Josh Stallings - Out There Bad

Flipping the AK around, I drew a bead on the old man’s forehead. The room went still. The old man’s dead eyes opened only slightly. Gregor was still pinned to the wall, one of the goons pressed his rifle into Gregor’s eye socket.

“Better tell your punk to release my friend, before I get nervous and this whole deal gets wet,” I told the old man.

Slowly, the old man let out a hissing sigh. “We have quite a conundrum here. You appear to have captured the king, checkmate. But what if the king does not mind dying?”

“Then we have one thing in common.” I kept the AK trained on his face.

“If you shoot me, they most definitely will shoot him.” He tilted his head toward Gregor, who shrugged indifferently. “How delightfully stoic, brave heroes to the end.”

“Fuck this noise.” Pivoting, I pulled the trigger. Blood exploded from the knee of the man holding a rifle on Gregor. As he fell, Gregor grabbed his second guard by the collar and ran him headfirst into the wall. Before the echo of the shot died, all were down and I again was aimed at the old man. He hadn’t moved an inch, he simply watched it go down.

“Nicely played. I seem to have underestimated your brute desire to win,” he said.

After Gregor tied the goon squad up, he went down to get Anya. I had a little chat with the old man. If his turn of fortune had shaken him, he sure was hiding it well. “Young man, you have truly stuck your head into the proverbial hornets’ nest. The odds of your surviving the next forty-eight hours are less than zero.”

“Maybe I should deep six you and walk away.”

“That is what I, if in your cheap shoes, would most certainly do. But it would not change your fate. From this moment forth, no hole will be deep enough nor distant enough for you to hide in.”

“Where is Anya’s sister?”

“Quite honestly, I have no knowledge, nor desire for any, of the girl’s whereabouts.”

The report of my rifle exploded into the still room. The bullet ripped into the club chair’s leather inches from his head, kicking soft tufts of stuffing onto his cheek. He looked from the hole to me without fear.

“Game’s over, motherfucker.” My ears were ringing from the shot.

“On the contrary, the game is just now beginning. Get your little slut and get off my property, your histrionics are starting to bore me.”

I wanted so badly to splatter his smirking face across his lovely chair. But that would be wrong, and more importantly, stupid. Never make a bold play until you know the rules of the game. I had made that mistake by stumbling in here, no need to compound it.

After sweeping the mansion and binding all the occupants, we left through the front door. Anya had emerged from the basement, wearing a deep green velvet dress that made her eyes sparkle. She had matching green heels, expertly applied make-up and her lips shone like fresh washed cherries. Even on the run she wanted to look her best.

At the car, Gregor had me pop the trunk. From under his greatcoat he pulled an AK47.

“A souvenir,” he said, and slammed the trunk closed.

“Did they tell you where my sister is?” Anya asked as we drove slowly down the quiet street.

“We’ll find her.”

“How? What have you done? If she dies, it will be your fault.” She was right, of course. Now a thirteen year old girl’s life depended on my next move. I needed to buy time, time to think, time to plan. I needed a drink.

Borrowing Gregor’s cloned and untraceable cell phone, I called Lowrie at home. He was an LAPD homicide detective, and the only cop I trusted. I roused him from deep slumber, but years on the job trained him to snap to alertness regardless of the hour. After busting my balls for waking him, we got to it. I gave him the mansion’s address and told him he would find a basement full of trafficked Russian girls, illegal weapons and hog tied Russian mobsters.

“And this involves homicide how?” he asked.

“Preventive, you don’t do something about it, there will be a murder, I’m sure of it.”

“But not by you, right?”

“Never, you know me, John Q Law-Abider.”

“I have a friend on the Russian mob task force, any chance you’ll talk to them?” He already knew the answer but he had to ask.

“I wasn’t even there.”

“And if the Russians say different?”

“Then they’re liars.” If they could ID me, I wouldn’t have dropped the dime. I told Lowrie I’d call him the next day and clicked off.

We traversed Los Angeles without seeing any black Mercedes, no gun toting mobsters, not even any patrol cars. To be safe, we decided Gregor would camp out at my place. Angel bounced up for a pet from me and then Gregor, who knelt down so she could slime his face. Anya looked anxiously at my big dog. With a snap of my finger I pointed to Angel’s dog bed, after fluffing her pillows with her paws, she lay down.

While Gregor made coffee, I poured Anya a tall scotch. The scent made me more than want to pour myself a tall one. She took a long gulp of whisky, then closed her eyes tight. Maybe she was hoping this was a bad dream. If it was, it started long before she met me.

At her feet, a single suitcase held all she owned. Whatever she made dancing hadn’t gone in her pocket, she had forty two dollars folding cash and some coins rattling around in her purse. No passport, no driver’s license, not a piece of paper to prove she existed. She was off the grid in a foreign land, and now her only hope rested in the hands of a suicidal titty bar bouncer and an Armenian street thug.

“The cops will buy us a couple of days before we show back up on the Russians’ radar, we need to find your sister before they lawyer up and spread the word.”

“Nika, that is her name, Nika…” Her eyes were still shut. Her voice came from far off. “Will they kill her?”

“No.” That’s what I told her, as if I had one fucking clue what was coming next.

While Gregor and I drank coffee and she drank more scotch, I had her tell us how she came to the States. If I could trace her course, I might be able to find her sister. Anya had flown from Moscow to Israel and then Mexico. They had customs officers on the mob’s paysheet.

“I was not foolish enough to believe I was coming here to be a maid. My eyes were, as you say, wide open. But back home, there was no hope. Here, I could make real money, buy a better life. Such a mistake.” Her eyes clenched tight to keep the tears from falling.

“After the airport, where did you go?”

“They took me to a house, away from the city. Other girls were with me, we hadn’t eaten in days…” Tears rolled and she went silent.

“It’s alright, you can tell me,” I said.

She looked to Gregor, imploring him in Russian.

“She’s afraid you won’t want her if you know what they did to her. You’ll think she is damaged goods. Her words, not mine, boss. I told her we were all damaged goods in this room.”

“He’s right,” I told her. “How long did they keep you in the house?”

“A long time, weeks, I don’t know.” She was crying now with abandon, snot ran down her lip. Black lines of mascara streaked down from her eyes. The humanness of it made me want to protect her from this screwed up world. Gregor handed her a linen handkerchief. In the face of pain, he neither shied away nor reveled in it. He’d simply respond.

Anya wiped her face, blew her nose and smiled at Gregor. “I stained it, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not important,” he said, followed by Russian. She answered him, but I was clueless to what they were saying. He continued to soothe her, her tears slowed, she even smiled at something he said.

I dropped an army surplus sleeping bag, a comforter and a couple of pillows onto the sofa. “Shall I sleep with you?” Anya asked, looking nervously from Gregor to me.