J. Konrath - Dirty Martini

“Yeah,” I said.

“Wasn’t that the coolest?”

I understood what he was saying, and found myself getting a little choked up. “It was pretty cool, Harry.”

McGlade turned to me, and winked.

“Last stop just ahead, Butch.”

Harry turned right onto Howard Street, and we faced the sprawling sewage treatment complex. At least half a mile long, and maybe three-quarters of a mile wide, on a big patch of very green land.

We hung a left onto the access road, passing two towering brick buildings connected by a massive black air pipe, which stretched over our heads and into the distance like a monorail. The entrance was surrounded by trees, probably planted there to disguise the community eyesore. They should have planted flowers instead. The smell of sewage and waste overpowered us when we pulled onto Howard, and steadily increased the closer we got. Ripe was a good word. Revolting was even better.

“You think we got it bad?” Harry said. “At least we don’t have to work here.”

“Go left. We’re looking for the aeration tanks.”

“Those round ones?” McGlade pointed to a group of eight settling tanks on our left, each the size of a large swimming pool.

“No. Ahead of us. That big one.”

It looked like a small, filthy lake, except it was a perfect rectangle, and the stuff floating on the surface wasn’t algae.

“What should we do?” Harry asked. “Jump out and let the truck coast in?”

“That’s probably the best way.”

“Should I slow down?”

I noted we were going about twenty miles an hour.

“Why bother? If we hurt ourselves, we won’t feel it for long.”

McGlade aimed the truck for the water, and we both opened our doors.

“If there’s an afterlife,” he said, “you owe me some sex.”

I looked down at how fast the ground was moving, reminded myself that fear didn’t matter at this point, and jumped from the cab at the same time as Harry.

90 SECONDS

I HIT THE PAVEMENT like a paratrooper, ankles tight together and knees bent. It did nothing to cushion my fall. I skidded across the pavement like a skipping stone and then turned a cartwheel or two onto the grass. When the world stopped spinning, I knew I’d done something bad to my right ankle, and I had a scrape across my left palm that looked like I’d taken a belt sander to it.

I sat up, my head screaming at me. It took me a few seconds to find the goose egg, near my crown, leaking blood. I’d lost my Cubs cap.

Gagging screams to my left. McGlade, pulling himself up out of the aeration tank. He looked like a mud monster, rising from the swamp. He lumbered toward me, spitting out brown water, and as he got closer I noted he had several multicolored things stuck to his body.

“You’ve got a… condom on your shoulder.”

He looked at it, and flicked it off with his claw.

“Yuck. And what the hell is this plastic thing?”

“It’s an applicator.”

“Do I want to know what it applies?”

“Probably not.”

The truck had almost completely sunk. Bubbles were still coming up from the cab, and the impact waves had disturbed the entire pool, sloshing filthy water up onto the land. Mission accomplished. But I was having a hard time feeling any sense of accomplishment. Even dampened by the water and the concrete, the blast would destroy this entire plant. We were as good as dead.

McGlade rubbed some muck off his face and gave me a lecherous grin.

“So… about that sex you owe me.”

I checked my watch. “We’ve only got fifty seconds left.”

“I only need thirty.”

“Sorry, Harry. Not even if you weren’t covered with human waste.”

He pouted.

“Come on, Jackie. I’ve always known you had a little thing for me.”

I started to laugh. “You’re the one with the little thing.”

McGlade started to laugh too. And then we were hugging each other, laughing like fools, and I noticed he was angling me toward the truck, like a shield, which made me laugh even harder.

“You’re such an asshole, McGlade.”

“You love me. Admit it.”

“I admit nothing. I-”

A sound, to the south. Mechanical. Rumbling. Growing louder.

“A helicopter.” McGlade shielded his eyes from the sun and peered into the distance. “Son of a bitch.”

“I’ll second that.”

As it came into focus, I saw it was a Chicago police chopper, coming at us fast. Real fast. I looked at my watch. We had fifteen seconds left.

“WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO LAND!” the megaphone boomed, and I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

Herb.

“GRAB THE LADDER! WE CAN ONLY MAKE ONE PASS!”

Harry and I watched as a rescue ladder unfurled below the landing skids. The bird swooped in low, the bottom of the ladder sparking against the pavement. It was coming so quick, it would knock out our teeth, or yank our shoulders from our sockets. I decided I could live with either.

At nine seconds until detonation, the ladder hit us with the force of a car wreck. I’d been aiming to get my arm in between the rungs, and I did it, getting a smack in the chest that knocked the wind out of me and probably broke a few ribs. I was jerked off my feet, and so was Harry. The helicopter began a rapid ascent, but it was too fast, too much G force, too much wind resistance, and I just couldn’t hold on.

My grip failed, and as I began to fall I wondered what would kill me first, the ground or the explosion.

4 SECONDS

I DIDN’T FALL.

McGlade-stupid, offensive, obnoxious McGlade-wrapped his legs around my waist in a fireman rescue, and I squinted through the rushing air and saw his mechanical hand locked tight onto a ladder rung.

We climbed even faster, the treatment plant getting smaller and smaller until the cloud cover made it disappear. I held on to Harry’s waist, and looped an elbow around the ladder.

And then the world exploded.

It wasn’t a bang . More like a whoomp . Beneath the clouds came a searing flash of light, and then a wall of hot air and detritus, which rocked the whirly-bird like a toy boat in a hurricane. We tilted to the side until the ladder was actually higher than the propeller, back the other way, and into a spiral that once again broke my grip, but not Harry’s. I squeezed my eyes shut, unsure which way was which, only that I was alive for a little while longer and damn grateful for it.

Then the storm passed. The chopper regained control and began a steady descent that took a tremendous amount of strain off of my muscles and joints, making hanging on almost child’s play. We crept down past the clouds, and I looked toward the treatment plant and saw a giant column of smoke where it used to be. But the houses to the west, and the businesses to the south, seemed intact. It was strangely quiet, and I realized the explosion had knocked out my hearing, which for some reason was more peaceful to me than frightening.

We landed on the country club green, though it wasn’t actually green anymore. Sludge and waste and debris was spewed across the golf course, making it look like a dump. It was still coming down from the sky too, a foul black drizzle mixed with smoke and tiny bits of dirt.

When my feet touched land I cried out in pain from five different places at once, but I was in better shape than McGlade. His prosthesis was soaked in blood, which had leaked from where it was attached to his stump, and his shoulder was noticeably dislocated. Eyes closed. No movement at all. But his legs remained locked around my waist.

“Harry!” I yelled, barely able to hear my own voice.

A dozen things flashed through my mind. Had he been hit by some shrapnel? One of the nails from the bomb? Some sort of internal injury? A fast-acting disease from the raw sewage he’d flopped around in?