Chapter Twenty-one – Jack
Chapter Twenty-one
Jack
I heard her scurrying away behind me as I returned to the room full of traumatized gang ‘workers’.
They started screaming, which I ignored, and I pulled up the ends of their chains like popping drain plugs out of so many old fashioned tubs.
They, in their wisdom, started running out the door with bricks of coke.
I wasn’t inclined to stop them. I waited until they’d cleared out, hopefully distracting Tamo from the sounds of Thea’s car, as I walked back to pick up the padlock, chain, and cuff she’d dropped, pocketing the still open padlock and winding the chain around my arm like a trophy.
Tamo was still sitting outside in his car as I walked over, unfazed at the blood-covered sight of me. I had a feeling he’d seen worse. “Took you long enough. Where’s the girl?”
I stared grimly forward as I got in.
“Like that, eh?” Tamo said.
“You had three fucking days,” I muttered.
“Yeah, but I can’t take bullets,” he said, turning on the engine and putting the car in drive.
“This was never about Thea, was it?”
“Too bad you had to be dead to get smart.”
I remembered the way we’d taken to get here from the club—we were taking the reverse commute now, same roads, so I knew where we were. “So how does this work?”
“Guys come to Rosalie when they need help with certain…problems. She’s a helpful woman, for the right price.”
“So she sold Thea to that guy?”
Tamo glanced over. “Selling’s a strong word. She encouraged his natural attraction to her, was all—and her natural attraction to his money.”
“Seeing as Rosalie raped me, I don’t think selling’s too strong.” I hadn’t put a word to it until that moment, but that’d been what it was.
“Suit yourself.” The big man shrugged. “Some other gang was willing to pay for that gang to be broken up, and you were the timely muscle to do it.”
“Why not you?”
“Someone trustworthy needs to be around during daylight, to keep the lights on.” He accelerated past a stoplight and I saw my moment.
“Funny you should say that,” I said. I felt a whole body need to go back to Rosalie—but that didn’t stop me from grabbing the steering wheel and yanking it far right.
The car reeled sideways, tumbling over an embankment, Tamo and I both bouncing around inside like rocks.
I recovered faster, yanking the padlock out of my pocket and the chain off my arm.
Tamo pushed himself back off the steering wheel, reeling.
There was a jagged cut over his eye, pouring blood.
His face went red with frightening anger.
“What the fuck?! I’m gonna,” he threatened.
“Lights off,” I said, punching him out. I shucked him out of his suit jacket, before chaining his wrist to the wheel, took his phone, wallet, and ran.
I pulled on Tamo’s jacket to hide the blood on my body.
If TVs and movies had taught me anything, it was this: I needed to find a safe place to sleep before dawn.
But where could you count on being in the dark all day in Vegas?
I then thought about burrowing into the depths of a decrepit casino and stationing myself in front of a slot machine—I wondered how long it’d take them to realize I was dead.
But that wasn’t really an option—I started walking toward the Strip, thinking I’d find some sort of safe sewer or gutter in a parking garage.
Before I got too far I heard the sound of brakes behind me and a slamming car door. I whirled and saw Rosalie stalking forward out of a car, all done up and angry.
“Where is Tamo?”
“I’m not going back.” I knew it as I said the words. I’d let the dawn take me first.
“Your chances of going anywhere are entirely dependent on whether Tamo’s still alive.”
“I left him breathing.” Her eyes narrowed, as she considered whether I told her the truth. “How did you find me?”
“The downside of being my creation is that I always know exactly where you are. And you may not have noticed it, but Vegas is rife with cabs.”
“I’m not going back,” I repeated, glancing past her to her cabbie, trying to figure out if he’d been compelled to stay or if she’d just told him to leave the meter on.
“What happened?”
I snorted, opening Tamo’s huge jacket to show her all of myself, covered in gore. “Exactly what you wanted to happen.”
“And the man that took Thea?”
“They’ll have to use a shovel to scrape him together for a funeral.”
At that, she visibly relaxed. “Good. And the girl?”
“Dead,” I lied, just to see if I could.
Her lips pursed and an eyebrow rose. “Tell me,” she whispered, and the words wound around my heart like a snake and pulled.
I used as few words as I could. “Running away.”
Rosalie chuckled at this, walking nearer. “From me? Or from you?”
I followed her with my eyes, trying to betray nothing. “You knew I was going to do that, didn’t you. You—cultivated Thea. You cultivated me.”
“Don’t feel so bad. If it hadn’t been you, I would’ve found someone else suited for the job. And don’t worry—I didn’t have to push her to be with you—much.”
She stood still and watched her words hit me like blows. She was implying that she’d told Thea to take up with me, for the sole purpose of using me later. “Is that true?”
Rosalie gave me a chilling smile. “I guess we’ll never know.”
I couldn’t believe that what I’d shared with Thea was a lie—but the fear of it lodged inside me like a splinter.
“Come home, Jack,” Rosalie crooned. My body wanted to obey her, I felt the need surge within, but fought it, barely managing to stay standing.
Her eyes widened, then she tsked. “You’re a proud man, Jack, I get that.
But it’s not safe out here for you. You don’t know what you’re doing, you have no connections and nowhere to go. ”
“I’d rather die than go back with you.”
“I’d rather you didn’t—you still owe me, and piles of ash can’t make good.”
“I owe you?” I let my voice rise in anger. “I just murdered thirty guys for you—you’ve taken my girlfriend and my life. What more can you possibly want?”
Her eyes searched me as if looking for answers.
“All in good time. If you survive long enough, I’ll find you.
If Tamo doesn’t find you first, that is.
I won’t tell him unless you cross me, but I can’t control what he does during the day when I am sleeping.
He’ll be looking for you now, and if he ever finds out where you sleep…
.” She drew an elegant finger across her neck and then turned on her heel, stalking back toward her ride.
“Good luck, Jack. You’ll need it,” she said without turning around and got in, closing the door.
I watched her drive away—her cab had one of those fins on top of it for advertisements. Can you Survive the Night? shouted in a spooky font, with hordes of undead clawing in from the edges—some sort of zombie survival game, just another way for Vegas to shake money out of tourists.
And….
I walked out onto the next major street and held up a hand. A cab wheeled around for me, no one there to mind a U-turn this late at night. I leaned in. “Hey—you know where that zombie show is? I’m auditioning after-hours—"
“Is any of that shit going to stain my cab?”
“I don’t think so.” I looked in Tamo’s wallet. “There’s an extra twenty in it for you, if you get me there by four.”
The cabbie appraised me then shrugged. “Sure. Hop in.” After I got my seatbelt buckled, he looked back at me in the rearview mirror, rolling down my window remotely. “You stink. Method acting?”
“Something like that,” I said.
It wasn’t hard to jump the fence to get into the back of the zombie game’s backlot and, once inside, mingle.
The crew of actors moved in a coordinated way around a decorated set—I moved with them.
There were zombie victims laying around in assorted rooms as props—when I saw an opportunity I took it, laying down and closing my eyes, listening to the groans of the ‘undead’ and the next group of victim’s earnest screams.
Unlike any of them, I knew what dying felt like—and that screams weren’t enough to hold it back.
Inside the dark and air conditioned room, I felt dawn rise outside and a weight press down, all my limbs chilling one by one, until the death reached my waist, torso, head.
The last thing I heard was: “Wow—that new one looks pretty real.”