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“Say it with me, dammit, you’re going to be okay.” The white vinyl of the backseat was slick with red. Hands slipped and slid as the kid in the back writhed. The tears in his eyes could be seen from the rearview; the backseat a harsh watery mess of tears, sweat, and blood. Clean white marred beyond recognition. He was drowning in his own blood, his only anchor the man clasping his hand.
“You’re going to be okay.”
“I’m going to be okay.” The driver, Larry, squeezed the injured man’s hand as he flung the car around a corner. “Larry,” the injured man gritted out through clenched teeth, nails clawing into the ever slicker vinyl. “Larry, you gotta bring me to the hospital, man. Fuck Joe, fuck the diamonds, I just don’t wanna die.”
Larry turned his upper body, no longer looking at the road, but foot still burying the pedal into the floor. The man in the backseat, who Larry only knew as Mr. Orange, was in a miserable state. “I can’t do that, you know I can’t.”
“Just dump me outside the ER, I won’t say anything, you know I won’t. Larry,” Orange paused to spit out an elongated, harsh ‘Fuck!’
Larry had resumed watching the road, glancing in the rearview at the bleeding, swearing man in the back seat. He knew he had to make a decision and fast. It was made as the car careened over a speed hump, wringing out a blubbery “Fucking bitch,” from the injured man.
“What’s your name, kid?” He jerked the wheel to take the next left, no longer en route to the warehouse rendezvous point. All that was visible in the mirror was Orange in a fetal position, not much more noise coming out of him, bathed in scarlet, not much white left around him. “Hey!” Larry jerked the wheel again and clipped the curb. Another agonized cry came from Orange , shaking him back to consciousness. “Tell me your fucking name!”
“Freddy! It’s Freddy.” The car squealed to a stop as Larry slammed on the brakes. He heaved Freddy out of the backseat and half dragged him towards the door. He was back in the car and peeling out faster than the bleeding man could fully comprehend what was happening. Larry looked in the mirror as the beige car hauled ass out of the parking lot, watching Freddy tilt his head backwards and squint against the Californian sun. He thought he could see Freddy make eye contact with him, before Freddy’s head lolled to the side in unconsciousness.
Larry only slowed down once he was a few blocks from the meet-up. “I’m a fucking idiot,” he muttered to himself. He’s supposed to be a professional, and here he is turning soft, acting like a candy-ass amateur, and for who? Mr Freddy-fucking-Orange? “Fuck!” He dropped the car into park, killed the engine, and hurried into the building.
~
The white sand wedged itself between Larry’s toes as he wiggled them at the edge of his blanket. He downed the last drops from his warming bottle of beer. Another replaced it from the metal bucket full of ice and bottles, dug down in the sand next to him. He watched the choppy waves of the Pacific thunder against the shoreline. The sun blazed, he was starting to turn a rosy pink.
As Larry took a cool sip from his new bottle, he noticed movement in his peripheral vision. Years of finely tuned criminal instinct played to his advantage. A figure was cutting a path through the sand a good 150 yards away. He squinted, not sure who was approaching. Fingers itching to grab the gun he had at the bottom of his beach bag, he took another drink instead. No use reacting before he even knew who the hell it was. Some lost dumbass tourist, no doubt. He looked back out at the waves.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the person coming closer. Their gait was stiff and slow. At about 30 yards, recognition struck. His hand wedged in the bag, ready to draw, he set his jaw and resumed staring out at the ocean.
“This is a private beach.”
“Beaches in Mexico are public, federally owned land.” He refused to look up and over, seeing only pale skinny legs and ridiculous khaki shorts out of the corner of his eye. He decided to cut to the chase.
“Mind letting me finish my beer before you shoot me in the head?”
“Mind taking your hand out of that bag?”
“I don’t follow orders from fucking rats,” Larry began, yet even as he said it, he was taking his hand out weaponless. The other man dropped to the sand on the other side of the bucket, reaching over for a beer of his own. They sat and listened to the waves. Larry finally took a long, hard look at the man next to him. Five years had not been terribly kind.
Clad in flip-flops, the previously commented on cargo shorts that made his skinny legs look like sun-bleached toothpicks, and a white tee-shirt was Mr-Fucking-Orange. Freddy. Whatever the fuck his name was, Larry was sure of two things: that Orange was a cop-pig-bastard and that he looked like complete shit. His face was even paler than Larry remembered, hardly helped by the enormous bags accentuating his sunken eyes. World-weary pain had settled into those eyes.
“You’re awful alive for someone who should be dead.”
“I’m harder to kill than I look. Besides, it’s not like I’m the one who ran into a burning building.” Freddy sat like it was a chore, shifting his weight and furrowing his brows. “They said it was a miracle. Between the bullets. And other things.” Freddy idly caressed his neck before taking a long swig from his bottle of beer.
“They?”
“Doctors. Nurses.” He took another drink. “Shrinks.”
Larry stared out at the waves, wondering if he could see the same abyss Freddy was staring into.
“And you?”
A bitter chuckle escaped Freddy, who grimaced as he shifted his weight yet again. “I have some enemies I’d love to bestow a miracle upon.” He dug his feet into the sand, anchoring himself and sighing. “Dead is dead. Alive is alive. If you aren’t careful you can get them mixed up.”
The sun began its descent into the waves before either of the men spoke or moved again.
~
“What the fuck?” Eddie slammed on the brakes as the car came into sight of the warehouse. The car still sitting smack dab in the middle of the street, Eddie bolted out from behind the wheel. Pink and White opened their doors and stared, mouths agape. “What the fuck?” They watched as smoke billowed out of the boarded up windows of the abandoned building.
The three men jogged over to the only remaining car in the parking lot, the one that had very recently housed a cop in its trunk. Leaned casually against the hood sat a calm Mr. Blonde, a bit of a smile on his lips playing around a dangling, lit cigarette.
Even Eddie seemed flabbergasted. “Blondie, what did you do?” Blonde plucked out the cigarette and chuckled out a cloud of smoke.
“Let’s just say barbequed pig is on the dinner menu tonight.”
Pink squeaked out a quiet “Jesus Christ.” White ran a hand through his hair and turned on Eddie.
“Maniac. He’s a fucking maniac. Joe put me in the same room as this psychopath!”
“If we weren’t fucked before, we’re sure fucked now.” Pink had started pacing. “Completely fucked! Cops are going to be swarming this place faster than they did at the jewelers. We’re compromised, I fucking told you!”
“Eddie, I don’t know about you, but I’m leaving. Pink is right, this place is compromised. It’s over.” White turned to walk, but was stopped.
“No.” Eddie looked furious. “No one is going fucking anywhere.”
White tried to keep calm. “It’s over! Cops are going to rain down upon our dumb asses any second.”
“Daddy is coming and should be here any time now. No one does shit until he says so!” Eddie pulled his gun out and gestured between White and Pink. Blonde just watched curiously from his perch.
“You get that gun out of my fucking face, so help me, Eddie.” White was dead calm, his own gun now pointing at Eddie. Pink, whose gun was held loosely in his hand with briefcase clutched in the other, was surreptitiously scooting away from the still aflame warehouse and towards the abandoned car still sitting in the street. Just as White and Eddie were ready to blow off one another’s head, another car pulled up on the street. Out hopped Joe.
“What’s going on here? You two numbskulls stop waving those guns around in broad daylight. What the fuck happened to the warehouse? What are you sitting there so smug about?” Blonde stood up and dug his heel into the butt of his now expended cigarette. “Blue is dead.”
A chorus of “What?”s followed until Joe held up his hand. He pointed to White. “You, where are the others? Brown?”
“Took a shot to the head from a cop.”
“And Orange?”
White paused, just for a millisecond. “Shot in the gut when we jacked a car.”
“Good. We had a rat in the house and I’m sure it was him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whaddya think I mean? He was a fucking cop! A cop on my job! I don’t like rats, least of all rats with badges.”
“Joe, that can’t be true. You didn’t watch him get shot like I did.” White was starting to get mad.
“That cocksucker was working for the cops! I don’t care if he took a bullet for you, he was a fucking cop.”
“Now he’s a dead cop and we’ll all be dead if we don’t scram, pronto!” Pink was seconds away from taking flight altogether.
“Where are the diamonds?” Joe asked. Eddie gestured with his gun towards Pink. Pink held up the briefcase. “Good.”
“Joe, if Orange was a cop, the cops should be swarming us any second. The fire your psycho friend Blonde started isn’t fucking helping.”
“Was that a siren?” Pink was antsier than ever. “I swear I hear sirens.”
“Give me that case and everyone lay low. I’ll get you your share once the heat has gone down and we’re all clear.” Pink handed over the briefcase to Joe. The second it left his hand, cop cars surrounded the lot.
Shouts of “Hands up!” came from every direction but it was too late. Every gun between the five men was pulled, aimed, and fired before a shined up cop shoe touched the asphalt. White ignored the hail of lead around him and went for his only way out, into the burning warehouse. He figured he was already fucked five ways to Sunday, what would a little fire hurt?
The fire was burning bright inside, smoke clinging to the ceiling. Glancing around at the burning coffins and hearse, he saw that the fire had spread to the wooden ramp as well. Remembering the hallway leading from the sinks he had washed the blood from his hands in, he took the chance. Ducking low, he scurried over to the open doorway to the tiled kitchen. The fire hadn’t spread to the tiled area yet. But the smoke had. He couldn’t breathe through the thickness. He yanked a white coat from the hook and doused it in the sink. Covering his mouth and nose with the fabric, he headed down the hallway, searching for the way out.
Gunshots and helicopters sounded from the front of the building. He forced a few doors open to no avail, before he finally struck gold. The sun blinded his already stinging eyes. Through a watery blur, he could see that there were no cops on this side of the building. He pulled the coat from his mouth and slung it over his suit coat and still bloody shirt. Walking calmly but briskly, he left the scene, no one the wiser.
He ducked into the closest dumpy pay-by-the-week motel complex and found the laundromat. It was dingy and yellow, full of old coin-operated machines crusted with lime scale and soap scum. The first dryer he yanked open had ladies and toddler’s clothing. The second: towels. The third and fourth were still damp. The last dryer in the row finally had what he was looking for.
He snagged a garbage bag from a box sitting on a shelf and took it and his purloined clothes into the supply closet at the back of the laundromat. The stolen clothes were overly warm against his skin. The bloody suit went wadded up into the garbage bag, which he tied closed with a knot.
He walked down the street, opaque plastic bag grasped in hand. It was a twenty minute bus ride to his hotel, which was time he didn’t have. He ducked over to the payphone outside of a gas station, dug around in his wallet for change, and called a cab. He cased outside his hotel for the sign of any cops. Orange was a cop.
Orange knew his hotel. Knew his name, knew where he was from. Orange fucking KNEW him. And Orange was a cop. Fuck.
It seemed clear, so White climbed the stairs to his room and slipped in. It was dark and cool in the room. He flipped on the crappy television and began tossing clothes and toiletries into a suitcase. The news blared, sirens and helicopters behind the correspondent who described the situation.
Multiple civilians dead. Multiple cops dead. Joe, Eddie, Blonde, all dead. Shame about Joe, but only because of the years behind them. Good riddance to that sicko Blonde. Brown and Blue, dead. Pink was missing, probably hightailing it the fuck out of the city. No mention of Orange. It was still too early for names to be bandied about, but he knew well enough who was who. He also knew when they were describing him as missing.
Stuff firmly packed, he picked up the telephone to get a car, to drive a straight shot over the border to some shitty rathole town with plenty of beer and enough crooked cops to leave him alone.
The key hovered next to the ignition. It ate at him, the last bit of unfinished business. He just had to slot the key in, turn over the engine, and floor it to Mexico.
“Don’t be a goddamn fool.” Shaking his head, he turned the key and pulled into the road, knowing he was going to be a schmuck. It was a matter of principle.
~
“Let’s go get tacos.” White pulled the car away and in the direction of a dingy taqueria that had been there for longer than the kid next to him had been alive. He liked the kid, a cocksure and young little thief with keen eyes. He liked him in the bar, had been charmed which he’d never admit, liked his attitude and swagger and the way his eyes shined after shaking hands at the end of the night.
“Place looks infested, but the food is clean. Order here every time I’m in town.” By the way Orange clenched his fists White knew he was holding back. “You can ask, I won’t tell Joe.” Orange turned a skeptical eye. White laughed. “That doesn’t mean I’ll answer, mind you.”
“Just wonderin’ about how often you’re in town. It’s hard not talking about ourselves, leaves a lot of conversations on the side of the road.”
“You get used to it, the longer you’re in the game. Now, I’m not a huge fan of this no-name bullshit, but I can understand it. Best piece of advice my old man ever gave me: you don’t have to like your job to get it done. That and always wear a rubber.” Orange snorted, his tongue poking out between his teeth, a grin on his face. White smiled. He couldn’t help it; the kid’s charm really had him by the balls. “We’re here.”
Once inside, sitting at a yellowing table in scuffed wicker patio chairs, the conversation turned quiet. Orange was picking at the graffiti scratched into the table, idly tracing the crudely written words with his fingernail. White watched, feeling the itch to ask some questions of his own. When their food arrived, he finally asked.
“You’re local, right? Back in the bar, you told Joe you were from around here.”
“Yeah, my whole life.” Orange almost looked abashed at the admission. White smiled through the bite of food he was chewing.
“Look, just cause we can’t talk about specifics doesn’t mean we can’t talk about ourselves.”
Orange smiled, a silent apology, and continued. “Yeah, been stuck in this shithole since I can remember. Dropped out of highschool, just couldn’t give a rats ass about names and numbers and homework. So instead I worked really shitty jobs for even shittier pay. There I was, a shelf stocker and bosses are breathing down my neck like this lousy bullshit job was important? Fuck that.”
“That’s when you, shall we say, switched professions?” Orange nodded, eating his overstuffed burrito, a contemplative look on his face. “My story is similar.” This finally made Orange look up and make actual eye contact with White. A stupid, misplaced burst of pride flitted through White’s chest. “Provided, I’ve got a few years on you. Lousy student turned lousy door-to-door salesman. Doing that gig, going from house to house, you realize the world is full of dumbshit people who are practically begging to be robbed. Got a reputation going, didn’t take long to move on up to bigger and better jobs.”
White had a hard time categorizing the expression on Orange’s face. If he had to guess, it was admiration mixed with fear. Either way, it made his insides light up on fire.
“You ever,” Orange cleared his throat, “you know.” He held us his hands, mimicking handcuffs holding them together.
White wiped his mouth and hands with his paper napkin, food cleaned off his plate. “See, now that is too personal to be getting into.” It was definitely a flicker of fear in Orange’s eyes. White stood up, patted Orange on the shoulder and laughed. “Don’t sweat it, you’ll figure life out soon enough. Let’s go to my motel, I’ve got some beers I need help killing.”
Tension dissipating, Orange stood up as well and followed White out into the dusk.
~
White edged into the hospital room, wary of the antiseptic tang in the air. The soft beeping emanating from the machines gave him the heebie jeebies, always had since the time in his life when he’d watched his old man deteriorate in front of his young eyes.
Orange – no, Freddy – Freddy looked scrawny and pale tucked under the ugly hospital blanket, tubes chaining him to the bed. There were no restraints, though. Neither was there any sort of guard on him. Not in the room, not in the hallway, not in the whole ward. White didn’t want to believe it, but it was right in front of his eyes.
He stepped up to the bed, fingers brushing against the hideous mint green blanket. The bruises under Freddy’s eyes were dark purple, contrasting the floppy dishwater hair clinging to a shiny face.
His hands brushed along the edge of the blanket, fingers skimming the rough fibers until they met clammy flesh. Tracing the arm, hopping over the loose cotton sleeve, up to firm tendons in the neck. His fingers fit snuggly wrapped around that neck. He began to squeeze.
It didn’t take long before alarms were blaring, nurses running down the hallway as he travelled in the opposite direction. Down the elevator, out to the parking lot, the car door clunking shut. He cranked the window down and pulled the pack of smokes out of his glove box.
Chesterfield wedged between his lips, he drove calmly out of the parking lot, saving one last glance back from the corner, before he pulled out into traffic.
~
The gas station in the middle of bumfuck Arizona was populated by precisely two people, himself and the cashier, whose eyes were glued to a tiny, noisy television with huge rabbit ears. White slapped a twenty on the counter, catching his attention.
“Pack of Chesterfields and 10 bucks for my pump.”
“Sure.” The cashier turned, but not before throwing another glance at the television. “Crazy shit, right?” White shrugged.
“They caught the guy with the diamonds. Real funny lookin’ guy. Led them on a chase through LA. They think the other guy is dead. He ran into a fuckin’ burnin’ building! What a dipshit. You think he’s actually dead?”
White scooped up the smokes and his change. “Search me.” He stuffed the change in his wallet and paused, taking a second look at the cigarettes. He dropped the pack back on the counter. “I said Chesterfield.” The clerk looked down, brows furrowed.
“Sorry.” He picked up the pack of Red Apples up and went searching for the correct brand. “Reckon there was an informant. There were six of them, y’know.” He pulled an empty carton off of the shelf. “Six guys in suits and ties, waving guns around and robbin’ a place. Who the fuck dresses up for a burglary?” He kept pushing cartons around on the shelf. “I know there’s another carton around here somewhere.” White tapped his fingers on the counter, chewing his gum a little harder.
“Look, forget it.”
“No, no, you already paid. I’ll give you a free pack, my mistake.” White sighed and gestured for him to continue.
“So the sixth guy, where is he? Off the radar, that’s where. Must’ve told the cops what was going down. Hopped a plane overseas, unless he’s got rocks for brains. Aha! I knew there was another carton. Here you go friend.” The cashier handed over two packs.
“Adios.” White paused with a hand on the door. He turned. “The guy in the building, they give a name?”
“Nope. The one they caught, the funny lookin’ bastard, he’s not talking. Said they went by fake names.”
“Thanks.” The bell on the door jingled as it closed after White.
~
The ocean waves were a dazzling array of orange highlights and black shadows. Larry looked at his beach companion, who had given up on sitting and was reclined on the sand. Freddy’s eyes were closed against the sunset and his breathing was steady. The fool had fallen asleep. Larry toyed with the idea of just abandoning him where he slept, taking flight once again into the unknown. It was just a brief thought, extinguished by exhaustion and resignation.
He nudged his foot against Freddy’s side, not much pressure behind the gentle movement. “Hey. Get up.”
Freddy groaned and grasped futilely at the surrounding sand. Bleary eyed and stiff, he forced himself off the ground and into a standing position. He helped Larry gather up the blanket and bucket and they walked to Larry’s beat-up car. Beach gear stowed safely away, Larry gestured for Freddy to get in the car.
The sun was gone entirely by the time Larry pulled the car into the parking lot of an already lively bar. In the parking lot was a wood fire grill and wooden benches. People milled about the scene, eating and drinking and dancing to the music emanating from inside.
Larry directed Freddy to one of the wooden picnic tables by a bonfire, while he ordered for the both of them. “De ja fuckin’ vu, am I right?” he mused as he sat down opposite the former cop, setting down two foam plates full of food.
Freddy looked up from the graffiti he was idly scratching into the table. “Yeah, seems like.” They silently tucked in to their dinners, glancing across the table at each other with wary eyes. Larry took the plunge, asking what had been on his mind since he took his hand off his gun on the beach.
“What is this? Why are you here?”
Freddy chewed thoughtfully before answering. “It’s nothing. It’s curiosity killing the cat.”
“Cat sounds about right. You do seem to have nine lives.”
“Takes one to know one.” Freddy huffed, a small smile playing on his lips. Freddy finished off his beer and scraped his plate clean, looking less haggard than he had under the beach sun. The nap did him good, it seemed. “I don’t want to kill you. Or take you in. Or anything really. I just…” He played with his empty bottle, tilting it with one finger, teetering it back and forth while watching the couples dancing in the dirt. “I just wanted to know.”
“Know what?” Larry hadn’t meant to sound so bewildered, but he couldn’t help it. The long day had erased his common sense, like the sun bleached his brain clean and white. Bleached the five long years and endless red blood between them, sun sanitized, but brittle and ready to shatter at the merest pressure.
“Why. Why’d you take me to the hospital?”
“What does that matter?”
“Because you could have said no and let me bleed out in the backseat. Or in that warehouse. Or anywhere that wasn’t an ER. I could have burned up in that fire.”
“You don’t fucking know that. Who knows how shit would have gone down if I hadn’t done it. I wasn’t gonna let you bleed out anywhere, so what does it matter?”
“It fucking matters!”
Larry slammed his hand on the table. “I strangled you for Christ’s sake, who the fuck cares why I saved you? I still tried to kill you in the end!”
Freddy stopped messing with his empty bottle, eyebrows pinched in anger. Abruptly, he stood up and grabbed the empty plates and bottles, walking stiffly to dump them in a garbage can. Larry half expected him to disappear into the night, but he didn’t. He returned to the table and sat down once again, hands splayed out flat on the wooden surface. It took him a few tries to get out the words.
“I… I fucking betrayed you. Fuck the others, those guys weren’t shit. But you. I… it was my goddamn job – No, it was the LAW to do what I did and I still wake up wishing you had said NO.”
All of the air slammed out of Larry’s lungs, his gut twisting unpleasantly around the food and booze digesting. “Joe knew, you know. He fuckin’ knew. He said it before everything went to shit. And I’m not going to pretend like I wasn’t devastated to find out the truth. That the dumb kid I liked too much for my own good wasn’t who he said he was. That he betrayed me.” Larry paused, putting his thoughts in a row. “Except Orange didn’t betray me, did he? Freddy who-ever-the-fuck did. I don’t even know that guy.”
“Newandyke. It’s Freddy Newandyke.”
“Really? Jesus… Look, I saved Mr. Orange because I liked him. That lady getting off a potshot was my fuckin’ fault. And I’m not a total creep, unlike those other assholes on the job. So yeah, I saved your goddamn life. You gotta deal with that, just like I do.”
Freddy didn’t look any happier or like any weight was lifted off his shoulders. Larry could relate. This was the worst conversation of his life. Too much of him was exposed and flayed open for observation.
“Look, do you remember what I told you that day at the taco joint? My old man’s advice?” Freddy shook his head no, unsure what Larry was getting at. “You don’t have to like your job to get it done. I can’t respect a cop, but I can respect that you did your job. The fact that you don’t like what you did… it’s something, at least. Freddy Newandyke, nice to meet you.” Larry stood up from the table and beat a retreat to his car. He looked in the mirror as he pulled out of the parking lot, watching Freddy tilt his head in the firelight. He thought he could see Freddy make eye contact with him, before he lost him in the night.