MDA PressRed Lines, Part 3
By Chris McCarthy
Leo feels the cold of the kitchen down in his bones as he looks up at the large Russian man standing above him. Despite his fear, he looks directly down the barrel of the gun then down at the floor. It doesn’t feel how he thought it would feel. It doesn’t feel like anything. In that moment, Leo realizes that his emotions aren’t him. He’s something else. He’s the thing observing the emotions. The emotions are warnings, indicators that he can observe and decide how to respond to with the part of himself that watches from behind. The part that’s actually him. The irony that these thoughts appear as his body succumbs to acute anaphylactic shock and he’s losing control of his motor functions, shaking uncontrollably, and his tongue is rolling back into his mouth down his throat is not lost on him.
The things you learn at gunpoint.
The Russian takes another step forward and presses the gun into the center of Leo’s forehead. But he can’t feel the cold of the metal. He only feels the pressure because his forehead feels thick as if there are layers of cotton between his skin and the barrel of the gun. Then Leo sees the grotesque image of a large knife blade exiting through the front of the Russian’s stomach on the right side. The Russian turns around, but the cop, with a surprising burst of energy pulls the knife out of the man’s back and slides it across his neck, in a soft supple motion. It seems to be done with such light pressure that surely it hasn’t done any harm. But then the black red hairline of the cut appears and a curtain of blood cascades down the man’s neck, his shirt almost immediately soaked with blood. Just as the man’s eyes register what’s happening, he expires, leaving behind an odd look of surprise on his face after it follows his body and slams to the floor. The cop drops the knife to the floor with a clang. He hobbles over and leans on the counter, breathing heavily, blood around his mouth.
That’s when the girl runs into the room and says, “Help me untie the rest of the girls. We need to get out of here. The mean one will be back any minute now.”
The cop looks at Leo. “What’s wrong with you?”
Leo hears himself trying to say… something.
The cop takes another two breaths, gathering himself, then pulls Leo’s shoulder forward, trying to get his arm around his neck. Then Leo’s feet feel like bricks dangling on lengths of rope and it’s all black again.
Leo’s vision comes and goes. He sees something bright—perhaps the moon. Does he see clouds? He thinks he’s outside, and he’s moving. It’s so cold. There’s a high-pitched worried girl’s voice somewhere on the periphery of his awareness. The edges of his vision cloud and uncloud.
Then Leo feels something pushing on his back and head. It’s the hard leather of the backseat of the police car. Then, a sharp jolt in his thigh. Leo is now cognizant that his hands are at his throat, desperate to somehow coax a breath through. But he can feel them again. And just like that he breathes in, the cool air going down his throat. His chest and neck muscles relax as his stomach now contracts pulling the cool, life-giving air inside. The whispered voices now become clear as he snaps back.
The car starts. He sits himself up, leaning his shoulder against the door, and sees three girls around twelve or thirteen years old scrunched together into the seat next to him. He looks forward and sees another two girls in the front passenger seat.
He hears something but it’s unclear. Then he realizes the cop is talking to him. “We thought we lost you.”
To Leo’s left, the three girls sitting there are entangled, holding each other close, one of them, who seems to be a year or two older, comforts the other two, one of whom balls silently. Leo thinks they look like tears of relief. Not that much relief. Just some relief. Leo feels a low beating thud in the back of his head. It’s been a long day.
As he looks down at his hands, which feel less puffy and heavy, he notices the cop’s darting looks into the rear view mirror. Leo sees the backs of the two girls heads in the passenger seat and counts five girls total.
That’s when he hears the sirens.
“Who’s after us?” Leo asks.
“It’s the police,” the cop answers. Leo detects no irony and no emotion in the response but he can tell the cop is concerned with this development.
“What? The po— but aren’t you the police?” Leo asks, his mind racing now.
“Yeah. A different kind.” The cop says.
“What do you mean a different kind?” Leo asks, swinging his head back to the front after looking out the back window.
The cop is determined, now, as he reaches over to check the seatbelt of the girls in the front seat. “Let’s make sure this is tight,” the cop says with a warm smile.
The cop speaks quietly into his radio. Leo hears disconnected phrases—“a body” and “cleaned up”—and he connects the comment to Cam, instantly remembering the dead body lying in the cold dark kitchen. He’s about to ask about Cam, whom he knew for about thirty seconds, not even enough time to recognize his face if he saw him again. He recognized his body on the kitchen floor from his paunch…
“Hang on.” Says the cop.
He jerks the wheel and Leo is pulled to the right of the car, pushing his forearm out against the window instinctively.
The cop drives the cruiser with no lights on and crosses over two lanes on the street in a downtrodden area of the city. He shoots down an alleyway between an abandoned old brick building that could be thirty or a hundred years old and a small commercial complex, one of those nondescript complexes filled with mom and pop mechanic or specialty car repair shops covering for who knows what. But even these seem like they haven’t seen much business in years. Leo instinctively looks for street signs to try to find some sense of location. But the area is so poorly lit that the one small sign he sees for the alleyway they travel down isn’t legible.
The cruiser rips down the alley. The cop makes a left turn at the end of the alley turning onto another dark street.
Leo looks behind him. He still sees the blue and red lights. The car is still pursuing them. It’s then that he feels his phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulls it out.
Fifteen missed called. Thirty seven text messages. All from Celia.
He quickly glides through the text messages. One of the earlier ones says, “What the hell is going on? Are you ok?”
Then another one catches his attention: “I saw everything!”
Leo is still looking at his phone screen reading Celia’s text message when he hears the cop speak low into his radio. The cop speeds up if that’s even possible, takes another quick left down an alley way, comes out on Main Street, hits a right, and Leo looks behind him realizing the police cruiser is no longer behind them. Then the cop takes another left and pulls into a parking lot between a small mechanic shop and a dirt hill. Leo still hears the siren but it’s becoming more distant.
A chainlink fence covers three sides of the parking lot and as the cop drives into it and stops the car, Leo can hear a steady rush of traffic coming from somewhere. He looks up the hill and can just see the steel guardrails of the 405 freeway.
He slides his phone back into his pocket, but not before the cop notices.
“What the—?” The cop coughs blood and struggles to get the words out. “Did you call someone?”
“No—I just have some messages from my girlfriend…” Leo says.
The cop doesn’t respond because he’s distracted looking at a white, early 2010’s minivan parked in the darkness. A man steps out of the driver’s seat and shuts the door behind him. He walks around the side of the car and opens the sliding door in the side of the van.
The cop undoes the seatbelt for the two girls in the passenger seat.
“OK, everyone get in the van.” He looks at the girls to his right with a tight smile. “It’ll be ok. You’re safe now.” Then he looks over to the girls in the back seat and gives them the same tight smile. Leo notices just behind the smile is a pained grimace.
The girls all hop out and make their way to the van. The driver of the van helps them in and shuts the door behind them.
“Who is that?” Leo asks, sticking his head through the opening in the plastic divide between the front and back seats.
“You go too,” the cops says. “I’m staying behind.” Leo, for the first time sees that cop has a wound in his lower let stomach right about his hip bone. Dark blood oozes out.
“Shit. I didn’t know you were hurt that bad.” Leo says.
“Get in the fucking van.”
Leo watches as the van driver runs up the short hill to the freeway. He catches the glint of a mirror of a car parked right above them on the side of the freeway. The man is leaving.
“Look, you can get in the car or you can wait here with me. That officer is only a few minutes away form finding us. They’ll have a bird in the sky looking for us in another minute…”
Leo feels his face flush. “Wait, you’re a cop right?”
“I used to be.”
“What does that mean? You’re wearing a uniform.”
“None of that matters right now. The people chasing us—those officers, if you can call them that—they work for the same people as the guy you took care of earlier.” The cop says.
“So…what…I’m fucked? Is that what you’re saying?” Leo asks, feeling his face flush.
The cop pulls a device out of the center console and hands it to Leo, wincing as he does it.
“It’s an encrypted GPS device,” the cop says. “Just follow the directions on the screen.”
Leo turns the cellphone-sized device over in his hands.
“What? I’m—I’m supposed to drive?! You’re leaving me and I’m driving those girls…? Where the fuck am I going?!” Leo asks.
The cop gestures to the girls in the back seat of the van, all of whom are looking out the back window at the two men talking.
“You need to go now.” The cop says.
“Why do you need to leave?” Leo asks.
“I’m not leaving.”
“What are you going to do then?”
“I’m gonna delay them for as long as I can.”
Leo looks around the parking lot. He thinks about running down the driveway and into the shadows of the alley. He looks up at the freeway.
“You can’t run now. Only way out is to follow the plan. They’re coming for us.” The cop says.
“What’s the plan? I don’t know what the plan is.” Leo says, getting increasingly anxious.
“Just get those kids to the location on that device. There are people there who will take care of you. Leo, you can do this. You have to do this.” The cop says.
The cop swings his door open and steps out. He opens the drivers side back door. “Come on. Get out.” He says.
Leo shakes his head wondering how many days it’s been before remembering it’s only been a few hours. He steps out of the car.
“I just realized I don’t even know your name,” Leo says.
The cop walks to the trunk and pops it open. “Call me Jack.”
He reaches in and pulls out a pistol and hands it to Leo. “Go. NOW!”
Leo slips the GPS device into his pocket then reaches out and grabs the gun by the cold heavy barrel. Now that he knows him as Jack, Leo wonders if he has a family, friends, children.
Jack nods and Leo walks to the van.
“Be quick but try not to speed.” Jack says.
Leo opens the driver’s side door of the van and puts a foot up into the footwell, turning to Jack. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Jack chuckles then winces and leans back into the trunk. As the trunk swings shut, Leo sees the shotgun in Jack’s hand.
Leo starts the van’s engine. “Put your seatbelts on.” For some reason he’s uncomfortable making eye contact with the girls who sit quietly in their seats in the back of the three-rowed van. One of the girls helps another put her seatbelt on. Leo takes a deep breath and puts the van in drive.
Copyright Chris McCarthy and MDA Press, 2024, Graphics by Chris McCarthy with Imagen3.
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