Sunset – Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Coming to kill you.

D’angelo read the text, fumbled his phone back into his pocket, then spun around.

The purple civic passed by again, slowing as it drove by his studio apartment.

D’angelo ransacked his place – but he didn’t own a gun, and had no steak knives. He checked his closet.

“Dammit!” he said, tearing down four blue suits from the rack. That’s when it caught his attention – his high school baseball bag. He tugged it out from the closet, then opened the bottom slit. He slid out his Easton 777, an aluminum baseball bat. D’angelo tapped the barrel against the flat the wood panels on his floor, then stepped over to his door.

He grabbed his phone back out, and his thumb shook as he responded.

Come get it.

D’angelo slammed the front door and hopped down the stoop. He waited on the side of the road.  Screeching tires – purple civic had just slammed the brakes and come to a stop in the middle of the road. The driver flickered their lights on and off, taunting him.

D’angelo’s heart raced as he marched toward it. He clenched the bat firm and breathed heavy. The engine turned off, and the lights went out.

“I’ll kill you!” D’angelo yelled. “You hear me?” He swung the bat over shoulder, but the handle slid through his sweaty hand. The bat fell and rang out on the cement. “I’m not afraid of anyone!” He said, picking it back up.

D’angelo wiped the sweat from his brow. “Ain’t afraid a shit,” he muttered to himself.

D’angelo crept onward. Night had turned cool, so much so he could now see his own breath. The purple civic turned back on, and the lights switched to bright, blinding him. D’angelo shielded his eyes, then heard rubber burn. He braced for impact, then kept one eye open when forced himself to look – The wheels took the civic in the opposite direction. It backed off the road, over some grass, then plowed into a tree. The airbag deployed.

“Karma, bitch,” said D’angelo. He broke into a jog – then his phone beeped. New message.

Meet at McFlannigan’s.

D’angelo squinted at the purple civic. An overgrown man moaned and groaned his way out. He wore a brown raincoat and aviator sunglasses. He stumbled over to D’angelo.

Hiding his eyes were dark aviator sunglasses that had been shoddily glued back together.

“John?” said D’angelo.

John halted with a wobble. His phone was in his hand.

“You drunk, bro?”

“No, never, of course not. I do not drink alcoholic beverages. I’m not an alcoholic.”

“I met you at McFlannigans.”

John shook his head, then turned away and slid his phone back into his pocket. “Common misconception. Where we allocate may indicate certain characteristics of our personalities, but it does not dictate our actions.”

Another beep. D’angelo opened the new message.

Be there in 15 or I will kill you in your sleep.

D’angelo shook his head, then spit on the ground. “Hey, I got to go bro. Good luck with this,” he said, then turned and headed off.

“Wait!” said John.

D’angelo stopped. “What?”

“Where are you going, I was wondering?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Is it McFlannigans? Or will you just go to sleep tonight? It’s just a question, actually two, but that’s it.”

D’angelo knocked the end of his bat softly against the pavement, and stared at John with a single eye squint.

“McFlannigans.”

“Great! I’ll go with you.”

“Your cars here, bro.”

John turned, laughed at his car, then swatted at the air with his hand. “I’m quite sure, you know, that even if I leave it here, I will find it here, sitting and waiting for me, later, when I come back for it.”

John jogged over. D’angelo stuck his hand out when he got close.

“You’re stayin’, bro.”

“I know where you live,” said John.

D’angelo pushed his jaw out.

“But only because I watched you run there. I remained where I stood, don’t you remember? I was angry.”

“Whatchu want, bro?”

John stepped forward, and reached into the pocket of his raincoat. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out yet. I’ve been… straightforward.”

“You got a deathwish?”

John flipped his eyes down at the bat D’angelo held, then chuckled.

“Never said a joke, bro.”

“The bat. That is the joke,” said John. His hand remained in his pocket, angled straight at D’angelo. “If you knew what I was holding, you would know why I am laughing.”

“Why?”

“It will not help you.”

“I can knock skulls with-”

“Should have brought a shovel. Would have made things easier.”

D’angelo ground his teeth, then lifted the bat over his shoulder.

John flipped his hand out from his pocket, then unfolded a giant map of the world. “I’ve entered the coordinates. I know where our treasure is.”

To be continued…

– Thomas M. Watt

CLICK HERE FOR PART 5!

Sunset – Part 3

If you missed Part 1, click here.

If you missed Part 2, click here.

D’angelo shook his head, took two quick steps, then checked over his shoulder – John hadn’t moved. D’angelo broke into a sprint away.

He charged two blocks, stopped for no one, then rushed up the stoop and into his apartment. D’angelo leaned back against his front door to smack it shut, then sucked in oxygen as fast as possible. Humidity was bad in California – enough to leave him drenched in sweat from the hasty dash.

D’angelo stared at the cheap wood flooring in his studio apartment for a while. He rubbed his bald head, then rocked it back and gazed up at his ceiling fan.

“God-damn!” he said to himself, then laughed.

A casual Tuesday at the bar had turned into a nightmare – first the vixen who’d taken his digits and booked it, then the nutcase who could’ve found patterns in pigeons.

D’angelo strolled over to his home computer. The next five minutes he spent listening to it hum as it booted up. Once he had it up and running, D’angelo went to work – time to find out who this Sunset chick was.

Couldn’t be that hard, a name like that is one in a million – a rare type that no man forgets. D’angelo browsed facebook, instagram, twitter – nothing.

D’angelo scoffed.

“Where you at, girl.”

He tried ‘Sun Set’. Still Nothing.

D’angelo went to the fridge, popped open a Michelob Ultra, then returned to his seat. Rolled up the blinds, raised the window, and kicked his feet up. D’angelo watched the orange sun finish disappearing behind the city skyline. He let out a sigh, drained half his beer with a few gulps, then burped.

“We both know you ain’t in livin’ in no damn cave…”

He shut his eyes and took another sip. He froze in position, shot his eyelids apart, then pounced over to his keyboard.

Sunset Coors Light

He entered the terms into the search engine, then scrolled down like mad to see if he could find anything. The first couple pages were no help, but the third included a link to an article – and a picture of her beside it.

“Damnnn!” said D’angelo.

Sunset was a Coors Light girl – meaning she went to popular sports venues wearing a skimpy two-piece outfit and cheered behind her Coors Light booth. The girl got paid to show up and look good.

The article included a caption with her name at the bottom –

Sunsett Martinez

D’angelo scratched his bald head, wondering if the poor girl had any idea her name was spelled wrong.

He stuck ‘Sunsett’ into his web browser, and an extensive list of profiles lit up his screen. He clicked on her facebook, then bobbed his head back and covered his mouth.

“What the fu…” He muttered.

Tons of half-nude picks – bra and panties, bikinis, and short purple dresses. D’angelo couldn’t look away – but her body had nothing to do with it.

Every shot showed her with a different weapon – steak knife, butcher knife, swiss knife – the girl loved blades.

“I don’t fuck wichu,” D’angelo whispered.

He noticed one of his facebook friends, someone he didn’t know in real life, named Aaron, had posted up and down on her wall. Dude was obsessed – he’d commented and liked every single thing she’d slapped up there. Girl could’ve dressed a corpse like Hitler and he would clicked ‘like’.

D’angelo twisted his lips, then hovered his fingers over the keyboard. He grabbed the mouse instead and clicked on Aaron’s profile.

Pictures of him out drinking with the guys.

“Okay,” said D’angelo. “Okay.”

He fired a direct message off to Aaron.

“You know Sunset?”

Aaron responded before he could blink.

“Yea, of course!”

“She cool?” wrote D’angelo.

“Huh?”

“Don’t know how to say this bro… but is she C-R-A-Z-Y???”

D’angelo tapped his fingers on the desk. He groaned, stood up, grabbed another beer, then sat back down. Aaron still hadn’t responded. D’angelo cracked open his beer and inhaled a fresh sip. Still no response. D’angelo waited. And waited. And waited…

Tired of staring at the screen, he propped his feet up on the windowsill and coddled his beer.  He watched the cars pass by without much interest, until a purple civic caught his attention. Nothing super bizarre – it just kept driving past his apartment one direction, then return going the other direction every ten minutes or so. He told himself it was nothing – John from the loony bin was in his head. Dude claimed cars drove in patterns, after all.

The half-empty Michelob Ultra slipped from D’angelo’s grip and dinged against his wood-paneled floor as he dozed off. He remained out cold, until the repetitive and loud beep from his phone finally woke him up.

D’angelo rubbed his eyes open, gave his cheek a little slap, then made his way over to the fridge. He tugged the door open when his phone beeped again. D’angelo slid it out from his pocket – text from an unknown number. D’angelo opened it.

Coming to kill you.

To be continued…

• Thomas M. Watt

CLICK HERE FOR PART 4!