Zero Day Code, page 12
part #1 of End of Days Series
Her angry Valkyrie act was ruined by having to turn around and stomp back to the car to retrieve her camera bag. If she left it behind, there was no way it would still be there when she got back. She was already sweating as she retrieved the bag, slung it over her shoulder and locked the car again. She thought about calling an Uber. Her last twenty bucks was sitting in her PayPal account, which made it pretty much useless for anything out here in the real world, except maybe for catching a ride the last couple of blocks to Fourth Edition.
“You run out of gas?”
It was the same guy. In the stress of the moment Jody had almost forgotten him, but he hadn’t forgotten her. She jumped at the closeness of his voice. He had moved to within a few feet of her, and she could see that although he was smaller than Chad, he was still lean and ropey with muscle. His arms filled out the sleeves of a faded, moth-eaten Metallica tee-shirt. He looked younger than her, but only by a couple of years. Early 20s, maybe. His face was pockmarked with acne scars, but his skin was otherwise clear. He was staring at her intently. Half grinning.
“Yes,” she said moving past him. “I ran out of gas. Excuse me, please.”
He reached out and took her arm.
“I can help, baby. I got some gas at my place. Just around the corner if you want to come,” he said. He leaned into the word ‘come’.
“No thank you,” Jody replied as pleasantly as she could, but her face was a rubber mask of sick and sudden dread. She had been here before.
Metallica’s grip on her arm tightened painfully.
“Nearest gas is miles away,” he grinned, wider. The expression was carnivorous.
She tried to shake her arm out of his grasp.
“I need to go,” she said as firmly as she could. Her voice was shaky and that made her feel even more frightened.
“Nah, you should come with me,” he said. His voice didn’t change. He didn’t snarl or hiss or do anything to threaten her, but the threat was real. Jody felt her heart race away and her head began to spin. Her vision started to grey out on the edges, and she stumbled on legs that felt unexpectedly numb and strange.
“No,” she shouted and pulled away as hard as she could.
Her camera bag swung around and hit the man in the arm, slipping off her shoulder and falling to the asphalt between them. Even though it was a good bag and heavily padded, she freaked. All of her equipment was in there. She couldn’t afford to repair any breakages. Jody lunged forward to grab her stuff back, but the man laughed and hip-checked her so hard she fell into the side of the little Honda. She struck the car with a hollow metallic thump. Stars filled her head and her legs buckled underneath her. Jody watched, dumbstruck and paralysed, as he grabbed up her camera gear and ran. He was halfway out of the parking lot before she recovered her wits enough to yell to nobody in particular.
“Help! Help me please.”
High overhead, fourteen lanes of traffic roared by on the MacArthur Freeway. Down at ground level, Jody felt stupid, and feeble and…
Humiliated.
A hot flush of shame reddened her face as she realised she’d just been robbed and she had done nothing, exactly fucking nothing to defend herself. She couldn’t even see the guy anymore. He was already in the wind.
“Miss? You okay, Miss?”
Another voice. Male. But older, kinder. She still flinched away from it, feeling tears welling up and hysteria not far behind them.
“I could chase him for you, but my heart, it ain’t what it was. I got his picture but. Filmed the whole thing on my phone.”
A shadow fell across Jody’s face as the man shuffled in front of the sun. She raised a hand to shade her eyes, realised that was a bit dumb since he was already blocking out the sun, and wiped away her tears instead. He made no further move toward her.
“Mister Burés, he’s the pharmacist, he called the police,” he said. “You should probably get up, if you can. You’re sitting in an oil patch.”
He was right. Jody was wearing her favourite pair of vintage white denim jeans and she had planted her ass deep in the middle of an oil slick.
“Oh God,” she said quietly. Her voice trembled and cracked.
The tears came for real then. Not for her ruined jeans, although that was super fuckin’ upsetting, but for everything that had gone bad; not just today, but it seemed like every fucking day since she’d moved out here with Chad. The parking lot blurred and her goodly Samaritan dissolved into a watercolour wash as she gave up, shaking with deep body tremors and succumbing to a full-blown seizure of racking sobs and moans that arrived on a freight train of wild grief. The intensity of her emotional wipe-out was a little frightening. She didn’t realise at first that the kindly, older man had squatted down beside her to gingerly pat her shoulder and say, “There, there,” over and over again. She didn’t really notice him until he’d been doing it for a minute or more and had been joined in his vigil by another man in a white smock, decorated with a small WALGREENS logo. Mister Burés, she presumed. Or would have, if she was capable of rational thought.
“The police will be here soon,” the newly arrived man said. “That guy, I know him, he’s trouble.”
No shit, Walgreen? Jody thought bitterly, but she was at least able to put the thought together and then she registered the presence of her… what, rescuer? That wasn’t exactly accurate was it? After all she was sitting in a puddle of motor oil, bawling her eyes out and she had lost her camera gear.
But the white squall of hysteria had passed, and she made an effort not to be a complete bitch.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and her nose was so full of snot that she sneezed and blew the whole, repulsive mess out onto her shirt, ruining it too. “Oh God I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do nothing wrong,” the man crouched down next to her said. “Here. Take this. It’s clean. I got more, and you need it.”
Jody blinked away the last of her tears and took the small white square of Kleenex he held towards her, using it to dab at her eyes before blowing her nose again. She felt marginally better, until she remembered that all of her equipment had been stolen, and she had a photoshoot to do, and she wasn’t going to get to the shoot anyway because something terrible had happened to Ellie, and Max was missing, possibly taken by Chad and…
The tears came flooding back.
“Hey, come on now, we’ll get your stuff back.”
The old man was gripping Jody’s shoulder, his hand not far from where the mugger had grabbed her. She flinched away as a siren whooped, once, and she heard car tyres crunching over loose pebbles and small trash in the car lot. The police had arrived, but that didn’t give Jody any sense of relief. Not with Ellie in some sort of trouble. Things happened quickly then. A young woman appeared from the pharmacy with a bottle of still water and a couple of painkillers. The pharmacist took them from her and offered them to Jody. She drank most of the water before remembering to take the pills.
Her rescuer—she supposed she could call him that, because things could have gone worse, much worse, if he hadn’t turned up—introduced himself as Karl Valentine, and having possibly interrupted her kidnapping and assault and God only knew what, he took it upon himself to deal with the police.
“I saw it all,” he told them. “I’ll testify, don’t you worry about that. And I got film too. I filmed it all on my phone.”
She could see now that he wasn’t an old man, just older than her attacker, possibly twice his age. Karl was somewhere in his forties and had the congenial, unthreatening air that some men carried with them their whole lives, not as camouflage or a mask, but simply because they really were no threat to anyone.
The pharmacist, Mr. Burés and his assistant, a young Blasian girl wearing the name tag, Aliyah, helped her into the Walgreens, where a female police officer asked her about ‘the attack’.
Jody had her very own ‘attack’ now.
That was weird.
She’d have to tell Ellie as soon as she could.
If she could find Ellie.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
Jody shook her head and dropped back into reality. She’d been spiralling away from the here and now since that Metallica jerk had knocked her down and she’d bumped her head, falling over. The lady policeman—no, the lady police officer—was leaning over her, looking at her closely. Jody was sitting down, inside, where it was cool and so much nicer than out in that car lot. But when had she sat down? She didn’t recall. The cop’s eyebrows were knitted closely together and deep frown lines creased her forehead between her eyes.
She would have to stop doing that, Jody thought.
Or she would get wrinkles.
“Ma’am, is there anyone who can pick you up? You shouldn’t be driving,” the policewoman said.
“Can’t drive,” Jody said absently, slightly annoyed that people didn’t seem to understand that a car needed gas in the tank to go anywhere.
“Is there anyone who can come and get you?” the cop asked.
“Ellie,” she answered
“Ellie? Is that your friend? You roommate?”
“My girlfriend.”
“Can you call Ellie? Or would you like me to call her? Is her number in your phone?”
Jody stared at the woman. Her name tag read VANDENBERGH.
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Okay,” Officer Vandenbergh said, standing up straight. She turned to Mr Burés, who was still hovering nearby, talking to Mr. Valentine, who had rescued her. Jody thought she liked Mr. Valentine. He was kind.
“She’s in shock,” the policewoman said. “We might need an ambulance. Get her checked out for real.”
“An ambulance would be very expensive,” Mr. Valentine said. “If she doesn’t have insurance.”
Oh, he was thoughtful too. Jody could not afford an ambulance. No way.
They all turned to look at her.
“Ma’am I think you need an ambulance,” Officer Vandenbergh said.
“No, I need my camera bag,” Jody replied with real conviction, but not complete certainty. She knew she needed her cameras but… she’d forgotten why.
“Do you have insurance, dear?” Mr Burés asked. “For the ambulance?”
“Ellie,” Jody said, a little critically.
“Ellie has insurance?” Mr Burés asked.
She nodded. “Ellie’s a chef. At a restaurant.”
“Which restaurant?” Vandenbergh asked.
For a strange, dizzying second, she could not remember, but then it came back to her.
“It’s called Fourth Edition!”
“I know that place,” Mr. Valentine said. “It’s just around the corner from my apartment. I can drive her there if you like. It would save me a walk home.”
Officer Vandenbergh looked doubtful, but her friend the other policeman hurried in through the pharmacy door then and shouted, “Vasquez got him! Three blocks over at the bus stop on Telegraph.”
Officer Vandenbergh beamed at her.
“Looks like we got lucky with this guy, and we’re going to get your things back, Ms Sarjanen.”
She turned to Mr Valentine. “Sir. Can you send me a copy of that video you shot? Of the assault? Right now? So we know for certain we have it.”
“Sure. I can do that. And I can testify,” Mr. Valentine said. “I want to.”
Officer Vandenbergh turned her attention back to Jody.
“Ms Sarjanen, I have to go with Officer Stafford and grab up your perp. Sounds like an off-duty colleague caught him trying to catch a bus. We need to take him into the station for processing. And we’ll need a statement from you later. Are you comfortable with Mr. Valentine here driving you to Ellie’s restaurant? We have all of his details.”
Everything was happening in such a rush.
“No gas,” Jody said.
Vandenbergh frowned.
“Your car has no gas?”
She shook her head.
“I keep a spare can in my pickup,” Mr Burés said. “You’re welcome to it. I am very sorry for all your trouble, miss.”
“Okay,” Jody said, feeling as though she was being carried along by events, but at least now they seemed to be carrying her toward Ellie.
“Can you drive my car?” she asked Mr. Valentine. “I feel woozy”
“I can drive pretty much anything,” he said. “I used to drive big rigs for a living.”
The police officers left, anxious to lay hands on their perp. He was theirs now, as well as Jody’s. Mr Burés and Mr Valentine agreed that it had been a very exciting morning and that it was a good thing that Mr. Valentine had picked up a new bottle of heart pills. They filled Jody’s tank from a small red can of gas that Mr Burés produced from the back of his pick-up. Jody got back into her little Civic, feeling as though this was just about the weirdest day of her life so far, and Mr. Valentine drove her the rest of the way to Ellie’s restaurant.
Ellie did not resist. She wasn’t that stupid. Even when a female agent slammed a hammerlock on her and painfully wrenched her arm halfway up her back, she bit down on her need to cry out and fight back. Another agent, a male, grabbed her neck and together the two officers frogmarched Fourth Edition’s sous chef out of her kitchen and over to a black SUV. The sun was high overhead and uncomfortably hot. Ellie could feel warm sweat running down her back and sides. Sandino was already half-in the vehicle, sitting awkwardly on his hands which had been cuffed behind his back. The saucier’s eyes were wide with shock. His lips were moving, but no words came out.
Ellie wasn’t cuffed yet and she reached for the old man to give him a hug. The grip on her neck tightened and she felt herself rammed forward. Her forehead hit the side of the car and stars filled her eyes.
“Ow!” she cried out.
The grip on her neck and the hammerlock both disappeared as the female agent forced Ellie to assume the position while she patted her down.
“I’m not carrying any knives,” Ellie said.
“Just shut up,” the woman replied, briskly searching her up and down.
Ellie twisted around to peer back past the agent at her crew who were all being forced into the other vehicles, a mix of SUVs and plain, unmarked vans. She saw Chris Kakris arguing loudly with the agent in charge and she felt bad for the hard time she’d given him over his shitty Kobe beef. Chris was all up in that guy’s grill, yelling into his face, gesturing wildly with both hands.
“Turn around,” the female agent ordered, pulling on Ellie’s shoulder to reinforce the direction.
“What the hell are you guys even doing?” Ellie said as she came around. A male agent stood behind the woman. His face was unreadable, obscured by mirror shades and baseball cap. “Everyone you just grabbed up is legit,” Ellie went on. “Half of them are citizens. Like, born here. Everyone else has a green card. Damo doesn’t hire…”
“Shut up,” the woman said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Fascists,” Sandino muttered to himself.
“Shut up,” the male agent said. “You heard her. It doesn’t matter.”
Ellie craned around again to see past the agents blocking her view of the alley out back of the restaurant. It was quite a sight, all of those kitchen hands and chefs and apprentices climbing out in their white double-breasted coats and houndstooth pants. Someone in the centre of the small crowd was even wearing a toque blanche, the traditional chef’s hat, but Ellie couldn’t see who.
The woman elbowed her in the ribs, winding her.
“Stop moving,” she said.
Ellie grunted but stood up and faced her squarely. She’d worked some pretty tough kitchens. These guys thought they were hard. They weren’t.
“How about taking Sandino’s cuffs off?” she said. “He’s an old man and he’s got a heart murmur. He makes sauce and stock, not trouble.”
“Just shut up, you mouthy bitch,” the male agent said.
“Fuck you,” she said. “You been told now. You been warned. We’re both natural born Americans. You got no jurisdiction over us. You hurt him and our boss will sue your agency for sure, but he’ll sue you personally too. And he’ll win. And he’ll take your house, your pension, everything. It’s a high price to pay for the momentary pleasure of being an asshole. So take his fucking cuffs off. I’m not wearing any, and believe me, I’m way more trouble.”
No reply this time.
Ellie moved quickly to one side and shouted at her crew.
“Don’t worry. You’re all good. Damo will look after you…”
Ellie didn’t doubt that Damien Maloney would pay for every minute his people were detained, just as she did not doubt that every last one of them was legitimately employed and legally in the country. Damo was a bit of an old school socialist, for a millionaire businessman.
“You’re all on the clock,” she called out. “You’re all getting paid…”
The female agent punched Ellie in the side, just above her kidneys. She wasn’t ready for that. It drove the air out of her and sent shockwaves down her spine and into her legs which nearly buckled beneath her. Ellie stumbled, but didn’t fall.
Her people cheered her on. Some yelled abuse in Spanish at the woman who’d struck her.
But mostly they cheered when Ellie clawed her way back up to her feet.
13
Demonstrable Stupidity
Un-fucking-believable.
Smoke poured through a small hole punched in the hood of Jonas Murdoch’s pick-up by something that looked like a crowbar. Had he thrown a rod? He’d only bought the truck three months ago. It was a piece of shit, to be sure, but the mechanic he bought it from had certified it as roadworthy.
The engine smoke got thicker.
Horns blared in the traffic jam around him. His stomach fluttered and his limbs felt like they might float away. Shock, Jonas knew. Nothing to be embarrassed about. That’s just how the human body reacted to violent discontinuity.
He saw flames starting to lick at the edges of the puncture wound in the hood, and he scrambled to get out of the vehicle. His legs almost folded up underneath him as his boots crunched down on the tarmac. He stared dumbly the burning engine block, unsure of what to do. Before he could take action, another motorist appeared with a small fire extinguisher.
