Never Saw It Coming

Thirty-two

Justin was getting antsy standing by the front door, so he went uninvited into the living room and plopped down onto the couch. He cast his eye over the half-full beer bottle and the Twinkie remnants. “You got anything to drink?”

“No,” Keisha said.

“Some host,” he muttered under his breath. “So tell me, what’d you do after you left Garfield’s house? You must have been a mess. You go through a car wash with all the windows open?”

She didn’t answer him. She was at the window, watching for Kirk.

“Fine, ignore me,” Justin said. “So this boyfriend of yours, what’s he do? Does he predict the future, or track down aliens, or some other shit like that?”

“He works construction,” Keisha said. “But not for a while. He hurt his foot. But he’s walking okay now.”

“That’s nice,” Justin said. “I look forward to doing business with him.”

Keisha heard a familiar rumbling, then saw Kirk’s truck turn into the driveway. The truck bed, as far as she could see, really was empty. Kirk got out and came strutting up the walk like a man who was not only proud of himself, but expecting to get laid.

He came into the house and said, “Hey, babe!”

“In here,” Keisha said.

He took a couple of steps into the house and scanned his eyes across the living room. Justin stood and extended a hand.

“Hey, how ya doin’,” he said. Kirk shook his hand, his face a puzzle. “Don’t think we’ve ever actually been introduced. I’m Justin. Last time I was here, you were still snoozing.” He grinned. “Had to keep my voice down. Keisha here didn’t want to disturb the beast.”

Kirk didn’t know what was going on. He’d never met Justin, although Keisha had told him about the scam she’d run with him. Only thing was, she’d told him her share was a thousand, not twenty-five hundred.

“Justin and I did that job together,” Keisha reminded him. “His parents hired me to find him? We set it up ahead?”

“Oh yeah, right,” Kirk said. “Nice.”

“Yeah,” Justin said, smiling. “My idea, totally. I was just telling Keisha here, we should do some more work together.”

Kirk shrugged, like maybe that was a good idea. “That why you’re here now? You cooking up something?”

“No, this is about something else,” Keisha said.

“Keisha tells me you’re all up to speed on what happened today,” Justin said.

Kirk eyed him warily. Even he wasn’t dumb enough to admit to anything until he knew what it was Justin knew.

“Possibly,” he said slowly.

Justin understood his caution. “The Garfield house. I know all about it.”

Kirk glared at Keisha. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Keisha said. “He was there. Looking through the window. Spying.”

“Well,” Justin said, “I think spying is a tad judgmental. Especially considering you went there to rip him off. And really, it wasn’t spying. I was just hoping to broaden my horizons, see how Keisha did her thing. Who knew she’d moved from bullshit predictions to eye surgery?”

“How would he even know to be there?” Kirk asked.

Keisha quickly explained that Justin had been by the house in the morning, suspected she might go see Wendell Garfield, and found her at the man’s house.

“Yeah,” Justin said proudly. “And my mom says I lack initiative.”

But even with all this explanation, Kirk was still confused. “So what are you doing here, if you’re not planning something new?”

“He’s here to blackmail me,” Keisha said.

“What?”

“He wants money to keep quiet about what he’s seen.”

Kirk, reflexively, reached around and touched the bulge under the back of his winter coat.

“How much?” he asked.

“Forty-five hundred,” Justin offered cheerily. “That’s Keisha’s share out of the scam we pulled on my parents, plus another two grand.”

Keisha thought, Nuts. She could see Kirk doing the math in his head. He looked like a caveman trying to figure out how to take pictures with a smartphone. He said to her, “You told me you only got a thousand out of that job.”

Keisha shrugged. “You got me.”

Kirk would deal with her later. To Justin, he said, “So you’re asking for nearly five grand or you tell the cops Keisha killed Garfield.”

“Good,” Justin said, like Kirk was five. “You deserve a sticker.”

Kirk said, “And you figure we’re just going to give it to you.”

“Don’t you think it would be kind of dumb not to? I make an anonymous call to the cops and they’ll be over here. And if you’ve been helping her cover up what she did, that makes you an accomplice, so it’s as much in your interest to keep this all under wraps as it is hers.” He waited for some kind of response. “Hello?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m hearing you,” Kirk said, stepping further into the living room, crowding Justin and forcing him to take a couple of steps back. “Well, you’re kind of in luck, as it turns out, because I’ve got the money on me.”

Not exactly what Keisha was expecting. She looked at him, dumbfounded.

“No shit?” Justin said, like a junkie seconds away from a fix. “You’re kidding, right? No one carries that kind of money on them. I’d have given you a couple of days to get it together.”

“No, no, I got it,” Kirk said, and reached behind him for the wad of cash Gail had given Keisha.

“Fuck me,” Justin said, not believing it as Kirk fanned out the bills in his two hands.

“I’m gonna keep five hundred back, because there’s five grand here,” Kirk said.

“Shit, you rob a bank or something?” The kid couldn’t take his eyes off the money.

Kirk took the five hundred and shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans. He extended the rest of the money to Justin, and just as the young man was about to take it, Kirk let the money fall to the floor. It fluttered like giant confetti.

“Oh shit, sorry, thought you had it there,” Kirk said.

“Hey, no problem,” Justin said, and dropped to his knees to collect the scattered bills.

Kirk brought up his knee and caught Justin on the nose.

“Fuck!” he screamed, stumbling back, throwing both hands over his face, blood trickling out between his fingers. “What the hell?”

He turned his face away defensively and flailed blindly at Kirk with his bloodied hands like a bullied schoolboy. Kirk deflected Justin’s feeble blow with one sweep of his arm, then glanced down at the bloodstains that flecked his shirt. “Shit,” he said, and slammed Justin into the wall to the right of the shelves displaying his new wheels.

“You think you can come in here and pull this kind of shit?” Kirk said. “You think I’m just gonna hand you that money?”

“Don’t hurt me!” Justin screamed. “I think you broke my nose! Jesus!”

“I’m gonna break every bone in your body if you think you’re going to leave here with one fucking cent.”

“I’ll tell!” he shouted. “The cops’ll be all over her!”

Kirk closed the distance between them and put his hands around the young man’s neck, just the way he’d done with Keisha earlier in the day.

Justin coughed. “Can’t…”

It was Justin’s turn to use his knee. He brought it up fast and hard, catching Kirk in the testicles.

“Shit!”

Kirk let go of Justin’s neck and closed in on himself, hands over his crotch, the pain radiating through him. He stepped back and to the left.

Justin reached out with his right hand, slipped it between the wall and the shelf, and, putting everything he had into it, pushed forward. The shelf was not secured to the wall, and with two wheels on the top, two in the center, and none on the bottom, it was unsteady to begin with.

It teetered, in slow motion at first, then with a gathering momentum.

The two wheels on top pitched off first. One caught Kirk on the shoulder, knocking him to the floor. A fraction of a second later, the other wheel landed on his upper body and flipped over once, covering his face, the edge of the rim pressing against his neck.

As the unit continued its plunge, the two wheels on the middle shelf fell off. One landed on Kirk’s knee, while the other hit the carpet.

“Yeah!” Justin said. “Take that, asshole!”

He spun around, giddy, grinned at Keisha, just in time to see the beer bottle coming at his head.

As soon as she hit him, she dropped the bottle. She felt the pain of the impact-the bottle hit him solidly on the forehead-shoot right up her arm. The bottle didn’t break, not even when it hit the floor, but it did the trick. Justin staggered backwards and collapsed, hitting the wall next to where the shelf had been and sliding on his back to the floor.

Keisha stood there, her labored breathing the only sound in the room.

She surveyed the wreckage. The overturned shelf, the scattered wheels, Kirk trapped beneath the wreckage. Justin unconscious.

At least, she thought he was unconscious.

“Jesus,” she said.

She knelt down, put her hand on Justin’s chest. He was out cold, but alive. She could feel him breathing under her palm.

Kirk was alive, too. He made a weak coughing sound.

“Babe,” he said. “I can’t… I can’t move.”

He made a gagging sound. Keisha moved toward him, put one leg over one of the shelving unit’s vertical posts, straddling it so she could get a look at Kirk. She could see one eye behind the wheel, saw how the rim was pressing against Kirk’s windpipe. The shelf had landed on top of the wheel, pinning it into position.

Keisha would have to move the shelf before she could get the wheel off him.

“Hey,” Kirk said. “Get this… get this off me.” He was trying to use his hands to move the rim, but one was caught behind his back, and he couldn’t get any leverage with the free one.

Keisha thought.

Surveyed the situation.

Thought about Matthew.

Maybe there was still a way out of this. A way for her to stay out of trouble, stay with her boy.

“Hey!” Kirk said. “You… fucking deaf? I need… help here.” He coughed.

There was a lot to figure out in a short time. She’d have to have it done before Justin woke up.

But what she had here was an opportunity.

“Hey,” Keisha said, looking down at Kirk through the openings between the mag wheel spokes.

“Can’t… breathe,” he said.

“Looks bad,” she said. “Must hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“The fuck… you doing? Move… the shelf.” He was sounding wheezy.

“I think I’ve got a way out, Kirk,” she said. “It might not work, but then again, it might. Got to take the chance.”

“What… you…”

“But it’s not going to work with you. Once Wedmore gets you in a room and starts putting questions to you, well, I don’t think you’re going to be able to outsmart her, you know what I’m saying?”

“… bitch…”

“You’re my weak link, Kirk. Sorry. You were an okay guy, you know? When we met? I really fell for you. You seemed so sweet.” There was that lump in her throat again. “But you conned me. You got inside me”-and she put her hand between her breasts-“before I realized what a useless piece of shit you are.”

He didn’t say anything. He was watching her with that one eye.

“But even a couple of hours ago, I might not have been capable of this. I might have helped you out here. But what you told Matthew? That I was going to send him away to military school?” She shook her head, and a teardrop fell from her cheek, slipped between the spokes and landed on Kirk’s forehead. “That was the last straw.”

“Babe…”

She put her weight on the shelf, which in turn forced the wheel down harder on Kirk’s neck. She managed to lift one foot from the floor, perch it on the edge of the middle shelf, then the other foot.

Kirk made some very bad sounds. Sounds that Keisha would be hearing for the rest of her life.

She sat there a couple of minutes until she was sure, glancing every few seconds at Justin to make sure he hadn’t regained consciousness.

Once she was certain Kirk was dead, she went into action.

She moved with deliberate speed, thinking through everything carefully.

Rehearsed the story in her head.

Got all the props in place.

Then she found in her jacket pocket the card that Rona Wedmore had given her at the Garfield house. Went to the phone in the bedroom and entered the number.

Wedmore picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s Keisha Ceylon. I’ve got a confession to make.”