Todd Robinson - The Hard Bounce

“Thas good. She deserves that at least.” He turned his head and something pinged inside my brain as I looked at his profile. Same as when I’d seen his uncle. Some resemblance that itched at me.

I pushed the thought aside. “Do you have a list of any kind? A list of buyers?”

He shook his head like it was resting on a pile of ball bearings. “Nah. Sid does all that distribution stuff. I just made ’em.”

It looked like another visit with Sid was going to be unavoidable. We turned to go.

“I really, really loved her, you know?” he said to our backs, his voice crumbling.

I felt the old warm violence creeping through me again. I felt the urge to beat him into a puddle again and ask him if it was love. Is it Derek? Is this the love you gave those girls? Instead I took a deep breath.

Derek barked a humorless laugh. “The only reason I made that other movie was so we could make some money.” He tried to stand and fell back to the mattress. “We were gonna run away together. I loved her. I really did.” His self-justification cut off as he started bawling.

I couldn’t help but realize that if I’d never found her, if Derek and Cassie had run away together, as fucked-up and flat-out wrong as it would have been…

She would still be alive.

Junior had no problem splitting our search. He went off to look for Paul again, and I went to Sid’s. Truth be told, I think Junior was a bit afraid of the woman.

I found Sid’s Vids closed two hours ahead of schedule. Suspecting another run for the border, I peered through the greasy windows. Everything was there. Then I heard the barking of the fat chihuahua. Sid must have closed up shop early to get a head start on dinner.

I walked around back to the residential entrance and found luck in the form of an already popped lock. As I inspected the busted deadbolt, rumbling thunder sounded above me in the clear blue sky. I fucking hate omens.

The dog’s shrill barking sounded frightened and alarmed. My nerves jangled further when I got to Sid’s door. The locks were splintered in five places, and the door was slightly ajar.

Not good.

Definitely not good.

Somebody wanted in before me. And wanted it in a hurry.

“Sid?” I whispered. No answer. I feared Sid would come leaping out of the shadows to attack-okay, maybe not leaping, and it would have to be one hell of a shadow-but I couldn’t hear Sid’s raspy wheeze. All I heard was the dog and the television.

Gently, I pushed open her door. My heart froze when I heard the clatter of tiny feet on linoleum. The fat dog jumped on my braced leg, licking at my fingers. The apartment still stank to high heaven, but there was something else. A primal smell. I closed the door behind me.

“Sid!”

Still no answer.

Still no wheezing.

Then I saw the foot sticking out.

I followed the mammoth foot around the corner to its leg. And then on to Sid herself…

… and the two neat holes where her nose and left eye used to be.

Blood spread out under her head along with chunks of skull and brain. A pathetically small, two-shot derringer was on the floor a couple inches from Sid’s outstretched hand.

Not part of the plan.

I had to call Junior. I needed him to pick me up and get me the hell out of here. There was no way I was going to hail a cab from the apartment of the murdered. My cell phone rang as soon as my hand touched it. Stifling a yelp, I juggled the phone, catching it before it dropped into Sid’s pooling blood, which seeped toward my shoe.

“Yeah,” I whispered hoarsely, “who’s this?”

Galloping through my brain was the thought that maybe I shouldn’t have answered. Could the cops peg where the cell phone was calling from? Was I marking myself as a suspect by putting myself at the scene of the crime?

Paranoid? Absofuckinglutely. It wasn’t the first dead body I’d seen, but it was the first one I’d found.

“Boo!” Junior’s frantic voice sounded in the tiny earpiece. “Where the fuck are you?”

What was he so frantic about? I was the one next to four hundred pounds of dead Sid. With a shudder, I took a step back so the blood wouldn’t touch my foot. Sid’s curtains blew in on a strong gust of air. I leaned to breathe in the breeze rather than the sickly odor of bodily evacuation that flooded the room.

“I’m in Sid’s.”

“I’m right out front. I’ve got Paul with me.”

“Listen to me, Junior, Sid’s-”

“He came to The Cellar. He saw somebody at the squat. Cassie didn’t get there on her own. You were right.”

The room spun like I was in a centrifuge when the callused hand of reality suddenly squeezed my nuts.

“Junior, wait a sec-”

Why was Sid’s blood still pooling?

A tiny wisp of gray smoke curled up from Sid’s brand-new nose hole.

That wasn’t a rumbling of thunder I’d heard; it was Sid hitting the floor.

The open window.

A hand reached around the open sill and started firing in my direction. I heard the fup-fup-fup of a silencer as chips of paint and concrete flew around my head. I dove for the kitchen and landed right on my bad leg. I screamed as the stitches tore, blood immediately seeping through the bandages, soaking my pants leg. A cloud of plaster dust filled the room, and the dog started yipping in fright again. I covered my head and stayed low.

The gunshots stopped, and the dust settled around me. The fire escape rattled as the shooter made his escape. Hobbling, I scooped up Sid’s pistol and got to the window just in time to see the door shut on a dark green four-door. I fired the pistol’s two bullets at the car.

Being the shot that I am, I managed to miss an entire car with the first bullet. The second one chipped off the windshield. The gun didn’t even have enough firepower to get through glass at that distance.

The engine roared to life as I grabbed onto the fire escape ladder and slid the floor and a half down. Jagged pieces of rusted iron sliced my palms.

I hit pavement just as the car sped toward the alleyway to the street. When my newly re-opened leg hit the ground, my nervous system short-circuited. Nothing but pure adrenaline got me back to my feet through the blinding pain.

I turned the corner just in time to see the taillights whipping away.

Paul stood at the end of the alley, waving his outstretched arms to stop the car.

“Paul! No!” I yelled. “Get the fuck out of the way!”

The car wasn’t going to stop.

Junior came out of nowhere and open-field tackled Paul. The two of them flew sideways across the mouth of the alley.

A second too late.

With a thumping crunch, the car plowed into them, launching them both into the air and out of my line of sight. The car screeched left, and I heard a second terrible crunch of shattering glass.

As fast as my gushing leg could carry me, I bolted down the alley. People were screaming. Tires screeched-the driver of the car blowing through a red light, missing the honking cross traffic by inches, then gone. In the melee, I couldn’t find Junior or Paul. In a panic, I ran to the closest assemblage of witnesses.

Junior lay in a crumpled heap against Miss Kitty, a huge dent in the driver’s side door where he’d hit. Paul had been launched through the window of the candy shop where Junior and I bought our Sno-Caps and jellybeans the night of our stakeout. A cascade of bright candy poured out around Paul’s mangled body.

Groaning, Junior pushed himself up with his left arm, his right arm bending at the bicep in an unnatural angle.

I ran to Paul.

All of Paul seemed to be pointing in wrong directions. His eyes were wild with fear and pain as I kneeled next to him, glass cutting into my knees. Red, green, and purple jellybeans ran onto the sidewalk, mixing into the small river of Paul’s blood.