Chapter Twenty

“You promised you were going to let the radio go!”

“I know I did, but in my defense, I only said that so you would believe I was going to let the radio go.”

I snatched the newest Russian radio off the counter and looked around for the closest flat surface to smash it against. The floor didn’t seem like such a bad option.

“Wait!” Jerry shouted. “Let me explain.”

“Explain fast.”

“I know it looks like my handiwork, but I swear to the dark god I didn’t rebuild it this time. I just came home after work and saw it like this, sitting on the front steps of my bus room. Someone else wanted me to have it.”

“Really? Who would do that? And why?”

“Yes, I don’t know, and I don’t know.”

“Dude! This is a big deal. We have no idea—”

The store phone interrupted me. Jerry calmly said, “Hold that thought,” then picked up the receiver with a smarmy “Chyellow?” His eyes got wide. He looked in my direction. “Oh, hey there Beaux... How’s hell?”

I whispered frantically, “Hang up. Hang up the phone.”

“Oh… You’re looking for Jack?”

I waved my hands, “I don’t want to talk to him. Don’t put me on.”

“Oh… Yeah, Jack’s not here right now. Can I take a message?” I could hear Beaux screaming on the other side of the call before Jerry responded in a cool voice, “Now Beaux, I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

“What’s he saying?”

Jerry covered the mouthpiece, “That same old ‘more powerful than you can imagine’ bullshit.” He removed his hand, then said into the phone, “You seem really tense. Is everything okay? You wanna talk about it?”

Beaux screamed into the line loud enough that I could hear his shrill voice calling us “shitheads.”

“Look dude,” Jerry said, “just give me a number and I’ll have Jack return your call as soon as he gets back from Disney World.” He winked at me. “Oh, yeah, he left this morning. Poor guy really needed a break… No, I’m totally being serious right now… No, I would never lie to you, Beaux… Okay, well, tell the devil I said ‘hi.’ Talk to you later.”

By the time Jerry hung up, I’d almost forgotten why I was so mad.

Then it hit me.

“The Russian radio?! Really?!”

“Maybe you should sit down.”

I took my seat behind the counter while Jerry explained the situation. He didn’t specify exactly when the radio showed up again, but he confessed that he’d been listening to it long enough to pick up on something. A message was coming through. At first, it was just once every hour or so. Then once every few minutes. And then finally, it was the only thing the station said.

The voice on the radio was listing off names. People in the town who had been “targeted.” People who had been “replaced.”

The radio station went down the list in no particular order. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. And then, it broke.

“What do you mean, ‘It broke’?” I asked.

Jerry demonstrated by taking the radio out of my hands and turning it on. He switched the output to the old speaker and turned up the volume. I flinched at the sound of the man’s voice. The last thing I wanted taking up space in my cluttered brain was more forbidden knowledge. But then I heard what he was saying. 

“...Rooster. Caddo. Talk. Penguin. Anios. Telephone. Zipper. Lima. Russki. Thirteen. Crank. Manilla. Renard. Sette. Los…”

It was nonsense. Just words, unconnected, one after the other with no meaning or context. Only a short break between each. Most were in English, but not all.

“What is this?” I asked.

“I have no idea, but I think it’s not good. It started last night and it’s been this way ever since.”

I turned the radio off.

“Is there a chance you remember any of the names he said were replaced or targeted?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said with a big, proud smile, “No!”

“Oh.” I responded, a little confused. “The way you led into that made me think you were going to say something different.”

Jerry reached into his backpack and pulled out a tape recorder. “You didn’t let me finish. I was gonna say, no, but I realized that it was going to be important, so I recorded it.”

He hit the play button on the recorder and the voice started again. 

“...has been replaced. Mary-Sue Oldman has been replaced. Roger Oldman has been targeted. Mia Bothne has been targeted. Sam Leake has been replaced. Kay Winter has been targeted. Sarah Winter has been replaced. Matthew Meares has been targeted. Agatha Sistrunk has been replaced...”

“Aww,” I said, “They got old Aggie? That sucks.” Jerry stopped the cassette player and slid it closer to me, then he put a pair of earbuds on top of it. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Well, I kinda need your help. I have another hour of this on a tape at home and I’m trying to go through and data mine the whole thing, find out who’s been targeted and who’s been replaced.”

“Why? We don’t even know what ‘replaced’ or ‘targeted” means.”

“Come on, bro! Don’t go all reluctant-hero on me now. I have a really bad feeling and I need to get to the bottom of it, okay? Please?”

Jerry had a strange look in his eyes. A sad, desperate look. I knew what I had to say.

“No, Jerry. I love you, but you’re an addict and this is poison.”

He slammed his hands onto the counter and shouted, “I know! This sucks donkey balls. That’s why I came to you, because you’re the only person in the world who I trust with this.”

“Then trust me. No good is going to come from listening to the radio.”

He made a noise like a tire deflating, then said, “Fine. If you’re not going to help me—”

He reached for the radio, but he wasn’t fast enough. I grabbed it and threw it into a drawer under the counter. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.” He angrily pulled out his pack of smokes, put one between his lips, and went to light it until I said, “Take that outside.”

His jaw dropped open. Somehow (magic, I guess), the cigarette stayed in place.

“First you fire Rosa. Then you steal my radio. Now you’re kicking me out into the cold?”

“You can stay here if you want, but if you’re going to smoke you need to take it outside. You have to follow the same rules as customers and raccoons.”

“You know what, Jack? You’re sounding really bossy.”

“Well good. I am your boss.” I could hear Calvin Ambrose laughing at me all the way from hell. “Way to go, Jack! The transformation is complete! I knew you had it in you!”

Jerry turned dramatically and marched out the back door, stomping his feet with each step and grumbling under his breath.

I waited until I heard the back door slam shut before pulling the radio out of its hiding spot. I had to find a good place to stash it until I could properly destroy it. Perhaps the safe, no that’s the first place Jerry would look. Maybe inside the gnome display—

The Russian radio clicked on in my hands, seemingly of its own accord.

I flinched again.

“Caster. Sigma. Giant. Six. Lock. Peter. Tempest.” I must have somehow pressed the power switch. I went to turn it off again, but then, “Echo. Four. Three. Two. One. Richard DeJean is experiencing heart attack. He does not know. He will not know for two point three two hours. There are three chimney swifts in Elisha Smith’s house. They have each been there for six days. The collector is building army. The puppeteer waits to make next move. In fifty-two hours, Jack Townsend will be attacked at gas station...” 

My heartbeat surged at the sound of my own name. “He will kill attacker, or attacker will kill him. His odds of survival are two point one two percent...” 

That’s not good. “He is aware of transmission. Transmission has changed odds of survival to seventy-six percent.” 

Oh. Cool. Well, not “cool,” but still better than two percent! Seventy-six percent is a passing grade. This was a manageable crisis. All I had to do was call O’Brien. If I had her in my corner during the attack, then— “Radio transmission has altered circumstances. Odds have changed. Survival chance is zero point zero zero six percent...”

I tried to understand what had changed. I heard the radio. I decided to call O’Brien. If I’m going to die, maybe I should leave her out of it. “He has altered plans. Odds have changed. Survival chance is fifty-one percent...”

“STOP TELLING ME THE ODDS!” I screamed.

 “...Kansas. Pick. Suit. Low. Sans. Assist...” I clicked the radio off. 

Right then, the front doors opened and two men who I had never seen before walked into the store. Good thing I was already in super defense mode. My heightened awareness helped me notice what was wrong with this situation right away.

First of all, the skinnier of the two was busy locking the doors behind them. Secondly, they were both carrying baseball bats, but they didn’t look like baseball players.

The man closer to me was short, stout, and sporting a wool cap. He looked to be on the high end of middle-aged with a beard that was just a few inches short of wizard-length. He cozied up to the other side of my counter.

“Hi there,” I said. “Can I help you folks find something?”

“Jack,” he responded with a mad gleam in his eyes, “We need to talk.”

 

***

 

The men (or—let’s just call them what they were—the goons) were dressed in dark clothes with heavy boots and leather gloves. They looked like whoever hired them had picked them up from the discount Italian gangster emporium. The taller of the two had wild hair, high cheekbones, and a clean face. He was about half the age of his rounder companion, and clearly here to serve as muscle.

The other one must have been the brains (or more appropriately, the mouth). When the taller goon swaggered up to join his friend, the shorter guy flicked open his jacket, and rested his hand on his hip. A not-so-subtle way to show off the gun sloppily holstered in his waistband. After allowing me a moment to ooh and ah at the weapon, he reached across the counter and grabbed a praline from the display next to the register, ripped open the package with his teeth, and took a bite.

“Mmm,” he said with a mouth full of food. “This sure is tasty. Hey Tiko, you should try one of these cookies. They’re on the house today. Aren’t they, Jack?”

The taller goon—Tiko—took a praline and devoured it in three chomps.

I could tell what they were going for, but these guys were about as intimidating as an angry bunny. I felt sorry for them. In fact, as I watched Tiko attempt to make praline consumption into a scare tactic, I simply felt embarrassed for all three of us.

“So, let me guess,” I said leaning onto my elbows and steepling my fingers, “You guys think I have a nice place here and it would be a shame if something were to happen to it. Right?”

They laughed to each other, then the man with the gun said, “Relax, Jack. We don’t want to cause any trouble for you.” Holy crap, he even sounds like he’s doing a bad Joe Pesci impersonation. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hector. And this here is my esteemed colleague, Tiko. A mutual friend of ours asked us to stop by and have a conversation with you. Our friend is hoping we might convince you to—how do we put this?—reopen negotiations.” Tiko was nodding along. I found myself wondering how much Howard had paid to put them up to this. A singing telegram would have been just as effective and half as embarrassing. 

“I think we got our wires crossed. Howard and I already struck a deal. I guess he forgot to call and cancel with you guys. I’ll let him know you stopped by, though. Feel free to keep whatever deposit he gave you.”

“Oh, we got a funny guy, huh?” Hector said with a chuckle.

Tiko glared at me, “Yeah, real funny.”

“As I understand it, you aren’t so sure you want to sell this place. Now, I’d be happy to offer some words of wisdom, as a friend. But in order for that to happen, well, we’d have to be friends, wouldn’t we? You know, I get along great with my friends.” He smacked Tiko on the arm and asked, “Ain’t that right, Tiko?”

Tiko took his cue and started walking, circling the register, dragging the wooden bat against the floor as he chuckled softly, “Yeah, we get along great.”

In that moment, a strange thought occurred to me. If the radio transmission was accurate (emphasis on “if”), then that meant I was destined to meet an attacker at the gas station in fifty-two hours for a kill-or-be-killed showdown. But, for that prophecy to be true, it presupposed that I would stay alive for at least fifty-two more hours. Which meant, for this magic radio to be correct, I was effectively immortal for two more days. (I wasn’t going to go testing this theory, but it provided some illusion of safety.)

Hector rested his baseball bat on the counter between us, daring me to try something stupid. He waited until Tiko was right behind me before continuing the monologue, “That’s because we’re friends. Now, people who don’t want to be my friend, well that’s another story altogether. If you don’t want to be my friend, then that means you want to be my enemy, ya see? And I get nervous around enemies. I gotta protect my friends from my enemies. You understand that, don’t ya, Jack?”

“Not at all,” I answered. “But please, don’t let that stop you. I’m finding this schtick to be incredibly entertaining.”

That flipped Hector’s smile upside down. He grabbed his bat off the counter and rested it on his shoulder, bouncing in anticipation as he said, “It’s too bad you wanted to do this the hard way.”

He nodded at Tiko. A second later, Tiko’s bat crashed against the counter, smashing the Russian radio into pieces. They both howled with laughter as Hector took his turn, bashing the broken appliance to the ground and pummeling it into oblivion. These idiots had inadvertently gone and solved one of my problems for me. As far as shakedowns go, this wasn’t so bad.

But then the back door scratched open, silencing the goons mid-laugh.

They clutched their bats and kept their eyes trained on the wild card shuffling into the room. Jerry didn’t seem to mind them one bit. He just walked up to the counter, looked down at the broken radio, and asked, “Are we getting robbed again?”

Hector repeated his intimidation maneuver, pulling back his coat to show off the weapon. This time he went so far as to tap his fingers against the gun as he warned, “Alright pal, let’s not do anything stupid.” That’s when I knew for certain that Jerry was about to do something stupid.

“WAIT A SECOND!” Jerry screamed. He swung his head around to look at me, his eyes widening in exaggerated horror. “Oh my god! JACK!” He reached a hand across the counter and put it gently on my face, tilting my chin up slightly as if to get a better view. “Look what they did to you! Who did this to your face? Who hurt you? Tell me…” He turned dramatically and pointed straight at Hector. “Was it him?! You’re going to pay for what you did to my friend!”

Tiko tried to calm things down—a noble but futile effort. “Alright, cool it buddy, nobody touched your friend—”

“HEY!” Jerry screamed back at him, “You shut your beautiful mouth right now, you gorgeous specimen!”

Tiko seemed rattled. “Wait, what?”

“I said shut it, you sexy beast!”

Hector attempted to wrestle back control of the situation, “Hey Looney Tunes. How ‘bout you take a seat?”

“Can it, you bridge troll. I’m not talking to a three like you. I’m talking to this perfect ten of a Greek god over here. What’s your name, handsome?”

Tiko went from flustered to flabbergasted. His face turned beet red. He quickly glanced at Hector and answered, “My name… Tiko.”

“Tiko? No way! That’s my mom’s name! Listen to me, Tiko-san, you don’t want to do this. You don’t want to fight me.”

Tiko tried to regain his composure, laughing nervously and asking, “Why not? What the hell are you going to do?”

“What am I gonna do?!” bellowed Jerry as he held out a balled-up fist and stepped closer to the man next to me. “What am I gonna do?” Another step. “Here’s what I’m gonna do. First, I’m gonna punch you, right in the kisser.” Another step. “Then, I’m gonna break your Eskimo kisser.” Another step. “Then, I’m gonna give you two black butterfly kissers.” Another step. He was chest to chest with Tiko now. “And then, I’m gonna kiss ya.” His voice was nothing but a whisper. “Only then will you have my permission to die.”

“Alright, that’s enough!” shouted Hector. He pulled the gun from his waistband and extended it towards Jerry.

I was quick to say, “Oh, you really don’t want to do that, dude.”

“Yeah?” he said back with a smile and the unearned confidence that comes from being the only man in the room with a gun. “Why not? I think you’re both under the misconception that we’re playing some kind of game here. Allow me to correct that.”

He moved his hand and aimed the gun at the display of lighters on the counter. With a deafening BANG that I’ve almost (but not quite) gotten too used to, the display toppled over and the room filled with the smell of gun smoke. Tiko reacted in kind, shoving past Jerry and swinging his bat into the closest thing within striking distance—a canned soda tower that I had painstakingly put together the night before. A couple of the cans exploded as the display toppled to the ground. The goons both cackled with delight.

“Aw shit, yeah!” Jerry screamed before diving right into the mayhem himself, kicking over a chip stand. Before any of us knew what was going on, Jerry had flipped over an ice well and chucked a gnome across the store into the cold drink case, shattering the glass upon impact. “Y’all wanna do this?! Then let’s fuckin do this!”

Suddenly, Jerry had a chair in his hands, smashing it into walls and shelves while chanting, “Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy!”

“Hey! Hey!” Hector screamed until he had Jerry’s fleeting attention.

“What?”

“Calm the fuck down, man.”

“Make me!”

Tiko cut into the conversation with a soft, “Hey, guys?”

I turned my attention to the man standing—or rather hunched over—next to the gnome display. Poor Tiko wasn’t looking too hot. He was visibly wincing, closing his eyes tightly and pressing his free hand against his ear.

“You okay there, buddy?” I asked.

Tiko’s bat fell to the floor as he used both hands to cover his ears. Soon, he was wailing, “What is that? What is that sound? Jesus! Can you turn that off?” He fell backwards away from the gnomes, hit the ground in the fetal position, and started dry heaving. The last words he managed to get out were, “I… I don’t… uh… I don’t feel so good.”

“Oh no!” Jerry said gently. “Tiko, what’s wrong, baby?”

Hector actually had a note of concern in his voice. “You alright, man?”

I tried to do what a good manager would do in this situation, “Why don’t you have a seat over by the booth table? Jerry, can you get us a trash can and some ginger ale? I think he’s going to need—”

Right then, Tiko began projectile barfing all over the floor. 

Sadly, this is nothing new for the gas station. Customers and cantstomers alike come in here and vomit all the time. Hell, I’ve puked in here more times than I can remember. But this wasn’t any ordinary barf. Poor Tiko was expelling untold amounts of dark red liquid, pure blood and bile and nothing else, pouring out of his mouth and all over the floor.

“Groooss!” sang Jerry before tossing his chair like a frisbee across the gas station and into the hot dog roller.

By the time I reached his side, Tiko’s eyes had rolled back in his head. Hector ran past me, slapped his friend across the cheek a few times, and screamed for him to “stop playing around.” When that didn’t work, he grabbed Tiko by the collar of his shirt and dragged him out of the building, across the lot, and into their car, yelling out pathetic threats and warnings for us not to call the cops or try to follow them. While I wouldn’t dream of following them anywhere, I immediately called O’Brien and told her she should swing by the gas station whenever she got a chance, emphasizing that there was no hurry.