Frank Klus - Azaleas Don't Bloom Here

“At least get rid of the Lexus, Mr. Big Shot Businessman.” Seven miles over.

“Now, as to what I really want to tell you. It’s about your wife’s suicide.” Eight miles over.

“You want to know why she really killed herself, Gene? It wasn’t because she got pregnant. She could have said, ‘You’re going to be a father.’ But that wasn’t the reason. The truth is she enjoyed fucking Jay Casimir. She felt guilty that he was better than you.”

Gene could see her evil smile as she said it. Instantly, he slammed on the brakes, pulled over, and screamed at her. “Get out, you filthy whore! And if you ever break into my car again I will call the police immediately and have you arrested. You understand that, Mrs. O’Reilly? GET OUT!”

As soon as Eugene finished his rant he heard the whistles of the Lightning Squad. “SHIT!” He was stuck. That damn Cassandra. She probably planned this . Gene waited for the squad leader to get to him. He hoped that company lawyer could get him out quickly. As the squad leader neared him he recognized him as the same one who pulled him over before.

Eugene turned around when he saw who it was. “Is that booger… or wha—?”

Cassandra wasn’t there. He had turned to look in the back seat when Bog knocked on the window. Gene opened it.

“Looking for a gun or something, Mr. Sulke?”

“No. I… was just frustrated.”

“I clocked you at twelve miles over the legal limit.”

Bog looked mean and started speaking in a low and grumbling voice. “You beat the rap the last time and cost me money. Your luck just ran out. Get out of the car!”

He started to get out when he heard the loud popping of weapon fire. Bog turned around to see his rear pointman dead, and in an instant Bog had a funny look on his face as he collapsed to the ground. An astounded Eugene Sulke looked at Cassandra with a squad pointman at her feet, bleeding profusely. All three squad members were dead. The one by Cassandra had his throat slit.

“Jesus Christ!” Eugene said. “Why the hell did you do that? You didn’t have to do that.”

“Get in the car. Now!” Eugene did so, but he was confused.

“But why did you have to kill those men? They didn’t see you. You could have gotten away. I would have been fined; maybe do a little jail time, and that would be the end of it. Now, thanks to your Le Femme Nikita antics, I’m a murder suspect. Jesus, you were no ordinary squad member.”

“You’re right. I wasn’t. I was in the Blue Squad. It’s an elite unit, like the Green Berets,” she said.

“I’m going to be charged with murder or a co-conspiracy to murder.”

“I did what I had to do. We need to get out of Squad territory before those guys are discovered.”

Eugene wasn’t sure what to do. He drove on for about a mile and then pulled over.

“What are you doing?” Cassandra demanded. “We have to get out of here.” She started to take out her phone, but Eugene remained by the side of the road. Cassandra stopped and stared at him. “Eugene, please drive.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “How will they know it’s us that did it?”

“The tracker Dennis put on your car. The Squad’s going to know we were here.”

“You haven’t answered my question yet.”

“What?”

“Why did you have to kill those men? And don’t tell me you had to do it. You didn’t!”

“You’d be screwed if they brought you in. Maybe they’d let you out, but you’d be screwed either way. They know you met me by now. That makes you a suspect right then and there. Now they have this to pin on you. Drive to your parents’ house.”

“NO!” Eugene was fighting to control his anger, but he was developing a genuine hatred for this woman.

“DRIVE!”

“NO!”

“Gene, please!”

“GET OUT!” Eugene had lost control now, and was screaming at Cassandra. “I don’t need your protection. Get out! My life was fine until you, the Lightning Squad, and that Casimir punk entered it. I’m sick of it; sick of you; and sick of all these games. I want you out of my life right now.”

Cassandra found herself on the defensive. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going back to work. I’ll see the company lawyer. I’ll tell my boss everything. I’m innocent here and I’m sick of being used by you and everyone else. NOW GO!”

Cassandra climbed out of the car and watched the Lexus speed away. She reached for her phone and dialed. “Ray, I’ve got a problem.”

Cassandra walked over to her husband’s car and got in. Ray stared blankly ahead and then began driving. “What are we going to do?”

“I have to think.”

“You’re mad at me.”

“Cass, you just don’t think things through. We had a plan, remember?”

“Ray, I know I screwed up, but your plan had no chance of succeeding.”

“You seemed fine with it when we talked about it.”

“You wouldn’t have let me do it if you knew what I was thinking.”

“You’re damn right, I wouldn’t,” Ray said, regretting his harsh tone.

“I saw an opportunity and I took it. That forward pointman was standing right in front of Eugene’s car. The car shielded him from view. I ducked out before Bog got to the car. When I saw where that pointman positioned himself, I just grabbed him around the head and slit his throat without either one of them seeing me. Then I shot both of them.”

Cassandra just stared forward, and then turned toward Ray. “Would it be so bad if he gets arrested? That was the original plan anyway, right?”

“NO! This is serious. Reckless driving is one thing; murder is quite another.”

“I was sure that company lawyer would have gotten Eugene out of a speeding ticket, and he would probably be even more reluctant to listen to us.”

“Everything is changed now.” Ray looked serious as he glanced at his wife. “We’re in trouble. They’ll pick Gene up; scare him with threats of trying him for murder, but they’ll know it was us. They’ll put a big scare in him and then promise to release him with no charges if he fingers us. He will. He hates us.”

“But that’s what I said before. Why get him arrested if he’ll hate us?”

“He sees us as terrorists now, and we’re involving him in our scheme. We needed him to think it’s Casimir and NOGOV who are his enemies; now he just sees us.”

Ray paused and Cassandra pouted. “It’s a process,” he said. “You’re impatient, Cass. It’s just one step among many. With the plan you and I agreed to, the Squad wouldn’t be after us. Things would be simpler. We could help Eugene understand that this government has taken away our freedoms. There’s no regular law enforcement organized by the state or country. Now it’s controlled by unelected people answering to a government seized by corporate interests that have only their own interests to look out for. It’s part of the real education of Eugene Sulke. He was always taught the way the country is supposed to work. He isn’t political yet. To Eugene, the antics of these corporatists and their pundits is entertaining, or, in the case of his wife, tragic. He still hasn’t made the link that all this will, and is, affecting him. He still sees himself as outside the nonsense. Everything we do must be designed to help him see the truth. Now, everything has changed.”

Cassandra was visibly stressed as she turned back toward her husband. “You’re right, Ray. I really screwed up. What are we going to do now?”

“I gotta think.”

Cassandra knew to give him time, though she threw a few sideway glances at him from time to time.