Brambleman (46 page)

Charlie’s boots crunched glass as he surveyed
the scene. The shooter was lying on the truck’s crumpled hood, his
head a foot away from the bus grille. Flames from an engine fire
licked the man’s clothes. The driver was slumped over the steering
wheel.

The bus driver tried to back away from the
burning truck, but the vehicles were locked together. Its engine
straining, the bus dragged the smaller vehicle twenty feet before
the truck’s bumper tore off with a screech and clang. A horn blared
as a taxi peeled away in reverse. The driver—who somehow escaped
injury—stopped the bus. After her passengers had exited the
vehicle, she stepped off and yelled, “People, get away from the
fire!”

As the flames rose higher, passengers poured
out the bus’s back door. Braving the inferno and spitting blood,
Charlie dragged his assailant off the truck hood. “Who are you?” he
demanded.

The man didn’t respond. His bloody head
flopped like a fish when Charlie put his arms under the man’s
armpits and dragged him away. The victim laid his shooter down on
the pavement by the bus’s rear tires. A moment later, the truck’s
gas tank exploded with a roar, spewing burning gas all over the
street and vehicles parked on the curb. Charlie, protected from the
blast by the bus, watched the pickup become its driver’s funeral
pyre.

Charlie turned back to the shooter, and with
his left hand, pulled off his would-be assassin’s ski mask. A white
guy. A stranger. He felt for a pulse. Nothing. Meanwhile, bus
riders and bystanders scurried north toward downtown. Charlie spit
out more blood and bits of broken tooth. As he backed away from the
body, a black BMW buzzed by and nearly clipped him, its horn
blaring as it raced away. “Athhole!” Charlie shouted.

The bus driver, a matronly black woman
wearing sunglasses, approached him. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled,
shaking her head. “So sorry.” Charlie stared at her in dull
amazement. He thought he recognized her. Then again, maybe all
female bus drivers looked alike. “Police be here soon,” she
added.

Taking that as a warning, he backed toward
the garage, leaving a bloody trail. He paused when he reached the
sidewalk and peered through the bakery’s broken window at the
pandemonium inside. An employee was using a fire extinguisher on a
burning bundt in the broken display case. Fortunately, the shotgun
blast had angled upward, over people’s heads, only to destroy the
wall clock and knock holes in ceiling tiles.

“What the hell is going on?” someone shouted
at Charlie.

Amy Weller, stooping to coax a customer out
from underneath a table, looked up at him in alarm. “Were they
shooting at you?”

“I think tho,” Charlie lisped. “Ith anyone
hurt?”

“Besides you? I don’t think so. You need an
ambulance. Just hang on. We called 911.”

The pain in his jaw was screaming. No cops
was one thing. No paramedics was another. Charlie retreated to the
garage like a wounded beast into its cave, unsure whether he should
run, hide, or seek treatment—which would mean turning himself in,
most likely. He slumped against a concrete wall near the elevator
and slid to the oil-spotted floor. “Thith day ith completely
fucked,” he observed, lolling his head around and closing his
eyes.

“Hell-o?”

Charlie looked up to see Dana Colescu
standing over him, wearing a red leather jacket and black jeans.
She stared at him in horror. “Ohmygawd! Writer Guy! Vot
happened?”

Blood dribbled down his chin. “I got
thot.”

She took a step back. “Who did this? Vere are
they?” She whipped out a formidable black automatic pistol from her
purse.
Damn
. He pointed a bloody, trembling finger toward
the garage door as smoke wafted in. “Is it safe?” she hissed.

He shook his head. “They’re dead.”

She clomped up to the garage entrance with
the pistol behind her back and looked around, then returned to
Charlie’s side. “I’m impressed,” she said, tucking the gun away.
“You do good vork. And you kept your shades on.”

“The buth hit the truck. I gotta get out of
here before the polith come.”

“Vy? Are you in trouble with the law?”

“Not ovuh thith.” He struggled to get up.
“But they have ithues.”

“Issues?” She put a hand on his shoulder and
tried to push him down. “Maybe you should vait—”

“No copth,” he said, fighting to stand.

She watched with a worried expression as he
staggered toward his car.

“OK, I’ll help you. Just calm down. You’re
bleeding all over the place.”

He looked down. It was true. He was dripping
on the floor.

“I’ll take you somewhere. In your car.”

He dug keys out of his coat pocket with his
left thumb and forefinger and gave them to her. “Old Volvo.”

“Vait. Don’t get in yet.”

Weak from pain, he watched her get a brown
blanket from the trunk of her powder-blue Mercedes. She unlocked
the Volvo, then used it to cover the back seat. She looked at him
and said, “You’ll live. I’ve seen vorse. But you are a bloody
mess.”

He crawled in and laid down on his right side
as the rest of his teeth hummed in sympathy with their fallen
comrade. He lifted his head to peek out the window. Dana drove out
of the garage and slipped through a narrow gap between gawkers and
a silver car. “Move, bitches!” she shouted as she wove through the
growing crowd, barely avoiding a fire truck as it angled to block
off the street. Seconds later, an Atlanta police car sped by, its
siren screaming. “Vo,” said Dana, her face a mask of concentration.
“That vas close.”

It hurt too much to talk; Charlie rested his
head against the door. He closed his mouth and swallowed a bit of
himself. He gagged but held it down. Dana checked the mirror, then
hit the gas and dodged a pothole. She pulled a cellphone from her
purse as they approached Marietta Street. Overhead, Newschopper Six
thumped by on its way toward the burning wreckage.

“Vot hurts vurst?”

“My toof.”

“I know vere to go, then.”

Charlie expected to go to Grady Memorial,
where gunshot wounds were part of the ER’s daily routine—but Dana
embraced his
No Cops
rule. And so, as Atlanta police
searched local emergency rooms for a big white dude with half his
face shot off, Charlie sat in a chair in a Midtown dentist’s
examination room. Dana stood in the door, arguing in a foreign
language with a silver-haired man she called Victor, who wore a
blue tunic. Victor ended the debate by touching his finger to his
lips and stroking Dana’s cheek. Then he left the room.

“I used to vork with Victor years ago,” she
said. “He is a teddy bear.”

“You were a nurth?” Charlie asked.

She shook her head. “No. Something else, back
then.”

Victor returned with a medical bag. “I am Dr.
Blaga,” he told Charlie. “Only Dana knows I vas army surgeon in
previous life. Now I’m oral surgeon. I fix you all up. One price
for all.” He thought this was tremendously funny and laughed until
he coughed.

Blaga produced a syringe and injected Charlie
with a painkiller. Charlie wouldn’t remember much about the office
visit after that—a mercy, since he got more shots in his jaw, root
canal surgery, and a temporary cap to replace his shot-out tooth,
in addition to a total of thirty-two stitches on his hand, arm,
cheek, and thigh. Plus a bandage on his ear, a gauze patch on his
shoulder, and a sympathetic
tsk.
“Nothing more to do for
those,” Blaga said. “But they vill heal.”

Before Charlie knew it, Dana and Blaga were
hauling him back to the underground garage. When they reached the
Volvo, Blaga handed Charlie two bottles. “Take every four hours.
One for pain, one for infection.” The doctor pushed him into the
front passenger seat of the car and kissed Dana on the cheek.

“Thankth,” Charlie mumbled, now slurring
and
lisping.

“You vill come back for permanent crown in
three veeks,” Blaga said as he backed toward the elevator.

Dana snapped Charlie’s seat belt with
ruthless efficiency.

“I’m thorry I took your day away,” Charlie
said.

“That’s all right,” she said, checking the
mirror. “The gallery’s closed today, anyvay.”

Talking was difficult, so Charlie shut up. He
just wanted to lie down in Satalin’s wonderful bed and not be shot
at for a while. He dug out the last of his cash to pay the parking
fee.

Dana listened to electronic dance music as
she drove. After a few blocks, she said, “The police vill be
vaiting for you at Castlegate, you know. And whoever sent those
people, too, maybe. Tell me: How vorried should I be for you? And
me, for that matter. And vy did this happen?”

He owed her at least some of the truth. “I
think ith about a book I wrote that ithn’t out yet. About a
lynthing theventy yearth ago.”

“A what?”

“Lynthing. When a mob killth a man.”

“Seventy years ago?”

“The victimth land wath tholen, and now ith
worth a lot. A
lot
.” He held his arms wide.

“Enough to send people after you?”

He nodded. “Thith ithn’t the futh time.
Theeth people will kill you for fifty dollah.”

She blanched. “You veren’t kidding ven you
told me you ver hiding out. Vot vent wrong?”

“With the hiding out? Got me.” He knew he’d
made a mistake that gave away his position; he just didn’t know
what it was.

“Vot about the other time they tried to kill
you? Vot happened then? Vas it just vunce?”

He shuddered. “No comment.”

“They came close this time. You’re lucky that
bus came along.”

“I have great faith in public
tranthpotathan.”

“You should go to the police.”

“No copth. They have a warrant out on
me.”

“Vot is the vorrant for?”

“Nothing.” He waved his wounded hand.
“Minor.”

“I don’t see—”

“Look,” Charlie said, becoming agitated. “I
can’t ethplain. There are other fotheth at work. Powerful
fotheth.”

“Vot-ever. I don’t understand, but I accept.
I have deals like that, too. So how do ve sneak you back into your
place vithout the cops seeing you? I guarantee it vill be crawling
vith them. And people saw your car. It vas the last one out before
the police came.”

He thought. She thought. Then Charlie came up
with the Man-in-the-Trunk Plan, even though it hadn’t worked the
last time he’d seen it attempted. But at least it was something.
Dana parked a couple of blocks away and walked to the lofts to
retrieve her Mercedes. When she returned, he climbed into the
trunk, making her, like Susan, a man-stasher. Charlie felt like he
was trapped in a coffin—like he had been in one of his 4:00 a.m.
dreams—and could barely tolerate being inside during the time it
took for Dana to drive to the lofts, flirt with the cop who stopped
her at the garage entrance, and park the car.

When she popped the trunk open, she hissed,
“Hurry! The officer is on the radio.”

Charlie saw a black patrolman standing in the
garage entrance with his back to them. As he and Dana scurried
toward the elevator, Charlie saw that the bus and truck were gone.
Two satellite news trucks were parked across from the bakery, and
another cop sat in a squad car. Looking from the garage through the
bakery’s rear glass door, Charlie saw workmen placing plywood
sheets over the broken window. He crouched behind Dana as they
entered the elevator vestibule door.

They reached his loft undetected. “How’s that
for a first date?” she joked as he stepped inside.

He smiled wearily. “Thank you for thaving
me.”

“You owe me one.” She handed him a business
card with her cellphone number on it and received his number in
turn, then kissed him on his undamaged cheek before leaving. He
lingered in the door before closing it, watching her walk to the
elevator.

Charlie knew that discovery was inevitable,
but he hoped for a few hours’ rest before the world found him. A
glimpse in the full-length mirror revealed one messed-up individual
with torn, bloody clothes, a bandaged right hand, and a spot of
blood coming through the gauze pad on his cheek. He rummaged around
in the bathroom cabinet and found a jumbo Band-aid. There. Now he
looked like the victim of a cat fight, not a shootout. His right
hand hurt more than anything else. Could he write? Not that he had
any desire to—he just wanted to crawl deeper into his cave. He took
two of the pills Blaga had given him, laid down on the couch,
shifted his keys in his pocket, and let the world quiet down.

* * *

The cellphone’s buzz woke Charlie. He
answered it before thinking maybe he shouldn’t. Fortunately, it was
Dana: “I bring you soup, if you can eat.”

“I can eat. Thanks. You are so good to me,”
he said, his lisp receding.

“You have no idea how good I can be.”

He was groggy and wounded, but he wasn’t
dead. “I’d like to find out.”

He hung up and slipped on a clean set of work
clothes. Day had turned to night. A MARTA train clacked by. Moments
later, there was a knock on the door. He jumped up and opened it,
smiling expectantly—

Whoops
.

—at four uniformed Forsyth County deputies in
the hall, two with guns drawn. Of various shapes, sizes, and ages,
but of one color, they seemed whiter than most people and reminded
Charlie of toughass Pillsbury Doughboys. “Charles Sherman?”

They pushed in and before he knew it,
Charlie’s hands were cuffed behind his back. Pappy’s warrants were
being served. After his rights were read, one of the deputies asked
Charlie how he’d been injured.

“Right to remain silent, and all that,” he
replied, sure that they already knew, since the world conspired
against him.

Two deputies perp-walked him down the hall
toward the elevator. Its doors opened. Dana, holding a brown paper
bag, took one look at Charlie and his escorts, froze in mid-step,
then lunged sideways inside the elevator and disappeared. Seconds
later the doors closed in the lead deputy’s face. “We’ll take the
stairs,” he said.