He looked concerned. “I just came from dere. It was completely empty.”
“Well, I need you to go back. You heard her story. Someone could be out there.”
“I did see him, Jack!” Olivia yelled from across the Commons.
“Poor word choice, Olivia. My bad,” I said, wondering how in the hell she had heard what I said.
A crowd of people began gathering around Aadesh and me, trying to find out what the newest source of turmoil was. “Anyway, just go back over there and check. I’d hate for you to have to explain how things were stolen.”
“Yes, I don’t want to be telling him dat. But I am not wery crazy about going out dere with a crazy man being on the lamb.”
I thought for a minute about him saying the man was on the lamb. Aadesh has a habit of mangling the English language. In this case he might’ve been right. “Take the rifle, then. Just don’t shoot anybody.”
The offer to let him use the rifle seemed to have taken him by surprise. “You want me do dake de weapon? I have only fired it once, and id wasn’t wery successful.”
“Yes. Just be careful with it.”
“Doors are locked,” Jim said, as he nudged his way through the people who had encircled us.
“Well, Aadesh and I are going outside. Lock them behind us. Don’t let anyone inside.”
Jim chuckled. “You really are letting Aadesh take the rifle?”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t know how to shoot it.”
“I know.”
“I can go out with him or wake up some of the other guys?”
“Nah.” I looked towards Olivia, who was neck deep in her retelling to some poor shmuck who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I think things will be okay.”
“If you say so. I’ll have someone watch the other door for Aadesh. I’ll wait for you at the main entrance.”
“Thanks.”
Jim locked the door behind me. I didn’t bother turning my lamp on. It was twilight and the snow was starting to let up. It sounds weird, but I felt safer with the light out. I pulled my hood over my head and walked quickly over to the lean-to, which seemed like a good starting point. That, and a quick sip of tequila sounded good.
The only thing of interest in the lean-to was the mostly empty bottle of Sam’s tequila. “Drink ’at Tequiler, shit, and you won’t even need no heat,” Sam told us earlier that night. I was feeling a nice chill about then. I thought I would take ol’ boy’s advice. A couple swigs later the bottle was finished. Sam knew his shit. I was feeling warmer.
I let the alcohol run its course. After all that we had been through over the last several hours, I needed it. That’s when it hit me like a brick, and I’m not talking about the alcohol, either. I had failed to link what had happened earlier with Tom and me with what Olivia had seen. I needed to have been taking things much more seriously than I was, but that was a long-standing problem with me. As I often did, I vowed to do better. I tipped the empty bottle one more time, savoring the last couple drops, before leaving the building.
I was getting ready to latch the lean-to door closed when someone slammed into me, nearly knocking me to the ground in the process. “What are you blind, bro,” I said, startled, but mostly jokingly.
His face was awash with wide-eyed surprise. “Hey, who are you?” I asked.
The first thing I noticed, besides his wide eyes and a menacing brow, was the rifle he had slung on his shoulder. “What are you doing here? Are you the police?” I asked.
He didn’t reply. Instead, he began unslinging his rifle, and considering how he looked at me, I knew I was in trouble. As he brought the rifle up to what I assumed was a firing position, I slung my lantern around as fast as I could and I struck him hard in the face. I then jumped on the bastard. He dropped his gun – looked like a machine gun to me, but I was from a part of California where it was uncool to have a gun, much less know anything about them.
I grabbed the gun and was on my feet in one quick motion. I aimed the barrel between his eyes. “Who the hell are you? If you’re the police, this is on you, man.” Shots rang out somewhere near the Commons, followed by what sounded like hundreds of feet slamming into the snow. “Dude, if you don’t fucking talk right now, I’m going to do something bad to you. I mean it,” I said, taking another quick look at the Commons.
Feeling completely vulnerable, I told him, “Get up and get in the building, now.” He lay back and sneered at me. I put the point of the rifle barrel into his left cheek and pushed hard. “Look at me, asshole,” I told him. There was chaos at the Commons by that time, and I needed to be over there, but I couldn’t leave this guy. “Last time, get inside now!”
His eyes were locked with mine, the look of hate was slathered all over his face.
“Dude, if you don’t move in about two seconds we’re going to have a problem.”
I noticed his hand slowly moving towards his pocket, retrieving a black box. He grasped it with both hands and began to turn a knob. POP! He screamed in agony as he dropped whatever was in his hand and clutched his mangled face. I pulled the trigger. I mean I meant to, I guess. I didn’t have a choice, I thought. But…
“Oh, my God… oh, my God,” I said. “You didn’t talk to me… You didn’t listen to me, dude! It’s your fault… I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to blow your fucking face off,” I said, panicking. “Dammit, you asshole!”
The man tried to say something, but I couldn’t understand him. “Now you try to talk, damn you!” I heard shouts in a language I didn’t understand. It sounded like Japanese. I then saw people walking slowly towards where they thought the shot came from. The Commons was fully enveloped in chaos.
I had my own problems, though. The people walking towards me had to have noticed me by that point. I tore myself away from what was happening at the Commons, and in the process of gathering my senses, I also gathered up the man’s belongings, plus my own. I ran quickly through the door I had just used to exit the building moments earlier.
I paced for a moment. “What the hell am I going to do?” I asked myself. “I just shot that dude. Damnit!” My self-contemplation of previous events would have to wait. There were footsteps and light conversation close enough for me to hear.
The only thing I could think of was to hide. I had the gun, but if it hadn’t fired when I… Well, I would’ve been completely screwed. I wasn’t going to rely on it for the second time. A split second later I was feeling the cold side wall of the lean-to, between the exit and the bathroom. My probing hands felt for the small raised part of the corrugated aluminum. “There you are,” I said quietly. I moved the piece of aluminum just enough so that there was a gap large enough for me to squeeze through. I then slid the aluminum door back into to place.
When we heard Titouan was taking over at the Patch, we knew he’d put a stop to us smoking weed. So like any good group of potheads, we improvised. There was a light fixture on the side wall, and Sam had requisitioned from Avery a super-powerful fan that vented the smoke so no one close to the lean-to could smell it. It worked perfectly. I hoped it would function half as well as a hiding spot for me.
At least two people were outside the lean-to, talking to the man I’d shot. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but it was clear the woman questioning him wasn’t happy. The man’s whimpering turned quickly to crying. It didn’t matter I didn’t know what was being said. The language of begging was universal. His cries became muffled. Smothered, I thought. Within moments, there was only silence.
They moved slowly and methodically into the lean-to. I could barely hear them over the wind, but I felt the vibrations from the side wall as they passed through the entrance. At some point, they no longer tried to mask themselves.