The
Strong-Arm Man
Hillary
Lyon
“I have something
I want to show you,” Wallace
said, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. “Follow me.”
Bryson hesitated. Wallace
had a reputation for
strong-arm tactics, especially where money owed him was concerned. And Bryson
owed him big.
Wallace flicked his
cigarette away. It flashed
in an arc through the stale air in the warehouse of his used-car dealership,
hissing when it landed in a small puddle of water. Wallace looked up; must be a
leak in the roof.
“C’mon,”
Wallace ordered. He turned and walked
away without looking back at Bryson. Sheepishly, Bryson followed. In silence,
they walked the length of the warehouse, past neat rows of gleaming late model
cars, until they reached the storage room.
Wallace pushed the door
open, and waved Bryson
in. Waiting for them inside was Carrigan, the semi-pro boxer turned mechanic
turned Wallace’s right-hand man. More like his strong-arm man, Bryson
noted to himself. He began to panic.
Carrigan held a crow
bar. Something evil
dripped from the curved end. Something red, dark, and pooling on the concrete
floor. He caught Bryson’s eye and grinned. Seated in a chair beside him was a
figure covered in a sheet. Splotches of something dark and red bloomed on the
sheet, spreading as Bryson looked.
“I want you to
meet Rose,” Wallace said,
scratching a match against his thumbnail. He lit a cigarette and nodded to
Carrigan.
With a flourish, Carrigan
grabbed the back of
the sheet and yanked it off, revealing a badly beaten blonde woman tied to a metal
folding chair. She sat slumped and motionless; blood matted her hair, bruises
covered her face and bare arms. The sheet fell in a wrinkled pile on the floor.
Carrigan nudged the woman with his crowbar. Her head rolled to one side. She
didn’t speak or open her eyes.
Bryson clenched his
eyes tight, trying his
best not to gag. He failed. Carrigan snickered.
Wallace grunted. “Like
you, Rose owed me
money.”
Bryson turned and vomited
in the shadows cast
by the single lightbulb dangling overhead.
“Like you,”
Wallace continued, “Rose fell
behind in her payments.” He took a drag off his cigarette, and blew smoke in
Bryson’s face. Bryson wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swallowed
hard.
“Like you, Rose
was chock-full of sad-sack
excuses,” Wallace leaned in close to Bryson’s paling face, “instead of giving
me my money.” He ground out the cigarette on Bryson’s cheek. Bryson didn’t
flinch, but a tear leaked from the corner of his eye.
“Do you want to
join Rose?” Wallace asked,
pointing to the apparently dead woman. “Or do you want to pay me what you owe
me?”
“I’ll get
you your money,” Bryson whispered,
backing out of the room. “Every last cent.”
“Plus interest,
cabron,” Wallace
squinted. “Compounded interest.”
“Yeah, sure,”
Bryson said weakly. “Count on it.”
He turned and ran out the door. His footsteps echoed through the warehouse, and
didn’t stop until he reached his car. Wallace and Carrigan listened for the
frantic growl of Bryson’s car’s engine; they didn’t have to wait long.
“Is he gone?”
The woman softly asked.
“Yeah, Marie,”
Wallace replied with a crooked
smile, turning to look at the woman in the chair. “But he’ll be back, cash in
hand.”
“Then untie me.
My arm’s going to sleep,” she
said, looking at Carrigan. He dropped the crowbar with a loud clang, and
loosened the woman’s bindings.
Marie stood up and stretched.
She then pulled
off the blonde wig, and shook out her long brown hair. She held the wig aloft.
“Goodbye Rose,” she laughed. “You did good.”
Wallace walked over
to her. “Even with all
that awful make up, you’re still a beauty,” he said pulling Marie close to him.
He nuzzled her neck. “We make such a great team. A dream team.”
Looking over Wallace’s
shoulder, Marie met
Carrigan’s eye. She winked.
* * *
“Is he in?”
Marie looked up from
the paperwork stacked on
the desk before her. In the office doorway stood a wild-eyed, disheveled man.
It was Bryson.
“Excuse me? Is
who in?” Marie asked knowing
full well who he meant.
Bryson stared at her
for several heartbeats
before answering flatly. “Wallace.” With her brown hair in a bun, black plastic
framed glasses perched on her nose, and clean flawless skin, he didn’t
recognize Marie as Rose, Wallace’s mangled victim from the night before.
“Is he expecting
you?”
“Yeah.”
Bryson took a deep shivering breath.
“I have something for him.”
“And you are?”
Marie innocently asked, taking
pleasure in watching this mark squirm.
“Bryson …
Smith.”
Marie pressed the talk
button the ancient
intercom on her desk. “Mr. Desmond, there’s a Mr. Bryson Smith here to
see you. Says he has something for you.”
Wallace’s reply
was a fuzzy “Okay. Be right
out.”
“Why don’
you have a seat,” Marie said,
motioning to the two comfy chairs beside the water cooler. Without answering,
Bryson continued to stand. He swayed slightly. She returned her attention to
the paperwork before her.
“Say, Marie,”
Wallace said from the doorway to
his inner office. “Go get us a couple of coffees.”
On her way out the door,
she bumped into
Carrigan. He was dressed in his work clothes: oil-stained coveralls and
sneakers.
“You’re
here early,” she purred.
“Gotta see the
boss man,” he grinned, “about a
job I have to do.”
“Marie!”
Wallace shouted. “Coffee!”
She sashayed her way
to the coffee machine in
the main lobby. With a grin betraying great appreciation, Carrigan watched her
walk away.
Bryson ignored this
exchange behind him; he
was too nervous, too focused on what he intended to do. “What you did to that
poor woman,” Bryson stuttered. “You gotta be stopped!” His hand trembled as he
reached for the gun stashed in his belt behind his back.
“Nuh uh,”
Carrigan said, quickly grabbing the
gun from Bryson’s shaky hand. “I don’t think so. Hey boss,” Carrigan giggled,
waving the gun, “look what he brought you.”
“Where the hell’s
my mon—” Wallace began
through clenched teeth, but he was interrupted by a single gunshot to the
chest. Now dead weight, he fell back through the doorway and hit the dirty
linoleum floor with a heavy thud.
Bryson spun around,
gaping at Carrigan. “What
have you done?”
“What have I done?
What have you done.”
He laughed. “It’s your gun.”
“But I was just
gonna threaten—I wasn’t really
gonna—”
Quick as a wink, Carrigan’s
right hook
connected with Bryson’s jaw. Knocked out, the man crumpled to the floor.
Carrigan carefully wiped his prints from the gun before wrapping both of
Bryson’s hands around the still-warm piece.
“Why’re
you doing that?” Marie asked from
behind him. She wasn’t holding coffee, but she was holding her cell phone.
“Cause I don’t
know if he’s right or left
handed,” Bryson shrugged.
“How’d you
know he’d have a gun?”
“I didn’t,”
Carrigan said, reaching into a
deep pocket of his coveralls. He pulled out a switchblade, and clicked it open.
“I took advantage of the situation. Glad I didn’t have to use this after all.”
He closed the knife
and slipped it back into
his pocket. “You call the cops?”
“Just did,”
she said, moving in close to him.
He wrapped his arms around her. Their kiss lasted until they heard the police
sirens arriving outside.
