Pass the hollow points, please
They found the bar and grill twinkling in a mostly vacant shopping center, floating between the matte black plain of a poorly lit parking lot with slices of car shine stuck in it here and there, and the vast purple-orange twilight darkening above, broken in places by sodium bulbs the color of melting evening.
Lindsey met them in the parking lot, brand new Hayabusa and fresh clothes, flawless makeup. She looked like she was already celebrating a job well done and her smile was still burning off the adrenaline from the fight with the MG. As they found their seats at a window booth, Gradie wondered aloud what there was left for them to do.
“Wait for Boss and miss lady to finish the job,” Luke said. “Then cyber girl will send one of her little bots in, and boom.”
“Hopefully,” Lindsey added.
EP reminded them in the earbuds to watch their opsec, so Gradie kept quiet after he ordered, and watched the Saturday crowd stream through the door, remembering the screaming people fleeing the firefight after the PKM had opened up. They wore it on their faces. It could never happen to them. Two shootings in twenty-four hours, but surely the third would be far away.
The table disappeared beneath all the food. Platters of ribs, brisket, cole-slaw, Potato Salad, fries, sauces and pickles, surrounding Lindsey’s chicken fried steak plate like a siege. The brightly colored drinks stood like Christmas trees in a flood. When it was all done, Gradie could have laughed out loud at the idea of eating in the Otherworld.
A guy at the bar cranked the news on the tv, like a scene out of a cheesy eighties movie, and there was the SUV, riddled with bullet marks and all of its doors open. It felt like seeing an old friend on Cops.
“It was all over in about ten minutes, police said today, about the absolute carnage that erupted near downtown this afternoon.” The newscaster cadence barely crackled out of the speakers, but Gradie read the closed captions in the stereotypical bouncing rhythm. Footage of the intersection rolled across the screen, then it cut to the truck on top of the hill, dripping blood and shell casings.
“That’s fuckin nuts!” Luke said, and someone at the bar looked around. Sam snickered into her margarita.
“Gunmen armed with automatic machine guns, military grade assault rifles—” Luke cringed over his drink. “— and bulletproof vehicles, exchanged deadly fire that turned this street near downtown, into a war zone.”
The camera stopped on a handful of graphite colored shell casings laying on the ground near one of the cars.
“They shot us with fucking steel case ammo?” Philip said in their ears, the segment echoing behind him.
“Disrespectful,” Luke said softly and shook his head.
“Over fifteen gunmen are dead at the scene. Three officers were killed, and one is in critical condition. Shockingly, police have made no arrests but are still looking for at least two people believed to have some connection to the shooting.” Coopers mug shot came up on the screen.
“It all started when the man at the center of yesterday’s deadly shootout was released on bail. Cooper Davidson was arrested on burglary charges Friday at his work, when a gunfight erupted that left twelve people dead, including four police officers, and many others wounded.”
Gradie got still as the faces of the dead came up on the screen. The drink was heavy in his hand. Which ones were Hardworlders? Which ones would never wake up anywhere? Even if they were Spirits, wasn’t it death for someone? That Self was gone forever. They just went to sleep one night and never woke up, and here he was drinking a gin and tonic. Celeste’s face joined Cooper’s on the screen, clearly taken from some Instagram vanity shot. It stood out of tone with the rest of it.
“Police say they are not charging Cooper or the woman, who posted his bail and was with him at the time of the second shootout, with any crimes as a result of the shootings, but they do ask that they turn themselves over to the police for questioning, and their safety, as well as the safety of the community.”
The newscaster rambled about cartel violence, the president, and something about an update at ten, and the possibility of a curfew and checkpoints, before they broke for a commercial. It didn’t seem like there would be any other story featured, and Gradie hoped the cheesy local dealership ad would last forever.
He looked back at the table until the question broke out on its own.
“Do yall think this place is real?”
Luke made a kind of wincing sound that felt like “maybe”, Sam smiled at him like she was waiting for a punchline. Lindsey looked at the tv behind him and got an expression of understanding.
“You don’t need to feel guilty about them. The ones who dropped into them would be more at fault than anyone.” Her words didn’t do much for him, but her tone and the way her eyes let something out that they seemed weary of holding, made him feel he wasn’t alone in his thoughts. That was enough.
“Not that it matters,” she continued, after a long pull on her drink. “Despite what boss thinks, this place probably doesn’t exist after we leave,” she said, stirring her drink.
“What?”
“That’s what all the old-time guys think. Our consciousness being here is what generates it. Without us, it doesn’t exist.” She waved her black tipped fingers at the room.
“Well, I hope yall didn’t eat too much,” Michael said in their ears.
“I’m getting a bad feeling—” Luke started.
“Coins at a distribution center. He snuck it in a returns pallet.”
“So, I guess Zoey’s got her work cut out,” Luke said hopefully.
“This has to be hands-on.”
“I fucking knew it,” Lindsey said, and picked up her water cup for the first time since they sat down.
“Coulda told me,” Luke said at her forehead.
“By the way, Joey,” EP said. “They got your prints off the SUV.”
Lindsey spilled ice water into her lap.
“You didn’t drop in clean?” she hissed.
“Oops.”
“Fucking space cadet!” Philip laughed in their ears. Gradie couldn’t help but wonder if he would have been laughing if it had been Gradie’s name on the BOL.
“Probably have your face all over the nine-o clock news,” EP said, not sounding nearly as amused as Philip.
“I guess I wasn’t pretty enough for the six-o’clock,” Luke sighed.
The waitress came over and he tried to hide his face by looking straight down at his phone. She had been giving them knowing looks all night. After one refill, Luke had pointed out that she probably thought they were on a double date, and Lindsey had done absolutely nothing besides precisely forking green beans and make a clinking sound in the little bowl that seemed the perfect pitch to mock Luke. Sam had laughed loudly in a way that made Gradie want to quote Shakespeare, but he had decided to put brisket in his mouth instead of his foot.
Now, the waitress looked around the table, asking about how the bill would be split, giving out smiles (or in Luke’s case, frowns at the top of his head) and trying to gauge how the two new relationships she seemed to feel she had a hand in fostering were progressing. It looked a lot like someone trying to gather facial features for a future composite sketch, but Lindsey and Sam didn’t seem to mind. They smiled at her, maybe hoping their faces would overwrite Luke’s in her memory.
When she was gone, Luke stood up.
“I’m going to take a shit. I hate shooting on a full tank.”
“Shut up!” Lindsey hissed. Sam giggled, bouncing, and tipped her glass towards her face. The salt flashed under her eyes like diamonds. Gradie looked at the sweating ice in his glass regretfully. Was it the gins fault she looked even cuter than usual?
“Time to switch to water, babe,” Lindsey said like an older sister. Sam turned her head slightly and raised one eyebrow, still drinking. It proved to be too much multitasking and she spilled margarita down the front of her jacket.
“Shit!” She pulled the damp part of her shirt away from her chest, and Lindsey saw Gradie staring.
“Hand her a napkin,” she snapped. He did, and Sam took it from him with a stare like she had caught him trying to rob her.
He just smiled at her, then leaned back and got on his phone. EP had sent some info on the DC. He tried to roll his mind over it, like pushing a dog’s face into the carpet, and make it believe that the layouts and notes were more deserving of brainpower then generating a “what if?” where Sam spilled a whole pitcher of margaritas on herself. When Luke got back, the Sam in his head was wringing her sweater out and winking at him, while the one across from him sipped ice water like medicine.
