Page 47 of Avenging Kelly

Pulling myself up, I latched onto the overhead water pipe, swinging hard enough to bust the dirty glass with my boots. I kicked out the frame as well, and swung through, feet first.

I dropped onto the dirty asphalt behind the place and took off down the alley behind a few store fronts until I could cross the street and make my way to the through-street behind Dare Ya with no one noticing.

When I approached the back of the bar, I could see there was more water damage than fire, so I assumed Sally was cleaning up to try to open the place. Why is there no crime scene tape around the building?

A guy had been shot, and another had been attached to water pipes in the men’s room. How did one explain that shit away?

19

KELLY

When I arrived at the back of the bar, I tried the metal door first. It was locked, and the door jamb was pretty solid, so there was no kicking that fucker in.

I looked around for another idea and stumbled across a rusty butter knife sticking out of the debris near the burned-out dumpster. I reached for my handkerchief and wrapped it around the handle to use it to pop out the screws that were holding up plywood over the broken window, happy the knife was still solid enough.

Enough of the screws came out that I could lift the plywood and break it in half such that it swung up like a gate. I used my boot to bust out more of the glass, and I climbed into a storage room where a set of stairs led to the second floor. That answered how Rick got upstairs when London was trying to get the girls out the previous day.

After doing my best to see out the small window in the door, I was pretty sure Sally was alone, so I pulled open the door to the bar, only to be met with the muzzle of a pistol.

“Put your hands up,” the dirty-blonde woman demanded.

Sally looked a little unsteady on her feet, and I could see she’d been crying, but thankfully, her finger wasn’t on the trigger.

I reached up and took the gun from her easily. I flipped open the cylinder to see there were no bullets, so I stuck it into my belt.

“Where’s Fleming?” It seemed the best place to start so I could gage her level of awareness regarding the events of the previous day.

“Dead. His business partner shot him and set the place on fire. The whores are gone, if that’s why you’re here. Why didn’t you come through the front door?” she asked me, cocking an ungroomed eyebrow.

“I didn’t see anybody when I looked through the front window a few minutes ago. Are you closed?” I asked her.

“I honestly don’t know. The cops took all them girls, and they searched the place. They found Ricky upstairs with a bullet in his head and took his body out, but Phil and Miguel were gone. I guess they got out before the fire,” she explained.

That was interesting because Miguel had been restrained in the bathroom, but I didn’t mention it. “Who’s Phil?” I asked.

“Who’re you?” she responded.

I truly didn’t want to hurt the woman, but the adrenaline was rushing now, and I was getting pissed at her vague bullshit answers.

I reached behind my back and retrieved my weapon. “Unless you answer my questions, I’m gonna be the one to send you to hell.”

The woman walked to the bar and grabbed a pack of Marlboro Reds, sliding one out of the red and white box and striking a stick match against the scuffed-up bar top. The flame started as blue before it turned orange with yellow surrounding it. She held it to the tip of her cigarette and then shook out the match, tossing it on the floor she’d been diligently sweeping.

After a deep draw, she pulled out two stools and sat down on one where I could see her hands. “You want a drink? If you’re gonna kill me, I’d like to be a little drunk or a little high, and since you don’t seem like the kind to carry my favorite fix, I’ll take tequila.”

I put the P365 in my belt on the left side of my jeans, leaving the safety off in case she was trickier than I’d judged. I walked behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of Patron and a bottle of my friend, Jack Daniels, and I put both of them next to where she was sitting, along with a lime and two shot glasses.

I walked around the bar and took the seat next to her as she stubbed out the smoke on the wood before tossing it onto the floor. I poured each of us a drink and looked at the woman, seeing a life hard lived. “Who was Rick Fleming to you?”

Sally lit another cigarette and downed the shot of tequila I’d poured her, not touching the lime. “Ricky Fleming was my boyfriend a long time ago. I was his first whore, and he promised that if I stuck with him, we’d live the good life,” she stated before I shot back my Jack, enjoying the burn all the way down.

She picked up the bottle and poured me another before she poured herself another tequila.

“How old?” I asked.

She chuckled. “Fifteen. He was twenty and mixed up with a dangerous crowd. His half-brother, Phil, got him into running drugs because he was traveling around the world on the government’s dime while he was in the military. He was a supply officer and could easily bring drugs into the country when he came through, which was too often, considering we were fighting a war in two countries. Ricky needed me to trick for him because the two of us used more of the drugs than we sold back then.”

She took another shot of tequila and continued. “Back then, Phil was kinda decent, even nice, but that changed real quick after he and Ricky started doin’ business. Phil brought drugs in, Ricky met him on base, and we did what we could to make money. I swear, we were out at Pendleton at least once a week to pick up packages back then.”

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