Cold Was The Ground

by B A Black

  “Who's there?” Robert's voice cuts through the darkness in a challenge.

  Houston jerks down quickly, afraid he's been spotted. But Arthur doesn't turn around toward him, instead jerking toward the sound of the speed boat starting up.

  “You son of a—“

  The sound of gunfire, a rapid spit of bullets from the tugboat and the stuttering flash of muzzle-fire.

  “Stop!” Arthur shouts—no avail. The chatter of the Thompson goes until Houston hears the final metallic clunk of the action locking open. The drum is empty. Houston slowly rises up again. He's so close now.

  “You utter idiot!” Arthur screams. “What were you trying to do?”

  “Stop him!” Robert shouts back. The sound of something metal hitting the deck across the water. “I’m gonna reload.”

  Houston can hear the sound of the speed boat retreating recklessly across the dark water and hopes Sal's alright, that he gets well out of range before Robert has a new magazine in the Thompson.

  “By shooting up my boat? How in the hell are we supposed to get out of here?” Arthur demands.

  Houston springs, cutting off the argument by slamming into Arthur's back as hard as he can with his dropped shoulder, hoping to shove Arthur over the side, down into the ice and water below.

  Arthur proves more solid than Houston remembers, catching his balance by grabbing onto both the railing and Houston, sending them both grappling and scrambling not to go over.

  Pain slams through Houston as Arthur's greater bulk impacts his broken arm, slamming back against his chest. A surge of adrenaline follows and Houston manages to get his good arm around Arthur's thick neck. He can hear—over the sputtering tug engine and his own rapid breath and the grunting that follows as they struggle together—Robert's calls and queries in a rising tone of distress. The sound of the action of the submachine gun closing again on a fresh drum.

  Houston winches his arm tighter around Arthur's neck, trying to squeeze off his airway. Suddenly, Arthur pitches backward with all of his weight committing fully and carrying both of them over, slamming Houston to the angled deck of the yacht with such force it drives the wind out of him.

  Blinding pain blots out all other sensation as Arthur's weight crushes Houston's injuries, jamming the hard edge of his cast into the healing shoulder wound in a burst of agony that leaves Houston unthinking.

  Arthur gasps for air, then jams his elbow back into Houston's gut for good measure.

  “Arthur?” Robert's voice out of the darkness. “If you don’t call back right now I’m going to start shooting.”

  “I'm alright,” Arthur calls back, turning over without taking his weight off of Houston, driving a fist into his gut to keep him gasping for air.

  “Whoever stole our boat had a friend,” Arthur continues, pushing Houston's protective hand away from his face. “Just one more loose end, come to get wrapped up with the rest.”

  8.

  The action of the Thompson works once with a metallic, final sounding clunk as Robert chambers a round. The barrel trains on Houston's chest as he carefully crosses the gangplank extending between the two boats.

  “It's Alfreda's pet dick,” Arthur gasps as he catches his breath again.

  “I love getting a chance to finish the job,” Robert says, lifting his gun threateningly toward Houston. “Get up.”

  Houston considers resisting, telling the brothers to go to hell. But they had no compunction about shooting him the first time. Houston picks himself up.

  “Couldn't let well enough alone,” Arthur says, shoving him toward the narrow walkway.

  “I refuse not to pursue a murder,” Houston says. He keeps his good hand up, palm flat and presented outward as Arthur wheels him toward Robert and marches him over the gap between the ships.

  “It's not a murder,” Arthur Jr. reminds him. “Charlie froze to death.”

  “And what about Eddie? What about whoever that is on the boat?” Houston asks.

  “Who knows?” Robert says distantly. “Nobody likes a Nancy. Anybody could have done it.”

  Arthur Jr. laughs. “Shoulda happened a long time ago.”

  Arthur pulls the gangplank up, dropping it heavily to the deck of the tug while Robert keeps his gun trained on Houston’s middle in clear threat. They escort Houston below decks on the tug, into a space with radio equipment and seating. A coffee cup steams in the winter air, the smell drifting through the cabin.

  “Well?” Robert asks.

  “Shoot him,” Arthur Jr. Says. “Try not to break anything. We'll need this ship to get back to our own boat.”

  Robert lifts the gun, training it dead center on Houston's chest. Houston doesn't close his eyes. Hopes that Sal is okay, that somehow this case will work out without him. The first shot misses him somehow, leaving him wincing, jumping at the loud noise rattling around in the small space, waiting for the machine gun rattle to follow the single shot.

  Robert wheels suddenly and for a few seconds, all is confusion. He turns toward a corner of the cabin, gun raised. Houston hears a second shot, and then a hole blows through Robert's back, another following close behind. Someone is shooting from cover from behind the radio equipment.

  “Drop your weapon!” a voice yells. Houston can't see around Robert's bleeding back, but he hits the floor.

  The steaming coffee cup. A cop!

  A fourth shot follows quickly when the only reply to the command is a sudden rattling to life of the machine gun. For a moment, the noise is deafening. Then Robert is on the floor with two more holes in his front, dead or dying, and Houston's savior is revealed.

  “Ex?” Houston asks, surprised.

  “Yeah, Mars, it's me,” he grunts, unfolding his big body from behind the radio equipment. His voice is tight, strained.

  “Are you hit?” Houston asks, reaching out as if he could heal Exeter with his bare hands.

  “Yuh,” Ex says, tone clipped. “But it's not bad, yet. Where's the other one?”

  Houston looks back toward the last place he saw Arthur Jr. standing. No sign of him, but he hasn't gotten far.

  “They teach you how to shoot a Thompson in the army?” Ex asks, following Houston's gaze up the stairs.

  “I was a medic.”

  “Great. Where's your partner?”

  “He stole their boat.”

  Exeter tips his head, apparently accepting that as a piece of luck. Passing his handgun to Houston, he stoops, groaning in pain, to pick up the machine gun. He checks the chamber. “Here's hoping Junior didn't try to make a go of it on the ice. I'm not in the mood to chase anybody.”

  “What'd you find?” Houston asks. “How'd you know to be here?”

  “Deputy Chief told me if I wanted this ship babysat, I'd have to do the honors myself,” Exeter says. “And shut up, I'm not answering any more questions until Junior is back in custody.”

  Houston sees the logic in this as they carefully make their way onto the deck. The gun feels awkward in Houston's hands, a memory that's old and wrong. He hasn't held one since basic training. He's never been a good shot.

  “Get that light working,” Exeter orders. “If he's on the ice, I want a clear shot.”

  Houston doesn't argue about the proper police suspect apprehension procedure with a detective. He's been through enough to know that rules can't be applied rigidly to every situation.

  He peers into the burnt out spotlight; glass and filament are both broken. Beyond repair.

  “No good,” Houston says. “It'd need a whole new bulb, Ex.”

  Looking up, Houston sees no sign of either of them on the ice and hopes that if Arthur went in the water, Ex has the sense not to go after him. It's a death sentence out there. Houston hears the ice creaking and looks toward the yacht.

  Only one place to hide. Houston is just reaching for the ladder to climb down over the edge and a shot shatters the silence. Just one.

  Houston lets out a long breath, certain that the last death has now been dealt. His fin
gers are freezing, his arm aches and his body feels bruised, tired.

  “I hope that was you winning,” Houston says to the air around him. He thinks he can hear an approaching boat motor. Sal, likely, returning with backup, or so Houston hopes.

  Exeter emerges from the hold of the yacht, dragging a cuffed and bleeding Arthur from the ship's hold through the big hole in the hull. Houston hopes the wound isn't serious. It'll be a scandal, a big ordeal in the courts and papers, but if Arthur would kill to protect his reputation then he deserves the reputation of a killer. Of fratricide and hate and scheming.

  “You okay, Ex?” Houston calls.

  “At least as good as Mr. Winsome,” Ex says, but Houston thinks he detects a note of false bravado. Exeter is hurt, and Houston thinks the shock and adrenaline are going to wear off pretty fast now.

  He climbs down the ladder to the ice to help Exeter keep an eye on the injured man.

  Exeter turned the full auto off on the Thompson, Houston guesses. There is only one clean hole in Arthur’s thigh. He won't be making a run for it.

  “You killed Edgar, you bastard,” Exeter is saying. “He's got a wife at home who can't hardly take care of herself and you put his body at the bottom of the goddamn lake.”

  “Self defense,” Arthur says. “That's all I'll say without a lawyer.”

  Exeter huffs out an angry breath but adds nothing else. The outboard engine gets closer and then slows, Sal drifting up to the edge of the ice in the stolen boat.

  ◆◆◆

  The ride back is cold, early gray dawn as they climb back into the car after a long night interviewing with the police. By all rights, they should be going to the station until things clear up, but Exeter had vouched for them. Their stories and his lined up, and with Exeter injured and hours to go on the crime scene, even with all hands in, the police released them on the understanding that they weren't to leave town.

  Houston doesn't want to be anywhere but his own bed. His whole body aches and the adrenaline has long since worn off. His arm and shoulder pound with a low, dull, thudding pain from his fight with Arthur Jr. He thinks they've held up.

  “So, that was some night, huh?” Sal says, with a grin that's almost manic. There are dark circles under his eyes, but they look bright. Alive.

  “You sound like you enjoyed it,” Houston says, watching the gray streets slide past.

  “Sure. We got our man, didn't we?”

  “That's an awful simple way of looking at it.”

  Some of the mirth fades from Sal's face. “Partner, the case is over. We got the guys who killed Charles Winsome. Can't you feel a little satisfaction for that?”

  “How many lives sank under this case? All because those two wanted to hide it so bad.”

  Sal doesn't answer. Houston presses his hand over his eyelids, soothing the hot, dry feeling in his eyes. “How many because I had to keep digging?”

  “Jesus,” Sal parks the car in front of Houston's building. “It was a mess. You can't blame yourself for anything about this except the fact that it's over.”

  Houston thinks of the sound of machine gun fire shattering the spotlight on the police tug; of the sound the body had made hitting the water. He can almost feel the squeeze and press of the cold on his own chest, tight. It threatens to pull him down under the ice, leave his soul frozen over to a depth of inches.

  “Hobbes,” Sal breathes, gently.

  Houston pulls his hand away from his eyes. Sal is looking at him intently, his eyes dark. Focused. The early morning light isn't kind to him.

  “We put him away, pal,” Sal says. “You did. Alright?”

  It seems to really matter to Sal. Houston takes a deep breath. He's too close to this, like Sal warned him; like even Exeter had tried to tell him.

  “Sal,” Houston starts, because there’s a lot to say. He doesn’t want to be alone. “Why don't you come up for a cup of coffee.”

  As they climb out of his ancient car, Sal gives him one of those bright, mysterious smiles of his and both of them step carefully around the ice on the front steps.

  ◆◆◆

  Upstairs, Houston hangs up his hat and looks out his dingy window at the spreading dawn. It's a new day; the prospects aren't new, the same dangers and fallacies of humanity are out there, waiting, but Arthur Winsome Jr. and Robert Winsome are no longer a threat.

  A Pyrrhic victory.

  Houston watches the sun find ways to reflect on tiny white crystals in the dirty snow as he waits for the percolator to growl its way through a water cycle. For a few moments, he loses himself, and even the sharp scent of coffee isn’t enough to penetrate. His thoughts run to the hand above the ice, run over it and back in time further; fingers extended across the span of years.

  “I hope you're giving us the day off,” Sal says from somewhere very near behind Houston. One arm eases around his waist, Sal's broad chest against his back. He passes Houston his own mug, recovered from the sink and dutifully filled. Houston curls his fingers around it and hangs on for the warmth.

  “What day is it?” Houston asks, trying to measure time by fixed points in his memory.

  “I'll take that as a yes,” Sal says, in a low murmur.

  Houston doesn't argue. Now that the night is over, he wants little more than to sleep. He turns out of Sal's arms toward bed, setting the coffee aside to pull off his coat.

  “Mind if I take a shower?” Sal asks, watching Houston with worried eyes.

  Houston shakes his head, working the buttons on his shirt one-handed. His socks and shoes are soaked, his pants splashed with mud and blood. The sins of the evening are on them, and he doubts they'll ever be the same again.

  “Just don’t…” he starts, looking up to see Sal hesitating in the short hall, backlit by the wan yellow bathroom light. “Don’t disappear, okay?”

  “I know,” Sal says, like maybe he does.

  Houston strips to his underwear, and finds a lump beneath the covers when he turns them back. The cat unfolds himself with exaggerated stretching motions, trilling a high, querulous meow.

  Houston puts off going to bed for a moment to refill the cat bowl with kibble. The cat crouches over it, sleek and black and eager. Houston runs a hand over the gentle slope of the cat's back once, listening to the water running at the end of the small, short hall where his bathroom is.

  He's not in bed for long before sleep claims him. He goes deep quickly and the dreams reach up to pull him under like chains at his ankles.

  ◆◆◆

  Not long after, Sal wakes him when he crawls beneath the blankets, reaching for Houston. His short hair is wet and loose, and he smells like Houston's shampoo. It is a strange sensation, unfamiliar even though they have recently shared a bed.

  In his drowsing mind, his first thoughts are for Lucas. The first hope is that Lucas has re-appeared from the great beyond. He knows better, but the nearness of dreams are heavy, hanging on to him even as he wakes halfway.

  The spell finally shatters when Sal breathes his nickname against the back of his neck.

  They rearrange awkwardly, Houston's casted up arm a big, bulky hindrance between them.

  “Sal,” Houston says, thinking about it. About the things that this will change when it finally happens. When they stop swinging wildly in the dark and drive the ball out of the stadium.

  “Hobbes. You got cold feet?”

  Houston looks into the depths of Sal's eyes; into the content yet interested expression. Sal's here and present—like he has been as they’ve slowly twisted deeper into this maze. Houston knows Sal means it then, before he has to ask, before he has to make sure that they're both going down this path with eyes wide open and unclouded minds. He's worried what Sal might regret in the cold light of day or the sober strains of his soul.

  Houston doesn’t want to be another half finished project, but Sal is still looking at him. He hasn’t lost his patience for once, or surrendered to his own kineticism. Daylight is streaming in around them, pale like the clou
d-covered sky, but impossible to ignore. It's trouble—real trouble, the deep kind you could sink into like quicksand. Houston realizes that he can put this off between them, maybe even shut it out forever, but at best he's holding up Hoover Dam with his bare hands.

  “Kiss me already,” Houston says, winding his good arm around Sal's neck, into the short, still-wet strands of his hair and pulling them together.

  It's like a charge, this kiss. Like a completed circuit. All of the parts in an engine turning over at once, gas easing in under the pistons and then it all sparks to life, magical and mechanical and just that fast. Houston's body responds, easy and eager, and Sal's hands make confident, possessive shapes over his hips, pulling them together.

  It's just shy of frantic, as if the previous endeavors had never really left off. Sal's kiss is a challenge that suddenly breaks, admitting a breathless laugh against Houston's mouth.

  Houston opens his eyes to see the way light cuts through the dark mystery of his partner's eyes, lighting them up clear and blue from the inside as he smiles—no sphynx now, but cheshire, surely. All teeth.

  “What's so funny?” Houston asks. Sal’s smile calls-and-answers his own. Houston smiles back, breathless. Helpless. Happy.

  “I was just thinking,” Sal says, pushing his palms against Houston's chest to lay him back and lift his body over. “That if anyone comes knocking, you should-aughta pretend you aren't home.”

  As Sal's warm mouth presses over his stomach, Houston hopes no one comes knocking.

  9.

  “As a professional courtesy to Mrs. Winsome, the widow of the deceased, we're allowing you two to sit in,” Officer Camden explains. He looks first at Sal, then Houston, dragging his put-upon expression over both of them like a wire brush. He's Exeter's replacement, pulled onto the case over the weekend and ostensibly left in charge while Ex recovers in the hospital. He's been handed a bust that will bring down the house, real front page news, and Houston figures that all he sees is a bunch of paperwork and some obnoxious P.I.'s in the middle of it.