familiar footsteps. Calm, slow, assured footsteps. The sound of nice dress shoes on concrete. A sound that filled me with dread and resignation. The sound of death.

We stayed motionless, barely breathing, and listened as the footsteps came closer. Whitey searched the back room and then entered the hallway. His footsteps stopped for a moment. I imagined him standing there, staring into the darkness, grinning. Could he smell us? Smell the blood on our clothes? Smell our fear? I remembered what he’d said to Sondra when we were hiding with Yul in the warehouse—that he could tell where she was hiding, that he could sense her baby. I’d chalked it up to bullshit at the time. Figured it was just an attempt to psyche us out, force us to reveal our location. But now, knowing what I did, I wasn’t so sure.

I’d never believed in the supernatural. Well, not completely anyway. Pennsylvania Dutch powwow magic and Appalachian folk healing were one thing. Demons and monsters and psychic powers were something else entirely. Powwow, when you boiled it down, was nothing more than herbs and alternative medicine, combined with a little bit of good old-fashioned religion. Some of the ingredients in your average powwow spell were also available at the local health food boutique or in the organic aisle at the grocery store. Monsters and things that go bump in the night—they weren’t so easily explainable or obtainable. They had no root in reality. I didn’t encounter them on a daily basis, therefore, they didn’t exist. But despite my feelings and my disbelief, a monster walked among us. A corpse, fueled by hatred or obsession or something else, that wouldn’t stop until we were dead. I’d seen the proof with my own eyes. Call him a zombie, call him possessed, call him whatever the hell you wanted to, but the fact remained that Whitey Putin was still stalking us when all laws of medicine, science, and simple fucking logic dictated that he should be lying down dead.

If Whitey had the superhuman ability to do those things—to stay alive with half of his head blown off, to slaughter policemen while they pumped him full of lead, to survive blood loss and mutilation and major organ damage—then why couldn’t he sense the baby? Why couldn’t he track us through the seed he’d planted in Sondra’s belly? It made sense. Supposedly, he needed those stem cells. Maybe they called to him, pulling at him the same way that Sondra had pulled at me all those long, lonely nights when I’d watched her on stage.

The footsteps slowly came down the hall. The men’s room door squeaked open. We heard it swing back and forth on its rusty hinges. The footsteps echoed as Whitey searched the bathroom. Then he entered the hallway again and did the same with the women’s restroom. When he was finished searching, he came out into the hallway once more. The footsteps stopped at the break room door.

Fear is an amazing thing. It coursed through me then, but all of my pain was gone. I felt totally alive—if only because death was so close.

“I have a gun,” Whitey said. “I took it from one of the policemen outside. I do not think he will mind, since he is currently on fire. Actually, I’m sure he’s nothing but ashes by now. What is the American saying? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust? Somewhat appropriate, don’t you think?”

I shivered. The sweat on my arms and head felt ice cold. Beside me, Sondra trembled. She let go of my fingers and put her hands over her belly.

“In any case,” Whitey continued, “he won’t be needing the gun anymore. It’s a very nice weapon. Very powerful. Of course, it won’t do much to me, but on the two of you, I think the results will be quite spectacular.”

He stepped into the break room. I peered through the space between the machines. I couldn’t see all of him, but what I did see wasn’t very pretty. His bloodstained clothes were burned and tattered. Entire chunks of flesh were missing from his torso, limbs, and face. The tip of his nose was gone and one of his fingers had been severed. Both were probably lying out in the parking lot somewhere, just waiting for a bird to swoop down and pluck them up. One of his eyes was red. A hole in Whitey’s belly provided a gruesome kaleidoscope of colors—purple and white and black and more red. Lots and lots of red.

Whitey clutched a police revolver in his right hand, tapping it aimlessly against his hip. He stopped beside one of the tables and pulled out a rickety chair. The legs squeaked on the tiles, and the chair creaked as he eased into it. He crossed one leg over the other and pointed the handgun at the vending machines. I wondered if he could see our feet, but then decided that it didn’t really matter. There was no doubt he knew exactly where we were hiding, or at least had a close proximity, just like before.

I heard the distant wail of sirens again. Another wave of cops and emergency personnel were probably descending on our location. This time they’d take no chances. They would hit this building with everything they had. Problem was, Sondra and I would most likely be dead before then.

Of course, judging by the amount of smoke that was beginning to drift into the break room, we’d all burn to death first.

“So,” Whitey said, “I have seen what this weapon does on flesh. I wonder what it can do with these machines?”

He pointed the pistol at the first vending machine and pulled the trigger. Sondra’s scream was lost beneath the report. The bullet slammed into the vending machine, rocking it back and forth, and then ploughed through the back, embedding itself in the wall just a few feet from where we stood. The vending machine wobbled a few more times and then was still.

They’re not bolted to the floor, I thought. The fucking things are sitting here loose!

And that was when I came up with a plan. It wasn’t a good plan. In fact, it probably wouldn’t work. But it was certainly better than the alternative.

“Hmmm.” Whitey stood up and walked towards us. “That was interesting, wasn’t it? Judging from the sound—and Sondra’s scream—the bullet must have traveled completely through the machine. Amazing, really. I wonder what the effect would be at point blank range?”

He placed the barrel of the handgun against the second vending machine’s glass front. Then he pulled the trigger again. The results were the same as the first, but the damage to this machine was much more severe. The unit rocked back and forth, just like the other had done. This time, Sondra and I both screamed. Sondra began pleading with him in Russian, presumably begging for our lives. Instead of answering her, Whitey just laughed.

“I have many bullets left.” Whitey now stood directly in front of our soda machine. He placed the gun against it. His breathing was harsh and ragged. I wondered how much of his lungs were left.

Sondra cried out again in her native tongue. Whitey ignored her.

“We have seen what one bullet does to these machines. I wonder what would happen if I used all of my bullets? Are you ready to find out?”

“Please!” Sondra switched to English. “Please Whitey, do not kill us. Is way we can work this out. I know things. I can tell you. Valentin and Alimzhan have been stealing money from you. Cherney and Ludwig deal drugs on side, and not give you cut. Buy them from black man on Queen Street. You see no money from this.”

“You are much better at sucking dick than you are at begging, whore. I am completely aware of everything that transpires within my organization. Valentin and Alimzhan have already been dealt with. Cherney and Ludwig have children at home. If they need extra money, why do I care if they take a second job? As long as it doesn’t impact me, then I am all for it.”

“But you have killed others for this…”

“And perhaps I will kill Cherney and Ludwig, as well. Perhaps I will have them shot in the head—order their corpses to be disposed of in LeHorn’s Hollow or some other suitable place. But that is not your concern, Sondra. You should be worried about the fact that I’m going to kill you first.”

“We can work something out,” Sondra repeated. “Please. I tell you anything you want to know. The building is on fire, Whitey. You will burn with us.”

“The smoke is from the burning police cars outside, and there is nothing to work out. I’m going to kill you both, and then I am going to slice open your belly with a piece of sharp metal from this very machine. I will cut out our child and rip it open with my teeth.”

I shuddered, grinding my teeth together and re-opening the wound in my mouth. The taste of blood made my stomach sick.

“Ah,” Whitey sighed. “There is nothing quite like it in the world. To sink your teeth into soft flesh, to ingest what you need, feel it working inside of you, the power it brings coursing through your veins. It is too bad you are not one of us, Mr. Gibson. You have fought well today. Your valor is to be commended.”

“One of you?” I no longer saw the point in staying quiet. “You mean one of the Kwan?”

“The Kwan?” Whitey sounded surprised.

“Yeah, that’s right, fucker. Sondra told me all about it. She said you were one of them. That you guys secretly control the world.”

Since he was standing directly in front of the soda machine, I couldn’t see Whitey. I only had a glimpse of his arm. But judging by how it was shaking, I guessed that he was silently laughing at me.

“You think I am one of the Kwan? Oh, Mr. Gibson, you are entertaining, at the very least. If I didn’t know better, I would take your misconception as an insult. Earlier, I said you were smart. I was wrong. You know nothing. The Kwan are a bunch of feeble old men, playing at magic and clinging to fairy tales. Pretenders. They wield no power. No real power, anyway.”

He tapped the gun against the machine.

“This is where real power stems from, Mr. Gibson—the barrel of a gun. In that way, perhaps I am indeed like the Kwan. They spread hate and discontent, because they tend to learn more during times of upheaval and chaos, as this is when mankind is at its most creative. The Kwan want to bring about the end of time, just so they can see what happens next.”

“And that’s you?”

“Mankind desires peace and order, but real power comes only from revolution. Violence and fear are its tools. I am filled with both. I deal both, and thus, I wield power against which no man can stand. So yes, in that way, I am like the Kwan. But they have no hold over my kind.”

“You all sound like a bunch of nuts to me,” I taunted. “Call it the Kwan or the mob or whatever the fuck you want—it’s all shit.”

“I told you, Mr. Gibson, I am not a member of the Kwan. I spit on them. They are just babes. I belong to a much older line.”

“Rasputin ain’t that old, Whitey. He’s not exactly ancient history.”

“My ancestor was but one link in a very long chain. We are very, very old. My kind have always been here, and we always will be. We live for a long time.”

“And all you gotta do is eat a baby once in a while, you sick fuck.”

“And why not, if that is what it takes? This planet belongs to us, not to you homo-sapiens. We are homo-superior.”

“That’s funny. I figured you for a homo just like the rest of us.”

“A little joke from a little man. Are those really your final words, Mr. Gibson?”

I placed my palms against the back of the soda machine. “No, my last words would be, ‘go Steelers’.”

Sondra stared at me in confusion. I winked at her and then nodded at the machine, silently urging her to do the same as me. Hesitant, she shifted position and put her hands on it.

‘Get ready,’ I silently mouthed.

She nodded in understanding.

“So be it.” Whitey pointed the gun at the soda machine again. “I’ll kill you both, root through my offspring and partake, and then—refreshed—I’ll deal with the rest of the policemen. After that, I think I should get away for a while. It occurs to me that a vacation is in order. Perhaps I shall return to my homeland. Sondra, I’ll be sure to deliver your regards to your family.”

“Leave my family alone.”

“Now,” I shouted, pressing against the back of the machine. “Do it!”

Sondra pushed with all she had. The muscles stood out in her neck and arms, pulling taut like cables. My shoulders, back and neck erupted in agony, but I didn’t care. The machine wobbled. The gun went off. Sondra shrieked. I shoved harder. Whitey fired a second shot.

“Push, Sondra!”

With a loud groan, the soda machine toppled over onto Whitey, crushing him to the floor. His bones snapped with an audible crunch, like twigs underfoot in the forest.

The whole thing felt like it took forever, but in reality, it happened in about five seconds time. I kept expecting Whitey to squeeze the trigger again—to unload his weapon on us. But he didn’t. Maybe we’d surprised him.

Sondra ran around the machine. I stepped on top of it and jumped up and down.

“Like that, you fucker?”

Whitey let out a muffled groan. His arms and legs stuck out from beneath the machine. The pistol was still clutched in his hand. Before he could squeeze the trigger, I jumped to the floor, careful to avoid slipping in the pool of his blood that was spreading out from beneath the wreckage. Sondra and I ran to the break room door. I noticed red streaks on the floor where she stepped.

“Are you hit?”

“No, I not think so.”

“Your foot is bleeding.”

“I step on something sharp and cut it. Is okay. Is not bad.”

“Come on,” I grabbed her hand. “That soda machine won’t hold him for long.”

“Da. It won’t.”

We ran into the darkness.

twenty

We fled down the hallway and back into the deserted machine shop. The room was full of smoke, but I still didn’t see any flames. Most of the building seemed to be made of concrete, so it was possible that it wouldn’t catch on fire. Maybe Whitey had been telling the truth when he said it was just the vehicles that were aflame. The smoke rushed towards us as we entered the room, clinging to our bodies and crawling up our noses and down our parched throats. We dropped to our knees, coughing and gagging. My eyes watered and it was hard to see.

“Is no good,” Sondra choked. “We will not breathe if we are to stay here.”

“You’re right. Let’s see if we can get out the way we came in.”

Sondra shook her head. “Is police there.”

“Not anymore. Whitey killed them all.”

“But more will come?”

“Yeah, I’m sure there are more cops on the way, along with firemen and Quick Response units and who knows what else, but if the fire is keeping them away, we might be able to squeeze past unnoticed.”

“I do not think it will work.”

“Well, if you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”

When she didn’t respond, I crawled towards the first room. After a moment’s hesitation, Sondra followed me. I turned back to her and smiled in encouragement. Both of us were coughing, and snot ran down our faces. We weren’t a pretty sight, but Sondra was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, even in her current condition.

The first room was filled with a cloud of thick, black smoke, hovering just inches from the floor—an almost solid wall that obscured everything else. The sirens were louder here, and even though we couldn’t see, we knew there were a lot of cops and other personnel right outside the building. We heard them shouting to each other.

“So much for that,” I said. “They’ve probably got the fucking place surrounded. Now what?”

“Larry,” Sondra wheezed, “I am feeling sick. My throat…it burns.”

“Smoke inhalation. We need to get lower. Let’s try the basement.”

As we crawled towards the back room again, I noticed that Sondra’s foot had stopped bleeding. The bottom of her sock was red. I started to comment on it when behind us, we heard a series of muffled thumps, followed by a hissing sound. As I looked back, something soared through the smoke and landed on the floor in the main room. It was about the size of a baseball. As it rolled towards us, I saw that it was a grenade.

“Shit! Get down.”

Sondra flattened against the cement and I climbed overtop of her, shielding her body with mine. I squeezed my watering eyes shut and tensed, waiting for the explosion. Waited for the shrapnel. This was it. We were going to die.

But nothing happened.

The hissing grew louder. I opened my eyes. A cloudy substance was leaking out of the grenade, mixing with the smoke. I pulled my bloody shirt up over my mouth and nose, and motioned at Sondra to do the same.

“Gas,” I hissed. “Those motherfuckers gassed us. Head for the stairs and hold your breath as long as you can. Hurry!”

Holding our breath, we made it to the basement stairs. I glanced down the hallway, worried that Whitey might have already freed himself, but the smoke was too heavy and I couldn’t see the break room. My burning lungs felt like they were going to burst. We plunged down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and came out into a basement. The air was clearer, and we stood up, gasping for breath.

“Is dark,” Sondra said. “I can’t see.”

“Our eyes will adjust eventually. I’m betting that the cops are getting ready to storm the building. Keep going, while we still can.”

“You go first, yes?”

“Sure. Take my hand.”

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

We started forward. I went slowly, only able to see a few feet ahead of me. The basement level consisted of a long hallway with multiple doors on either side. The floor was covered with dust. Each door had its designation stenciled on it. We passed by the boiler room, the generator, the electrical room—Shock Hazard, the sign warned us—the pump room, a janitor’s closet, an HVAC room, and several storage areas. At the end of the hallway was a freight elevator. I hadn’t seen the elevator on the floor above us, and figured it must have been hidden behind debris.

“Dead end,” I said, feeling the walls in the darkness. “Can’t go this way.”

The air was still relatively clear, but my eyes were beginning to sting. It was simply a matter of time before the smoke made its way downstairs, bringing the tear gas with it. We reluctantly started back the way we’d come.

“I don’t know what to do,” I apologized. “I’m sorry.”

Sondra started to speak, but Whitey’s sudden and enraged cry cut her off.

“SONDAAAAAAA!!!”

“Oh shit,” I said. “Guess who’s back?”

“Is no guess. Is Whitey.”

There was the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor, followed by a crash that reverberated through the ceiling. Dust fell from the light fixtures, irritating my burned scalp.

“Noh more gamesh,” Whitey shouted. His voice sounded weird. “Noh more tahk. Onlee tym fo killingh nohw, Mishar Gibshon.”

I tried the doors for the boiler room and the electrical room, but they were both locked. Next, I tested the door to the pump room, sighing with relief when I found that it was unlocked. Hurrying, we slipped inside and shut the door behind us. Sondra gasped. With the door closed, it was pitch black in the pump room. I waved my hand in front of my face but couldn’t see it. I felt a sudden surge of hope. Whitey wouldn’t be able to see us either. My excitement fizzled when I remembered that he could apparently track us anyway via some extrasensory connection with the baby. There was nowhere we could hide, not even in total darkness.

Above us, I heard Whitey’s muffled footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Listen,” Sondra whispered.

“I hear him. I’m sorry, Sondra. Get behind me. When he comes in, I’ll bum rush the son of a bitch while you get away.”

“Nyet. Not Whitey. I hear water.”

I tuned out the approaching footsteps and listened, but didn’t hear anything. My hearing was still wavering in and out, but I’d thought it had been improving.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Da. Am positive is water. It sounds like it is beneath us.”

“My hearing must be more fucked up than I thought. Can you find the source?”

I felt her kneel beside me in the darkness and heard her palms slapping at the concrete floor as she explored. Her perfume lingered, faint but reassuringly present. She moved away from me, and even though I could still hear her, I suddenly felt very alone.

“Here,” Sondra cried. “I find a…how you say? Grape?”

“A grape is a fruit. You mean a grate?”

“Da. Grate. Is water beneath.”

“Let me see.”

I dropped to the floor and felt my way over to her. Groping in the darkness, my hands found her shoulders. I followed Sondra’s arms downward, brushing against her breasts, until I felt the grating. It was made out of metal and cold to the touch—probably made of iron or steel, and molded in a checkered mesh pattern. There was definitely water rushing below it—fast, judging by the sound. I slipped my fingers between the squares and pulled. Squeaking, the grate moved a few inches.

“It’s loose,” I whispered. “If the pipe down there is big enough for us to crawl through, we may have a chance.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the sewer. Must run beneath the entire industrial park. I’m hoping the pipes are big ones. They should be, given the amount of stuff that probably flowed through here when these companies were still open.”

“Sewer? Where the poop goes?”

Even though I couldn’t see her face, the disgust in Sondra’s voice was unmistakable.

“Not poop,” I whispered. “At least, not anymore. This whole complex is deserted, just like the two buildings we’ve been in. Nobody flushes their toilets anymore.”

“Then what is the water?”

“I don’t know. Probably run-off from the fire trucks outside. All that water from their hoses probably went down into the drains. If it can get out, then so can we. Now help me lift this damn thing.”

She grabbed hold of the grating and together we lifted it out of the way. The water got louder. So did Whitey’s footsteps. I felt the edges of the hole. It was big enough for us to slide through. Then I spit into the darkness and heard it splash into the stream.

“Not too far of a drop. Ladies first.”

“Larry, I am afraid. You will go first, yes?”

“Elloh,” Whitey called. “Eye ahm comyngh fo eww, lihttul meyz.”

This time I was sure of it. Whitey’s voice had definitely changed. His words were slurred, almost unintelligible. Even so, he still sounded sinister and his intent was clear.

A thunderous crash from upstairs echoed throughout the building. Seconds later, booted feet charged across the floor. The ceiling vibrated. Shouts followed.

“Cops are inside,” I said. “We’ve got to go now.”

I scooted over to the hole and dangled my legs through the opening. Then I turned around and slowly lowered myself down into the sewer. It was shallow enough that my feet touched the bottom while my head and shoulders were still at floor level. I gasped as the cold water rushed into my shoes. The sudden shock cleared my head.

“It’s not deep,” I said. “Come on.”

I moved out of the way and Sondra followed me into the hole. There was a small amount of light in the tunnel—not enough to really see by but enough to let my eyes adjust. I couldn’t find the source. As my vision adjusted, I made out Sondra’s form—a beautiful, slender shadow. When she turned my way, I saw flashes of white from her eyes. Trying to be quiet but quick, I pulled the grating back into place. It wouldn’t stop Whitey, but maybe it would prevent the police from figuring out where we’d gone.

In the darkness, Sondra’s hand found mine. Our fingers intertwined.

“Can you see?” I asked.

“Nyet. Not so much.”

“Then just hold onto my hand and don’t let go.”

The air quality was better in the sewer pipe. The smoke and tear gas hadn’t reached this far and we could breathe freely again. It was stale and humid, and there was a faint hint of rotten eggs, leftover from when the system had been active, but it was a lot fucking better than the atmosphere above us. The corrugated tunnel was broad and round. I could sense the walls, but I couldn’t see them. I let go of Sondra’s hand for a moment and stretched my arms out, but my fingertips barely touched the sides. It wasn’t very high, though, and we had to stoop over as we walked. My head kept brushing up against the ceiling, bringing fresh pain to my blistered scalp. The water was only ankle deep, but it was cold. My feet and toes quickly grew numb. At least I wasn’t barefoot. It would have been much worse had I not been wearing the shoes Yul had given me. I wondered how the icy temperature was affecting Sondra.

I took her hand again. “You okay?”

“Is very cold,” she gasped. “And bottom is slimy. But I will be okay.”

I thought about the cut on her foot. What if it got infected. Who knew what kind of bacteria were down here? I decided not to mention it. We had enough things to worry about.

“Let’s try to keep quiet,” I whispered. “No more talking until we get further ahead.”

The light vanished again, plunging us back into total darkness. We slogged forward, trying to move as silently as possible, taking slow, measured steps so the water wouldn’t splash around our feet. I gripped Sondra’s hand, making sure she stayed close. It sounded like she was limping slightly, one foot dragging through the water. I wondered if she was having flashbacks to the ship again—of being locked inside that pitch black cargo container.

And then I wondered if that had all been a lie, too, and I hated myself for it.

The tunnel ran in a straight line, heading deeper and deeper beneath the abandoned industrial park. The silence and darkness were overwhelming. The quiet was broken only by the running water, my sloshing shoes, and Sondra’s chattering teeth. Otherwise, it was still. Even Whitey seemed to have disappeared, as if the darkness had swallowed him, too. I felt like shouting just to prove that we still existed, that we were still alive, despite the mobster’s best efforts. I longed for some light—a match, a cigarette lighter, even the dim blue glow of a cell phone. Whatever. Just a spark. Anything would be better than this solid wall of black. Moments later, I banged my forehead on an overhanging pipe. Cursing, I wondered how far we could go without being able to see. What if there was a sharp drop-off or we tripped and broke our legs? What if we came to an intersection or a dead end? What then?

I’d never been claustrophobic, but I was at that moment. I felt the weight of the industrial complex crushing down on us. It was suddenly hard to breathe. My chest tightened and my throat constricted. The darkness pressed against me. Something tickled my ankle below the surface and I squeezed Sondra’s hand hard enough to make her cry out.

“What is wrong?”

I didn’t respond. What was down here with us? What was hiding in the dark, watching us even now? Rats, certainly. Wouldn’t be a sewer without some fucking rats. Cockroaches and beetles. Worms, of course, and maybe even leeches. Possums, raccoons, other vermin—rabid or just pissed off that humans were trespassing in their hood. Probably snakes, too. Pennsylvania had water snakes, black snakes, copperheads, rattlers, and harmless little garter snakes. I shuddered, thinking back on Whitey’s story about cutting off the black snake’s head and watching it continue to wriggle. What if one swam right between my legs? I’d never be able to see it in the dark. I’d never been afraid of snakes before, but the darkness has a way of changing your fears.

We needed a light, but none was forthcoming. I tried to figure out how far we’d gone. I hadn’t heard the grating move, but surely Whitey knew where we were. Maybe we’d gone too far to hear it. But if the cops had caught Whitey and entered the sewers, we’d have heard them and seen their flashlight beams. Instead, there was more darkness.

You know the old adage about when you die, you see a bright light at the end of the tunnel? Right then, I would have happily let Whitey shoot me through the head if it meant I’d see that light. Any light would have been better than this—even if it meant finality.

Sondra pulled me to a sudden stop. The water swirled past us. I couldn’t hear her breathing.

“Sondra? What’s—”

“Is something there,” she whispered. “In the dark.”

We stood still, holding our breath. Then I heard it, too. A splash, followed by a soft grunt. The sound faded. The water got colder.

Or maybe it was just me.

I led Sondra onward. We didn’t speak. We didn’t have to. We both knew who it was.

Eventually, I felt a warm draft of air on my face. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it brought the stench of burning fuel with it. I figured we must be beneath the wreckage of the police cars. There was no sign of activity—no sirens or radios or shouting. Maybe we were too far underground to hear them. We continued down the passage, moving faster now. The pipe got bigger, tall enough that we could both stand up without banging our heads. The breeze faded and the cloying dampness returned. Something—a rat, maybe—squeaked in the darkness. I looked around in vain, trying to catch a glimpse, and that was when I saw the light at the end of our tunnel.

Except that it was at the wrong end. It was behind us.

Sondra must have noticed it to, because she drew closer to me. I felt her body press against mine. She was shivering.

Back there in the darkness was a soft, blue glow. It was too faint to be a flashlight and too focused to be a flame. As it drew nearer, I figured out what it was—a cell phone, flipped open to illuminate the way.

“Ew kaht eshkayp,” Whitey called. “Shtop wunnig.”

His bizarre speech patterns were even more distorted as they echoed down the pipe.

Wunnig…nig…nig…

“We must have really fucked you up with that soda machine,” I shouted. “Why don’t you just give it up?”

Up…up…up…

Instead of answering me, Whitey growled. The cell phone’s illumination drew closer. Suddenly, there was a flash of white light. The report followed a second later. The bullet whizzed by us.

“Hit the deck,” I shouted, flinging myself into the water.

Sondra stood there, staring into the darkness. The gunshot reverberated through the pipe.

“Sondra!” I grabbed her leg and yanked her down.

Whitey fired a second shot. The bullet whined overhead, ricocheting off the walls.

“Come on,” I said.

We ran, not caring now about whether anyone could hear us or not. It was pointless. Whitey knew where we were. Maybe we’d get lucky. Maybe the cops would hear the gunshots and storm the sewer. I cast a glance over my shoulder as we fled. He didn’t shoot at us again. Maybe he was out of bullets or trying to save ammunition until he had a clearer target. The cell phone’s glow grew smaller. Whitey was having trouble keeping up.

Then we saw daylight up ahead, streaming down through another sewer grate. Dust particles floated in the beams. Pausing, I stretched, trying to reach the iron bars, but the grate was too high. We ran on, passing more grates along the way. I guessed that we were beyond the industrial park now—maybe running alongside a road or some suburban street. The drains were evenly spaced, probably used for storm run-off.

Our surroundings soon became clearer. The stagnant water wasn’t flowing in this section of pipe, because it had been choked off with garbage. There were leaves, food wrappers, empty bottles, crushed beer cans, cigarette butts, and other blocking the pipe, and a thin layer of rust-colored scum clung to it all. My nose wrinkled in disgust. Then I realized that the surface wasn’t as still as I’d first thought. There was movement in the water. Mosquito larvae wriggled around our feet. Again, I thought of the cut on Sondra’s foot. Something scurried to my right. I turned to see cockroaches scuttling up the curved tunnel walls. Shuddering, I looked behind us again. There was no sign of our pursuer.“We’ve lost him,” I said. “That soda machine must have fucked Whitey up more than we thought. He’s slowing down. If we can keep ahead of him, we might actually make it the fuck out of here alive.”

“He will keep coming,” Sondra moaned. “Even in this condition, he is…what is word? Determined? But he is weak now. Maybe we can kill after all.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, thinking of Rasputin finally succumbing to death when he was trapped beneath the ice, “but I don’t intend to stick around and find out. Let’s keep moving.”

The pipe walls rumbled, sending ripples through the sludge. The cockroaches scurried away. A big truck roared overhead, its tires humming on the asphalt, the motor rumbling.

“We must be under a main road,” I said. “Maybe we’re far enough away that the cops won’t find us. Maybe they’re still searching the machine shop or some of the other abandoned buildings. If so, we might be in luck.”

Sondra’s expression changed from helpless to hopeful. When she spoke, the resignation was gone from her voice.

“What will we do, Larry?”

“First thing,” I told her, “is to find a way out of this fucking sewer. I’m sure by now that the cops know who we are, so they’ll be watching the airlines and shit. But I’ve got some money on me. We can hitch a ride to Harrisburg or York and make it to the Greyhound terminal.”

“Will the bus people not be looking for us, too?”

“We don’t need identification or a credit card to get a ticket. We can pay cash, no questions asked. They don’t give a fuck who we are.”

“They do not check for terrorists?”

“Hell, no. They’re too busy checking little old ladies at the airport.”

She looked doubtful, but said nothing.

“So,” I continued, “we’ll hop a bus and ride out of town—some place where Whitey can never find us. You said it yourself. He’s getting weaker. If we keep running, and he doesn’t get the baby, maybe he’ll just fall down and die. I mean, even Rasputin hadn’t taken the damage that son of a bitch has today. Maybe he’s close to death.”

“That would be nice.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It would.”

The tunnel intersected with several other pipes. All of them varied in size. After a quick debate, we decided to stick to the main passageway. More traffic rumbled by overhead. The sounds and light were getting louder and brighter by the minute.

“To take this bus,” Sondra asked. “Will they not see our clothes?”

I hadn’t thought about that. No way we were getting on a bus or even hitching a ride along the highway with the way we looked. If anything, someone passing by would think we were accident victims and call the cops. We were covered from head to toe in blood and grime—some of it fresh and some of it dried. Sondra was shoeless. I was hairless and blistered and had spent most of the day getting the shit kicked out of me. We looked like hell.

“We’ll steal some clothes,” I said, leading her forward. “Just like we did this morning. Find a stream or a pond and clean ourselves up some. Don’t worry. That’s the least of our problems.”

“Saaaaaahhhhhhnnnnnddddaaaaaa…”

Whitey’s voice was faint, but insistent. He was still back there, still on our trail, following us like a determined beagle tracking a rabbit. He was the hunter and we were the prey.

Yeah. Our appearance really was the least of our problems.

We had more pressing matters to contend with.

I wondered what it would take to put Whitey down once and for all.

How did you kill a man who was death?

twenty-one

Ten minutes later, we came to a vertical shaft. Rusty iron rungs were embedded in the wall, leading to a manhole cover twelve feet over our heads. Thin beams of daylight shone through the small access holes in the lid. I climbed up the ladder. My shoes were wet and I slipped on the rungs a few times, but managed to hold on. When I reached the top, I listened for traffic. I heard a distant ‘Beep Beep Beep’, like the sound a garbage truck makes when its backing up, but that was all.

Looping my left arm around one of the rungs, I pressed against the manhole cover with my arm and shoulder, and shoved. It wasn’t bolted down, but it was heavy as hell. Grunting, I strained with the effort. The pain in my back and neck flared up again, but I ignored it. We hadn’t come this far just to end up trapped because I was too weak. Fuck that shit. I looked down at Sondra. She peered up at me from the bottom of the shaft. Her face was a perfect oval. I’d always thought you had to look towards Heaven to see an angel, but my angel was down the other way. When she smiled at me, I found my strength. I pushed harder and the iron lid slid to the left, revealing more daylight. I blinked, temporarily blinded, and shoved the cover the rest of the way. Then I climbed out of the hole and wiped my hands on my pants. When Sondra reached the top, I gave her my hand and pulled her out. We collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath.

We lay on our backs, staring up at the sun. Its warmth radiated over our bodies. I don’t know that I had ever felt anything so wonderful. I smelled wildflowers and grass, fragrant and sweet. A black and yellow butterfly landed on Sondra’s toe and fluttered its wings. She giggled and sighed. An ant crawled up my arm and I shooed it away, careful not to crush it. There had been enough death for one day, and I couldn’t stomach anymore—not even an insect’s. Maybe I’d found religion after all. Birds chirped and whistled overhead. The beeping sound continued from across the field, faint enough to be unobtrusive. Sondra kissed me and I kissed her back. Our tongues entwined. Her mouth was wet and warm. I shivered. She cooed softly. We embraced, and I ran my fingers through her soft hair.

Heaven.

It was the perfect moment, but there was no time to enjoy it.

Breaking our kiss, I rolled over and sat up, studying our surroundings. We were in a vacant lot, about five-hundred feet from a lumber yard. I recognized the place right away. I’d gone there with Darryl a few months ago, when we’d picked up some plywood and two-by-fours that his father needed to build a rabbit hutch. The memory made me sad. I wondered if Darryl’s parents knew yet what had happened to their son, and if so, did they blame me?

“What are you thinking?” Sondra asked.

I shook my head. We’d come farther than I’d thought. The sewer tunnels had led us to the outskirts of Lake Pinchot and the State Park, less than a mile away. I’d been swimming and fishing there many times. There had been some controversy lately, because the countryside around the lake had been re-zoned for residential usage. The manhole we’d surfaced from had been put in the field as an access point for public utility workers, probably with the intent of one day developing this lot into a housing development.

I stood up and brushed weeds from my head, wincing when my hand grazed my scalp. I’d been so at peace that I’d forgotten about the burns. They weren’t hurting now except when I touched them. I wondered if that was good or bad. Blisters popped beneath my fingertips, leaking fluid. My fingers came away slick.

I offered Sondra my other hand and helped her up. Then I motioned to the manhole cover.

“Help me get this lid back in place.”

We bent over and slid our fingers into the access holes, but before we could move it, a gunshot rang out. There was a flash at the bottom of the shaft. The bullet slammed into the side, chipping the concrete. Sondra and I ducked out of the way.

“Goddamn it!”

“Kihl ew bof,” Whitey screamed. “Wayt nd cee! Kihl ew bof.”

I wasn’t sure if his words were English or Russian or some bizarre mixture of both, but in the end, I guess it didn’t matter. Whitey was speaking the language of rage. He was a linguist of violence. He had a thousand different words for death and murder in his thesaurus, and there was no doubt in my mind that he intended to use every one of them on us.

Another shot rang out. We dashed through the field, heading towards the lumber yard. The tall grass and weeds clutched at our legs, and we had to struggle not to trip and fall. Insects took flight, disturbed by our charge. A grasshopper landed in Sondra’s hair. She grabbed it, squashed it in her fist, and flung it aside. I don’t think she was even aware of it. Green bug juice ran between her fingers.

Maybe it was just my hearing, but the world seemed to hold its breath. The birds fell quiet. The beeping sound ceased. All I could hear was Sondra’s gasps and my own phlegmatic wheezing. My lungs ached like the rest of my body.

More shots went off behind us, but Whitey’s aim seemed to be as fucked up as his voice. When they stopped again, I risked a backwards glance. Whitey dragged his left leg behind him. It was bent at an unnatural angle below the knee, twisted and crooked like a broken tree branch. He stumbled after us, tossing the empty handgun aside. I thought about all the empty pistols we’d left in our wake. They told a story—one that no one else would ever believe.

“Eyll kihl ewwww…”

“Jesus, Whitey,” I hollered, “give it the fuck up!”

“Nehvar!”

Sondra and I crashed against an eight foot tall chain link fence that surrounded the lumber yard. On the other side were tall stacks of wood and building supplies—patio blocks, masonry stone, and piles of mulch. Beyond them, I heard trucks and forklifts. The gunshots had probably been drowned out by the engines or disregarded as a backfire. We climbed the fence and scrambled over the top, leaping to the ground. Then we darted between skids of railroad ties and landscaping beams, and tried to lose Whitey in the maze. The fence rattled behind us as he slammed into it.

The scent of pine and oak filled my nostrils, a welcome change from smoke and sewer. We emerged into a wide, blacktopped area. Two men stood by an idling flatbed truck, drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups and laughing at something. Both of them wore yellow hardhats and orange safety vests. Leather tool belts were strapped around their waists, laden with hammers, utility knives, tape measures, and other small equipment. They didn’t notice us. The truck belched smoke from its tailpipe.

“Come on,” I whispered to Sondra, “before those guys see us.”

As we darted across the lot, Sondra cried out. I turned around. She was on her hands and knees. She’d tripped, skinning her hands and elbows. Blood dripped from several nasty-looking cuts. I ran back to her and helped her up. She stood on one foot, swaying back and forth. I noticed that the cut on her foot had opened up again.

“Are you okay?”

Sondra shook her head. “Is hurting very bad.”

“I’m not in too great of shape myself, but we’ve got to keep going. Can you walk?”

“Nyet. Not this time. My ankle. There is sharp pain, like knife.”

The two workers still hadn’t noticed us. In a nearby row, a forklift was moving skids and the engine’s noise covered Sondra’s cries. I thought about attracting their attention anyway. Maybe using them to distract Whitey. But then I decided against it. There were too many dead bodies on my conscience already. I didn’t need two more. Besides, these guys weren’t involved. It wasn’t fair.

I crouched down and examined Sondra’s ankle. It didn’t look broken, but it was swollen and bruised. When I prodded it with my index finger, Sondra nearly collapsed.

“Is no good,” she sobbed. “I cannot run like this. One foot is twisted and the other is cut.”

Whitey roared in triumph, stumbling out from behind a stack of oak paneling. He tottered on his one good leg. Stepping in front of Sondra, I stood to face him. Again. Maybe I should have been surprised that he’d managed to climb the fence, especially with his fucked up leg. But I wasn’t. It was getting to be old hat. I accepted it and prepared myself. My hands curled into fists. My temples throbbed.

“What do you want?” I shouted. “How much more of this can you take? It’s over, Whitey. Let it the fuck go.”

The Russian smiled, and then threw his head back and laughed. When he did, I at last understood why his voice had become unintelligible. His tongue was missing. All that was left was a red, bleeding stump, flapping around in his shattered mouth. It looked like a raw piece of liver. He’d bitten the rest of it off when we dropped the soda machine on him. Then I noticed the way his jaw moved. It was broken.

“Ish jush starringh, Misher Gibshon.”

“Just starting? Are you fucking crazy?”

Grinning, he nodded.

“Okay, motherfucker,” I said, answering the challenge. “Then let’s finish this shit once and for all.”

twenty-two

Whitey charged.

Well, I guess charged isn’t the right word for it. Charge indicates speed and he was anything but fast. Shambled is more like it. The son of a bitch could barely walk, let alone run. He dragged his shattered leg behind him like dead wood.

“Kum ohn, Mysha Gibshon.”

Come on, Mister Gibson. I was beginning to understand him despite his new speech impediment.

“Run, Sondra.” I didn’t look back at her. Instead, I kept my attention focused on Whitey. “Go find help.”

“But what about police?”

“Fine,” I said, still not turning around. “Don’t find help. Hide. Do whatever. Just stay the hell out of the way. I’ve had it with this shit.”

Sondra didn’t respond. Neither did Whitey. He smiled at me, his crooked jaw making his cheek bulge. His head was tilted sideways and he struggled to lift it.

“Look at you,” I said. “You can’t even hold your head up right. You should be dead. Give it up, man. You take anymore damage and there won’t be anything left of you. Is that what you want?”

He didn’t answer me.

“Is she worth it?” I asked. “Is Sondra worth all this?”

“Ahshk yersehlf teh saym kwestuhn.”

Ask yourself the same question…

Whitey drew closer with each plodding, off-balance step, dripping pieces of himself in his wake. He left a trail of DNA behind him. I had the crazy notion that if we made him chase us long enough, he’d just fall apart in front of our eyes—disintegrate into a pool of jelly. I could smell him as he got nearer. He reeked—blood and shit and the seeds of infection. Walking road kill, out for revenge.

“Forget about it,” I said. “Even if you got the baby now, it would be too late. Wouldn’t it? Sure, maybe you can survive poisoning or a gunshot wound. But all this? No way you can regenerate all this damage, Whitey, no matter how many stem cells you eat. Not even Wolverine could heal this shit.”

“Eww wood be zurpryzed. Itsh nevar too layt.”

I stood my ground, disgusted by what approached me, but ultimately unafraid. Whitey was unarmed now. No guns or knives or mafia cronies. He couldn’t even kick me again. Maybe he was indestructible, but that no longer meant he was unstoppable. All he had left was the will to keep going, and I intended to take that option away from him. I sized him up, planning my attack. If I could take out his other leg—break it or cut the fucking thing off—there was no way he’d be able to follow us, unless he crawled along on his hands. So maybe I’d cut those off, too. And why stop there? Decapitation sounded like a great idea. The grand fucking finale. Immortal or not, nobody, not even Rasputin, could survive without a head.

Could they?

Whitey got nearer still, close enough for me to see the steam rising from his open wounds. Whatever his condition, his body temperature was still warm inside. His blood still flowed. How did he remain standing? The blood loss alone should have kept him down. Maybe his mutant genetics replenished that first.

Or maybe he was just driven. Determined.

“Hey,” somebody shouted. “Are you folks okay? What’s going on over there?”

I turned my head slightly and saw that it was one of the workers. They’d finally noticed us.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” the other worker said. “This is private property.”

“Please,” Sondra spoke up. “We are to be needing—”

Whitey darted forward with a speed that belied his injuries. I shouted in surprise. Despite the horrific damage to his body, he’d been faking. He was quicker—and stronger—than I’d thought possible.

“Motherfucker!”

I ducked my head, stuck my right shoulder out, and plowed into him. Our arms encircled each other, squeezing tight. It was like grabbing a butchered side of beef. Whitey was slippery and hot, and as we slammed together, my face sank into a gaping wound in his chest. Slick warmth smothered me, filling my nose and mouth. My hands slithered through the wetness. His blood ran down my throat. Stumbling, we both fell backwards, still holding on to each other. I hit the pavement first—and hard. Whitey’s full weight crashed down on me, crushing the air from my lungs. The impact brought back all of my temporarily forgotten pains.

“Hey,” one of the workers yelled. “We don’t want no trouble. Knock it off! This ain’t no boxing ring.”

“Jesus,” the other gasped. “Call an ambulance, Leon. Call the cops. I think these are those guys that were on the news.”

“Fuck me running. Let’s get them, Frank.”

“Screw that! You know how many people they killed?”

The two men ran towards us as they argued. I managed to get one arm free and I reached out, trying to wave them away. Whitey’s hands wrapped around my throat and squeezed, cutting off my windpipe. My eyes bulged from their sockets.

“Frank,” Leon said, “he’ll kill that guy if we don’t so something. Give me a hand, now.”

Ignoring my warning gestures, they approached us from each side and seized Whitey, pulling him off of me. His hands clawed at my throat, then were wrenched free. I gulped air. Leon and Frank gasped, their expressions a mixture of shock and disgust. Leon let go of Whitey and stared in horror at his bloodstained palms.

“An ambulance,” he choked. “Fuck that. Better call a goddamn hearse. This guy is dead.”

Grunting with rage, Whitey struggled in Frank’s grip. The worker shoved him back down and leaned on his chest with both knees. The Russian squirmed.

“But he’s dead,” Leon mumbled. “Look at him. He’s fucking dead. This shit ain’t right.”

“He’s not dead,” Frank shouted. “He should be, but he’s not. Help me hold him, Leon. He’s fighting like a greased monkey.”

Whitey tried to break free. His fingers clawed at Frank’s face. The workman punched Whitey in his already broken jaw. Whitey screamed, then went limp. His eyes rolled shut. He could still feel pain, even now.

“There,” Frank sighed. “That’ll teach him. “Call the cops, Leon.”

“Get out of the way,” I warned them. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”

“You stay put, buddy,” Frank said. “You know how many people you murdered today?”

“It wasn’t me,” I explained. “We were on the run. They were trying to kill us.”

“Bullshit! They said on the news that—”

Before he could finish, Whitey’s eyes flashed open. He grabbed a utility knife that was hanging from Frank’s tool belt. With one quick motion he thumbed the button, pushing the razorblade out of the hilt, and slashed the worker’s throat. Squealing, Frank tottered backward. At first, there was no blood—just a thin, even cut, barely noticeable. Then a few drops of crimson bubbled out of the wound. A second later, the slit grew wider. It looked like Frank had grown another mouth. Blood sprayed out of the gash, showering both Whitey and his victim.

Screaming, Leon abandoned his friend and turned, fleeing across the lot. So much for solidarity. Maybe they weren’t a union shop. He shouted for help, his voice hoarse and panicked. His hardhat fell off and rolled across the pavement as he ran. The forklift still beeped between the rows, its driver apparently oblivious to what was happening.

Whitey clambered to his feet, still clutching the bloody razor knife. I glanced around for Sondra, but she was gone.

It was just the two of us.

Last man standing.

Man—or whatever the hell Whitey was.

“Put the knife down,” I said, “and fight like the man you pretend to be.”

Whitey didn’t answer me. He couldn’t. The swelling in what was left of his face had tripled now. His mouth hung open. Frank’s punch had shattered his already broken jaw. But he didn’t have to speak. His eyes said it all. They promised death.

And then he lurched forward to deliver it.

Frank’s blood dripped from the razor. My bravery vanished. I backed away from him, colliding with a stack of two-by-fours. Whitey closed the distance between us, and there was nowhere for me to run. Sweat and blood ran into my eyes, but I was afraid to blink, afraid to look away, even for a moment. I stared at the blade, unable to focus on anything else.

Whitey moaned.

“Can’t speak anymore, can you?”

He grunted in response, and stepped closer to me. The flies I’d noticed circling him earlier had landed. I heard them buzzing inside the hole in his head. I wondered if Whitey could hear them too. Pressing back against the stack of lumber, I braced myself for his inevitable attack.

The forklift’s engine revved louder. I wondered where Leon had gone, hoping that he’d called the police.

“Come on,” I rasped. My mouth was dry, my throat parched. “What are you waiting for?”

Whitey lunged, slashing at me with the knife. I side-stepped the attempt and grabbed his arm, trying to twist it behind his back. He yanked his arm away, breaking my grip, but doing so caused him to lean on his bad leg. Wailing unintelligibly, Whitey stumbled and sprawled on the ground. He managed to hold on to his weapon. I dashed past him, searching for something to even the odds.

Groaning, Whitey crawled after me, swinging the knife back and forth through the air. I spotted a length of two-by-four lying nearby and ran for it, intent on bashing the rest of his fucking head in. But before I could retrieve the club, the forklift rounded the corner. Luckily, it wasn’t carrying a load. If it had, the driver wouldn’t have seen me and I’d have been run over. Instead, he slammed on the brakes even as I skidded to a stop. The horn blared and the driver shouted something at me. I couldn’t hear him over the rumbling engine. A yellow, domed safety light turned atop the wire mesh roll cage.

I glanced back. Whitey clutched a skid with his free hand and slowly pulled himself to his feet. A glistening loop of intestine slipped from his belly. Whitey ignored it. I thought about his ancestor, fleeing his assassins while trailing his insides behind him. I ran around to the side of the forklift and leaned against the roll bar.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” the driver exclaimed. “What’s wrong with that guy?”

“Never mind that,” I said. “I need help. Have you seen a woman running around here?”

The driver stared at me like I was insane. Who knows? Maybe I was.

“Where’s Leon and Frank?” He put the forklift in neutral and swung around to face me. “What’s going on here? This looks like—”

“Frank’s dead,” I told him, “and Leon went for help. Have you seen a girl?”

“Jesus,” the driver repeated, his eyes not leaving Whitey. His face turned pale. “His guts are falling out. What happened? We need to call an ambulance right now. Get him to lie down. Keep him warm.”

I grabbed the driver by his shirt collar and balled it up in my fist.

“Hey—”

“Listen to me. What’s your name?”

“What is this? What are you—”

“Your name. Now!”

“R-Richard…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Whitey shuffle towards us. Richard grabbed my wrist, but his grip was weak. His attention was still focused on Whitey.

“Okay, Richard. We don’t have—”.

“Your friend,” he interrupted me. “He’s gonna die if we don’t get him some help. Don’t you understand that?”

“He ain’t my friend, Richard, and he won’t die. He can’t.”

Richard started to speak, but I yanked him out of the seat and flung him to the ground. He squawked in surprise and fright, and the impact knocked the air out of him. He lay on the pavement, gasping for breath and staring up at me, wide-eyed. When he started to speak. I shook my head.

“Stay there,” I shouted, swinging myself up into the driver’s seat.

I’d driven forklifts plenty of times before, both at GPS and other jobs I’d had. This one was pretty standard. Big front tires. Propane bottle strapped in behind me. Engine in the back. Hydraulic lift. The forks could be tilted up and down as well as side to side, so they’d fit easily under different sized skids. In addition to being adjustable, the forks were also tapered—wide at the back and narrower near the front. The whole thing was a piece of cake, really. The first thing that had gone easy all day long.

Richard scurried backward. There was a dark urine stain on the crotch of his jeans. Beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip and forehead, and ran down his cheeks.

With a garbled moan, loud enough to be heard over the engine, Whitey charged. I dropped the forklift into drive and raised the forks, drawing them close together at the same time so that there was no gap between them. Stopping in his tracks, Whitey gaped as I bore down on him. His eyes went wide. The utility knife slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the pavement. He started to turn, but I gunned it. The engine rumbled. Whitey threw his hands up in front of his face and screamed.

The forks speared him, punching through his abdomen and through the other side. Still rolling forward, I raised them higher, lifting the impaled Russian off the ground. I gave the throttle more gas and steered towards the stack of two-by-fours, tilting the forks up and backward so that Whitey wouldn’t slide off. I rammed into the lumber at full speed, jarring the forklift. Whitey slipped further down the forks. Blood gushed from his gaping mouth. His hands clawed at the gore-slicked steel thrusting from his body.

“Let’s see you get out of that, you son of a bitch!”

I slammed the forklift into reverse, backed up a few feet, and then crashed into the stack of lumber again. The metal strapping holding the two-by-fours onto the skid snapped, and the wood tumbled down. I turned the forklift around and tilted the forks even further. Whitey slid another few inches towards me. I stared into his eyes and what I saw there made me smile.

Fear.

For the first time since this whole mess had begun, Whitey was afraid.

That almost made things worth it, but then I remembered Darryl and Jesse and Yul.

“How does it feel?” I laughed. “How does it feel, you motherfucker? You’re gonna die!”

Whitey shook his head back and forth, spraying blood in all directions. His hands grasped the forks again, and this time they didn’t slip off. Slowly, incredibly, he began to push himself backward, trying to free himself from impalement. I spun the steering wheel and turned the forklift in a tight circle. The rear tires ran over a steaming pile of Whitey’s guts, flattening them across the pavement and squishing between the deep tread.

“You know, Whitey,” I taunted, “it’s too bad they didn’t have forklifts when Rasputin was around. He sure as shit wouldn’t have survived this either. Would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Instead, they had to drown the bastard.”

Defiant, Whitey continued pushing himself up the tilted forks, trying to reach the end. I was wrong. Even this—impalement by heavy machinery—hadn’t killed him. But I knew what would. Drowning had worked on his ancestor, so it was good enough for him, too. At last, I knew for sure how to kill Whitey. I knew how to succeed where bullets and fire and stabbings had failed.

“Sondra,” I hollered, “if you can hear me, stay put. I’ll be back. I promise. Just wait for me here.”

Stomping the throttle, I raced down the row, passing by skids of lumber and building materials, and headed for the main gate. In the rearview mirror, I glimpsed Richard kneeling in the wreckage and throwing up on the scattered two-by-fours. I passed the flatbed truck and continued towards the exit. As we sped by the guard shack, I spotted Leon through the window. He was shouting into the telephone. His face was haggard and white. When he looked up and saw us, the phone slipped from his hand. I resisted the crazy impulse to wave at him. Instead, I tilted the forks as far back as they would go, impeding Whitey’s progress. He slid towards me again, smashing into the hydraulics.

“Don’t worry,” I yelled. “Almost done here. We’re just gonna go for a quick little ride. I know just the place for you.”

Something black and round slid out of Whitey’s chest and plopped onto the pavement. I ignored it. I’d become immune to the gore and the violence, immune to the ever-increasing atrocities. Whitey was nothing more than meat, and it was time for the slaughter.

I forgot all about Sondra and the lumber yard employees and the cops and my dead friends and my cat, and focused instead on my destination.

The shores of Lake Pinchot waited for us as the sun climbed high into the sky.

Looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

Then I saw the dark clouds on the horizon that spoke of the storm to come.

twenty-three

The gate was one of those chain-link jobs—part of the fence surrounding the lumber yard. It stood wide open as we approached. I barreled out into the road and turned left, heading for the State Park. Whitey’s body and dangling limbs shook as we bounced along. Each time he moved, more blood spurted from his mouth and more pieces of his insides splattered onto the asphalt. He’d stopped struggling. Maybe he was too weak or maybe the jostling kept him from trying. He just hung there from the forks, wriggling and jittering like a butterfly beneath a collector’s pin.

The forklift’s top speed was around twenty miles per hour. I kept the throttle open, silently urging it to go faster. There was no doubt in my mind that Leon had succeeded in calling the cops. A few minutes ago, I’d wanted them to show up. Now I didn’t. Not until I was finished with Whitey, and Sondra and the baby were safe once and for all.

Not until I’d had my revenge.

My grin felt savage, as if it were twisting my face into something unrecognizable.

I checked the rearview mirrors as we cruised along, looking for police cars or other emergency vehicles, but the road was clear. Indeed, it was deserted except for one car that came up behind me, moving fast. I swerved over to the side of the road and the terrain grew bumpier, jostling Whitey even more. The car, a beige Ford Taurus, refused to pass me. Instead, the driver slowed down and blew his horn.

“Go around,” I shouted, not looking back.

The forklift rattled and shook, and I was worried that Whitey might slip off. The forks were still tilted, but he could shift suddenly to the side. If that happened, the forks would rip right through his torso. Maybe that in itself would be enough to kill him, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Not now, when I had him succumbed and trapped. We were too close.

The Taurus beeped again. Still not looking back, I waved the driver around. Instead of passing me, he followed along right behind, his front bumper nearly rear-ending the forklift. I glanced back. The forklift weaved. The car was close enough that I could see the occupants now. The driver was a middle-aged, balding white guy wearing glasses and a floppy-brimmed sunhat pulled down over his forehead. A woman who was probably his wife sat next to him, gesturing wildly and apparently screaming at him, judging by how wide her mouth was open and how quickly it was moving. In the backseat, two little heads that probably belonged to his kids bobbed up and down, jockeying for a better view of the crazy man on the forklift. The driver blew the horn again, leaning on it this time—long and loud. Then he flashed his headlights at me.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Neither Whitey or the driver answered me—not that I’d expected them to.

I couldn’t pull over. No fucking way. The lumber yard and fields lay behind us and now the road was cutting through the forest. The trees grew close to the roadside, and there wasn’t enough room for the forklift. More importantly, stopping or slowing down now would only increase Whitey’s chances of escaping. True, he was still now, just hanging there, impaled and limp. But he wasn’t fooling me. I’d seen this act before. The man who couldn’t die was playing dead. Soon as he saw an opening, he’d take it, and someone else would die for my stupidity.

Well, I vowed, not this time.

I stuck out one arm and waved the Taurus around again. This time, the driver took the hint. Accelerating, he went around me, giving the forklift a wide berth and swerving into the oncoming lane. As they pulled even with us, the car slowed again. All four family members stared in horror. The woman had a cell phone pressed to one ear, but her mouth hung open, unmoving. The kids gaped, expressions of horror frozen on their faces. There were two of them—a boy and a girl. The girl had pigtails. The boy had his finger up his nose. Apparently, he was so shocked by what he saw that he’d forgotten all about it.

Whitey became animated again. He raised one arm and waved at them. The little boy pulled his finger out of his nose and waved back. Whitey’s face twisted into a garish smile, made hideous by his multiple injuries—all tendons and teeth and sinew. Wet and red. The little boy began to cry.

The Taurus sped away, still hugging the oncoming traffic lane. It swerved a little, as if the driver was having trouble. I pitied them. The perfect, All-American Nuclear Family, out for a day’s drive. Maybe heading out on vacation—Ocean City, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Hershey Park, or one of a hundred other nearby destinations. Summer vacation. Making memories that would last a lifetime. But now they’d taken a detour and seen something else they’d never forget. This memory would never fade, especially for the children. They’d see it for the rest of their lives, every time they closed their eyes.

The madness and grotesqueries that always swirled around in Whitey’s wake had infected someone else.

I swore they would be the last.

The car got back into our lane about two hundred yards down the road. I did the same. The tires crunched over a bottle and then the ride smoothed out again. Whitey was motionless again. Just hanging out. I suppressed a giggle. It scared me. I was afraid that if I started laughing now, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

We passed a sign on the right—Lake Pinchot State Park, 1 Mile Ahead. I breathed a sigh of relief. Almost over now. End of the road.

Another car appeared on the horizon, racing towards me. My heart pounded and my breath caught in my throat. I figured it was the cops, at first, but there were no flashing lights or sirens. As the vehicle drew closer, I saw that it was a blue Chevy Nova, completely restored, chrome rims, custom paint-job—the works. Any other time, I’d have slowed down and admired it. The motor hummed, much louder than the forklift’s engine. Megadeth’s ‘In My Time of Dying’ blared from the speakers. I could feel the bass, even over the forklift’s vibrations. The irony of the song choice was not lost on me. I wondered if Whitey appreciated it, too. Probably not. He didn’t strike me as a fan of Dave Mustaine. The Nova’s driver raced past us without slowing. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed us. If I’d had a car like that, I probably wouldn’t have been paying attention to what was around me either. I’d be too busy eating up the highway.

I took the exit for Lake Pinchot. Asphalt gave way to gravel and stone. The forklift bounced along the stone road. The propane tank rattled behind me, but I didn’t slow down. I willed the forklift to go faster. Whitey grew active again. Once more, he gripped the bloodstained forks and pushed himself backwards, dragging his ruined flesh across the steel. Luckily, each bump impeded his progress. I started aiming for potholes, mindful to hit them slow so the impact wouldn’t knock him loose. I wanted him shaken—not freed.

Both the lake and the surrounding State Forest were open to the public. There were no guards or rangers or gates. We passed a few signs. One said ‘Welcome to Lake Pinchot’ and another was a list of rules and regulations—what time the park closed, warnings about campfires and alcoholic beverages—stuff like that. I didn’t see anything that told me murder was prohibited.

Whitey had given up on trying to free himself. Maybe he’d realized it was futile and had resigned himself to his fate, or maybe he was reserving his strength, preparing to make a final attempt when the time was right. I don’t know. But he went limp again. His body was motionless—lifeless—except for his eyes. They still moved, promising menace and death and butchery.

I drove down a wooded lane and into the park. Oak, pine, maple, and elm trees loomed over us on each side. Even though the sun was still shining from between the steadily darkening clouds, there was no light beneath the foliage. The deep shadows among the tree trunks reminded me of our flight through the sewer. I wondered where Sondra had gone and if she was okay. The cops were probably swarming the lumber yard by now. Had she been caught, or had she got away? Maybe she was following me. I hoped not. Chances were good that the woman in the Ford Taurus had called the police on her cell phone. I checked the rearview mirror again, but there was still no sign of pursuit.

Whitey’s head slumped forward and his eyes fluttered twice, then closed. He didn’t open them again.

“Hey,” I shouted. “Wake up. We’re almost there.”

Suddenly, there was an explosion overhead. I jumped in the seat, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel, and my foot slipped off the throttle. Immediately, our speed decreased. I accelerated again, glancing around to see where the shot had come from. Another loud boom echoed across the park, and I realized that it wasn’t gunfire. It was thunder. The storm drew closer.

The noise disturbed Whitey. He opened his eyes again and looked around, as if unsure where he was. Then his gaze fell on me and his eyes narrowed.

My stomach fluttered.

There was a parking lot near the lake. I’d expected to encounter a few swimmers or fishermen, maybe even some boaters or campers, but instead, the lot was deserted. A small shack stood between the parking lot and the shoreline. A giant plywood ice cream cone was nailed to the roof. A large sign advertised sno-cones, pizza, french fries, hot dogs, and ice cold beverages, but the door was shut and a ‘Closed’ sign dangled from the counter window.

The sky grew darker. Thunder rumbled again. Something cold splattered against my burned scalp. Then another. Fat raindrops pelted the forklift. Then the clouds opened up and the rain began in full. Lightning flashed across the horizon, zigzagging between the clouds and then striking somewhere deep inside the forest.

I drove past the concession stand and onto a grassy area. It had been mowed recently. The grass clippings were fresh. I looked around again, searching for a groundskeeper, but we were alone.

It seemed fitting, somehow. Felt right.

Along the shoreline was a concrete boat ramp and a long, wooden pier that extended out over the lake. I considered both, and then, after a second’s hesitation, I turned towards the pier. The supports were made out of telephone poles and the boards were thick and sturdy. It looked solid enough. I was sure it would hold the forklift’s weight.

We clattered out onto the pier. It groaned beneath us, but held. I took my foot off the accelerator and pumped the brakes, slowing us to a crawl. The rain fell harder. Another loud blast of thunder cracked overhead, and I ducked instinctively. My heart rate increased. I was terrified and excited at the same time. I wondered what Whitey was feeling, but his eyes were closed again, and he wasn’t moving.

Raindrops struck the lake’s surface, making thousands of concentric rings. More lightning flashed overhead. I stopped the forklift at the edge of the pier. The forks stuck out over the water. The lake was deep at this point. At least fifteen feet. I’d heard it was even deeper further out, and there were sinkholes in the bottom, supposedly leading down into underwater caverns. Wouldn’t have surprised me. Central Pennsylvania is littered with limestone caverns and old mine shafts. There’s an abandoned iron ore mine out between Spring Grove and Hanover that’s supposed to be bottomless. Supposed to be haunted, too. Bullshit, of course, but people had drowned there over the years and their bodies were never found.

The engine idled choppily. I turned around and checked the gauge on the propane bottle, wiping the rain away so I could read it. The tank was almost empty, but that didn’t matter. We’d reached our destination and would go no further. At least, not together. Not thinking clearly, I turned the key to the off position. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was just a combination of fear and shock and sheer exhaustion. The pain in my head returned again, throbbing in time with my pulse. The engine choked, sputtered, and then died. Silence descended. Even the thunder seemed to pause.

“End of the road, you fucker!”

Whitey didn’t respond. Didn’t move. His eyes remained closed. The blood that had been gushing from his mouth was starting to congeal.

“Hey, Whitey! Wake the hell up. We’re here. Don’t go to sleep on me now.”

Nothing.

“Shit…”

Could it be that he was finally dead, or was this just one more attempt at deceit? Unsure, I decided there was only one way to find out. I turned the key and the forklift stuttered to life again. The hydraulics squealed. The engine backfired. The chains rattled.

Whitey remained stationary—immobile.

Lifeless.

My shoulders sagged. The strength drained from my body and weariness seeped into my limbs. I closed my eyes. Rain streamed down my face. I felt robbed of my victory. Cheated out of my revenge. I thought of Darryl and Yul and how they’d died, and of Jesse, whose body, for all I knew, was lying in a ditch somewhere. I thought of the innocent cops that had been slaughtered, and the butchery at the lumber yard. I remembered Webster, and his plaintive howls during the gunfight at my apartment. And more than any of these, I thought of Sondra. Of what she’d been through. Her life. The terrors she’d faced just to come here in search of a dream, and how that dream had been trampled and pissed on instead.

So much cruelty. So much needless death. All because of one man.

The man on the end of my forklift.

Zakhar Putin, a.k.a. Whitey Putin.

And now he was dead and I felt nothing. Not vindication. Not peace. There was no solace in this death. No joy or exultation. No sense of justice or victory. All I felt was bitter resentment that he’d died before I had a chance to enjoy it. That his soul—if he even had a soul—had slipped away without me seeing it. I’d wanted him to suffer the way he’d made others suffer. The way Rasputin had suffered.

I opened my eyes, raised my head, stared out at the rain-drenched corpse dangling from the forklift, and decided that perhaps he’d suffered after all. Maybe he’d suffered more than any of us. He’d certainly felt pain. If he’d never felt it before this, then at least I’d changed that. He was fucking intimate with it now. I’d taught him all about pain—and about loss.

Sondra and the baby were safe. We didn’t have to run anymore. That was the important thing. That was all that mattered.

The thunder returned, but it was fainter this time. The storm was moving away—losing steam. But it brought with it a new sound; police sirens. The cops knew where we were. I started to reach for the key and shut the forklift off, intent on turning myself in when they arrived, but my hand froze in mid-air.

Whitey’s eyes snapped open again. He stared at me, and then blinked away the rain, as if to prove he was still alive. Maybe it was a final act of defiance. His gaze moved in the direction of the wailing sirens and then slowly drifted back to me. Slowly, he twitched his arms. Then he grasped the forks and gripped them tight. His knuckles bulged. His tendons stood out. Still staring at me, he began to pull himself closer, no longer trying to escape. Instead, he was trying to reach me.

“Whitey,” I said, “you’ve been a bad, bad boy.”

The hydraulics whined as I grabbed the controls. Whitey’s eyes grew wider. Trembling, he clung to the forks and shook his head in denial.

I was still staring into his eyes when I separated the forks, widening the space between them again. I did it slowly, and my eyes never left his.

The chains clanked and the hydraulics shuddered. Then, after a moment’s pause, the forks ripped through Whitey’s torso, tearing his chest open and cutting him in half. Internal organs sailed through the air. Blood sprayed in all directions. His legs and abdomen fell into the water with a splash, sending a plume of spray across the pier. Pink-tinged foam lapped at the forklift’s tires. Even with his lower half missing, Whitey held on tight. Then his fingers started to slip. His arms sagged and his body dropped. He dangled from the forks. I thumbed the controls, spreading the forks apart the rest of the way and simultaneously raising them higher. Whitey lost his grip and he hung with one hand.

He still stared at me, his eyes expressionless and boldly defiant. I got the impression that even now, he refused to accept his fate—refused to acknowledge that this was it, that he was dying. Then his other hand slipped off and he plunged into the lake. The last thing I saw before he slipped beneath the dark water was his vengeful glare.

And then he was gone.

“Rest in pieces, you son of a bitch.”

The thunder roared.

The sirens grew louder now, drawing closer. Tires squealed. Red and blue lights flashed across the surface. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, but even in that ultimate blackness, I saw Whitey’s stare reflected over and over. I opened my eyes and turned the forklift off. Behind me, I heard car doors slamming and running footsteps. A radio squawked with static. Someone shouted at me, their voice audible over the thunder, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying and didn’t really give a shit. Fuck them. I was so tired. Weak and dizzy, I climbed down from the driver’s seat and collapsed onto the pier. The boards dug into my back. The rain washed over me, soaking me to the bone. I wanted it to feel like a baptism, wanted it to wash away my sins and carry off my troubles. Instead, it just left me cold. I was alive but empty. Alive but dead inside. Nothing mattered anymore and death would have been a welcome release. I wondered if that was how Whitey had felt, and if so, had I granted his wish? Was that what he had wanted all along?

I lay there on the pier and began to scream.

And that was where the police found me. I was lying there covered in the dried blood of my dead friends and the man who had killed them, howling at the wounded sky, my teardrops lost in the rain.

twenty-four

In some ways, that all seems like it happened a long time ago, and to somebody else. Another Larry Gibson. But then late at night, when I’m totally alone, it seems just like yesterday.

Alone. Hell, I’m alone all the time these days. It’s hard to find someone when you don’t trust anybody.

The cops arrested me at the lake and charged me with a whole shit load of stuff. The news cameras were there, filming the whole thing. I’m glad they were. Whitey had left a lot of dead officers in his wake, and if the television crews hadn’t been on the scene, I’m pretty sure the cops would have put a bullet in my head right there on the pier.

The rampage hit the national news—wall-to-wall, non-stop, twenty-four hour coverage on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. How could it not? It made for quite the sordid tale. At first, when investigators had arrived on the scene at my apartment, they’d thought it was a domestic disturbance. Then it turned into a workplace shooting. Then a car chase. Then the wholesale murder of several police officers, the destruction of several police vehicles, and the downing of a police helicopter. And finally, the cherry on top of the media’s ice-cream, the bizarre and grisly forklift pursuit, in which several witnesses reported seeing a man impaled by a forklift while its operator calmly drove down the road. Oh yeah, the media loved me. I was a ratings bonanza. Within six hours of my arrest, they’d camped outside my parent’s house, interviewed several of my co-workers, and tracked down some of my old schoolmates. My parents had no comment. According to the rest, I’d seemed like a nice guy. Quiet. Hard-working. Never in a million years would they have thought me capable of doing something like this. I didn’t date much, true, but I had recently been spending a lot of time at a strip club, so obviously, that meant I was a secret weirdo suffering from some long pent-up rage or desire. All of which was bullshit, but it sounded good on television.

I told the cops my story, but of course, they didn’t believe me. If I were them, I probably wouldn’t have either.

The District Attorney was up for re-election, and he threw a bunch of charges at me—all kinds of felonies and offenses. But by the second day, the FBI and others were involved. Turns out they’d had several informants inside Whitey’s organization, and they’d confirmed that a lot of what I was saying was true. I hadn’t killed Darryl or Yul. I wasn’t with Jesse when he disappeared. The murders of Otar and the other mobsters had been purely in self-defense. Ballistics and eye-witness accounts verified that.

Within a few days, things started to turn around, and the media fell in love with me all over again, painting me as a solid, blue collar citizen who’d just happened to mistakenly run afoul of a Russian organized crime group. I had no prior arrests or felonies other than that old traffic fine. I was a working man—a decent member of society who’d had the bad judgment to get involved with a stripper, who had since disappeared.

Yeah. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Believe it or not, I escaped murder and manslaughter charges. My parents used their retirement money to get me a good defense attorney. The DA, wanting to get re-elected, didn’t press too hard because public sentiment was on my side, thanks to the media and how they spun the story. In the end, I got sentenced to time served, with seven-year’s probation and a big ass fine that will probably take me the rest of my life to pay off. As part of my deal, I pleaded guilty to discharging a fire-arm, trespassing, evading and resisting arrest, theft of industrial property, and abusing a corpse.

At least they didn’t nail me for improper disposal of a corpse, while they were at it.

The day after my release from prison, a bunch of terrorists shot up an elementary school in Florida, killing over one hundred children, and the media—and the rest of the country—forgot all about me. It was like I’d ceased to exist.

Sort of like Sondra did.

Oh, she didn’t cease to exist. She wasn’t dead, at least, not that I know of. But she did vanish and as far as I know, nobody has seen or heard from her since. According to a few law enforcement officials who were sympathetic to my case, she skipped town immediately. Probably made a break for it while Whitey and I were still at the lake. The FBI made several arrests, rounding up what was left of Whitey’s crew, and then confirmed that a large amount of cash had been stolen that night. Stolen by a pregnant stripper named Sondra. Like her, the money’s whereabouts were unknown. Nobody ever told me what the amount was.

The investigation continued, even though I was no longer a part of it. Witnesses were interviewed again. I found out that several of my neighbors had placed Sondra at my apartment shortly after the incident at the lumber yard. The yellow police tape on the door, warning people that it was a crime scene, had been cut and the door had been forced open. They theorized that Sondra had hidden the money in my apartment all along. They said that she’d probably hidden it when she went to clean up, while Darryl and I sat in the kitchen and discussed how to help her. I told them that was bullshit—explained that when we’d found her, Sondra had been barely dressed, wearing only a pair of skimpy blue silk shorts and a matching silk top, more like a pair of pajamas than clothing. She’d had nowhere to stash the money. And she couldn’t have hidden it in my Jeep because that had been locked.

I’ve thought it over. Run through various scenarios. I believe she stole the cash. But I don’t know where it is. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s blood money, after all. Maybe it should stay buried, like those who died because of it.

At least Webster wasn’t harmed. He made it out relatively unscathed. Didn’t escape when the cops searched my apartment. He spent a few nights at a no-kill shelter run by a very nice pair of old hippies, and then my parents rescued him from there and kept him until my release. Now he and I live in a new apartment.

I think a lot. About Sondra. About my friends. I miss them all. Even her. Especially her. She betrayed me and hurt me and used me like the sucker I was, but I miss her all the same. When I dream, it’s often about Sondra—her simultaneously annoying and endearing broken English, dancing on stage to the beat of the music, making love to me in my bed, holding my hand as we raced through the sewer. In the dreams, she says that she loves me and that she’ll never, ever leave. In the dreams, we are together.

But dreams are just lies.

In the real world, I never saw her again. She disappeared.

Just like Whitey.

His body—what was left of it—was never found, despite State Police divers and repeatedly dragging the bottom of the lake. They found a seven-foot long catfish, a stolen car, and another corpse—that of a teenage girl who’d been missing for three months, abducted and killed after her car broke down at a lonely exit ramp along Interstate Eighty-Three—but there was no sign of Whitey. No bones. Not even his clothing or jewelry. He’d vanished. The authorities had other cases to solve, and this one had wrapped itself up pretty neatly, so they didn’t go searching for explanations. The theory was that the storm had increased the lake’s currents, and that Whitey’s remains were sucked down into one of the sinkholes and deposited in the network of caverns beneath the surface. Either that or the catfish ate him. The cops seemed pretty satisfied with that explanation. I was supposed to accept it, too.

But I didn’t. Not at all.

A little more than a year later, I was up late one night. I’ve suffered insomnia since it all happened. My new apartment was quiet. I sat on the couch, drinking beer and petting Webster. Bored, I flipped through the channels, looking for something to watch. The first Friday the 13th movie was on, and I settled for that. It wasn’t until near the end of the film that I remembered the conversation I’d had with Yul and Sondra when we were hiding in the abandoned warehouse. Before I could change the channel, Jason lunged out of the lake and attacked a woman in a boat. They’d thought he was dead, but all that time he’d been down there waiting.

When he jumped out of the water, I screamed. My beer spilled all over the carpet and my pizza fell onto the couch. The sudden reaction startled Webster, and he ran away hissing. My neighbor pounded on the wall, telling me to quiet down. I put my hands over my mouth and screamed again.

Webster stayed hidden for hours. Maybe it brought back bad memories for him, too.

I didn’t sleep the rest of that night.

I don’t sleep much at all anymore.

Eventually, my hair grew back. It doesn’t get very long, and there are places where it’s still thin, and my scalp shows through, so I wear a ball cap most of the time. My body healed, for the most part. A little stiffness sometimes in my back and neck. I suffered some permanent hearing loss—not enough to make me deaf but enough to qualify for disability. So I’ve got that going for me. I don’t have to work. Now I sit around all day, bored. At night, I do the same thing.

Once I got it back from the authorities, I traded in the Jeep and bought a blue Chevy Nova instead. Found it at the junkyard for cheap and restored it myself. New paint job and tires, rebuilt engine, chrome rims, custom upholstery. I had to get rid of the Cherokee. I didn’t have a choice. Every time I drove it, I’d think of my friends. Once, while listening to God Forbid on the way to the grocery store, I swore that I smelled Darryl’s cigarette smoke. Not a ghost. A phantom memory, of course, but a painful one. I still don’t believe in God or demons or spirits. Whitey was almost certainly supernatural, but that doesn’t prove there’s an afterlife. It just proves he had some fucked up genetics. Spirits don’t exist.

The only kind of ghosts we see are the ones we carry with us.

Mine are with me all the time. I can’t get rid of them. I’ve tried. I drink and find things to occupy my time—try to lose myself in sports and sitcoms and whatever else is on TV. Turn my music up and try to drown out the world and the voices in my head. But no matter what I do, I can’t lose my ghosts. They haunt me like those abandoned industrial parks haunt this state.

I drive out to the lake sometimes, on days like today when the weather is bad and the park is deserted. I don’t bring an umbrella. I let the rain fall where it may. I walk out onto the pier and throw stones, skipping them across the surface while the storm rages. I think about my friends and of Sondra, and especially Whitey.

They never found his body, but I don’t believe he got sucked into a sinkhole. If he had, then why wouldn’t the same thing have happened with that missing girl’s body? Her corpse was discovered.

Whitey’s is still missing.

Fish have stem cells. So do frogs, and everything else that lives in the lake. I wasn’t sure at first, so I looked it up on the internet. I found out that scientists use fish stem cells for all kinds of research. What if Whitey can use them too? What if Sondra was wrong? Sure, maybe he would have preferred the stem cells from his own offspring. Perhaps they were more powerful or gave him faster results. But what if he had no choice? What if he had to rely on the stem cells of other living creatures—like fish? There are plenty of fish at the bottom of the lake. Rasputin drowned beneath a frozen sheet of ice. Maybe there weren’t any fish around when he went. But it was summer when Whitey and I faced off on this shoreline.

What if Whitey isn’t dead?

I’m standing here on the edge of the pier, staring at my reflection on the lake’s surface, but all I can see is Whitey’s eyes and how they glared at me that day, as he slipped beneath the water.

I’m thinking about my old life. Thinking about my friends and how much I miss them. Thinking about Sondra and how much I miss her. Thinking about Whitey, too.

And while I do this, I wonder what Whitey is down there thinking about…

Did I love Sondra? Even after all this time, I still don’t know. All I know—all I’ve learned—is this.

Love and obsession both run deep.

So do these waters.

And so does revenge.

Revenge runs the deepest of all.

About the Author

BRIAN KEENE is the author of over twenty-five books, including Darkness on the Edge of Town, Take The Long Way Home, Urban Gothic, Castaways, Dark Hollow, Dead Sea, and The Rising. He’s also written comic books such as The Last Zombie, Doom Patrol and Dead of Night: Devil Slayer. His work has been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French and Taiwanese. Several of his novels and stories have been developed for film, including Ghoul and The Ties That Bind. In addition to writing, Keene also oversees Maelstrom, his own small press publishing imprint specializing in collectible limited editions, via Thunderstorm Books. Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Media Bistro, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. Keene lives in Pennsylvania. You can communicate with him online at www.briankeene.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Brian-Keene/189077221397 or on Twitter at @BrianKeene

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Content

Brian Keene
KILL WHITEY

Acknowledgements

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About the Author

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