Lola: Chapter Fourteen
Walters pulls up to his hideout. Lola didn’t answer when he called. Repeatedly. That’s gotta mean something. She wouldn’t be out walking around for hours, would she?
Walters slides his car behind a large gray SUV that’s parked at a meter on the side of the street. From this spot, he can see the front door to his building. He can also see the other side of the street. He watches for movement at his front door. He watches for movement on the other side of the street. Anything out of place. A guy who stands in one place too long. Someone with a heavy object hanging down the side of their jacket. Groups in sunglasses who are too interested in the opening and closing of building doors or who sit in the front seat of a parked car drinking cup after cup of coffee for too long.
Less than thirty minutes later, he see what he doesn’t want to see. There’s a guy, looks tough or wannabe tough, hair cut short into a crewcut, shoulders too broad for his jacket. He’s not a business man, that’s for sure. He’s a stooge or a goon or somebody who spends too much time in the gym powerlifting. Walters knows his type from all the hours he spent working one job or another with Moreno’s guys. Who’s he kidding, he was one of Moreno’s guys. And the guy with the flattened nose hanging out near the front door of his building with his square face and brown crewcut, he has the look of one of Moreno’s guys, which means he’s now one of Roxanne’s guys. Crewcut’s doppelganger walks over and they have a nice long chat with each other in front of Walters’ building. They’re not very good at being undercover. Moreno’s guys were better back in Walters’ day.
Walters scans his rearview mirror and then the other side of the street to see if anyone has spotted him in his tight parking spot behind the SUV. He makes some quick deductions. If they are casing his place he has to assume that means they know his car. It might be true. It might not be true. But he has to assume it is. The two goons wearing sport coats and flattened faces finish their chat. One gets into a black Mercedes and sits. The other walks down to the end of the block and back again like he’s a background extra in a movie.
“Fuck” Walters says to himself and checks his watch and his rearview mirror again. If he’s going to make his appointment for the night he’s going to have to move. He can’t be late. Not for this appointment. He has other spots in the city. Other hideouts. His mind sprints through them. He settles on one. It would be easy to go there and prepare. It’s closer to the warehouse anyway. But then there’s Lola. Poor Lola. Where is she? Do they have her? Did they grab her in the loft? Or maybe when she left? He can’t just leave her to the whims of those two hundred thirty pound guys with flattened faces. But if he doesn’t know where she is how can he help? If he walks into Roxanne’s trap there’s no way he can help.
Walters continues to wait, looking at his watch every few minutes, hoping Lola will show up so he can rescue her. He’s her white knight, damnit, it’s his job to rescue her. As the minutes swim by he slowly realizes she’s either already taken or she has escaped. He also realizes he’s nobody’s white knight. He’s a black knight with a black hat. He’s spent his life as a criminal. Perhaps he’s been a criminal with a certain sense of honor. An honor that Roxanne betrayed. But still, he’s a criminal through and through. He can’t save Lola by riding in on his white horse with his white hat. He can save her with his black hatted ways, though. And that means getting to that warehouse and stopping Roxanne. And that means getting there before 8:00.
Walters pounds the steering wheel in frustration. Everything was going so well. He had it all planned and now his plans have changed again. Fucking Roxanne. She always has that step on him. And everybody else. Well, if he can get to that warehouse tonight, he can get the jump on her. He can disrupt her plans for once. Lola, hopefully she’s safe. But she’s going to have to wait. Until after 8. Until Walters has that briefcase and those documents. Once he has that, he will have the upper hand, he will be in control and Roxanne will be at his mercy.
He starts the engine and peels out and does a U-turn almost crashing into the U-Haul truck heading down the street in his direction. He looks in his rearview mirror one last time. He isn’t being followed. He looks at the time. There are just enough second and minutes for him to get to his new base of operations and properly prepare before he needs to leave for his rendezvous for the night. For his appointment with least favorite blonde and her two favorite goons.
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Lola has returned to her home away from home. Hell, who is she kidding, her home, period. The Driftwood Motel. Redondo Beach. Not really near the beach. Next to a gun shop and a pawn shop. Not in the best part of town. But this is her part of town now.
“Hey, you’re back.’ The bored clerk brightens at seeing his old friend.
“Give me the same room.”
The clerk tries to make small talk with his favorite reoccurring customer. Lola is in no mood for small talk. She’s focused on the night. On 8:00. On the warehouse in Harbor City.
Lola enters the familiar room and begins less familiar preparations. Next to the pawn shop and the gun shop next door, on the block after that is a Ross, dress for less. That’ll do, she thinks to herself. Lola looks at the clock radio next to the bed. She has time to go on a shopping trip before she needs to leave. Let’s see, what’s on her shopping list, maybe another gun or two, bullets, definitely more bullets. Some stealth clothes. And comfortable shoes. A nice pair of comfortable black tennis shoes with a killer grip.
When Lola returns from her shopping trip there isn’t much time. No time for showers and cleaning up. Only enough time to change some clothes and pack a bag.
Lola pulls on the sporty black pullover and black workout pants. She bundles up her hair, underneath a black ski cap. She was lucky to find one in Los Angeles at this time of year, but Ross has a surprising range of selection. The last items to go on are the black socks and comfortable black tennis shoes. Lola looks at herself in the body length mirror. She pulls the ski cap down to her eyebrows. She’s a darkened angel. A black angel of vengeance.
Next on the list is the weaponry. She bought a couple more at the gun store next door. One a lesser, cheaper version of the Sig Sauer handgun Walters gave her. A Glock of some kind, Lola didn’t really care about the details, as long as it shoots straight. She also got a couple of holsters, one for the left side, one for the right. They both go under the pullover. The third gun was some kind of used cheap one, with that and the bribe money she paid the guy at the gun store to forgo the background check, she going through the money that Walters gave her pretty fast. It probably doesn’t matter after this night anyway. Nothing will probably matter after this night.
Lola doesn’t know where to put the small gun, so it goes in the small black Addidas duffel bag she got at Ross. She puts a rope in there as well. She doesn’t know why she bought it but she thinks she might need it. There’s also a crowbar she bought on impulse from the pawnshop. Maybe that will come in handy in breaking a window or door. And two flashlights. It’s a random assortment, but all this is pretty new to her. She’s still learning. She looks at the clock radio. It’s time. Time to call a cab to take her to her fate.
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Walters is engaged in similar preparations in another part of the city. This hideout is smaller than the loft downtown, less nice, pales in comparison to the sparse yet stylish furnishing of the loft. If the loft was the base for an overworked hip architect, this is the apartment for his down on his luck cousin who works at the local gas station. But it’s okay, it has a sufficient stash of necessary items for a night like this.
Walters is getting his own bag ready, more organized than Lola’s but surprisingly not that different in contents. A small wirecutters is an addition she didn’t think of, the rest of it is pretty much the same. His clothes are similar as well, dressed in all black, head to toe. Walters’ black is more flexible black and makes less noise than the ones Lola wears, his fabrics are more expensive and appropriate for stealthily breaking and entering. He didn’t buy them at the discount store down the street. His weapons are more expensive as well. He plants three different handguns on his body and puts two more in a black bag he slings over his left shoulder. Walters makes his way to the door of his hideout all of the lights in the tiny apartment are off, only the hallway light illuminates his black figure as he stands in the doorway looking back into the small apartment making sure he didn’t forget anything.
Lola, ten miles aways, stands in her doorway to her motel room, looking back as well. There isn’t much else in the motel room, so there really isn’t anything to forget but she looks back anyway as the cab waits in the motel’s parking lot. She is not in shadow, she left the motel room’s light on, her black clad figure illuminated by both the lights inside the room and those blazing through the parking lot. The Driftwood Motel sign blinks neon in the distance over her right shoulder. The shoulder that harnesses her black bag.
Two figures. Both dressed to hide in the night. Hide in the warehouse. Both ready to surprise Roxanne and her men. They close their doors at almost the exact same time, a moment of synchronicity in a violet chaotic world of randomness. One marches to her cab the other to his car. They will both be at the warehouse in less than 20 minutes.
Roxanne finished her preparations a long time ago. She’s in black as well, it appears to be the fashionable choice for the night. Only her black is much nicer. More form-fitting and stylish. She looks immaculate. Short blond hair slicked back, a beautiful Armani women’s suit outlining her body cut to a tailor’s perfection. She could be on her way to a catwalk instead of the trap she has set. For now, she’s walking down a hallway with determined gleam in her blue eyes. Marco and Tomas flank her sides, walking a half-step behind, forming the base to of the spear to Roxanne’s tip. An open limousine door waits for them outside. Roxanne isn’t only dressed in fine style, she’s going to arrive in finer style. The three of them get into the back of the limo. Tomas and Marco wear tiny earpieces in their ears. They look like secret service agents for the president. Roxanne puts her favorite sunglasses on. The limo takes off for its destination. This all happened an hour ago. Before Lola and Walters left their respective hideouts. Before Lola and Walters had fully prepared for their assignment for the night. While they were still getting ready in the locker room, Roxanne was already on the playing field.
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Roxanne has set up the geometric plan. A warehouse like a video game, a maze with two contestants and two ringers leading them through the maze to their ultimate destination. Each contestants has only their wits and swift feet. And guns, lots of guns. Roxanne’s plan was near perfect, she knew it was, sure, there was a small chance either Tomas or Marco would get hurt in the process, maybe even killed, but she was sure they wouldn’t and besides she was willing to take that risk. Maybe she was gambling with their lives, but Roxanne liked to gamble. She figured she was pretty good at it.
Roxanne looked down from her spot above the warehouse floor, in a room overlooking everything. Maybe it’s the foreman’s office or the head of the company that owns this place, for tonight it’s a control room, her control room. A bank of monitors feeds images of every noon and cranny in between the maze of creates down below. There’s a microphone on the desk in front of Roxanne. A microphone like a public address announcer’s mike. It allows her whispers to be fed directly into the ears of her two favorite men. Such a perfect plan. Four chess pieces she could manipulate at will. Such a challenge. So much fun. Lola was playing against the grandmaster now. No more speed games in the park. She wasn’t ready for this even if she thought she was. Roxanne looks down from her perch. He talons come out stretching over the board in front of her. It was so good to be a predator in this world full of prey. So good to be the one with strength and the material advantages of soldiers to throw at her problems. To play with her problems. She was going to be the best boss of all of them. It’s not only Lola that needs to watch out. They all do.
Marco and Tomas stand at their respective starting positions in the maze. There’s even a prop briefcase. Tomas holds it in his right hand. Roxanne breathes her words into the mike for the first time. They nod their acknowledgment down below. Tomas is ready. Marco is ready. Now they just have to wait for the two contestants to arrive.
Contestant number one, Lola, approaches in a cab. She is dropped off a block away from the warehouse, a block away from the fence that surrounds it, across a ravine that was more a ditch, wary of any security cameras picking up her image.
She leaps over the ditch. She has a clear sightline of the large warehouse but her eyes go to different images. Images of the past few days. The rare nice images in her life from the past few days. As this black clad angel of vengeance danced over grass towards the wire fence, she did not think of those events that brought her to vengeance, but instead thought of Walters, his surprisingly understanding face, his surprisingly muscular body, of being in bed together, making love, the closeness she felt to him, the passion they felt for each other. It wasn’t love, at least not to Lola, she had become too hardened to feel love at this point in her life, but there was something, something stronger than passion, something not as strong as the hate she felt for Roxanne.
Lola was under no illusions she could spend the rest of her life on the run with her hitman, whether they defeated Roxanne and her army of goons or not, but still her brain betrayed her as her body moved. In the moments she should have been preparing to kill Roxanne, she was thinking of making love with Walters. She could feel the warmth of his hands on her cold body, the only warmth she had felt since she woke up in that motel room. Hell, the only warmth she had felt for years. Their bodies entwined in her mind as she stared at the warehouse from behind a chain link fence, that might as well have been prison bars, waiting for 8:00 to arrive. She checked her cheap wristwatch again. She still had a quarter of an hour. She looked back through the wire, the metal of the wire bisecting and dividing her face. Staring at that building waiting for the right time to enter. The pleasing memories of touch faded as the present returned, the blurred mesh of the chain link coming into focus. It was time to move. She found a gap in the fence where it lifted easily. She ducked under and through the fence and moved towards the building.
Contestant number two. Walters. As he drives to the destination, his mind wanders as well. Like Lola he thinks of their moments together, their bodies together. Many of the images are the same just from a different point of view. Although one would expect him to be more jaded than Lola, considering his profession and experience, he’s not. At least not now. He pulls his car into an abandoned parking lot two blocks from the warehouse and his mind leaps distances away from his material body, hands caressing her body instead of the steering wheel, his lips on hers, the same romantic scenes playing out in his head like a late night movie half-remembered. Only this was real. Or was it real? Are these emotions real or superimposed. He has fallen. Hard. The last time he was in love was so many years ago he can hardly remember the details of that love, of that life. The situation was different but the same, on the run with someone in Mexico, hiding out together, falling in love together, making plans for a future that might never happen, that might not even be possible. Is he just reliving the past, repeating the same mistakes and the same feelings.
Those months in a distant province south of the border on the run from a different crime boss for different reasons were some of the best months of his life. The cinched bonds of their situation only made them fall harder for each other, quicker for each other. Of course it ended tragically. It had to, didn’t it? She had to die from a bullet aimed for him. Wasn’t that fated in some weird way. Wasn’t it fate he would spend years seeking revenge for the only woman he loved, and then getting revenge, burying his past as he buried a body in the Mexican desert. And now here he was again, falling for another woman in a way he said he wouldn’t let himself. For Lola, an innocent, at least as innocent as one can be in this world. It’s his job to protect her, just as it was his job to protect Marlena. He failed the first time. He can’t let himself fail again.
Walters gets out of his car and approaches the warehouse in stealth. Shadowed by the night, avoiding pools of light from street lamps. Like a cat burglar he swiftly uses his wire cutters to bypass the fence. By chance he is on the other side of the warehouse. Perhaps, if he and Lola had shown up on the same side, if they had run into each before they went inside, they would have foiled all of Roxxanne’s well laid plans, but from such small things as these fate is made.
8:00 arrives and Roxanne gives her first directions. Tomas and Marco move from their starting positions to their second positions, outside the warehouse. One for Lola, one for Walters. Roxanne’s wall of cameras can see outside as well. Despite their darkened camouflage Roxanne can easily see two figures in black approaching. The rest of her guards stay out of sight, far behind the action. She doesn’t want her game ruined by some absent-minded goon wandering into the frame.
The black pawns both stop at the sight of their bait. Lola with Marco. Walters with Tomas and his briefcase. Roxanne’s twins make sure to stand conspicuously under a bright light near an open doorway. They are noticed. The fish are hooked. Marco and Tomas walk back inside the warehouse. Cautiously, stooped, running black clad ninjas follow. Walters to his door first. Lola to her door second. Still on opposite sides of the warehouse, still unaware of the other’s presence
Can you really manipulate people to get them to move like you want them to. That is the challenge. Roxanne likes that challenge. She feels like a great scientist, a BF Skinner of the criminal world, finding ways to make people do things they would never do without her prodding, dogs chasing after rabbits on a track, mice chasing after a piece of cheese in a maze, hamsters desperately running on a wheel. Is it as easy as all that, to manipulate human beings as it is those of the lower animals on the food chain. Of course, this experiment could go wrong. Experiments can always go wrong. That would be sad for Tomas or Marco, and maybe even a little sad for Roxanne up in her control booth. But again, she has backup. If worst comes to worst, she can make a call and everybody on that warehouse floor will be sacrificed and she’ll have to start again somewhere else with some new contestants. But she wants to have some fun first, she wants to try a little experiment first. She has supreme confidence in her powers. It’s time to test them out.
Marco and Tomas are back on the maze-like warehouse floor, waiting for their respective contestant to enter the arena. Lola goes in first, perhaps foolishly, led by a purity of hate. She sees Marco, half hidden behind a stack of crates. He moves so she follows, confident he hasn’t noticed her. If only he is meeting Roxanne, then she can surprise them both and complete her mission of death and vengeance. A date, isn’t that what the old man said. Yeah, this will be the most delicious date she’s ever had.
Roxanne can see the slow-moving chase from her position above. She doesn’t really need the monitors anymore. She can see it all so perfectly. She tells Marco to move to his right, so he moves to his right, Lola follows. She tells Tomas to shout and wave across the warehouse like he just somebody important, so Tomas shouts and waves and then moves. Walters is more cautious than Lola, but Tomas has moved so he needs to move now. The meeting is taking place. For a moment, Walters loses his studied patience. To finally get one over on Roxanne, to get one back for Moreno, to take possession of that briefcase and those documents. Maybe he can leverage it not for power, but to get out, to get enough money to retire to some island or something, maybe even Lola will come with him.
Walter’s well-refined nose leads him on ever closer to the exchange. Tomas’ little earpiece speaks and he makes a left in the maze, Walters just far enough behind, ten yards behind.
The two contestants drawing ever closer. Roxanne continuing to issue orders, Marco this way, Tomas that way, turn here, move here, faster, slower. Lola with gun drawn, Walters with gun drawn, both ready to pounce as soon as that briefcase is handed from one person to another.
Everyone is in a confined space now. A studio apartment’s square footage between them. Here is where the game becomes a real challenge. Timing is everything. In life. In this game. Roxanne says the right words at the right time. Tomas and Marco both turn right, into little nooks that no one would know are there, a hidden escape passage in the middle of the maze, now Lola and Walters are headed for each other, just one more turn and they will meet each other, unexpectedly, where they both expect to meet a villain.
Lola’s eyes squint under the harsh lighting of the warehouse flourescents. Where is Marco? He was just here, how did he escape? She turns a corner, to her right, staying as close to the side of the wooden crating as possible. She sees a black object, unholstered, a gun drawn and aiming. Her gun whips, Marco has spotted her and is shooting. So she fires first. She’s going to drop that bastard to the ground. The shot rings out hollow and echoes through the warehouse as the man unwittingly moves into the open space.
Walters walked into the bullet like a boxer walking into a punch. It hits him in the throat. Bad luck for Lola. Worse luck for Walters. He drops to the floor fast, trying to breathe, blood flowing out of the hole in his throat. Lola rushes over to him without a thought to Marco or Tomas or briefcases or Roxanne. She only sees a man dying on the cold gray concrete floor of an old desolate warehouse. She cradles Walters’ head in her right arm, trying to raise him up so he can breathe but his throat is shredded, every second, every millisecond he gets closer to death. It looks like he wants to say something, to raise his arm to caress her face, to tell her it will be alright just like when he was shot last time, but he can’t breathe much less speak, his hands go instinctively to his own throat instead of Lola’s face. His hands are around his own neck now. Lola rocks his head back and forth, the coughing, spurting, spluttering of the hole in his throat stops, the blood slows, his head falls back, there is no more struggle, no more breath, a limp cold head and frozen scary empty eyes stare back at Lola but see nothing.
Lola shrieks, “No!” She screams and screams and screams.
Roxanne watches from above. Lola cradles the lifeless Walters in her arms. Holding him tighter and tighter. Roxanne keeps watching. Watching from the box like it’s a sporting event. She should be smoking a cigarette but there’s no cigarette, not now, only satisfaction of a game won, a bet that came through, a hard job accomplished. The door to the control room opens. It’s Tomas.
“We should get going.”
The sunglasses go on, the look of satisfaction stays on, Roxanne follows her bodyguard out the door. The limousine is fueled up and ready to go. Marco is already in the backseat. After a swift climb down the stairs Roxanne is in that backseat, too. There should be a glass of champagne waiting for her, that will come later, the cigars will come later, too, the limo takes off before the screaming sirens of the police show up to drown out Lola’s screams in this warehouse in the middle of an industrial nowhere. It couldn’t have gone any better if Roxanne had planned it herself. Oh wait, she did plan it herself. Isn’t she so clever and smart.