No Good Deed

I’m getting tired of cleaning up my own blood. That’s not to say I want someone else to do it for me, but when most nights end with an assortment of cuts, bruises, and varying depths of puncture wounds peppered all over your form, that once easily startled spike in adrenaline starts to wane. In the mirror, crimson seeping lesions and I stare at each other with weary disappointment. And yet, we do our song and dance. We both protest like petulant children when I clean them; them with stings and pinpricks and I, begrudgingly wondering why injuries couldn’t just let out a puff of steam rather than soaking my clothes. It goes on until they’re secured with a gauze. Then we can pretend the other doesn’t exist until the inevitable happens again.

It’s almost ridiculous, the power one click of a camera holds. You do it well enough, and it won’t matter what your inclination might be, couples, real estate agencies, models, and anyone with an overwhelming urge to make a sell or have a piece of evidence they can hold up as proof of happiness, will seek you out. They’ll tell their friends how amazed they are at your ability to capture the essence of what they plopped down in front of your lens. But if they allowed themselves a moment of honesty, they’d write in their journals about the relief that washes over them that despite the essence of their reality, what I managed to capture was the impression they work so hard to keep up every waking moment. And while so many are more than happy to have an image painted over, they aren’t all that pleased when the same lens snags a glimpse at their reality, what they get up to when they’ve convinced themselves they’re sly and invincible. Then a shutter click becomes a sound that haunts them, one they’d pay to kill. Literally. 

That wasn’t always the case for the people of this town. For most, it still isn’t. But when the fate of thousands of people rests in the hands of a few and they wager them for the biggest payout, that’s when the scales are tipped, and my restraint along with it.

My first exposé had taken months of planning; planting recording devices, taking pictures, tracking movements and collecting evidence that would leave no room for doubt or a Hail Mary calling to hear out the other side. City’s treasurer skimming money to line his own pockets, handing out bribes and collecting favors, which resulted in budget cuts for the General Hospital, free lunches for school kids, funds for homeless and victims of domestic violence shelters.

In this crude city, judges can be paid off and evidence can be swept under the rug of technicality and human error. Law is auctioned. But the court of public opinion is ruthless. And rightfully so, when it’s teeming with those who are throwing dice to help them decide if they could keep those they love, fed or sheltered.

It took months, not because I didn’t know what I was doing, but because I would force myself to wait until I was sure of an all-clear before sweeping in and out of their high rises and secured home offices. Now, patience may not be my strong suit, but needless waiting doesn’t fall under that umbrella. So, I stopped doing it. So, what if the treasurer’s fall was followed by a trail of quickly falling dominoes and made the crooks tighten their security? To keep their secrets in, sure, but more specifically to keep me out; the masked nuisance making them whine in their sleep. Half a dozen injuries would have some words to say, but the gauze is still on. So, making my way through not-so-occasional obstacles – shaped of bulging muscles charging with their guns – instead of waiting for all to return to their families for Christmas before doing what needs to be done, only results in, let’s say, minor inconveniences. And then some more.

Out of all the degenerates, it was the Chief judge with the most prepared hired guns in his pocket. A searing pain in my left leg was followed by complete blackness. That would definitely explain the hammer repeatedly pounding down on an anvil inside my head.

Being nudged to consciousness by two angry schmucks bickering like an old married couple was not what I expected. One of their hands fumbled with the straps wrapped around my head, securing the mask over my nose and mouth.

“Get it off already!”

“What else do ya think I’ve been doin here? It won’t come off!”

“Cut it off then!”

“Are ya slow?”

Despite being aware of the danger I was in; I couldn’t help but scoff at their desperate attempts. My eyes still heavy and not yet rid of black spots clouding my vision. Through a broken view and the sound of their voices, they tallied up to a grand total of two. Two was child’s play, a piece of cake; soft, spongy, with just the right amount of ass kicking waiting to be delivered. I kept my head hanging, and my eyes down; opened just enough for me to shake off that ghastly disoriented feeling, as I felt for the scalpel I kept tucked away in the side of my glove. Even though I had no intention of making any move that would draw their attention, it takes a moment for my mind to register that my hands are tied behind the back of a chair, their movement restricted. The ringing in my ears fades in and out with hammers continuing to clash louder as I focus on the task at hand. The harder I try, the bigger those blasted spots of black splatter, the louder the ringing echoes. Struggling slightly, I manage to ease the thin blade out. It stutters along my fingers until it’s clasped between my hands, blade upright, positioned to cut through the binds. A crushing stab of pain boosts on the left side of my head and I squeeze my eyes shut to block it out. The scalpel slips through my fingers and clatters to the floor causing the two squabbling voices to come to an abrupt halt.

One of them picks up the blade and places it under my chin, tilting it up.

“You awake now, pretty boy?”

Here we go.

“Hey you think I’m pretty” I drawl “Could have asked me to dinner first, you know, before bringing me back to your place”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, he backhands me across the jaw. Though it doesn’t do much damage, thanks to the slightly bloated contraption on the lower half of my face having shock absorption among other things. He plants his hands on either side of the chair I sat bound to, and leans in.

“I’m going to ask you two questions and you’re going to play nice and answer. If you try to be funny again” he twists the scalpel between his thumb and index finger “this little needle of yours is going to start carving strips out of you. Understand?” 

I let him stare me down for a moment “Wait you think I’m funny too? They just don’t make ‘em like you anymore, do they?”

His fist collides with my armored nose and the chair is tipped back. “Where are the papers you took from Linnbar’s office? And how do you get this goddamned thing off your face?”

“So eager. I know, I know, you’re eager to rest your eyes upon this beauty, so I’ll indulge you” I look up at him and wink. “Under this mask, I promise I am blushing”

Before he could respond, the one fumbling with my mask earlier closes the distance between us in big strides and snatches the scalpel out of his partner’s hand. He grabs a fistful of hair falling on my eye and gives it a sharp tug and jabs the slender steel in the skin near my temple, slices through the eyebrow, moving towards my eyelid with a threateningly slow but persistent pace. I clench my teeth and wrangle the scream rising up with the increasing pressure of the blade.

“Jeff, ease up. We need him sound”

“Pup’s got jokes” Jeff grits and looks down at me, the vein in his forehead swelling up with each passing second “Start talkin’!”

The pain in my eye was unbearable “I can’t tell you what I don’t know” I groaned.

“Ya don’t know how to rid yerself off this thing? Ya live in it?” Jeff pulls the blade back but leaves it hovering above my now bleeding brow.

“I meant the papers. The mask has a lock in the back, can only be opened with a special magnet”

“And where is that?”

“That. I. don’t. know. You and your band of merrymen jumped me before the ass crack of dawn. At this point, your guess is as good as mine, man.”

“A’ight that’s it” Jeff said, grabbing me by the collar and hauling me up and the chair along with it. Two heavy blows land one after the other just under my ribs, knocking the air out of my lungs. “Ray, string ‘im up. We don’t have all day”

The armchair is pulled back with a jerk and stopped a few feet from the wall. I keep my head tucked into my chest taking slow deep breaths, as Jeff pulls out a knife and bends down to cut the ropes securing my ankles to the legs of the chair. As soon as I feel the last coil hit the floor, I hook my left leg around his head, so that it’s propped in the crook where the back of my knee and thigh meet and bring my right knee up as hard as I could, twice, to his nose in quick succession. Pulling back slightly after a couple of solid hits, I kick him square in the face. He falls back, blood gushing out the nose. Sharp pangs rippling through my wounded leg, I jump up and whirl around to find a taser gun aimed at my chest. Ray pulls the trigger and every fiber in my body is set on fire. My muscles clench and in a scenario of fight or flight, they are forced to freeze.

My wrists are tied up high enough that the balls of my feet just barely touch the ground. The next few hours, minutes, days, who knows, could easily have been awarded a field day for anyone learning the ropes in the art of torturing for information. I did not know it was possible for one to go completely numb in some parts of their body and yet feel it with such excruciating agony elsewhere that it keeps them from passing out.

Even through the haze, I was sure of one thing; regardless of my compliance, or lack thereof, I wasn’t going to make it out of this alive. Red, angry welts glared hot on my wrists, my right eye was swollen shut, while the other was caked with dried blood. Long incisions ran down the side of my abdomen, bruises peppered and bloomed in varying shades of blue, black, and orange all over my body, and the skin on my back was slashed and broken in places. The honorable Judge Linnbar’s goons had taken turns cracking a whip against it till they wore themselves out. One plopped down in a chair, while the other leaned against a wall, drenched in sweat, a bandage covering his nose.

“Just answer the question, kid. This’ll all be over”.

A loud thump sounds somewhere above us. Or around us. I couldn’t tell the difference.

There’s crackling of a radio and Ray rushes out the door. He returns a moment later and makes a beeline for me.

“Why the hell is Shark looking for you? What does he want?" he bellows. "Answer me!”

I may have been the annoyance in the backside of this city’s worst and rotten, but Shark was the monster lingering in the shadows. He could be a hired gun for thousands of stacked bills or he could leave someone’s brain splattered all over their kitchen for an offence apparently punishable by a gruesome death in his book; such as a businessman guaranteeing Shark’s services to one of his clients when the latter hadn’t been consulted. Even the most notorious gangs steered clear of him because for them to try and be in his good books would require some proof of their existence. And no one had a shred of it.

Above us, a resounding boom goes off. If not for the frozen panic on Ray and Jeff’s faces, I would have believed my ears had finally surrendered to the blows and blood loss. The only sound in the cellar was the strangled wheeze accompanying my exhales.

Jeff pulls out the gun tucked into his waistband and slowly pulls back the hammer, raising it towards the slab of metal keeping us in. A click, a persistent beep, and the door explodes into a million pieces, sending debris flying everywhere. A few tiny fragments lodge themselves into my abdomen and I can’t help but let out a suffocated laugh when I see why they took mercy on me. Ray, standing in front me, had served as a shield as the bomb went off and several large shards had embedded themselves in his chest and leg. He lay motionless at my feet. Somewhere to the side, Jeff is pinned from his waist down under a huge block of metal, coughing and gasping for air. He frantically reaches for his gun thrown back a few feet away him. Two shots ring out and the ropes holding me up snap, letting me collapse to the ground like a rag doll.

A harsh cry rips out of my throat as blood rushes to my shoulders and wrists after being deprived of it for God knows how long. Rope burns on my wrists and the numb muscles of my shoulders protest in agony, burning as if their raw flesh had been set ablaze while being stabbed by icicles over and over again. Trying to regain control of my senses, I watch as Jeff fruitlessly tries to pull himself out from under the rubble. His hands stutter, as a tall figure towers over him; clad head to toe in black, complete with a double rider jacket. Before his gaping mouth could sound out any words, Shark deposits two bullets in Jeff's half-buried frame and he stills immediately as a patch of red blooms on his chest, a 9mm hole in tow, seeping red down his face.

I manage to push myself off the ground in to a seated position. Shark stalks towards me.

“Get up!”

I turn my head to the direction of his voice, trying to look through a mosaic of sight, I muster all strength I could in spite of my limbs’ jarring protests and stand up on quivering legs. It only carries me a few limping steps and I find myself crashing to the ground again.

“Goddamnit you’re slow” his approaching voice comes muffled and distant, like I was underwater. I feel hands pulling my arm and hoisting me up, only to be thrown over a shoulder. “And heavy”

I swing in and out of consciousness. I’m momentarily alarmed as an ear-splitting blast rumbles behind us. Regardless of my best efforts to stay aware, darkness shrouds my senses over the smell of smoke and dust and this time, I don’t bother fighting it.

“BREAKING NEWS: Documents and photographs linking Chief Judge Simon Linnbar to the biggest human trafficking operation, being run out of this very city, have just been verified. According to local law enforcement analyst, Ms. Daisy Lorenzo, the evidence has not been doctored or tampered with…”

Bright lights flashing from the television form vague, iridescent shapes behind my eyelids; weighed down by exhaustion that may never truly leave me. I coax them to open little by little, until I can peek out of one. The air feels dense, like it inhaling it in was only serving to exhaust my body even more.

“You’d breathe better with that thing off your face”

That voice that sounded muffled. The smell of smoke. It all comes crashing back and I jerk up, only for a wave of nausea to sway the carpeted floor before me and I fall back down on the unfamiliar sofa to stop myself from puking my guts out. My entire torso is wrapped in bandages and so is my right thigh above the knee.

He’s perched on the arm of the sofa, his eyes fixed on the screen casting shadows all over the room and yet only his silhouette reveals itself.

I regard him a moment “Linnbar looked at you funny or something?”. I’m surprised by the hoarse grit in my own voice.

“I don’t care what happens to him” he turns his head a little but it stays hidden “he can roam free or be lynched for all I care”

“Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why get me out of there?”

“You complaining?”

“Sure”

“I can always kill you myself”

“Maybe. Not what I asked though”

He leans forward and picks up a pen lying on the coffee table, clicking it a few times then jabs it above my knee sending a jolt of pain up my leg. I jerk up and a stifled groan escapes me.

“Not really in a position to be demanding anything, are you?” he says sounding smug.

“You didn’t do this out of the goodness of your heart” I snap “What do you want?”

“How do you know it wasn’t out of the goodness of my heart?”

“You’d have to have a heart for that”

He leans back against the sofa “That hurts my feelings”

“You burnt down a clinic. And killed a dog. And blew up that…”

“Where’s your proof?”. The cheek on him.

“There isn’t any” I say “But I was there. At the clinic. You shot at me”

“Oh yeah. Forgot about that”. A smile in his tone. He clicks his tongue “Just a means to an end. But perhaps, instead of grilling me about saving your ass, maybe you should be asking yourself why those precious cops you keep doing the work for didn’t come looking for you? Or your friends? Family?”

“We don’t all gather for a potluck every Sunday. No one signed up for this with me. If they don’t jump up every time I go silent, that’s not on them”.

“You are a serial killer’s dream”

I glare daggers at him. At least that's what I intended. “Cut the crap, Shark! Why did you do it? What is it you want?”

He says nothing for a moment, then “I’ll make you a deal”

Ugh “Fine. What?” I grumble.

“Tell me how you got evidence on Linnbar where it needed to be, while you were tied up in a cellar and you can have the answer to your annoying question”.

Linnbar was done for. No matter what Shark did next, it wouldn’t undo the damage, even if Linnbar had sent him “It was a scheduled delivery. Set it up days ago. I went back to stage a decoy. I knew it was a trap, but they had to be kept busy. Those papers are stashed behind Linnbar’s own liquor cabinet. I made digital copies of everything, and put them back. Took them a full two days to figure out something was up with the stirrings in the precinct. There.” I take deep breaths in.

“Not bad. Stupid. But not bad”

“Shark”

“Not my name” he sighs and stands up, turning his back to me “I don’t like to be indebted”

I rack my brain to make sense of his words “That answers nothing”.

“Three years ago, you helped the cops with a sting operation on the cartel. They had a gun to my head in the barn. When shit hit the fan, that gun was replaced by a cop’s. You got yourself a nice little souvenir, that was meant to go between my eyes, somewhere on your shoulder. You even managed to knock him out cold. Good enough?”

"Oh". Even years later, it was hard to shake the smell of a rotting corpse that had been in that barn for some time. The man with blood covering his face and his back against the wall had disappeared when I had turned around. "Forgot about that".

 I felt all adrenaline suddenly drain out of me, replaced by a heavy numbness. I try to ease the fire in my lungs "cops stop people from killing others all the time. They never seem to pop up on your good list".

"But you weren't a cop. You're like me; an outlaw"

I chuckle, shaking my head. "You and I are nothing alike".

He scoffs, "Every hero is a villain in someone's story, hotshot"

“Is that why you never tried to kill me?”

“No. You just weren’t in my way”

“And if I ever am?”

He turns to face me. His words carved out of stone and steel. “I will kill you”.

“Good to know”.

He turns on his heel and walks towards the door of the unfamiliar apartment “You might want to clear out soon. The gas leak shtick won’t last forever”.

Of course.

“Hey” I say as he turns the doorknob. He stops but keeps his back to me “Thank you”.

“Stay out of my way”, he replies and walks out, leaving the door open.

Pictures of the victims of trafficking swap places next to an old press release of Linnbar condemning the disappearances on the tv. And despite the pangs of shock and sting coursing through my body, I smile and pull up the right leg of my trouser, reaching for the gauze barely holding on to my calf. A gleaming dime sized magnet slips out easily and I press it in the back of the contraption that had undoubtedly saved me from a lot of damage, well, a lot more. The straps are released smoothly with a quiet click and I pull it off my face. The cool air in the room is like an ice cold drink on a hot day on my flushed skin.

"...to our own kids' birthday parties". Late night show host Arnold Bell's deep voice fills the room "To say the least, this has been a day none of us, could have seen coming".

The mere weightlessness of the statement makes me chuckle. "Well you aren't wrong about that, Arnie". I say to the lights dancing around the room, brushing against the gaping door. "What. A. Day!"