LUKA MEER:

  FOUR SHORT STORIES

  Gregory Ashe

  H&B

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Luka Meer: Four Short Stories

  Copyright © 2023 Gregory Ashe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: contact@hodgkinandblount.com

  Published by Hodgkin & Blount

  https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/

  contact@hodgkinandblount.com

  Published 2023

  Printed in the United States of America

  Version 1.02

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-078-0

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-077-3

  The Eye of the Crow

  1

  I like junk mail; it’s better than a boyfriend. It’s reliable. It’s entertaining. It gives me something to do in bed. And it doesn’t pick fights about my mom. So, after eight hours of following around a junior exec, snapping photos as he played tickle-me-Elmo with the owner of a local daycare chain—Susie’s Smiles, We’re All Smiles!—all I wanted was my mail, and a Bud Light, and my bear paw slippers. Maybe not in that order.

  But the new guy from 2B was in my way.

  I tried to keep busy. I tried to look at things, since looking is a big part of my job. But the lobby wasn’t much to look at. I live in a pre-war brick fourplex in, you guessed it, Bevo Mill, and the lobby, if you can call the cramped vestibule-cum-stairwell a lobby, was decorated in multicolored shag carpeting. Overhead, a burned-out globe was full of dead moths; the only light came from the stairwell. Mr. Bergman had put in plastic wainscotting approximately fifty years ago, though, and it classed the place up.

  And 2B was still trying to get into his mailbox. I’d seen him in passing, done the neighborly thing where I nodded at him and he nodded back. He’d even gone so far as to smile. He had ashen hair with side-swept bangs and eyes like summer grass. I’d made sure not to smile back; I’m a genius like that. Now, as he jimmied his key in the lock, I could see the little hairs on the back of his neck, a dark blond where they were growing out of the dye. He was so fair that I thought his skin was the color of starlight.

  No more looking, I decided.

  I thought about the cornucopia waiting for me inside the mailbox. The weekly circulars. The Schnucks ad. The Burger King coupons. There’s not a lot more satisfying in life than cutting out a coupon for a Whopper.

  2B leaned lower, and his sweater rode up to expose a slim white stripe of skin. He was slender to the point of being skinny, and the ridges of his vertebrae rose distractingly against all that smooth, bare skin.

  Not Whoppers, I thought. They have coupons for…Well, they had to sell something besides the Whopper.

  The muscles under that pale skin tightened and relaxed.

  Whopper, Junior, I thought. Dazed by my own brilliance again.

  The sweater slipped up another quarter inch.

  Even saints have their limits.

  “You have to lift up,” I said.

  2B spun around, which meant he hadn’t heard me, which meant—what? The ninja detective strikes again? Then he laughed and put a hand over his chest. The faintest hint of an accent I couldn’t place. “You scared me.”

  “Like this.” I reached past him, pushed up on the key and turned it at the same time, and his mailbox opened. I handed him his mail—weekly circular, bingo. And then I opened mine, still angling my body past him, aware of the heat of him, the faint smell of his wool sweater. Inside my mailbox, there was nothing. No weekly circular. No Schnucks ad. No Burger King coupons.

  “I’m Jude.” He smiled, and a hint of color lifted in his cheeks. More of that accent. “I know we’ve seen each other, but I haven’t introduced myself.”

  It didn’t make any sense. The junk mail always came on Wednesdays. I handed him his keys, noted the last name on the mailbox—Saint-Ange, which definitely wasn’t a Bevo Mill name. It didn’t even sound like a St. Louis name, although here he was, so I suppose even the brilliant detective can be wrong occasionally. Then I locked mine. I headed for the stairs.

  Jude came after me, the treads squeaking under his steps. “What’s your name?”

  At the landing, I turned right: 2A. But it was a small landing, and Jude was right behind me.

  “Luka.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Luka.”

  I risked a look. He was smiling again.

  “Uh huh,” I said and let myself into the apartment.

  I didn’t do anything like lean against the door, gasping with relief. Cool, calm, collected—that’s me. I did, however, set the deadbolt. And that’s when I realized the lights were on.

  I reached for my pepper spray, and then I stopped. Dashboard Confessional was playing. A Bud Light sat on the counter, uncapped and waiting. I have a studio apartment, and it’s about what you’d expect: one main room with a living area and kitchenette, a door to the bathroom, two closets, and an alcove. I’d hung an X-Men bed sheet over a clothesline to give the illusion of a separate space for the futon. The furniture was mostly salvage—tubular chairs I’d rescued from an office supply store that went out of business, a coffee table made out of an old door and fruit crates, college-dorm-style shelves (the kind you put together out of cinderblocks and boards). The TV (an open-box sale, God bless Best Buy) rounded out the place. The apartment was clean, but it showed its age; in the kitchenette the scrollwork laminate was worn through to the subfloor in places, and the ceiling fan was missing one blade. The textured plaster of the old walls was the color of a dead dove. One of the windows was raised an inch, letting the winter in, but normally, the place was snug and cozy. It was home. And, most importantly, it was cheap.

  “You’d better have your pants on,” I said.

  Kris’s low laugh came from behind the curtain.

  I wanted my junk mail, I thought as I picked up the beer. I wanted my junk mail and my bear paw slippers. And I thought about how I’d been thinking how much better junk mail was than a boyfriend. That’s me, master of irony.

  After a drink to fortify myself, I crossed to the alcove and slid the curtain back. Kris lay there: cropped dark hair, hollow cheeks, narrow jaw. His eyebrows were like thin raven’s wings. His hazel eyes were trouble.

  “The answer is no,” I said.

  “I brought you a beer.”

  “You opened a beer.”

  His smile was lolling and lazy. Tonight, he wore a black sweatshirt, black jeans, black boots. He didn’t have his badge, but I was pretty sure if we played tickle-me-Elmo, I’d find his gun. He said, “Hi.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I miss you.”

  “What do you want, Kris?” Although it was a dumb question: Kristijan Nikic only ever wanted two things, and one of them was trouble.

  “You’ve been ignoring me.”

  “I’m establishing healthy boundaries. There are lots of TikTok videos about it. Which, by the way, breaking and entering is still a crime.”

  His smile widened. “Maybe I should let you put my cuffs on me.”

  “Don’t come in through my window again. I’m serious.”

  That knocked some of the amusement off his face. He sat up, rubbed his jaw, and looked at me. The flecks of brown in his eyes looked like gold when the light caught them right. He was still looking at me.

  “No,” I said again, and I took another, longer drink.

  “It’ll take an hour. Two hours top. You won’t even have to get out of your car.”

  “What a gentleman. No, Kris. No. No way.”

  “I need you, Luka.”

  The bottle felt heavy in my hand. I flexed my fingers, stiff with the cold, and managed to shake out another no.

  “Look, it’s a onetime thing. This dealer. It’s cash, Luka. And you’ll get a cut.”

  “I said—”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything illegal. There’s something screwy about these guys; I need somebody to watch my back.” A sliver of a smile. The dark winging of an eyebrow. “Somebody I trust.”

  I chose to ignore the last part. “That is something illegal, dumbass. That’s aiding and abetting. And you’re making a hit on a dealer? Kris, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  He got to his feet. “It’s a hell of a score.”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  He made a weird noise that I realized, a beat later, was supposed to be a laugh. “I appreciate the concern, Luk, but it’s too late; it’s tonight. I can’t back out now. If I don’t show, they’re going to think I’m a narc.”

  “You are a narc!”

  He drummed his fingers against his legs. Then he took out his phone and typed something. A moment later, my phone buzzed. “In case you change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  He nodded. He smoothed down his dark, cropped hair. When he met my eyes, he might have been sixteen again. “You and me, Luka.”

  My blood rang in my ears. I drank the rest of my beer, sat, and picked up a book—which one, I couldn’t tell you.

  � �Bye, Kris,” I said. “Use the door.”

  2

  At three in the morning, I drove the Hellcat into an apartment complex in Black Jack, a little township on the north side of the city. If the apartment complex had a name, I didn’t see it, but the buildings had exaggerated mansard roofs and pale siding. When the headlights swept over the buildings, the vinyl was the color of straw. One of the ground-floor units had a portable grill on the cement pad outside its door. Another unit, higher up, had a tarp-wrapped bundle taking up most of its balcony. A few of the units had strung Christmas lights—none of the old, red-and-green classics; it was all the icy stuff, white LED junk that made me think of a strip club.

  We’d had a dry November, thank God, but the cold still hammered brutally at the Hellcat. I had to keep the defrost on so the windows wouldn’t fog up. I drove once through the parking lot, looking for Kris’s car, but if he was here, he hadn’t been stupid enough to drive his own vehicle. These guys he’d called them. There’s something screwy with these guys. There’s something screwy with you, I thought. What the hell are you doing out here? But I knew the answer: I was here because of Kris, like he’d known I’d be.

  The address Kris had texted me was for a townhouse, not an apartment building. In a row of townhouses. I got out my field glasses and took a closer look. Some trap houses, you can spot them right off. Others, you can’t tell at all. This one fell somewhere in the middle: blackout curtains in the windows, security cameras mounted in key locations, a reinforced door. Respectable citizens might have any or all of those features. But if you did this long enough, you could tell.

  Where was Kris?

  I was on time. In fact, I was right on time. But I panned around with the field glasses, and I didn’t see anyone. I thought about texting Kris. Then I pictured that smile. He had a silver molar, and when he was happy, you could see it. So, I didn’t text him.

  You and me, Luka.

  It was a thing a couple of kids had started saying because to say something else, to say what they meant, was too big. Kris lying in that tiny twin bed with me, his house empty the way it always was, his voice smokey from the jay, his dick hard in my hand. He’d been crying a little, Kris had, the first time he said it. I had pretended not to notice. It was how we’d handled things ever since, straddling the line between friendship and—what? Even when I’d had Davey, Kris had always been there. He’d been waiting.

  I glassed the trap house again, looking for anything—

  Even with the blackout curtains, the muzzle flash lit up the edges of one window.

  God damn it, I thought. The one time in his life Kristijan Nikic decides to be early.

  I hit the gas, and the Hellcat sprang forward. More muzzle flashes lit up the inside of the trap house. I thought I could hear them now—a pop-pop-pop that grew louder as I sped toward the building. I parked as close as I dared and got out the HK. My hand ached around the polymer grip. Pop-pop-pop. More flashes.

  And then lights came on in the next townhouse.

  It was like someone had slapped me: my brain woke up, and I saw what I’d missed. Yes, the trap house that Kris and his friends were hitting had blackout curtains, a reinforced door, security cameras. But so did the townhouse next door. Buddies. Backup. Reserves. Whatever you wanted to call them—they were in the next house over.

  I got out of the Hellcat, grabbed a tire iron from the trunk, and sprinted toward the second townhouse. More lights were coming on. I could hear people shouting, but with the wind in my ears and my heart pounding, I couldn’t tell where the sounds were coming from. I reached the front door to the second townhouse as it swung open. A man stood there, staring at me in shock, a big pistol hanging from one hand.

  I gave him one with the tire iron, and he fell back, shouting. I was vaguely aware of the fine spray of blood as the iron lacerated his scalp. Then I yanked the door shut and slid the iron behind the handle. A moment later, the handle tried to turn, and the man yanked on the door.

  Nothing. Stuck.

  I stumbled away from the door, which was a good thing, because a moment later, more shots rang out. The door trembled under the impact, but none of the bullets made their way through—apparently the guy had forgotten about the reinforced door.

  The shouting was louder now, and I spun toward the trap house. The door hung open, and Kris stood in the doorway, firing off shots. He wore a balaclava, so I couldn’t see his face, but I knew him: his height, his build, his body. He wore a backpack slung from one shoulder, the way he had in middle school. A man and a woman stumbled out, carrying another man between them. In the darkness, the blood looked like an ink stain spreading across his belly.

  Kris fired another shot, and then he stooped, collected a duffle bag, and turned around. He let out a whoop when he saw me, and for a moment, it was like something rising in my chest, the way I’d seen an eagle climb in the white sunlight of a July morning. And then he shouted, “Come on!”

  I ran for the Hellcat.

  A moment after I dropped behind the wheel, Kris threw himself into the passenger seat. The engine roared to life, and I hit the gas. We lurched away from the curb, speeding into the night. Behind us, a shadow appeared in a doorframe, and a far-off bang told me he was shooting at us. But then I turned hard out of the complex, tires skidding on the frozen asphalt, and we slip-streamed into the amber river of streetlights.

  Kris was laughing as he pulled off the balaclava.

  “Holy shit!” he shouted. “Did you see that?”

  I checked the rearview mirror. I took the next turn, and one after that, weaving my way deeper into the suburban maze.

  Nothing behind us. Dark. And my own tired eyes looking back.

  Kris leaned over and bumped his head against mine. He whooped again. Then again, this time more softly.

  “You’re smiling,” he said.

  I elbowed him away.

  “I knew I could count on you. I knew it.”

  Yeah, I thought. You did.

  “They had backup in the house next door,” I said. “You about got yourself killed.”

  “Ruger was supposed to be lookout,” Kris said as he unzipped the duffel between his feet. “Instead, he got himself shot.”

  “Yeah, about that—” I began.

  And then I stopped.

  Because the bag between Kris’s feet, the bag that was supposed to be full of untraceable cash, was packed with plastic-wrapped bricks of what I thought might be heroin.

  3

  “Kris!” I looked from the drugs to him and then a quick glance at the street. Nothing but brick bungalows, trash bins wheeled out to the street for pickup, a tabby that darted away like a grease-stick smear in my vision. Nobody following us. Nobody watching. Nobody but us.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Kris stared at the drugs. Then he rubbed his eyes, let out a long breath, and zipped the bag shut.

  “You told me it was going to be cash.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s not cash.”

  “I know, Luka!” His shout echoed inside the Hellcat. “What the fuck do you want me to do about it?”

  “Jesus Christ.” I eased the car to a stop. I tried to think. Kris kicked the duffel bag and flopped back in his seat. He kicked the bag again. I said, “Knock it off.”

  “I knew those fuckers were lying. I knew it!”

  I shook my head.

  “Luka, come on. You know I wouldn’t have—”

  “Stop.”

  He stopped.

  We couldn’t do the reasonable thing, which was dump the drugs and head home. Because these guys knew Kris, would find him, and they’d take their time killing him if they thought he was holding out on them. I couldn’t go back and keep Kris from sticking his selfish head up his own ass. I couldn’t do anything about the fact that I was here entirely out of my own stupidity.

  “Where’s the meet?” I asked.

  Kris was biting his thumb, his raven’s-wing eyebrow bent. “This whole job has been fucked from the beginning. I knew something was fucked.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t let that stop you,” I said. “Give me the address.”

  I drove us north, and it didn’t take me long to figure out where we were going. Lambert Airport is surrounded by an industrial zone that includes a lot of abandoned buildings—offices and hangars and warehouses, all of them left behind and forgotten as companies moved away or folded.

 

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