7. Merciless

I walked to my destination with a freshly pawned gun in pocket. I was ready. Stanley didn't know what was gonna hit him. I came up his street, Brookridge, and noticed his house was dark. He wasn't even home. I had it all planned out in my head of how it would go down, but my scenario always involved him being home. This was going to be too easy.

I figured I'd just waltz right in screaming his name and waving my gun in his face, making demands. That would scare him into submission. At least, that was my theory. That was my plan.

At the door, I picked the lock and decided at the last moment I better go through with my plan since he has a garage and he could just be asleep. I swung the door open,

"STANLEY!"

I slammed the door and turned the light on. My gun was in my right hand, my fedora pushed up just a little. The living room was chilly, thus verifying he probably wasn't home. I stormed to the first room. It was a guest room. I turned it upside down tossing the mattress and checking the closet. I went to the next room, his office. He has obviously just moved in, since the furniture isn't placed in its right place. Pieces of furniture are just sitting in the middle of the floor. I check the closet and nothing. I turn his living room upside down, but still I can't find this leather briefcase anywhere.

The furnace room, the pantry... nothing.

The master bedroom is a challenge, since it is the most furnished. I check underneath bed and master bath, but nothing. I enter the closet and there is large box on the floor in the center of it. I begin throwing everything out of it onto the floor.

A handle.

I grip it with my left hand and pull it out from beneath a shirt. It's a gun. It's loaded, so I slip it into the back of my pants and I'm off to the kitchen.

I check every cabinet... nothing.

As I go to leave the kitchen, something catches my eye. I walk over to the door leading to the laundry room. I turn the light on and what really catches my eye is the door leading into the garage. He just moved, it's probably full of unpacked boxes. I walk in and I'm right. There are so many belongings in the two-car garage, you can't even fit one car. I start to rummage, but then I hear a car. I turn the light off and the headlights hit the wall through the windows of the garage door.

Stanley is home. On a whim, I revise my plan.

I wait. I can hear him running around the house, retracing my own footsteps. I watch the crack beneath the door, as the light shines through it. He's running on the tile of the kitchen floor, heading to the master bedroom. He's looking for his gun.

Silence.

I hear footfalls coming closer and closer, lightly. He is walking and coming closer to the door. He stops. After a moment, he starts again and I can see his shadow approaching the door. Slowly his shadow covers the crack and I have no more light.

The door swings open and he turns the light on.

"Don't be stupid," I order him with my gun pushed into his face, "Come into the garage, slowly."

He steps down into the garage, "Keep those hands up."

He is young, about my own age. He is in a black suit with a dark purple vest and tie. He is obviously returning from an expensive event. I pat his front down, "Spin around!" I pat his backside down; he isn't carrying, "Alright, face me."

He turns and looks at me with a sarcastic expression, I implore, "Where is it?"

"Where is what?"

"The briefcase?!"

He roles his eyes, "What briefcase?"

"The briefcase! Where is it?!"

He sighs, "You know, you should probably be a little more specific. I have a lot of briefcases."

I'm impatient. I thrust my gun into his stomach as hard as I can and as he doubles over towards my gun, I grab his hair with my left hand and pull his head back and emphasize into his ear, "Where... is... the briefcase?"

"Okay, okay..." he concedes.

"That's right," I tell him and slap him upside the head with my left hand as I back away from him.

He gestures to corner of garage, "It's over there."

"Move over there," I instruct, gesturing with my gun, "Bring it to me."

We walk across the cluttered garage, past some emptied boxes to our right and full boxes to our left. He goes beyond the full boxes and into the corner, he bends over and then back up and turns around. In his hands are a leather briefcase, just as Holly said.

"Bring it to me," I demand of him one last time.

He walks it over to me, slowly and stops.

"No funny business," I instruct.

As he goes to hand me the briefcase he quickly swings the briefcase, knocking my pistol out of my hand and then hits me in the face with the briefcase and I stumble backwards. I fall onto the empty boxes and he quickly kicks me in the stomach and chest, then retrieves my gun and darts back into the house. I rub my chest and leap to my feet, I then sprint after him. I reach around my back and pull out his pistol as I enter the kitchen,

"STANLEY!"

At the front door, Stanley turns around and takes aim at me with my own gun. I aim back with his, gripped with both my hands. He stands with my gun in his right hand, the briefcase in his left. He smirks, then pulls the trigger... nothing. His smirk goes away and he pulls the trigger again and again... nothing.

My plan worked.

I smile at him and he laughs back at me. He looks at the gun and then tosses it onto his couch. He raises the briefcase up and holds it with both of his hands now,

"Toss it to me," I tell him.

He doesn't.

"DO IT!"

He reluctantly tosses the briefcase towards me and it lands on the floor between us. He is visibly upset by it all.

I keep my aim on him while he stares back at me. After a moment of us staring at one another, trying to understand where the other is coming from, I put an end to it. I pull the trigger. I pick up the briefcase and leave.

6. Storyteller

After some reuben on rye and coffee, I was home. I crashed on my sofa, having made my choice of whiskey from bourbon and lemonade. I sipped and slowly washed away the memory of Holly. The memory of Maxim. The memory of what seemed to be ghosts. I shouldn't care, I barely knew her. The more I drank, the less I did. Eventually, I had forgotten and was fast asleep.

I woke near dawn, the room was dark and I heard noises from the kitchen. I looked to the door, it was shut and locked. I wanted that gun now more than ever, but I knew that the cops were probably processing it as evidence at this point. I grabbed my whiskey bottle and sipped the last little bit of it; held it upside down from the neck and slowly rose to my feet trying not to make a sound. The radio turned on and I could hear the sound of the intruder fumbling through the AM waves looking for a station to fit their desires.

Jazz. Sultry jazz.

I heard clinking of glass and footfalls coming towards me, I slid against the wall near the kitchen doorway. A dark, slender figure entered carrying something large and dark in its hands, possibly a Tommy gun. I slipped in behind the figure, breaking the bottom of my bottle which was held with my right hand on the wall to my right and then held the jagged end to the neck of the intruder. With my left arm I reached out and around, crossing left arm and chest of intruder.

"You get one chance," I whispered in the right ear.

"Johnny, darling, it's me, Holly."

Amidst a raunchy, damp sort of smell I could sense Holly's perfume. It was her. She wasn't dead. After releasing her and turning the light on, I could see Maxim had beat her up pretty bad. She had black and blue eyes, bruises on her arms and legs. Her dress was torn, wet and her lip was busted and swollen. In her hands she held a glass and my bourbon, a far cry from a Tommy gun.
"What went down, kid?"

"Let me get a drink first," she started as she went to my couch, "I need to numb the pain."

I joined her, sitting close to her. She started to pour the drink, but her arm was obviously in a lot of pain. I took the bottle and glass from her hands and poured the drink myself. I handed her the glass and she gulped it instantly and handed it back. I poured some more, this time she savored it. She made it last.

"He took me to Buehler Lake," she began her story, "They worked me over. There were three of them, four counting Maxim. He kicked me twice, but stopped because I was scuffing his loafers. What a pity. They had bats and crowbars, but mostly they kicked and punched. They wanted it to last. Eventually I scrambled and threw myself over the dock into Buehler. I swam beneath the dock and waited for them to give up looking for me; they did and left. I waited until nightfall, then came out and made my way here. We gotta show him up, Johnny. We gotta get him back. This has to end."

After a moment of thought, I responded, "I don't know, kid, I'm in enough trouble as is. My little sister is a cop and serious about it, if I keep getting in trouble she'll nail me."

"Johnny, darling, you're all I have," she compelled and placed her left hand on my leg.

"What about your parents? They have money, they can ruin him better than I can."

"They won't listen to me," she starts, "They think I am making this all up."

"Look at you; you can't make this up. Go to them, show them. Good grief, I'll tell 'em what I know; what I've seen."

"No, Johnny," she removes her hand and turns away, hanging her head, "Maxim has convinced my parents I'm cheating on him, they won't listen to me. They've disowned me. I'm not even in the will anymore. I bring too much shame to them. I have nothing. I have no one."

"Well, did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you cheat on him?"

After a moment, she responds, "Sort of."

Here I thought I had a chance with her. Here I thought she was digging me. All the Johnny, darlings and batty eyes. I'd fallen for a dame and she had someone else on the brain. I almost went to jail for life for her and I ain't even her daddy. I was ready to kill her myself.

"It's you, Johnny," she looks back at me, "I'm in love with you, though I know we barely know each other and we haven't really done anything. He has pictures of us together and that's all my parents can see and I can't really deny how I feel for you."

I wrapped my arms around her in an embrace; gently, so as to not irritate her wounds. I pulled her in tight to me. She was cold, so I grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her. I held her tightly, trying to warm her body with the blanket and my own heat. I realized now that it was not over. That the plot hadn't even thickened. The villain had to go and I had to be the hero. I was gonna kill Maxim.

"Where does Maxim live?" I began to formulate my scheme, "Tell me where he is and I'll kill the rat myself."

"No, Johnny," she pleaded, "Not Maxim."

"What do you mean not Maxim?"

"I want to scorn him before he dies."

She was cruel, but it was understandable. After what she had gone through, one could see where such notions would come to mind and one might even rationalize them.

"What did you have in mind, kid?"

"There's a man," she started, "His name is Stanley Black. He's got some blueprints in a leather briefcase that Maxim needs to have for some shady deal he's working. If we get those blueprints and destroy them, he'll be in a heap of trouble. We'll let him sweat it for a few days and then we'll kill him."

For the first time since she'd been in my apartment, she smiled. It was an eerie smile, but an understandable one. Vengeance and freedom were within her grasp. She could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and that made her happy. I was happy for her.

"I'll need a gun; do you still have any cash?"

"Yes, Johnny darling, just enough to get us through the rest of this trouble and buy a one-way ticket on a train to anywhere," she smiled in a nice way this time, "We'll live on love."

"For you, kid, sure."

We kissed.

She stayed the night at my place, but not in the lustful way. She was too beat up for any foolishness anyhow. She slept in my bed and I sprawled on the couch, too afraid to lay next to her battered body. Afraid I might roll over in my sleep and hurt her more. I felt relieved. I felt at peace. Tomorrow morning, after my hangover, I'd be buying a gun and paying Stanley a visit. After that, it would merely be a matter of time before Maxim was dead and we were on a train to anywhere. And we'd savor it; we'd make it last.