Three Days To Die Part 17

Aaron took several delicious sips of water, with short breaths between. Though still in considerable pain, and in spite of his dizziness, he was thinking clearly, now, and he knew what had to be done. "I have to be," he replied.

w.i.l.l.y found a black wool overcoat draped over a chair and picked it up; it hung thick and heavy in his hands. He carried it over and showed it to Aaron.

"Look what I found," he said. "Try it on for size." He held the coat for Aaron as he slid an arm into one sleeve.

"It's warm," Aaron said, running a hand over the thick weave. The coat draped nearly to his ankles. "Thanks, w.i.l.l.y."

w.i.l.l.y rolled up the bulky sleeves for him and straightened the lapels. "I should say, old chap," he remarked. "You look rather dapper."

He shoved the bottle of morphine tablets into his pocket and picked up the lantern. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Ready," Aaron replied bravely. "But there's some stuff we need to do on the way out."

"No problem," w.i.l.l.y said. "Lead the way."

Chapter 45.

Not a Good Hideout Aaron leaned on w.i.l.l.y as they made their way to the cannery's main-floor store room. Rain drummed the metal roof high overhead, and multiple streams of water poured through gaps in the sheeting and splashed on the floor below.

Aaron winced as a stab of pain cut through the morphine. "I'm sorry I was an a.s.shole earlier," he said. "I don't know what happened to me."

w.i.l.l.y had to agree with him. "You really were being a s.h.i.+t, you know."

Aaron smiled and leaned on w.i.l.l.y a bit more.

The store room was full of loaded duffel bags. Aaron ran his hand over one of them and then sat down on it to rest.

"Check the other bags," he said. "We're looking for the one with guns in it."

"Guns?"

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

One by one, w.i.l.l.y opened the bags. The first contained white painter's jumpsuits, others miscellaneous gear.

He found a bag full of cash and held the lantern high above it, using his free hand to wipe his gla.s.ses on his s.h.i.+rt. "Check it out," he said, excited.

"Guns, w.i.l.l.y," Aaron said. "We're looking for guns."

w.i.l.l.y reluctantly closed the money bag and continued searching.

He located the armory bag, reached in, and pulled out a s.h.i.+ny, black a.s.sault rifle. "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Aaron," he said, turning the weapon over in his hands. "You'd probably blow your d.a.m.n w.i.l.l.y off with one of these."

"Yeah a or yours," Aaron said. "Here, I'll take it ... the ammo should be in the same bag."

w.i.l.l.y handed him the gun then found a loaded magazine.

"Now, pay attention," Aaron said, and w.i.l.l.y watched in amazement as his friend demonstrated proper loading technique.

"... then insert the magazine into the slot below the trigger, here," Aaron continued, "and push it up from the bottom till it clicks. Give it a good smack to make sure it stays in, then yank on it to be sure." He showed w.i.l.l.y how to set the safety, then like a hardened soldier preparing for battle, slung the loaded rifle over his good shoulder.

"Okay ... now do yours," he said.

w.i.l.l.y pulled another rifle from the sack and did as he had been instructed. Aaron showed him how to hold the gun and release the safety.

"Okay, there's one more thing we need to do," Aaron said.

w.i.l.l.y held Aaron's arm over his shoulders, and they made their way outside to the boiler house.

"I remember this place," w.i.l.l.y said, adjusting the lantern's twin mantles for maximum light. "It's creepy in here. And it smells funny."

Aaron wrinkled his nose. "You're right, it does."

"Bring the light over here," Aaron said. "I helped Tom repair one of these once."

w.i.l.l.y held the lantern high. "So, what are we doing?"

Aaron located the boiler's valve cl.u.s.ter. "We're going to blow this place to h.e.l.l."

w.i.l.l.y thought about that for a moment and decided it made sense.

Aaron reached in and turned the pressure regulator adjustment k.n.o.b all the way up. Then he disabled the pressure relief valve with a wrap of wire. The needle on the steam-pressure gauge started to rise.

"That should do it," he said. "Let's get the heck out of here."

Chapter 46.

His Woman Needles had taken the white van and gone to get burgers for himself and Beeks; he sat alone at a red light drinking a cup of coffee. His cell phone rang and he set the cup in a holder and answered the call.

"Needles," a woman's voice said, "this is Brandy."

Needles was quite surprised. "Well, h.e.l.lo, Brandy," he said politely.

"I'll get right to the point," she said. "You know about Johnny's meeting with that woman tonight, right?"

"At Sally's ... yes." He glanced at his watch. 6:02 p.m. "In just under half-an-hour."

"Well, I had lunch with him today, and he got drunk on his a.s.s, and told me a lot more about that meeting than I wanted to hear."

"I'm listening," Needles said.

"You've heard how he and I first met, right?"

"At church, right? He was your Pastor."

"Well, that's not really how it happened."

Needles smiled. He wasn't surprised. The whole affair had been shadowy from the get-go, and he'd learned to take Souther's stories with a grain of salt.

"My real name is Barbara Fischer," Brandy explained. "Two weeks after my sixteenth birthday my parents and I had this huge fight, and I had seen this ad online for a modeling job at a new agency downtown and decided to check it out a you know, to get back at them."

Needles had no idea where this was going a and the smell of the food was making him hungry.

"So, anyway, the people were really nice, and they took a gazillion pictures of me. And, well, apparently they liked what they saw, because they sent me straight upstairs to the owner's office. And you won't believe who it was?"

The light turned green, and Needles plucked a few French fries from the bag and proceeded through the intersection.

"It was Johnny Souther," she said. "That's how we met."

Needles sat up in his seat.

"I was totally star struck," she went on, "and Mr. Souther knew he'd hooked me. So he came right out and told me that Black Eagle Studios was in reality a front for his prost.i.tution ring, and that during my first shoot the photographer would be taking more than just pictures."

"You've got to be kidding me," Needles said.

"Yes ... and by then I couldn't back out, of course a I knew too much. Besides, I knew the money would be good, and I had zero desire to go back to my parent's house anyway. So he got me a place to stay and renamed me Brandy Fine, and I spent the next two days trying to psych myself up for my big debut."

Needles was speechless. Johnny Souther, a pimp? How could I not have known about this?

"... But then, at the last minute, Mr. Souther canceled everything and took me out for dinner and drinks a just the two of us a and we've been together ever since."

"So, what does this have to do with Ashley Quinn?" Needles asked. But no sooner had he said it did it dawn on him.

"Can't you see?" Brandy said. "Johnny wouldn't go to all this trouble if all he wanted to do was kill Ashley."

"He'd have done that by now," Needles said. "And he's not thinking prost.i.tution here ... he wants her all to himself."

"Right. And don't think for a moment that her son is out of the woods," Brandy said. "That exchange he promised her? It's c.r.a.p. Johnny may be a sociopath, but he's not stupid. He knows he can make a lot of money with a pretty teenage boy."

Needles's stomach was in knots. "What about the digital recording? Why not just take her?"

Brandy gave a sad laugh. "Digital ... that's cute. He used to leave ca.s.settes. Listen ... the recordings are one of Johnny's methods of courting a girl. For some weird reason he thinks they're clever a like that stupid hat. I think they're sick. I've heard him locked in his den recording them, and it makes we want to puke. He only makes tapes for the special girls a and they're the first to kick off when they reject him. I know this because I was friends with girls who got tapes right before they got iced. He wants to have her, Needles. And if she doesn't like it ... she's dead."

"But why the sudden compa.s.sion?" Needles asked, still struggling to digest it all. "Where were you when the other girls were in trouble?"

Compa.s.sion? Brandy thought. Who said anything about compa.s.sion?

"The others were never a real threat," she said proudly. "But Johnny has never l.u.s.ted for any woman the way he l.u.s.ts for Ashley Quinn a not even me. I saw her picture. I know she's gorgeous a probably smart, too. I don't need a woman like that strutting about in my territory. I'm his woman, okay? I've been his woman for ten years. And I will be his woman, until the day he f.u.c.king dies."

Needles grabbed another handful of fries and put the pedal down. He knew what he had to do.

Chapter 47.

I Can Ride Aaron and w.i.l.l.y dragged their bikes through the secret entrance to the outside, preparing for the ride across town to Sally's Diner.

Aaron stopped and took out his cell phone.

"What's up?" w.i.l.l.y asked.

"Do you remember Michael? The guy with the cool loft?"

w.i.l.l.y nodded.

"Yeah a well, he'd want to help us."

"You're right," w.i.l.l.y agreed. "He would."

Aaron gave him a puzzled look. Then he dug Michael's number out of his shoe, keyed in the number, and pressed CALL.

Michael was out roaming the city in desperate search of Aaron. His cell phone rang several times, but he couldn't answer it a his phone was back in his loft, in the pocket of his jacket where he had left it.

"He's not picking up," Aaron said sadly, pocketing his phone. They swung their loaded rifles around to their backs and climbed on the bikes.

Just then a pair of headlights swept around the far end of the cannery, temporarily blinding them. The boys froze like a pair of frightened deer, straddling their bikes, not knowing what to do.

It was Needles, alone behind the wheel of the white van. He pulled up and skidded to a stop next to them.

He recognized Aaron and lowered his window. "What the h.e.l.l are you a" He saw the rifles, and answered his own question. "Oh, you can't be serious ..."

He stepped out of the van, leaving the engine running. "Get in," he said. "We're going with you." He walked over to unlock the big roll-up door The boys looked at each other, surprised.

"Did you say 'we?'" Aaron asked.