Lost Exit

Flash Fiction by Michael Downing

A driving rain whips across the motel parking lot, beating against the windows in a staccato rhythm.  Cuba lights another Marlboro and rechecks the magazine in the Glock before tucking it beneath his shirt, snug against his back. Tall, broad, and Black, with a shaved head, gold caps, and a hard edge to his stare. Everything about him is anger, hurt and pain.

He wipes a hand across his face. Worries again about the four guys in the black Yukon parked at the motel’s entrance. Might be Dixie or the Jamaicans. He’s not sure.

That changes the dynamic.

“You ready?” he asks Franco.

The kid looks up. Sixteen, lean and lanky. A boy in a man’s body. Somebody you tell what to do and he does it without questions, sitting on the bed with his twenty-two, watching Jerry Springer reruns.

The sawed-off double-barrel by the nightstand is close but Cuba figures they can do this without the shotgun.

“Been ready all day.”

Cuba eyes him. “Be plenty to do soon enough. Stay sharp.”

Anything else the kid says gets lost in the sounds of rain and planes landing nearby at Hartsfield-Jackson.

Cuba sits back, waiting. Nudges the gym bag on the floor with an Air Jordan. The bag holds ten kilos of coke worth six hundred grand once it’s cut and processed. The kind of score he’d love to work on the street.

Instead, he’s at an airport motel, forced to be a middleman between Dixie rednecks and some upstart Jamaican thugs muscling into his neighborhood. The way Dixie sees it, one gang is no different than the other. They can expand distribution, carving out something bigger than what they have with Cuba’s crew. The Jamaicans will show up with two hundred grand for Dixie, then sell the coke, financing the guns they need to take over the corners. The small cut Cuba gets is meaningless. It’s only a matter of time before everything he owns is lost.

“Just be cool,” Cuba says. “Follow my lead.”

Franco nods. Knows it’s more than a drug deal. Their relationship with Dixie has been on the verge of a break-up for months. A lit match away from exploding. The Jamaicans are holding two kids from Cuba’s crew in a downtown basement, just to make sure this deal goes down, guaranteeing nobody gets cheated.

Guaranteeing Cuba’s cooperation.

There’s a knock and Cuba stands, crushing out his cigarette, motioning Franco towards the door.

“Here to exchange packages,” a voice outside says.

Cuba nods and Franco opens the door. Two Jamaicans squeeze inside, dreads, attitude and bulky windbreakers hiding forty-fives. The first is Ricky, the one who set up the deal, carrying a backpack. The other is somebody Cuba’s never seen before – shorter and heavyset with a week’s worth of stubble and a cigarette rolled to the corner of his mouth, standing with his back to the door, fingers curled around a forty-five. Ricky shakes off the rain, gesturing towards the gym bag.

“What you got for us?”

“Got an issue with this set-up,” Cuba says slowly.

“What’s your problem?”

“You snatched a couple of my kids. Don’t exactly inspire trust.”

Ricky exchanges a grin with his partner, then turns back to Cuba. “Trust?”

“Ain’t a good way for business partners to act.”

“Ain’t no partnership,” Ricky says, the corners of his mouth turning into a sneer. “You getting paid to do a job. That’s all it is. Just a transaction.”

“No reason to take our corner boys.”

“Leverage,” Ricky says. “Eliminates stupidity.”

The guy against the door steps forward. “Enough talk. Let’s see what you got.”

Cuba takes a breath and kicks the gym bag towards them. Both Jamaicans lean forward, eyeing the neat little rows of white packages laid out inside.

“Your turn,” Cuba says.

Ricky extends the backpack, one hand holding it while the other unzips it. “Think we gonna’ cheat you?”

Cuba shrugs. “Considering the situation, it don’t feel like you’re negotiating in good faith.”

Both Jamaicans laugh. “Ain’t nothing to negotiate,” Ricky says.

Cuba takes another breath, holding it. Turns to Franco.

“Look like two hundred grand?”

Franco thumbs through the bag, fingering the bills before nodding.

Cuba flashes a grin.

The guy against the door is loose and casual with his gun, like a gunslinger from an old TV western while Ricky holds open the backpack. Both slow to react when Cuba pulls out the Glock and levels it in one smooth motion, freezing the gunslinger in place. Even slower when Franco presses his gun hard into Rickys temple. Something registers in the gunslinger’s expression but it’s temporary. When Cuba squeezes the trigger he gets slammed backwards, hanging briefly against the wall before sliding to the floor, a trail of blood streaking down the wallpaper.

“You crazy?” Ricky hisses, calm and cockiness replaced by panic. “Understand how much shit you stepping in?”

“Don’t matter,” Cuba says, aiming his gun at Ricky.

“Maybe there’s another way?”

“Know I ain’t negotiating. Not with you,” Cuba says.

Cuba’s expression doesn’t change when he pulls the trigger. The bullet opens a hole in Ricky’s forehead that grows larger until it paints the room with a pink mist of flesh and bone. Ricky’s body crumples to the floor, shuddering and jerking, blood pooling beneath him. Cuba stares for a moment, then spits a glob of phlegm at the body.

He scoops up the bills scattered on the floor, shoving everything inside the backpack, zipping it shut. Franco holds the gym bag in one hand and his twenty-two in the other, waiting for Cuba to tell him what to do next. Cuba grabs the sawed-off, stepping over the bodies towards the door.

Looks at Franco. “Cool with this?”

The kid swallows hard, nodding. Knows that whatever they had with Dixie is finished. “What about the guys they holding?”

Cuba shrugs. “They just corner boys. Ain’t important.”

Cuba’s got bigger problems.

He has to figure out how he’s getting past the guys in the black Yukon.

---

Bio: Michael Downing is a writer originally from New Jersey, now living in a small college town in Georgia. Over the past fifteen years he has written some plays, published a few books, and his short stories have been featured in various publications and anthologies (some that have even been nominated for Pushcart Prizes). He is still everything New Jersey: attitude, edginess, and Bruce Springsteen songs….but not Bon Jovi.

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