Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

She might be, but Eugene Dahl isn’t.

So where is he?

The motorcycle outside means he must be here, but he isn’t here.

Lou licks his lips.

Maybe he stepped out for a few minutes. He could have walked somewhere to get a packet of cigarettes or a bite to eat.

Lou walks to the trailer, holsters his pistol, and pulls the padlock from the staple. Someone within the trailer begins to moan loudly. He yanks up on the large metal handle, which causes two bolts attached to it to retract, sliding out of their slots in the floor and ceiling of the trailer. The doors swing open, revealing Evelyn. She sits on the rotting wood floor of the trailer in a puddle of liquid. The liquid runs down the slant of the floor and splashes to the ground below. The smell of urine is strong. Her mouth is gagged but she tries to speak anyway, and shakes her head violently.

He walks to her and pulls the duct tape from her face and the wadded fabric from her mouth. Her lips are red and raw.

‘Where is he?’

But before Evelyn can speak he has his answer.

7

Eugene lies prone on the filthy roof of the tractor trailer parked at dock number three. He doesn’t move. His head is turned to the right, to the two other trailers parked at the docks and past them to the street. The street is empty. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth. When he exhales he sees the dust on the white roof of the trailer blow away on the wave of his breath. He tries to listen to what Lou’s doing inside the warehouse but hears nothing. The man moves in silence.

Then finally Eugene hears something at the back of the trailer, metal sliding against metal. Evelyn starts to make noises through the gag in her mouth. Eugene’s certain she’s trying to warn Lou of his presence. The trailer doors swing open. Eugene slides across the roof as quietly as possible and peers down through the space between the top of the trailer and the bottom of the roll-up door. He can see Lou’s head, his greasy slicked-back hair. Then the man disappears into the trailer.

Eugene pushes up on the roll-up door, creating another six inches of space. He reaches out, grabbing the doors, and swings them closed. They slam into place and the handle falls about six inches, ejecting the bolts into their holds.

Lou curses and bangs against the doors. They want to give and almost do, must be hanging onto their holds only by mere millimeters.

Eugene drops to the concrete, spraining his ankle, and slams the handle down into place, sending the bolts fully into their holds.

A gunshot goes off and a black dot appears in one of the doors, surrounded by splinters and a star of fresh wood revealed where the splinters once held.

Eugene drops to the concrete. A second shot goes off.

‘If you kill me,’ he says, ‘you’ll die in there.’

Fingers sits in silence. The uniformed officers stand by the door. He’s tried to speak with them two or three times now, empty chatter to fill the empty minutes, but they responded only with one-word answers to his queries, which filled no time at all. He’s been here at least two hours. Even without a clock or a watch available he knows he’s been here that long, and maybe longer. He briefly wishes he’d remembered to put on his watch when he left the apartment this morning, but supposes the cops probably would have taken it, anyway.

He wonders if Eugene’s still alive. He might already have gotten himself killed. Lou might have already put a bullet into him — or six. He wishes Eugene hadn’t told him what he was attempting. It’s insane, will never work. He’s tempted to tell the police everything, the truth beginning to end, simply to save his friend’s life, but he won’t. He tells himself he won’t. He’ll tell them the story he’s supposed to tell them and no other. That may mean he’s helping to kill Eugene, he’s almost certain that’s exactly what it means, but he’ll not betray his friend’s trust a third time. And maybe Eugene will even pull it off. Maybe he’ll manage it and walk away unscathed.

Don’t kid yourself, man, you know better than that.

He supposes the chances are small.

The chances are nonexistent. Eugene might come across as cool, but he’s square and you know it. He can’t kill nobody. Man gets nervous in the presence of a few reefers. You let your friend surround himself with criminals and cops, you’re letting him kill himself. He don’t have it in him to do what he’s planning to do, and when the time comes, he’ll find he’s nothing but a mouse in a snake pit. They’ll eat him alive and you’ll be the one who let it happen, because you’re the only one in a position to stop it.

So ask yourself this. Is it a betrayal to save your friend’s life?

Three knocks at the door. One of the uniformed cops pulls it open. The older detective steps into the room. His face is beaded with sweat. A uniformed cop pushes the door closed and locks it. The detective carries in his hand a white paper bag. He walks to the table and sets it in front of Fingers. The bottom is translucent with grease.

‘Got you some food. Eat up, then we’ll talk.’

The detective pulls out a chair and sits across from him.

1

Eugene carries Evelyn’s purse to Louis Lynch’s rented car, opens the door with a gloved hand, tosses the purse into the back seat. It falls to the floorboard, where its contents spill out across the carpet.

He slams shut the door.

2

He grabs his motorcycle by the handlebars and pushes it out to the street and along the sun-faded asphalt, rolling it away from the building silently. Once he’s put some distance between himself and the warehouse, he kicks the machine to life and rides north, feeling shaky now that the adrenalin within him has been spent. The front of his shirt is filthy from lying on top of the trailer. His face is grimy. He feels sticky with nervous sweat now dried. He doesn’t care. He managed to make it through the first part of this madness, and that’s something. He wasn’t sure he would, but he did, and without any trouble at all. It gives him hope he might actually pull it off. He’ll know for certain by tomorrow afternoon — if he’s still alive to know anything.

There’s more than a small chance it’ll turn out to be his last tomorrow.

For now, though, he must finish with today.

3

He pushes into Louis Lynch’s hotel room and closes the door behind him. He walks to the small leatherette hard-case on the dresser and opens it, squeezing the latch with thumb and index, flipping the body of the case up. He looks down at the black Royal typewriter revealed. Then, after a moment, he rolls a sheet of hotel stationery into the machine. He looks down at the blank cream-colored paper. His mouth goes dry. He licks his lips. He swallows. Finally he types:

2294 E. 37th St.

Vernon, CA.

1:30 p.m.

Come alone or she dies.

He stops typing, pulls his gloved fingers off the round keys. His hands hover over the typewriter. He reads the note and, satisfied, removes it from the machine. It says everything he needs it to say, and most of what he needs it to say has nothing to do with the words on the page or what order they’re in. He carefully folds the paper into thirds, making certain the creases are straight — Louis Lynch seems like a straight-crease kind of guy — then stuffs the folded paper into a hotel envelope and seals it. He types a name on the front of the envelope and with it in his hand steps out of the hotel room. He takes the elevator down to the lobby, slides the envelope across the front desk, tells the gentleman who picks it up it’s for Humphrey Smith, I understand he’s expected to check in late tonight or early tomorrow morning. He must receive it as soon as he arrives. The gentleman tells him yes, sir, not a problem. Eugene says thank you, then turns and walks out of the hotel. As he makes his way toward the street he asks himself what else he needs to do, what else he needs to take care of.