Jack Daniels Six Pack (59 page)
Read Jack Daniels Six Pack Online
Authors: J. A. Konrath
“No problem. I didn’t want to get your blood in my new truck.”
Two in the chest, and Fuller takes the man’s keys and wallet, hops into the driver’s seat, and starts the engine.
He figures he has a twenty-minute lead. That will be enough to get him to Interstate 80, and from there, he can take back roads and side streets.
Fuller flips on the CB, and switches it to the police frequency. Standard chatter, no mention yet of his little dalliance.
He yanks the Colt out of his pants and sets it on the passenger seat. The Sig he keeps on the dashboard. Fuller pulls out onto the highway.
He’s two miles away from I-80 when the news breaks. Fuller picks up the mike.
“This is car 6620. Suspect is an African American male, five feet ten inches tall, in his mid-thirties, driving a brown sedan. He was last seen heading south on Route 57. Over.”
“Car 6620, what’s your position?”
Fuller smiles, doesn’t answer. That will keep them confused for a few more minutes. He merges onto I-80, squad cars screaming past him. A large green sign reads:
CHICAGO
40
MILES.
“Ready or not, Jack. Here I come.”
“You’ve always been like this, since you were a little girl.”
Mom sat on the sofa with Mr. Griffin, who had fallen asleep sitting up, his head tilted back and his mouth open wide enough to drive a car into. She removed the half-finished drink from his hand—I guessed it to be a bloody Mary from the red color and the celery stick—and raised it to her own lips.
“Been like what?” I asked.
“Been moody, when you should be happy. Remember when you won your first medal in tae kwon do?”
“No.”
“You won it for sparring. You must have been eleven or twelve. I think you were eleven, because you were wearing pigtails and on your twelfth birthday you declared yourself a grown-up and that you’d never wear pigtails again.”
“Do all old people ramble on like you?”
Mom smiled at me. “We do. When you turn sixty, you get a license to ramble from the federal government.”
“Mine may come in the mail, in the time it takes you to finish this story.”
Mom sipped the drink and shuddered. “No wonder he’s asleep—he managed to fit a whole bottle of vodka into a ten-ounce glass. Now, what was I saying?”
“You were rambling about my tae kwon do competition.”
“You’ll miss my rambling someday. So anyway, there you were, with all the winners, and the grand master put the gold medal around your neck, just like he did with the others in the row. Every one of them was smiling. Every one of them, except for you.”
“I remember now.”
“You always tried too hard to win, but when you did, you never seemed happy.”
“That’s because I was thinking of the next match, and wondering if I’d win that.”
Mr. Friskers hopped onto the sofa and bumped his head into my mother’s thigh, demanding to be petted. She complied, eliciting a deep, throaty purr from the cat.
“You can’t let the uncertainty of tomorrow interfere with the joy of today, Jacqueline. May I offer a little bit of wisdom?”
“I thought that’s what you were doing.”
“You should be taking notes. This is the meaning of life I’m talking about.”
“I’m all ears, Mom.”
My mother took a deep breath, sat up straighter. “Life,” she said, “isn’t a race that can be won. The end of the race is the same for all of us—we die.”
She smiled at me.
“It’s not about winning the race, Jacqueline. It’s about how well you run.”
That sounded vaguely familiar.
“In other words, it’s not if you win or lose, but how you play the game?” I said.
“I prefer my analogy.”
“How about something simpler? Like, ‘Try to have fun’?”
“That works too.”
I pulled myself out of the rocking chair, destination: kitchen. Alan had his head in the fridge.
“My mom says I need to have fun.”
Alan looked at me. “I’ll agree with that.”
“So maybe we can go do something fun.”
“A movie?”
“I just saw two of them.”
“A few drinks?”
“That’s a possibility. What else?”
“Dancing?”
“Dancing? I haven’t been out dancing since kids were spinning on their heads on sheets of cardboard.”
Alan held my arms, drew me close.
“I was thinking something more adult. Something that involved moving slowly to old Motown classics.”
“I’ll get my shoes.”
I kissed Alan on the cheek and went back to the living room. Mom was trying, unsuccessfully, to get Mr. Griffin’s mouth to stay shut. Every time she eased it closed, it yawned back open.
“Alan and I are going out dancing.” I plopped on the sofa and slid on my flats.
“Good. Take your time. I may wake Sal up and do a little dancing of our own.”
I leaned over, reaching for my cell phone on the table.
“Leave it, Jacqueline.”
“My phone?”
“It’s a phone? I’m sorry—I thought it was a leash.”
I left the phone where it sat.
“Fine. See you in about two hours.”
“No sooner. You’re putting a cramp in my love life.”
I pecked her on the forehead. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, Jacqueline. And I’m proud of you. I raised a pretty good daughter.”
“The apple never falls far from the tree. See you later.”
From the sofa, Mom waved me and Alan good-bye.
Fuller ditches the truck on the West Side and takes a cab to Jack’s apartment. He pays with Robertson’s cash, and quickly cases the building.
No doorman. The security door is a joke for a guy his size—one solid kick from a size thirteen and the door opens with a bang.
He knows Jack’s apartment number. While in prison, he would recite her address over and over and over again. A mantra.
His patience is about to be rewarded.
Another kick. The apartment door buckles in.
Fuller, gun in hand, strolls into the living room and finds two old people on the couch, holding each other. He laughs.
“Were you just necking?”
The old man, eighty if he was a day, stands up with his fists bunched. Fuller ignores him, walking through the kitchen, finding the bedroom and bathroom empty.
“Get out of here, right now.”
The old man points a finger at him.
Fuller asks, once, “Where’s Jack?”
The man reaches for the phone.
Fuller hits him with the butt of the Sig, busting open the old guy’s head like a pin~ata. The fossil falls to the ground, twitching and bleeding out.
The old woman is still on the sofa, gnarled hands trying to work a cell phone. Fuller slaps it out of her hands.
“You must be Mom. Jack’s told me so much about you.”
The woman stares at him. Fuller sees fear. But he sees anger too. And a hardness that he’s never seen in prey before.
“You must be Barry. Jack has mentioned you as well. Still humping dead hookers?”
Fuller laughs, despite himself. Gutsy old bitch. He sits next to her. The sofa creaks with his weight.
“Where’s Jack?”
“You’re not only a disgrace to police officers everywhere, you’re a disgrace to the human race.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m a big disappointment to everybody. Now, where’s Jack?”
The mother sits up straighter.
“I spent half my life putting scum like you behind bars. I’m not telling you anything.”
“Tough talk. But you’ll tell me, sooner or later. I can be very convincing.”
“I doubt that, Barry. I’ve seen you play football. You’re a real candy-ass.”
He doesn’t use the gun—doesn’t need to. Her bones are old and brittle.
Snap!
There goes an arm.
Snap!
There goes a leg.
Fuller laughs. “Didn’t anyone tell you to take calcium supplements?”
He cuffs her across the face, feeling the cheek shatter.
The old woman’s face is wet with tears and blood, but she doesn’t make a sound. Not even when he grabs her broken arm and twists.
“Where’s Jack?”
The attack catches him off-guard. Something hits him in the face. Something soft, yet sharp.
Fuller cries out in surprise. There’s a yowling sound, and the thing attached to his face is digging at his left eye, scratching with needle-sharp claws.
A cat. Stuck tight.
Fuller grabs. Pulls.
Mistake. The cat holds on, and Fuller almost tears out his own eye.
He punches the cat. Once. Twice.
It drops off and limps away.
Fuller is in agony. The eyelid is rapidly swelling shut, his eye a hot coal burning in the socket.
Both hands pressed to his face, he stumbles through the apartment, finds the bathroom.
The Elephant Man stares back at him in the mirror. His left eye has puffed out to the size of a baseball.
Fuller lashes out, smashing his reflection with a meaty fist. He finds some gauze pads in the medicine cabinet, presses one to his face, and howls.
He needs a doctor. Without medical attention, he’ll lose the eye. And the pain—Jesus—the pain! He searches the bathroom and finds a bottle of ibuprofen. He takes ten.
What next? What to do next? A hospital? No. Can’t risk it. He needs a safe place. To heal. To plan.
Fuller hurries back through the kitchen, stepping over the mess left by the dead guy, and pauses briefly in the living room. Jack’s mother is lying facedown on the carpet. Dead? Possibly. No time to check. He speeds out the door, down the stairs, and onto the cold, wet streets of Chicago. After a frantic moment of wondering what to do, Fuller hails a taxi and knocks on the driver-side window. The driver rolls it down.
“You need a cab?”
The guy has an accent. Indian, maybe, or somewhere in the Middle East.
Fuller says nothing.
“You okay? You are bleeding.”
“You are too.”
He places the Sig against the man’s head and fires, causing quite a mess on the passenger side. Then Fuller opens the door, shoves the guy over, and hits the gas.
He stops the taxi under a bridge, searches the driver’s pockets. A cell phone. A wallet, with a few hundred bucks. A set of house keys.
Fuller checks the driver’s license. Chaten Patel, of 2160 N. Clybourn.
“Thanks for inviting me over, Mr. Patel. Do you live alone?”
Fuller pulls back into traffic.
“I suppose we’ll find out.”
When I pulled onto my street and saw the flashing lights in front of my apartment, I knew. I threw the car into park, got out, and ran.
“Jack!” I faintly heard Alan call after me.
Herb was standing in the lobby. He saw me, and rushed over to hug.
“Jack, we thought he got you.”
“Fuller?” I managed.
“Killed three cops and a bunch of others, escaping.”
My eyes welled up.
“M-Mom?”
“They’re about to bring her down.”
“Dead?”
“No, but she’s in bad shape.”
I pulled out of Herb’s grasp, raced up the stairs.
Cops, paramedics, a crime scene unit. Pained looks from people I knew. A black body bag, on the floor of my kitchen.
My breath caught. I unzipped the bag.
Mr. Griffin, half of his head missing.
I pushed into the living room, saw the stretcher, watched some horribly beaten body being intubated.
“. . . oh no . . .”
I rushed to her side, unable to reconcile it in my head, unable to believe that this broken, bleeding thing was my mother.
Her hand was cool and limp. The paramedics pushed me away. I wanted to follow, wanted to go with her, but my legs gave out and I collapsed onto the floor.
Something brushed against my leg.
Mr. Friskers.
I grabbed the cat and held him tight and cried and cried and cried until nothing more came out.
Doctors came and went, talking about Glasgow Scales and Rancho Los Amigos levels of cognitive functioning. I was too numb to pay attention. I only knew that Mom wouldn’t wake up.
Two days passed, or maybe it was three. People visited and stayed for a while and left. Alan. Herb. Libby. Captain Bains. Harry. Specialists and nurses and cops.
Guards were posted outside my door. I found this amusing. As if Fuller could possibly hurt me more than he already had.
Benedict kept me updated on the manhunt, but the news was always the same: no sign of Fuller.
“She’s probably going to die,” I said to Herb.
“We’ll get him.”
“Getting him won’t make her better.”
“I know. But what else can we do?”
“I should have been there.”
“Don’t play that game, Jack.”
“I should have killed Fuller when I had the chance.”
“This isn’t helping the situation.”
I got in Benedict’s face. “Nothing will help this situation! This is my mom, lying here. And she’s lying here because of me. Because of my job.”
“Jack . . .”
“To hell with it, Herb. To hell with all of it.”
My star was in my pocket. I held it out, made Benedict take it.
“Give this to Bains. I don’t want it anymore.”
“He won’t accept it, Jack.”
“He’ll have to.”
Benedict clutched my badge and got all teary-eyed on me.
“Dammit, Jack. You’re a good cop.”
“I wasn’t good enough.”
“Jack . . .”
“I’d like you to leave, Herb.” I watched my words register on his face. “And please don’t come back.”
He watches Detective First Class Herb Benedict leave the hospital. Unlike Jack, Herb doesn’t have an armed escort.
Big mistake.
Herb climbs into his late model Camaro Z28, starts it up. Fuller starts the cab and follows Herb out of the parking lot, turning left onto Damen.
It’s nighttime, cold enough to need the defrosters. The cab smells like blood; Fuller never bothered to clean up after dispatching the hack. Normally it’s a smell he enjoys, but pain is playing tug of war in Fuller’s head, his injured eye and his unrelenting headache each vying for top honors.
