No Way Out (3 page)

Two women and a man were sitting at a corner table near the television. They had more on their plates than ribs. The man was facing us, the women giving us their backs; the other eight tables were empty. They gave off a vibe of bad news getting worse. I couldn’t help picking up on it, blaming too many years spent finding trouble before it started.

Their postures were stiff, their voices rising and falling, the buzz from the television muffling what they were saying. One thing was clear: They weren’t having a party.

The man’s totem head was square. His eyes were heavy-lidded, the left one lazy. His neck was short and squat, his shoulders rolled with fat. I put him at forty, maybe less. He drummed meaty fingers on the Formica tabletop, his lazy eye drifting my way, catching me watching them, his glare telling me to butt out.

The woman sitting on the end of the table pointed her finger at him. He grabbed her hand, squeezing until the woman sitting next to the wall pulled them apart, the man gritting his teeth, folding his beefy arms over his chest, the first woman slumping, elbows on the table, her face in her hands.

The woman who’d separated them came out of her chair like a charmed snake, the man flattening his hands on the table, staring up at her, his mouth a dumb scar. Purse on her shoulder, she turned and sauntered past our table, crossing the black-and-white checkerboard linoleum floor, chewing her lower lip and glancing at me before disappearing down the narrow hall between the open kitchen and windows blanketed with wrought-iron bars, heading, I guessed, for the bathroom. She was young, early twenties, slender with a ropy muscular build, sporting a lip ring and auburn hair streaked with bright red and cut close to a face midway between pretty and incredible.

“I think she likes you, Jack,” Lucy teased.

“My lucky day.”

“What do you make of them?”

“From the looks of things, I’d say they aren’t having a good day, especially those two,” I said, aiming a rib at the man and woman still at the table.

The man leaned toward the woman, whispering, hunching his shoulders, his arms wide, making a plea, the woman crossing her arms, shaking her head. The man pressed, chopping the air with an open palm. He wasn’t asking; he was telling, his my-way-or-the-highway message plain enough. The woman pulled back, turning away from him and toward us, her eyes widening, her mouth locked in a tight grimace.

“Why’d they have to pick LC’s to have a fight?” Lucy asked. “The guy with the lazy eye makes me nervous. Angry, unhappy people do crazy stuff, and I’ve got a bad feeling about them. Why did you have to leave your gun at home?” she asked.

“You know why. I couldn’t take my gun into the Municipal Farm, and I don’t like leaving it in the car. Besides, you see the sign on LC’s door, the one with the gun inside a red circle and a line drawn through it?”

“You think they look like the kind of people who care about a sign on the door?”

Voices rose from the corner table, drowning out the static from the TV. The woman turned toward the man, reached across the table, and slapped him.

“I won’t have it, Frank. I’d rather lose everything!”

She knocked her chair over as she got up, the man she called Frank matching her move, grabbing her wrist. She gave him the back of her other hand this time, her ring cutting a bloody groove across his cheek.

He let her go, wiped his cheek on his sleeve, and reached inside his coat, pulling a gun. The woman skittered backward, her hands raised. Frank fired once and she crumpled to the floor, faceup and dead, laugh lines and crow’s feet soft and slack, her gray eyes open, locked and puzzled.

Lucy and I froze in our seats. There was nowhere to hide. Frank gazed down at the woman and then pointed his gun at us, his hand wobbling, waiting for something to happen.

“Goddamn it, Frank! What in the hell is wrong with you?”

It was the woman who’d left the table before the shooting started, her voice behind us. I stole a look over my shoulder. She was standing next to LC behind the four-foot-high counter, a drywall pillar obscuring her head and shoulders.

“It wasn’t my fault, Roni,” Frank said, his voice quivering. “She started yelling at me—then she slapped me. Slapped me twice and cut me too.”

“You could have walked away or slapped her back. Why’d you have to shoot Marie? And where in the world did you get a gun?”

He shook his massive head, blinking at the body lying at his feet as if it had fallen out of the sky. “I didn’t mean to. It just happened, that’s all.”

“Is she dead?”

He nudged Marie with his shoe. “I expect so. I shot her pretty good right in the chest.”

“Well, that’s just great, Frank. Really, it is. Just great.”

The big man heaved and rolled his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Roni. I guess we better get out of here.”

“And go where? Look around the room, Frank. There are three other witnesses besides me. How far do you think you’ll get?”

“A lot farther than if we stick around. Now let’s get out of here!”

She stepped away from the pillar into the open, raising a gun at him in a two-fisted grip, her voice strong and steady. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

“Aw, hell, Roni. You’re not gonna shoot me. You never shot anybody in your life.”

“Every girl dreams about her first time, Frank. I just never figured it would be you.”

Frank leveled his gun at her, no wobble in his grip, his lazy eye closed in a squint. Lucy and I were trapped in their cross fire.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” he said. “But I’ll do it if I have to. And them, too,” he added, tilting his head at us. “And the colored guy.”

“That’s a lot of killing to have on your conscience, Frank.”

He swelled up, stuck his chest out, stretching his gun hand toward her. “I can carry the freight.”

“Now, Frank,” she said. “I’m a much better shot than you. I work at it, and I’ve never seen you at the range, not one time. With that lazy eye of yours, you’re just as likely to shoot yourself as anyone else. Only reason you hit Marie was she was standing on top of you.”

“Don’t push me, Roni,” he said, his voice low and hard. “That’s what Marie did, and you see what it bought her.”

“She couldn’t protect herself. I can. Do you have the nerve to pull the trigger a second time when you know I’ll shoot back?”

Frank was sweating, his neck red, his face purpling, the gun now bobbing in his hand as he fought to breathe. “I come this far! Don’t think I won’t do it!”

“All right then,” she said, bending her knees slightly, lining him up in her sight. “You better not miss because I got you dead to rights.”

They stood like that for a few seconds, Lucy and I flipping back and forth between them until Frank relaxed, lowered his gun, and turned sideways and Lucy and I started breathing again. Roni straightened, easing her stance, when Frank jerked his gun hand up and fired, missing her. She ducked and pulled the trigger, hitting him in the thigh. He dropped his gun, clutched his leg, and twisted to the floor.

“You shot me!”

She ran over to him and picked up his gun, sticking both weapons in her belt.

“The moon is pink,” she said.

“I can’t believe you fucking shot me!”

“The moon is pink,” she said, pressing her hands over his wound.

“The moon is pink! What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you weren’t listening to a word I said, you dumb son of a bitch. I told you I would shoot you. I might as well have been telling you the moon was pink for all the good it did.”

“I heard you. I just didn’t believe you.”

“Same difference,” she said.

She looked at me, her brows raised, her mouth open, asking for help without saying it.

“I’ll call 911,” I said.

She nodded. “Appreciate it if you would.”

Lucy knelt next to Marie, checked for a pulse, and shook her head at me. She traded places with Roni alongside Frank, pressing her hands against his wound, stemming the blood flow to a trickle. Frank turned pale and laid his head on the floor.

Roni stood, wiped her bloody hands on her denims, and walked to my table as I closed my phone and stood.

“Help is on the way,” I said. “I’m Jack Davis. Who are you?”

“Veronica Chase. Everyone calls me Roni.” She reached for a cameo hanging from a gold necklace, rubbing the charm between two fingers, and looked at Marie and Frank, then at the blood on her hands and jeans, her face turning green. “Oh Lord, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

And she was.

Roni was too weak to protest when I pulled the guns from her belt and helped her to another table. LC swabbed the floor where she had thrown up, handing me a damp dishrag to wipe the blood off her hands. He gave her a Seven Up to calm her stomach and gave me a carryout bag for the guns. His was a Bersa Thunder 380, and hers was a Beretta 8000 9-millimeter, both guns ideal for concealed carry and personal protection.

Her eyes were glassy, her movement slow, shock dulling her senses, staving off the whirlwind of emotions that sweep through people in the aftermath of violence. The coolness with which she’d confronted Frank was a good sign that she would be able to handle the replays that would haunt her sleep in an endless loop. Her color improved from green to pale as she watched Lucy tend to Frank. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow.

“Is he going to die?” she asked.

“Eventually,” Lucy said, “but not today.”

Roni nodded, saying “Bless the day,” and took a sip from her Seven Up, the fog lifting as she focused on me.

The internal pressure that erupts into my shakes and spasms burst loose, fibrillating my torso as my neck arched and stiffened, aiming my chin at the ceiling. I grunted like I’d been kicked in the gut, letting out a long breath when the spasm passed.

“What’s the matter with you?” Roni asked.

“I’ve got a movement disorder.”

She nodded, lips pursed, swirling her drink. “Ever wonder why you?”

“Why not me?”

She wiped her mouth and nodded. “I don’t know you well enough to say. You do that all the time?”

“Just enough to keep life interesting, especially when I get caught in the middle of a shoot-out. Who are they?” I asked, pointing at the floor.

“Frank and Marie Crenshaw.”

“Frank and Marie always get along that well?”

“Actually, they were real good together until the last year or so.”

“What happened?”

“The same thing that’s happened to a lot of people since the economy went south. Seems like everyone has either lost their job or their business or they go to sleep every night scared to death of getting out of bed in the morning because it might be their turn. I don’t think Frank has slept in a month.”

“What’s your relationship to them?”

She took a sip of her Seven Up, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes for a moment, opening them when she answered.

“We have a history.”

“What kind of history? Are you related to them?”

She sat up, studying me, her eyes narrow and cautious. “They’ve got a scrap business off of Independence Avenue in Sheffield. I keep their books.”

“So, you work for them.”

“Not like that. I’ve got my own business. Chase Bookkeeping. They’re one of my clients.”

“You don’t look the bookkeeper type.”

She smiled. “It’s really my mom’s business, but she had a stroke last year. I’d just gotten my accounting degree at Park University so I kind of took over. First thing I learned: when you’re the boss, no one can tell you what you’re supposed to look like.”

She fished in her purse for a business card and handed it to me.

“You also don’t look like the type who carries a gun and knows how to use it.”

“That was my Grandma Lilly’s rule. She said the women in our family had to know how to take care of ourselves.”

“Why?” I asked.

She gave me another smile, this one with her mouth closed. “You might say we’ve got a history too.”

“Grandma Lilly ever shoot anyone?”

“Not in a long time, but she says it’s never too late. She’s sixty-five and still goes to the shooting range.”

“I can’t wait to meet her. Where’s she live?”

“With me and my mother in Pendleton Heights.”

“Where’s that?”

She squinted, giving me a microscopic look as if I was from a foreign country. “It’s a neighborhood in the northeast part of town. West of Sheffield.”

I’d lived in Kansas City long enough to know the east side from the west, the Country Club Plaza from the mega malls and strip centers in Johnson County, and where the state line divided Missouri and Kansas. I knew that Northeast KC was bounded by The Paseo on the west, Interstate 435 on the east, Gladstone Boulevard to the north, and Truman Road to the south; that Independence Avenue ran east and west from downtown to the Interstate, bisecting Northeast into northern and southern hemispheres.

Though I didn’t know the names of its neighborhoods, I knew that Northeast had a history of mansions on Gladstone Boulevard, hookers on Independence Avenue, and gangs south of the Avenue. And I knew one other thing. It was where Peggy and Jimmy Martin and their two kids lived, a coincidence that shrunk my Sunday afternoon world to claustrophobic dimensions.

“It’s Sunday. What are you doing working?” I asked her.

“We had some things to go over. It was the only time we could meet.”

“What kind of things?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “What are you? A cop?”

“Retired. FBI.”

“If you’re retired, why are you asking me all these questions?”

“Old habits die hard. Frank killed Marie, and you shot Frank. Anybody would want to know why.”

“Like I said, I keep Frank’s books. His scrap business is underwater, too deep to keep the doors open. He’s known for a while, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Marie. He asked me to do it. Frank said she loves LC’s Bar-B-Q. He thought it would go down better if we did it here.”

She finished her Seven Up and turned in her chair to take another look at Frank. His color had gone from sheet white to gray, his breathing from shallow to feathery.

“You sure he’s not going to die?” she asked Lucy.

Lucy didn’t answer, craning her head, searching out the windows for an ambulance.

“The police will be here in a minute,” I said. “They’ll read you your rights. Bottom line, you don’t have to say a word until you’ve talked to a lawyer.”

“You saw what happened. Frank was going to kill the rest of us. He took a shot at me so I shot him back. It’s all pretty simple.”

I shook my head. “The police will ask you a lot of questions about who you are and what you were doing here, where you’ve been and where you were going. They’ll run all three of you through the computer to check for prior convictions and outstanding arrest warrants. They’ll want to see the permit for your gun if you have one, and they’ll want to know where you got it if you don’t. They’ll search your purse and Marie’s and Frank’s wallet and the car you were driving. They’ll want to know everything the three of you talked about since you got up this morning. And down the road, Frank’s lawyer will tell him that keeping him off death row may depend on how many people he can offer up in return for his life. So, trust me. Simple is the last thing this is going to be.”

A shiver ran through her, remnants of adrenaline or newborn fear. I couldn’t tell which it was, but the cloud that came over her eyes as she took another look at Frank said it was more likely fear. She hugged herself, her face rounding back into a normal hue.

“If you used to be an FBI agent, how come you’re trying to help me?”

I could have told her, but this wasn’t the time or place for my history. She smiled, the expression lighting her face and brightening her eyes, making her young again.

“I know why,” she said. “It’s because I saved your life. You and your wife.”

“She’s not my wife.”

She glanced at my left hand. “No ring. Girlfriend?”

“Friend.”

Three patrol cars skidded to a stop in the parking lot, a pair of ambulances trailing them, the restaurant filling with people in uniforms, ending our conversation. A paramedic took Lucy’s place with Frank. I handed one of the cops the bag with the guns and gave them a quick and dirty rundown, telling them who everyone was. They put each of us at separate tables, two of them keeping an eye on us while the other two secured the perimeter of the parking lot with yellow crime-scene tape.

Quincy Carter arrived in time to hold the door for the paramedics wheeling in gurneys for Frank and Marie. Carter was a homicide detective, tall and broad-shouldered; his black head shaved and glistening from the rain. He was a solid cop who knew the book well enough not to go by it all the time. One thing he didn’t like was people meddling in his cases, especially people that didn’t go by any book at all. People like Lucy and me.