Love and Gravity (3 page)

“Where are you?”

“Meet me at The Early Byrd Cafe on
Howsley in fifteen minutes” Margot said. Then she hung up.

Margot was almost a twenty blocks
from The Early Byrd. She put her phone back in her purse and took off her high
heels. She started running again, the pavement hitting her soft feet, biting at
her stockings. She ran in the shadows of the street lamps as much as she could,
taking the most direct route to the cafe.

Jack was dreaming a sweet, sad
dream that took him back to his childhood, and back to his sister Chelsea. In
the dream he was around ten years old and she was around seventeen. She was
beautiful with her long brown hair, always gently curled into fat rivulets that
would stroke Jack’s face when she hugged him. Her hair smelled like lavender
and framed a face that seemed to always be smiling. Jack admired her immensely.

They were in the park on a perfect
summer day. Chelsea was wearing a thin summer dress covered in flowers and had
laid out a plaid blanket for them on top of the grass. The sky was baby blue
and cloudless and Jack and his sister lay in the shade of a tremendous oak tree
watching the passersby. They were playing their favorite game, making up
stories about people as though they were all characters in some great big play.

“That man is a pianist.” Chelsea
pointed to a man standing off by another tree. He was a homeless man in
tattered, dirty clothes and he was swaying slightly, side to side.

“He’s been playing piano his whole
life and was in fact a famous concert pianist at one time. But he dreamt one
night of the music of the future. He woke up and fervently began composing it,
convinced it was his life’s mission to bring this music into the world. But he
found that the people of today aren’t able to hear it. It only sounds like a
great cacophony to them. So he goes around playing a small electric keyboard on
the street corners and everyone thinks he’s mad.”

Jack looked around for a new
target. He pointed at a woman playing with a big golden retriever a few hundred
feet away from the man.

“She will understand his music
though,” he said. “She’s a famous cellist and she travels the world playing
concerts. She had the same dream on the same night, but she couldn’t remember
what the music sounded like when she woke up. When she hears the pianist
playing on the street she remembers the dream and they begin playing together.
They travel the world together and become the world’s most famous musicians.”

“That’s such a wonderful story! I
can hear their music even as we speak.” Chelsea smiled so happily at Jack, that
he couldn’t help feeling proud of his contribution to the story. She had this
way of making him feel loved just by looking at him.

Jack looked up and saw a man whose
face looked like a puddle of swirled paint walking angrily across the park
straight towards them. Concern fell over Jack’s face as he looked to his
sister.

“And who is that man,” he asked?

Chelsea turned to face him. She
was wearing a different dress suddenly, long-sleeved and black, and there were
tears streaming down her face. Jack felt swallowed by a paralyzing sadness.

It was then that Margot’s phone
call woke Jack from his dream. For a moment he was disoriented and continued to
feel that same aching he’d carried with him since childhood. When he answered
the phone he heard a voice strained with worry on the other end as it quickly
rattled off a plea for help. He heard the name, “Margot” and came back to
himself. He couldn’t possibly forget Margot as quickly as all that. He had,
after all, been considering her for the last week, ever since reading her
arrest sheet.

She told him to meet her at The
Early Byrd and hung up. He got up from bed quickly, with an athleticism that
seemed almost cat-like. The bed sheet fell away from him, revealing his
muscular body to the cold moonlight. He walked on bare feet across the room to
the chair in the corner that had his suit from the day before draped over the
arm. He got dressed efficiently, grabbing his wallet and keys from the table near
the door on his way out. He could tell by the tone of Margot’s voice that he
needed to hurry. He was anxious to get to the cafe so he decided to take his
car, even though he was only ten blocks away.

When he arrived Margot hadn’t
arrived yet, so he grabbed a booth in the back corner and ordered a coffee from
the plump waitress that seated him. When it got there he put in a bit of
creamer and sugar and began stirring the cup with his spoon, watching as the
blackness turned to light suede brown.

He thought back to seeing her at
the bar. Before she’d noticed him, he’d noticed her. But then she was the hard
to miss kind. He felt anxious about seeing her again, partly because he didn’t
know what was going to happen with Pop or what kind of danger she may be in.
But there was more to it. He was anxious because he thought she was beautiful,
and because he found her alluring.

His response to her excited him,
and surprised him. He’d never expected to find her so pleasantly disquieting.
At least not for the reasons he did. He could already sense that she was unlike
anyone he’d met in this city, with its bottomless wealth of lost people.

When Jack looked up from his
coffee, he saw Margot opening the door to the cafe. His heart pounded a little
more fiercely in his chest. She looked hot and disheveled. She was bending down
to put her shoes on. Her hair had fallen down in chunks, she was covered in a
thin veil of sweat, and her chest rose and fell heavily as she caught her
breath. She walked towards the booth he was seated in. He rose to meet her.

“Thank you for meeting me” Margot
said, then she waved the waitress over and asked for a glass of water. She was
grateful to see Detective Malone sitting there. Despite her disdain for cops in
general, she’d already silently committed to trusting this one a little. She
remembered that his concern for her had seemed genuine, and she was pinning
everything on her hope that it was.

“What’s happened,” asked Jack?

“You were right, I heard the whole
thing. Pop did kill those girls, and he told his man Lenny to kill another one.
He told Lenny to kill a particular detective, too, if he continues to get in
the way. I can only assume he was talking about you. But I dropped a bottle and
it broke outside their door. I’m sure they heard it, I’m sure they knew it was
me. Pop said the girls had some information on him, that they were blackmailing
him, and that he can’t afford for anyone to know that he had them killed, or
for anyone to find out the information they had. Something about the Lacey
fight being rigged and that he was afraid that someone named Grandino would
send his people after him if they knew.”         

“Jesus. Did they say what girl
they are going to kill next?”

“No, Pop just told Lenny to get it
right this time, as though he tried and failed before. Look Detective...”

“Please, just call me Jack.”

“Jack. I have nowhere to go. I
live above the bar, so I can’t even get a change of clothes. I’m really afraid.

“Well, first thing’s first,” said
Jack. “We need to go find Lola. She’s a pro that got attacked last week. I saw
the marks on her neck. She wouldn’t talk about it, but they were the same marks
on the dead victims. She must be their target. I know a flop where she stays
with some of the other girls when they aren’t working.

“As for you, I want to ask if
you’d be willing to testify to what you heard. I’ve been gathering evidence
against Pop for a long time. Practically every cop at the station is in his
pocket, but I have a buddy from the service, Frank, who works for the Feds. I
want to turn all my information over to him and let the Feds prosecute Pop. If
I can connect him to these murders, they can put him away for good. And if you
can testify against him they’ll protect you, probably put you in witness
protection. That’s a chance at a whole new life Margot. It’s the best thing I
can offer you.”

Margot sat thoughtfully in the
booth across from Jack. Witness protection. A whole new chance at life. They
would expunge her record; maybe even get her a good job. She could get out of
Gravity and never look back. She’d been looking for a chance at freedom for a
long time, but witness protection wasn’t exactly the kind of freedom she
wanted. It seemed like it could just be a prettier cage.

Then Margot heard a popping sound
before something hit the large glass window beside them. She felt Jack’s hand
on her arm pushing her down into the booth just as she heard the sounds of two
bullets being fired from the dark street in front of the cafe.

“Stay down! Get on the ground,”
Jack whispered violently at her and, scared, she grabbed her purse from the
table. She slid off the plastic seat of the booth onto her hands and knees on
the short carpet. She was shaking madly. Jack was on the carpet across from
her. He had a gun in his hand that Margot hadn’t even seen him draw. He was
looking towards the front door.

“We need to go through the kitchen
and out the back. Come on, quickly and keep low.”

 Jack began crawling towards the
kitchen door behind the long bar counter. Margot followed him and saw their
waitress cowering behind the counter with her head in her hands.

“Lady, don’t worry. They’re not
after you. Just stay down,” Jack said to her.

The waitress raised her head and
looked at him through terrified eyes. She nodded, but said nothing. Jack and
Margot crawled ahead through the swinging aluminum kitchen doors. Once the
doors had swung shut behind them Jack pulled Margot to a standing, crouched
position.

“Alright, we’re going to take a
different car and get out of here. They must have seen mine outside the cafe
and found us that way. Stay here for a minute. I’m going to run out and unlock
a car, then I’m going to wave you over and you need to run towards me and get
in as fast as you can. Okay?”

“Okay.” Margot looked at Jack. He
seemed hurried but collected. He looked unafraid, and very determined. She felt
small next to him.

Jack opened the back door that led
outside. There was a row of parked cars on the side of the street. Margot
watched as Jack ran hunched over to a beat up Ford Ranger. He hit the window
with the butt of his gun a few times and the window broke. He reached in and
unlocked the doors then waved Margot over.

“Get in the passenger’s side and
stay down.”

 She did what she was told and
watched as he swiftly hot-wired the car. It roared to life and he sat up behind
the wheel. He drove the car around a corner onto a different street.

“We need to find Lola,” Jack said
and pressed the pedal down faster.

It was only when Margot bent down
to hide that she saw Jack’s right arm was bleeding through a small tear in his
suit.

“Jack, you’re hurt.” Margot
instinctively reached towards his wound but Jack pulled away from her.

“It’s just a scratch. I’ll deal
with it later.”

Margot felt a pang of guilt. This
was her fault, she’d been so foolish to eavesdrop on Pop and now she’d ruined
everything. She could have gotten them both killed, not to mention that poor
frightened waitress. She felt embarrassed that she’d reached out to touch him
so instinctively, and a little rejected that he’d pulled away. She bit her lip
to focus on something else.

Twelve minutes later the car
jerked to a hard stop.  Margot raised her head and looked out the window.
She saw the ocean in the subtle grey morning light. She could smell the salt in
the air. They were near the shipping yard. There were no people on the streets
that Margot could see. Jack opened the driver’s door.

“Come with me, and stay close
behind,” he said, taking his gun out of his jacket pocket.

Margot got out of the car and
followed him across the street. There was a building that seemed to be
abandoned. It was covered in graffiti and had some broken windows on the bottom
floor. She could vaguely see the words Bretton & Sons in faded white paint
above the main door. She followed Jack around to the side of the building where
a dented green steel door with a sign that read “Office” on it. The door was
left slightly ajar.

“Damn,” Jack said, seeing the door
open. He quietly pushed the door open with his gun. Inside the room it was dark
and mostly empty, with just a bit of light coming in through a single corner
window. There were empty wine bottles on the floor alongside a few strewn about
blankets. There was more graffiti along the walls. Jack walked inside and as
Margot followed him she saw the sprawling body of a girl on a pile of blankets
in the corner. Jack walked up to the body and Margot followed him tentatively.
As she got closer she could see the girl’s face. Her eyes were open, her lips
were parted, and she had a gunshot in the center of her forehead. There was a large
dark bloodstain on the blanket beneath the girl’s head.

“Oh my god,” Margot cried, raising
her hand to her mouth.

“Let’s go. We need to get out of
here.”

 Jack wrapped his arms around
Margot and turned her towards the door, ushering her outside and back to the
car. He stopped by the door and picked up a cotton shirt from the floor. He
tore a strip off of it and asked Margot to tie it firmly on his arm above the
bullet wound. Margot did as she was told, but felt guilty all over again as she
saw him wince with pain when she pulled the shirt tight.