Chapter Fifteen
~~ Down in a hole, losin' my soul
Down in a hole, losin' control
I'd like to fly,
But my wings have been so denied
Saturday evening, 9:30PM
Tony and Taggert were seated at a Dunkin' Donuts not far from Cortland Street, comparing notes and discussing their progress in finding Lucky. Both men downed several cups of coffee and remarked on how good it tasted.
"You ought to know all of the best places for doughnuts and coffee, my friend," quipped Tony. "Isn't that a job requirement for PCPD's finest?"
"I thought doctors knew better than to eat fatty foods," Marcus retorted, pointing at the remains of the fifth chocolate-filled doughnut that Tony had eaten. "How are those arteries? Feeling any tighter, old man?" Marcus joked, tightening his fist and making a hissing noise for emphasis.
Tony stretched and yawned. "Marcus, I really need to go home and crash. I've been at this for over 14 hours. Do you want to get together tomorrow morning and look around some places that we haven't tried yet?"
"Tony," Taggert answered, "I think we should try one more time to find this young hooker that you mentioned. She might have information that could lead us to Lucky, and at least we could get a read on how he's doing."
Tony rubbed his eyes tiredly and cracked his knuckles. "Well, you might be right. Let's check out the White Castle again to see if we can find the girl."
~*~*~*~
Lucky stood outside of Roy's feeling ill
and nervous. The club seemed strange to him, like he'd never seen it before. He felt
disoriented and caught in a vacuum or a time warp or something. How should I approach Roy?
He absolutely had to get in on a game and win some more money. He couldn't think of
anything else to do. Lucky's mind turned back to the men's shelter on Cortland Street. It
just wasn't an option for him in his optionless world.
*** On the second night after Lucky was kicked out of Jake's, he'd decided to check out the men's shelter that Taggert had told him about. He'd hidden his bags in a close-by trash bin and tentatively approached the front door.
Men were coming and going from the shelter in various stages of sobriety and disarray. Two men lingered on the front steps, smoking and hanging out, laughing and checking out the scene. They saw Lucky and sniggered, one man poking the other in the ribs and leaning in to whisper something nasty to his pal.
Lucky froze. Memories of the assault and robbery in Jake's alley and Faison's abusive guards chilled his blood, and he felt like a small and vulnerable rabbit far from its hole.
Lucky had been in Faison's compound for two months. Two of the guards were starting to give him the creeps. Each time they'd approached his cell, they would gesture at him, chuckle and whisper to each other. Sometimes, Lucky would catch a word here and there, and it made his hair stand on end. He was painfully aware of his small stature and trapped position, and the huge, menacing guards made him feel like a hamster in a cage, spinning endlessly in its wheel, trying to escape from the big cat that watched and patiently waited.
Lucky would pretend to ignore them - it was all that he could do. But, he was running out of time and options, and he knew it.
One night, the door to his cell
opened, and both guards entered with purposeful intent. Lucky found himself flung into a
wall with his arm roughly twisted behind his back. The more he struggled, the tighter the
grip on his arm. Lucky cried out desperately and hopelessly in the soundproof cell. ***
Lucky started shaking and sweating with the memories, and he ran his arm across his forehead. He felt like he wanted to throw up and faint at the same time, but he bent his head over his knees and took several shaky breaths, trying to control his disoriented mind and emotions. "You can do this, you can do this," he told himself under his breath.
Lucky walked up to the door and knocked two times, hesitated, and then knocked four times. Several minutes passed, and Lucky once again met Roy DiLucca's frowning face.
What the hell is this kid doing here again? He looks like shit, Roy thought. Roy stretched his neck out of the door to look past Lucky and see if anyone else was around. "What do you want, Lucky?" he asked impatiently.
"I want in another game," Lucky replied confidently, crossing his fingers.
"I don't think so," Roy stated firmly.
Damn! Lucky thought. He swayed a bit on his feet, caught off-guard by his need to cough and draw more oxygen into his lungs.
"Take your bad habits and get outta here, Lucky," Roy said. "I'm not gonna stand in this doorway all night arguing with you." Roy reached out and took Lucky by the shoulder.
Lucky reacted violently and drew his gun and pointed it at Roy's chest. "I don't think so, Roy," he replied in a low, tense voice. "What would Aunt Bobbie say if she knew you were running these games out of the club?"
Lucky pushed his way into the club with his gun at Roy's back. Lucky looked around the room at a shocked and scared table of gamblers. Mike Corbin's cigar dropped out of his mouth, and his eyes widened.
Roy was beyond pissed with this kid. He didn't survive twenty years in the slammer to be bested by an uncertain punk with a big gun.
Lucky backed up away from the table and took better aim at Roy, blinking rapidly and darting his eyes in confusion and panic. All he wanted was to get in the game. Things were not turning out like he'd planned.
"Give me the money," he ground out, eyes flashing with intent. It was like another person was in the room, pointing a gun and robbing the joint. He felt like two people, one with a gun and the other helplessly watching.
Mike Corbin hurriedly scooped up the money on the table into a big pile.
"Put it in a bag," Lucky ordered in a low, even voice.
Roy wasn't going to put up with this for one more second. He watched for the right moment to pounce.
Lucky carefully approached the table and quickly took the bag from Mike, his eyes and gun never leaving Roy.
When Lucky was close to the door, Roy rushed him and slammed the door shut with one hand while grabbing for Lucky with the other. Lucky's finger squeezed repeatedly on the trigger, sending four bullets into walls and furniture. Gamblers scrambled and took cover under the table.
Roy jumped back in shock at the sound of
gunfire, and Lucky pulled open the door, running headlong into the dark street.
~*~*~*~
~~ Down in a hole and I don't know if
I can be saved
See my heart I decorate it like a grave
You don't understand who they
Thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now a man
Who won't let himself be *
Lucky ran and ran, lungs burning and feeling like they would splinter into bloody shards of tissue. He stumbled and skidded down on one knee. Coming to his senses, he stood back up shakily and placed his gun back into his waistband. He stood in the middle of the street with a bag in his hand, laughing hysterically.
He pounded on his thighs and howled. He couldn't tell when the laughter turned to tears. Lucky fell on his side and sobbed long and hard, bent over his precious bag of money as if protecting it from someone or something.
~*~*~*~
"We were sitting here, talking and …you know," said Cindy with a worried look on her face. She was standing in the cemetery that she and Lucky had visited, and Taggert and Tony were at her side. She wasn't worried about being with two strange men, but the cop made her nervous.
"No, I don't know," Taggert replied calmly as he looked her in the eye. "Why don't you fill in the blanks?"
"Well, I had some stuff with me, payment from a customer," Cindy explained, looking sheepish. "We decided to try some…."
"Some what?" Taggert interrupted.
"Coke," she whispered and shrugged.
Taggert's face hardened, and Tony looked concerned.
Cindy continued. "We were having fun, kissing, and then he freaked."
"Freaked?" Taggert's eyebrows rose. "What do you mean?"
"I tried to touch him, um, sexually, and he pulled a gun on me," Cindy stated with a bit more emotion. "He pointed it at my head, yelled at me to stop and get out and then he fired a shot." She turned and pointed to a tombstone.
Taggert and Tony walked over to the tombstone and saw a huge chunk missing from it.
Taggert looked at Tony and said, "We've got a problem, Tony." Tony's shoulders slumped and he sighed.
"Marcus, I told you he wasn't well. He had a rather bad emotional meltdown at the clinic before he disappeared."
"Well, we need to find him before he goes any further off the deep end," Taggert stated firmly. I don't like it that he has a weapon. Problem is, he seems to have disappeared. We haven't had any eyewitness sightings of him since yesterday."
~*~*~*~
Lucky walked shakily down Cortland Street, trying to collect the thoughts and emotions that kept slipping away from him. He just couldn't settle or feel like himself. He felt like a hollow body without a soul.
"Hey!" A disembodied voice called out to Lucky. Lucky turned and looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice. Joey C. stepped out of the shadows and walked up to Lucky. "Hey, muchacho," he grinned. "Why haven't I seen you around lately? My feelings are hurt," he smirked.
Lucky's forehead broke out in sweat. "I've been um…busy," he replied hesitantly.
"Too busy to look up an old friend?" Joey reprimanded.
"Yeah, I guess," Lucky whispered, looking down at his feet.
"I've got some good stuff," Joey said in a low voice, looking around to see if anyone were near. "Want to try some different shit?"
Lucky got a second wind, and his mind cleared a bit. "What stuff?" he asked.
"Mind candy," Joey laughed as he produced a couple of rocks from his pocket. "Crack."
Lucky hesitated for a minute, and then agreed. "Yeah. I'll try it." He pulled out a few bills from the bag and handed them to Joey.
Joey instructed him on the finer points of consuming the drug, and patted Lucky on the shoulder. "Take your mind off your troubles, amigo," he laughed. "Look me up again. But not when I'm with my main squeeze," he teased, referring to the night that Lucky had interrupted his action.
Lucky stuffed the drugs into his pocket and continued down the street.
* lyrics from Alice in Chains, "Down in a Hole