Dan’s dreams are turbulent and dark. He sees a strip of starlight, through a storm. He holds the gash across his stomach closed; blood flows like a river over his right arm. His left hand grabs a gun from the ground: his partner’s revolver. A man and a shadow are struggling; Dan brings his gun up to level on the shadow. The man sees, and bears the shadow at Dan. “DO IT!” the man screams. Dan pulls the trigger. CLICK. He pulls it again. CLICK. The man screams. “Dan!” BOOM. A flash of lightning. CLICK. The shadow pulls free: CLICK. They’re going over the edge. SPLASH.
Dan jumps awake, sweat on his chest. He breaths heavily; naked, except for his boxers and socks. His right hand rests on a long scar drawn across his abs. He breathes in, holds it, and exhales through his nose.
He’s in Ariel’s apartment. His mind happily forgets why he’s here and not home in bed. But it’s a short lived bliss. Recall rolls back the fog on the previous night.
“Fuck.” Dan swears to the empty room.
The blinds are drawn and a high sun casts steep blades of light into the room. He hears a sound to his left, the shower. He looks around the room. There are photos hanging on the walls and sitting on a bookshelf, some of her awards hang over her writing desk, more than when Dan left.
“Ariel?” He asks, and the sound of the shower stops.
“Yeah,” Ariel replies, she sounds alert, centered, “Hold on.” There is the flush of a toilet, more running water, and Ariel emerges from the bathroom. Water beads on her dark brown skin, a towel hangs around her shoulders lending barest modesty to the sight before Dan. Wow. His voice laughs. Now there’s a sight I thought I’d never enjoy again.
Another towel clings to her waist. Her dark hair is pulled back, and she has a smile on her face. The smile melts both nightmare and recent memory from Dan’s mind. “Bad dreams?” She knows. Dan shakes his head, anyway. Hair clings to the sweat on his neck.
“Bad night.” He replies. He doesn’t look away as she slinks across the room, past the couch, to the kitchenette opposite the bedroom. She opens the fridge and leans low to grab a carton of milk. As she passes, he catches sight of the tattoo on her right arm: a black knight chess piece. His hand rises to where a black rook piece tattoo rides on his own arm.
The nightmare tries to resurface, so Dan’s eyes find something to distract him: the note from Rachel is on top of his clothes. That works, the voice in his ear grumbles. That explains the show, always knows how to cheer me up, doesn’t she?
“So what now?” Ariel asks. “What’s your plan?” She stands up and drinks from the carton. Dan lies back down and stares at the ceiling.
“My plans involved Rachel saying yes.” Dan explains. “In fact, it was the key to all the plans.”
“You didn’t think she’d say no?”
“I’d thought about it.” Dan admits. “But I’d figured she’d say she needs more time, or-”
“More time?” Ariel interrupts him, “A whole year, exclusive abstinent, is some time.” Dan closes his eyes. A year ago, he hadn’t needed sex or physical intimacy. He’d needed safety. He’d needed to be away from the force, and the press. He’d pushed away everyone connected to those things. That was then.
“It was enough.” Dan exhales, “For then, but I guess not anymore.”
“And now?” Ariel walks over and sits in a chair, the creak of leather punctuates the question. “What do you want now?” I want you back, he thinks. His eyes meet hers.
“She doesn’t want to see me again.” I don’t want to see her again.
“That ‘Good bye’ read pretty permanent-like.” Ariel nods at the open note. Wait until you hear the rest.
“All of my shit was packed when I got back.” How did Rachel do it all in one night? Is she related to Santa Claus?
“You went back?” She deadpans. “Wait, what?” She double takes.
“All of my clothes, and my computer,” Dan counts off on his fingers, “Hell. Even my dishes and my dry food were boxed up.” He runs out of fingers, and shrugs.
“That’s fucked up.” Ariel crosses her arms. “So.”
“So?” Dan turns to look at her. The shafts of light illuminate her strong legs, shaving cream on a heel. Dan reaches from where he's sitting, but stops himself. “You missed some.” He points.
“So: What now?” Ariel frowns and wipes the cream off with a napkin.
“Now?” Dan thinks. “Now, I take a shower.” Ariel chuckles. Dan opens up his travel bag and pulls out a small bottle of body wash and a folded, purple towel. “I’ll plan ahead, as I go.”
The steam still clings to the mirror when Dan enters, and he inhales trace scents of soap and shaving lotion. She still uses the same lotion as before, Dan rests a hand on the bottle. His eye catches his reflection in the mirror.
The face that meets him frowns. Thrown out of my home, my job is on the close, and she said no. “But I’ve got a place to crash,” Dan’s voice is a whisper, “a meet with the crew, and if it wasn’t going to go anywhere, better it end now.” The reflection shakes its head. Crashing isn’t safety, and they’re all in the same boat as you. It doesn’t disagree the third point. “Then I find something new to do.” Dan shrugs as he shucks of his drawers and socks and starts the shower flowing. It’s already warm.
An hour later, Dan is dressed in denim, fleece, and leather, appropriate for the coming autumn. Dan recalls the day he went to buy the ring. He'd gone to meet the uncle of a friend. It had taken him half the year to save up enough for it, even with the 'friend's discount' the uncle had offered him.
Dan stands behind his truck; the tailgate is down and he pulls a heavy metal lock box toward himself. From his key ring, he unlocks the box and opens the container. He throws a look over his shoulder before opening the box. Clear alley, behind Ariel’s apartment, nobody around. Inside are two sidearms, a Glock 22 and .357 Smith and Wesson Revolver. Both are unloaded and have bright orange safety locks.
Dan pulls out the revolver with his left hand. He chokes up on the grip, and runs a hand over the side of the polished black barrel. The blood stains had been washed away, but Dan shudders as he recalls how it clung to the metal of Tony’s revolver.
He brings up his key ring and unlocks the safety. He pulls the chord out, through the barrel. The lock drops into the box and he stares down into the barrel. He lifts up a panel of the box, and pulls out a box of rubber bullets. He loads six rounds into the cylinder.
He grabs a carry holster and pulls it on, under his jacket. He loads six more bullets into loops on the belt. He holsters the revolver, closes the box, and locks it. He opens his wallet and takes the spare copy of his carry license and slips it into a clear space on the holster belt, visible from the front.
Rachel had never been comfortable with him wearing a sidearm. She had liked it even less when Dan was in his lows. That was then, not anymore. His hips, his guns, his license.
He walks over to the cab of the car and open the door. Four-thirty blinks on the clock. He gets in and slides the key into the ignition. The engine turns over and the rumble under the hood cues a rumble in Dan’s stomach.
“Yeah. I know.” Dan pats his stomach. “I know what you want.” He releases the parking break and drives into the street. He follows the flow of traffic, and pulls up to the side of the road near a Mexican food stand.
Dan gets out and quickly buys a bottle of red soda and a large chimichanga. Dan jumps back into his truck and heads through the city. At a red light, he flips on his turn signal. After a sports car breezes past, he turns down a street, heading toward the river. Face the nightmares, he tells himself.
He pulls into a public parking garage, driving up to the fourth level. He steers toward west side of the building, where two spots are permanently partitioned from use. He parks to the left of them, and gets out of the car. He has the food bag in one hand and the soda bottle in the other.
Both spots have spray paint art in them. One of them is a golden shield surrounded by waves of blue; the other is an overflowing garden of blooming flowers. Close inspection would show nineteen of the blooms are cut from their stems. Beyond them, in an unoccupied space, layers of black and gray spray paint suggest a third mural, though not one of respect.
Dan walks over to a plaque, sitting in a concrete wall that overlooks the River; The river divides the city into the old and new. The new city, beyond the river, is always bustling and noisy. Towers of glass and steel blanket the horizon. The old city is only now woken up and alive. Brick and mortar homes and buildings spread out across leveled hills.
Dan runs his hands over the plaque and exhales. He closes his eyes and focuses on the real.
“She said no, Tony.” He speaks slowly. “She said no.” He breathes in and tries to reason with it. “She said no, after I pushed Ariel away.” He sets the bag next to the plaque and twists the cap off the bottle.
He takes swigs the soda and flinches at the sweetness. “How could you just chug this stuff?” He set the bottle on the plaque, and ran his fingers over some of the raised metal letters. “What now, Tony?” He crosses his arms and gazes out over the river. He stares at the bridges which span the gap.
Dan’s eyes close and he puts on a confident smile. “Years on the force, you learn to trust your partners,” He recites words that aren’t his own, “and they learn to trust you. So if it’s good enough for them: trust yourself.” His eyes flick open and he exhales.
He reaches into the bag and pulls out the foil wrapped chimichanga. “You always pulled the ‘go with your gut’ card whenever things got hairy.” Dan runs his cut hand over his stomach, where the scar is under his clothes. “I think I bled out everything worth going with.” He shakes his head and struggles for words when the roar of an engine breaks his thoughts.
Dan turns to see a massive black SUV roll up from the lower level. It turns sharply. Dan cringes, eyes open. He expects the vehicle to collide against the parked cars. Instead, the SUV turns tightly and pulls into the grey-black parking space. Dan’s gut tightens; he drops the chimichanga in the bag, and watches. Under his fingers, the plaque feels warm.
The SUV door opens and Dan’s eyes go screwy. He squints as his brain struggles with what he’s seeing. The thing-in-the-suit has all the parts a person does: legs, arms, torso, and head. There’s hair where it should be and a face resembles a person’s. However it all seems, wrong somehow: like a poorly doctored photo, the sloppy borders of blue-screen around a weather forecaster, and an unnerving 3D model all weave into this thing-in-the-suit. In the distance, a bell tolls.
The thing-in-the-suit approaches, attache case ‘in hand’ and it adjusts its ‘tie’. Dan is still dealing with a riot in his brain when the thing starts to ‘speak’. The bell tolls again.
“Mister Daniel -Lorraine- Hickory.” The thing-in-the-suit has a jarring ‘speech’ pattern. The bell tolls twice, between its pauses. Dan doesn’t try to address it; he just nods, hoping it will leave. It remains, silent, and waits. The bell tolls a fifth time and goes silent.
“Yes.” Dan speaks through gritted teeth. “That’s me.” The thing raises its ‘eyebrow’ at the rhetorical response.
“I.” The thing in the suit seemed to struggle with that word for a moment. “Have been,” its lips weren’t matching the words. “Empowered to deliver to you,” and its jaw wasn’t matching with its mouth. “Documents, and -effects- pertaining -to your- inheritance.”
Dan’s brain screams to get in truck and drive away. His gut roars to shoot it. He clenches his fists and holds his ground. He takes a breath and clears his head, before he speaks.
“Inheritance?” Dan managed “From whom?” The thing-in-the-suit struggles with its response.
“From your -immediately deceased- aunt.” Its smile should split its head as it puts the attache case on the concrete wall, on top of Tony’s plaque. An electric shock jumps through the plaque into his hand. Dan jumps back, and his body moves.
Dan pulls his revolver, southpaw, on reflex and out of panic. He stares the thing-in-the-suit down the barrel of the revolver. For the first time: Dan’s brain doesn’t reject the sight of the thing.
The thing-in-the-suit turns its head to look right at Dan; its left ‘eye’ sighted perfectly. Its face loses its mockery of a smile. “Here.” It produces a thick manilla envelope in its other 'hand'. “Your documents.” The case is still closed.
“When you serve someone papers,” Dan struggles to quip, “don’t you need a witness?” Something in Dan’s head still has the capacity to question the circumstances. The thing-in-the-suit smiles; it turns its gaze out toward you.
“That,” it says, “has been seen to.” It picks the attache case off of the wall. “Please, follow the instructions and be present at by the appointed time.” It goes back to the SUV. It gets in and the car drives off.
Dan stands there, holding his gun, for a cool minute. Across the river, a clock tower tolls the half hour. He holsters the revolver and chugs the entire bottle of sugar sweet soda. He rests his hand on the plaque, over the dedication; his eyes are on the name at the bottom:
