Crush (21 page)

“Do you want to put some pants on, Doc?”

He looked down at his waist.

“Son of a gun. I put 'em on yesterday.”

“You gotta put them on every day. That's one of those things you got to do.”

“Your friends, are they here now?”

“No, they're on their way.”

“Bullet wounds?”

“I think so.”

“How long till they get here?”

“Ten minutes?”

“That should give me enough time to find my pants.”

The door closed. Zerbe could hear Doc calling out, “Hey, Jack, where are my pants?”

Zerbe sighed. Old age was for shit. He hoped he died young. But not too young.

He had just made it to his own door when the elevator opened and a young woman stepped out into the dimly lit hall. As the doors slid shut, he saw another figure hanging back, going to another floor. It was an unusual amount of traffic for this building after midnight.

The young woman came up to him.

“Amelia?” he asked.

It wasn't quite the face he'd seen before. It was battered and bruised, but more than that, it had changed internally. It had aged a few years.

“Is Crush here?” she asked.

“No. How did you get away?”

She started to answer…then she fainted. Dead away. She actually collapsed in his arms. Zerbe thought women only did that in the movies.

He jostled her a few times to see if she was kidding, then he dragged her inside the apartment like an awkward piece of furniture. How did the guys in the movies always do this so gracefully? Zerbe wondered this as he hauled her across the threshold and dumped her, half on the sofa, half on the floor.

He hoisted her legs up onto the cushions and got an old Lakers fleece blanket to cover her. Then he sat down on the sofa himself, winded. He really had to get in better shape. He made a note to himself to put that on his list of things to do. After he learned to fly a hang glider and write that screenplay for Quentin Tarantino.

Looking over at her, he wondered how the hell she
got here. And where was Caleb? And why did she think he would be here before her? And what the hell had happened to her?

“Zerbe?” she said, her eyes still closed. “That's a silly name. It sounds like a villain in a sci-fi movie. ‘Zerbe, tell the Alliance that resistance is futile.' That's funny.”

“Where's Rush?”

“He got held up. He sent me ahead. Said you'd take care of me.”

Zerbe was glad Rush said that. “Should I call somebody?” he asked. “Your father?” Zerbe wanted to take the words back as soon as they came out of his mouth. Amelia's father had been grabbed, he remembered. And this didn't seem the best time to tell her about it. “Let me get you some water first.”

Crossing to the kitchenette, he pulled out his cell phone and filled a Bullwinkle jam-jar glass with water from the tap. He started to call Donleavy, but then thought maybe he should call Rush first. He hesitated.

Then he looked up at Amelia. She was standing in the middle of the room.

“Give me the phone,” she said. Her hand was outstretched toward him, but Zerbe wasn't looking at that. She had pulled her shirt off and was naked from the waist up. She had the kind of breasts Zerbe hadn't seen for a long while. The kind that weren't on a computer screen. He was entranced. He gave her the phone. She tossed it onto the sofa.

“What did you do that for?”

“I don't want you to call my father. Not yet.”

“No, I don't mean that.” Zerbe gestured toward her shirt, which was balled up on the sofa. “That.”

She moved to him and kissed him. This struck Zerbe as odd. Why would a girl who had just been through some sort of traumatic experience want to kiss a relative stranger? And a relative stranger like Zerbe?

There were a lot of red flags that should have told Zerbe to put the brakes on right then, be a gentleman, tuck her in, and make her some warm soup. But on the other hand, he hadn't been laid for approximately two years and six months.

So he kissed her back.

In the long run, once he was tied to that chair with the ball gag in his mouth and the gun pressed to his head, he knew he should have regretted it. But he didn't really.

They were nice kisses.

THIRTY

A
glob of drool, glistening in the dim light, dropped from the red ball in Zerbe's mouth.

Rush spun around on his heel but he was too late. Amelia and Stanley Trask stood behind him, blocking his way to the door, which was still ajar, offering freedom just out of reach. Trask held a Browning twenty-two in his hand. Amelia stood next to him, a petulant expression on her pretty face.

“Why didn't you ever call me, Tony?” she said to Guzman, who didn't answer. He just collapsed on the sofa as if he were a Macy's parade balloon with all the gas released.

Rush pried the ball gag from Zerbe's mouth, noticing as he did that Zerbe was naked from the waist up and that Amelia was wearing Zerbe's Green Lantern shirt. What had gone on here?

“You okay?” he asked Zerbe after the gag came out with a syrupy slurping sound.

“Sorry. She came here. Said you sent her. Then that
one showed up,” Zerbe said, glaring at Trask.

“He tied you up?”

“No, she did. Before he got here. It sounded like fun at the time.”

Shaking his head, Rush started to pull the tape off Zerbe's arms.

“That's all right,” Trask barked. “Leave him be.” He looked at Guzman coldly. “We have things to discuss.”

Guzman spoke up from the sofa. “Mr. Trask, we can't do this here.”

“I think we can,” Trask replied, calmly.

“Let me guess,” Rush said to Guzman. “This is another one of those thing you're not proud of?”

Guzman sat up as if he wanted to explain. “Crush, I—” he started, but Trask gestured to him with his gun, and he stopped short.

“What are you going to do, Trask?” Rush asked. “Kill all of us?”

“Well, I only really want to kill him,” Trask gestured to Guzman, “but you'll have to go along for the ride.”

“Daddy!” Amelia cried out, horrified.

“Stanley,” Guzman objected, “we had a deal—”

“Kitten, be quiet and listen to you father for once!” Trask snapped at his daughter, ignoring Guzman.

He took a deep breath and addressed Guzman: “You're a hard man to track down, do you know that?”

Amelia threw herself on top of Guzman. He cried out in pain as she rubbed her body against his wound.

“Don't, Daddy! You said you were doing this so
Tony and I could be together!”

“He's a blackmailer, Amelia,” Trask said. “And a child molester.”

“Come on, Papa! It wasn't like that!”

“It was exactly like that.”

Amelia was screaming now, “I won't let you hurt him!”

Trask waved his gun, exasperated. “Fine. Throw a tantrum. I'll still be here when you're done.”

The faced each other in silence. A standoff.

Rush took advantage of the pause to ask Amelia a question. “Why did you tell me Guzman killed your uncle?”

She shrugged. “I thought if you were mad at him, you might tell me where he was. Or go track him down.” Amelia turned to Guzman and gave him a little snuggle. “I figured if anybody could find you, Crush could.”

Guzman just sunk back into the sofa, like he wished he were somewhere else.

Still taped to his chair, Zerbe spoke up. “Anybody want to tell me what's going on?”

Trask laughed. “The funny thing is, I'm actually tempted to tell you. To explain it all. I always thought it was idiotic in movies when the villain stopped to explain everything instead of just shooting somebody. Now I understand. It's a delaying tactic.” He paused, his hand flexing on the gun. “This is rather hard to do.”

Guzman pushed Amelia off of him and leaned toward Trask, pleading, “Mr. Trask, I swear I won't—”

Trask shot Guzman in the head.

Guzman fell back on the sofa, dead. He didn't have time to look surprised.

Amelia screamed.

Trask sighed, looking very tired. “It is very hard,” he said. Then he pointed the gun at Rush. “And I don't think it's going to get any easier.”

Amelia clutched Guzman's body to her breast, crying like a baby. Rush prepared for the impact of the bullet.

Then the front door swung open and a dark figure appeared, backlit by the hallway light.

Trask glanced toward the door for a second, and that was all Rush needed. He grabbed Trask's gun hand and swung it aside, driving his body, elbow first, into Trask's breastbone. Pivoting his elbow up, he cracked Trask's jaw, wrenching the gun out of his hand and pushing him, driving him hard against the wall.

Grabbing the samurai sword from its display rack on the wall, Rush whipped around and pressed the point against Trask's throat.

At the apartment door, Frida Morales stood looking at the scene, stunned.

“Frida, darling!” Zerbe said, from his chair. “What took you so long?”

Rush shot a curious look at Zerbe from the corner of his eye, and Zerbe lifted his leg, exposing his ankle—the electronic tether on it was busted, wires exposed.

“It broke after Amelia tied me up. It was like
sending my Frida the Bat Signal.”

Zerbe laughed, like a giddy child, then shut up when he realized that Amelia was still holding onto Guzman, weeping. Not the time for levity. Frida stepped into the room and peered at the dead man.

“What happened?” she asked.

Trask answered quickly, his eyes still locked with Rush's. “I killed my brother. Drowned him in my pool.” He looked down at Guzman. “That man found the body. He tried to blackmail me. So I shot him.”

Rush met his stare.

“Call the police, Frida.”

THIRTY-ONE

R
ush stood next to Trask by the big window, looking down at the night and the city. A police car, siren flashing, slowly made its way down Wilshire, inching through the gridlocked traffic.

“I can't believe how long it's taking them to get here,” Trask said, breaking the long silence.

“It just feels that way,” Rush replied.

“Yeah. My last moments of freedom. I should be having a steak at the Palm. Not standing here with you.”

Rush shifted his weight on his tired feet. “It doesn't add up,” he said. “Guzman wouldn't dive into that pool. He couldn't swim.”

“It was the shallow end.”

“And he never had that flash drive. Amelia had it.”

Trask didn't say anything. Just kept staring at the city.

“She killed your brother,” Rush said. “To protect Guzman. She knew if Walter went to the feds, he'd go down with everyone else.”

Trask stared ahead in silence.

“That's what Guzman saw, isn't it? That's how he was blackmailing you.”

Trask shut his eyes. “She's just a little girl. She thought she loved him.” He looked over at the sofa. Amelia was asleep, looking younger than Rush had ever seen her. Guzman's sheet-covered body was next to her. She looked like a child sleeping with her teddy bear.

“So you admit it?” Rush asked.

Trask looked back at the city with no expression on his Gill-Man face. “I killed my brother.”

“You can't—”

“Do you listen to country music, Mr. Rush?”

“Sometimes.”

“That's my story and I'm sticking to it.”

Trask stared out at the skyline, a thin smile playing over his face. “Oh and Mr. Rush?”

“Yeah?”

“Where is that damned flash drive?”

“The North Pole,” Rush replied, pointing to the glass panel on the ceiling where Zerbe had projected the satellite image of the Earth. The flash drive was taped to the back of the glass, right above the North Pole.

“Ah,” said Trask, “so you weren't lying after all.”

“I never lie about important things,” Rush said.