Soul Survivor, Part Six

Annie Budd opened the door with a sour look on her face. “I already told Dominick I don’t want any trouble. That goes for you too.” She looked over our group. “I didn’t think there’d be so many. Well, he’s downstairs.”

            We headed down to the basement—me and Rachel, Monica helping A.J. I half expected a mad scientist’s laboratory—test tubes and Bunsen burners and brains in jars. Instead it was a stereotypical man cave, with a bar, a big-screen TV, banners for the Chicago Bulls and Bears and Blackhawks across the walls, two sofas, and three recliner chairs.

            Dominick sat on a stool at the bar, smirking as we came down the stairs. I’d only seen him from a distance yesterday or in pictures from years ago. Up close now, his face was thinner and his beard more patchy. His hair was long and pulled back in a ponytail. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept since shooting Heider, but his face grew bright as A.J. stumbled down the last step into the basement. “Yes. You came.”

            A.J. crossed her arms, breathing shallowly as leaned against Monica. If she was scared, she managed to hide it. 

Dominick looked at Rachel and me. “You’re the detective, aren’t you? Annie told me you were here before. Who’s this?” He gave Rachel a once-over smile that made me want to unzip my jacket and shoot him. “Secretary?”

            “Rachel,” she said. “Wife, associate. Psychic.” 

            “Psychic?” He raised his eyebrows. “Can you see my future? Tell what I’m thinking?”

            “I can tell you’re an asshole.” She smirked. “But I don’t need any powers for that.”

            Dominick frowned. “I’m an asshole, but I’m the asshole you need. Right, A.J.?”

            “I want what you took from me.” She held out a hand. It trembled just a little.

            “You gave it to me freely.” Dominick leered. “You signed your name in blood.”

            She shook her head. “You used it for—things I never signed up for. Give it back.”

He gazed into her eyes. “Do you really want it? It might be more of a burden than you imagine.”

            A.J. slowly sank onto the sofa, as if close to giving into the urge to collapse and surrender, but she kept her hand out. “Give it,” she whispered.

            Dominick sighed. “Have you got what I asked for?”

            Monica sighed and dug into her shoulder bag. She pulled out the song, still in its frame. “Let me see the—A.J.’s soul.”

            Dominick walked behind the bar. A moment later he came up holding what looked like a small perfume bottle. Instead of perfume, it was filled with a blue liquid filled with clouds that floated around in a tangled dance, glowing like a lava lamp. 

            He set it on the bar. 

            “How did Heider use it?” I asked. “To do—what he did?”

            Dominick unscrewed the top of the bottle. “A drop of this in a spoon, pure silver or gold. Heated under a candle. Inhale it, and you can whatever you want. Unleash your inmost desires, your most debauched dreams.” He looked disgusted. “I hate to think of what Josh did, but he paid. The money was good.”

            I felt a small surge of relief. Maybe A.J. wouldn’t have to relive Heider’s fantasies. But I’m still too much of a reporter not to ask questions, even if I’d never be able to tell anybody the answers. “So why did you shoot him?”

            Dominick blinked. “I’m not admitting to anything. We’re just doing a deal here.”

“Yeah.” A.J. took the frame from Monica and held it out. “Can we just get this over with?”

            Dominick walked over and took the song. “This is it,” he murmured. “All I need.”

            “Well?” A.J. held out her hand.

            He gave her the bottle. “Be careful. Don’t drop it. It shatters, and your soul is—” He spread the fingers of one hand. “Gone.”

            “How do we do this?” Monica was right beside her. “Get it back into A.J.?”

            “Just drink it. It’s simple. Then everything comes back. It’s a rush, it’s good you’re lying down.” Dominick walked back behind the bar. “Now get out. I’ve got stuff to do.” He started pulling more bottles up from behind the bar. They were different colors, different shapes, but they all held the same swimming, glowing clouds, like snow globes being shaken by an unseen hand.

            “Wait.” I could feel Rachel glaring at me, but I had to ask. “What about Heider? What happened with him?”

            Dominick looked annoyed. “I’m not going to say—look, Phil sent Josh to get A.J.’s soul back.” —” He waved his hand over the bottle. “The whole thing was causing him too many problems. He wanted me to leave town, go to Mexico or somewhere. He promised me money. I told him I needed this—the song. The song is half the spell to do all this. I never should have given it to him, but Phil insisted. Phil wanted to be in control of who I did the deal with.”

He leaned his elbows on the bar for a moment. “Phil thought I was working for him. But it was the other way around. These all belong to me.” He picked up a bottle. “Anyway, Josh said he’d get me the song if I handed over A.J.’s soul to him and let him keep it. Asshole.”

Monica shuddered. A.J.’s eyes were closed.

Dominick picked up a gym bag and set it on the bar, and started setting the bottles inside. “These all belong to me. I don’t just hand them out for nothing. I told him to screw himself, and he started shoving me. And then—well, all I’m going to say is you should have seen the look on his face.” Dominick’s laugh echoed hollowly off the basement walls.

            “And Chapin? What happened to him?”

            He shrugged. “We made a standard deal for seven years. The big guy was involved. You know? Massive success, all that stuff. He got it extended once. But there were some—provisions against him talking too much. He must have gone overboard. Too bad, but he knew what he was signing.”

            “The big guy? Does that mean—" The possibilities were sort of frightening. Who was Dominick really dealing with?

            He shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Dominick lifted a handgun from behind the bar. For a moment I thought he was going to murder us all, and I started reaching inside my jacket for my gun. But he shoved it into his bag. “Okay. You guys get out. Don’t bother my aunt. Just leave.”

            Monica knelt and started lifting A.J. to her feet. Rachel yanked on my arm. I nodded. “Okay, okay—”

            But then yelling erupted upstairs. Dominick’s aunt. “Dominick! Dom, there are police here! Dominick—”

            A voice thundered from the top of the stairs. “This is the Chicago Police! Dominick Slipko, come up with your hands empty and over your head! Now!”

            Dominick stared at me, his eyes wide, betrayed. “You—” He snatched up his pistol. 

            I shook my head. “Not me.” My plan was to call the police after he was far away. They’d get mad, but I did have my phone recording our chat. And if they caught him with the gun they’d have everything they needed.

            “Now, Dominick!” The cop’s voice was insistent and impatient.

            Dominick pointed the gun, first at me, then at A.J., then up the stairs. I started to unzip my jacket, hoping I could get Donald out before he started shooting. But Rachel shoved me, pushing me down before I could get my fingers around it.

            Dominick’s gun boomed. Monica shrieked. She clutched her arm, blood seeping through her fingers, and sagged to the ground. A.J., weak as she was, clambered on top of her, shielding her. But she also had the perfume bottle open, and as Monica squirmed and moaned, A.J. pressed it to her lips and started sucking down the liquid inside. If she was going to die, I guess she wanted to die with her soul inside her.

            Two shots from above slammed through the air. One hit the front of the bar next to Dominick, digging a splintered hole. The next one hit him in the side of the head. Dominick toppled over, a gash in his skull, and sprawled on the floor, still breathing but otherwise helpless.

            Rachel was next to me, breathing hard. “Nothing stupid.”

            “Yeah,” I agreed. Then I yelled, “He’s down! Stop shooting! Slipko is down!”

            She punched me in the ribs. “Idiot.”

The cops came down. Two of them in uniform, followed by a detective in plain clothes. The uniforms stepped around A.J. and Monica on the floor, fanning out to cover the bar. They saw Dominick on the floor, blood and brains seeping onto the carpet. The detective looked down and saw Monica bleeding. “We need medics!” she shouted. Then she flicked her eyes toward me. I didn’t know her, but she seemed to recognize me as she sighed

            Two paramedics rushed downstairs. They both started for Dominick, but the detective pointed to Monica. “She needs help too.” One of the medics crouched next to her as the other started looking Dominick over.

The detective walked over. “Who are you?”

“Tom Jurgen. I’m a P.I. This is my wife, Rachel.” I sat up slowly. “I’m carrying a handgun. I’ve got all the paperwork. He killed Josh Heider, I’ve got it recorded on my—”

            “Yeah, I know who you are. Take your gun out slowly, Jurgen.”

            Rachel kicked me. “Everyone knows you.”

            I took Donald out carefully and laid it on the carpet. “Monica, you okay? A.J.?”

            Monica groaned as the paramedic flicked a light in her eyes. A.J. sat up, shaking, and for a moment I thought she was going into a seizure. Then, as I watched, I realized she was—laughing.

            “Yes,” she laughed, her eyes bright. “It’s back. I’m back. I’m going to write a song . . .” Then she leaned over. “Monica? I’m sorry. Thank you.” She kissed her cheek.

            “Let me work,” the paramedic grunted, pushing A.J. aside. “Then let me check you out.”

            The detective looked at me, one eyebrow raised. 

            “I can explain,” I told her. “But you probably won’t want to report most of it.”

            She sighed. “This should be good.”

 

A.J. called me the next morning. Rachel was working from home, so I put her on speaker. 

            “Monica’s out of the hospital.” Her voice was fast, breathless. “Arm’s in a sling. She’s at work, she insists she’s all right. How did it go with the police?”

            Rachel grimaced at the memory of the long night we’d spent downtown. The police had been hunting for Dominick after a surveillance camera in the parking garage stairwell picked up an image of his face, looking shaken, and the handle of his gun sticking out of the back of his jeans. They’d canvassed the neighborhood until they had a name, staked out Annie Budd’s house, then gone in after seeing A.J. show up with her little entourage. At least one of the cops was fan enough to recognize her. And the detective really did know me.

            At least at the end of the night they gave me my handgun back. I was glad I didn’t have to fire it.

I said, “They let us go. I played the recording for them, and they’ve got the gun Dominick used to shoot Heider, so I guess they can close the case without having to try telling a jury that the motive was he wanted your immortal soul for himself.”

            Rachel jabbed me with an elbow. “I’m more worried about the other souls he collected. Are they just going to sit in his basement forever? You ought to figure out some way to get them back to the people who need them.”

            Rachel was right. “I’m open to ideas.”

            “I’ll call Dominick’s aunt,” A.J. said. “She was actually kind of nice to me, even though—you know. Maybe Monica can get her to give them to us, or sell them. Then I’ll write a song and put it up all over, and people will hear it. They’ll know what it means.”

            I looked at Rachel. She nodded. “You sound like you’re doing better.”

            “Yeah.” She laughed. “This just feels so—I don’t know. Like coming out of a bad hangover.” A.J. laughed again. “Thanks for everything, guys. Talk to you later.”

            She hung up before I could ask about my invoice, but I could deal with that later. Rachel punched my shoulder. “She should write a song about you.”

            I laughed. “You could post it on my website.”

            “We’d pull the TikTok crowd.” She grinned. “What’s your next case, Sherlock?”

            I yawned. “The mystery of second breakfast. And the game is afoot.” I stood up. “Want anything?”

            “Bring me some orange juice.” She headed back to her desk. “Then leave me alone. I’ve got work to do.” She turned and hit a key on her computer, and a song began to play. It was A.J. Garcia.

            I smiled and went to get more coffee.

             

 

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