The Next Night

Some days it feels like everything’s a repeat of the day before.

Today isn’t one of those days.

As I pull the Lincoln up in front of Han’s apartment complex, I get the feeling that something is askew. I make a turnaround and take a spin around the block, followed by another one, looking to see if anyone’s on me. There’s no one around. Not a single car in the streets aside from mine. I park my Lincoln at the curb and pull my .45, making sure she’s ready to fly. I put it back, doing one final check of my surroundings. Still clear. I walk to the door.

I ring the buzzer, just like I did yesterday. No one answers. No static comes through the intercom. No black guy comes to retrieve me. Maybe Han felt some shit coming down and he skipped out. I hope it’s that simple, but I’ve got a feeling in my gut that’s telling me it’s something deeper than that. I have no idea what it is, but there’s only one way to find out. I bring my foot back and kick the door. There’s a brief splintering and scraping of metal as the door flies open. Good thing there’s no alarms.

I have my gun in my hand as I step through the doorway. I take the stairs two at a time. I can smell it before I even hit the second floor. There’s been gunplay. Powder and smoke fill my nostrils, with just enough of a coppery overtone mixed in to let me know that there are casualties. I round the corner to the third floor stairway, and as I step over what I can only assume is the right side of what used to be a head, I immediately understand why the black guy didn’t have the decency to let me in. On my way up the stairs, I step over the remainder of his body. I put my back against the wall and enter the hallway. Han’s door is barely hanging on by the hinges. I attempt to ease it open and it crashes to the floor of the apartment. I leap back, standing around the corner. Nothing like a grand entrance. Too bad nobody’s alive to see it. I wait a few seconds for the fireworks to commence. Nothing happens. That’s always a good sign in my opinion. The gunfire still doesn’t come, so I cautiously step through the door to survey the interior of the apartment. Good Lord.

Han’s apartment was a feat of grotesque filth when I came by yesterday. That doesn’t hold a candle to the scene before me tonight. The filth is still here, only now the garbage is covered with a fine layer of matted blood and tissue. This wasn’t gunplay, this was an outright assault. Whoever was behind this wasn’t fucking around.

I see Han sitting on the sofa. He appears to be sleeping. For a moment, I have the faint hope that somehow, Han survived. I step toward him. That’s when I see the torn edges of the holes in his chest. Han isn’t going to be talking to anyone. Ever.

I put my gun back in the holster and move around the room. There must be fifteen bodies strewn about. Most of them are still intact for the most part. I lean in to check their faces, if they still have them. I sincerely hope that Maise’s is not one of them. That would put a definite crimp in my plans.

Out of the fifteen bodies, the twelve that have faces don’t ring any bells. The other three I write off. One’s too fat, one’s too tall, and the other one just ain’t right. Maise isn’t here. Either she wasn’t here when whoever did this showed up or they took her with them. I hope that it wasn’t the latter.

Now I have to hunt her down. I’m back at square one. Dammit. I step over the corpses and move back toward the hallway. Just before I reach the doorframe, a hand grabs hold of my ankle. I stop midstride, pulling my gun and pointing it in the general direction of the grasp. The hand belongs to some wiry, greaseball-looking kid. He looks like he’s straight out of high school. Looks like he picked the wrong day to lose his virginity.

He’s laying on his side underneath the naked, bloodstained legs of one of the girls. I can tell right away, judging from the blood coming out of his mouth and his labored breathing, that he’s got a slug in his belly. He’s not going to make it into the next hour. I tug my ankle away, and bending down, I shove the lifeless girl’s body aside. I grab the kid by the shoulders, propping him up to a sitting position against the wall.

“What do you know, kid?” I ask, taking out a cigarette and placing it between my lips. I offer one to him. He shakes his head. I put the cigarettes away and light the one in my mouth. I don’t have time for small talk. “Who did this?”

The greaser’s lips start moving, but no sound comes out. I’m afraid that I’ve just wasted my time so that I could watch blood bubbles in his saliva. I’m about to get up and leave, when I hear his vocal chords crack to some semblance of life. I give it a moment. He sputters to life.

“Big guys . . .” He croaks out. His breathing is heavy and wet. I want to slap him and tell him to talk faster. I restrain myself. He’s already had a hell of a day.

“What did they do?”

He takes a deep, painstaking breath. His eyes are glazing over. “They came in . . . shooting . . . looking for a girl.”

Maise. They came here looking for Maise. “Did they find her?”

The greaser nods his head. I take a drag of the cigarette. “What did they look like?”

“Big . . . guys . . . ,” he wheezes. “Body . . . builders.”

Fuck. Bruiser’s crew. I knew it. “Where did they take her?”

The greaseball kid sucks in a final breath. His eyes roll back in his head and he takes the step into the great beyond. I reach out and close his eyes. At least I know who to call.

“Thanks, kid.”