Zero Tolerance

ZERO TOLERANCE

A Suspense Thriller from the Author of

FATAL DEAD LINES

BY

JOHN LUCIEW

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by John C. Luciew

Cover Design by James David Luciew

Chapter 1:

Prologue

WINTER 1984

I

In the dark, two-room apartment, the baby’s shrill, sore-throated cries are met with anger. Cindy Brimmer stands over her baby’s crib, really just an old TV box with some blankets. Her head throbs from the high-pitched wailing, not to mention the booze and the drugs. She leans down, just a few inches from the screaming baby, then lets loose with all the volume her smoker’s lungs can muster:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

The baby is startled into silence. His mother’s yell has frightened him, but the episode has also taught a lesson. All of his crying and carrying on finally elicited a response. He does have a measure of control over his world, after all.

But mostly, for the long and damaging first ten months of his life, Butch Brimmer’s screams go unrequited. The orange glow from a neon bar sign outside the apartment’s window is the only thing that watches over him. It shines like a twenty-four-hour sun. Butch’s eyes itch from the constant glow. The relentless irritation of the light matches the burn of hunger in his stomach. The pangs seem to rage on no matter how much his mother feeds him. And she does feed him. It’s the one thing she does do. When that rubber nipple is plugged into his mouth, the baby is quiet.

But Butch is growing fast, and his developing body quickly consumes the nutrients. And those old, familiar pangs are never gone for very long. Butch hungers again. So he cries. He screams. He screams with all the force his tiny lungs can muster. His chest heaves. His arms and legs clench in long spasms of frustration and, yes, anger.

In a way, Butch Brimmer is already working out. He’s already in training.

II

Outside the closed door of the second-story walk-up, Butch’s cries are no more than muffled annoyances to the other residents of the Hi-Ball Hotel. The dive bar with a few second-story rooms for rent is located in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, one of the city’s worst neighborhoods. The common denominator is poverty, so many people bankrupt of money and bereft of hope. This last part is where Cindy Brimmer fits in. Every spare dime and whatever looks she has left go to serve her habit.

The Hi-Ball is a haven for bleary-eyed lost souls drawn together for a few hours of release. It was a similar coupling that produced Butch. Cindy does not know nor can she remember the identity of Butch’s father. She’s had three abortions, including an unusually bloody procedure performed by a friend when Cindy was drinking, smoking, and shooting up so much, she simply didn’t care. The botched job had convinced her that she was ruined inside; no longer right to have a baby. Yet, while every other part of her body seems to be crumbling from the relentless cycle of her lifestyle, Cindy’s insides remain resilient. Her womb is a safe haven. A cell could cling there. Divide. Fight for life.

It’s several months before Cindy realizes she’s pregnant. By the time she senses the life struggling to survive inside her; it comes as a pleasant surprise, as if she’s been sent an unexpected gift. It’s not like the other times, when all she felt was inconvenienced, slowed down, restrained. In Cindy’s mind, her previous pregnancies kept her from enjoying a good high and a good fuck, not that she’d ever abstain on account of a fetus. No fucking way. But as long as that foreign tissue was inside her, she felt it dividing her against herself, turning her, bit by bit, into a mother. She couldn’t have that.

Her fourth pregnancy is different. The timing is right, somehow, coming just as Cindy is feeling so used-up, worn-out -- so old and utterly alone. Yet, inside her is new life. Inside her is someone to love her. Someone to take care of her. Someone to be with her.

Cindy just knows it’s a boy. She doesn’t have any time for no bitch who’d always be running around, acting like a whore. A girl who the men would look at, instead of her. A girl who Cindy would have to worry about the men wanting to fuck, instead of her. No, it’s a boy. Has to be. She can feel it. She doesn’t need no doctor and their machines she can’t afford to tell her this. And if not? Well, Cindy can always find a way to get rid of it, one way or another.

III

Months pass, and Cindy gets her boy. But he doesn’t take care of her the way she’s imagined. He just lays there in his box. He lies there, and he cries. He lies there, and he dirties himself. He lies there, and he needs. He needs food, needs to be held, needs a soothing voice. He needs her.

All of that needing is driving Cindy crazy. Often, it drives her out of the apartment and down to the bar to wait for the men and the drugs they bring. But when Cindy finds someone and gets him interested enough, she must bring him back upstairs to the tiny two-room, filled up with all of that need.

***

Cindy tries to shut it out. She has a man to service now. She sits on the corner of the bed; he stands in front of her. He’s not a person, nor a face. Just another task to perform. Another zipper to undo. Another crotch.

Cindy knows her duties well. Work him up and make it pay off for him, so maybe it will pay off for her. She wants – needs – a fix. But her chemical climax must follow the man’s biological one. So she pumps her head, works her mouth and employs her tongue.

Nothing.

Cindy wonders why. She doesn’t hear it anymore. Butch is raging.

Can’t you do something to shut that fuckin’ kid up? The crotch is annoyed.

Cindy doesn’t answer. Her mouth is full just now. She goes faster, her head jerking furiously, up and down, up and down. She senses the hardness flagging. No, she can’t have that. Faster then, faster.

The crotch speaks. Turn around. And bend over.

She pulls off her jeans and underwear and climbs onto the bare, badly stained mattress. Her head is low to the bed, and she holds herself high in the air. The crotch enters her dryness in one fast, forceful thrust. Cindy feels as if she’s tearing down there, ripping open, but she doesn’t make a sound, not even the slightest grimace. She doesn’t want the crotch to see.

No worries there. The crotch is banging now, fast and hard. The bed squeaks, and the headboard slaps the wall.

After it’s over and the crotch slides out, Cindy hears a belt buckle fastening behind her, and then boots walking toward the door. A bag with a small amount of heroin powder has been left behind on the bed, near where Cindy is sprawled on her stomach. Cindy glances at it, just to make sure. But she doesn’t want that right now. Not yet.

What she needs is a hug. She needs to be held. She needs to feel someone’s warm skin pressed against her own. She needs her son.

Wearing only an open shirt, she walks to the box on the floor. Butch’s big, red face is shiny with fresh tears. His open, howling mouth dribbles slobber. Her son’s mouth looks so big to Cindy, as if it would take so much to fill him up and make him happy. The orange glow through the window only makes him appear all the more fiery and angry. But she needs him now.

Cindy hoists him up, always bigger and heavier everyday. Fumes from his thrice-dirtied diaper run up the boy’s naked back, assaulting Cindy’s nose. But she tolerates this and carries her son back to the bed. She sits cross-legged on the mattress, near where the Baggie with the powder has been left behind. She can smell herself, the musky odor of mixed bodily fluids. Then the last of the man’s sticky deposit runs out of her.

Cindy holds Butch out from her and looks at him. Cindy’s boy is calm now, content. She likes this. Cindy holds her baby close to her naked chest. His body feels warm and soft against hers. The baby squirms, and then nestles even closer. It’s wonderful.

Suddenly, the warmth turns hot and wet on her left breast. The baby’s hungry mouth has found her nipple. He tugs at it with his gums. There’s a pinch, a squeeze, and a suck.

It hurts.

Ouch, Cindy yelps. Goddamn bastard.

She yanks her son away, and Butch begins to cry. He reaches out for her. The baby has found what he wants, what he needs, and he demands more. But Cindy will have none of it. She shakes him.

You’re all alike, she scolds. You want what you want, but it’s never what I need. Well, this little bastard’s goin’ back in his box.

She marches the baby across the floor to the make-shift crib and deposits him there. Cindy turns away from her son and toward the Baggie.

The orange glow of the neon bar sign shines relentlessly in the baby’s eyes. He closes them tight and goes on screaming.

IV

Cindy Brimmer leaves this world sprawled on a disheveled, puke-stained mattress at the Hi-Ball Hotel, a heroin needle between her toes. The empty Baggie, which contained the passport for Cindy’s unexpectedly permanent escape from Homewood, lay on the floor near Butch’s box.

Butch is ten months old, growing fast and screaming like a demon, as usual. This time, his crying goes on far longer as does the burning inside Butch’s belly. His hunger erupts into an all-consuming pain. It’s the pain of survival, urging Butch to do something – anything -- to live.

Butch rolls to one side of the box. The force of his sifting weight tips it, just a bit. Sensing the movement, Butch thrashes and rolls again. Then again and again, the box tipping a little farther each time. Finally, it topples, spilling the baby onto the wooden floor.

Lying on his belly, Butch looks up at the drafty, dusty room before him. It’s a brand new world.

It’s the domain of ants and cockroaches, the roaches so damn arrogant, they refuse to run and scatter in the presence of a mere baby. They’re as much residents of the Hi-Ball as any of its human inhabitants. Dust bunnies blow like tumbleweed, and Butch feels irritation in his eyes, nose and throat. But the pain in his stomach is more pressing.

He flails his arms and legs wildly, full of anger and rage. He does this until he moves. Until he causes himself to move. The sensation is something altogether miraculous. He does this again. And again. Then again. Soon, he is inching his way across the filthy floor, clad only in a soiled diaper.

He moves toward the light shining in from the space under the door. Inch by inch, he crawls away from his dead mother and toward the light.

As he nears it, Butch can feel cold air sweeping in underneath the door. He can hear the noises, too. Footsteps and voices come and go, breaking the horizontal line of light as they pass just outside the door.

Butch is close now. He reaches out a hand and presses his stubby fingers under the door. He inches closer, laying his head on the floor and peering underneath. He marvels at the light, wondering what lies beyond.

But Butch has come as far as he can. Now it’s time to do what he does best. To do what he’s been training his whole life for:

He cries. He yells. He screams. Young Butch Brimmer screams for his life.

The people who walk by pretend not to hear, but Butch is not to be denied. Finally, one of the anonymous creatures who infest the Hi-Ball Hotel dials 911 from a pay phone outside. A dispatcher’s recording of the call reveals a woman’s voice, a girl’s, really. She whispers desperately into the receiver, which must have been freezing against her ear in the February chill.

Someone’s beatin’ a baby, she says. They’re killin’ it. It’s happenin’ right now, at the Hi-Ball. The second floor. Come quick, it’s dyin’.

In a detached, unemotional voice, the operator asks for a name, an apartment number, how the caller knows this. The nervous girl doesn’t answer.

Someone better get their ass over here, is all, she says, her voice rising from its initial confidential tone. That brat’s been screamin’ bloody murder all night. Youns better come quick, or it’s sure to be dead. That’s all I’m sayin’. Later.

The line goes dead.

V

Despite all of his screaming, Butch will be almost five years old before he utters his first word. County social workers suspect brain damage or some kind of chemical imbalance brought on by his mother’s drug habit. Another school of thought holds that Butch’s speech was repressed by psychological trauma from the abject neglect of his first ten months of life and the baby’s ordeal on the night his mother died. No one really knows for sure.

Certainly, the boy is in rough shape by the time cops, emergency technicians, and county children and youth workers arrive at the Hi-Ball Hotel. He is dehydrated, afflicted with pneumonia and severely undernourished.

But he’s alive and about to start a new life.

A life outside the Hi-Ball Hotel. A life as a ward of the state.

Chapter 2:

Three Kids with Crewcuts

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2000

I

Bart Kleppel had never seen a street like this, except maybe in a movie.

The boy pressed his chubby face against the glass of the minivan’s side window as the vehicle rolled inconspicuously through the suburban streets of Squirrel Hill. He forced himself to concentrate on the big, brick houses that passed by. It was better than thinking about his queasy stomach. Long rides always did it to him, and this trip was no exception.

So he thought about the houses and imagined the people who lived inside. The grand structures seemed to look down on him from atop hills rising from the street. The houses were older. Bart could tell that from their distinctive designs and worn-looking bricks. Nearly all of them belched smoke from chimney fires. And virtually all were decorated in some fashion for Halloween.

Cornstalks masked the poles of gas lamps along walkways. Indian corn hung on front doors. Leaf-stuffed dummies with scary or silly masks lounged in lawn chairs on the porches. Ghosts fashioned out of billowy sheets swung suspended from trees. And all manner of carved pumpkins were lit with candles.

It was all so different to Bart. He’d spent his first fifteen years in a trailer court on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. That trailer court was a bunch of rusty beer cans that lay where they scattered, compared to the tree-lined beauty of this neighborhood. Even the name sounded perfect to him: Squirrel Hill.

What a place, Bart thought, refusing to surrender to his protesting stomach. He guessed that the people inside must be millionaires. Bart didn’t know what rich people did to get their money. He just knew he’d never have any. This thought didn’t carry with it the least bit of anger or jealousy. It was merely accepted fact. Watching his mother deliver newspapers for a living and seeing the other residents of the trailer park wait on monthly envelopes from the government convinced him of this. Perhaps, that was why Bart Kleppel was so fascinated by Squirrel Hill. He just couldn’t wait to see what people did inside those big houses. He’d find out soon enough.

Bart, along with Butch Brimmer, who was driving, and Kip Brown, who was quietly riding shotgun, would soon pay an unannounced visit to one of the homes.

These three kids with crew cuts could have been neighbor boys returning from a soccer match or football practice, though Kleppel was a little short and much too out of shape for this. Perhaps they were planning on doing some homework together. Maybe they intended to carve up a jack-o’-lantern or get costumes ready for the season. For all anyone knew, it could have been any of these things that had brought these boys to Squirrel Hill.

But why the three nightsticks in the back of the van?

Bart didn’t know who they were visiting or why. Only Butch knew such details. Bart studied the rough terrain of Butch’s profile -- the protruding forehead, the angular cheeks, the strong jaw jutting from his thick neck. Behind the wheel of the minivan, Butch reminded Bart of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Bart’s favorite movie of all time, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He’d seen it a dozen times on cable, the lone amenity of his mother’s trailer. Bart loved the way the Terminator took care of the boy, John Conner. How the Terminator was programmed to protect the boy, no matter what. Bart had never experienced such fatherly protection, didn’t even know who his father was. Yet the movie made him ache for it all the more.

Butch was like the Terminator in a way, Bart thought. He’d been programmed and sent on a mission. He had a slip of paper with an address. That’s where they were going. And Bart knew that with Butch in charge, there would be nothing to fear. Nothing, that was, for the boys to fear. For the people they were calling on, it would be a different matter.

Bart also knew that Butch preferred silence, especially before something as important as this, their first real assignment for Him. But keeping quiet was against Bart’s nature. What had it been? Twenty minutes? Too long, indeed.

Hey Butch, Bart croaked, his lisp spraying saliva past a large overbite caused by years of sucking his thumb. It was a practice Bart still returned to as a way to settle into sleep. His small, discolored teeth, the product of too much sugar and not enough brushing, didn’t add to his speech impediment. But they detracted from his appearance and soured his breath.

Butch glanced up, finding Bart in the rearview mirror. The fat boy immediately felt humbled in Butch’s gaze.

I was just wondering when we’re going to get there? Bart said.

Don’t worry about it. Butch’s eyes returned to the road. You’ll know it when we’re there.

Bart wouldn’t be put off that easily. Leaning between the two captain’s chairs, he tried another tack. I can’t wait to get a look inside one of them houses, he said. Them people must all be millionaires.

Jesus, Kleppel. Kip Brown spun around, wiping a hand down his cheek. You’re gettin’ your shit breath all over me, man. Watch that shit. That mouth a yours is a goddamn weapon. Man, you stink.

Shut up, druggie. Bart spat back with the best retort he could muster. I was talking to Butch. Why don’t you go fry your brains or somethin’? Just like mom says, blacks are druggies. You done prove it.

Don’t start with the black shit, nigger. Kip flashed his best street stare. I’s fuck you up.

It was the same hard look Kip employed the night he and a friend tried to rip off the white guy in the BMW. It was supposed to be a piece of cake. The mark was a suburban soft-belly who wanted some smack the kids didn’t have. Kip set up the deal anyway, figuring the street pistol he’d acquired would be enough to separate the white dude from his wallet. But it went down bad. The guy grabbed the gun as Kip leaned inside the open car window to snatch the cash. The white fucker wouldn’t let go of the gun or the money. Instead, he gassed the Beamer and began racing away with Kip sticking out of the driver’s window and his sneakers dragging on the pavement. So Kip squeezed the trigger. But the damn, cheap gun or its ancient ammunition didn’t fire. Next, the guy bit down on Kip’s hand, and the boy dropped the pistol. The white dude shoved Kip’s face out of the car, and the boy fell hard to the curb. The BMW sped off with the pistol smeared with Kip’s prints inside.

The victim headed straight for the cops, telling them about the corner boys on the North Side who tried to carjack him. Kip got picked up early the next morning. He told his side of the story – namely that the guy was cruising for dope. But the gun with Kip’s prints was all she wrote.

The juvenile court judge didn’t scare Kip. The probation officer didn’t make an impression. Even his first night in city detention didn’t register much of a reaction. It was only when his mother arrived at the juvenile center the following morning that Kip’s insides turned to ice.

She was dressed in her expensive work clothes. Her heels banging off the tile floor, announcing her rage. When she finally cast eyes on Kip in the visiting room, her face swam with disgust. She wore the cold, detached look of a mother who was officially done with her son.

Juditha Brown was a single mother who had clawed her way up to be assistant to the president at Western Steel. She did this entirely on merit, of course. She wouldn’t have had it any other way. She had tried to instill the same drive in her son. She’d lectured on the value of hard work, manners and education. She’s even given him a name that smacked of preppy, white upper class. Juditha Brown had done all of this, only to realize she had raised a statistic. Her own son was a living, breathing validation of every cheap, pathetic stereotype she’d spent her life fighting against.

Juditha Brown shook her head and frowned at the boy who was no longer her son. Kip turned away and slumped in his chair.

***

Bart’s race baiting had brought it all back, all those lessons his mother had tried to instill. Kip’s anger surged.

You a damn fool, Kip seethed. I done put a gun to a white dude’s head, and he be a helluva lot more impor-int than you. Had a BMW ‘n everythin.’ Whatchu think I do to you, Shitbag?

Do it, Bart squeaked. Try it. I ain’t scared.

And Bart Kleppel wasn’t afraid. His short stature, round stomach and moon face belied his absolute disregard for anyone’s well-being, including his own. He’d battle anyone, regardless of the mismatch. What he lacked in height and might, he made up for with ferocity -- relentless and absolute aggression. He’d use any weakness, any weapon, any advantage to put down his target. And he didn’t care if he got beat. He was accustomed to beatings, mostly at the hands of his older brother, Kyle.

Kyle Kleppel held the advantage throughout the boys’ childhood – that is until Bart decided to burn his older brother alive. One night under no particular provocation, Bart set fire to the mattress as Kyle slept. It, along with the old, rusty trailer, went up in a matter of minutes. Bart’s brother received burns over sixty percent of his body, including the entire left side of his face. Bart just stood on the gravelly lawn and watched it burn, his eyes hypnotized by the dancing flames.

He didn’t feel the blows as his half-drunk mother punched, kicked and cursed him. Everything was all right. Bart would be gone from there. Gone for good.

Just try it, Brownie, Bart taunted Kip again.

Through it all, Butch Brimmer remained silent, refusing to step in and moderate the heated debate. Where these boys lived, there were a hundred of these dick-measuring contests a day. So Butch let the argument ride, his eyes fixed firmly on the road, his mind completely focused on their destination. They were, in fact, close. Then the aggression of his passengers would be absolutely necessary.

II

There was no rehearsed plan for what they would do. Instead, the Organizer was counting on the personalities and temperaments of the volunteers he had hand-picked for the assignment. More to the point, he was counting on Butch. The crew’s muscled leader was the only one the Organizer would trust with some of the details of his grand plans. Butch was the biggest, strongest bull of the bunch, and the others would listen to him. As long as Butch knew what was to happen -- and more importantly, what wasn’t to happen -- he could direct the others so there would be no mistakes.

Okay, you two. Enough. Butch broke his silence and Bart and Kip broke their stares. We’re almost there, Butch continued. How ‘bout you two save it for what we’re going to do?

Bart turned to Butch. "What are we gonna do?"

The leader considered this for a moment, and then answered. We’re going trick or treatin’, how’s that? It was the closest Butch got to cracking a joke.

Kip looked at him, eyes widening. Say what?

You heard me, Butch said. Get the grease paint from the bag and start doctorin' up your faces.

Kip reached into the gym bag that lay between the two captain’s chairs. Let me do you, Kleppel. God knows your ugly mug could use some improvin’, he said.

Don’t make me too black, Bart replied. "Do me like Schwarzenegger in Predator. He looked damn cool in that one. Seen it on cable, must be 20 times."

Nobody’s ever gonna mistake your fat ass for Schwarzenegger, believe that, Kip shot back. He too old now anyway.

Lemme do you, Kippy, Bart said, reaching for the face paint. Hey wait a minute, the paint’s not showin’ up on you. You too black, man. We better get some clown face and turn you white. Now that be scary.

Shut up and do it, Kip ordered. And don’t breathe on me, you mouth-breathing motherfucker.

Just then, the minivan passed 239 Allegheny Street. It was a large, looming house on the right that overlooked some two-dozen steps leading up to it from the street. Windows glowed yellow with light from inside, and smoke bellowed from the chimney.

Butch drove a block past the house, pulling in behind another minivan parked on the street. He made sure to allow enough room to pull straight out when the time came. Then, he cut the engine, secured the keys in the zipper pocket of his dark jacket and grabbed the paint. With one hand, he squeezed off a dollop and smeared blackness on his face.

Get the gloves, he said.

Butch double-checked the address on a small slip of paper, then palmed a freshly cut key from his pocket.

Bart, pass out the nightsticks, ordered Butch, the last of the three to snap on latex gloves.

Okay, we go, Butch said, opening the van’s door, the others following.

Outside, Butch tucked his nightstick into the back of his pants, the two boys mimicking him. Remember. Butch stretched out his words. We walk. We never run.

The crisp, dead leaves crunched under foot and the cool, smoke-seasoned autumn air smelled clean as the trio approached the house. It was just after dusk on a Tuesday, and the neighborhood was quiet.

Butch looked up at the house. He studied the pattern of lights, trying to determine the location of the occupants inside. He noticed that the second floor windows were dark. The occupants were on the main floors. This was good. The Organizer had cautioned him that if there was a gun, it would be in the bedroom. Keep them out of the bedroom, the Organizer had said, or it could get messy. And we don’t want it messy.

No we don’t, Butch mumbled to himself.

The formal living room, which Butch had been informed the owners didn’t regularly use, was dark, as well. This also was good fortune. He and the boys would enter through the front door, where they could control access to the grand staircase leading up to those potentially dangerous bedrooms. The path to their unsuspecting hosts would be just to the left, through a small foyer and into an informal sitting room. That’s where Butch had been informed the old man liked to mix himself drinks at his minibar and the woman preferred to read books in her favorite chair, close to a stone hearth.

Getting in would be easiest of all. Butch held the key to the deadbolt in his left palm. The little piece of paper with the address also contained the numerical code for an electronic alarm system. The Organizer had thought of everything.

Butch jerked his head, signaling the boys. The three climbed the long narrow steps to a large porch.

This is it, Butch whispered, making eye contact with each of them. Kip looked serious, his lips puckered in concentration. Bart was breathing heavily, a trickle of clear snot under his nostrils.

Remember, Butch continued. You can have some fun, but you listen to me. We’re just doin’ a little trick ‘or treatin’ here.

Butch slid the key into the lock, then turned it. The deadbolt slid open.

Inside, the heat hit them first. It was warm and quiet, except for the distinct ticking of a clock. Butch went directly to a small keypad on a wall next to the door. He read numbers from the tiny slip of paper and punched the keys. When he received the green all-clear signal on the display, he popped the paper into his mouth and chewed.

They were in.

III

Butch looked to his right. The formal living room was dark, but he could see reflections of light from fancy pieces of glass and crystal. The ceilings were high, and the furniture and decorations were like the pieces from a museum. Straight ahead, pictures lined the walls leading up the staircase.

It was all too much, a sensory overload for Butch. He didn’t know where to look next. If he wasn’t careful, Butch could become mesmerized just looking at things. It was as if the visual was too much for him, turning him into some slack-jawed drooler as his eyes struggled to take everything in and his mind labored to process it.

No time for that now, he told himself. He broke his gaze and directed his eyes to the left. That was the path. That was the mission. Without a word or sound, Butch headed that way. Kip and Bart followed.

As they rounded a corner, a long, continuous space opened up to them. The first part of the room was dark and adorned with lots of wood. The stuffed chairs were upholstered in leather. A huge, oak desk dominated a wall, which was covered with framed photographs. Off in another corner, a bar held a collection of bottles.

The old man lounged in an overstuffed leather chair on the far side of the room. His feet were propped on a