Juror

They'd arrested me for suspected jury tampering, accepting a bribe, and held me as long as they could. They examined every bank account I'd ever had, every business contact I'd ever made, and every deal I'd ever signed. They talked to, which amounted to bad mouthing, my boss, my colleagues, my customers, my neighbors. Every person I'd ever met. I later discovered that Dickerson had vowed that if couldn't convict me, he sure as hell could ruin my life. He'd set about it with gusto.

It had only been a couple of hours before the Fibbies arrested me. Of course I'd already called Katrina, but the number she'd given me was no longer in service. If it ever had been. Even Dickerson couldn't find her -- she'd disappeared without a trace -- but he was completely unconvinced that I had not known she was a plant. Apparently the real Katrina Reese never got her juror summons, and though they'd found ample DNA samples and fingerprints in the hotel room, neither the FBI nor any other federal agency had any match on file. Juror number 54 had fallen off the edge of the earth.

**

The hackles on the back of my neck popped to attention at the scent as soon as I was in the door. Katrina's perfume inundated my living room, and the similarity of her urgently whispered, "Leave the lights off," to what she had said weeks earlier raised my neck hairs further. I closed and locked the door.

As my eyes adjusted I saw her on my couch. She rose as I approached, and began, "I'm so sorry, Frank. I had to do it. I can explain it all, but we have to get out of here, right now. Do you have any cash? Any guns? They're coming for us and we need to run."

Something in her urgent, harried tone assuaged my anger. A bit. "What the fuck, Katrina, or whoever you are. What are you talking about?"

"The mob, Frank. They hired me to get you to change your vote and now they're cleaning up loose ends. Like me. And you. We're dead unless we get out of here right now and find someplace to hide."

"You can't be serious! How can I believe a thing you say..."

"Look at me!" The penlight illuminated her face. It was a mess, tear-stained makeup not hiding the large swollen bruises on her cheeks or the puffy right eye.

"God, what happened?"

"Frank, please! They were beating me, asking if I'd told anyone, but they got careless and I escaped. I'll explain it all later, but we need to run. They're coming for you! Now!"

"But..."

"Frank, do you have any money, any guns. We need to get moving!" Her hands urgently shaking me by the lapels of my jacket and the desperation in her voice tilted the needle.

The Acme Motel on the south edge of Burnside had once been real upscale, a Motel 6, until it got so run down that the company pulled the franchise. Half an hour after we left my townhouse I checked in as John Smithers, of Smithville, IN, paying cash for one night. Somehow my dyslexia discharged and I reversed a few numbers of the plate on my Camry. The attendant, behind thick, bullet-proof glass, took my two twenties and slid a five and the key back through the trough under the window without ever once looking up. Anonymity bought with 35 bucks. As I knew it would be.

Whatever-her-name-is kept her hand in her purse as we slipped through the door of room 17. I knew it was on the grip of my Taurus PT92. My Ruger LCP was handy in my Kydex inside-the-waistband abdomen holster. Burnside isn't the worst part of Chicago, but it's in the running, and I didn't have to tell Whoever-she-was that we were well advised to be ready for trouble. At least Katrina's battered face wouldn't draw attention. Just part of the Burnside ethos.

I know Chicago. I'm middle management for Northern Wine and Spirits, Inc., one of the Midwest's largest adult beverage distributors. Middle management means I don't drive a truck, just visit the establishments to which the trucks deliver weekly. I check orders, listen to and solve all manner of gripes, fill out forms, glad-hand, tell jokes, hand out free samples, and try to get the proprietors or managers to splurge, to up their orders. I'm pretty good at it. I like people -- well, some people -- and it pays OK and gets me out and about.

To some of the worst parts of Chicago. Thus the Taurus 9mm which lives in my glovebox, and the.380 ACP Ruger which nestles in my holster. Just before we had left my townhouse to run for my car, I offered both pistols to Katrina-what's-her-name, and she sneered at the Ruger. Elitist snob.

After I braced the room's only chair up against the doorknob, jammed the wedge I always travel with under the door, pulled the drapes tight shut, and turned on the bedside lamp, I sat down on the bed and waited. Explanation time.

**

"Fuck, shit, piss!"

The jackhammer throbbing in my brain, exacerbated by the malicious, glaring mid-morning sun mercilessly lancing through the paper-thin, worn, seedy curtains, made opening my eyes as appealing as rolling around nude on broken glass. But, gritting my teeth, I did.

Bad news. As I expected, the other side of my bed, badly rumpled, and its twin, still made, were empty. As was the dingy bathroom. Theodora had flown. Only the scent of sex, and the stenches of dead cigarettes, sour old sweat, and industrial disinfectant remained.

It had been a night to remember.

As a baby Theodora Romanova couldn't manage the "th" sound, so the nickname Theo became Teo. As best as I could tell -- she had lied so fluently before that I doubted everything she said -- she hailed from adopted mafia stock. Unless you have Italian or Sicilian roots you can't rise too high, but her Russian émigré father had become a trusted soldier for a New Jersey mob family. Teo had been semi-adopted by the don, Salvatore Rossi, after her father died taking a bullet meant for him. He sent Teo to Smith College and Wharton, then gave her a job, first as a gofer, then doing "special" projects as her skills diversified.

When Tony Galliano's impulsivity endangered the The Outfit's whole Chicago operation -- would he bite the bullet or flip and bring the walls tumbling down? -- outside help was solicited to solve the problem. Rossi volunteered Theodora. The juror summons was easily diverted by a secretary on the dole, Teo was primed with every right answer gleaned from exhaustive research on the prosecutor's proclivities and previous prospective juror questioning, and, once Teo was the alternate, juror #11's bank balance suddenly increased by an unexplained $10,000.

I was the mark. They knew my wife had died in the car accident a year before, that I was still unattached, straight, and undoubtedly horny. Easy pickings. The mob arranged for our adjoining rooms at the hotel, and once Theodora was sure of me, after she'd fucked me silly, discombobulated my brain, convinced me of her logic, and I'd proclaimed Galliano innocent in open court, she flipped, and -- poof -- the mob's minions whisked her away.

Perfect.

Except, once having seen the inside of a courtroom, and glimpsed the specter of a lifetime in prison looming in the shadows, Tony began to get cold sweats at night. Cold feet. He wanted insurance, a guarantee that Teo and I could never sing for the feds. Though obviously a hothead and inveterate ingrate, Galliano was important enough that the really big bosses who run the country gave the OK, and he ordered the hits. Special ones, to be engineered so that we would welcome our deaths as blessings. The serious, sustained interrogations would determine if we'd told anyone else what had happened, and if so, who. Once parts of bodies are carved up in ways that can never be fixed, tongues do wag.

They came for Teo first. She was clever and deft enough to play them along, and tough enough to endure the initial beating while averring she'd told no one the truth about Galliano's jury tampering. And swore she never would. Her feigned, maybe real, terror and breakdown lured them into carelessness, and her wiles got one inexperienced young associate soldier to believe he truly was irresistible. And that Teo desperately wanted to help him satisfy his lust. As he spilled his sperm into her, she grabbed his rod and spilled his brains onto the ceiling. The two other musclemen guards rushed in and met the same fate, so there was no one left to sound the alarm until Teo had escaped.

And come to warn me. Which would have been damned sweet and endearing if she then hadn't drugged me and stolen my guns, my car and my cash.

After she again fucked me silly.

Even as my head throbbed, I smiled. Couldn't help it. God, what a woman! Despite her bruises, her fellatio was unparalleled, and her bronc riding technique had only improved since she'd last broken me. She'd kept up her story until I half believed it, enough to drain my back account early the next morning. We'd hidden out all day in the sleazy fleabag, playing hide the salami, ordered GrubHub and liquor store delivery, and made a night of it. A night to remember.

I don't know where she got the mickey, but it was a good one, and I was out cold from midnight till 10AM, giving Theodora plenty of time to take my guns, at least the Taurus -- the disrespected LCP was still under my pillow -- find all the cash, and "borrow" my car.

Sitting on the bed, pressing my hands against my throbbing temples to keep my head from exploding, I wondered if the mob was really even after me. Maybe it had all been a ploy to get my $ 7,600, gun and car. It didn't matter. I needed to move.

**

He didn't have a chance. Less than that of a snowball in hell.

I'd left the dirt bike in the alley behind the motel. The one that the tracking device in my Camry led me to once I went after Theodora. I didn't know how the mob found her -- but they do have eyes everywhere -- or what room she was in, but the muscle outside the door made that obvious.

Just a random biker dude strolling by, checking his phone, so intent on it that I stumbled on the curb. Staggered. Probably drunk. No worries there. That same idiot biker fumbled his device, flat out dropped it, and when the fool at the door followed it down with his eyes, losing situational awareness, his neck snapped with just a faint crack. As he crumbled, I eased him down onto the cheap burner I'd sacrificed.

The suppressed Sig P320 Compact leapt into my hand as I hugged the wall beside the door. It was the model the army issued me, sans silencer, months before my discharge. It replaced the Beretta M9 which I'd also liked a lot, and of which my Taurus was a knockoff. I couldn't hear anything from inside Theodora's room, but knew I had to act. No one had observed my dispatch of the doorman, but anyone could happen by. Anytime.

Teo had chosen another cheap dump in which to hide, so the door offered no resistance to my stomp kick on the knob. The faces of the three hoods inside betrayed their surprise at suddenly having company. Especially the one on the bed with his trousers at his knees and his cock deep inside Teo's pussy. I killed him last, with round number five to the head, after double tapping the other two in the chest.

When nobody except Theodora moved for a full second -- and being bound to the bed with a dead man on top of her, she couldn't move much -- I assumed the two guys who'd been waiting their turn while they watched their boss's cock and Teo's quim get acquainted, hadn't been wearing vests. I spun outside, dragged the guard into the room and closed the door. When no other threat presented, inside or out, for 5 seconds, I backed away from the door towards Teo, Sig at low ready.

I had only briefly considered eliminating her with rounds six and seven. Though she'd caused me a world of trouble, and stolen everything she thought I had, she knew more than I did about who I was up against. Which was partly why I bothered to come and get her.

Theodora's eyes were wild and her breathing ragged. I suppose feeling the guy's cock twitch as it withered inside her, and the stuff from his ruined head dripping onto her shoulder was upsetting. As I rolled the corpse off her and removed the gag -- her dead rapist's necktie securing her own balled-up panties -- she broke down, shaking, sobbing, weeping silently as I cut her bonds. I shushed her gasping, "Oh God, Frank, I'm so sor..." by ordering her to wash her face, get dressed, and pack up everything she needed. Now.

My tone was not kindly, but I was impressed by how quickly she pulled herself together, and I pocketed my brass as she gathered her stuff. The feds already had her DNA and prints, so I didn't bother trying to wipe the place down. I hadn't touched anything, and my surgical gloves had kept any skin cells off the doorman.

We were gone in sixty seconds. Ninety tops. I was gratified that no volleys from AK47s or AR15s cut us down as we rushed to my Camry. Five minutes out I relaxed some and only checked the rearview mirror every half second.

When I finally let her speak, Theodora apologized for stealing my stuff and thanked me for rescuing her. I shrugged it off. It's what white knights do. Plus, I needed to get my stuff back. The Camry and Taurus she'd taken were both legal, registered, and would lead "Special" Agent Dickerson to me. That just wouldn't do. It didn't matter much what the hoods had done to her, but I truly wanted to know how they found her. She had no clue. Until my cross examination became heated.

Of course she had called her sister. From the motel. On her cellphone. Something about the look in my eyes convinced her I was serious, and she took the battery out of her phone. Otherwise, it would not have fared well bouncing on the pavement after I tossed it out the window.

**

I'd scoped out my townhouse after I'd picked up the dirt bike from it's mini-storage hiding place, which also housed my serious weaponry like the Sig P320, so I knew the mafia really was after me. Hunters don't much worry about being hunted, so don't bother to hide. The two I saw were obvious and convinced me that I had to get my stuff back from Theodora-whoever, plus any information she had about just who in the mob was after me. Hard to hit a bullseye if you can't see the target.

After the "rescue" at the motel, the Camry - which someone had to have seen - was a liability and needed to be replaced. I reported it stolen on my cell as I drove to yet another of Chicago's plethora of run-down motels. Having limited funds and needing anonymity again dictated my lodging options. After I dropped Teo, I procured safe wheels.

I parked the Toyota on Industrial Road and walked a block and a half to Nick Summer's Auto Sales. Nick's was a dive, a lowest-of-the-low-end used car dealership specializing in ripping off people who needed cheap transportation in order to work their dead-end minimum-wage jobs. Nick Summers, owner, principal salesman and con man, had obviously been a lineman on his high school football team, probably an offensive tackle. He'd remained offensive and kept eating like a teenager for twenty years after he quit exercising. I felt true for sympathy for the poor overstretched Banlon sport shirt that tried to contain the belly that met me at the door.

"Top-O-the-morning to you, sir." Maybe Summers was an Irish name. "I've got just the car for you. Let me show you this beauty right over here." Nick gestured and made for the sparkling, classic Mustang on an elevated ramp in the middle of the lot, but I cut him off.

I explained that I was in a real rush and needed wheels in a hurry. Reliable, but nothing fancy. All the value in how it ran, not how it looked. Nick was canny enough to take the hint. He led me to a 1999 faded brown Mazda Protégé whose color blended nicely into its abundant rust. The $ 999 tag on the window admitted that it was a real steal, just marked down from $ 1,699. Sure.

I said that it might do and kicked a few tires as Nick got the keys. The door creaked upon opening, but the engine started immediately and purred, and I knew from previous research that the Mazda Protégé was noted for running like a top until the body eventually rusted out, disintegrated and the still-intact drive train fell on the pavement.

As Nick got out the paperwork in the office, I sat down and pulled out my roll of hundreds. Out loud I slowly counted to 20. Nick's rheumy eyes bulged bigger with each bill and almost popped out of their sockets when I dropped the stack on the desk.

"I really need to get going, now," I drawled, keeping up my good-ole-boy persona. Went with the fake mutton chops and red-orange wig, also from my storage unit.

"But we need to do this paperwork...."

I plucked one of the hundreds off the desk and put it back in my roll. "I really need to get going, understand?"

Nick raised his hands in surrender, then pointed at the pile. I put the C-note back.

"I do need your name, though."

"I'm Jasper Franklin." I spelled it.

"Address?" I gave one. No clue if it exists.

In two minutes Nick had pocketed the cash, signed the title, taped a temporary plate in the Mazda's rear window, and handed over the keys. We shook hands heartily, cousins in commerce, and I drove to the Camry, put the items from its trunk into the Mazda's, and split. Leaving the keys in the Camry, in that neighborhood, insured that it would find a new home. Pronto.

Back in our swell room I discovered that Theodora didn't like the motel, or the new wheels. Not even the large grey men's sweat suit I'd so kindly bought her at Walmart. She continued pouting, even after I explained the obvious. People everywhere, nasty people, were looking for a five-foot ten eye-catching knockout brunette. She could no longer look like one. Besides, I thought her hair, once cut short, would look good blonde.

Theodora also was not sanguine with the fact that I'd taken the precaution of lifting her phone. She explained that she'd had to call her sister to warn her to go into hiding, that the mob might be coming for her, too, so they could use her as leverage against Teo. That made sense, but as they'd found her once tracking it, I was not copacetic with her checking her messages.

As we argued, Teo became a total pest. Though I could see it was because of her concern for her sister, Anastasia, Ana for short, after half an hour it just seemed bitchy.

Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have said that word out loud. I see that now, just as I saw the knife-edge hand sweeping for my neck. I parried it and danced away as she went into a very competent-looking fighting stance. Teo was indeed good. After the first minute of sparing, no real blows landing, I recognized the art as karate, and that she must have earned a belt the color of coal. My training was more advanced, however, a recent offshoot of the Gracie Brazilian jiu-jitsu method specially adapted for my unit. Well, my former unit.

The end was foreordained. Though we were virtually the same height, I had 30 pounds on her, and that, plus my superior training, would out.

We pranced around each other for another minute or so before she made the inevitable mistake and I had her on the floor. On her back on top of me. Her hands clawed at me futilely as I wrapped her legs with mine, bowed her back over me and my left forearm cut off her oxygen. She tried for my eyes, but I'd anticipated that. "Tap out, Teo. It's over," I whispered in her ear. She lasted a long time, longer than most of the guys I'd trained with, and only had the slightest strength remaining when she tapped my hip. I stood up beside her as she gasped back to consciousness.

"God, Frank, who the fuck are you, anyway?" she rasped as I took her extended hand and helped her up.

**

My head was still reeling, my stomach churning, and my testicles throbbing and spasming as I coughed the last of the vomit out of my mouth. Though the pain was agonizing, it paled in comparison to the mental anguish. What a fool, a goddamned patsy! Teo's flying groin kick, executed with the additional force of my pulling her to her feet, had been perfect, and the effect textbook: immediate unconsciousness, vomiting, and complete disability. Between lightning bolts of searing pain from my balls, my brain imagined what I'd find when I finally could open my eyes: Teo, the money, my guns, and my car, all gone.