It Sometimes Snows In May: A B.E.A.N. Police Novella (2 page)

Zota approaches Elisa in a rush from behind. He slinks in behind Elisa, grabbing her by her mid-section. Elisa flinches, and slaps behind her, hitting Zota in the face.

Zota staggers back from Elisa stunned. “I meant what I said.” Elisa cleans her face with a sanitary wipe from the dispenser next to the sink. “I don’t ever want to see that woman in my house again.”

“Come on baby,” Zota says. “I just have to finish this deal. Unfortunately, I need
her
to do it.”

“You
need
her?” Elisa says. “Or your penis needs her?”

“Listen baby. When we first met, I had nothing but loans to collectors, and no clue about what direction I wanted to go in after my father died. I was used to always having someone with the whip to my ass. That someone became you,” Zota replies. Elisa sees Zota’s face soften. “Now, I feel like somebody worthy of you. Now you don’t have to invent some job title when your
plutocrat
friends ask you what your husband does for a living.”

Elisa continues to stare at Zota. “So, why her?”

“Why her?” Zota replies, and then shrugs. “I didn’t choose her.”

Elisa raises an eyebrow. “The client did.”

“Does she have to be a
dulcet
?” Elisa asks. “Does she have to be in my house?”

“I don’t like it either,” Zota says. “But, if I play this right, you can retire early like you're always talking about.”

Elisa’s relaxes her body as Zota pulls her into his embrace. Elisa feigns resistance and then Zota grins. She remains stiff-jawed as their bodies press against each other. Zota grips the back of Elisa’s head with one hand, and her right buttock with the other.

“Don’t worry,” Zota says. “After tonight, you’ll never have to see her again.”

“Oh, I know,” Elisa replies. Zota closes his eyes presses his lips against Elisa’s. Elisa’s eyes remain open.

Zota lays flat out on his back snoring. His naked torso and leg pokes out of beneath the bronze, Egyptian cotton bedsheets. Elisa is draped in a pearlescent silk nightie, lying in a fetal position next to him.

Tears well up in her eyes as Elisa pulls the nightie tighter around her breasts. Elisa takes a quick look behind her and watches Zota still asleep, before easing herself out of bed.

Elisa creeps downstairs, through the living room, and finally to the garage. Her hand hovers over a panel which automatically scans her palm. The door slides open to reveal a luxury American truck and Italian sports car.

Elisa’s gaze looms on the convertible sports car. Its gleaming red coat beckons her forward. Her gaze shifts to the back wheel.

Twin headlights of a fast moving vehicle speeds down a dark highway. The exhaust note drowns out the emptiness with a clear roar.

A rodent crosses the roadway. Its eyes glowing red when the moonlight hits them as it bares metal teeth.

The sports car races past the rodent, barely missing it. Zota changes the music selection with a swipe of his thumb across at touchpad on the right on the steering controls, while Ryles lays in the passenger seat. Zota is clean shaven now, dressed in a white suit, white tie, and black glasses. Ryles, is dressed in leather, and her hair is pulled back into a bun held together by two large pins

“What?” Zota asked.

“I asked you why you have to rub me in your wife’s face? She ain’t no friend of mine, but it makes it harder to do what we gotta do. I mean, if you can’t keep your woman in check...” Ryles says.

Zota smirks. “You want me to get rid of her?” His makes a slice across his neck with his finger tips.

“Seriously Zota,” Ryles says. “Hell has no fury as a woman pissed off.”

“What? Are you scared?” Zota asked.

“No. But you should be,” Ryles says. “She’d get half of everything you own, including your...” Ryles glances sharply at Zota’s crotch.

“Look,” Zota interrupts. “Like all women, she’s got to flex her muscles to feel she’s got some sense of control over her man. So, I let her flex. She makes a fuss, then I give her something to take her mind off it.”

“What happens when she gets tired of flexin’?” Ryles asks.

Zota look at Ryles with a confused expression. The sports car roar on. Suddenly the rear tire explodes. Zota yells. Ryles reaches for her pistol. The car shudders, buckles, and then begins to spin out of control to the right side of the road. Zota attempts to steer into the skid, but overcompensates. The car flips violently off the side of the road and down the hill, next to a sign that reads, ISPARI 5 KM.

The car continues tumbling down for about ten seconds before coming to a rest, upside down. The wheels are still spinning, and the once whining powerplant, now lay dead silent, bellowing smoke. Glass, liquids, and metal debris strewn the crash site.

A sedan pulls up short of where the sports car tumbled off the road. A shadowed woman is driving. The moonlight reveals a man in the passenger seat, with a thick build dressed in a suit.

Caben shakes his head as he studies the wreckage. “Check? Check what? They’ve had it. The car must have flipped over twenty-seven times. He makes a repeated looping gesture with his index finger.

Bux replies, “Remember what happened to the last two agents that didn’t check if the targets were actually terminated?”

Caben hisses. “Damn! Why do I have to be the one to check?” He rushes out of the sedan, slamming the passenger door behind him.

“Because I rigged the explosive, and I will have the job of making this look like an accident...once you make sure the targets are terminated.”

Caben pulls out a pistol with a silencer, and then a flashlight. Following the trail of debris, descends to the crash site.

Bux calls out of the sedan, “Call me on the comm when you’ve cleared the site.” She grins to herself.

“Okay,” Caben replies.

Chunks of aluminum and fiberglass leads Caben down the slope littered with broken branches and upturned dirt. He swats away golf-ball-sized night insects with his flashlight, and uses the barrel of his pistol to push some thorn laced branches out of his view. Caben hears the his of the powerplant get louder as he approaches, before seeing the crumpled car. “Daaaam!” Caben says. His smooth face wrinkles into worry.

“Are the targets dead?” Bux asks over her connection with Caben.

“If they’re not, I’m going to start going to church,” Caben replies. Caben creeps to the left side of the car, where he sees a bloodied head belonging to a man dangling, but still buckled into the driver’s seat. He jabs the body hard a few times with his pistol.

“One down...one to go,” Caben says. He tries to see past the driver, but his flashlight fades out. Caben shakes his head. He struggles his way to the other side of the car. It’s low enough that Caben takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and lays it on the ground, then places his knee on it, while peering through the branches partially obscuring his view.

The passenger side is empty. Caben scrambles to his feet, and spins around, looking in all directions. Down on the ground he sees shoe prints leading away from the wreck. In the distance Caben hears rustling in the woods to his left. He runs towards the woods.

“What’s going on?” Bux says. “You’re breathing heavily.”

“We’ve got a live one,” Caben replies. “I’m tracking...now.” Through the broken path Caben chases through the trees and shrubbery until he passes through a cluster of trees into a clearing. Caben spies a stumbling figure about twenty meters in front of him. Beyond he can hear the rustling of a stream.

“I’m glad I checked,” Caben whispers. He then takes a kneeling firing position, shuts an eye, and then fires three shots, his leading arm steady. After the third shot, A scream echoes back towards Caben. The body plunges into the stream.

“Status?” Bux asks.

Caben wipes the sweat off his brow, and then swats at the back of his neck, in response to the buzzing at his right ear. “It’s done.”

A hover-shuttle races towards the gate on the Ispari side of the demilitarized zone, the sun beaming off its solar cell-lined  hull. Black smoke puffs from the left of its twin drives as it burns. A frantic female pilot struggles with the hover-shuttle controls. Next to her is her dead, male co-pilot. Three passengers pull at her chair while screaming at her and each other.

“
M’aider!
M’aider
! This is hotel-sierra-one-six-six-tango, requesting emergency support! We are under attack! I repeat, we are under attack!” The pilot screams.

On the ground below a band of five bandits, garbed in a patchwork of ripped beige clothing, fire heavy rifles up at the plummeting hover-shuttle. As the hover-shuttle continues to dive, the bandits mount all-terrain vehicles and pursue it.

“M’aider! New Mass DMZ Tower! We’re losing altitude! Request clearance for emergency landing!” The pilot says.

Two bandits race over a dune in their ATVs, followed by a larger vehicle with one driver, and three passengers. Two of the passengers aim surface-to-air weapons skyward. The bottom of the hover-shuttle comes into view, about thirty meters up. Racing and gaining, the larger ATV’s passengers fire magnetic grapple lines.

Inside the hover-shuttle, the pilot flinches at the sound of two loud metallic thunks and the cabin floor shudders. “What was that? What was that?” a passengers yells.

“I don’t want to die. Today is payday. Don’t want to die on pay day,” a second passenger says.

“
Merde!
” The pilot blurts out. “Calm down sir! We’re NOT going to die!”

“But we’re still going to crash!” the first passenger responses.

“We are about to be boarded!” the pilot says. “Everyone assume protective positions!” The pilot engages the autopilot, which then reads, “ENGAGED”. The pilot then unbuckles her harness, opens a compartment behind the cockpit, and pulls out a flare gun.

A slim figure with jaggedly cut, wisps of hair limps through an underground bazaar of
daiswright
market sellers, bureau-de-changes, and
excreta
impoverished citizens.

The figure weaves down a tunneled alley of concrete with dim, green overhead lighting. At the end of the corridor are twin large men of mixed ethnicity, armed with auto-rifles, and an assortment of exotic knives of various shapes and lengths

Before reaching the end of the corridor, the figure slowly raises both her hands and stops before the men.

“They’re waiting for me. I am..” Ryles began.

“We will tell you who you are supposed to be, and if you are not, you will never find out if we were wrong,” The heavy man on Ryles left says.

His twin on Ryles’ right comes across her face with a scanner beam coming from a lens in his left palm. “You look like refuse, but lack the inferiority complex of
excretas
, and most
daiswrights
for that matter. Although, you certainly smell like one,” he says. With a flip of his hand back-and-forth, Ryles image compresses into an icon of a lighting bolt on the display on the back of his palm. Seconds later, the heavy receives a sent confirmation on the display.

“You should see the other guy?” Ryles responds.

The second heavy frisks Ryles thoroughly, and pulls out three throwing knives in plain sight. “I figured I’d save you guys the trouble. The palm of the first heavy beeps. He reads the display on the front of his palm, and then a blue light flashes in his earlobe. Ryles forces a grin when they make eye contact.

“Enter, Ryles.” The first heavy waves her forward. A thick, metal door slides open and a moving path begins to pull Ryles down a corridor of concrete, lined with scanners. At the end of the corridor, is yet another heavy, identical to the two outside. He waves her politely through another sliding door revealing an elevator.