Jump (24 page)
Authors: Tim Maleeny
Larry leapt away from the ringing phone as if it were a cattle prod and he a wayward Holstein. When it rang a second time, all he could think to say was, “Aaaaah!”
Jerome grabbed his brother by the shoulders and forcibly sat him down on one of the bar stools, then reached across the counter and grabbed the phone. As he pushed the button to answer the call, Jerome glanced at the kitchen clock, a worried expression on his face.
“Z, you’re early—”
Larry watched his brother grow paler with every nod of his head.
“Yeah, he’s still there. Down the hall.”
A long pause, and then, “No, we’re not going anywhere. We want our money.”
Jerome dropped the phone back into its cradle, the call over. Larry couldn’t tell if Jerome had hung up on Zorro or the other way around.
Jerome clenched his jaw. “Zorro came sooner than Sam said he would.”
Larry’s eyes flicked to the clock. “They’re here—
now
?”
Jerome nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Does he know we’re home or did you let him think we were somewhere else?”
Jerome sighed. “He called us on our home phone, Larry. Not on my cell.”
Larry looked at the phone with revulsion, as if it had turned into a snake. He hated phones. Over the past few days they’d brought nothing but despair into his life. If somehow they managed to get out of this, he had a new mantra that he swore to live by.
“Never answer the phone,” he said.
“Too late,” said Jerome.
“You could have used call forwarding.”
“I could have saved a bunch on car insurance, Larry, but I didn’t. So much for looking backwards.”
“We’re fucked.”
“We stick with the plan.”
“Sam’s plan or our plan?”
“Why am I the only one worried about our asses?”
“But they came early.”
“That’s Sam’s problem.”
Larry breathed in and out as if he might hyperventilate. “I like Sam.”
“
Godammit
, Larry. That’s got nothing to do with…with anything. I like staying out of jail. I like not getting killed. I think I like those things
more
than I like Sam, but that doesn’t mean they won’t happen.”
Larry didn’t answer. He looked over his shoulder toward the living room, his gaze moving desperately to the picture window and whatever lay beyond the glass.
Jerome walked to the front door to make sure the chain was pulled into place. He kept his eyes on the door as he took a seat next to his brother, then reached out and took Larry’s hand. Both their palms were sweating, and Jerome was sure he could feel Larry’s heartbeat through the pulse in his thumb. It felt like they were the same person, separated at birth but now rejoined, able to read each other’s minds because they shared the same thoughts.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan, after all.
Larry squeezed his brother’s hand. “We could still run.”
Jerome watched the door and shook his head sadly.
“Not any more.”
Zorro was impressed that Julio had thought to bring duct tape.
The Golden Towers apartments had three daytime doormen for each of the three towers, but at night there was a lone security guard sitting on the ground floor of the main tower, looking through a plate glass window that fronted the courtyard. His job was to open the doors for residents who lost their keys or locked themselves out—or take emergency calls if someone burned their toast and thought pulling the fire alarm was an appropriate response.
But most nights the job consisted of sitting around on your ass until dawn, which is why Harold Laraby had taken it. He was going to school to become an electrical engineer but his classes didn’t start until noon, so he could sleep in after staying up all night. And this job gave him the perfect environment to study. He was alone, it was utterly silent, and there was no TV or computer to distract him.
Only it hadn’t worked out the way he had planned, because Harold had developed an uncontrollable obsession with celebrity news. He had tried to resist, but the media machine kept hitting him when his guard was down—during the morning news, in the checkout aisle, on the radio. Even NPR and Bravo had succumbed. It was one thing to avoid
US
or
People
, but now Brad and Angelina were everywhere, even
Vanity Fair
and
Time
. Not to mention Jessica, who was on both
Teen People
and
Good Housekeeping
in the same month. Fucking
Good Housekeeping
wasn’t safe anymore, for crying out loud. Harold very much doubted Jessica had ever kept a house, let alone a good one, but there she was right on the cover. No matter where Harold looked for serious reading material, the crack pipe of celebrity culture was thrust into his hands.
Somehow the tawdry gossip soothed him. If these people who had everything could become such train wrecks, maybe his problems weren’t so hard to understand. Maybe his life wasn’t so bad, after all. Reading about celebrities made him feel smarter, more emotionally stable, and more fulfilled.
Harold was halfway through an article about Britney going completely insane when his trance-like state was interrupted by a knock on the glass door of the office. He blinked for a minute to reconcile the shape with the sound. The knock had been gentle, almost feminine, but the guy standing on the other side of the door was a giant. Harold stepped closer and recoiled involuntarily at the man’s face, which looked like it had been beaten with the ugly stick until the stick had broken. When the giant smiled it only added another layer of gruesome to the visage.
But the guy seemed friendly enough, and it’s not like anyone ever stopped by for anything except a missing key or help with a stuck door. This building needed security like a donut shop needed a salad bar.
Harold had pushed open the door and launched into his pat
good evening
when the giant’s right hand shot through the opening like a cobra. Harold went suddenly blind—his entire face was engulfed by the giant’s palm, the heel of the hand forcing his mouth shut, making it impossible to breathe.
Harold backpedaled across the office but the giant kept pace. When Harold felt a second enormous hand grab the back of his neck, he knew it would be over soon. He prayed that he wouldn’t feel a thing.
He didn’t.
When he regained consciousness, Harold was so shocked and relieved to find himself alive, he started crying. The tears ran across his cheeks and over the duct tape covering his mouth. Blinking, he realized that he’d been moved to the storage closet adjacent to the bathroom. Dim light passed through a grill at the base of the door.
Harold was sitting down. His shoulders hurt. He tried to move his hands but couldn’t. They were held fast by duct tape, as were his feet. He shifted his weight to no avail, but the effort revealed why he had been attacked.
Harold didn’t sound right. More accurately, he didn’t make a sound at all, because the telltale jangling of keys was gone. That sound that reminded him of miniature wind chimes, the sound that followed his every move since he took this cushy job. Harold knew without looking that his set of master keys had been taken.
Back in the courtyard, Julio held the roll of duct tape in one hand as he handed the keys to Zorro with the other.
“It’s important to come prepared.”
“He is still alive?”
Julio nodded.
“But he can identify you.”
“There will be no mystery about who killed the cop, Zorro. Let’s face facts. Only you would have the
cajones
to come into this neighborhood for revenge. And if they find you, then they find me.”
“I will disappear,” said Zorro. “For a while.”
“So will I.”
“Of course,” Zorro said, a little too quickly. As if he wasn’t concerned about Julio, or anyone except himself. Julio could disappear or go to jail, and it was all the same to Zorro.
“I will visit my mother in Guadalajara,” Julio said.
“A good idea.”
Julio heard the feigned interest in Zorro’s voice and recalled the conversation between Zorro and the two brothers, when Jerome said they needed a fall guy. He remembered the way Zorro had looked at him then. Perhaps after they killed the cop, Julio was just another loose end.
Julio turned to face his boss. “I might not come back.”
Zorro met his gaze. The trees in the nearby park sighed in protest as the wind pushed them around.
The wind is a bully
, thought Julio. For a man who had spent his entire life leveraging his own freakish size to intimidate others, it was a strange thought. He absently picked at the roll of duct tape with his thumb as he waited for Zorro to make a move.
Finally Zorro broke eye contact and looked toward the top of the tower. “You are ready, then?”
Julio kept his eyes on Zorro. “Always.”
“
Bueno
.” Zorro rattled the keys in his left hand. In his right was a shotgun, matte black with a pistol grip and short barrel. The grip and barrel length made it illegal in the state of California, but they also made it highly effective in close quarters. The five cartridges in the magazine were more than sufficient to clear a room.
Julio reached into his waistband and pulled out a handgun the size of a bazooka. It was a 50-caliber Desert Eagle, a semi-automatic pistol so large it could barely be held, let alone controlled, by anyone smaller than Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bullets were as big as twinkies and no less deadly. But in Julio’s massive mitt the gun looked no larger than a nine millimeter, and the sharp angles made it appear even scarier than Julio himself.
Julio racked the slide to force a cartridge into the chamber, then jammed the gun back into his waistband.
“Let’s get this over with.”
One turn of the key and they were inside the cop’s apartment.
Zorro wanted to kick down the door and barge in with guns blazing but agreed to try the key first. If they got lucky and could sneak inside, it would improve their chances of making it to the brothers’ apartment before witnesses appeared in the hallway.
Zorro stood to one side of the door as Julio tried the key. It turned easily, and though Zorro was surprised to find the deadbolt open and the chain off, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. That said, another thought occurred to Zorro that he didn’t like one bit because it meant the brothers had betrayed him.
Maybe the cop isn’t home.
Snoring put his fears to rest. The telltale sounds of slumber carpeted the room. Zorro took a tentative step into the apartment, Julio close behind. Once inside, they could tell the breathing was coming from the living room. Julio moved to the left, flanking Zorro as they crossed the foyer toward the open kitchen. To the left of the kitchen counter would be the living room.
Another step and the picture window was clearly visible. Zorro registered a few stars and the faint outline of trees backlit by a waxing moon. He followed the path of the moonlight into the room and froze.
The cop was sitting in a chair with his back to them, right arm dangling to the floor. From the sound of his breathing, he was dead to the world.
Soon you will be.
Zorro leveled the shotgun.
Julio carefully drew the hand cannon from his waistband and took aim.
Zorro fired first. The shotgun was deafening in the enclosed space of the apartment. Julio felt the concussion in his ears as flames leapt from the barrel. He watched as Zorro racked the shotgun and fired a second time, but it was like watching a silent movie. Julio’s ears were ringing and he was deaf to the world. He still hadn’t fired a single shot.
Zorro’s face contorted with rage as spittle flew from his lips. He was shouting, veins bulging in his neck. Julio stood transfixed, as if Zorro’s true animal nature had been revealed in the strobe from the gun barrel. Julio watched as Zorro fired a third time, then forced his gaze to shift to what was left of the cop.
The right hand was gone but the arm remained, a ragged tear at the end of the forearm where the hand should have been. The back of the chair had a gaping wound in it, a jagged hole through which Julio saw moonlight. He saw blood—wet and black in the shadows of the room—spattered across the window, the ceiling, and the mantle where the pictures were.
Where the pictures were.
The thought struck Julio like an ice pick. He scanned the ruined mantle as Zorro fired a fourth time, blue light blazing across the room for a split second.
The pictures weren’t there.
The fourth blast caught the chair on the right, causing it to slowly, painfully spin in place. As it swiveled around in slow-motion Julio cringed, not at the sight of blood but in anticipation of their terrible mistake.
The ruined body of Walter—overweight blackmailer, B-movie mogul, and recently departed neighbor—slumped in the chair. Most of his chest was missing, his right hand was gone, and his empty eyes stared accusingly at Zorro. He looked less angry than hurt, as if he expected to be treated with just a little more dignity in the next life.
But Walter had the last laugh. In his lap was a tape recorder from which the sound of snoring still emanated, courtesy of Jerome. The nasal symphony of his nighttime allergies had been captured on tape after his evening of ecstasy with Tamara. The recording was Jerome’s contribution to the plan.
The air was thick with the smell of death. Noxious fluids surrounded the chair and cordite filled the room, the aftermath of Zorro’s carnage.
But Zorro wasn’t finished.
Julio turned to see if Zorro had realized their predicament, but Zorro only had blood lust in his eyes. His nostrils flared like a bull as he racked the shotgun. He had one shot left and clearly he intended to use it.
Julio was about to say something, try to shout above the ringing in his ears, when he registered a subtle movement of Zorro’s feet. He was pivoting on his left foot, shifting his weight around to the right. He was bringing the shotgun around in a tight arc, moving the barrel away from the body in the chair toward the only other person in the room.
Julio.
Zorro’s crooked teeth curved into a cruel smile as he prepared to take his last shot. From less than five feet away, the shotgun would punch a hole in Julio the size of a basketball. Game over.
Julio took one giant step across the room and swung his pistol like a club, catching the barrel of the shotgun and knocking it to the left. Zorro held fast to the grip and started another arc toward Julio’s face, but the 50-caliber pistol returned on the backswing and caught Zorro on the temple. He went down like a bag of corn meal.
Julio kicked Zorro savagely in the ribs, then grabbed the shotgun with his left hand and threw it across the room. He paused for an instant and contemplated the pistol in his right hand, then jammed it back under his belt—he wanted both hands free.
This is personal.
Julio’s hand was wide enough to palm a basketball, so grabbing Zorro around the ankles and neck posed no serious challenge. His arms were long enough to hold Zorro at either end like an unwilling barbell, then hoist him over his head in a clean-and-jerk motion worthy of the Olympics. Zorro’s arms were technically free but Julio had cut off his oxygen, so they flailed listlessly around the giant’s head. With one hand squeezing Zorro around the neck and the other holding the legs tight, Julio turned and stepped into the hallway.
The twin urges of vengeance and escape battled for control of his next move.
He turned left and saw the end of the hallway where the wide glass door opened onto the fire escape. The door was reinforced with cross-hatched wires embedded in the glass, but Julio was confident he could kick it open. Besides, the door didn’t seem to have a lock. It was probably against the fire code to lock an exit leading to a fire escape.
That gave Julio one escape route. A little climbing and then home free. The other would be the way they came in, down the hall to the elevators.
Julio turned in that direction and stopped dead in his tracks.
The cop who was supposed to be dead stood in the hallway. He had a thin smile on his face and a gun in his hand.
“Your move.”
Sam shifted his thumb across the back of his pistol.
The ringing in Julio’s ears had subsided enough that he could hear the familiar sound of a hammer being cocked. Having his hands up already was certainly convenient, but it presented another problem altogether.
Zorro was getting really heavy.
