Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  He was trying to make me let my guard down, but I wasn’t going to. “Badger is calling the SPD right now. You’re both going to jail.”

  “That was Badger?” Dad pointed back at the building, cringing a little at McGrone and his Glock, who were very close. He snapped his fingers. “I knew he looked familiar! Did he get a haircut?”

  We’d mussed it, but it was close enough for me. “We’re just going to wait here nice and easy until they get here. The Police Academy is just a couple miles west on Lakeshore Drive. They’ll have a few officers who can handle this. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

  Lightning fast, Butte spun on one leg, the other high up and swinging right into McGrone’s gun arm, causing him to drop the pistol. Junior grabbed Dad by the arm and they ran away around the side of the single story building. I managed to get off one shot, but it took off a piece of the Polycrete, the hole blending in nicely with the other pockmarks in the wall. I didn’t want to waste a lot of shots. I only had a ten shot magazine, now down to nine. I also had a Glock, but didn’t want to switch to it until the rifle was depleted. Holding the rifle in two hands, I took off after them, my arms swinging the rifle back and forth as I pumped for speed.

  “Billings!” McGrone yelled after me.

  I shouted back over my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill them.”

  I really wish I hadn’t said that.

  I half expected them to head south, across sparse tree cover and grassy fields. But Lakeshore Drive was right there, too, and sirens were now audible in the distance. They’d be running right into the hands of the SPD if they went south. When I got around the single story, I saw them climbing up the fire escape on Building Two. Junior, leading the way, hung off a rung half way up to check our progress. He was climbing one handed, because he had a phone in the other hand and he was shouting something into it. I could hear his voice, but not well enough to distinguish the words. He could only do a few rungs this way. It was too high and not stable enough. After shouting some more into the phone, he slid it into his pocket and went back to climbing with both hands, zooming up to the roof of the second story, with Butte right behind him. They quickly disappeared from view as I was forced to shoulder the rifle and jump up to catch the lowest rung to follow. Looking back, I saw McGrone, pistol back in his hand, coming up fast. By the time I’d reached the top, McGrone, holstering the Glock, was pulling himself up as well.

  I understood the adage nowhere to go but up, but I wasn’t sure it applied here. Was he planning to come back down once we were up there, hoping to exhaust me? But they had to be getting tired, too. Dad wasn’t a spring chicken anymore, and he probably hadn’t trained the way I had, and Junior had just spent almost two months in prison. I started to pull off my rifle, but they were already racing across the second floor roof. There was a small gap between the two story and the three story, if you were good at grabbing the fire escape railing. Junior did it without hesitation. The sirens were louder now, but I thought I could hear something else and I knew what Junior had yelled into the phone. I looked up at the looming five story. No way had the HIP been built with a helipad on top, but could the Krochedys have installed one on the QT? Or did they just have helicopter pilots willing to land on an unsecured building that might not be structurally sound enough? I saw the black dot in the sky coming in from the north. If they got on the chopper, they were home free, at least for a while. The cops would be busy separating the homeless from the counterfeiters and it would be an hour or more, if ever, before McGrone could order a helicopter from CURDS HQ to give pursuit.

  Junior was giving Butte a hands up from the fire escape to the third story roof. He glanced down at me and even from this distance I knew there was a smug grin on his face. “Shoot him,” said McGrone behind me.

  “The angle won’t work.” A second later, they disappeared as they ran across that roof and to the left to get to the four story. I shouldered the rifle again and headed after them. Shooting from the low ground was almost useless, but there was no way I was going to get higher than them. My only chance was going to be to pick them off as they climbed the next fire escape, and for that, I had catching up to do. I poured on the speed, spotting them already starting the climb.

  A shot rang past my ear from McGrone’s pistol. “Why are you hesitating?” He said, taking aim again after his bullet pinged off the metal fire escape.

  From a window on the fourth floor, a homeless woman in a blue knit cap with a pompon on top, opened a window to see what the ruckus was. Seeing us and our guns, she ducked back in and closed the window, no doubt yelling a warning to her fellow vagrants, some of whom could be seen gaping through other windows. I turned on McGrone in time to push his arm up so his next shot went into the sky. Heck, I thought, maybe it will hit the helicopter. Of course, it didn’t. “That’s why!” I yelled at him. “Not everyone here is guilty. We have to wait for a clear shot.” Again, Junior reached the top and gave Butte a hand up. He paused and looked up at the sky. The black spot was bigger, the thrum of the rotors was louder. They were almost there. I hadn’t stopped moving. I was at the bottom by the time Butte’s foot vanished onto the roof above me. The only way I was going to get a clear shot was to be on the same roof with them. And that was going to be hard to do as long as they kept moving.

  I didn’t wait to see how McGrone took the rebuke but climbed the ladder as fast as I could. As luck would have it, Junior and Butte were arguing with each other, about five or six feet from the opposite ledge. The wind took their voices, but both were gesticulating and pointing in various directions. I didn’t chase them anymore. As soon as I was on the roof, I swung the rifle into my hands and dropped to my belly, using my elbows for a tripod. They were in my sights. I calmed myself and prepared for a nice, steady shot.

  Junior saw me and panicked, resuming his run toward the edge, almost pulling Butte with him. I lost him in my sight for a moment and gently moved the rifle barrel trying to find him again. I saw boots out of the corner of my eye. McGrone had caught up. “We have them,” he breathed. “Looks like the gap is too big.” The top of Building Five was right in front of them, the fire escape spanning less than half of the gap. The helicopter was coming up fast, hovering just above the roof of the five story. The pilot saw us and took off again, swinging away from the HIP.

  In my rifle sight, I found my targets. They had come up short just inches from the edge and stood there, breathing heavy, nothing but open sky behind them. Neither one was looking up at the roof of the five story, or complaining about their ride leaving them in the lurch. They stood there apparently in shock. Their backs were to us, and I held my breath as I lined up a shot to hit Junior in the upper thigh. I squeezed the trigger.

  At the same instant, Junior fell on his knees. My bullet hit him in the middle of the back and he fell over onto his face. Why had he fallen to his knees? I wondered. And why did Butte seem not to notice that his partner had just been shot and was likely dead?

  With the rifle sight still at my eye, I slid the barrel over just an inch and my breath caught in my throat. I pulled my head back, trying to see with my naked eye what I’d seen in the sight. I saw nothing. A glance up at McGrone told me he saw nothing, either. “Freeze, Mister!” He shouted at Butte as the thrum of the helicopter faded away.

  I put my eye back to the sight and tried to find it again, before McGrone thought to run forward or shoot Butte with the pistol.

  There, hovering in the gap between buildings. Hazy and ethereal as a rainbow, and every bit as beautiful.

  Mom.

  It was one of those optical tricks, where you had to be at just the right angle or distance to see it. She floated in front of Butte, apparently speaking to him, and he stood there mesmerized. He stepped forward, as if he were going to jump from the roof. He reached out a hand, trying to touch her. She moved closer, so he wouldn’t fall and let his hand pass through her. If he did fall, she would not be able to catch him. I think she knew that I really didn’
t need a moving target. Did she really want me to shoot him, though?

  Too afraid to use his pistol, which didn’t have the control of a rifle, or deferring to my possibly superior marksmanship, McGrone said, “Don’t let him jump. Take the shot, son.”

  I kept my eye on the sight, on the vision of Mom holding my Dad at bay just by being there. After he was so instrumental in Mom’s death, I’d spent months hoping to be instrumental in his. But when push came to shove, I just wasn’t that vindictive.

  I inched the barrel back and down and squeezed the trigger.

  He took the bullet in his left calf and the leg gave out. He fell to his left side, still with his eye on the apparition, landing next to Junior’s head. A dark pool of blood had seeped from Junior’s torso and he didn’t respond to the thump of Butte’s fall. Butte, for his part, rolled away, wincing, from his partner. He caught sight of me and I saw something in his eyes I hadn’t seen in more than a decade. Regret.

  I got to my feet, shouldering the rifle once again, and McGrone and I walked over to him. I glanced in the gap between the buildings, but Mom had disappeared. When I turned my head back to Butte, McGrone had his pistol aimed at Butte’s head. “Stand down, McGrone!” I said immediately.

  McGrone looked at me, not moving his gun hand. He said nothing, nor did he give any sign of backing down.

  “Stop!” I said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “It’s payback. He put us through hell.”

  “This isn’t about payback. This is about getting him into custody. We are not the judge, jury and executioner.” I put a hand on his gun arm, but didn’t force it up. I wanted him to do it on his own. I was noticing that the sides of the buildings were reflecting alternating blue and red light. It wouldn’t be long before a squad of Springfield police reached us. “We need him to talk.”

  “I won’t testify,” Butte said, wincing from pain and trying to reach the back of his leg. “I’ll take the fifth.” With the barrel of McGrone’s pistol in front of his face, and afraid for his life, Butte tried to crawl away.

  I stepped on his injured leg to stop him. He screamed in pain and cursed, grabbing at his calf, which had left a trail of red stretching to his foot. “I said I needed you to talk. I didn’t say anything about needing you to walk. Testify or hop for the rest of your life. You tried to kill Grandma and helped Junior kill Mom.”

  “Yeah, I’m still getting mud out of my fingernails from that escape.” He screamed again as I added more weight to his injury. “I was going to retire on this job! Hell, Billings, this whole town could have retired on this job. Do you know what the president did when she banned cheese?”

  I didn’t care. Lifting my head, I said, “Sam, shoot his foot off. There’s time before the cops get here. Resisting arrest is perfectly believable.”

  McGrone was taken aback by my using his first name, and he clearly got the gist of what I was doing. He aimed his pistol carefully, making a show of it, but this time I knew he wasn’t going to shoot.

  He didn’t have to. Butte, supporting himself on one shoulder, put his hands up in surrender. “I’ll testify! Don’t shoot!”

  Epilogue

  Standing in front of my dresser, I had a new appreciation for having a home, albeit a joint one, in CURDS HQ DC. After Butte had been taken to the hospital and Junior’s body had been removed, I helped interview the dozens of homeless that were sheltering in the HIP. Five or six admitted to being skilled sculptors, three were handling mold making on the top floor of the three story, and five had coordinated between the various skilled trades. All those were arrested as accessories. They mostly didn’t mind. They weren’t likely to get long sentences, and while they were in jail they would be fed, clothed, and sheltered and receive medical care. For some of them, that was the plan all along. It beat scrounging for sustenance all day. For the rest, it was a common, but sad story. This one lost everything in the last recession. That one lost his wife after a long battle with cancer and went bankrupt. A family lost their home in a fire the previous fall and were still battling the insurance company. On and on. By the time we got back to DC the following day, I was ready to kiss the front step.

  Not knowing how long we would be home, before turning in for the night I had cleaned my room, storing the boxes of my mother’s belongings in the corner. I’d go through it all slowly. But I had quickly developed a near-compulsion, each morning and evening that I was home, to wipe down the lavender urn that contained the last dregs of my mother’s ashes. Not all of it had fit in the shoulder pack, which was why she was still able to appear in front of Butte. “I miss you, Mom,” I said, as I rubbed down the urn with a cloth dampened with Lysol.

  “I miss you, too.” The voice was so soft I thought I’d imagined it. It was like I had thought it.

  I looked around, but didn’t see her. “Where are you?”

  “In your ear. It’s the only way you can hear me. Just a second.” After a moment, she floated, bug sized, out of my ear and hovered in front of my eyes. Her lips moved, then she shrugged and mouthed, “See?” She returned to my ear. What a trade-off, I thought. If I want to see her, I can’t hear her. If I want to hear her, I can’t see her. “Okay, I’m back.”

  I stopped rubbing the urn and stood there, listening with my eyes closed. “I miss you,” I repeated.

  “I heard that part. I miss you, too.”

  I was tearing up, and I pressed my lips to push the emotions down. “You stopped Dad from jumping. What did you say?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He couldn’t hear me, either. But the sight of me gave him the shock of his life.”

  “Junior, too.”

  “He dead?”

  “Yeah. I take it you didn’t run into him or anything, wandering around in whatever dimension you’re in.”

  “No. I’m not sure what the rules are about that. I’ve seen a few people like me, but no one I knew.”

  I sat on the bed, slowly, so she didn’t lose her place in my ear. “So Grandma’s safe now?” she asked. “I wanted to go see her, but I was afraid she’d see me. She’s got eyes like a hawk.”

  “Do hawks know thirty-seven shades of red that don’t even include red?”

  She made a noise that would have been a spit take if she had any spit. “She didn’t.”

  “She did. Roxy was furious. She almost pulled her Glock out.”

  “Wait until they do shades of blue.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen. By the way, I meant to ask you something. When we were talking to Butler at Leavenworth he mentioned something about John Lennon getting shot.”

  “Really? How long has he been in there?”

  “You know what that was?”

  “Of course I do. Singer from the Beatles. Shot by a crazed fan trying to impress Jodi Foster, as I recall.”

  “Jodi who?”

  “Never mind.” After a moment of silence, she asked, “So when are you and Avis getting married already?”

  “I don’t know. She still wants a big church service and reception and all that. You know how this goes. Besides, the whole miraculous wedding out of nowhere is pretty cliché, don’t you think?”

  Mom squinted, “Then why are you wearing your tux?”

  I looked down at myself. The jacket and cummerbund were laid out on the foot of the bed so I didn’t muss them while I dusted, but I was wearing the pants, dress shirt, and highly polished shoes. “No, it’s just there’s this thing today, while we’re in D.C. and I don’t have any other suit to wear. Avis said I should make sure it fit, anyway. If I notice anything weird there’s time for tailoring.”

  “A thing?”

  That’s when Roxy burst into the room. “Are you ready yet?” She took one look at me and screeched. “Eek! Get dressed. You need to leave like ten minutes ago!” I sensed Mom disappear, even though she didn’t have to hide from Roxy, and submitted to Roxy’s attentions. A few minutes later, it was, “Hold still.” Roxy pulled the cummerbund down around my waist, an
d adjusted every seam I had as I looked out the window. It was almost April and Spring was in the air. It hadn’t landed yet, but it was in the air, and Roxy was giddy.

  “I don’t see why I have to wear the tux,” I complained. “It’s just Sir Haughty’s swearing in. And where are the twins? Avis should be the only one adjusting my clothes.”

  “Now, now. You want to look your best for Sir Haughty, don’t you? So do the twins. It takes longer to get spiffed up for two, you know.” That made it sound like Avis was pregnant or something. Of course, she meant that the twins, being conjoined, had to dress at the same time.

  Roxy, as usual, was already dressed appropriately. Her silver five-inch heels sparkled below an off-the-shoulder burgundy gown in satin and lace. Unlike most of her dresses, it didn’t have the loose or split skirt, but instead featured a tight sihouette that accentuated her curves, flaring just below the knee. She had crouched down to straighten my pant legs and now stood to adjust my necktie and brush microscopic lint off my lapel. “Is that a new dress?” I asked her.

  “Yes. I do that now and then.” She almost seemed offended. “I’m hard on dresses, you know. Turn around, I need to check the back.” I turned my back to her and felt her fingers picking here and there like I was a Fourth of July float being fluffed. “Oh, you look perfect. Now, get downstairs. The others are waiting.”

  When I got down to the first floor, Badger, Nitro, McGrone and Knobby were all standing in a line near the entryway, too afraid to move and ruin the ministrations Roxy had performed on them earlier. Fortunately, the weather was cooperating. It was neither windy nor rainy, with just enough cloud cover to prevent blinding reflections of sunlight. All four men were in elegant dark blue suits and ties, Knobby looking exceedingly uncomfortable outside of his usual dungarees. Given our usual line of work, most of us had a limited amount of fancy clothes. With the exception of Roxy, that is. “Ah,” said McGrone, “We can adjourn to the taxicabs. Come.”

  “Wait,” I said. Where are the girls? And Sir Haughty?”