David Levien - Where the dead lay

The kid was dead, that much was clear enough. After a moment, Behr eventually recognized him as the same one he’d followed from Flavia Inez’s old building. It took him a moment because the man had a plastic bag secured over his head that the woman tore away revealing his face, cherry-colored thanks to the carbon monoxide poisoning. The woman had slumped to her knees by the time Behr approached and she looked up at him with dazed and distant eyes. She began backing away across the cement floor of the garage. Behr extended what he hoped was a calming hand.

“Ma’am,” he said. It seemed to ignite her. She leaped to her feet and bolted inside the house. Behr took a look back over his shoulder. No units were responding as of yet, and if sirens were sounding in the distance the operatic rock music blasting out of the car stereo was drowning them out.

Shit, Behr sighed, and headed inside the house after her. He didn’t have much choice, and he went quickly because he didn’t know what he’d find waiting for him in there and didn’t want to give her time. He moved down a hallway, the house silent around him. He came upon her in the kitchen. Her eyes flashed with hatred. Her feet, shod in sneakers, squeaked on the linoleum floor as she came at him, slashing, with a boning knife.

Rush in. Close the distance. Get inside striking range.

The staccato thoughts of what he was supposed to do when facing a knife screamed across Behr’s cortex. But instead, he found himself leaping backward, instinctively trying to clear the weapon in the other direction. It was a mistake. She cut him on the outside of the left forearm, and he felt the cold burn immediately. The floor would soon be slick with blood, difficult to keep his balance on, his hand perhaps not functional if she’d nicked a tendon. The pain woke him up to the fact that this was real, and as she stumbled forward for another strike, Behr set his feet and drilled her in the face with a straight right. The shot caught her flush on the cheekbone and sounded a loud crack. Her feet ripped up and out from under her and she landed flat on her ass and her head went back and hit the kitchen floor. Behr felt something for the blonde, laid out there, what looked to be her son dead in the garage, but he stuffed it down deep and kicked the knife away. He checked his arm. Blood was seeping from a three-inch slash, but the wound wasn’t deep. He grabbed a dishtowel and wrapped the arm before checking the rest of the house. The rooms were all empty. He discovered the woman’s purse on her unmade bed, rifled it, found her cell phone, which he snapped in his hands. He took the battery for good measure and returned to the kitchen, where the woman was stirring slightly and moaning on the floor. He considered waiting for her to come out of it and questioning her but didn’t want to invest the time or get entangled with the responding officers. On his way from the house he ripped out the telephone landline where it fed in by the side of the open garage door that held the car and the dead kid, and then he was back in his car. He placed a call to Pomeroy’s cell phone, but it rang through to voice mail. He left a message of what the police would find at the Schlegel residence, and though he knew he should stop, pull over, turn off his car, and call it a day, he signed off by saying: “I’m heading for the husband’s work addy.”

Where the fuck is everybody? Terry Schlegel wondered, closing his phone. He’d called them all in succession. Charlie, Kenny, Dean, and Vicky. It was like some kind of cell phone outage, Terry thought, as he dialed into the AMSEC safe that was set in the floor of his office at the garage. The only one whose location he had locked down at the moment was Knute, who would be coming by in a few hours once he’d met up with the Chicago guys. Fifty-seven thousand in cash was what he had in the safe. He’d have seven left in his pocket when it was done. It seemed like a good time to carry extra cash, as he’d be needing it to take a powder for a while. He filled a small tool bag with the rubber-banded bills. Beneath the money was the stainless Smith amp; Wesson. 40 caliber Charlie had given him a while back. Some might have thought it a strange gift, but that was the kind of family they were-they did things their own way, they had their own kind of closeness-and if people didn’t understand it, they could go fuck themselves. Terry checked the clip on the Smith, racked the slide, and tucked it in his belt. He was closing the safe when there was a knock at the door.

“Yeah?” Terry called out.

“Boss?” It was Raul, his shop foreman.

“Come on,” Terry yelled, standing up. The door opened. Raul was standing there, and beyond him was a flash of blond hair and skinny legs in tight faded jeans.

“You got a visitor,” Raul said, his tone and his expression blank.

That’s ’cause he’s smart, Terry thought. He knows better than to come smirking around my office. The foreman cleared and revealed Kathy, that little girl from the bar who went to high school with Kenny. She’d boned how many of his sons? He didn’t care, and neither did they. He’d brought her to the garage that night not long ago. He was usually pretty good with the discipline, but the blond hair, the little slip of a body, the jut of her chin that spoke of her tough attitude-it all put him in mind of Vicky when she was young. This Kathy, with the hundreds of little scars along her arms, like she was trying to erase herself but not all at once, was like a time machine. They’d shared a bottle he had in his desk after he’d shown her a GTO that was getting a full makeover. He’d stuck his dick in her mouth that night and she’d bounced her face on it like some kind of lobotomized mental patient. He’d been fairly sick about it for a week, and then he’d forgotten it. He didn’t expect her back, but here she was.

“Thanks, Raul,” Terry said. “I want you guys closing up early today. I’ve got something I’ve gotta do and I may need the space.”

“Sure, boss,” Raul said. The foreman and the rest of the guys all knew that they’d be paid in full despite the short hours. Raul turned to spread the good news to the others and left Terry with the girl.

“Kathy,” Terry smiled, “what can I help you with?”

“Hi, Mr… I mean, Terry,” she said, and smiled.

As he drove, Behr felt like a locomotive hurtling toward a tunnel.

I can’t stop.

It seemed clear enough.

I should stop, just pull over and turn off the car and wait for the police… I probably have enough to jam the Schlegels up all the way…

But something had tripped in him and it pushed him on. He couldn’t let it set. He’d been training his whole life, he realized, for some fight, hoping like hell he’d be strong enough and ready when it came. It wasn’t the one in the bar, or the one in Francovic’s place, or any other scrap he’d been in-that was clear to him now. He thought of Susan, of the baby she carried, and the fact that they-the Schlegels and their scumbag friends-knew who she was, and that she was in this thing, and suddenly he knew what he was fighting for.

He drove into the parking lot of the Rubber House, the body and tire shop that Schlegel owned, and saw that he had gotten there before the police. The place looked closed; only a Dodge Charger was parked around the side. His immediate concern, as he nosed into a spot right near the door, was that he was too late and had missed Schlegel and wouldn’t be able to find him. He crossed to the door of the building, looking and listening but not seeing any sign of activity. The front door was unlocked when he tried it, and he bit back on the saliva in his mouth and went in.

Inside, the waiting room was shadowy. Behr felt his pupils draw wide and pull for light as they adjusted to the half darkness. He continued past the counter into the first work area, where the repair bays were dimly lit and quiet. He was aware of the noise of his shoes and the heavy thud of his steps as he made his way across the cement floor. He stopped and tried to calm his breathing and thought he heard voices coming from the back. He moved toward them, hoping not to disturb the speakers and to hear what they were saying. Then the low grinding noise of a bay door rolling up somewhere deep in the building washed the voices away. He continued toward the noise, picking up his pace now, using the sound as cover for his movement. He rounded the corner toward a back loading dock where afternoon light spilled in through the gap and bathed the garage in yellow. There was a moment’s pause as the door finished its journey, and then a male figure emerged from an office and headed for the open door. Following a step behind was a teenage girl. She saw Behr first, and stopped.