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The killing led to a torrent of complaints. Sure, the Shih Tzu was a beloved pet. But so was the alligator that ate him. Hell, Betty might be a giant lizard but lots of folks in the Sunrise Retirement Homes considered her a part of the community. They’d wave to her as they went by, watching her sun herself in the humid Florida afternoon.
What was Ms. Linda doing letting that little mop of a dog outside her condo anyway? Such a tiny thing shouldn’t be runnin’ around alone in south Florida. Plenty of predators might have gotten to him. Betty’s owner (Jim, who preferred to be called Betty’s guardian) pointed out that at least the dog wasn’t eaten by a stranger.
Ms. Linda did not find solace in that fact. Neither did many Sunrisers who had never quite cottoned up to Betty. So they came up with a settlement: Kill Betty and they’d call it even.
Jim refused and many of the Sunrisers sided with him. Who can blame an alligator for being an alligator?
So complaints turned into lawsuits, which made heated words hotter until someone uttered the legal panacea, “I fear for my life.” Then the bullets started flying.
Betty lives alone in the Sunrise community now, emptied of humans by the conflict she caused. And she seems just fine with that.
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“Don’t do this, Sartre. It’s not the smart play. You’re pissed because the cops are raiding your houses and you can’t touch them. Now Mitnick is getting in on the dog pile and you want to hurt someone.”
Sartre hadn’t changed clothes or washed since we had last seen each other, the sheen of bad liquor and bad decisions still on him. I could tell he was seconds from ordering his men to gun me down.
Before he could, I broke eye contact with him to look at his goons. While a few of them had the seasoned appearance of competent NCOs, the rest had a youth that was barely concealed by the quality and uniformity of their dark suits. They were too young to be here, fighting for a man like Sartre. They should be partying or going to school, or out somewhere smoking and drinking wine, trying to impress girls. The familiar sadness of seeing boys too young to fight and die dripped into my anger, catalyzing it into a burning need.
So I punched Sartre. I grabbed him by the lapel of his well-constructed jacket and dragged him to me as I pushed my fist into his face. He buckled, but I held him up. Surprised yells rose from his men.
With Sartre stunned, I spun him and got the steel of the umbrella’s rod across his throat, keeping him between me and his crew. The yelling rose fast, making it impossible for me to understand the gutter French. The sounds of guns being cocked I understood, though.
With my mouth close to his ear, I whispered to Sartre, “Don’t do this.” I had to wrestle him in place before I could add, “It’s not the smart play.”
“He is tearing my city apart,” Sartre spit, lifting his legs to force me into hold up all of his weight. “I will destroy him for this.”
I held him up with the umbrella across his throat, letting him choke himself until he had to put his feet down. I stepped back, closer to the embankment, preventing any of his rooks from getting behind me as I kept Sartre between me and his guns.
“You’re gonna kill some girl to settle a score with Mitnick? I thought you were a man.” My appeal to his machismo got a few elbows thrown back at me, Sartre trying to use my ribs to climb out of the grapple.
“He has left bodies across my city! He has murdered Moreau! He has burned my station! And you wish me to reason with him?!”
The rooks broke up the headlights, figures jittering like puppets against a flame, waving guns around. In an attempt to control Sartre I snarled, “I want you to stick to the plan! Hide the girl while the Russians tear each other apart. We can find a quiet time to kill Mitnick down the road.” Sartre dropped his legs and bent forward, nearly pulling me over his back, dangerously exposing me to the sights of his men.
“He will pay a ransom for her corpse!” Sartre spit his words and dragged my heavier frame around. I kept him between me and his increasingly frantic men, the barrels of their weapons as dark and as deadly as anything on that road. Most of them brayed out commands to release Sartre, but a few were smart enough to move, trying to flank me.
“Stop!” Higher and louder than all the other yelling, the scream pierced the night. I couldn’t see its originator, but I knew it was Nika. Even as Sartre’s men paused in confusion, I cursed Lanzo for letting her draw attention to herself.
Nika didn’t stop screaming, though, the pitch of her voice going higher, reaching for hysterics. I yanked Sartre towards the embankment and glanced over my shoulder. In the broken beams of the headlights I saw Max wrestling with Nika, trying to drag her clear of the embankment. I couldn’t see where the other two were, but I could guess. Sartre saw what was happening too and choked out a laugh.
I kept Sartre between me and his rooks, but they were closing in. I swiveled between them and the river, uncertain of what to do until the canary yellow of a second-hand cardigan rose up behind Max.
Max had his head peeled back as Sophie grabbed his hair with one hand and twisted her hand into the balaclava with the other. She shook him off Nika like pulling a kitten away from a toy and tossed him down the gorge. She turned and dove down into the dark.
Whatever pain Sophie was visiting upon the Idiots was blocked from my view by Nika panicked and fleeing up onto the street. Blind to the new dangers and violence that waited her, she ran towards me and Sartre. The chorus of the rooks didn’t stop her, but the sound of the gunshot echoing out into the night did. It stopped everything.
As the report of the shot faded, it left a vacuum of silence that Nika stood so still in that I expected her to fall. I only noticed she didn’t when Sartre slumped in my arms. Then there was nothing but me holding him up and his weight was suddenly impossible to keep from sliding to the street.
With the struggle gone, I held Sartre, keeping his head up. He opened and closed his mouth silently, the front of his shirt covered in spreading blood. Uncertain of who had fired the fatal shot, I watched the last of Sartre slip away.
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To the surprise of all, the wife of the prophet, whose name is lost to time, offered to hold the sacrificial bowl. When the prophet’s enemies tied him to the table and cut him open, she was ready with the vessel, acting as a handmaiden to catch the blood as it drained from her husband. To the amazement of all, he was silent as his executioners continued to slice him, making certain the blood would flow until none remained.
From this stream of blood, she filled the cup of his tormentors, who sipped of his life essence as they watched him vivisected. It was only then that the prophet cried, for he could see that his wife had poisoned each man’s cup, and he wept for her, knowing she had lost all compassion.
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Happy to move into action, I gestured at Lanzo to take up the rear. I didn’t know what I was going to say to the Idiots. I decided to keep it short, so moved the pipe blocking the door and stepped through.
The Idiots were all happy to see me again, or at least happy that I might be leaving, until they spotted Nika. I jumped in front of that with, “Change of plans. I’m taking her to Sartre. He thinks they might know about this place. We need to move her.” I stared down at Max, feeling the intimidation I was putting out bounce off his amphetamine shell.
Max’s eyes jumped from me to Sophie to Nika, then back again, quicker than a hummingbird. “That is not the plan. Sartre said he was coming himself.”
“Neither was you talking to Sartre,” I almost said, but replied, “I know. He sent me.”
“What is this bullshit?” Max went from rational to spitting angry faster than the speed he was on. He grabbed me by the elbow, his grip like a snakebite. “Lanzo, you cannot trust this American.”
I took quick stock of the situation. The three Idiots in the contained space, Sophie with her Opinel knife, me moving slower than usual, no visible weapons on the Idiots. I didn’t have any doubt we could take them, but murdering Lanzo’s friends wasn’t what we needed. If Nika saw what Sophie was capable of she’d scream out into the night.
I was saved from this by the appearance of the revolver floating up into my peripheral vision. Resting it on my shoulder, Sophie braced the tarnished steel of the pistol there as if I were a bipod, leveling its weight at the Idiots. Despite my surprise I kept my eyes on them. Having had the revolver pointed at me, I could attest to its intimidation.
Sophie commanded, “Open the door.”
Max released my arm while protesting to Lanzo. He stood back and Sophie gestured for him to open the door. Sophie lifted the revolver off my shoulder so I could follow him.
Light spilled out from the hutch onto the shadowed path up to the road. I pushed the Idiots together so Sophie could cover all three as I gestured Nika and Lanzo out. Lanzo looked like he might want to say something, but the pistol had introduced a pressure into the situation that squeezed him in to action as it held his friends in place. He followed Nika out. I held the door for Sophie. She backed up, holding the pistol on the Idiots as she moved.
“Don’t follow us,” I said before I closed the door. It was only fair to give them an honest piece of advice before it was over. Even so, I thought I could detect a faint smile on Max.
As we climbed, I saw why. The edge of the riverbank glowed like the top of a lighthouse. I scooted to the front of the group on the narrow path when I saw it.
With nowhere to retreat to, I stopped everyone and gestured for them to wait. I crouched up the remaining yards of the path until I could see the headlights from the road pointed at the gorge. There were three cars there, black as any of Sartre’s rooks, purring quietly with the xenon lights nearly blinding me. I stepped out from the gorge, holding a hand up to shield my eyes.
I couldn’t see everyone, but I did some quick math – three cars meant Sartre was traveling with his usual entourage, so there were at least six I couldn’t see. I smiled as I thought about how any one of them could gun me down right then.
Sartre stormed out of the darkness. His hostile scrutiny shone brighter than the headlights his fireplug frame partially blocked. I said his name, loudly, so Sophie might here, and nothing else.
“American! Why are you here?”
While my brain scrambled over possible exits, I replied with a redacted version of the truth. “I’m here checking Nika. You?”
Sartre squeezed an eye shut and stared at me with the other, a jeweler eyeing every facet of a bad gem. “We are here for the girl.”
“She’s safe,” I answered. When he didn’t move, I stepped closed to him, lowering my voice. “You’re not supposed to be here. Do you want Mitnick to know you’re involved?”
Whatever his motives, a sliver of Sartre’s anger cut through like the shards of light around him. “The Russians are tearing the city apart. Searching for the girl.” In the fire of Sartre’s eyes I could see the violence ripping through his town, hitting his corners, terrorizing his cathouses, bombing his bookies. It all lay in contradiction to his next words of, “We will move her.”
“Then why the gun?”
Sartre glanced at the Tokarev in his hand as if he had forgotten it was there. His new plan became clear with his next words. “There will be consequences.”
He tried to step past me and I imposed myself between him and the river. He had no need to hide his anger in day-to-day life and so here, between the river and the city, he wasn’t any better at it. “You aren’t taking her,” I replied.
The long shadow we created between the headlights and the drop into the gorge stretched to the downward path. Sartre only hardened as he contemplated my usefulness versus my obstinance. “Get out of the way, American.”
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At the zoo, there are two sisters, separated by a few years, but with a vast chasm between them. The oldest is beautiful, but her eyes exude a knowledge of this beauty and its value to others, emptying her of all things but to be pretty.
You can see the younger growing into the same beauty, but she is not yet stripped of her personality by being the object for others. This awakens in you an instinct to protect the younger one, to allow her to grow into the woman she will become without the corrosive effects that her blossoming comeliness have wrought on her sister. But they are both strangers to you.
