Dues of Mortality (21 page)

Glenda
thought, again, of the cup-wielding vagrant who’d begged her
for change the other day. She wondered what he'd seen when he looked
at her. Would that same man have come to her aid in the alley?

“
That’s
not exactly fair,” she said. “I never...”

“
You
don’t
want
to have a debate with me about what’s fair,” Xavier
interposed. “I know all about unfair!” He gazed up into
the cool black sky. The rain had all but stopped.
Damn
.
Just as he was feeling particularly dirty. “Did it ever occur
to you that maybe I was hoping that ugly bastard in the alley or that
psycho cop would kill me instead?”

Glenda
had no idea what to say.

Xavier
dropped his chin to look at her and converged his brow like a bull
about to charge—one of his prize-winning looks. He should have
been an actor.

“
Riiiiight,”
he crooned, interpreting her answer. “But I’ll tell you
what; I’m this close to kicking the
shit
out of myself for not letting
them finish the job on you.”

Glenda
cringed as she bottomed out. That
hurt
.
Xavier could have said a lot of things to her, but
that
hurt. It had also completely doused her notable flare for argument.
“Fine,” she said softly. “Fine. I’ll just...”

“
Good.”
Xavier cut her off sternly, desperate to end it. He reached into his
waistband and pulled out Hamilton Bowen's gun. He handed it to her
butt end first. He panned around for onlookers.“Here,” he
said.

Glenda
stared at the weapon, motionless. “But I...”

“
Take
it,” Xavier ordered, his voice razor sharp.

Glenda
finally reached out and received the gun, looking as if she expected
further punishment if she didn't.

Xavier
then turned rather formally, and walked away. He halfheartedly prayed
Glenda would have the decency to shoot him in the back as he eased
himself onto the side of the road.
Don’t
look at her. Don’t look back. A pillar of salt
.

Glenda’s
lip quivered and she bit down on it in protest.
No
surprise there
, she thought.
Just
like a man. We aim at the head while they aim for the heart. Jerks
.

The
splat barely registered in Xavier’s semiconscious brain, but it
was enough to wake him. Less than an inch higher and the dollop of
bird shit would have hit him in the eye. “Why is it always
about shit?” he mumbled. He felt the soft wood of the mildewed
bench against his temple. He recalled wandering into the picnic area
and flopping his soggy bones onto the nearest table, but he had no
idea how long he'd been asleep.
Best
be up and out, anyhow
, he thought. Unless they were
goldbricking, the park's ranger patrols would see him for sure.

Xavier
left the bench and shuffled lethargically along a paved bike trail
until it planed into one of the park's exits ensconced in a
nondescript residential setting. It was a secluded spot, well hidden
from the four-lane road that ran a good fifty yards or so to his
right. Xavier wasn’t sure which direction he would take from
there, only that he hoped to avoid being too conspicuous as he
wandered around.

As
he proceeded toward the end of the bike trail, Xavier’s
unsteady vision saw what looked like a car standing well off one of
the roads that turned onto the park. Surrounded by huge maples and
thick underbrush, it was parked in such a way that it was mostly
obscured from other drivers. If anyone in the vehicle were in
distress, it would likely go unnoticed unless the person could get
out and flag someone down. As Xavier moved closer, the color of the
vehicle started to register in the darkness. Gray? No, blue. Cobalt
blue. Just like Glenda’s Civic. Xavier squinted, moving closer.

It
was
Glenda’s
car.

He
adjusted himself to get a clearer view of the driver's seat. His eyes
focused instantly on the dead silhouette that lay face down on the
steering wheel. “Oh, God,” he muttered. “Oh, shit,
shit, shit!”

Xavier
broke into a sprint, flying straight toward the driver's seat. As the
unmoving silhouette grew larger its lifelessness battered him from
every direction. Had someone followed them and attacked Glenda after
waiting for Xavier to leave? Damn it! He did it again! He failed
again!

Elana
,
his eyes resounded.
Elana
!

Xavier
extended his arm, reaching out for the frozen figure. Glenda's head
then popped up from the steering wheel and he balked reflexively,
slipping backward in the fresh mud. A soft amber flash flared from
the open driver's side window and the golden tail of a MAG charge
whizzed less than an inch from the tip of his nose. With arms
contorting, Xavier fell flat on his back onto the sodden stew of
muddy grass.

“
Are
you nuts?” Glenda blared. She was aiming the gun at a queer
angle through the window. She trembled at the sight of the dirty,
dampened bum now sprawled on the wet ground. “I almost killed
you!”

Xavier
labored to lift his head.
If
only
, he wished. He came to his feet and raised his hands
in surrender. “I'm sorry. I thought you were...I'm sorry.”

“
You
thought I was what?”

Xavier
said nothing. Glenda might have held the notion to take another shot
and he didn't want his death on her conscience. He was close enough
now to see dried tear tracks through her remains of makeup.

“
You
thought I was...” Glenda went slack-jawed. He was doing it
again
!
This broken, dreggy,
ill-equipped...He was rushing to save her
again
!
You're
kidding.
She
regarded the gun that now felt hot in her hand.

“
Wasn't
sure I'd remember how to use this,” she said cowed.

“
No
worries there,” Xavier mused.

Glenda
slid the gun onto the dash. She ran her hands through hair and buried
her head between her elbows.

Xavier
couldn’t stand himself. Was this what he was leaving her to:
frightened and alone with a single gun she barely knew how to use?
Betty Crocker couldn't design a more potent recipe for disaster. It
could have just as easily been a park ranger or another innocent
person who ran up to her in this dark...
Wait
.

Xavier
walked around to the Civic's passenger side and crawled into the
seat—an overtly bold move, all things considered. He spoke
right away allowing no ingress for angry banter. He fixed his gaze on
the windshield. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“
Get
out,” Glenda rebuffed, refusing to look at him.

Xavier
ignored the hostility.
“Why are you sitting here?”

“
What
difference does it make to you? I thought all you wanted to do was
get away from me.”

Xavier
took a breath. He couldn’t retract a word of what he’d
said to Glenda; apologies were all Greek to him. However, he had a
point to make and talking past a pissed off woman was like riding a
bike. “I’m full of shit,” he said.

Glenda
raised her head and eyed the dashboard. She wanted to look over, but
refused him the satisfaction. “You’re speaking
figuratively, I assume?”

Xavier
laughed. “I didn’t mean what I said before. Everything.
It was all bullshit.”

Glenda
looked at him puzzled. “Then why did...”

“
I’m
not a good person to be around,” he said stopping her. “Look,
I’m not gonna sit here and delve out a sob story
.
”
Not
with your propensity for pity and sympathy
,
he thought
.
“
I’m
the jerk, you’re a good person and that’s all there is to
it.” He slapped his thighs. “So, you can go on your way
to wherever it is you were going without...”

Glenda
nailed her elbows to the steering wheel and dropped her face in her
hands. “Oh!”

Xavier
sighed. “
Look, I meant
every word of that apology. I can’t be anymore sincere.”

“
That’s
not it,” she cried. “I don't have any place to go! That’s
why I’ve been sitting
here
.
They know where I live. They already sent someone there to kill me.
They broke into my apartment, stole the messages and everything. Oh,
god!”

“
Messages?
What are you talking about?”

“
They’ve
got the police on their side, now,” she said, the inquiry going
past her, “and God knows who else. I don’t know what else
to do.”

Great
,
Xavier thought. He felt even worse now. He was so hard into flight
mode earlier that he’d essentially overlooked the particulars
of Glenda's predicament. The guy from the alley was a hire, that much
was obvious.
He'd
tried to extract information from Glenda before doing her in. And as
for Jones suddenly going batty and trying to
kill
the
very person he was assigned to protect...that smelled of something
even deeper.
Shit.
Was this some sort of mafia thing?
If
it was, then they were a hundred different kinds of screwed. Xavier
was no cop or
anything
else
resembling
authority; protecting Glenda from mobsters and hitmen required far
more than his capabilities.

“
Jesus,
lady, what the hell are you into?” he asked.

“
I
don’t know!” Glenda shouted, the waterworks starting
again. “That’s just it; I don’t know. I’ve
got nowhere to go and...I don’t know what to do.”

Xavier
sat next to her looking nonplussed. After nearly a minute, he pressed
his sooty fingertips into his eyes. “Well...we’ll just
have to think of something.”

Roberts
thought of his mother tearing up as he and his escort negotiated the
early morning hallways of the Great Lakes BioCore. She had actually
cried when he told her he wasn’t going to college. He had said
it flat out, “I’m joining the police force, ma.” No
sense beating around the bush with that woman.

“
But
you’re so smart, Andrew,” she had said.

“
The
force needs smart people too, ma.”

The
truth was that any job requiring the wearing of a firearm was a
straight-up no-no for his mother unless Roberts wanted her shiny new
heart condition on his conscience. He reminded her that most cops
never even had occasion to fire their guns in public, but when it
came to her son, the actual math bore little weight against her
definition of safety. Roberts prayed yesterday’s news about
Perry Jones and the two uniforms hadn’t reached the nursing
home yet—unlikely, considering the residents’ days were
chock-full with endless hours of life-affirming webisode viewing.
Roberts wondered if he’d make it to any of the funerals. Maybe
not Bowen’s or Percy’s. Roberts didn’t know them
that well, and when the young ones went down, it left veterans like
Roberts waxing almost guilty for outliving them. Jonesy’s, on
the other hand, he had to. Jones’s daughter and his ex—neither
of which Roberts had seen in years—might even be expecting word
on the case, some update or reassurance that the right people were
working on it, and that the rumor mill, that was already starting to
spin, wouldn’t get out of control. The press hounds had, by no
means, finished their song and dance with CPD in regards to the
corruption scandal. The department had had over fifty off-duty cops
taking bribes, brutalizing suspects, providing security for H-ball
shipments and even murdering rival dealers. Some cases were even
still pending and unheard testimony still bore the possibility of
breaking a few rungs higher up the ladder. Jonesy was a hero in
Robert's eyes and Roberts worried that Jonsey's memory could get
tossed into the meat grinder if it meant keeping a shiner badge out
of general population.
Damn,
Jonesy, you sure picked a hell of a time!

When
Roberts first heard about Jones and the others, all he wanted to do
was roll over and hit the alarm clock.
It
has to be a bad dream
,
he’d thought. Bad
dreams never make sense and what had happened at that motel was as
far removed from sense as it got. His first suspicion was that Jonesy
had been set up somehow. A revenge hit. But the other particulars,
especially the murders of Percy and Bowen made that unlikely...or, at
least, phenomenally sloppy. No sense
at all.
Three dead cops
and they only had two reliable witnesses: the motel manager who saw
Glenda and an unidentified man scram past his office, and a
crater-faced kid with a rotten attitude from the doughnut shop. There
was a possible third, but Robert’s wasn’t yet sure what
to make of his account, which seemed shakier than a belly dancer's
navel. He was a thirty-nine-year-old motel patron who'd
heard
more than he’d seen. He’d taken one look at Percy's dead
body then locked himself in his room, where he’d hunkered in
the bathtub. The entire fiasco had gone down on the second story of
the motel and at sixty pounds overweight, a header out the window was
an absolute last resort. The witness had said that he
thought
he heard all three shots and that he
might
have
glimpsed someone matching the vagrant’s
description outside the room, but he'd retreated too quickly to have
gotten a good look at the guy. And it didn't help that MAG guns made
a coagulated pop, buzz, whir sound that while distinct from
traditional gunpowder firearms, were often mistaken for a whole host
of different noises. From there, all that was left was a list of a
half dozen other patrons signed in to the motel at the time. They
were a wash. Most had bolted from their first floor suites at the
first sign of trouble and none had a room closer to the scene.