Paradise Falls (25 page)

Jennifer turned to the girls.

“How did you get here?”

Sarah’s eyes were wet with tears. She scrubbed at her face. “Mom threw me out of the house. I knew this guy, he said take care of me. He brought me here and he just left me, and the guy in the bar… I didn’t have anywhere else to go and they gave me stuff.”

“Stuff?” said Jacob.

“They made me get high,” she said, staring at the floor. “I want to go home.”

There was an audible creak as Jacob choked the wheel. Jennifer looked back towards the trunk, her own fingers digging into her palms as her fists clenched, rage bubbling up from deep inside. She shifted to look at the other girl. She was awake, but she stared at nothing and breathed slowly. The lights were on, but nobody was home. Jennifer snapped her fingers in front of the girl’s face.

“She just shot up,” said Sarah.

Jennifer glanced at the mirror and met Jacob’s eyes again.

“We’ll take care of her.”

“Are you gonna kill us?” said Sarah.

“No,” said Jacob.

“You’re going to be fine,” said Jennifer.

Jacob fished out his phone and put it to his ear.

“I need one of the safehouses. The barn. Be there, masked.”

He drove, but not back to Paradise Falls. The place they ended up had no name. There was a barn and an old abandoned house, part of someone’s farm once, bought out and merged into one of the surrounding dairy contract farms. Nobody bothered tearing down the old buildings, but left them to rot. Jacob pulled the car into the barn, next to the big Lincoln. Faisal was waiting. He wore a mask and gloves, but Jennifer recognized him easily.

Jacob carried the semi-conscious girl out first. Jennifer eased Sarah out of the car, rubbing her arms. She was frigid, and shaking.

“I haven’t had a fix in too long,” she said.

“We’re going to take care of you,” said Jacob. “We’re taking you to a hospital. You’re going to be fine.”

“Then what?”

“Don’t worry about that. Just worry about getting better, first. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

“I need a blast,” she said, shaking harder.

“We’ll take care of you,” he turned to Faisal. “Take them to location five, and get them a doctor. Now.”

Faisal nodded, and Jennifer helped guide the girls into the car. Jacob belted in the semi-conscious one, and Sarah put on her own seat belt.

“We’ll come check up on you,” said Jacob. “Just relax. You’re safe now.”

Jennifer watched the big Lincoln pull out of the barn and drive off, gaping under her mask. Jacob looked at her, and his whole body tensed, his chest expanding against the tight fabric of his shirt. He stormed around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. Blondie thrashed inside.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” he screamed, “When my Dad-“

Jacob grabbed him by the wrists, painfully pulling his bound arms away from his back as he hauled him out of the trunk and dropped him on the dirt floor. He writhed, lashed out with his feet, and Jacob kicked him in the side, just below his ribs. Blondie howled and Jacob grabbed his ankle and dragged him across the floor, then knelt and pushed both feet together. Blondie sputtered and spat as Jacob lashed his feet together, took hold of the bindings and dragged him again.

Jennifer followed slowly, feeling a pressure build in her throat and a nauseous swirl in her stomach.

There was a chain hoist fixed to the wall. Jacob put the big hook through the bindings at Blondie’s feet, grabbed the chain, and hauled him up until he was dangling upside down, jerking and thrashing, trying to free himself. Jacob put his hand on Blondie’s chest and gave him a little push, swinging him.

“You and I are going to have a conversation,” said Jacob.

“Fuck you,” Blondie snarled.

Jacob sighed, and rammed his fist into Blondie’s stomach. The boy gagged and coughed and tried to double up in pain, but ended up thrashing and swaying as he hung from the chain. Jennifer moved closer, until Jacob glanced at her and she froze.

“A civil conversation,” said Jacob. “You’re going to answer my questions.”

“Or what? Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with?”

Jacob said nothing, but very casually drew a knife and cut through Blondie’s belt, and then started peeling his jeans away from his skin. After a few cuts they came away freely, and fell in a heap on the dirt floor. Jennifer took a step back, covering her mouth with her hand in spite of the mask. Jacob glanced at her, and she flinched. His eyes were hard, cold.
Different.
He turned back to Blondie and ran the flat of the knife down his thigh, towards his underwear.

“You’re not going to be fucking with anybody if you don’t satisfy my curiosity,” said Jacob.

Blondie let out a long, sharp whimper.

“Jesus Christ,” he choked out.

“Tell me what happened to the kids,” said Jacob. For emphasis, he touched the point of his knife to Blondie’s chest. Blood welled under the tip.

“Wh-what?”

“The three kids. The Jeep. The ones you murdered.”

“Look, I didn’t-“

Jacob pressed harder with the knife, and turned it a little. Jennifer’s nausea deepened, pushing up from her belly in a cold squirming wave. She turned away and moved towards the car.

“Start from the beginning,” said Jacob. “Tell me about your connection to Ellison Carlyle.”

“He came to me, okay? We were on guard detail-“

Jacob drew the knife along his chest, carving a thin red line that trickled blood.

“Fuck! Stop it! Okay, we were guarding a shipment.
 
I don’t know where the shit comes from, okay? The cops bring it in, and our guys take it off the trucks and transport it, okay? We drive it from here to other places.”

“Where?”

“Baltimore. New York. The fuck should I know? I never go on the trips, I just watch while they put the shit on the trucks. Ellison comes to me and says it’s bullshit we don’t get to sell locally, right? I mean all this shit moving…” Blondie cleared his throat. “He says he can get some crystal and some weed, and we can lift other stuff from the shipments, the mollies and the acid and shit. Just a little bit and we can make a fortune. He needed me to cut the heroin for him, he didn’t know how. He got these two kids to deal for him in the high schools and we split the money he got from them.”

“What happened?”

“He got piss scared after the one kid got caught,” said Blondie. “He called me up and said we were going to take care of it. He pulled up in one of the vans and had me follow him up into the game land. Then these two kids…”

Jacob put the knife down, and took Blondie’s head by the hair, twisting his head around to look him in the eye.

“Say it.”

Blondie started weeping, shaking as he hung from the chain. “I didn’t mean it. He said we were just going to scare them. Ellison gave the other kid a gun, and he said it wasn’t loaded, he just wanted to scare the other two. Hunter or whatever the fuck his name was went up to the car with the other two and Ellison started shooting. He had two fucking guns, man. He blew the fuck out of them. He took my shotgun and shot in the windshield. I didn’t think he was gonna kill anybody. That girl kept screaming and screaming until he shot her in the face with-“

“Shut up,” Jacob snarled.

Blondie went quiet.

“You bragged about shooting them last night.”

Blondie’s whimpers grew louder. A stain spread on his boxer shorts and liquid slid down his stomach.

“I just wanted to look tough,” he whined. “Please don’t kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“Don’t cut my balls off.”

“I’m not going to cut your balls off. Yet.”

Jennifer pressed her eyes shut and sat down in the driver’s seat. Her temples were throbbing.

“Where do the drugs come from?”

“I don’t know. The cops bring them. I don’t know where they get them. They come in on these delivery vans and and the club picks it up and ships it out and we all get paid. It’s wholesaling or something. That’s what my dad calls it.”

“Did you call the cops to report the murder?”

Blondie shook his head.

Jacob gave him a little push. “You should have.”

“I don’t know who did that,” said Blondie. “Ellison said to shut the fuck up and let them get found. He made me put the other kid’s body back in the van and go around and get all the shells before I left. I didn’t shoot them, I swear to God. I didn’t,” he whimpered.

“Stop blubbering,” said Jacob. “Tough guy.”

Blondie continued to whimper. “My hand hurts.”

Jacob sighed. “Where is the exchange made?”

“The old weigh station.”

“When do they make the drop offs?”

“Every Wednesday. Fuck, man, I don’t know if they’ll do it this week with all these cops and shit everywhere.”

Jacob was quiet for a time.

“Thank you for your cooperation. You have a phone?”

Blondie nodded. “My back pocket.”

Jacob knelt and fished the phone out.

“What’s the password?”

“12345.”

Jacob looked at him.

“It is!”

After he tapped the code in, Jacob sighed. “Is Daddy in here?”

“Yeah, just redial the last call.”

Jacob hit the button and held the phone to Blondie’s ear.

“Tell him where you are.”

There was quiet for a moment. Jennifer leaned on the car to push her dinner back down.

“Dad,” Blondie wailed, “I’m upside down. This guy cut me up and I’m hanging in a barn. Please come get me. I don’t know where I am! Where am I?”
 

“Highway 86,” said Jacob.

“Yeah, on 86. There’s a barn, and-“

Jacob hung up, then pitched the phone into one of the wall beams so hard it exploded in a shower of electronic guts.

“Let’s go,” he said, to Jennifer.

“You’re just going to leave me here?” said Blondie.

“Someone will be along,” said Jacob. “Just hang out until they get here.”

Blondie shrieked obscenities at them as Jacob floored and sent up a cloud of dust and gravel into the barn.

When they were away, Jennifer dragged off her mask and pitched forward, hugging her stomach.

“Jennifer-“

“Jesus,” she breathed.

“Are you alright?”

Her voice came out in a strained gurgle. “No. You… you hurt him,” she said.

“Yes, I did.”

Her jaw tightened, and she clenched her teeth.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

He reached out to touch her, just rest his hand on her back.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, writhing in the seat.

The car swerved a little. Jacob pulled back fast, taking the wheel in both hands. He looked away from her.

Jacob glanced at her, and his throat bobbed. He took off his own mask as they pulled away. Neither spoke, even as they switched cars, down the road. One of Jacob’s men took the Plymouth away while Jacob drove her back to town the Aston Martin. She didn’t look at him, but stared out the window instead. Fatigue dragged at her eyelids and weighed down her bones. She’d never felt so tired in her life. She didn’t say anything, even as they returned to the house.

Jennifer rushed into the bedroom. Katie was right behind her, closing the door and twisting the lock. Jennifer almost fell into the bed, hugging herself. Katie stared at her, wide-eyed and trembling, making little motions with her fingers. Jennifer sniffed and scrubbed at her eyes and willed herself not to cry but it didn’t matter, she was doing it anyway.
 

“Oh God,” she said, “What am I doing?”

“Jenn,” said Katie, as she knelt in front of her. “What happened?”

Jennifer told her.

Katie’s eyes widened further as she listened, nodding, her lips twisting into a frown. Jennifer left nothing out, relating how Jacob helped those two girls, and took a knife to that boy. Jennifer wanted to be angry. She wanted to rage, she wanted to drink of righteous fury until it sung in her veins, but all she could see was a bleeding, terrified, crying teenage boy pissing himself as Jacob stood over him in a mask, bearing a razor sharp knife. His eyes changed, grew harder, the keenness and mirth she’d seen in them all crushed away by something awful, almost evil. Katie nodded through the whole story, saying nothing. Finally she got up and sat next to Jennifer on the bed, and started unbraiding her hair. Jennifer took the corner of the sheet and wiped her face.

“Is there a brush in here somewhere?” said Katie.

Jennifer nodded and pointed over at the stack of boxes. Katie fished out the brush, sat down, and started running long, soothing strokes through Jennifer’s hair, humming to herself. Katie loved brushing Jennifer’s hair. When she was very young, Jennifer’s mother would sit and brush her long hair and tell her how beautiful it was, until something in her twisted and she turned vicious, and soft humming became barbs and pressure to perform better in school, in the gym, until Jennifer found excuses to brush her own hair, and eventually Katie took over.
 

“What do I do?” said Jennifer.

“I don’t know,” said Katie. “How do you deal with a problem like this? This whole situation is insane,” said Katie. “This is not normal. He’s not normal.”

“Part of me wanted him to hurt that boy,” said Jennifer, fighting to get the words out through a tight throat. She blinked away the tears. “He killed Krystal. It doesn’t matter if he didn’t pull the trigger, he was there and he didn’t do anything. He was laughing about it, and he hurt those other girls, but when Jacob started hurting him I just felt sick.”

Katie drew her legs up and folded them, and rubbed Jennifer’s back.

“I can’t be part of that,” said Jennifer, resting her hand on her chin. “I don’t want to hurt people. That’s not me, Katie. That’s not what I wanted to do.”

“What did you want to do?”

She looked at Katie, and Katie flinched.

“You know he’s right,” Jennifer said, her voice tightening. “James Katzenberg knew the bridge would fall. He took that money and kept it and let all those people die.” She choked up, and had to press her eyes shut. “His own son.”

“Jenn-“

“Somebody has to do something about this,” said Jennifer. She scrubbed at her eyes and sniffed. “The police aren’t going to do anything. The police murdered those kids. James will make it all go away and they’ll still be gone, and no one will care.”