Page 56 of Archer
Six minutes later, Crow was honking outside while I was still talking on the phone to Wrench. “What the fuck, why’s Crow so eager?” I said over the phone, peering down my window to see Crow’s large black cargo van’s headlights flashing with his horn. “Jesus, I gotta go, Crow’s gonna wake up the city. Make sure Vet comes, okay?”
“Yeah, for sure,” Wrench said in a softer voice than Crow used. “Don’t worry, we’ll get her, Arch.”
After grabbing my dear Beretta, a sleek, black lightweight pistol that had carried me through many showdowns, I rushed to Crow’s van. Before I had even hopped in, my right leg still hanging out the door, Crow was speeding out of the parking lot. When we got to the stop sign at the corner of the parking lot, Crow cut his speed in half, just slow enough so I could climb in and slam the door.
“Jesus, Crow!” I said looking at him like he gained two extra heads as I buckled my seatbelt and fastened it tightly across my chest. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your help and love the enthusiasm. But what the hell?”
He pulled his eyes from the road to look at me for a second before returning to the streetlights ahead. Once we pulled up to the yellow light, Crow actually slowing to a complete stop, he leaned across the console to my passenger seat and smacked me upside the head, glaring at me.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” He snapped at me and I had to admit, I cowered a bit in my seat, shocked at how upset he was. “That girl, she won’t fucking make it around those fucking Freeway Cockheads. Fuck.”
I looked at him in the side of my eye and I couldn’t believe how upset he was. Shaking my head at myself, I said, “I know. I fucked up. I… we got in a fight.”
“What a surprise,” he said and looked at me with a look I’d never seen on him before. It was oddly… fatherly. I wasn’t sure who it was directed toward. Part of me wondered if it was all on Rose, but he hardly knew her. With his lips pressed together and eyes fixed on the road he said, “That’s a good girl, Archer.”
The emotions those words evoked were weird. On one hand, it only fueled the anguish and fear inside me. But on a more positive side, I felt oddly honored that Crow approved of a woman I really liked.
“Why do you like her?” I asked, at first not trying to make it less blunt. “I mean, you hate most of us guys half the time, and women… well, unless they’re Evelyn, when’s the last time you talked to a girl?”
Drumming his hands on the steering wheel, he breathed through his mouth, blowing a long strand of wispy light hair up and away from nose then back down again. In the side of his eyes, I saw that he glanced at me quickly. “She, uh, reminds me of an old relative of mine, but that’s not it.”
“Then… what is it?”
“She’s good for you.” Crow took a sharp left turn down an empty, dark street and pressed the gas. “I don’t fucking care who you date or don’t, Jesus, I’m not some girl having a sleepover.” He scoffed, as if that was all he had to say, until his act became apparent when he said, “But you both want each other and she’s good for you. She doesn’t put up with your shit. Do you have any idea how important that is for someone like you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I glared at him.
“You’re like me, you don’t respect a lot of people, women especially. But when you find one who you do, you know, really… respect… It brings something really great in someone. Normally I think women are out for our money or wanna have our kids, but she doesn’t seem like them. She was funny.”
“She is funny,” I said, smiling gently as I thought of her jokes, but as my lips curved up they pulled my heartstrings, too. “It’s nice.”
Crow nodded with a blank expression, monotone as he said, “I can tell you care about her.”
“I do so much,” I said, feeling weighed down to the van’s seat. “So much more than I expected, I just…”
Crow, evidently finished with the emotional discussion, tuned me out by increasing the volume of the radio twice as loud. Giving him a side-eyed glare, I lowered the volume and changed the subject to a more important matter.
“How do you know they’re at the bakery?” I asked, looking skeptical.
“Because I spent thirty minutes doing a little research and it was obvious,” he said, pulling down the street where we were meeting the rest of the guys. The first ones there, we parked and turned off the lights to not draw attention.
Pulling off my seatbelt I turned to him and pulled out a cigarette, feeling more nauseous as I imagined Rose in a fragile state. Not having patience to decipher what Crow was saying, I asked, “Can you cut the vague shit right now? Not the time.”
As I lit my cigarette, he gave a single chuckle and nodded.
“Yeah, all right,” he said. “So, there’s been a pattern of these crimes with the Freeways, right?”
“Sure.” I nodded. “That’s what Tank was saying, at least.”
“Well, a simple internet search will tell you that all the papers managed to report one commonality between them, even if they didn’t realize they were linked,” he said and I stared at him with a clueless, though intrigued face, urging him to wrap it up. “All these random murders, they all involved store owners. And all the bodies were foundin their shops.”
The blood from my face drained and I felt the same queasiness. Was I going to walk into Ron’s bakery to find him and Rose on the ground?
“Hey.” Crow shook his head. “Don’t think about it. We’re gonna get them. Look, there’s Tank and the rest.”
Down the alley, what looked like a parade of five spotlights hovering in the darkness with the sound of a roaring thunderstorm following behind. As they neared, each of the figures’ identities appeared in the night. Tank, Ripper, Maverick, and Rooster all pulled up next to each other with Wrench following slowly behind, taking it easy due to Samantha clinging to his waist for dear life.
Crow and I hopped out of the van and Wrench’s beautiful Samantha walked over with outstretched arms. Relieved to see her, I pulled her into a hug and said, “Thanks for coming, Vet. Always good to have a doctor around.”
