Lynne Heitman - First Class Killing

The opening was the width of my shoulders. It had two half-moon crescents carved out of the sides so you could put your fingers in and lift it out. I got down on my knees and tried to pry it out, but it was heavy and wedged tightly into its opening. I got up and framed the opening with one foot on either side. I wormed my fingers in, gave it a quick tug straight up, and it came out.

The hole it covered was about six inches deep and lined with metal. Inside were stacks and stacks of jewel cases. I pulled up the first stack and flipped through it. Using my flashlight, I saw the codes that labeled them. There were about forty per disc. Each code representeda man, each man a life. He had a wife or kids or a girlfriend. A career to be lost. A reputation to be tarnished. Maybe Angel would say that’s what they deserved. Any man who had made the choice to cheat on his loved ones deserved to have that choice used against him. I didn’t know. I couldn’t figure all that out. All I knew was that one of them was Jamie’s, and Angel shouldn’t have them. I reached down to take them away from her, and the fireplace roared to life.

It was like a grenade going off in the dark room, and I couldn’t keep from turning to look at it. When I did, I knew she was behind me. I felt her there. I dropped the boxes and reached for the gun, but it was too late. As I turned back, her arms were already on the way around, driven toward my head, it seemed, by the accelerating force of her guttural scream. I dropped to my knees with both hands to the floor. A vicious tear opened in the space above my head. I could tell by the sound that she was swinging a fireplace poker, an iron sword that was flying toward me again from her backhand side, this time with lower trajectory and better aim. I tried to flatten and roll away, but she caught my elbow with the downward hack, and the gun went flying. The pain from my elbow shot straight up my arm, across both shoulders, and down to my stomach, where it lurched around and threatened to blow straight up the back of my throat. Jesus, it hurt. I cradled it to my side. My body wanted to wrap itself around the injured limb, but she was coming, moving through the field of furniture with the poker over her head.

I scrambled into the nearest cover, a crawl space between the couch and the coffee table. She hacked off the corner of the glass tabletop. It was a clean break and a deafening pop right next to my ear. Her second try was a direct, shattering blow to the heart of the thick glass plane. I turned away. Shards flew. Large sections of glass dropped like heavy rocks straight to the floor. I kept moving. She kept coming, tripping around the furniture, chopping and hacking at me, strangling on her screams. I pulled pillows and cushions from the couch to cover my head as I went. Anything I could put my good hand on-ashtray, statue, magazine, potted plant-I tossed back at her, trying to slow her down. Something finally did. The poker tangled in the table’s low legs. I grabbed for it, wrapping my good hand around the tip, the only part I could get to, but she had all the leverage and ripped it away, nearly taking the skin off my palm in the process. I crawled over the field of broken glass and skirted around the end of the couch.

She was loud and noisy and clumsy with rage, wild to get to me. Every frenzied whack came with a roar that started in her throat and ended with the sound of splintering wood or shattering glass or the thudding of objects raining down around me. My only hope was that all the flailing and swinging might be wearing her out.

I had to get to my feet. There was no shot on my hands and knees. My elbow was hot and throbbing and swollen massively, but it seemed to still work as a hinge. When I tried to straighten it, the pain was dizzying, but it responded. I crawled on my belly under a side table. She whacked the Stiffel lamp that was sitting on it, pulverizing the lightbulb and sending the shade flying across the room. The heavy base of the lamp crashed to the floor in front of me, then twitched as it reached the end of its electric cord. I reached out for it, grabbed hold, and tried to reel it in, but she had come around. When she saw what I was trying to do, she stepped on the cord. I barely pulled my hand back in time before the sharp end of the poker came down, spearing the hardwood floor. This time, when I grabbed the tip, I pulled it up and toward me, yanking it with my entire body. She didn’t let go. The side table, my shield, tipped back as her countertug yanked me out into the open.

Goddammit, she was strong.

I strangled that poker, knowing what would happen if I let go. I tried to climb the ladder, hand over hand, but she kicked at my head and tried to stomp me. When she hit my elbow, I screamed. She screamed back. I rolled over to protect the arm, still holding onto the poker, still connected to her. She stomped on my back, maybe a kidney, and a bright white light exploded behind my eyes. I couldn’t breathe, and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do to keep from closing my eyes and going to sleep.

She would kill me if I did. She would beat me with that poker until I looked the way Robin Sevitch had. I kept my eyes open…and saw my chance. The lamp. It was right there, the base of it staring me in the face. To grab it, I had to let go of the poker. I had to let go with one hand, grab the lamp, and swing it all at once, because she would use the chance to raise the weapon over her head, and bring it down hard enough to crack my skull open.

My brain was telling me to move, to movefast andmove now, but my body wouldn’t respond. I felt drugged. She made the choice for me when she twisted the poker hard and jerked it away. I grabbed for the lamp. It rolled away. I lurched after it. The poker came down, hit the arm of a chair and then my shoulder. I couldn’t feel anything now. I couldn’t hear anything. All I could see was the brass lamp. She saw it, too, and tried to kick it away. I grabbed at it again and got it this time. I swung it at the most vulnerable part of her I could reach-her knees. Nothing ever felt so good as the sickening collision of brass against bone when I made contact. She teetered but didn’t fall. I got to my knees and swung again with more leverage. Her shriek punched through the cotton that filled my head, and I could hear again.

She dropped like a bag of stones and rolled over on her side, one hand resting lightly on her devastated knee. Just for good measure, I hit it again and heard it crack. When she saw me moving toward the poker, she made a disturbingly strong grab for it. I got to it first and pulled it away. She didn’t go after it.

I tried to get up, staggered against the couch, and didn’t make it. I tried again and this time my legs engaged, and I was upright, standing over her with the poker swinging from my good hand.

She was on her side with her upper body twisted facedown on the floor. Her hair had spilled across her face, so I couldn’t see whether her eyes were open. Even with one leg cracked and bent beneath her, she looked lethal. I wasn’t sure about getting so near, but I wanted to see if she was conscious. I inched close enough to nudge her damaged knee with my foot.

She jerked violently and let loose with a long, loud scream that was raw and disorganized but powerful enough to make me feel that this wasn’t over.

“Stoppushing at me, you wicked bitch. It’s not enough for you to break my goddamned knee?” She rolled over and stared up at me. “Now you’ve got to stand over me and poke at me like I’m some kind of a dead dog in a ditch.” She tried to leg-whip me with her good leg. I was slow, but she was slower and clearly in agony. I shuffled out of her range and left her lying on her back, face twisted and eyes squeezed tight. She tried to control the pain through her breathing-long, deep breaths sucked through her nose and exhaled steadily through her mouth.