Chapter 3 - Blood on the Steering Wheel
The rain outside was coming down in thick, freezing sheets, blurring the yellow streetlights of 4th Street into long streaks of gold.
Delphine hauled Victor through the swinging kitchen doors, past the cold fryers and stacks of unwashed bus tubs. Her uniform was completely ruined. Blood from Victor’s chest had soaked through her apron, staining her yellow cotton shirt dark crimson.
“Where... are we going?” Victor choked out, his toes dragging along the greasy tiles.
“My car,” Delphine panted, her broad chest heaving as she kicked open the heavy rear exit door. “It's parked in the alley behind the dumpster.”
“What about... the phone?” he asked, his dark eyes clouding over as shock began to take hold. “You need... to call the police...”
“Call the police?!” Delphine snapped, maneuvering him out into the pouring rain. “There are three hitmen in my dining room, one of them has a ruined knee, and you're wearing a suit that costs more than my annual salary! If I call the cops, your people show up, their people show up, and I end up dead in a ditch before breakfast! Move your feet!”
Her car was a 2008 Chevy Impala with a rusted rear fender, a missing hubcap, and a passenger seat filled with old receipts and empty soda cans.
She shoved Victor into the front seat, slamming his long legs inside, and threw her weight into closing the heavy metal door. She sprinted around to the driver’s side, climbed in, and shoved her key into the ignition. The engine sputtered twice, whining in protest against the damp air, before roaring to life.
Delphine put the car in reverse, slammed on the gas, and backed out of the narrow alley just as a sleek black SUV turned the corner with its headlights off.
“Get down!” she screamed, slapping her broad arm across Victor’s chest and shoving him flat against the seat.
The black SUV cruised slowly past the alley entrance, its dark tinted windows hiding the men inside. They were the backup team. If she had delayed by even thirty seconds, they would have been trapped in the kitchen.
Delphine took a sharp left, tires screeching on the wet asphalt, and merged onto the dark, empty expanse of I-95 South.
Silence fell over the inside of the Impala, save for the rhythmic slap of the worn windshield wipers and the harsh, ragged sound of Victor’s breathing.
Delphine looked over at him. His eyes were closed now, his jaw slack, his face dangerously pale under the green glow of the dashboard lights. The blood soaking his side was pooling into the fabric of her passenger seat.
“Oh God,” Delphine whispered, her hands gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. What did I do? What did I do?”
The reality of the last fifteen minutes came crashing down on her like a tidal wave. She had shot a man. She had dragged a crime boss out of a crime scene. She was currently driving fifty-five miles per hour with a critically wounded mobster in her passenger seat, covered in blood, driving a car that could be tied to her in ten seconds flat.
“Listen to me,” a faint voice rasped from the darkness.
Delphine jumped.
Victor had opened one eye. He reached out with his right hand—his left was entirely limp—and laid his heavy, warm palm over her knee. The gesture was surprisingly steadying.
“You did... what you had to do,” Victor grunted, his breath rattling in his chest. “You saved my life.”
“I ruined my life!” Delphine blurted out, a tear finally cutting a clean line through the dried coffee grease on her cheek. “I have eighty-four dollars in my checking account! I have a cat named Barnaby who hasn't been fed! I have a shift on Thursday! I can never go back to that diner!”
“I will... pay for your cat,” Victor murmured, his lips twitching faintly despite his agonizing pain. “I will pay... for your diner. Just... don't drive into a wall.”
“Where am I taking you?” she demanded, turning off the highway into the dark, industrial warehouse district near the naval yard. “I'm not taking you to a hospital. They have to report gunshot wounds.”
“Grave Street,” Victor whispered. “Number... 412. Iron gate. Press... four-two-zero-zero on the pad...”
“And then what?”
May you like
“And then... ask for Sal,” Victor’s hand slipped off her knee, dropping heavily into his lap as his head rolled back against the headrest. He had passed out cold.
Delphine stared at the dark road ahead, her teeth grinding together. “Sal. Great. Another mobster. Just what my Tuesday morning was missing.”
