Jax
As soon as I get her “Yes” and respond with tonight’s plans, I feel better. But not better enough to stop my surveillance. Whitey has had around-the-clock guys parked out down the street from the Russo house for days now, but so far, they haven’t found shit – about Sarah, about the new Russo head, about any of them.
So, I made Whitey get an uglier van, and come camp out here with me. And, sitting here in this piece of shit Honda from the 80s, armed with a couple of Glocks and one fat bag of Cheetos, so far, we too haven’t found shit.
No one’s even gone in or out of the house in the past four hours we’ve been plopped here. Nope, the only progress we’ve made so far is on the Cheeto bag, which is now down to a few sad crumbles at the bottom.
“Hey, boss,” Whitey says, shoving the binoculars at me.
I lift them and, getting out of a red Porsche, see the Russo’s head. Or some big-coated, big-sunglassed person who for some reason doesn’t want to be seen. As I watch him close the door, I know. There’s no way it’s anyone else. That, right there, is the Russo’s head honcho, the man we’ve been looking for all this time, tantalizingly close and yet infuriatingly out of reach.
We can’t get past the ten foot high gates surrounding the house. I’ve seen those gates close enough to know that they aren’t just tall as hell; they’re electrified.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Whitey asks.
I don’t respond, just watch as the ungainly figure makes its way from the driveway to the house. There’s something about this strange bulky figure… Something that seems off. Like the person is wearing a coat that’s way too big for them or something. But just as I’m about to get it, the figure disappears in the house.
“Shit,” Whitey says. “It’s like a cookie rolling right under your nose. Couldn’t we follow the car next time – maybe catch good old Russo unawares?”
I shrug. “Maybe. All I know is…” My voice trails off as I see just who’s coming out the door.
That bastard. Tall, stooping figure, with a face like he’s constantly been kicked in the balls, it’s him. Emilio. The guy who tricked my sister. The guy who isn’t going to survive tomorrow if he doesn’t give me what I want today.
“Ooh, bingo,” Whitey says softly, gripping his gun.
I turn on the car and wait. I watch as he slouches to his car and gets into it. I watch as the gates creak open and he pulls out of the driveway, his green Mercedes stopping a bit down the road off to the side.
Whitey and I exchange a delighted grin. It’s as if the dumb bastard’s asking for it.
Slowly, we drive up behind him, stopping just at his bumper.
Honk.
I stick my hand out the window and shoot off his side mirror. As he spins around, I stick my head out and yell, “What did you do with my sister, fucker?”
He freezes, staring at me, that usual glare impossible to read.
On the other side, Whitey’s head is out the window too. “If you come quietly, we may think about taking it easy on you,” he yells, shooting me a smirk to indicate that he just lied through his teeth.
Emilio clearly got the hint. Slamming on his gas, he takes off.
Whitey slams on the gas too, and I start shooting, aiming at both his wheels. The Italian shithead won’t do us any good dead. I need to know what he’s done with my sister.
But the shots hit the back of his car, and after another few turns, things already don’t look good. We’re nearly losing him. These rich people residential roads are too empty, and Emilio’s Mercedes was built for speed – it’s flying along like he’s on a highway, while our bulky van, which was built for fun times in the 80s, totters along behind.
When the lime speed demon turns onto a commercial road, and then the 401, however, I begin to have hope. The highway is bumper to bumper with cars. Emilio is only a few ahead. We are the spider advancing toward the fly: the highway is our web. It’s only a matter of time now.
Whitey pulls over to the far right lane, goes onto the shoulder and starts zooming ahead. Horns are blaring, we’re zipping past car after car, nearing the green target.
But the green target won’t give up without a fight.
It swerves into the middle lane amidst shrieking brakes and blaring horns. But the new lane is just as bad as the old one because the highway is the web, everything is on our side, and our advance is relentless.
We’re almost beside it now. I’m rolling down the window, getting out my gun to prepare. The green car swerves back to the right lane, then right again, onto the shoulder. Right in front of us.
I lean out the window and shoot. The green car jerks, but keeps going.
“Time for righty,” Whitey says delightedly as I lean out again.
The sound of a gunshot and I duck just in time, a bullet whizzing by my cheek. I lean out, but now we’re careening onto an exit, following the green car around a huge bend. By the time we get to the main road, Emilio’s car has skidded over two lanes and is turning in front of a building complex.
“No way…” Whitey whispers.
He’s clearly thinking the same thing I am: Is the bastard actually dumb enough to lead us right to his lair – the Russo office we’ve been trying to find for months now?
When Emilio pulls his Mercedes up to the front of a black-glassed building, which is one of the possibilities we’ve narrowed it down to, leaps out and runs in, we have our answer: Yes, yes, he is.
Whitey pulls up to the building right behind him, and we run in after Emilio. The lobby is a black-walled, black-floored box with neon green plants, a Morgan Freeman desk man, and, by the elevator, Emilio.
Seeing us, he takes off to the corner of the room.
We follow him.
There’s shouting somewhere – hell, my own heartbeat is shouting: You’ve got him! Just a bit more now!
I throw myself forward faster. We’re so close. We can’t let him get away now.
Through the door are stairs. The slam of his footsteps above us echoes down, with the explosion of shots fast behind. Ducking, we dash up the stairs after him. The ascent is a wheezing, gasping, race to the death. Emilio is fast, but gradually, his harried curses and stumbled steps grow louder.
We’re gaining on him.
As we reach the fifth or so floor, mid-run Whitey turns to me, his eyes glittering excitement, his hair spikes literally standing on end. “Can I, boss?”
I scan his face. He’s barely breaking a sweat, the gym rat bastard. If anyone will catch that Emilio piece of shit, it’ll be Whitey.
I nod. “Be careful.”
Whitey nods, his whole face lit up now, and sprints up the stairs ahead of me.
A few second later, there’s the bang of shots, then an “Ouf!”
“Whitey?” I call, but the only response is a scuffling sound. My legs are spasming with fatigue, but I throw them ahead more. “Whitey?” I call again, the question coming out a strangled cough, “Whitey, you good?”
For a few terrifying seconds, there’s no response, only the diminishing sound of footsteps.
Then there’s a gurgled cough. “Yeah.”
Next thing I know I’m in front of a ragdoll version of Whitey. He’s slumped, the pool of his own blood from his twisted leg growing.
He tries at a smile, then gives up, grimaces. “Bastard got me, but I got him too. You can finish him, boss.”
I’m hardly hearing him. All my attention is on his upper left thigh, where he’s balled up his jeans to try to staunch the blood.
Whitey gives his head a painful-looking shake, then strains his head up, so the scar on his neck is visible. “Don’t be an idiot; I’ve had much worse. Go now – you may not get another chance.”
I don’t move. If his reminding me of the last time I nearly cost him his life is the way to get me to leave, then it’s not going to work.
Whitey’s eyes are boring into mine. The footsteps above are getting quieter.
Whitey shoves his hand into his pocket and gets out his phone. He jams some buttons, then presses it to his mouth and says, “Trip, my man. Yeah, why don’t you come on down? Yeah, maybe make it fast-like, got a bit of a situation.”
A pause, and then three worms of irritation wiggle on Whitey’s forehead. “No I don’t know where we are, can’t you just track the call?” A sigh, then the worms disappear. “So, you’ll stop by? Yeah, maybe disable the elevators first. Yeah, yeah, the boss is just going actually.”
Whitey shoots me a significant look, and I do. I go. I go without looking at him. Because if I do, if I take in that beet-red color his face’s taken on, then I won’t be able to leave at all.
I leave my friend, so I can find my sister. So I can end this.
I run up the stairs after the sound that’s now nearly inaudible, but I can still just make out. Footsteps, high, higher up. The only other sign that I’m headed the right way, that Emilio didn’t dash into one of these other floors, is the occasional dribble of blood.
Whitey must have got him good.
On every level, my legs protest more, and I push them on harder. Chunks of thoughts occur to me, all dismissed indiscriminately:
How many flights is this now? Twenty? Thirty? Sixty? How many more can I take?
Throwing myself up another flight is always the answer. However many it takes, I have to do this. Every new thought is a new ratchet of pain, my feet now throbbing remote sacks of meat. And yet, the one thing driving me forward, that sound, that pitter-patter of footsteps, is getting the slightest bit louder every flight.
Until it vanishes altogether.
I race up the next flight and immediately see why: I’m at the Penthouse. There’s nowhere else for Emilio to run now. I’m here.
I throw open the door to a desk that looks very recently empty: the guest book’s page is still half-turned, the swivel chair twisted to the side. I take out my Glock, scan the area once, then again. There’s a hallway with several doors, any of which he could be behind.
Now, which door contains the fearful little shit that I’m going to put down like the dog that he is?
My gun stops at the first door, which is as good a guess as any. After all, Emilio just got here and didn’t have hours to plan out where to hide. I kick open the door, and a shower of bullets greets me. I lunge behind the desk.
Guess door #1 it is.
My breath is harried with exhilarated fear. I inhale, then exhale. Inhale, then exhale, then throw my arm out and shoot at the door.
“Where’s my sister, Emilio Russo?” I yell.
A series of bullets from several directions fly an inch over my head. I freeze. One gun can’t shoot from several directions.
“Not here,” a male voice yells back.
“If we let you go, then go!” another voice yells.
I pause there, crouched behind the desk. Should I take the voices up on it? There’s clearly several of them, all of them armed.
A new volley of bullets votes in favor of going. My knuckles are white on the gun. I swear. I’m so close. I’m so fucking close I can practically hear his strained wheezy little breath.
My phone rings, more shots explode beside me, and I pick up the phone.
“Not a good time,” I say.
“It’s Whitey. Trip is almost here, but the boys won’t be for another ten. You good?”
Some shots fly by my other cheek. “Yeah, I will be,” I say.
A pause, then, “Uh, is that you coming down the stairs?”
I curse. “No.”
Whitey lets out a nervous whinny of a laugh. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“I’m coming,” I say and hang up.
Looks like the decision’s been made for me.
I lift my hands, rise and run. “I’m going!”
And then I do.
I run back to the door like a smart coward, like a strategic fool. Like a good friend. Sometimes I hate doing the right thing.
As I race back down the stairs I raced up mere minutes ago, I make a promise under my breath, “You’ll pay for this Emilio Russo. I don’t care if it’s the last thing I do; I’ll make you pay dearly for this.”
Descending seems to take a third as long as ascending did. Maybe it’s knowing that there’s an end to these seemingly nonstop steps, maybe it’s that Whitey could very well be dying down there, but I race down with an energy I didn’t know I had left.
By the time I get there, Trip is just arriving. His black eyes looked goggled in his round bowling-ball head.
I speak between wheezes for air. “They’re up there” – huh-huh – “Too many” – huh-huh – “Another time” – huh-huh “Fuck ‘em.”
I freeze, then scrutinize Whitey. There’s no way Trip came from above.
“Hey, where’s…”
Even through his clenched face of pain, Whitey manages a smile. “I lied – knew you’d rather die than let them get away.”
Fury surges through me. I step forward, ready to hit Whitey, kick him – anything. But he looks so pitiful, slumped half-dead there that I can only swear, and let Trip lift his poor broken form. As Trip and I run down the rest of the stairs, in Trip’s arms, Whitey provides an unwelcome accompaniment as he admonishes us to turn around:
“Awww, fuck ‘em is right! We’ll be back! They’ll be sorry! Can’t wait ‘til I get my hands on that shithead Emilio, he’s gonna be sorry he was ever conceived.”
At the last statement, he suddenly flops back motionless.
When we finally reach the bottom of the stairs, we race into the lobby. The Morgan Freeman lookalike is eyeing us like a bull ready to stampede, but just as he gets up from his desk, we get out of there.
Miraculously, our van is right where we left it, parked at an incredible curve beside the curb. We throw ourselves into our 80’s throwback van, and I start driving. Whitey is still out cold. Trip is silent. My own disappointment is the loudest passenger in the car:
Why couldn’t I have waited ten minutes? Or better yet, not let my anger get the best of me, follow Emilio from a distance, have him lead us straight to his office, hit it when he least expected it? I’m planning a surprise attack on their house, why couldn’t I use the same caution for their office? I could’ve just missed out on my best chance to save Sarah.
My hands on the steering wheel are so white and tense they look like they might snap off. And now? We’ve got nothing. The boys will get there too late.
Trip’s low baritone breaks my reverie, “Brax and his guys have arrived. You still want them to go in?”
“Yeah,” I say, suddenly realizing where I should be – back there, leading the charge, telling them where to go, what to watch out for. I literally just left them blind and clueless, walking into what could now be a trap.
“Hey, boss?” Trip says, his voice hesitant.
“Yeah?”
“I told them you were on the penthouse and that the guys were armed.”
I exhale in relief. “Thanks, Trip. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I stop just in time for the red light, the whole car screeching to a noisy, bad halt. I pull down the mirror and look into it. I look the same as ever, just a bit shaken. What’s gotten into me lately? I’m getting sloppy, making mistakes.
I put the mirror back up. I know what’s gotten into me – or rather, who. It’s an absence and a presence. Two women I care entirely too much about.
Ten or so minutes later, when we get to the hospital, I let Whitey and Trip go in while I sit in the car and call Brax. Let’s see how the guys are doing. If they’re fast enough, maybe they can hit the Russo office before it’s too late and there’s nothing left to hit. Maybe they can find something that will help me find Sarah. Maybe this is it.
“How’s it going?” I ask.
“Jaxy, brother,” Brax’s nasally shrill comes back. “Right, we’re here. The big black office place. We got them on the fly. Running, burning shit. We didn’t kill anyone, but the place is trashed.”
I curse.
“So what? You want me to hold the place ‘til you get back here, right?”
The casualness of his tone gives me an idea. “Yeah, and Brax?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“How… long exactly do you think you could hold it?”
Not missing a beat, Brax replies, “Aw, s’long as you want it. The only resistance we got was this Morgan Freeman guy on the first floor, wagging his tongue at us. My guy bought him off with some muffins or some shit, right. But you make sure to come down in the next week, you got me? I got shit to do, can’t have my guys sitting ‘round here watching porn for a week. It’ll make ‘em fat, lazy.” A loud hee-haw laugh, then, “Right, really just fatter and lazier, who am I kidding?”
“Great man,” I tell him. “Thank you. I owe you… beans next time we hang. See ya.”
I hang up the phone, check the time and pump my fist up in victory. It’s 10:45. I still have time. I’ll be late, but I still have time.
For all of it.
Now I can check on Whitey, see Bella, get laid, search the Russo office and live happily ever after.
I lift the chain on my neck and look down at it. No. No, I won’t be happy until I’ve found my sister, but I have to keep myself sane in the meantime.
Inside the hospital waiting room, the front desk nurse is a bitch.
“Your friend… Whitey,” she says, pausing pointedly at the name, “has just been taken in for surgery.”
“I know that,” I say in my most patient voice, which, right now, isn’t all that patient at all.
“But he’s going to be okay? He’s not going to lose his leg or die?”
The blonde bitch lifts her glasses, so they’re a further barrier between us. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
And that’s it. My time is up: I’m supposed to sit down.
But I don’t move.
She returns her attention to her computer, clicking away, as if she doesn’t notice that I’m still standing here, waiting for a real answer, ready to bash her head into her stupid white MacBook.
“Boss,” Trip says, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I shrug him off.
“Boss,” he says again.
“Trip,” I mutter, not turning, my voice now a furious boom, “This woman—” I check her flower-stickered name tag. “Ms. Stanfield here, was just about to give me a real answer.”
Her frightened glance flicks to me.
“Boss,” Trip says.
“So, is he?” I demand the glass partition. “Is my friend going to be ok? How serious is it?”
Miss Stanfield is trembling, and I’m enjoying it. Let her tremble. Let her tremble and whine and call whomever she needs to, whoever will be at the other end of the phone her hand is inching toward.
I will see Whitey if it’s the last thing I do.
“Boss, he’s going to be okay,” Trip says, his low voice steady and sure. “You saw him. It was just his upper leg. He’s going to be okay.”
“Still waiting for an answer,” I say, my voice even louder now, blaring out over all the others, rendering the room to a mute box.
The trembling bitch grabs the phone, and I grab my gun in my pocket. We stare each other down, her livid, trembling, pink flab of a face and mine, smiling at the wreckage I will make of this place if she calls security, if she doesn’t tell me what's going on with Whitey.
“Jax,” Trip barks out, his hand gripping my wrist, stepping in front of me, forcing me to look at him. “They’ll get the cops involved, kick us out. Maybe even worse.”
He says the words slowly and they sink in slowly, the bars of a cell sliding into my slow-nodding head, sliding through the fire in my veins, unclenching my knuckles off the handle of my gun.
“Take care of him,” I say to Trip, and stride out of the waiting room without another word.