Accused

by Michael Kerr

  “Why are you doing this, Logan? You could just move on and put it all behind you.”

  “I came round in that diner with a split head, a gun in my hand, and cops accusing me of being a killer. That got my attention. You, Nash and Tate tried to set me up as a fall guy. If it hadn’t been for Dicky and the waitress speaking up and saying I hadn’t been part of your crew I’d be in a cell, looking at some long, hard time. So I decided to look after the woman and deal with the problem.”

  “So what exactly do you want to know?” Clayton said as he somehow assimilated the pounding pain in his foot and hoped that he would get a chance to turn the situation around.

  “Everything that you would want to know if you were me.”

  Loyalty has its limits. Clayton was not going to hold out and take another bullet or be mutilated for Cassidy if he could avoid it. You had to go with the flow and look out for your own skin when the going got tough. For just an instant he considered using his uninjured foot to propel him up and forward into Logan, but gave up on the idea when Logan smiled and slowly shook his head as he stood up from the chair. It was as if he’d read his mind.

  “You should have taken your chance the second after I shot you in the foot,” Logan said. “He who hesitates is lost, so start talking.”

  Dwayne came round slowly and had the presence of mind to stay still and not moan aloud. He was lying face down on the carpet in the foyer with his head on a side. Opening his eyes fractionally he could see Clayton kneeling on the floor, and Logan standing a few feet away from him, pointing a gun at Clayton as they spoke to each other. Just one quick roll to the side and he could collide with Logan and knock him off his feet. Clayton would then disarm him and they could force him to tell them where the broad was. Things were looking up.

  Logan saw movement in his peripheral vision and took his eyes off LaSalle for an instant, to then be bowled over like a ninepin as Nash thudded into his legs. As he hit the floor he attempted to raise the gun, but was forced to let go of it as the sole of LaSalle’s right shoe slammed on to the back of his hand.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT was seven a.m. and a shaft of sunlight through the window painted the pine top of the kitchen table that Ellie Mae was sitting at in pale gold. She was holding a large ceramic mug with both hands and sipping strong, steaming coffee. The faded blue Terry robe that Mike had given her to wear was overlarge, very loose fitting and several inches too long in the sleeves, which she had rolled back.

  It was mind-blowing to think that the previous morning she had been paddling a canoe along an insect ridden canal, on the run from men that wanted to find her and Logan and kill them both. She felt safe now, in a location that no one could possibly know she was hiding at.

  Mike Audley had made them welcome, shrugging off the risk of danger that he could be putting himself in by helping them. And Logan was now gone. Mike had driven him to a roadhouse the previous evening, from where he intended to get a lift into the city and somehow negate the threat to them.

  On his return, Mike had insisted that Ellie Mae sleep in his bedroom. He had put fresh linen on the bed and told her that he would be fine on the old sofa sleeper.

  Knowing that the windows were shuttered and that Mike was armed with a shotgun and had Henry by his side was comforting. Ellie Mae had been fast asleep within sixty seconds of her head hitting the pillow. The events that had taken place at Dicky’s and thereafter had totally exhausted her.

  Wakening due to the sound of a dog barking, Ellie Mae was confused for a few seconds, until awareness of what had happened and where she now was came flooding back. She sat up and stretched her arms and yawned. It was a brand new day and she felt safe and refreshed.

  “How do you like your eggs?” Mike said from where he was cooking breakfast at the stove. He had been up for an hour, opened the shutters and let Henry out to do his business, and then brewed coffee before Ellie Mae came through from the bedroom.

  “Over easy, please,” Ellie Mae said. “I could have rustled something up for us. I’ve spent half my life working in diners.”

  “No problem, I like to cook,” Mike said.

  They sat facing each other across the table, and Henry was by Mike’s side, keenly watching every forkful of food that his master ate.

  “There you go,” Mike said, tossing Henry a piece of ham, which was snapped out of the air and swallowed quicker than a rabbit down a hole with a fox on its ass.

  “Why do you live out here in the boonies on your own, Mike?” Ellie Mae said, not one to hold back saying what was on her mind.

  “I don’t, I’ve got Henry with me. And he’s loyal, and as good a friend as a man could have or wish for,” Mike said as he finished up his meal and put his fork down. “I love what I do, and enjoy being away from all the commotion.”

  “Have you always been a recluse?” Ellie Mae said.

  “No. I was raised in Chicago, and went to college and got involved with music, art and a girl who broke my heart. I moved out here for the jazz and blues; had a room just off Bourbon Street for a while, and then saw this cabin up for auction and bought it. It ticks all the boxes. I can work through the night without disturbing anyone, or play my guitar. It beats having neighbors banging on the wall and telling me to keep it down.”

  “I like it here,” Ellie Mae said. “I live on a trailer park, and it’s full of folk like me that will never have anything worth keeping, and no real future to look forward to. When and if Logan makes it safe for me to go back home, I guess I’ll get another job in another diner and go back to the only way of life I know.”

  “You need to use this as a stepping stone,” Mike said. “Make a new beginning for yourself. You can change things if you want to enough.”

  “I wish that were true, Mike. You get trapped by circumstances that you have no real control over. I took a course in accountancy once, but it didn’t lead anywhere. And I dabbled with being a website designer, but still ended up serving junk food to pay the bills and scrape a living. I suppose I just took the easy option, and it sucks. I didn’t have what it takes to make more of my life.”

  Mike reached across the tabletop and gently took hold of Ellie Mae’s hand. He was attracted to her. She looked a little forlorn and a lot younger than her years; like a child, sitting there almost buried in his old robe.

  “This trouble that you’re in really could be the boost you need to head off in a new direction, Ellie.”

  “Sounds good,” Ellie Mae said. “But packing my old car with stuff and heading west like some old pioneer in a covered wagon isn’t feasible in this day and age. You can’t just settle on a piece of land, build a cabin and grow crops. And even if you could, it costs money to get things done. I’m a waitress, not Daniel Boone.”

  Mike smiled, and so did Ellie Mae.

  They sat and talked like old friends, and Ellie Mae kept hold of Mike’s hand. It felt right being here with him and Henry. It was easy to imagine staying; just fitting in to a readymade life with a guy that seemed to have everything he needed apart from the love of a good woman. He was around about her age and had a gentle, pleasant personality. He was the kind of man that she regarded as a keeper. Someone to enjoy being with. And he was physically attractive; tall, slim and tanned, with a kind face and sparkling blue eyes. He put her in mind of a much younger Robert Redford.

  “I’ll wash the dishes,” Ellie Mae said, reluctantly withdrawing her hand and standing up, to catch her foot on the bottom of the robe and almost fall, and would have if Mike had not moved so quickly and caught and steadied her.

  Time stood still. They were embracing one another, and neither of them thought to let go and back off. It crossed both of their minds in different ways that destiny could have brought them together at this time and place. Perhaps some things really were meant to be. You could only plan some of what you did in life. Much of what happened came as bolts from the blue, to randomly modify both thoughts and actions.

  Henry made a chuffing sound a
s he approached them both with his tail thrashing the air. That broke the spell. Ellie Mae and Mike moved apart, and Ellie Mae stroked the massive dog’s head and was rewarded with a warm, rough tongue licking her cheek.

  “He likes you,” Mike said. “And he’s a fine judge of character.”

  While Ellie Mae had been sleeping, Logan literally fought for his life in the apartment in Terrytown.

  Dwayne saw Logan fall, and as Clayton moved forward to stamp on his gun hand, he pulled the left leg of his pants up and grasped the handle of a short-bladed knife from the sheath strapped to his calf.

  Clayton collapsed in a heap on top of Logan. His badly wounded foot could not support him. The pain was too severe to ignore.

  Logan gasped as LaSalle’s knee caught him in the pit of his stomach with all the man’s weight behind it. Instinct took over. There was no time to think. He jerked up and sideways towards Nash to dislodge LaSalle, who rolled onto the blade that had been intended for him.

  Dwayne was up on his knees as he pulled the blade free with the intention of lunging over his fallen associate to stab Logan, but was met by the sight of the black hole in the end of the gun’s silencer.

  “Drop it,” Logan said.

  Dwayne hesitated, and then made a bad decision and lunged forward.

  Logan pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the knife blade, snapping it in two and deflecting the slug’s trajectory by a fraction, to take off a portion of Dwayne’s right ear before thudding into the wall behind him.

  Logan watched as Dwayne Nash began to sway from side to side in the way that a cobra will watch the movement of an Indian snake charmer’s flute.

  The pointed end of the blade had been blown back into Dwayne’s forehead with enough force to penetrate the skull and lodge in the frontal lobe of his brain, disrupting thought as blood seeped into surrounding tissue.

  Even as Dwayne fell back and unconsciously got on with the act of dying, Clayton rallied from the shallow knife wound to his shoulder, reached out and grasped Logan’s wrist, twisting it hard enough to make Logan drop the weapon.

  Logan fisted his free hand and hit Clayton in the center of his chest with a heavy punch that a young George Foreman would have been proud of delivering in the ring.

  It felt to Clayton as though he’d been struck by the end of a swinging steel girder. He couldn’t breathe; wondered if his heart had burst like a dropped egg, and fell back gasping, unable to fight back.

  Logan got to his feet, picked the gun up and shot Clayton through his other foot. He had underestimated the two thugs, and had been lucky to survive their concerted, unexpected attack. Stepping across to where Nash lay, he saw that the man’s eyes were open and jiggling left and right, and that the fingers of his left hand were clawing at the carpet. He was beyond being a threat.

  Dwayne saw a rush of disparate images form in his brain. He seemed to be a voyeur of his past life, as if he was watching a movie of it that was running fast-forward at high-speed; scenes of his childhood raced by, and glimpses of people alive and those that had died, including family, friends and even many of the victims of his violence over the years. And then the picture froze and the screen in his mind faded to black.

  “Crawl through to the living room,” Logan said to Clayton when Dwayne’s eyes and hand became still. “Or you’ll be following your buddy to wherever scumbags get to hopefully suffer eternal damnation.”

  “You religious?” Clayton said as he fought to somehow mentally contain the waves of agony that traveled up from his feet to permeate the full length of his legs.

  “Hell, no. I believe that when you’re dead you’re dead, period. But it would be nice to think that all the assholes in the world went to a really shit place and got to stay there for the rest of time. Now move, LaSalle.”

  Clayton made his way into the living room on his elbows and knees, to then sit with his back up against a white leather Chesterfield sofa.

  “I could use a drink,” Clayton said to Logan.

  Logan hesitated, and then went over to a corner bar and took two lead crystal glasses from one shelf and a bottle of Black Label Johnny Walker from another. He was in no particular hurry. He tucked the Glock in the waistband of his pants, half-filled both glasses, crossed the room and placed one drink on a coffee table within reach of LaSalle, then backed off and sat on a stool at the bar. There was a large yellow Post-it pad and a Sharpie fine tip pen on the counter, under a wall phone. He placed them in front of him, took a sip of the Scotch and then gave Clayton LaSalle his full and undivided attention.

  “I’m going to ask you a lot of questions about Cassidy,” Logan said. “If I believe you, you’ll survive this, but every time I think that you’re feeding me a lie you’ll take another bullet. Think of it as a quiz show on the tube. The top prize is your life, and all the others will be forfeits.”

  Clayton downed his Scotch and said: “I’m through with working for Cassidy. He only cares about his own skin, so fire away, with the questions, not the gun. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Logan took his time eliciting answers that gave him a full picture of Cassidy, with names and addresses that would possibly prove useful. He used Nash’s phone to video the interrogation, and wrote some of the information down on a couple of the Post-its and tucked them in a pocket.

  Wiping the Glock pistol with a sheet of kitchen towel, he removed the magazine and tossed the weapon to Clayton and told him to grip it and pull the trigger.

  “What’s that in aid of?” Clayton said as he dry-fired the gun.

  “Covering my ass,” Logan said. “Toss it back over here.”

  Clayton threw it over the coffee table on to the carpet. Logan used the kitchen towel to replace the mag, and also wiped the glass he had been drinking from.

  “Where’s your piece?” he said to Clayton.

  “I dumped it in a canal.”

  “You’ll have a backup in the apartment. Where is it?” Logan said as he picked up a cell phone from the bar top and pocketed it.

  “Next to you, under the counter.”

  Logan found the gun. It was another Glock 17. He had all that he wanted from LaSalle.

  “What now?” Clayton said. He was positive that Logan would shoot him, because if positions were reversed he would put a bullet in Logan’s head.

  “I leave you here to figure out what to do next. You can give Cassidy a call, or even phone the police. You can do and say what the hell you like. But be aware that I’ll be talking to your boss in a few minutes on your cell, telling him how you gave up everything I need to know to bring him down, and sending him the home movie I just made.”

  Clayton said nothing. He suddenly had a lot more than Logan to worry about. He knew that he would be in a wheelchair for weeks if not months, if Cassidy didn’t have him whacked for talking out of turn.

  Logan stepped forward quickly, clubbed LaSalle senseless with the pistol, and then left Nash’s gun on the carpet and let himself out of the apartment, wiping the door handle before taking the stairs down to street level.

  Walking north on Farmington Place, Logan turned right on to Daniels Road and spotted a converted railway dining car that was similar to the one on the Lower East Side in New York City that was owned and run by an ex-cop, Hoagy Marks, who Logan had a lot of time for. Hoagy had taken on Benny Cole – a young guy with a rap sheet who’d done jail time, but had helped Logan out in a tight spot – and set him to work and didn’t hold his past against him.

  The Burger Express was small and homely with stools at the counter and booths on the side with the carriage windows. It had the same fried food and coffee smell as most non-chain diners, and the presence of at least a dozen customers at this late hour told Logan that the food would be good and inexpensive. He was hungry, thirsty, and wanted to phone Cassidy and keep the pressure on and unnerve the smalltime gangster. He sat at the far end of the carriage, waited till a teenage girl in a yellow outfit took his order, and then used LaSalle’s cell to make a call. />
  “What the hell do you want, Clayton? I told you to lay low till I called you,” Nathan said, his tone brusque.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “IT’S me again,” Logan said. “I told you that I’d call tonight.”

  “So you’ve been busy, seeing as how you have Clayton’s phone.”

  “You could say that. I made a house call. Nash is no longer with us, and LaSalle may never walk again. He needs medical attention for serious but not life-threatening gunshot wounds to his feet, plus a good story for the police, unless you can arrange backstreet medical care for him, and cleaners to get rid of Nash’s body.”

  “You don’t frighten me, Logan. But business is business. How much do you want to disappear and forget about your experiences to date?”

  “I do frighten you, Cassidy, and if I don’t, then it’s because you’re more stupid than I gave you credit for,” Logan said as he took the Post-its from his pocket. “You need to know that I got LaSalle to record his answers to my questions on this phone, and that if you are unable to convince me that it is in your best interests to back off, I’m not going to target you, yet. I thought I’d start by introducing myself to Heather, Lindsey and Joanne.”

  Nathan had a sensation of mind numbing trepidation. For once in his life he was lost for words.

  Logan broke the silence by saying: “What’s it to be, Cassidy? Do you really think I’m bluffing? Do you want to see your wife or one of your daughters lying in a pool of blood, alive but hardly recognizable after I’ve been to work with a box cutter? Do you believe that you can wrap them up in cotton batting and protect them forever?”

  “Leave my family out of this, Logan,” Nathan said in a voice barely more than a whisper.

  “I’ll do whatever I deem necessary to protect the woman and myself from you,” Logan said. “If that means biding my time and butchering those that you presumably care for, then so be it.”