CHAPTER 13
The rain was finally starting to let up and Tony was glad of it. He was getting bored with just sitting here watching this place. He hoped that it would be the bottom of the rabbit hole, even if he knew it probably was not. Tony was looking forward to finding this net troll and beating his ass. That way Tony could call Garcia, laugh at him, followed by going to the nearest relatives house and crashing for the night. Tony was seldom more than a block from some residence he was welcome in. Having a large family definitely had more than a few advantages.
He offered Leslie a soda but, she just waived him off and never looked away from her phone. Tony finally decided to glance at what she was so intently reading and he was surprised that it was not chat messages. She was actually reading the email that Betsy Fry had given them. Tony took a swig of his drink and then noted, “I thought you said it wasn't important.”
Again, Leslie never looked up as she pointed across the street, at their target building, and said, “then I saw this place.”
Tony was no less bored when he looked at the building again, for the thousandth time, “it's a Thrift Store Leslie. It's going to be another dead end, just like that postal box place.” Now he got slightly more animated, after a yawn, and asked, “how in the hell did you talk that guy into letting us in that box? You know, if I talked to somebody like that I'd be in the middle of a fist fight, pretty fast.”
Now she did look up from the phone. Leslie had this god awful look of amazement, like she couldn't believe he just said that. Finally she realized he was serious and then just told him, “they're called tits.” She gave up and went back to reading, before noting, “did you read this? I mean, really read it?”
“To be honest,” Tony whistled and then said, “I couldn't finish it. After about halfway down I had to figure it was just some perv. Like you said, at that point it wasn't really all that important.” When Leslie did not respond, and Tony realized it, his head jerked around and he asked, “ok, so what changed?” Again, Leslie looked as if it were the dumbest question she had ever heard. She thrust her finger towards the building again and, again, Tony just said, “it's a Thrift Store.”
After a grunt Leslie snorted and then asked, “Tony, look at what time it is. How many people do you know, wake up in the middle of the night, and get a sudden urge to run out and buy a second hand broken lamp? That place is open. People are going in and out of it.”
“Ok, it's suspicious,” Tony replied easy enough, “I grant you that but, isn't that a good reason to check it out? Look, you were the one who traced the router we found in the PO box to this address. No matter what this place is, it means something.”
“That's the problem Tony,” Leslie was almost yelling at him now, “I don't know what it means.”
Now it was Tony's turn to be frustrated but, he remained diplomatic as he told the girl, “look Leslie. Stop trying to prove yourself, ok?”
Now she snapped at him, “I'm not, ok? I don't have to.”
“Which is something that someone who is doing that would say,” Tony told her. She didn't come back after that so he explained, “look, you're smart. Everybody knows it. You're tough, nobody doubts that. You just need to relax. Trust me, they're going to keep you around. I don't even know why you think you need a back up job. Compared to what I went through, you've had a picnic coming on board.”
Leslie slapped her forehead and then said, “oh I see. You think because I'm new that...”
“No,” Tony interrupted but politely, “I think you actually do it all the time, long before you ever met any of us.”
Was that anger? Tony was actually kind happy to see it because, for the first time, he was pretty sure he was seeing the real Leslie Tatersall. His satisfaction only made her that much more angry, “it's not an act Tony. It's who I am, ok? You think I'm a loner, don't you?”
“Actually,” Tony shrugged, “well, yeah I do.”
“My family is not as big as yours,” Leslie said in a very short manner, “but it's big enough. I'm the baby girl with five older brothers and if I went back to Doris Island, right now, they'd fight each other over the opportunity to be the one to pimp me out on a street corner. So, yeah I guess you're right, I am a loner. I got good reason to be.”
“Sorry,” Tony said earnestly. That was followed by silence as Leslie read some more.
Out of nowhere, she commented, “and I'm not lining up a second job so I'll have back up, although, that's not always a bad idea to have that. It's just in this case...” She stopped talking and Tony had to prompt her into saying something else. Finally, Leslie admitted, “it's just that I think, if this job gets all fucked up then there isn't going to be anything left for you to have to worry about gainful employment. I just got a sneaking suspicion.”
“That's a cheery thought,” Tony replied.
“It's not all bad,” Leslie told him. She looked up from the phone, “I don't know Tony. Maybe I'm being an optimist, maybe I'm playing the odds, maybe I'm just a fool. I just want more out of life, ok? I need the other job because I need more money for a place to live.”
Tony was confused and he told her, “Leslie, you live at the Y.”
She rolled her eyes at him, “oh you're so cute when you're a dumb ass. Do you really think I want to live in a one room cell, over a swimming pool, for the rest of my life? Tony, I want a little three bedroom in the suburbs. I want a garage to put a car in so I don't have to get wet, going inside. I want a yard that isn't made of concrete parking lots.”
Tony gave a “wow,” that sounded more like disbelief. He even took it a step further and mentioned, “and a dog in the backyard and, what? A husband and kids?”
To his surprise, Leslie didn't deny it, “eventually. I just haven't gotten around to that part of the plan yet.” He was about to say something else and Leslie could guess where this was going. It was a direction that she did not care to. She quickly changed the subject by nodding back to the phone in her hand. She was also calm again, “Tony, this is way too damn detailed. This wasn't written by some jerk off with one hand on the keyboard and the other on his meat. This guy thought it out.”
Tony shivered at the thought of all that and asked, “how do you know that...”
Leslie cut him off, “because people don't think when they're wacking off. This guy was thinking.” It suddenly hit her, “in fact he's thought this out big time.”
Tony shrugged it off, “how so? I mean if he's here then we found him. If it's just another relay, they can't run forever. We'll track him down eventually.”
“I don't think so,” Leslie said. The really bad part about that was, she didn't know why.
Then Tony got out of the car. Leslie was alarmed and she followed but, only because he was not leaving her much choice in the matter. Leslie did manage to stop him at the street curb, before he walked into the parking lot of the thrift store. She almost pleaded with him, “just give me a second to think this through, ok?”
Tony gestured to their government vehicle, “you didn't exactly park in the shadows Leslie. If this place was anything else, they'd have security. Do you see anybody around?”
“That was the idea Tony,” Leslie said in her short tone. “I wanted them to come to us, ok?”
“It's a Thrift Store,” Tony said as he began stomping towards the front door. Leslie growled to herself and followed. Then they walked inside the front door and Tony stopped. Leslie almost wanted to close her eyes and wait for the inevitable trouble but, Tony gestured to their environs.
There were racks of dirty clothes. There were a few shelves of useless household junk. There were a lot of auto parts that made up half the store. There were display cases full of cheap, costume jewelry and none of that appeared to have been touched in years. This place even had a gardening section with a few tools along with a lot of torn bags of potting soil and fertilizer that had probably been rejected for sale by WMD's. Tony even spotted a few computers and used routers. That was what they were after and he was confident now.
Tony was quite proud of himself, “you see? It's a Thrift Store.”
Leslie was seeing something else. She looked at the guy at the register and he was a pretty burly looking dude. He had an unkempt beard and shaved head. In fact, everybody walking around in this place looked just like him, with the only difference being the choice of dirty T shirts and pants. What Leslie did not see was a single smock on anyone. These guys, both apparent customers and employees, did have on lots of nail aprons and none of them looked like they were doing carpentry work. The most disturbing part was, no one was moving, and every single eyeball, in sight, was looking in their direction.
Leslie heard metal scraping metal, along with a little squeaking, and noticed that someone was closing the roll away bars at the front door. Then she looked at the cashier who told her, “ we was starting to wonder if you two were going to have the balls to come in here.”
Leslie gulped and then asked, “got any broken lamps?”
It was worth a try and it might have even bought them a few extra seconds. Leslie even noticed that one guy was pointing towards housewares. He was the only one because everyone else in the store reached for hiding spots that were, unfortunately, all over the place. Since Leslie did not figure they were going to try and assault her with a broken microwave oven, she jumped behind a piled high stack of tires and found she had company. The guy now had her and a shotgun. Fortunately, he was as shocked as she was and, when Tony landed almost on top of him, he screamed, dropped his weapon, and ran for it. Then the shooting started.
Leslie wasted no time in drawing her pistol and shooting back. She noticed that Tony was not doing the same and she pointed out in an angry fashion, “you know I am a little out gunned and numbered here!” The sudden burst of automatic fire, that ripped up the sheet rock wall behind them, made the point even better.
Tony was busy doing something with a shopping cart, dirty clothes, and empty gas cans. As he did it he told Leslie, “I think we're lucky, sounds like only one machinegun.”
“They don't even need one!” Leslie snapped at him. She was not holding them back. They had home court advantage.
Leslie knew that she did not have enough ammo to hold these guys off. Even the rounds that both her and Tony had between then was probably not enough. Tony seemed to know that too. When he picked up one of the spare gas cans he shook the thing and said, “not so empty. Kind of curious, don't you think?”
At this point, Leslie figured she was going to die so, why not shoot Tony and get one last measure of revenge? Then Leslie figured that killing him was pointless. These thrift store employee's, with the aggressive sales tactics, were going to do that for her but, she could always shoot the guy with her last bullet, and make it hurt! Then Tony finished his little science project and set the shopping cart on fire. He pushed it right into the clothing section. Not only did the dirty shirts begin to burn but, all of the dust on them went up in a cloud that suddenly turned into a woosh, a flash, and finally a bang.
At least the shooting stopped. Leslie dropped back down and used the pause to change out magazines in her pistol. As she did she angrily snapped at her partner, “what the fuck?”
“Calling the family for reinforcements,” Tony told her. “There's a fire station, three blocks over.”
The shooting had not started back and the sudden increase in illumination and heat went and gave Leslie the clue she needed. She peeked up over the tires and saw a column of flames reaching the light weight, push up, ceiling tiles. What she did not see were sprinklers switching on or, hear any kind of alarm. The Bald Head brigade was also also not bothering to fight this fire. They might have been able to put it out if they had tried early on but, now, they were not only running, it was more like they were fleeing in absolute terror.
Leslie mumbled under her breath, “what do they know that we don't?” Leslie then asked Tony, “are the sprinklers and fire alarm connected?”
After Tony stuck his head up and reviewed his handy work he gulped and then said, “oh shit.” That was enough of an answer for Leslie who then slapped him in the back of the head. Tony reacted with a, “ow! What? Would you rather those guys shoot you instead?”
Leslie was quite emphatic, “um, yes!”
That was enough for Tony to ignore her. He jumped up, grabbed Leslie by the back of the shirt, and drug her to the front door. He fired his first rounds of the fight at the locking mechanism that held the bars in place. Leslie snapped at him as she looked around the store that was rapidly filling with smoke, “would you cut that out! They make those things so you can't do that!” The bald guys got out somehow. Leslie figured to pick a door and she figured, the one in the very back was a good place to start. It was also very locked as well. Again, Tony raised his pistol, aiming at the door knob. Again his bullet did nothing but leave a hole and, as Leslie noted, in the wrong spot anyway.
With a, “stop wasting ammo,” she ran off into the smoke and came back with the shotgun that had been dropped by the guy behind the tires. Before Tony could even ask, Leslie shot the hinges off the door and then gestured for Tony to have at it as she said, “be a gentleman please?” It took two kicks but, they made it into the back room. The place had a lot less smoke but, was rapidly filling. It was also not exactly what either had been expecting. It looked more like a garage and the half dozen vehicles in it were definitely being worked on. That was also not the only thing those guys were doing back here. Leslie began examining their handy work, tools, and material. She gulped, “I think I know why they hauled ass.”
Tony looked at the little plastic blocks on the work bench and was not that impressed, “It's just a little C-4. No big deal, it takes electricity to set this stuff off. The flames 'll just make it burn.” That statement caused Leslie to grab him by the face and turn his head towards the barrels that were lining the back wall. Tony not only saw but, he suddenly realized what the fumes were and said, “ok, that's a problem.”
“Not for long,” said Leslie as she went to the roll up bay door and tried to move it. She tried the control box next to it but, it was dead. She then went to the standard sized door and aimed her new shotgun at the hinges, just like before. The shotgun went click this time and she slung it away growling, “what kind of moron goes into a firefight with only three shells!”
“I got this,” said Tony as he slapped a brick of explosives on the door and then stuck a detonator pin in the exposed side. Leslie was confused as to what he was going to do next because he had nothing to set it off with. Then he raised his pistol and Leslie jumped for cover behind one of the cars. A moment later she found Tony on the floor, halfway across the room from where he was, and as she helped him to his feet he said, “ok, I didn't expect that.”
As she helped him out of the missing wall, Leslie did look on the bright side, “well you finally hit something at least!”
They did not stop until they were well across the street. Both looked back at the building that was now being completely engulfed in flames. Tony's fist thought was, “Norm is gonna kill me.”
Leslie rolled her eyes at the guy and said, “would you relax. Who's going to even tell him we were even here.”
The building exploded and a fireball arched into the night sky before coming back down on the government vehicle they had arrived in. Tony slapped his forehead and commented, “you were saying? That was our newest car!”
Leslie was grinning but, it was more of a forced and fearful kind. She heard the approaching sirens and tried to sound perky, “ok, let's get our story straight.”
Days as a Schizophrenic (Poem)
Decant
It's Hurting Again
