August 16, 2010

• One Size Cures All, Chapter 4

  Chapter Four

  "There he goes." Felix and Oscar watched Jack's old Le Mans peel out as he drove away.

  Oscar started the engine of their latest ride, a Charger. Felix got out of the car, opened the trunk, and picked up a case of cold Yoo-Hoo's. "Meet me at the lab around four. We'll have the elixir or a Yoo-hoo orgy."

  "Both, if we find the potion in one of the first bottles we test."

  Oscar drove off, Felix walked to Jack's door. He picked the lock with one hand, disabled the alarm, and walked in. That was the nice thing about a neighborhood like this, broad daylight was when everyone was sleeping.

  Jack ended up being gone all day. He watched the slingers work the corners, selling dreams to white college kids who drove up, and to junkies, who walked up. He bought one of the junkies, Screw-ball, lunch, a new pair of jeans, and a belt. In return, Screw-ball filled him in on the Stremos hierarchy, and the club where they held court through the night. "Cucuta, he's a bad one. Thinks hitting junkies and kids makes him more of a Stremo. Sad fact, he's right."

  "Where can I find Cucuta, and what does he look like?"

  "Short, broad-shouldered. Spider-web tatted on his neck. Shaved head, scar on his cheek, runs up across his eye."

  Jack let out a low whistle. "Does he have any distinguishing characteristics?"

  Screw-ball laughed, then looked around. "Man I gotta change this bill 'fore I score."

  Jack motioned him on his way. "Thanks for the info. Hope you live."

  Now, as the sun dropped behind the skyline of the city, Jack watched the front door of Mi Corazon Espana, which was down the block and across the street from where he was parked. Half the time he was watching the rear view mirror, knowing that in this neighborhood he was as conspicuous as a stripper at a church social. Several young Latinos had strolled by; each time, they looked at the magnetic "Child Services dept.." sign Jack had slapped on the driver's door, and ignored him.  Social workers, unless they did their jobs conscientiously, were not to be hassled. In return, they rubber-stamped banger's requests for food stamps and rent subsidies for their wives and baby-mommas.

  Jack hit paydirt at twilight. The Honda Odyssey EX-L double-parked across and one car forward from Jack's. Cucuta, or his most ardent admirer, got out and locked the car. His face was puffy, and there was a scratch on his head, a bandage on his arm. He had been initiated, recently, Jack surmised. Good, that means his homies would listen to what Jack told him. He got out of his car, walked quickly to where the newest Stremo was wiping an invisible speck off his hood.

  "Nice ride. You steal it from a doctor, or a lawyer?"

  Cucuta went for his piece, but Jack was faster. He put his gun in Cucuta's mouth, grabbed the gun in his waist, pocketed it.

  He looked at the man's eyes. No fear, hell, he looked like he was gonna fight back, regardless of the inevitable messy consequence.

  "Look, Cucuta. Yeah, I know who you are. Listen and live for awhile. Entiende?

  Cucuta nodded, looked down at the gun in his mouth, shrugged his shoulders.

  "No, the gun stays. You want a tonsilectomy, do anything but listen for one damn minute." Jack felt the man relax, but Jack did not.

  "You killed a woman the other morning. The wrong woman. Her husband wants revenge."

  Cucuta grunted, looked at the gun again. Jack moved back, out of arm's reach.

  "So let him come. I know who he is. We are not afraid."

  "No, Cucuta, you are a brave man, I see that. But Liussa is coming tonight, soon. How brave are your women, your kids, su abuelas y abuelos?" Jack let that sink in. "You need to get them out of here, and soon." Jack walked backwards to his car.

  "Can I have my gun back?"

  "No. One more thing, Liussa will be coming, and he knows your name."

  "He will know how it is to be killed by me, too."

  "Go tell your friends. Move!" As Jack knew he would, Cucuta walked, ever so slowly, towards the club, spanish-tinged hip-hop spilling out of the doors. He got in the car, his work finished here.

  His phone rang before he had gotten a block. " Yes, Mr. Chen. My coat is ready? Great! I am out and about now, give me 20 minutes. How's my credit?"

  -----------------------------------

   

  "Maybe he drank it since the shooting."

  "Maybe it has a short shelf life."

  Krentz had just informed them that none of the Yoo-Hoo's tested were going to save a hamster, much less the world.

  If he drank it, he is practically immortal. Krentz motioned the pair to follow him. "By the way, did you see Erik on your way in? he's late for a briefing."

  "Erik the Invisible"? Felix queried. "He could be in here and not be seen unless he wanted to be seen."

  "A master." Oscar added.

  "You killed him", Krentz thought. He sighed as he reached for the door of the walk-in freezer.

  When the mists cleared, Krentz pulled the casket on a gurney out into the main room. he opened the lid to reveal a frosty professor Nix.

  "Apparently," Krentz talked as he pulled down the sheet covering the corpse. "Nix tried the formula on himself." He pointed to the dead man's chest. there were small circles, four of them, each potentially fatal, yet healed bullet-holes. "These wounds, as near as we can determine, are a few days apart, the last of them occurring the morning of the symposium."

  Felix and Oscar looked at each other; they had seen the Professor on the video, laughing and joking with the Yoo-Hoo vendor the morning of the shooting. Three hours or less from heartshot to robust health. Krentz was happy to have impressed the bland-faced pair.

  "We hoped to get some of the ingredients back from Nix here, but there is no sign of the elixir in his body. Yet.." Krentz stabbed Nix in the arm with a knife. They watched as the cut simply disappeared within a few minutes.

  "There are limits to the potion's efficacy. The brain recovered from the shot in the temple, but it does nothing now. No electrical current, no synapse activity." Nix pulled the cover back over Nix. "It can restore a body, but can't do much for the mind."

  "Always a catch." Oscar said.

  "Maybe a living specimen would have salvageable ingredients." Felix said.

  Krentz spoke. "That is what we are hoping for now. Go shoot him, see what happens."

  "That's pretty cold-blooded."

  "It is. Cold as Hell, in fact." Oscar clapped Krentz on the shoulder. "There's hope for you yet."

  "If he resists, that is, " Krentz belatedly added. "otherwise, just get a blood and skin sample."

   

  Jack got home just after eight. Chen had stayed open an extra ten minutes for Jack, who tipped him generously. Chen accepted the gratuity with blessing on Jack's children.

  "Thanks, Chen, but I have no kids." Jack wrote. His tongue hurt after all the tough guy talk with Cucuta.

  "Oh, then drink is for you?"

  "Drink?" And Chen opened the coat. The neck of a bottle full of pink liquid stuck out of the inner pocket

  "We put drink in fridge until we fix coat, then put back in pocket. Honest Chen, that's me."

  "Honest Chen", Jack chuckled as he hung up his good-as-new coat. He took it off the hangar, slipped it on. When he turned to check himself in the mirror, the bottle bumped the wall through the coat's material. Jack pulled it out, started to walk to the refrigerator.

  There was a knock at the door; Jack put the drink back in the pocket and went to let Ernie in.

   

  The black sedans rolled down Westlake towards the Mctavish Garden Arms. In the second car, Tony stared at the police printout of a mugshot. Ernesto Guillermo "Willie" Cucuta, the man who killed his wife, for no good reason. Tony knew they would all have to go to ground after this, this necessary action. He was considering Antigua, Dominican Republic, whatever. As long as they had a lotta whores.

  He leaned forward. "Marco! Everyone got this Cucuta blowhole's picture?"

  "Everybody, boss."

  "And they know he's mine, right? Wound him if you gotta, but don't kill him."

  "Okay, boss, got it"

  I mean it. Anyone kills him but me, they lose whatever position they got. I'll put 'em dealing weed to the queers by the lake."

  "We're here, boss."

  Tony looked out the window; the Corazon Espana's sign flickered, lighting up sparkles on the ground. The cars rolled forward, crunching broken glass under the wheels.

  Marco looked up at the streetlights. They were all out. He looked at the sidewalk; the sparkles came off broken streetlight globes. That was the glass they were running over. Recently broken glass.

  Marco yelled, "Boss! It's a trap! We gotta move!" Through the rear window, Marco saw a delivery truck come out of an alley, blocking a retreat. He turned to see what he knew would be there; another truck rolled into place. Tony was already grabbing an Ak-47 and rolling out of the door onto the sidewalk, then under the car. There was a sound like an old-fashioned beer can being punctured. A ray of light came through a new hole in the Lincoln's roof, and a round red hole bloomed on Jamie the Wheel's forehead. Both holes soon had a row of  siblings...

   

  Jack opened the door, whatever clever quip he had ready was blown out along with the rest of the air in his lungs. He fell backward on the floor, The two men who stooped to enter the office were empty-handed.

  "That was a fist?" Jack could barely form the words, much less force them out. He was answered with a jolt from a cattle prod one the men had produced.

  "Ernie wath right, Thothe are nithe coatsth." He wheezed. The two men looked down at Jack from on high.

  "Look at his face. Unhealed." The one on the right said.

  The one on the left nodded. "Take his blood anyway."

  Jack had enough oxygen to pull away from the two. "Hey! Blood? What is going on, fellaths?"

  Felix hit him again with the cattle prod. 5000 volts ran up Jack's leg. He stiffened, then passed out.

  Oscar watched the door as Felix found a vein in Jack's arm. He quickly drew a vial, then another. The wound still bled as he got ready to take skin samples. Krentz had suggested three; one from the torso, one from a thigh, one from the arm. Jack stirred, Felix pinched his neck, hard. Jack's eyes rolled up in his head and he was still.

  Felix ripped Jack's shirt open. The coat fell heavily to one side, and a bottle of Yoo-Hoo rolled out onto the floor. The pair looked at it. Felix picked it up, then stood up next to Oscar. They touched the bottle hesitantly, Oscar touched the cap.

  "This is a twist-top. The others, all of the other bottles had flanged bottlenecks."

  "This is it!" both yelled in unison. Oscar grabbed the bottle and prepared to twist off the cap. His hands were suddenly red and slick; the bottle slipped from his hands. He heard a voice, saw Felix screaming something, but could not understand why he could make out no words. Then he gave up trying.

  Liussa fired again, and the shorter sonuvabitch dropped to one knee. He whipped out a gun, and Tony felt the piledriver force of a .38 magnum hitting him in the chest. He managed  another shot, and Felix's gun slipped from his fingers. Liussa staggered over to Jack. His breath was coming back. Thank the Lord for Kevlar, Liussa thought. Saved his life twice in one night.

  "I got Cucuta, Moonlight. Thanks for the tip."  Jack started to get up, and Tony the Louse shot him in the leg. Jack fell back to the floor, moaning.

  "Funny about a dying man, he wants to clear the air. He will even talk to the man who is ending his life." Liussa kicked a handgun out of Felix's reach. The gun bumped up against the taller body; no threat from that one. Tony continued his monologue. "He told me that at least we didn't get their women. Now that had bothered me, how empty the street was. " I asked him how he knew to get the families to safety, and that's when he described you. Police-looking, but too much hair, ratty jacket. I see you changed coats. Found you anyway, you slimeball!" Liussa's voice grew louder as he talked. When his pitch started rising, he shot Jack again, this time in the gut. He aimed for Jack's chest, but a shot from Jack's right went up through his chin. Liussa fell on top of Oscar, then slid off to his left. Jack grabbed for the gun, but he was too weak and slow.

  Felix climbed on top of Jack, and groped behind the dying detective until he found the bottle where it had fallen. Jack saw tears in the man's eyes as he unscrewed the cap.

  "Drink up, Oscar." Felix put the bottle to the dead man's face, he let some wet the Oscar's lips, then tried to pry open his best friend's mouth. He felt Jack move; he looked, Jack had the gun in a wavering unsteady hand. Felix and Jack wrestled for the gun, the bottle fell to the ground, half of its contents spilling on the linoleum. Oscars lips began quivering.

  Felix got the gun away from Jack. He turned it on Jack. They had never indulged in unnecessary killing, but neither had one been without the other since first grade in Rhodesia.  He aimed at Jack's face. Jack stuck out his distended tongue.

  Felix almost smiled at the defiant gesture. "Oscar liked you. He didn't like many people."

  "Hoo'th Othcar?"

  The noise was louder than Felix expected. The gun fell from his hands as a second shot resounded in the room. Jack put up his hands as Felix fell forward. A shadow fell across them both, and the weight of the tall man was lifted from his chest.

  "Jack! No, my God, Jack!" Ernie still had his gun out. his hand shook as he put it away.

  "Drinksth will be a little late, friend." Jack managed to whisper.

  "Don't talk, Jack, now you have two reasons not to talk, buddy. Oh Jeez, oh Hell!" Ernie ran to the phone and dialed 911.

  Jack's vision was blackening, narrowing. His head fell to one side, and there was the bottle of Yoo-Hoo, on its side, the opening staring him in the eye.

  Jack heard Ernie giving his badge number, urging the dispatcher to order the ambulance or order another for her. He leaned left, grabbed the bottle, and lifted it to his mouth. It tasted funny, and warm. "Coulda wrote a better ending, Ernie. But I don't feel so bad."

  Ernie stopped yelling into the phone when he saw Jack had sat up, his back against the red-splattered wall. "Jack, lay still! Help will be here in....." Ernie's next words were caught in his throat; Jack was getting to his feet, sipping a bottle of that damned kid's drink, licking his lips with a normal-sized tongue.

   

  The End? 

  • 8:14 pm
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