Never Relax 2nd POV [Adult 2,900]

A continuation of my second person story of a man robbed by a hooker tracking her down and revenging himself. “Tough S**t, Pepper."
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Pepper the w***e taken care of, you check your watch. Damn. Only a couple hours before you have to be at work. Enough time for a meal.

Grabbing a cab, you settle into the backseat. “Sixth and Main.” 

A hard night and still hungover, you nod off for a few minutes. When you wake, you find a f*****g cow pasture zipping by between poles. “What’a hell,” you shout, “we doin’ here?”

“Shortcut,” the driver explains.

“Bullshit.” You look over his shoulder at the meter. Seven-plus miles. It’s a two mile trip. You go there several times a week.

You grab the b*****d around the neck, using one hand. Your other shoves a corner of your Zippo lighter against the back of his head. “Guess what, cocksucker. You better hit that meter. You’re taking me there for free. Aren’t you?”

He says nothing, but you can feel him squirming. He turns left at the next corner, you sitting back, hoping he’s not too nervous to drive.

A half-block from the diner, you tell him to, “Pull over,” and get out.

“Thanks for nothing,” you mutter.

As you walk, you hear tires squealing and see a yellow streak as the taxi spins out of sight. 

“B******s.”

As always, you stand back, looking through the front windows of the eatery before going in. Nothing but tourist and worker types. Nobody seems to be looking around, as if for someone. No eyes shifting right to left, or the reverse. No one sitting slumped over coffee, hats pulled down. Good.

Going inside, you take your regular corner booth near the left-end exit. Expecting you, Max has stacked a couple of empty boxes on it to keep customers away. No need. Plenty of empty seats around.

You nod at Max, the owner, standing behind the counter, itself extending most of the length of the building. He points upward, over his head, at the daily special, and you nod. Swiss steak. Better than yesterday’s, a composite called refrigerator stew including any leftovers from the week before. It’s Max’s way of cleaning out his icebox.

A few minutes later, he comes over with a tray containing your meal, gravy sloshed from the meal to a saucer containing a couple slices of bread.

“I’ll get you more bread,” he says.

“Don’t bother.” You smile, in familiar territory. You know that in case of trouble the ex-marine stores a sawed-off under the counter. You gave it to him. Taken off a clumsy mugger. 

“Jimmy was here, looking for you.”

“Jimmy talks too f*****g much.”

“That he does.”

As you eat, you casually keep an eye on other customers, subconsciously trying to tell if they’re doing the same with you. You recognize most of them. There are several factories in the neighborhood, the same workers routinely eating here. A couple of teens sit in one booth, eyes on each other. They wouldn’t see you if you were on fire. It’s one of the few places you can relax. Except, possibly, for that one last time. The time you want to avoid.

Finished, you stand and nod at Max. No need to pay. He has you on a tab. You leave by the side door, hearing it slam behind you.

Down an alley and over two blocks brings you to an abandoned house, boarded up with plywood over windows and doors. The panel on a side door is on hidden hinges. After looking around you open it a few inches.

“Twinkie? It’s me.” The words echo through empty rooms, bouncing back at you. You wait.

“Come on in.”

Twinkie, all simpering six-foot-six 230 lbs of pure muscular homosexual, is lying on a ratty couch, watching tv. Seeing you, he snaps it off.

“Johnny and Simms brought the s**t over last night,” he says. “I admit, I’m nervous as hell having it around. Been up all f*****g night.”

“When’s it going down?”

“Buyers are due across the street at three. Pete’s watching from the front. After they been there a while, sure it’s safe with no surprises lurking, he’ll bring them here.” He stands, stretching to rub both hands across the ceiling. “Joe’s upstairs with the product.”

“He gonna be in’na wall with me?”

“Yeah. Least Pete will. Soon’s he lets them in.”

You make small-talk with Twinkie for a few minutes, then go into another room, one on the left of Twinkie’s.

One reason for the empty house is that there are firing ports in three of the walls leading into the selling room. The buyers will know that one or more of those holes shields a man with a gun, but not which one or how many. That arrangement certainly keeps hijacking down. In this case it will be you and Pete, one on each side.

You’re carrying your old SW Police Special, but don’t want to use it unless necessary. The ballistics can be traced back to your cop job. Instead, you find a Mini-Uzi lying on a table, along with thin-plastic surgical gloves. Putting them on, you light a cigarette and go over to the firing port to wait.

“S**t.” You smell burning plastic as the coal gets too close to a finger. Christ. You can’t help being a little nervous. But it pays well, which is what counts.

A cellphone buzzes. Twinkie answers, listens a minute and says, “They’s coming. I’ll signal Joe to start bringing it down.”

The Uzi’s greasy cold metal is hard to hold onto with these gloves. You mentally curse yourself for not noticing earlier. Small and light, that 9mm has a good enough kick on auto without taking a chance of it slipping out of your hands at a crucial moment. You look around, not finding any rags in the room. Newspapers in a corner won’t do. You use your handkerchief for a tighter grip.

Almost simultaneously, you hear the outer door opening in the selling room, as well as footsteps coming down from the second floor. A silhouette that must be Joe passes your doorway.

Looking through a hole, you see Pete entering, two men in casual work clothes behind him. He nods and leaves your sight. You hear a door close on the other side of that room.

Now is the time to be nervous. The transaction is going down as planned. Not so, though, as you feel adrenalin course through your veins, calmness and a lack of time-sense settling over you as you keep your eye to the hole, Uzi hanging by your side.

One of the strangers carries a large plastic grocery bag which he sits on the couch next to Twinkie.

That’s when things begin happening.

You’re alerted by a strangely staccato thumping sound at the staircase. Against orders, you take your eyes from the firing port, raising the gun to cover your own doorway. It’s a sixth sense. Something isn’t right.

When Pete comes in, pistol raised, you give him two taps in the head. He shouldn’t be there. He should be in another room, eyes to his own firing port. At the same time, you scream out, “TWINKIE!”

A moment later, shots come from the selling room. You don’t bother to look as you jam your Uzi into a hole and give a long blast at shoulder level. When you do look inside, you see the strangers lying on the floor, Twinkie crouching, half-seen, behind the couch.

Stepping over Pete’s body, you rush into the selling room, going across to the outside door to look out. Two men are getting out of a green Ford. When they see you, with your weapon, they get back in and speed off, leaving rubber behind.

Twinkie’s unhurt, though Joe’s dead, his throat slit ear-to-ear.

“Thanks for warning me,” Twinkie says. “Gave me enough time to draw first.”

“What happened?”

“Someone must’a got to Pete.”

“Prolly. Now what? You need me?”

He stoops to where the bag has spilled cash across one corner of the couch. At least they did bring the money. Probably in case the hijack plan had to be abandoned. He grabs a good-sized chunk and hands it to you.

“Na. The Wops got a cleanup squad I can call on. They’s pros at that s**t. Looks like we came up on top, both product and money.”

“Yeah.” Twinkie likes it, but it was too f*****g close for you. 

You pocket the cash and leave. In that neighborhood, it’s not likely cops will be called over the shooting. If they are, it takes time to get six volunteers to respond.

*** 

It’s cold. Collar pulled up to the max, padded cap covering ears down to your chin, you stand, hands jammed inside a furred jacket while watching the rear of a dark Holiday Inn parking lot. 

You stayed there once, noticing a change in shift at eleven pm as desk clerks rotated. It’s now 11:22 and you’re still waiting in the shadows in a small alcove of a maintenance shack. 
“What’s keeping the b*****d?” you mutter to yourself, eyes roving, constantly roving.

Jimmy dropped you off a half-hour ago and you’ve been waiting ever since for a gray four-year-old Ford to show. You’re on a tight schedule, a package waiting for pickup.

Just as you see headlights circling around the building in your direction, you also see the flashlight of a uniformed security guard making rounds. You hope to hell this shed isn’t on his route. Not being a guest, you have no excuse for being here.

Oh, you have no doubt you could take him out, but it would be a loose end, to be avoided. You don’t want to kill him and when he wakes or gets loose the car will be hot. With a body waiting, you can’t abort. Your only way out is to steal that f*****g car, belonging to the midnight shift desk clerk. The nearest town is too far away to walk and calling a taxi would screw up your mission.

An oncoming vehicle’s lights flash past you as the car pulls into a parking space at the rear of the lot. Most such businesses insist employees park at the rear to leave closer spaces for customers. A man gets out of the Ford, your target vehicle, the new desk clerk. Slamming the door, he hurries toward the rear of the building.

The guard turns, light flashing over a woman wearing a dark coat bringing a suitcase out of a parked vehicle. Christ! How did you miss her? You’re slipping.

The two talk for a few moments, snatches of conversation and a few laughs reaching you as you wait, shivering. Then, thank god, the guard continues, walking the other way. The woman follows the clerk through a back door into the hotel as he holds a door open for her. Nervous, you look around carefully, finding you have the lot to yourself.

Within a minute, you’re in the clear and testing the doors of the Ford. A rear door is unlocked, giving you easy access to crawl over the seat and sit in the driver position. You have a battery-operated vibrator that makes quick work of the ignition.

Heart beating fast, you use a penlight to check over the controls.  Many car thieves make the mistake of stealing a vehicle and not knowing such simple things as how to turn on window wipers or even lights. You don’t make that mistake. Besides, you want to give the guard plenty of time to make his rounds and settle into a comfy chair inside.

Slowly circling the lot, you make it around the building and enter traffic on the highway. You figure to have up to eight hours before the car hits the hot list. Of course you’re wearing gloves in this weather. All your clothing is new, right out of the package and disposable. In these days of micro-forensics, you want to leave nothing of yourself behind. Not hair nor sweat.

***

“It’s your garbage, you put it in,” you tell a black-skinned youth. Although he and a Mex companion glare at you, they load the bodies of Marcello Antipasto and his fluff into the trunk of the Ford. Your job is to drive, not f**k with the trash. 

“Not very friendly, are you, man?” the Mex asks. You don’t bother answering. In this job, friendly might mean dead.

“The gun?” 

The black dude hands you a Glock, barehanded. You take a package of new hankies out of your pocket. Tearing them open, you stuff all but one back into the pocket, wipe the weapon carefully and put it into the plastic hankie bag. The now-oily handkerchief goes back into your coat pocket. 

You don’t give a damn about those two being caught by prints, but police catching them might get that much closer to you. You can’t help wondering about all the traces they’ve left on the corpses. Tough s**t. You’re not about to screw around cleaning bodies, nor have the time to do it. 

“What you goin’ ta do with ‘um?” the Mex asks.

“Is there a reason you have to know?” you answer, testing the trunk lock and returning to the front of the vehicle.”

He shrugs as you get in and drive off. As you enter the highway, you toss the gun under your seat, putting the bag back into your pocket.

***

All goes well as you return to the highway. You drive for hours, really needing a smoke but not daring to light up. Forensics goes ape-s**t over discarded cigarette butts.

“Damn,” you exclaim, noticing the fuel gage nearing empty. Nothing for it. You have to stop for gasoline. You do have enough to wait for the sun to come up. It’s already near morning. You know that most stations have security cameras. As well as the Ford might be reported as stolen already. What can you do?

Only one solution. All that prior planning going to waste. You’ll never make it to the dump site unseen or recorded. 

Wait! You see a 24 hour discount store. Going in, you buy $50 of miscellaneous items and groceries, including two 5-gallon gas cans. Later, you see a gas station with its lights on off of but close to the highway. You park a block or so away from it and walk over to fill the cans.

Sighing with relief, you’re soon back on the highway but with another problem -- the cans and junk from the store. If you simply dump them, police might be called. Nobody dumps $50 of new items and groceries. A perfect example of how one simple mistake can lead to a dozen more. Usually, you’re more thorough.

As the sun comes up, you realize you’re behind schedule. That desk clerk must be off work by now and have reported his Ford being stolen. That was hundreds of miles away but the police are efficient. And, of course, you’ve got two bodies in your trunk.

Choosing to go through the next city, you pull off the highway to look for a place to get rid of the trash from the store. An apartment complex is inviting but you know they also use security cameras. Newly purchased items in the trash are suspicious, as are strange cars circling around that early in the morning.

You know from television shows that the most mundane items can be traced. Such as in police checking out gas cans bought along your route from the pickup point, which, incidentally, has been in a fairly straight line along the same highway. Not too many of them will have been purchased along that route during the night. You can’t leave them in the vehicle. Police can trace them back to the store … and its security cameras.               

Stopping at a series of store dumpsters, you find them all locked.

Finding yourself in a low-income area, you’re becoming desperate.

At last, you find a street containing filled trash cans at the curb. You have to take a chance. Stopping along the street, you shove a few items each down into a series of cans.

Turning into a business district, you park in a convenience store parking lot then walk a few businesses down to an open fast food place. After screwing around all night and being already late, you’re starving. And you still have to search for an alternate place to dump the stiffs. Damn, a once simple task becoming ever more complex.

Finished eating, you walk back while enjoying a welcome smoke, looking carefully for unmarked police cars. To your surprise, you find the Ford gone.

Christ, you think, someone stole the damned thing. You have to laugh. They’re in for a surprise.

There’s nothing further you can do. It’s out of your control. Later, you’ll hear of a trio of teenage gangbangers being held on murder charges, and laugh again.

The End.
Charlie