Retirement Ain't so Great

A mad dash pack-n-scram put a damper on her plans, but efficiency was duly appreciated. The day he had was gold medal worthy at the mundane Olympics. Todd, at check-out, poorly handled a customer complaint claiming his curly blondish hair weaved itself through their bananas. During the oil change, a mechanic attempted an up sale so egregious the lube tech broke ranks to confess on his behalf of his uneducated new management as they wished Lars well sending on his way. To bring this fantasy-level sunshiny day to a victory lap, he visited his P.O. Box to greet a dramatic finality taking over a counter three-fourths the elderly lady’s size. All this, and Sandra was feverishly packing a bag he didn’t know if he had seen prior. And then, from the way its smell wafted to flare Lars’ nostrils, it wasn’t a factory color but a ColorPlace special. That’s not to say the extra pockets crudely stitched amid a firefight aren’t decently symmetrical. He recounted his conversation with the landlord and how keen he was to make a laid-off family of three homeless; Lars caught a glimpse of his favorite shirt folded neatly amongst the madness of stuffed laundry. Then she opened the canned food cabinet, moved everything either to the left or right and opened it again.

“Where are we going with the savings, Babe? Surprise Vacation to a—that’s not the pistol I remember getting you, Mrs. I hate firearms on the nightstands?”

“I’ve got that and yours, Hun.”

“Don’t forget the second coat of glossing right over the point I keep hinting at.”

“For now. If you drive, I’ll have time to explain.”

“I’ll get the glasses,” Lars started, “We sit down and shoot the anxiety shit on the cur—”

She drank them both. Stiffest Bourbon she’d had in years, but it only took a full minute to recover. That’s why she added it to the bag. “You’re already a bad enough driver. What you’re wearing is fine. I’ve already packed a jacket; passports in their pockets,” she said.

He caught up, grabbing her by the arm to close the door. “Darlin’, I’m trying here; you got to work with me. You’re sweating, you’re practically clattering—”

“You said you trust me, didn’t you? Then act like it,” she said, pulling the door open. Lars palmed it shut and placed the chain lock, if nothing else.

“Seems like I shouldn’t, especially with your taste in tattoos. Something we should share if the T-word isn’t just an empty leash. I know it shares the black dragon centerpiece like yours and is rocked by a slick-haired chain smoker standing outside the lobby keeping watch.”

“How—”

“They were hassling Mrs. Harriet about you. I got that you have a past; hell, it’s fun to pretend I’m dating a former spy or in witness protection. If this is bound to happen, I can’t be in the dark.”

“Here’s a start; I paid for this place with dirty money I found in the trunk of a car I stole. Can we—”

“From who, and don’t be vague,” He said.

“Jackie Hung of the Triads. Is that good enough?”

Reluctantly, Lars answered, “We should take the fire escape. I parked two blocks that way anyway.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Did you hear nothing about my day?”

She revealed her preparation. Brought on by a lack of permit #36 for parking around the downtown rustic eleven-story place they’d been the last three years. Although everyone who moves in gets one, and he raised hell when two passes were said to have never been on the table. They crossed the street just as the civilian-cladded raid party skedaddled in the front, two in the rear, and twelve more in a van pulling up. Sandra was terrified; Lars rolled up his tinted windows.

Lars tried to insist she drives, forgiving her two mulligan stops. Still, to her defense, she had put more time and effort in the emergency ditch in the night than plotting where to seek holy harbor. The bag was thrown in the trunk, and she sat as an impatient passenger in the back seat with her head low. His curiosity pounded on the back of his forehead, but he managed to make it to the I-95 southbound on-ramp before he became compelled to turn down the music. Climbing over the seat made the sounds she wished she had a track to cover. She turned to face the window where his habitual lead foot turned motorists into blurs. Fame by David Bowie played just below the luxury sedan’s engine’s rumble, losing out completely during overtaking exercises. “Whenever you can, I’m listening,” Lars said.

Whether she was paying attention or too focused, struggling with the fish bowls in her eyes to notice, her reflection displayed the lump in her throat. It’s just as easy to say the leaky window of the soft-top SAAB planted in her eyes while she was scouting for helicopters.

“Everything was supposed to be different, and when I met you, I swear it was. I got the opportunity from Whiskey Mai to do work for his some controlling his rowdy merchendi--girls. They knew me, so it was a simple job to get away. I couldn’t stand the way they recruited, but I needed to be legal, or at least invisible to all the right people—”

“The traffickers.”

“Plus, getting them addicted burned into product supplies. They needed someone like me who knew other ways of breaking their spirit in the name of cost efficiency. So, I trained on the ship for weeks avoiding the authority radar. I would arrive bolstering my claims to the upper districts and even punched out his head of security.—”

“Nice. Some big Samoan fucker, probably.”

“I know, huge,” and accepted the fist bump. “I get back one night, and he’s flustered. I mean, he’s saying he’ll lose everything, and I’m ready to practically put in for my retirement. Someone stole proof he was amassing an army, and millions getting lost. No names. It was thought two nobodies were getting lucky, but someone’s saying the masked Valley Girl runners.”

“Fun?”

“These paths from Mexico to Canada ran like a river back and forth, and the Californian section these two ruled. Not to control, but every dealer involving large packs knows someone that had to be have been killed by Lady Deathwish and the Wombat—”

“You’re fucking with me, the Wombat? And what the hell is she and the stunt bicyclist extraordinaire?”

“Jackie was losing his mind over him while the Puerto Ricans were set to expand into some new real estate. He was selling on their turf for years, and suddenly every other drop hand-off is snatched and then sold to the rival side by some strung-out amateurs. That was if they weren’t keeping it in the country or sharing it with other independents at the time. Sometimes, I heard from his best fixer they were hired by us. She’d just stroll to the door, and somehow no matter the security, her partner let her in; never brought down the hood or masks.”

“Just showed up? Like at his house?”

“Once. Pretty much. Then Jeminez says he’s caught them. The money hemorrhaging was over, but somehow before Jackie could get his people and me to the Warehouse, he was dead; most of the inside was in flames. The workers grabbed my attention, naked, trying to get enough light to undo the daisy chaining holds the disgruntled indentured servants were done with. I was supposed to save what I could from inside. The bottom floor hadn’t caught on, and that’s when I saw the stash in the security breakroom of tempered glass with all that mountain duffle bags. A few shots rang out, then a blast I still can’t remember knocked me out.” Her pause was spent wiping tears away until the sniffling stopped.

“You don’t have to be gruesome if you can’t—”

“We’re being followed,” she interrupted.

“Her hand landed on his, placed on the shifter. This is where she quickly reminded him that he had mirrors to prevent neck-craning injuries and not look so obvious. After the brief description of the vehicle, Lars began eyeing exits, searching for an isolated-looking rest area. All he did was plan to pull over, and she was livid. He had to pop her hands like a spoiled child going for a sixth cookie for grabbing the wheel. While his logic was sound and her Glock loaded, not giving away her panics as they parked was difficult.

These motorists weren’t on the road for the long of it since their day had been rife with it. Unkempt treelines formed canopies that would be beneficial in the sweltering morning, and a few tired drivers understood the well for the night of skimping on the hotel bill. Lars parked right in front of the walkway leading to the restrooms. He went in first, looking through his vending options, while Sandra followed, hitting up the female restroom armed. It’s her problem; she kept explaining to Lars why taking them on herself was the right thing to do and explained it a few more times as she picked the second to last stall. To see, or more accurately, hear the woman to her right stay on her face time call through defecation, wiping, and a splash a dash at the sink for minimum sanitary excellence put Sandra off her focus for a brief moment. They seemed almost proud, straining in front of an audience. Then she heard a thump, but it couldn’t have come from the lady’s room until the two-hundred-pound door was kicked open, shattering the porcelain backstop. Pulling her feet up was more difficult than anticipated in her wet flats. And through the sliver, the figure checking out themselves in the center of the five sink mirrors easily kept an eye on all five stalls. The hood, baggy pants, and surgical mask left Sandra frozen, waiting for fate’s coin flip to land. Results on the whether this murder would be warranted from her life’s situation alone ended with the tension not worth the sweat. *CRASH*

The door swung open again with a southern man apologizing for his harsh and abrupt intrusion. This is seemed to assault the figure’s sensibilities enough to demand compensation for their turmoil. The commotion outside said they charged at the man. Within seconds of it continuing, Sandra’s patience went down with her fake flush, done instinctively. By now, Lars should’ve given the signal. This didn’t stop her from rechecking under and over the stall walls if not to be careful. On the way into the main hall of tourist maps and out-of-order water fountains with her Glock barely out of sight, based on her stance, she examined the collateral damage with the reason of it still thumping in the male restroom. *Bang*

“Babe! You alright?” Lars rushed out of the door, beaten and out of breath. His eye was already beginning to swell and darken. Leaning against the Granola machine, he clutched his ribs.

“They both came for you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t decide and ended up meeting both of them in the lobby?”

“Weren’t there three? And why does this one look dead.” She was referring to the face-down body confusing the automatic doors with their upper body. The one whose keys he was stealing from their front jacket pocket.

“If you’re going to attack a man dying of hunger as I am, you should probably not give them a free excuse to smash food lockers. We got to go.”

Helping him to the goon’s Subaru, he popped the hood and removed the battery to throw in their trunk, if not a dumpster, and keys in the opposite. Neither connector was tightly connected, and it was so new he wanted it as a backup for accessories. Too nice a ride not to give someone a chance at a freebie. Some poor slob may get a payday; you never know. Instead, it was chucked in the woods with the keys. Despite his ribs, Lars took the wheel. Southbound all the way, she thought as they doubled the fifty-five mile per hour limit before the next exit sign.

“Do you know when you want to stop, you know, settle back down?” he asked.

“Why are you calm?” she asked. “Guns, I was in a gang—a criminal syndicate; you’re giving me nothing.”

“We’re running for our lives. I hope I don’t need another piss break. It feels like I should have double-checked. Maybe I’ve finally hit fear level shitless. Either way, you need me awake. I trust you.”

“Still. I did think about leaving you. Sparing you with a note and warning. It would’ve been safer; you have to admit it.”

“Could you promise that you’d be okay? In your letter, I mean.” Lars said.

“I—”

“Exactly. If I can help you, why shouldn’t I? I’m a bit peeved you weren’t going to give me the option.”

“Did you see the vending machines?” she asked, hiding a smile.

“Fine. But I’m holding up pretty well,” he said with a twitchy pained smile revealing a busted tooth. That’s on top of the busted lip that he needed to prevent from Picaso painting metallic blood and saliva on the rear driver window.

“You might not get luck out on your next three-on-one. What a knack to find.”

A country-fied drive into North Carolina came with the sunrise. It wouldn’t—couldn’t be so difficult to travel off the map for a rural oasis for the night. Disappearing from the main roads to let their trail cool before shooting in a different direction entirely didn’t seem like a bad plan. The trouble was trying to hit a rural county without first hitting a densely populated set of small cities with one or two-speed cameras, captivating a whole town. On the outskirts of south Greensboro, a gas stop caught them face down, ass up with mustached authorities. Going peacefully into the ‘sticks’ was their best option. Not before Lars whispered something to the store clerk. It could’ve been about the outdated Crowd Vic with a stick full of bubbles.

Taken to the middle of nowhere, which there is plenty of, they found themselves staring at a wondrously plentiful view from the top of the dam. If it wasn’t for Jackie Mai wanting an intimate word, the Badin Lake Reservoir would be much more than a vast dump sight. They were restrained together, back-to-back. Jakie might have killed a few workers to make access more accessible on short notice, but hey, like the good old days. It should’ve been Sandra’s apology. A smattering of how uninvolved Lars should’ve remained, she supposed.

“This is just as much his fault as yours,” Jackie said, finding glee in the wait for the scheduled flooding. “By the way—what did we use to call her? That’s right. The Bride of Frankenstein’s Dirty Cousin and the Immortal. That freaky goth shit cringes me to this day. She didn’t give you up—to the grave with. It was her grave she had to dig, but what can you do.”

“Who’s that, Lars?” Sandra asked.

“Wow, this is—I’m literally giddy. Sam, look at my hand, shaking.”

“Fine, I’ll squirm a little bit. The Puerto Ricans called us Lady Deathwish and the Wombat.”

“Lars—you—you”

“Yep, he’s pissed over the piece of the twelve point seven million he was responsible for that year. Freed the witnesses into fed custody, burned to dust what would’ve been your new headquarters and all the product you thought you’d make up those losses with. Did you even know she had one of the duffle bags? The three-point two million?”

“Hell no. But like always, right place, right time, huh, Jackie?”

“You knew the whole time, you shit—”

“She loaded down the Stang, but I saved a few more. The recently emancipated folk. When we couldn’t hold any more, I gave one to some teen who should’ve been there in the first place, and the last in a 2007 silver Nissan Sentry I thought was abandoned and we could come back for later after the feds finished. I was absolutely appalled when it drove off as soon as I shut the trunk. I didn’t put it together until you pulled out the bag two nights ago, looking for your blue heels.”

“That’s why you were trying to keep me calm,” Sandra said. “Then you stumble back into my life, you bastard. And suddenly you got lost where—”

“I gave that abusive bitch every fucking dime to get out of her orbit. She’s a sociopathic sadist, and I was her test dummy for over a year; I don’t like bringing her up. She turned me into a goddamn zombie for kicks. I hated her spiked leash. I even left her with those Krugerrands except for enough to leave and never need her again. And—and you moved to where most of my friends are and where I’m from, so did I stumble into your life and sweep you off your feet after you stole my heart? Cynically, yes.”

“Wait, you said matching Tattoos—”

“It was the best I could come up with.”

“Shut up, shut up, go back,” Jackie began, “you’re saying there were more than three bags of cash left—there were Krugerrands?”

“Oh, I thought you killed the Snu-Snu Exorcist. You finally got your woman, made her dig her own grave. Babe, why were we worried about this guy? The word of the day is played,” Lars said.

“They were triple what my darling here threw in the trunk; why the hell you still bothering us? Have you really fallen that far? Whiskey must not know you’re here.”

“You two are crazy. I like it with you two, I don’t know why. But what’s done is done, and the water had won when the flood had begun. Hold steady, the enlightened—” Jackie continued to talk and limp through his grievances as Lars secretly unlocked his cuffs and slid his bobby pin to Sandra’s hand.

“Could you ever trust me again, now that, you know; you know?” Lars asked.

“I want to,” Sandra responded. She hoped her surprised expression slip didn’t get noticed by his cronies collecting scenic views for their background.

“Well, if you or they end up sending me over the side, you’ll at least owe me a break-up kiss.”

“I’m not completely heartless.”