Sgt. Levon Lundy tossed his mail on the table with a tired sigh. He was too tired to even eat. He picked up a bottle and glass from the hutch behind him then sat down. He poured about an inch of the amber liquid into the glass then held the glass up in front of his face to watch the light reflecting through the liquid.
It had been a long day. His Lieutenant had been pushing for results on the case he and his partner had been working on. He knew she was getting pressured from above, but he was doing the best he could. And then his partner had been quiet and withdrawn all day. He had tried to find out what was on his mind, but he knew that LaFiamma wouldn’t tell him anything until he was good and ready.
He finished his drink with one swallow and set the glass on the table next to the small stack of envelopes. He leafed through them without interest. A bill. An advertisement. Another bill. The last one was a small, brown, hand-written envelope with no return address. He turned it over, there was nothing written on the back. Out of curiosity, he opened it.
He took out the piece of paper and unfolded it. It was a letter of sorts.
Somewhere
Someday
You won’t know when
You won’t know where
Your life will be destroyed
Just as you destroyed mine
Perfect. A bad ending to a bad day. He tossed the paper on the desk and got up to go to bed.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Sgt. Joe LaFiamma awoke with a start. The sun was streaming through the window. He was not ready for another day. He got up reluctantly and began to get ready for work. The letter from his aunt was sitting on the stand next to his bed. As he showered and dressed he could hear her voice saying the words that were written on the pretty blue paper.
Joey,
Please be careful. I had the dream. I don’t think it has anything to do with what happened here in Chicago. It must be something there in Houston. But you are in some sort of danger.
The dream. Ever since he was little, he could remember her talking about ‘the dream.’ She would never say what exactly the dream was. It was always just ‘the dream’ And it always meant something terrible was going to happen.
“It’s going to be another long day,” he thought as he went out the door.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Levon was already at his desk when Joe got there. Joe sat down without saying anything. Levon glanced up at him momentarily then went back to what he was doing.
“You look good,” Levon mumbled.
“Look who’s talking,” Joe snarled.
“Joe. Levon,” Lt. Joanne Beaumont called from her office.
“Sorry, guys,” she started as they came through the door. “There’s been another one.”
“That makes six,” Joe commented.
“Only this time the owner of the store was still there.”
“And……..?” Levon asked hesitantly.
“He’s in a coma,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t enough to destroy his store, they had to beat him up too.” She handed him a slip of paper. “Here’s the address.”
“We’re on it, Lieutenant,” Levon said as he and Joe left.
Joe and Levon stepped over the broken glass covering the sidewalk and went into the small store. They looked around carefully. It was just a little antique store. The odds and ends of people’s lives had been turned into worthless rubble.
“What pleasure does someone get from destruction?” Joe asked as they searched, trying to find something to give them a clue as to who had unleashed such violence on this unassuming place. It didn’t appear that anything had been left undamaged. There was no way to determine what belonged there and what may have been left by the perpetrators.
As they walked out of the building and back into the sunshine, they heard the crackle of the car radio. Levon reached through the open window to answer.
“92-14,” he said.
“Levon,” Joanne Beaumont’s voice said. “The store owner died ten minutes ago.” Levon replaced the microphone and turned to Joe.
“It’s not just vandalism and robbery anymore, LaFiamma. Now it’s murder.”
Neither one was aware of the dull black Cadillac that slowly drove by. Nor did they hear the laughter from inside.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
“This is crazy,” the Lieutenant said as she tossed the file on Levon’s desk. “No one hears anything. No one sees anything.” She sighed as she thought for a moment. “Is there any connection between the stores?”
“Not that we can find,” Joe said. “None of the owners know each other and the stores are all different.”
“They’re just small private businesses,” Levon continued. “There hasn’t been more than a couple hundred dollars in any of the registers.”
“I guess we’re back to square one,” the Lieutenant decided. “Go back to the sites. Maybe you’ll find something or someone we’ve missed. Meanwhile, I’ve released a statement to the press asking for information. Maybe there’s a passerby out there. Maybe.”
“Maybe …. Maybe ……,” Joe mumbled as she returned to her office. “Too many maybes on this one, Lundy.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” he agreed. They both got up wearily and left to go back over already well covered territory.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
The doors to the diner seemed to open by themselves before the three young men walked in. They were dressed in black. One had a knee length black leather coat on with no shirt. The ends of his hair reached past his shoulders and seemed to blend into the color of his coat. One was wearing black leather pants, a black vest, no shirt and boots. His curly black hair just brushed his shoulders. The third merely wore a plain black t-shirt and black jeans. His dark hair was short and combed back away from his face.
As the three men walked through the restaurant, the other customers purposely looked away. After they sat down in a booth away from the windows, the young waitress walked hesitantly over to them, coffee pot in hand.
“Coffee?” she asked. The one with the long coat looked up at her slowly. His dark eyes seemed to hold her for a moment.
“Sure,” he said quietly. She seemed to feel his voice more than hear it. Her hand trembled slightly as she turned over the cups in front of each one then poured the coffee. She was uncomfortably aware that the three of them were staring at her.
“Can we get breakfast?” he asked. His voice was quiet and deep.
“No problem,” she answered. “I’ll get you some menus.” As she moved away, she took a deep breath. She felt like she had just come through a storm.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
“All the shops were closed when they were hit,” Joe was reiterating to the Lieutenant.
“The donut shop had closed early because the owner wasn’t feeling well,” he continued. “The owner of the dress shop was out of town so her shop had been closed for a couple of days. The market, the gift shop, and the watch repair shop had all closed at their regular time.”
“The owner of the antique shop,” Levon added, “was still in the store because he had gotten some things at an estate sale and he was getting them ready to put on display.”
“How do we know that?” Joanne asked.
“He normally plays chess with a neighbor on Tuesdays. He called his neighbor earlier in the evening and told him he would be late.”
“Well, how about informants?”
“Joanne,” Levon said, “We’ve cornered every snitch we know. Nothing.”
“You know, Lieutenant,” Joe said slowly. “When this kind of thing happens in Chicago, it usually means some sort of intimidation.”
“Like people are scared…..” Levon thought out loud.
“Well? What are you doing just sitting here?” Joanne asked.
“You know, LaFiamma,” Levon said as they were leaving, “maybe we should wait until tonight. Could be there’ll be someone around who isn’t there during the day.”
“Could be. Lundy,” Joe agreed.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Joe and Levon came out of Chicken’s into the cool night air.
“Well, where do you wanna start?” Levon asked as they walked to his car.
“At the beginning, I guess,” Joe shrugged.
As they got into the Jimmy, a noisy, old pick-up lumbered down the street. Levon flinched when it backfired as it passed.
“Getting spooked?” Joe laughed as Levon slammed the door and turned on the engine. Levon turned and glared at him.
“S’Okay, “ Joe
explained, “this case is making me antsy, too.”
They went through the same routine at each of the sites. They drove around the immediate area first then got out and walked around. At the first two stores they found nothing new. The area was dark and quiet. Other stores on the block were closed and empty. But as they pulled up in front of the third shop, a man was walking a small dog. He slowed down and watched Joe and Levon get out of the truck. He breathed a sigh of relief as they came up to him, showing their badges.
“Sir,” Joe asked, “do you walk your dog around here every night?”
“Yes, I get home late,” he answered.
“Same time?” Levon asked.
“Well,….” he hesitated, “I used to do it later …….. but ………..well, …….. I changed.”
“Why?”
“I feel kinda silly now that I think about it, but there was this car. Big .. black … old. It drove by real slow. My dog stopped and wouldn’t move ‘till it was gone.”
“Could you see into the car?” Levon asked.
“No, I ….. I didn’t look.”
“Do you know when you saw this car?” Joe asked. The man looked down nervously then slowly looked back up.
“I think it was the day before the market was broken into.”
“You didn’t happen to see the license, did you?” Levon asked.
“License? ….. No.
But the car, it wasn’t shiny or anything. It was hard to see it in the dark.”
They stopped in front of the antique store. The yellow tape was still across the front. This was the last one. They didn’t get out right away.
“So, all we have is a black car,” Levon said. “Not much to go on.”
“It’s more than we had this morning,” Joe said. He reached for the door handle and started to open the door.
“Wait,” Levon said, “there’s someone coming.” Joe saw the man walking slowly towards them. His clothes were torn and he was unsteady on his feet. He turned and went into a narrow walkway between two of the buildings. Joe and Levon got out and followed him.
As they came up behind him, he was busy arranging something on the ground in front of him. He turned and saw Joe and Levon.
“Go away,” he cried. “Leave me alone!”
“Sir,” Levon said calmly, “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re police officers. We just want to talk to you.”
“Police? No, you can’t make me leave. This is my place. My place. My place,”
“It’s all right,” Joe assured him. “We won’t make you leave. We just need to ask you a couple questions.”
“Questions?” the man asked, relaxing a little. “I can stay here?”
“You can stay,” Levon confirmed. “Were you here the night the antique store was broken into?”
“Antique store?”
“Just down the block,” Joe told him. The man looked away and nodded slowly.
“They were from hell,” he said quietly.
“They?” Joe asked.
“They came in a big black car. Black, like the night. Three of them. They got out of the car and the store let them in.”
“What?” Levon asked.
“Door just opened. Like magic.” Joe and Levon glanced at each other.
“Did you get a look at any of their faces?” Joe asked.
“No. I only saw his eyes.” He looked at Levon for a moment.
“One of them looked right at me as they drove away,” he continued. “No soul. He had no soul.”
** ** ** ** ** ** **
The dull black car slowly came to a stop in front of the second-hand book store. The three men got out. The one with the long leather jacket held a sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun loosely at his side. The door was already open and they went inside.
“Hey,” the man said as he stood up behind the counter. “How did you do that?”
“There’s not much to break here,” the one with the black t-shirt said and started pulling books from the shelves. The one in the vest joined in.
“No!” the man cried and started to move but stopped when the third man aimed the shotgun at his face but said nothing. The man stared helplessly into the end of the shotgun while his store was ransacked.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
“Do you think the Lieutenant’s gonna wanna hear about a big black car and a guy with no soul, Lundy?” Joe asked as he got into the Jimmy.
“I don’t even want to think about it,” Levon said as he opened the door. A screech of brakes made him stop before getting in. A shiny red car slid around the corner and sped past, narrowly missing Levon where he stood. After the car disappeared around another corner, Levon climbed behind the wheel.
“Wanna go after them?” Joe asked.
“Yep,” Levon said as he started the car and pulled out. He turned at the corner the car had gone around. They could see the car. It was quite a ways down the street. Levon sped up to try to catch up. It turned left. As Levon followed it around the corner, they heard a store alarm. The other car sped away as Levon stopped in front of the store with the broken window.
They pulled their guns as they got out of the car and carefully entered the store. Books lay in piles on the floor and a couple shelves were tipped over. There didn’t appear to be anyone in the store. Levon looked over at the counter, the register was open. He saw the man lying on the floor behind the counter when he went to check the register. He immediately turned away. There was no need to check to see if the man was alive, his face was gone.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Joe and Levon were sitting in Lieutenant Beaumont’s office going over everything.
“It was the owner of the store,” she told them. “He frequently stayed late after he closed. The store was his life, according to his sister.”
“We’ll put out a description of the car and maybe ……” she paused when her phone rang.
“Beaumont,” she answered. She listened for only a moment. “Well, send her up.”
“We may have just gotten lucky,” she told Joe and Levon.
A few minutes later, Levon stood up as an uniformed officer brought a young girl to the door of Lt. Beaumont’s office.
“Lieutenant,” the officer explained, “this is Sally Foster.”
“Thank you,” she said and the officer left.
“Hello, Sally. I’m Lieutenant Beaumont. This is Sgt. Lundy and LaFiamma.”
“Would you like to sit down?” Levon asked the obviously nervous girl.
“Thank you,” she answered and sat down.
“The officer said you thought you might have some information for us.”
“Yes,” she said. “I work at Rudy’s Diner. I heard about the robberies on the news. I think I may have seen the men.”
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Levon walked into the dark house. He didn’t even turn on light as he went down the hall to his bedroom. He set his hat on the dresser, kicked off his boots and fell on the bed. He was asleep almost immediately but his sleep was haunted by dreams of black hearses and men with black eyes and a soft voice chanting “Someday, Somewhere, You won’t know where, You won’t know when, I will destroy your life……destroy your life……………destroy……….”
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Joe woke with a start. He was breathing hard. He had been dreaming. What was it? Someone chasing him. Someone in black. Someone with a shotgun.
He took a deep breath and got up.
Later he glanced at his aunt’s letter still sitting where he left it.
“I’ll remember,” he told her.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
They were quiet as they drove through the streets hoping by some chance to spot the dull black car. Joe didn’t complain about Houston. Levon stared out the window as he drove.
“92-14,” Joe said as he answered the radio.
“Joe,” the lieutenant said, “the car’s been spotted at a outdoor restaurant called “Kelly’s”
“We’re close,” Levon told Joe.
“We’re there,
Lieutenant,” Joe answered and replaced the mic. Levon looked over at Joe and
Joe nodded.
They saw the car but they couldn’t see the men inside. Even though it was a bright afternoon, the car seemed to be dark inside. Levon slowly pulled up and stopped behind the black car.
The black car suddenly lurched forward and took off, knocking down a trash can and nearly hitting a pedestrian. Levon followed.
The car was fast and showed no concern for anyone or anything. Levon pushed the Jimmy to its limits, trying to keep up. With each turn the black car edged further away. Then, finally, the black car seemed to be out of control as it slid through one last turn. Levon heard the crash as they followed the black car around the corner.
The front of the black car was imbedded in the side of a building, steam billowed out from the engine. Levon stopped behind the black car and he and Joe quickly got out with their guns drawn. They walked carefully up to the car, one on either side, and looked in. The two in the front seat were dead, but a back door was open and the third man was not inside. Joe and Levon glanced at each other then began to scan the immediate area searching for the third man.
Joe heard the click of the shotgun being closed and turned to the sound. The man with the long black coat was walking towards them, aiming the shotgun. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He fired.
Levon saw Joe as he was thrown backwards, then fell to the ground and didn’t move. Levon fired at the man who was now aiming at him then came around the back of the car towards Joe. The man hardly reacted as Levon’s bullet hit. He then fired at Levon and Levon felt the impact in his chest as he too was lifted off the ground. He rolled as he fell and turned to see the man reloading the shotgun as he came closer. Levon raised his gun carefully and looked into the black eyes. “He was right,” he thought, “No soul.” Levon aimed at those eyes as he fired one more time. The man stopped and looked back at Levon. He almost seemed to smile for a moment.
Then the man in the long leather coat dropped the shotgun and fell to his knees. He was still looking at Levon as he fell forward, face down, to the ground.
Levon crawled over to Joe.
“Joey,” he called. Joe didn’t answer. “Joe, talk to me!” he commanded as he opened Joe’s shirt. A vest! He was wearing a vest. Levon sat back in relief as Joe coughed and opened his eyes.
“Damn,” Joe said, “that hurts!”
“I know what you mean, partner,” Levon said and opened his shirt for Joe to see that he, too, was wearing a vest.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
“It’s almost as if they didn’t exist,” Joanne told Joe and Levon as they sat at their desks.
“The fingerprints turned up nothing,” she continued. “They don’t match any missing person reports. And the car they were driving is registered to a man who died in Oklahoma ten years ago.”
“What made you both decide to put on vests?” she asked.
“Seemed like the right thing to do,” Joe explained.
“Just good police work,” Levon agreed. Joanne looked first at Joe, then she turned to look at Levon.
“Yeah, right,” she said, after she thought for a moment. “Go home. I can’t deal with both of you being careful.”
“I mean it,” she insisted, when they didn’t move. “Go home.”
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Joe walked into his apartment and looked around. Just the way he left it. Nothing had changed. It seemed like something should be different. He felt like he had been carrying something heavy and it was now gone. He was tired but relieved. Maybe he would be able to sleep now. He went up the stairs and picked up the letter from the side of bed. He smiled as he read it one last time then put it in the drawer.
“Keep on dreaming, Aunt Theresa,” he whispered.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Levon closed the door behind him with a sigh. He looked around slowly at his home. His things. He smiled. He never realized before how important his home was to him. He walked into another room and over to the table where his mail still sat unopened, except for the one letter. He picked it up and started to unfold it, then laughed as he tore it up into pieces.
“Give it your best shot,” he said to the unknown someone who wrote the letter.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
** ** ** **
Email Arrow - arrow78@yahoo.com
Story (c)
copyrighted by Arrow,
November 2001,
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