[Bella and the Black Book] Chapter Five

Trouble comes in threes. Always threes. And I had only been through round one. 

 Mr. McGuffy had probably made it back to his apartment to call the police and hopefully to get that shotgun put away. I was busy looking for the things I needed to skeddadle. Jimmy always made sure we had enough to get away if necessary. I kept up the habit after he went away. If I needed to disappear, like now, I could do it. I found the spare car keys hidden in the false bottom of a side table along with three thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills. 

 The smell of blood and excrement warred with the scent of vanilla and lavender I used in the apartment. I desperately wanted to smell one but not the other. Tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing, at least not yet, but yes there were tears. They blurred my vision and I forced myself to stop and consider exactly why I was crying. After all, the man had pointed a gun at my head. Him losing his all over the parking lot might not have been fair, but he certainly couldn't do it again. 

I hitched a deep breath, unrolled the money to fit it in my purse and grabbed the keys. Time to make a break for it. The edges of the notebook were bloody and brain flecks were in my hair. I tried not to think about that as I made my way through the sunny day outside of my apartment, after locking up this time, and down the street to the car, a ten year old beater that wouldn't get a second glance if someone paid enough attention to give it a first. I prefer these kinds of cars. Flashy just gets you in trouble. 

Sitting in the driver's seat, I composed myself. First rule of running away, blend in. If everyone is running, run. If everyone is walking, walk quickly. I ran a hand down my face which undoubtedly smeared the blood, but did little to make me more presentable. 

 I should have actually washed up. I wanted to run a scalding hot shower and get rid of the stink of fear under my armpits, but I didn't have time for that. I needed to be gone yesterday. Blue lights appeared in the rearview moving fast. I slid down in the seat a little and let them wash over me. As much as I hated leaving the old man to handle things on his own, I had every inkling he was more than up to the task. He had just blown someone's head off in my defense after all. 

 Looking at the notebook there in the seat next to me, I wondered what secrets it really did hold. Guess I would find out. 

Tick tock, tick tock. Time to leave.

Bella and the Black Book: Chapter Four

Guns really aren’t that big. Compared to the size of the damage they cause, bullets really aren’t either.

I’m sitting on my ass on sun warmed pavement waiting for one of the two men standing over me to decide to end the other. Personally, my money is on Mr. McGuffy to shoot first. His hands were already shaking from the weight of the shotgun, while the other guy was standing stock still and appeared to be ready to wait this out until doom’s day. Either way, I didn’t really want to wait around for Doom’s Day or any other holiday to come along. I kicked the shooter in the shin and watched as his shot went wild. When he hit the ground, the gun skittered across the pavement as if it were running away. Mr. McGuffy, moving with a speed I wasn’t used to seeing in the old man, immediately went to stand over him.

“Get out of our lot,” he repeated.

I caught a whiff of fear from the shooter, who was looking up at the shotgun with a sudden uncertainty.

“You might want to do what he says.”

Even as I was speaking, I was scrambling for my book. The man turned, his sudden need to get to the book before me overriding his understanding that he was being held under the barrel of a shotgun, and Mr. McGuffy’s trigger finger got the better of him.

The sound was deafening and the sudden addition of a lot of blood to the air made me gag. I put my hand down on my book and doubled over, pressing my face to the pavement which gave me a face full of old asphalt, gasoline, and spilled oil. Still a better smell than death, which by the way is blood followed quickly by shit as the bowels let loose.

Mr. McGuffy was saying something, I could hear it just barely over my heart pounding.

“I think we may need to call the police.”

“Yeah, we might want to do that.”

And I might want to not be here when they come around.

I pulled myself up from the pavement and tried not to shake as I took one step, then another toward my apartment.

"Where are you going?"

"I need to wash up." My voice sounded so much calmer than I felt. I felt like I was about to come flying apart any second and I held the book to my chest as if it would keep that from happening. The edges pressed into my chest as I breathed. One step. Then another. One foot in front of the other. Keep moving, keep moving. I walked back in the front door of my apartment and shut it behind him, glad for a moment I hadn't had the wherewithal to lock it when I was being death marched out of the building.

The door securely between me and the outside world, I sank to the carpet and gasped for air. I picked myself up off the floor, stuffed the book under one arm, and rifled through my things. I needed my emergency funds, my other IDs, and the keys to the spare car. I fumbled once and felt tears prick my eyes. Blinking them back, I kept looking.

Panicking won't help. I need to go. Before they start asking questions.

Bella and the Black Book: Chapter Three

So let’s recap. Me and a gunman are out in a parking lot where I run into my elderly neighbor who pisses himself at the sight of a firearm and violence is about to ensue.

I had a moment to actually register how bad life was about to get as the gunman swung in the direction of Mr. McGuffy with every intention of ending his life a little sooner than initially anticipated by Mr. McGuffy’s friends and family. Personally, I realized I could have taken that particular moment to make a break for it myself. After all, he just turned the weapon away from me to deal with another threat and if I remember correctly, handguns are only good up to a certain distance unless you’re a crack shot. Granted, I didn’t know if my captor was a crack shot, but the chances that he wasn’t were higher than the chances that he was. Either way, I didn’t take the obvious chance to exit stage left. Instead, I did the heroic thing: I turned around and ran right into my captor.

The gun went off and my head started to ring like I was inside a bell tolling the hours.

In the scuffle, the book hit the concrete. I would figure that out later. Right then, I was a little busy trying to keep this burly fellow from lowering that pistol into the range of any of my vital organs, most notably my brain. As he and I were turning in circles in the parking lot, Mr. McGuffy was rapidly (at least for the geriatric he was) making his way back toward his apartment.

“Stupid…” He said a word I refuse to use in reference to myself after that, so I’ve decided to leave it off. Either way, his displeasure was obvious and it was immediately followed by him knocking me back on my butt. As I was sitting there, looking up into my all too imminent demise, the smell of Mr. McGuffy (boiled cabbage now overlaid with sugary urine, I’m pretty sure the guy is a diabetic) came back to me in a rush. There was a mystery smell with it which got my attention.

Mr. McGuffy was standing right in the shadow of the apartment complex with a sawed off shotgun in his knobbly knuckled arthritic hands and had a look on his face I don’t think I’d ever actually seen on him before. Saw it on Jimmy’s face once or twice, prior to his incarceration, right before he sent someone to the hospital, so I knew what it was. It was pure and simple righteous whoop ass.

“Get out of our lot.”

This is what it must be like to be the third wheel in a Mexican standoff.

Missed a Chapter? ONE | TWO

Bella and the Black Book: Chapter Two

I’m going to die over a stupid book. Somewhere in Hell, Jimmy is busting a gut laughing at this.

The gunman hauled me to my feet and I tried to ignore the flash of pain from his grip on my wrist.

“March.”

Underneath the sound of our footsteps, muffled as they were by the carpet, I tried to hear Mr. McGuffy. How far had he gotten? He was a 67 year old man with bad arthritis in both knees and a penchant for boiled cabbage, but he was a nice enough guy. I really didn’t want him involved in this. After all, he hadn’t even met Jimmy. I glanced back, quick, to see where he’d stashed the book. He had it under his arm, the one with the gun sprouting out of the end. At the front door of my apartment, he moved in close and said,

“Don’t make me have to start shooting.”

I hoped Mr. McGuffy had gone back into his apartment to pee.

I opened the door.

“You know, if you want the book, just take it. I won’t say anything.”

That was true. Who was I gonna tell that my convicted felon ex-lover had left me a book written in a secret code which might or might not lead to the money left over from the heist that sent him to jail?

My captor was not convinced. So not convinced he pressed the gun into my spine and used it to urge me forward. Stepping out into the hall, I looked both ways. No elderly neighbor in sight, but the whisper, slide, shuffle of Mr. McGuffy’s slippers was there coming from the direction of the giant garbage bin behind the building on the far side of the parking lot. I turned right. The building fronted on a busy street, but no cars were likely to stop. Seeing this, they’d probably speed up.

“No. Left,” he corrected.

Left toward the parking lot and poor Mr. McGuffy. I turned left, walking slow. My captor had shifted position, no longer directly behind me, but behind me enough to hide the gun still pressed against my back.

Bright daylight dazzled my vision as we stepped out of the building’s shadow into the sunshine of mid-morning. Was it mid-morning? I couldn’t even remember if I had finished my coffee. Sudden fear of death can do strange things to your memory. The smell of the bin was just starting to warm and expand to cover the parking lot, one of my least favorite smells. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw what I could already hear, Mr. McGuffy making his slow murmuring shuffle way back across the parking lot, the stank cabbage smell still clinging proudly to his clothes. He looked seedy in his irregularly washed bathrobe and hair sticking up in what his neighbors referred to as his electro-shocked Einstein hairdo. He shielded his own eyes with one shivering hand and smiled.

“Ms. Hardin,” he greeted me. Mr. McGuffy, for all his hygienic failings, always managed to sound like an old movie actor, all mellow and whiskey smooth.

“Morning, Mr. McGuffy.”

No one ever tells you how hard it is to make the usual morning small talk when a gun is pressed to your back hard enough to leave a mark.

“Aren’t you going to introduce your friend?”

“We really haven’t got the time this morning, sir,” I said reminding myself to keep the fear out of my eyes and the pain out of my smile. “It’s nice to see you though.”

“You kids,” he muttered. “Always in such a hurry.”

“Ain’t it the truth.”

Mr. McGuffy was almost past when he noticed the gun. At least, I assume he noticed it. He pissed himself in the parking lot. Or maybe that was just old age. Either way, my captor wasn’t planning on waiting to find out. He swung the gun in Mr. McGuffy’s direction.

Oh, shit!

Missed a Chapter: ONE

Bella and the Black Book: Chapter One

I really hope he doesn't mess up my hair was my first thought. My second was, he has a gun barrel pointed at my head, he's going to do a lot worse than mess up my hair. 

Those two thoughts circled once before I thought I saw his hand move, it was a blurry motion to my eyes, but the sound of him pulling back the slide made me shut my eyes and do something I haven't in a while: pray.

"Where's the money?" 

He had a heavy smoker voice, the two seconds from a stoma from throat cancer kind, but he was very clear. The only problem: I wasn't.

"What money?" 

The gun pressed harder into the side of my head leaving a round indention in the hair and skin there no doubt and he leaned in closer. I held my breath, almost afraid the sound would excite him into actually shooting me. He paused there, his exhalation a mix of cigarette, fried chicken, and sickness. Throat cancer for sure. 

"Jimmy's money," he whispered in my ear.

Jimmy. There was a name I hadn't heard in quite some time. Pretty much not since he had gone to jail four years prior. Funny how often he was coming up in my life lately though. I had only attended his funeral yesterday. Or maybe it was the day before, I lose track without someone to remind me. Not that him telling me really helped. Jimmy had been, on his best day, a secretive bastard, making it almost impossible to get the answer to any question in a timely fashion. This made his last gift to me, a notebook written in a cipher, particularly poetic. It wouldn't take me forever to translate, but more than long enough for the answers I found to be useless by the time I found them.

"I don't know about any money." Oh, shit, now he's really gonna shoot me. I immediately started praying again, hard.

"You were his Bella. His confidante. His sweetheart. You mean to tell me you don't know about his money." I sat very, very still even as the pain mounted in the side of my head to something scream worthy. I really didn't want him to shoot me.

"He," I gulped for air. "He left me a notebook."

"Get it!" He snatched me up off the couch and slung me to the floor. I gasped in surprise and started to get up. "No," he grunted. "Crawl."

I crawled across my living room floor aware of how some of his smell changed as I did. I almost wanted to sneeze to get the tickle out of my nose. Jimmy had never smelled like that, no matter how excited he got. I would have sneezed, but the awareness of that gun was enough to keep me playing straight. The door to my bedroom was open and I creptthrough. He followed me across the floor and grunted as I knelt by the bedside table and picked up the black notebook there. He snatched it from me and began to flip through it.

"What is this shit!"

"A cipher." I was amazed at how calm I sounded while down on my knees with a man with a gun behind me out of my line of sight. "Jimmy was nuts about them." I put my hands behind my head and laced my fingers together like a prisoner. "I haven't started translating it yet."

A beat of total silence. I could hear Mr. McGuffy shuffling down the hall and my nose was picking up the rank cabbage in the half-closed black bag he was carrying. Then the gunman spoke.

"Get up. We're going for a ride."

 In the movies, this is where the mob takes you to a different location and puts two in your skull. I didn't even know yet how true that thought would turn out to be.