Magic Town, Chapter 17

Jeff, finds himself in Atlanta wanting to get out of the hotel on a Friday night. In the Atlanta Underground he meets up with Pick, a sly con man who takes Jeff around the Underground ending up at the notorious Magic Town strip club. There’s only one problem: Jeff is the spitting image of a corrupt congressman! Nancy, the beautiful FBI agent with the golden eyes takes Jeff on the ride of his life. With three climax scenes, this story will make you want to get to the next page!

Chapter 17 of Magic Town ...

Sunday, 12:34 PM: Back Again to Magic Town

As they are leaving the safe house to go back to Magic Town, Jeff is handed the congressman’s 38-caliber Colt Cobra pistol! They are heading back to Magic Town to invite Antonio to their little Birdie Edwards party to be held tomorrow at Magic Town. They investigate the mysterious door next to the club’s back door and discover a tunnel leading to a warehouse behind the club that explains how people appear in the club without entering or leaving. Shonna leaves Jeff in the lit-up bar watching janitors cleaning the bar when suddenly she calls out to him JEFF GET IN HERE! They discover Antonio has been shot! His body guards murdered! Shonna leaves Jeff in Antonio’s office with the instructions to shoot at anything that comes through that door!

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- Chris Lamela


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Author contact: Chris Lamela, chris@chrislamela.com, 707-566-8790 PST

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           Magic Town, Chapter 17

Sunday, 12:34 PM: Back Again to Magic Town

 
     They both got their coats, walked to the door. Shonna was given back her gun. The man at the door handed her the congressman’s thirty-eight pistol. She turned handing it to Jeff without a word. Holding it looking down at the letters spelling Colt Cobra, took it slipping it back into the congressman’s stinky jacket right outer pocket.
     As they pulled back onto the freeway Jeff wondered why they were going back to Magic Town in the middle of the day on Sunday?
     “Well, we’ve got to get Antonio involved, we don’t trust the phones, right? Give him the invitation for tomorrow’s little Birdy Edwards party.” Jeff glanced at her with a wrinkled brow, “He has to be there or they will suspect he’s cooperating.”
     Jeff nodded looking around them as they drove, listening to her, “We’ve got to find out about that door. I’ve got a key to the building. Antonio will be there.”
     “Why do you think he’s there on a Sunday?”
     “Remember who his bookkeeper is right?” Jeff nodded. “We always review the books for the month on the last Sunday of the month, given that this is Thanksgiving weekend coming up we decided to do it today so he can go to Miami next weekend. Remember last night when I told him that everything must be status quo, that we don’t change any routines or we may throw up flags for the bad guys.”
     “And you have the key to get in.”
     “Of course.” She looked over her shoulder to change lanes merging onto I-85 south heading toward downtown. “My routine is to go into the counting room to get the books then go to his office. He always has a tray of sandwiches, we spend a couple hours going over everything.”
     “Is that just the club books or the whole shebang?”
     “Everything.”
     He looked at her sideways with a frown, “And you can do all that in a couple hours?”
     “Usually, but sometimes we just get to talking about things so it can take a little longer.”
     They drove in silence. Jeff wondered about what it would be like to work for a place like Magic Town, especially given all the mysteries of the mayor’s gang.
     Shonna was deep in thought, “You know, it really took a while, but we became friends, Antonio and me.”
     “Just friends?” He felt a strange jealous twinge as he imagined that Antonio had made many passes at Shonna. Who wouldn’t, after all? He did! He laughed to himself, hell, he made passes at both Shonna and Nancy!
     She gave Jeff a sharp sideways glance, “Friends, you bet! And that’s it! His wife is soooo jealous. Talk about someone who would murder me! With all those eyes in that place there’s no way someone as visible as me could not come out the other end of that feet first!” She gave a nervous laugh. “But, no, just friends. Friendly.”
     Soon they were back in the seedy neighborhood, passing the Garnett Marta station, in a minute they pulled up in front of Magic Town. The streets were deserted like Jeff hadn’t seen it the two nights before when there were cars parked every which way, people just hanging around the street in the dark. In the daylight Jeff could actually read some of the faded warehouse signs that he couldn’t see when he was there at night. He was surprised to see feed and grain, tractor parts, other agricultural signs. There were also machine shops, moving and storage, other businesses. The buildings looked in a little better condition in broad daylight, they were probably thirty or forty years-old at least, vacant lots where buildings had been before. Down the street he could see one building nearly caved in, blackened ruins from a fire that had destroyed the entire building. The leaning shell was all that remained looking like it would all topple over into a heap any second.
     Shonna saw him looking at the burned-out building down the street. “That’s the gang’s handy work, can you believe it? Two injured fire fighters didn’t make the mayor’s office all that happy. Less than a block from the club! These guys have no shame! The owner resisted payment, made noises about going to the police. That didn’t happen! He was smarter than that, or rather he got smart. He didn’t even bother to rebuild, last we heard he and his whole family up and left town.”
     Jeff suddenly was struck by how all this madness was affecting people, the city. He guessed there were hundreds of stories like this coming from twenty years of unfettered mayhem as the city elders and police not only stood by, they were taking money from it! He felt a quick gut-wrench that he was in the middle of all this.
     Shonna could see his expression, said nothing. She had already been through that gut-twisting realization she read on Jeff’s face. She remembered Jeff’s Birdy Edwards character’s faux participation in the crimes shaking her head that she was doing the same, often worrying in her heart of hearts that maybe her involvement wasn’t that benign. She always fell back on that she was just doing her job.
     In another minute Shonna unlocked the club’s front door, stepping through, Jeff following behind. “Can I?” he motioned toward the black curtain that led into the bar. He pushed through the curtain. The lights were up, all the chairs were up on the tables, not a beer bottle in sight. A Latino man was mopping the floors as a woman was pulling chairs from tables to wash them down, clean the tables, putting the chairs back up. The room seemed larger than Jeff remembered with all the lights turned up, missing the noise and music and drunken yelling men. The cartoon magician, cartoon rabbit dangling from cartoon hands looked out of place in this light.
     Shonna stood behind him. “Let’s start with the mystery door, huh?” He turned back through the curtain following her toward the front door, turning left into the outer hallway walking past the door of Antonio’s office with the door closed, heading down the hallway to turn left along the back side of the building. In a few seconds they were standing at the mystery door with the club’s back door to their right.
     Shonna turned the knob shaking the door. “Locked.” Without a word she reached into her purse to pull out what looked like a tiny shaving kit, pulled out a couple thin metal tools, in a second the door was creaking open. She put the kit back into her purse, pulling out a small flashlight, finding a wall switch, she flicked it up putting the flashlight back into her purse.
     She extracted a gun.
     She leaned to him whispering, “It’s like you thought, not a closet though, stairs to a basement maybe?” Jeff didn’t remember saying that nodding anyway.
     She took the first step.
     Stopped.
     Listened.
     Next step.
     Listen.
     They came to the bottom of the stairs.
     Jeff figured it was about the same elevation as the downstairs hallway with the dressing room on the other side of the building. At the bottom where the stairs ended there was a long cement-sided tunnel to the right, a door to the left. Shonna glanced at the door, turning right facing down the tunnel, stepping slowly into the tunnel, listening carefully as she moved forward. They walked along as Shonna counted her paces in a whisper, gun pointing ahead. The tunnel walls were unpainted, had been skillfully troweled so they were smooth to the touch, it was well-lit with a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling about every twenty feet. Eventually they came to the end of the tunnel ending at a staircase leading up to the right.
     She whispered, “Okay, sixty five paces, that makes is about a hundred-sixty feet. That’s more than half a football field, these guys are serious about this!” She turned pushing past Jeff, he followed her back to Magic Town, up the stairs to the outer hallway. She closed the door behind them. “Okay, I’ll get that to our guys to see if they can figure out where that comes up and who owns the building. There will be a lot of people happy to know about this. This explains a lot about all those people going into the club and not coming back out. Or coming out without going in!”
     She started back down the outer hallway, “Come on, I’ve got to go get the books then go see Antonio. You can come along if you want.” Jeff thought about the night before. He left last night kind of liking Antonio even though he figured out that Antonio is probably a very dangerous man. He shrugged nodding.
     They walked along the outer hallway again, going past Antonio’s door on the right, turning right around to the front of the building.
   “You can wait in the bar, I’ll come get you so we can go see Antonio. Give me five minutes.”
     Jeff went back into the bar as he watched the janitors at work, looked like they were almost done.
     Suddenly he heard rapid foot steps echoing behind him coming from the other side of the curtain, lifting the curtain he saw Shonna dashing from out of the stairs on the right past the front door, in two steps diving into the outer hallway, “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” Her words were panting, like she was out of breath as she ran through without turning to look at Jeff.
     Jeff stopped.
     Listened.
     Nothing.
     Suddenly he heard Shonna’s screaming from the outer hallway…
     “JEFF! GET IN HERE!”
     He pushed through the curtain jumping left toward the door that Shonna just went into, sprinting down the outer hallway, left, diving toward the light of the opened door of Antonio’s office, left into the room.
     He stopped, panting, shocked at what was before him. Two men lay crumpled on the floor near the back walls, their dark clothes in the dim lights made it hard to see them. In the middle of the room lay Antonio on his back, five holes in his torso, Shonna leaning over him.
     “Oh my god Antonio oh my god Antonio oh my––HE’S ALIVE!” She bent over Antonio pulling back his right eye lid bending over to look into the opened eye, “Good, response to light!” She scanned Antonio’s chest with five holes in it, “Jesus, burn marks, almost point blank!” She ripped open his shirt, buttons flying around the room, “Body armor! Oh, smart smart Antonio! Smart! Smart!” She shoved both her arms under Antonio, heaved him over as she pulled off his shirt and jacket, more buttons flying, unsnapping the body armor, rolled him over again onto his back. She grabbed the floppy vest plate, about two feet across on each side, holding it up to examine it. Jeff could see light through a hole near the bottom of the flat-black fabric as she tossed it across the room. “Close range, but you lucky son-of-a-bitch!” There was a round puncture in his skin, blood trickling out just below Antonio’s left lower rib. Jeff saw a glint of reflected light from Antonio’s wound. Shonna leaned over pushing her fingers into the wound––Antonio didn’t flinch––pulling out a bullet, “Nine millimeter, Antonio, you are one lucky son-of-a-bitch!” She tucked the bullet into her pocket.
     Jeff stood behind Shonna the whole time, stunned watching her rapid motions. Without turning away from Antonio she waved Jeff over to her, “Come down here, do you know CPR?” He stooped down next to her.
     Jeff bent down picking up Antonio’s left wrist as he tried to feel for a pulse, putting his ear down to Antonio’s nose listening, “He’s breathing! And a pulse! Yes, he’s alive!”
     “I just told you that! Now we have to keep him that way!”
     Shonna stood up, looked around the room, went up to each man laying by the back wall, kicked at them without bothering to turn them over. It was like she already knew the answer. No movements.
     Jeff looked up to her, “What do you want me to do?”
     “If he stops breathing you make sure he starts again, okay?” She gave him a well duh look, started for the door, turning around again, “Stay here, don’t go anywhere, oh, damn, wait.” She kneeled down on her right knee, put her hand to her forehead mumbling to herself. “Stop Nancy, stop. Stop, think, act. What to do?”
     She stood up reaching for the phone frantically dialing a number, “Man down, many down Magic Town, no lights, need mop-up, NOW! CODES, CODES!” She hung up.
     She turned to Jeff, “Got a mess down there! I’ve got to go back down! Take out your gun!”
     Jeff looked up at her astonished, not grasping her words. “Do it!” He reached into the coat pocket pulling out the snub nose revolver without looking at it. “I know you want to help him, but you can’t! Help is coming, now we just have to make sure he stays alive! They screwed up murdering you yesterday, they may be back to make sure they killed Antonio. Are you listening?” Jeff looked at her with a blank expression. “You need to sit in that chair with that gun cocked––you shoot at anything that doesn’t give the four quick knocks first, the code. You’ve heard it, you know what it sounds like, right? Do you hear? Jeff, are you listening to me?” Jeff’s face was blank, staring up at her. She took two steps forward, hauled back SMACK! slapped Jeff across the face.
     His head jerked to the side with the force of the blow, “Goddam it! I heard you! You don’t have to hit me!”
     “Then do as I say, sit down, cock the gun, shoot at anything that comes through that door without the knock. They could be back. It’s really bad down there, I’ve got to render assistance if it’s not too late!” She turned bolting out the door closing it behind her.
     “Too late!?” he yelled.
     “JUST SHOOT!” he heard her voice fading.

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MAGIC TOWN!

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