The Topekan Read online

  “What can I do for you?”

  “My associate and I were hoping to get jobs.”

  Carnahan’s face puckered and he squinted and said,

  “What?”

  “We’re highly talented lawyers.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No sir, we need money.”

  “Didn’t I see you at the governor’s party?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “How the hell did you get in here?”

  Then Carnahan called out,

  “Security!”

  “I’m tracking down Tortuga!”

  Carnahan got wide-eyed. A guard in a black suit appeared from behind him. The guard moved towards the boys but Carnahan said,

  “Wait.”

  Then he steepled his hands, looked at them, and said,

  I might have something for you.””

  14.

  It was night. Danny crept along in the darkness in the west bottoms. Deserted industrial buildings from the early 1900’s loomed on either side of the street, like a post-apocalyptic city. In the distance a man shouted,

  “Can You Dig it!”

  It echoed. Danny followed the sound. What he emerged into was a stadium full of people. People wearing vests with no shirts underneath, people with ratty hair, on rollers skates, carrying baseball bats, making noise. They were going bonkers at what the man on the podium was saying. It was Tortuga. Tortuga continued,

  “Now, soon we gonna take this town!”

  The crowd roared, shook their arms in the air, and their voices jabbered. Tortuga continued,

  “We gonna get what they owe us!”

  Danny was nervous but he had little to lose. Life had not rewarded him with money, status, or a family. He pulled a ski mask on and strode through the crowd. He climbed the podium stairs, tapped Tortuga on the shoulder, and when Tortuga turned around, Danny threw a punch and caught him on the chin. Tortuga fell backwards over the guardrail, somersaulted on the way down, and landed with a thud on the packed dirt below. The crowd gasped. Danny flew down the stairs and ran out the back exit. He almost slipped away in the darkness behind the stadium but they caught sight of him.

  His heart almost jumped out of his chest. He sprinted across the parking lot and ran towards a payday loan store. An armored truck was parked there and no one was in it. Danny hopped into the drivers seat, hotwired it, and roared out of the parking lot with a gang of heathens rambling after him on foot. A big old Cadillac came after, and a big beamer. They fired shots at Danny’s truck. Danny punched it and the diesel engine moaned. Soon he approached the drawbridge over the Missouri river. A boat was coming down the river and the bridge was drawing. Danny’s said, “Fuck it,” out loud, and with grim determination he floored the gas pedal. The armored truck busted through the wooden barrier that had lowered across the street. The truck roared as it climbed up the drawbridge, jumped the gap, and came slamming down on the other side. The truck hit the street at the bottom and the front axle busted off with a shower of sparks. The truck scraped to a stop. Danny was pleased that he was not hurt. In fact he felt like a badass. He hopped out and ran.

  15.

  Danny and Chrissy were at the dog track. She wore a skirt that showed her long firm legs. She was graceful in high heels, not clumsy like a beginner. Men and women saw her coming and they brazenly looked at her, and they kept watching after she passed by. Danny and Chrissy bought tickets to the first round of races, sat in the cramped plastic seats, and watched the dogs trot onto the churned dirt track. Chrissy said,

  “Ooo, look at the cute doggies!”

  “Greyhounds.”

  “I want one!”

  “Don’t obsess, you’ll scare them away.”

  “I’m not obsessing!”

  She was being playful and Danny liked that. He put an arm around her and asked,

  “You ever heard of Tortuga?”

  “Who?”

  “Tortuga.”

  “No…”

  “He’s a criminal and he’s in with Blackbush. They’re after you because of that recording.”

  “What?”

  Danny nodded and said,

  “Yeah.”

  “What have you gotten me into?”

  It was cute of her to blame him, but he suspected she wasn’t just being cute. She was ignorantly and genuinely blaming him for her problems, which she herself had caused. He replied,

  “You got your self into it. I’m here to get you out of it.”

  Chrissy looked at her lap, where she had clasped her hands. Danny continued,

  “Leave town and tell no one where you are.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  Danny was frustrated. She was a stubborn fool. He continued,

  “It’s not safe for you here anymore.”

  “Oh yeah? What would have happened if I hadn’t been there to save you at your office?”

  Chrissy took a righteous sip of her gin and tonic. The fake rabbit shot out of its box and zipped along the guardrail. The gates snapped down and the greyhounds shot out. Chrissy had made a silly bet on the first race. She would have had to pick the top three finishers in order to win. It would have been a big payout but it didn’t happen and she was disappointed. Danny found it cute that she pouted about losing such a silly bet. He lost his bet too though. He looked at the other people in the cheap seats and wondered if they were insane. They looked so serious about the business at hand. They actually thought this was a viable money making enterprise. Chrissy went to get another round of gin and tonics but she didn’t come back.

  Danny began to worry and he got up and walked the breezeway looking for her. Finally he saw her talking to a tall man wearing a charcoal pinstriped suit. The two of them were standing outside a janitor’s closet. The janitor stood in the doorway and wore a dirty grey jumpsuit and held a wood-handled mop. His battered face looked like he had just swallowed a fistful of sawdust. He looked like a fat old bullfrog who had just gobbled down a geriatric horsefly. The two men were talking and Chrissy stood between them. Danny was angry and disappointed and he kept walking. After he passed by she caught up to him and walked beside him. He was silent and allowing his temper dissipate but then he panicked because he saw Annie walking towards them. Annie had already spotted them and was staring intensely at Danny. She was wearing dirty white sweatpants and a pink hooded sweatshirt, and she didn’t smile. Danny was afraid and frustrated. He didn’t want to do the work of talking to Annie or acting polite to her when he really wanted her to just vanish. He greeted her,

  “Hello.”

  Annie took a grim look at Chrissy then she put her hands in her sweatshirt pocket, looked at Danny and forcefully said,

  “Hello sir.”

  Danny replied,

  “We’ve lost all our money-”

  “We’ve got some talking to do.”

  “We do?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Annie nodded. Danny asked,

  “How are things at the spa?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “What’s the subject?”

  “You know what.”

  “I don’t.”

  Danny grew angrier. Annie seemed like she was ready to snap. She looked at Chrissy and said,

  “He and I used to date.”

  Chrissy’s mouth dropped open and she looked scared. Annie continued,

  “…And he ghosted on me.”

  Chrissy looked at Danny and demanded,

  “Is that true?”

  Danny struggled to hold his anger in as he grumbled,

  “No. There’s more to it. But now isn’t a good time to talk about it.”

  Annie said,

  “Yes it is.”

  “I’m sorry that you feel that way. I’ve got to get to work, let’s discuss this later.”

  He took Chrissy’s hand and began to walk away. Annie called out,

  “You used me!”

  Chrissy frowned and looked back at Annie as t
hey walked away then she looked at Danny and asked,

  “What was that about?”

  “We used to date. I broke it off. She’s hung up on me and she has some issues.”

  “Like what?”

  “She just got out of the mental hospital, for one.”

  “Oh god...”

  Chrissy seemed upset over Annie’s situation, and Danny appreciated that Chrissy cared for someone beside herself. They walked for a few moments then Chrissy said,

  “I’m going to the ladies room to do some blow. Want some?”

  Danny was dumbfounded. He stopped her and said,

  “Coke?”

  She nodded and he said,

  “Don’t do that, it’s bad for you.”

  She let go of his hand and said,

  “Don’t tell me what to do! You think you’re smarter than everybody else but you’re just boring! And I’m not a good little girl, you know.”

  “God dammit I know you’re not good.”

  “You make me feel dirty by how you judge me all the time!”

  “I’m not judging you! Coke messes you up and I’m not just going to be silent as you fuck yourself!”

  She looked down at her sandals and her bright yellow toenail polish then she said,

  “Ok…”

  “Ok, thank you. You aren’t half bad sometimes, you know.”

  She nodded and said,

  “Wait for me?”

  He waited outside the ladies room and watched two sparrows diving into the garbage can by the door. Then they flew into a wooden birdhouse in the rafters. Someone had pecked out the entrance hole of the birdhouse. Minutes passed. When Chrissy finally came out her eyes were intense, her arms were stiff, and she sniffled. She took one look at Danny, who was frowning at her, and she marched away.

  16.

  It was a manila envelope from the supreme court and it was lying on Danny’s desk. That made his gut sink. When you get letters from them there’s a decent chance they’re looking to punch your ticket. He’d been dreadfully waiting for that shoe to drop since Judge Assington had suspended him. He opened the envelope and found a written opinion inside. Danny was relieved that it wasn’t a suspension letter.

  Two years earlier Danny had tried a case for a defendant named Ganz. Danny had lost the trial and filed an appeal, a long shot, like most of them. The supreme court had denied the appeal. The main thing Danny remembered about the case was that Ganz had stood up during the jury trial and said,

  “What would I like to do? Shit backwards into Kalamazoo forever!”

  Danny heard someone walk in the door and he looked up and saw Dusty Larue. The corners of Larue’s mouth were down and his eyes were red. His arms were at his sides and his palms were open like he didn’t know what to do. Danny leaned back in his chair and said,

  “Larue you’ve been a mess lately. What’s going on?”

  “I’m learning to open the chakras. You ever hear of this?”

  “Yes…”

  “You know about chakras?”

  “A little.”

  “I’ve opened the third chakra but I’m stuck at the fourth. Do you believe in this stuff?”

  “If it works for you, that’s great. Just don’t let those crackers bleach your dome.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “What I’m about, Larue, is grade A trim.”

  “Stop being a Jackass!”

  “Not possible. Look, I’ve got a meeting.”

  “I don’t want to get pulled into the vortex with these criminals! I didn’t sign on for this! What have you gotten me into?”

  “What happened?”

  “For one thing I can’t get a hold of my client. She said someone had been following her.”

  “What?! When was that?”

  “Yesterday!”

  “Damn! You know where the Panama restaurant is?”

  “That’s a bad crowd. That’s the last place Mayor Ball was ever seen!”

  17.

  Danny’s headspace got tighter and stupider. He was sweating as he drove to the Panama restaurant. He parked on the street out front and waited. He realized that he was doing something dangerous. The restaurant was in the mixed barrio on the Kansas side, Wyandotte County. White paint chipped off its old wooden façade. Kids laughed as they rolled past in the street on banana-seat bicycles. Wyandotte was a miasma of Eastern Europeans, Mexicans, blacks, whites, drug addicts, and workmen driving recklessly with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. There was an old stone church across the street from the Panama. An old man wearing a dirty Kansas City Chiefs Jacket lay on the steps of the church. He leaned his head back and shook skittles into his mouth.

  After a while Tortuga walked out of the restaurant and got into a classic suicide door sedan. Danny followed Tortuga to a run-down three-story house on 39th street, where he watched Tortuga go inside. Danny crept around the side of the house, looked into a basement window, and saw it was dark inside. He considered it one last time and decided to go all in. He pushed the window and it popped open then he shimmied in and dropped into the darkness. After his eyes adjusted to the dark he noticed there was an old furnace and a closed wooden door beside it. He walked across the basement and noticed a key and garden tools hanging on the wall next to the wooden door. Then he heard a woman whimper from the other side of the door. He tried the door and it opened a crack. Inside was a dark room with one light bulb hanging from a hairy cord. A woman in a beige dress was chained to the floor. Chrissy. She looked like a birdling calling for mommy. Her eyes were glistening and scared. Her beige dress was smudged brown at the hem and there was a skinny man with a ponytail standing before her. He growled,

  “Where’s my bourbon, fuckhead?!”

  Danny was suddenly enraged and reckless. He figured that decisive violence was in order. The skinny man’s slacks were around his ankles and he was holding his gnarled red dick in his right hand. Danny took the key from the wall and noticed a pair of hedge trimmers hanging on the next hook. He touched the hedge trimmers’ smooth wooden handle and looked at the black blades but he left them there. He drew the Smith & Wesson from the holster under his jacket. The gun was warm from being under his armpit and it felt solid in his hand as he switched the safety off. He pushed the door open. It didn’t make a sound. He crept through the doorway and snuck up behind the man, who whirled to face him.

  Danny lunged forward and whopped the skinny man twice on the side of the head with the pistol butt. The man reeled backwards and began to fall. Danny stepped forward and gave him a third whack. The man fell to the floor and lay on his side. Danny looked at Chrissy, who was gazing up at him wide-eyed. He whispered,

  “Let’s get the out of here!”

  He knelt next to her, found the padlock on her chains, and fitted the key to it. She said,

  “Danny?”

  He whispered,

  “Quiet, prairie doll! We’re sneakin out!”

  Danny turned the key in the padlock, it clicked open, and he slipped the chains off of her. Then he helped her to her feet and took her by the arm. He guided her through the doorway, boosted her out the window, climbed out after her, and they ran down the driveway. A man in a black hoodie, hood up, came running out the front door of the house. He ran into the street behind Danny and Chrissy as they jumped into the Lemans. Danny was in a panic as he started the car and drove away from the curb. He was terrified when the street dead-ended two blocks later at the rail yard. He glanced in the rearview and felt despair when he saw the suicide sedan coming down the street in reverse with two runners in front of it. He and Chrissy got out of the Lemans, climbed the rail yard fence, and rolled over the top. The hem of her dress snagged and Danny ripped it free and she dropped to her feet on the hot gravel inside the rail yard. His heart thudded in his chest as they ran across the yard, skipping over tar-covered railroad ties.

  Finally they made it to the other side of the yard, where they got down in the gravel and slid under the fence. They stood
up and ran onto a two-lane bridge over the Missouri River. The wide brown river roared below and spanned out across the horizon. The suicide sedan fishtailed into sight behind them on the bridge. It accelerated through the shimmer of hot air rising off the asphalt. Danny’s chest felt tight. He stopped, turned to the car, drew the pistol, and squeezed the trigger three times. Shots blasted out but the car kept roaring towards them. He holstered the pistol, grabbed Chrissy by the arm, pulled her onto the ledge, looked down at the water, and his gut turned. Then he told her,

  “Keep your feet pointed towards the water!”

  “What?”

  “We’re jumping!”

  “No!”

  She tried to yank her arms away but he grabbed her tight and she yelled,

  “I’m not going!”

  “Yes you are!”

  He pulled her close and said,

  “Keep you feet pointed at the water all the way down and go in straight!”

  Chrissy worked a hand free and slapped him across the face as he pulled her over the edge with him.

  18.

  He braced for the impact and watched the river race up at him. When he hit it felt like an explosion. His ears filled with roaring pressure as he plunged into the blackness. When he finally stopped plunging downwards he stretched out a toe but there was still nothing underfoot. He tasted mud in his mouth and he kicked and paddled. He began to rise through the darkness, panicking but determined as he went. He finally saw light above and his head and emerged into the sunlight. He gasped and felt relieved as a wave bobbed him up. He looked for Chrissy but she hadn’t come up and he began to worry about her. The stinky water bobbed him back down. The river was moving fast and it tasted like sulfur. Finally Chrissy’s head emerged and she coughed. Danny was relieved. Her wet hair was plastered flat onto her head. Then there was a loud pop from above. He looked up and saw silhouettes on the bridge, shooting at them. He was tense with fear and helplessness. The water carried them downstream. After a minute Danny heard a groaning roar and his gut sank. He shouted to Chrissy, “Swim to the shore!” Then he felt the first undertow and heard the roar of the water crashing out the other side of the spillway. He swam and looked back. He was worried about her but she kept up.