Paradise Falls (30 page)

“Jacob!”
Jennifer cried.

Jacob leaned over him, red faced, chest heaving, layered in sweat and grime, bleeding all over, red seeping over freshly rising bruises, his wild wet hair in a shaggy, blood-matted mop on his head. He was trembling with fury, every muscle standing out like a cord. Ellison let out a soft squealing sound.

“This is your fault,” Jacob roared.

“It’s not my-“

Jacob yanked Ellison bodily from the floor, lifted him up, and rammed him into the wall. The rotten wood gave around him, sending soft silvery slivers across the floor. Jacob pulled him back and tossed him against one of the beams. It cracked and buckled against him, and Jacob pulled him back again and drove his fist into Ellison’s stomach, right below his ribs, so hard it almost lifted his feet from the floor.

“Jacob!”
Jennifer screamed.

He looked at her, his bright green eyes flashing in a mask of flickering emotions, rage and sorrow and terrible guilt, as Ellison slumped in front of him. Jacob took the cop by the collar and dragged him over, and forced him down on top of Blondie as he seized the fist aid kit. Ellison tried to wriggle away from the corpse, but Jacob pushed him down, held him still.

“Look at what you did,” he snarled. “Don’t you dare move.”

Kneeling beside her, Jacob scrubbed his hands with an alcohol wipe and gingerly held her head, his palm against her cheek, as he dabbed at the bleeding gash on the side of her head. Jennifer winced from the antiseptic sting, and Jacob shuddered every time she did. A couple of little pinchy bandages from the kit went on next, and then gauze pads and medical tape in a thick wad on the side of her head. He pulled her close again. She buried her face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him, only to pull back when he coughed and gasped.

“We need to go,” he said.

He was not so gentle with Ellison. He tore the ruins of his shoe and sock off, ignoring the screams, quickly washed and wrapped his wounded foot, glaring at him the whole time. Ellison laid still, pale as a ghost and drenched in sweat, eyes wide.

Jacob got up. He took Ellison’s sidearm, stuck it in the back of his pants, and grabbed the scraps of his clothes. Jennifer took them as Jacob seized Ellison’s leg and bodily dragged him across the gravel, then through the muddy stones outside. He heaved Ellison into the trunk of the cruiser, and dropped the lid. Inside, Ellison screamed and kicked, shaking the whole car on its springs. Jacob stuffed his balled up scraps of clothing in the front seat.

“What about you?” said Jennifer.

“What about me?”

“You’re bleeding.”

He looked down at himself. “Oh. I think you should drive, honey.”

They both looked at each other for a second. Jacob’s wide eyes were as startled as she was.

Jennifer got in the driver’s seat. When she turned back, Jacob was gone, and cold panic tightened in her chest. Then he came back out of the barn, carrying Blondie’s body cradled in his arms. He lowered it into the back seat, and Jennifer looked away. He looked
wrong
, too small. Jacob fell in beside her, leaning drunkenly before he sat himself up.

He had the first aid kit on his lap. He cleaned the biggest, deepest cuts, wincing as he wiped them down, making clean patches around the slices in his flesh before taping sterile pads over them. The gauze quickly turned pink, then red.

“I need stitches.”

“Yes. Yes you do.”

“Drive.”

Jennifer put the car in gear and rolled down the mud track, easing the throttle in to keep from spinning the wheels. It came back to her, just like riding a bicycle. She was about to turn towards town when Jacob caught her arm.

“No. That way. Safehouse. I’ll give you directions.”

3.

In a stolen police car, navigating a slashing rainstorm, with a dead body in the back seat and a cop in the trunk, was not how Jennifer expected to reacquaint herself with driving. Jacob leaned forward, patched up but still oozing blood in a dozen places. He gave her directions, short clipped commands to drive for a certain distance, take a certain turn, speed up or slow down. The effort of speaking made him clutch his sides. Jennifer wanted nothing more than to reach over and just put her hand on him, but she had to keep them on the wheel and keep her eyes on the road.

Finally she spotted an abandoned gas station, rising out of the mist, a whitewashed little building and the remains of the pumps like broken bones. At Jacob’s direction, she wheeled the car around the back. Jacob stepped out of the car, swaying on his feet, and Jennifer held him up as they crossed the old parking lot to the back of the ancient building. The back door opened with a code on a little electronic pad. Jacob whispered the numbers.

Jennifer shuddered. The passcode was his sister’s birthday.

It was dark inside, but clean. The exterior belied the interior. Not luxurious by any means, but the papered over windows hid a mixture of infirmary, storehouse, and armory. She flicked the lights on, and found the place bright and clean. Jacob sat down on an exam table, just like a doctor’s office.

He took a deep breath.

“You’re going to have to stitch me. When I’m done I’ll do you.”

“I don’t need stitches.”
 

“You’ll scar. I can do it. I’d do my own but I can’t reach my back.”

“It’s alright, I’ll do it.”

Jennifer nodded. He directed her to the right cabinets, and she laid out the supplies on a metal table with trembling fingers. When she saw the hooked needles and suture thread, her stomach rolled. Jennifer was not fond of blood.

“You know how to sew?”

“Yes,” she said. “Mom made me hem all my own school clothes and I made my… my prom dress,” she trailed off.

“Never wore it?”

“No,” she said. “Don’t worry about that. What do I do?”

“I need to be cleaned up first.”

Swallowing to hold down her stomach, Jennifer removed the crude bandages he’d applied and winced at the depth of some of the cuts. It was everything she could do not to turn away and gag when she had to clean them, holding gauze in a pair of forceps.

Jacob talked her through the process of stitching the wounds, driving the curved needle through his flesh as he pinched the wounds shut for her. Her first tie-off was crude and ugly, the second better, the third nearly perfect. By the time she’d stitched his back she could sink the needle into his body without flinching, but she had to take a minute to lean on the side of the table after it was done.

He put his arm around her. Without even a moment’s hesitation she hugged him back, careful not to tear at the bandages.

“You did fine,” he said.

“Do you need a blood transfusion or something?”

He shook his head. “They weren’t as bad as they look.”

“What now?”
 

He got up, opened a closet took a clean t-shirt. When he started to raise his arms over his head to put it on, he winced and Jennifer could see the wounds going white, pulling at the bandages. She took the shirt and had him hold his arms out, easing them into the sleeves, then pulled it over his head and tucked it down around his body. He let out a little gasp as his arms settled around her.

Gingerly, she touched her hands to his sides in a halting, gentle embrace, and touched her forehead to his chest. Jacob’s arms drooped, then rose up and curled around her, lightly. He tensed when she squeezed too hard, and she pulled back.

Jacob led her by the arms to sit down on the table, brushed her hair back, and cleaned her wound again. It stung, bad, and she ground her teeth and pressed her eyes shut. Worse was the stitching. His hand was quick and deft and she felt pressure and a pinch more than anything, but she couldn’t bear to open her eyes and see the needle sliding through her face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I’ll wear my hair down over it. I used to do that one-eye look when I was in school. You know, with my hair down one side of my face?”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she said, shrugging.

“You must have looked really cute like that.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t think so.”

Jacob leaned over her. He rested his forehead against hers, and breathed hard.
 

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. He made his choice.”

“It is my fault,” Jacob said, his voice flat, lifeless. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I’m supposed to find a third option. A perfect solution.”

She pulled back to look him in the eye. “That’s not always going to happen. What are we going to do about-“

“Ellison,” Jacob finished, and stood.

He was limping and his walk was shaky. He went outside into the rain, took Ellison’s sidearm in his hand, and opened the trunk. Ellison’s voice, high and scratchy, cut through the air.

“Are you fucking crazy? You’re fucking dead, you’re both fucking dead!”

“Shut up,” said Jacob.

He hauled Ellison out of the trunk, threw his body over his shoulder and carried him inside. Jacob dropped him down into a rolling chair and kicked the chair up against the wall. Jennifer eyed the car through the open door and moved to stand behind Jacob.

Ellison jerked in his seat. “You let me go, or you’re both dead. You hear me? No, worse than that. I’ll make sure you go both go to lock up. You, fucker,” he looked at Jacob, “I’ll keep them from stomping your guts out until I make sure some bull dykes with a grudge against English teachers get this one first. I’ll give them an extra carton of cigarettes to fuck her with a mop handle. I got friends inside. I know people. I-“

Jacob lazily cracked him across the face with the back of his hand. It almost knocked him off the chair, and he came back up trembling, with a split lip. Jennifer just stared at him, hardening her gaze when he looked at her, as if he expected mercy. Jacob picked up a scalpel. The edge was so sharp it blurred, and looking at it made Jennifer cold and queasy.

We just did this,
and look where it led
.

Jacob gave her a look. Ellison was too busy looking around and fidgeting to notice Jacob winking at her. She let out a breath, hoping that meant what she thought it did.

Bending over Ellison, Jacob seized his hair and bent his head back.

“Ellison, do you know what the aqueous humor is?”

Ellison shook his head as much as Jacob’s grip on his scalp would allow.

“It’s the liquid in your eye. Want to see what color yours is?”

Ellison sputtered and sobbed.

“Please, please don’t. I’m sorry about what I said. I can help you. I’ll help you! I can fix this. Look, I took it too far-“

“Too far,” Jennifer snapped, shocked at the sound of her own voice. “Four kids are dead. You took it too far?”

Jacob moved the scalpel closer to his eye.

“Help me,” Ellison pleaded with her, “Help me, Jenny.”

Jennifer bristled, and stood to her full height.

“Miss Katzenberg,” Ellison corrected. “Don’t let him do this.”
 

“What makes you think I’m the good cop?”

Jacob gave her a look from the corner of his eye.

“Look at me,” Jacob whispered. “She’s not going to help you. The only way out of this is to tell me what I want to know.”

“You can’t kill me. My old man, he’s tight with the Senator. They…”

“Aren’t here,” said Jacob. “Right now. But I am.”

Jennifer shrugged.

“Okay,” said Ellison, “Ask, just get that thing away from me.”

Jacob stood up, and let the scalpel fall to his side.

“Tell me about the drugs. Everything.”

“Okay,” Ellison drew a deep breath. “They come in on delivery vans. My boys keep the state cops away and watch the transfer. The Leviathans pick it up and move it out in trap cars.”

“What’s a trap car?” said Jennifer.

He glanced at her and swallowed. “A car with traps. Secret compartments. Like, you turn on the radio, the heater, and roll down the window all at the same time, and the dash pops open. Shit like that.”

“I don’t care about that,” said Jacob. “Where does the supply come from? How does it tie back to the Katzenbergs? Who’s involved?”

Ellison swallowed. “I can’t tell you that, man, they’ll fuckin’ kill me.”

Jacob raised the scalpel.

“Jesus!” Ellison screeched, “Okay, okay. The trucks are all the same. Some kind of shipping company. They’re light blue and they say Cerulean Transport on the side.”

“Give me something, Ellison,” said Jacob. “Who drives them?”

“I don’t know who they are,” said Ellison. “I swear to God.”

“The Katzenbergs,” said Jacob. “How are they involved in this?”

Ellison nodded, closed his eyes, and mumbled something. “Elliot is the only one I know of direct. He came out a couple of times and talked to one of the guys. Elliot was all fucked up after, man. He was sweating like a pig and his hands were shaking until we went to that titty bar over in Port Carol.”

Jennifer barked, “What?”

“Uh, you wouldn’t know about it, miss,” said Ellison.

Jacob leaned down in front of him. “You mean the one where they bring underage drug addicts and pimp them out to the Leviathans?”

“Y-yeah,” said Ellison. “Look, they said they were eighteen-“
 

Jacob slapped him again. Harder this time. Ellison whimpered and sat up.

“We just got lap dances.”

Jacob slapped him again.

“Okay, I paid one of them once, but she just laid there like she was all coked out so I didn’t do it again. I just stay home now.”

Jacob slapped him again.

“Okay, I go to that massage parlor in-“

“Shut up,” Jacob snapped.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jennifer said, trying to keep her voice even. It cracked despite her best efforts. “You’re supposed to be a cop, Ellison. How could you let this go on?”

“What do you know about that strip club?” said Jacob. “Where do the girls come from?”

He shook his head. “I ain’t a pimp, man. I don’t know anything about the Leviathan’s operations except what I need to know. They run the drugs for us, they pay up to Dad, we leave them be. I just went with Elliot, that’s all.”

“He go there often?”

“Yeah,” said Ellison. “He…” Ellison closed his mouth.