Page 82 of Fade Out
In a matter of seconds, I couldn’t see where I was going. I turned at the point where I thought the ramp would end and began to descend in the other direction. When I did, I clipped an abutment, stumbled, and ended up on the hard concrete. That was lucky. A gunshot flew over my head.
For the briefest moment, the flash from the gun illuminated Rita holding her .38. Behind her Possum held a bound and gagged Brian. And then we were in the black again. I didn’t move. I had no idea whether she’d gotten a glimpse of me or not. When she didn’t fire again, I assumed she hadn’t.
Waving my hands in the dark, I found the abutment I’d bumped into. It was just to my right. In a quick move, I stood up and slipped behind the piece of concrete. I braced myself for another gunshot, but it didn’t come. I reached back and pulled one of the flares out of my back pocket. As quietly as I could, I took the cap off, turned it around and was ready to strike the flare. Taking a deep breath, I struck. The end of the flare lit and I immediately threw it as best I could toward the far wall. It bounced off and began rolling down the ramp.
Rita fired at it.
The flare was halfway down the ramp, returning the top to darkness. I took that opportunity to run across the ramp to the far wall. Following the wall with my hand, I crept down the ramp a good ten or twelve feet toward them.
Unfortunately, Rita and Possum were withdrawing, dragging Brian with them, retreating further into the garage. The flare stopped rolling and settled on the flat landing area between the ramps. Now there was a pool of crackling light between us. Separating us.
A thought popped into my head.Rita assumed I had a gun.That made sense. The last time we’d met face to face, I’d had one. She didn’t realize the police had taken it away from me. That’s why she wasn’t advancing, wasn’t using her flashlight to find me and shoot me. I had to keep moving quickly so she didn’t figure that out.
The wall next to me was solid, but the wall across from me, the one between the ramps, that wall opened up half way down the ramp and became concrete posts and open rebar. I ran across to the inside wall, then took a few steps down to the spot where it began to open.
“Rita,” I called out. “Let my friend go. I’m here. That’s all you needed him for. He’ll just slow you down.”
As soon as I’d said the last, I realized I might have made a mistake. There was nowhere for her to go but down. She was trapped. Right? No, there had to be an elevator to take people up to the building—although that probably hadn’t been installed yet. Stairs. There had to be emergency stairs. But where? I hadn’t seen anything—not that I’d seen much. There must be an entrance on each level, though. There could be one right behind where Rita and Possum were. I had to assume they knew their way around better than I did.
“Fuck you,” Rita said in the darkness. “You ruined everything.”
“You’re just making things worse for yourself.” That was such a cop thing to say, I could barely believe I’d said it. “Look, if you let Brian go I’ll let you leave. You can get away. Leave Chicago, set up somewhere else.”
She answered me with a gunshot. The flash gave me an idea of where they were. They were at the bottom of the ramp next to me. I reached back and got the other flare from my pocket, took the cap off and struck it. Once I had it lit, I threw it through the opening onto the ramp below. It rolled down toward them.
There was another shot. Followed by hurried footsteps as they went down further into the garage. Running down the ramp, I snatched up the first flare and ran down so I could throw it through the rebar onto the ramp below where they would now be.
Another shot. How many was that? Four? Her gun only held five bullets. She could have more with her. She could have a lot more with her. But she’d have to take time to reload and that would be my opportunity.
I listened as they ran further down in the garage. There was a flare just below me on the platform and one on the platform below me that I couldn’t see. Rita and Possum and Brian were somewhere below the flares. I wondered how deep the garage was. How long before we ran out of garage completely.
I walked down to the landing below me and picked up the flare. I was about to go down the ramp and drop the flare onto what I assumed was their present location, when I realized something was wrong. There should have been a flare at the bottom of this ramp—but there wasn’t.
Slipping down to the opening on the inside wall, the only light I could see was the flare in my hand. The other flare was out. That was wrong though. Flares lasted longer than that, much longer. They must have stomped it out.
I had to do something. I couldn’t stand there with a flare in my hand and wait while Rita reloaded her gun. I had to act now while I had a chance. I rushed down the ramp, threw the flare onto the ramp opposite, and kept running.
When I turned to continue downward, I saw that they were at the bottom. Possum was stomping on the second flare, while Rita raised the gun and fired at me. Lucky me, she missed. That was five. Had she already reloaded? No. No, she hadn’t. She was taking a purse off her shoulder and crouching down onto the ground to look through—
Then light was gone. Possum had extinguished the flare. I reached into the breast pocket of the tuxedo and pulled out the boning knife. Then I ran down the ramp toward Possum’s last position. Either I miscalculated or he moved, because I ran right into him with a thud. With my free hand, I reached up and felt his face. Before I did anything, I had to make sure I hadn’t accidentally run into Brian. He was tall and there was no gag. It was Possum.
He got his hands around my throat and began to squeeze. Without even a single thought I stuck the knife into his belly. Then I pushed it deeper. He groaned deeply. In a wet, rasping voice he said, “Rita. Rita kill him.”
Stepping back, I pulled the knife out, feeling his blood cover my hand and spill down the front of me. I couldn’t think about that, though. I pushed the fact of it out of my head. I could hear Rita rooting around in her purse looking for bullets. I had to stop her before she could reload her gun.
With my free hand, I swung into the dark where I thought she might be. I clipped her face. I don’t know whether I pushed her off balance or whether it was simply the surprise of being hit in the face, but I heard her fall with a loud, “Oomph.”
I took a guess and kicked into the darkness. Nothing. I tried again, this time connecting with Rita’s purse. The contents of which were now scattered across the ramp. Rita let out a frustrated growl and then something hard and metal crashed into my face. She’d hit me with her snub-nosed revolver, possibly breaking my nose. Instinctively, I brought up the knife and swiped it at her. I missed, but not by much. She grabbed my hand, pulled it toward her, and bit down on it. Hard.
I dropped the knife and yelled, “Fuck!” I slammed the heel of my free hand into her face. She grunted but then jumped on me. For a moment it seemed like she was everywhere, biting me, pulling on my hair, trying to stick her fingers into my eyes. With one hand I tried to peel her off me. With the other, bloodied hand, I reached into my jacket pocket and grabbed the paperweight.
Into my ear she whispered, “Die, die, die.”
With her clinging to me, I couldn’t hit her hard enough with the paperweight to do any real damage—and only real damage would slow her down. I shook her off and then swung as hard as I could. I connected with her head and heard her go down, hard. I kicked where I thought she might be and connected with something. Her hip, maybe. She didn’t make a sound. I didn’t have time to worry whether she was unconscious or just dead.
“Brian. Where are you?”
He made a muffled noise behind his gag. I followed the sound. I bumped into him, nearly knocking him over. I reached up and felt a shoulder, following that to his neck, then around to the back of his head. The gag was packing tape wrapped around what felt like a sock in his mouth. I pulled at the tape. It was hard to break, but I did loosen it. I was able to pull the sock out of his mouth.
