The Topekan Read online

  They finally made it to shallow water, waded onto the black mud, and stepped across the sun-warmed rocks. Danny shook a pocket of water from his ear then he laughed as he watched Chrissy slog her way ashore. Her beige dress clung to her. She looked at him and shouted,

  “You crazy fuck!”

  “Hey, a little appreciation, please!”

  They hiked across the floodplain and into untamed river trees. The woods smelled sweet. There they discovered scrabbled shacks in a clearing among the trees. A man in a faded lumberjack coat walked past and looked at them. A leather-faced woman with long gray hair and one tooth sat on a log and whittled a stick. An old brown man with long white hair, a sunken face, and a pointed nose shuffled across the dusty earth. He was barefoot and wrapped head to foot in a dirty pink blanket. He smiled at them, revealing a semi-toothless grin, and he offered them a pop-top can of weenies.

  The old man gestured for them to have a seat in a pair of worn-out lawn chairs beside a ring of bowling ball-sized stones. Danny asked the old man if there was a phone and he nodded and walked away. They sat in the lawn chairs and Danny stripped the wet socks from his feet and jokingly said,

  “You owe me your life. How can you ever repay me?”

  “I don’t know if you saved my life…”

  “Are you kidding? Did you see that guy with his cock in his hand? What do you think he was going to do?”

  “Not much with that newborn baby mouse.”

  “Is there somewhere safe you can go?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’m going to stay at a hotel…you could stay with me…”

  “No, that’s ok.”

  Danny fell silent and looked away, sulking. Chrissy stared at him. After a few moments she said,

  “Don’t be like that…”

  Danny was disappointed, even a little angry with her, but he knew he wasn’t exactly a catch. He looked decent but he didn’t have an attractive personality. And of course she was a prostitute. It still hurt though. The old man in the pink blanket came back and held out a cell phone.

  Within half an hour a big black pickup rolled into the clearing. Chrissy skipped over to the truck, smiled to the big man inside, climbed up next to him, and tucked her legs in. The door shut with a final clunk and the truck drove away to a better world than the one Danny inhabited. He felt despair. His shoulders hunched and his head drooped. The sun had begun to set and he realized he was exhausted. His clothes were wet and cold. Someone had lit a fire and the burning wood smelled oakey. He looked at his bare feet in the mud. Same old mud, time to get up and start walking.

  19.

  Danny tried to walk out of the camp but a band of homeless men had gathered near the dirt road that led out. They stared at him, serious and silent. As night fell they led him back into the woods. He tried to remain calm but he was afraid they were going to blame him for their plight and kill him in a ritual.

  Some of them wore tribal tattoos and animal skin clothing. Danny spoke to them but they were silent. What did they want? Their silence was frightening. These were society’s outcasts and some of them might not have had much love for the human race. Soon they came upon a dusty clearing amid the trees with a fire burning in the center. A man sat on a low bench at the edge of the darkness. He wore a loincloth, was big, and had only one eye in his pockmarked face. There was a hint of uncaring violence on that face. He looked at Danny and nodded then the men began to chant. Darkness had fallen. The bugs ate at Danny, who tried to remain composed and be on the lookout for an escape. They walked him down a dirt trail until they came upon another clearing. A crowd gathered. Four shirtless men carried a wooden cage into the clearing and set it down. They ushered Danny into the clearing and they loosed something from the cage. It burst out of the cage and it spun and jumped then it turned to Danny and gave him the evil eye. It was a big, ferocious turkey. The homeless cheered. The men drank, the women beat their breasts, and the turkey and Danny circled each other in the clearing. Then it charged. Danny lunged aside and the bird ran past him and slid in the dirt, then it came at him again. He was terrified. He fell backwards as it pecked at him then he grabbed the beak, held it shut, and shouted,

  “You wanna fuck with me, bird?”

  Danny pushed the bird to the ground and growled at it,

  “Stay down or I’ll whoop your head! I will whip your fuckin head, bird!”

  The bird didn’t get up. It lay there breathing hard. The women gasped. An old man rent his burlap tunic and the crowd fell silent. Then they took up a chant. The men escorted Danny back to the chief and explained the happenings. The chief nodded then the men escorted Danny to a wigwam of tree branches and gave him a gourd of water. Soon a relatively comely woman of long black hair was brought to him. She was timid and she entered the wigwam. Her teeth were rotting but she had a pretty face and a nice figure. Elder men gathered round the wigwam and let out grunts of approval as they watched. Danny tried to avoid smelling her breath. The next day when Danny was alone with the woman, he convinced her to bring a cell phone that he used to call Frank Shine.

  Two hours later a blue Camaro on monster truck wheels pulled into the camp clearing. Danny ran to it, hopped in, and he and Frank roared out of the campsite and down the dirt trail with dust billowing behind. A crowd of shirtless men fell in behind the Camaro and chased them down the path, hollering and shaking makeshift spears.

  The trail led to the two-lane state highway. The Camaro roared along the highway but with monster truck wheels it couldn’t go over forty-five. Danny turned to see if anyone was following. There was no one on the highway, just the open horizon and the sun going down. A beautiful twilight. The wind blew in their faces and it smelled like the country. Danny was relieved and he felt lucky to have escaped. Then Frank spoke up,

  “Look at this.”

  Danny squinted and saw a dark sedan waiting beside the road ahead.

  20.

  The passenger wore sunglasses and had a shaved head. He looked mean. The Camaro passed by and the sedan fell in behind. Danny’s gut sank and he confessed to Frank,

  “These guys are out to kill us!”

  “What?”

  “Punch it, man!”

  “What the hell did you get me into?”

  By then the car was almost on the Camaro’s back bumper. The passenger leaned out of his window and pointed a pistol. Danny shouted and he and Frank ducked. Gunshots struck the back of the Camaro. Danny felt a tinge of despair and he drew his pistol, pointed it at the sedan, and squeezed the trigger but it didn’t fire. The sedan pulled around the left side and Danny shouted,

  “Swerve and smash em!”

  “What?”

  “They’re on the left! Do it!”

  “We might tip over!”

  Frank cranked the wheel anyway and they veered left. The Camaro’s back wheels climbed onto the sedan’s hood and there was a crunching noise. The Camaro tipped right then left. Danny was terrified but they continued down the road with their rear wheels up on the sedan’s hood. Then the sedan slammed its brakes but Frank hit the brakes too. He put the Camaro in reverse and the Camaro rolled backwards over the top of the sedan, crushing it. The Camaro’s tires came whumping down behind the sedan and the Camaro bounced and rolled backwards on the highway.

  The sedan looked like a machine-crushed car at a junkyard but the front doors were open. A man lay on the street with his body flailing like it was being electrocuted. Frank stopped the Camaro and they climbed down and walked towards the sedan. Danny approached the flailing man and saw that his head was crushed flat to the running board. Danny felt numb and he mumbled,

  “You’re one dead motherfucker now.”

  21.

  The next day Danny arrived at his office and found the door open. He crept to the doorway and listened. Someone was inside shuffling papers. Danny drew the pistol then he looked in and saw a man bent over his desk and rifling through a drawer. The man stood up, looked at Danny, and grinned. Lipshitz. Danny ho
lstered the pistol and asked,

  “Find what you’re looking for?”

  “You packing?”

  “Damn straight I’m packing. What’s wrong with you?”

  “So you represent the whore whose blackmailing Blackbush!”

  “So what?”

  “So how in green hell can you represent me? I ought to have your license yanked!”

  “You aren’t yanking shit. What the hell are you looking for?”

  “They want me to take a lie detector test. Should I?”

  “I said what are you looking for!”

  Danny was pissed. Lipshitz took a breath and said,

  “They want the recording.”

  “Who wants the recording?”

  Lipshitz turned away and mumbled,

  “You know who.”

  “Tortuga.”

  Lipshitz nodded. Danny continued,

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lipshitz’s face was red. Danny spoke,

  “I do. Tell them the DA already has it and soon he’ll be ramming it up their asses.”

  “What should I do?”

  “About what?”

  “The lie detector test!”

  Danny was frustrated. Why were people so dumb? He walked to the desk, looked at Lipshitz, and replied,

  “Start by getting another attorney. I’m off your case, but I’ll tell you this. The lie detector is just a prop for an interrogation. They may as well hook you up to a cereal box. Lipshitz must have felt the wolves closing in. He said,

  “I told them the groundwater was clean. Fracking.”

  “What?”

  “Banning polluted the water out by the winery, and we knew. There was a group that raised hell but we made them look like quacks.”

  “What?”

  “A PR campaign headed by a man from Georgia. Eastern Europe. Special forces commander.”

  “What is he doing here?”

  “U.S. special forces trained the Georgians to resist the Russians. This guy was one of them. Then he turned around and trained terrorists, and now he does this for hire, among other things!”

  22.

  Danny hoped he could outsmart this band of criminals. He didn’t know if he could, but he felt strangely confident. He walked across the dirt field next to the winery south of town. The dirt was the color of sand. It was almost dust. Nothing grew except a tuft of weeds here and there, and the dust field extended as far as you could see, except for a one-story building on the horizon, the winery. But there was something else too. Danny heard a hydraulic hiss and he noticed machinery in the distance. He walked toward it and when he got close he realized it was a derrick. It was on autopilot and there was not a soul around. He turned and walked towards the winery.

  The winery had a wooden front deck with tables on it and vineyards in back. Danny went inside. It was cool and dark, nobody there. He walked to the stairway, went down, and walked among the wine casks. Then he heard a moan. He got tense and he tiptoed to the back of the cellar, where he noticed a heavy wooden door behind a palate of wine barrels. He pushed the door open and there was a dark hallway beyond. He crept down the hallway and it opened into another cellar. Danny was shocked to see a man strapped to a table in the middle of the cellar. A woman stood beside the table. She wore a tight black jumpsuit that didn’t hide her curves. Danny recognized the long brown hair and the 1960’s fashion model face. Lana. She was holding a blue plastic funnel to the man’s mouth and pouring something brown into the funnel. The room stank like shit. Danny called out,

  “Stop!”

  Lana looked at him with big blue eyes and held the funnel still. Danny continued,

  “Put that down and don’t make any sudden moves!”

  A smile spread across Lana’s face and she said,

  “Anything you say.”

  She turned to Danny and the funnel clattered to the floor. Danny walked to her and asked,

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m the law in this town-”

  She kneed him in the balls and ran out of the room. Danny felt betrayed and foolish. After a minute he stood up. He was curious about the man on the table.

  The man’s face was purple and sickly yellow, his eyes were stressed, his breath raspy. The eyes looked at Danny. There were slashes in his suit. It was the man who had danced with Lana at the mansion. Congressman Blackbush. Danny felt nothing for him. Blackbush rasped,

  “Get me up from here.”

  His breath smelled like shit and there was a brown crust around his mouth. Danny said,

  “Was she force-feeding you shit?”

  “Monkey shit!”

  “Why?”

  “Why do people always do it?”

  “Why’s this fracking going on out here?”

  Blackbush was silent. Danny untied him and he rose and sat on the table. Danny said,

  “Don’t try anything funny.”

  Then the floor began to vibrate and the walls shook. The basement rumbled and a crack appeared in the floor. Blackbush threw a wild right hook and caught Danny on the face. Danny dropped to a knee with a terrible pain in his head and Blackbush ran out of the basement. Then the ceiling above the doorway collapsed and dust billowed into the room. Danny was terrified of being sealed in the cellar. He climbed over the rubble, ran up the stairs, and out the front door. He ran away from the winery, which was going up in flames. Darkness had fallen. There was a loud roar and the winery collapsed into the earth. The landscape was dotted with two-story plumes of flame. It looked like hell.

  23.

  Danny stood at a podium and spoke to a conference room full of men and women in suits,

  “We can discus the law but the bottom line is your clients will be getting short shrift in the court of appeals. When its over and they blame you, and you find yourself wishing they’d got more than ten years-”

  The audience chuckled and Danny looked down. His phone lay on the podium. There was an incoming call. He looked up and continued,

  “Excuse me.”

  He walked out of the conference hall. Outside he answered the phone. It was Chrissy. She said,

  “I need to meet you.”

  “About what?”

  “Can’t say on the phone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just can’t. I need you to come to the monument.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  Danny had a bad feeling but he went anyway because he still wanted her. As he drove he noticed with a pang of fear that the gold Camry was following again. He took a few turns then checked the rearview and the Camry was gone.

  He parked and walked across the concrete plaza at the war monument. There were two large sphinx statues and a five-story concrete obelisk on the plaza. He walked past them then he heard something creak and he turned. It was a janitor pushing a cart. Shit. The janitor was an old man and he didn’t bother looking at Danny. He kept pushing his cart and he disappeared behind the limestone sphinx. Danny’s heart began to slow back down and he looked around. He heard a footstep behind him and he turned and saw a man near the sphinx, pointing a rifle at him. Danny felt oddly calm. It was the janitor but now he stood up straight and didn’t look old anymore. Then there was a blast and Danny noticed a woman standing beside the obelisk and holding a shotgun. She stood in a wide stance. The janitor fell. The woman aimed her shotgun at Danny, who was frightened and put his hands in the air. It was Annie. She wore a bright green dress with big, strange-looking frills on the front and her eyes were electric blue. Danny called out to her,

  “Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome!”

  A goofy grin spread across her face and she lowered the shotgun. Danny walked to the janitor, looked at him and mumbled,

  “Who sent you?”

  The janitor stirred. It was square jaw and he had a bad wound on his chest. He began to mumble in a heavy Eastern European accent.
The Georgian. Annie called out,

  “There are nine more shells in this thing.”

  She pointed the shotgun at Danny, who asked her,

  “What are you doing here?”

  Annie shrugged. Danny noticed the gold Camry parked behind her and the terrible realization dawned on him that she had been following him for a long time. She frowned, pointed at Danny’s hand, and said,

  “You’re hurt.”

  Danny looked at his hand, which was bleeding. Then he walked towards her. When he got close her eyes narrowed and she took aim at him again. Danny trembled but he smiled and held his arms wide for a hug. Her face relaxed and she lowered the shotgun. They hugged. She wore old lady perfume, and a damn sight too much of it. It almost made him gag. Also, she didn’t let go. He found her repulsive. She had gotten a tan and waxed her legs, and he felt sorry for her. She needed someone to like her, and he felt bad for letting her down. There was a tired sickness under her eyes. He pried himself away from Annie, hoping she wouldn’t snap and blow his head off. Instead she slapped the side of his head and looked at him with mad eyes. A tick played across her right cheek and her shoulders got tense. He acted calm and said,