A Child's Garden of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  He imagined himself the rifleman, the gun resting across one arm, the stock against his shoulder. He could feel the stock, the metal of the trigger guard … semi-automatic … the scope with the cross hairs centered at the rock. Lyon waited … Lyon waited to kill Lyon … he lay along the ridge top and waited for himself to stand and run for the mill … he waited and knew how much he wanted to kill.

  Five-sixteen. Lyon on the ridge was impatient. He wanted to shoot … he wanted to kill and get it over with. He slowly stood, the rifle held before him. Yes. Five-eighteen. He took a tentative step forward. Another and another. To the left here, don’t let that tree get between you and the rock below. Keep the rifle high, chest high, ready to swing forward instantly. Go down the hill, circle that bush.…

  Five twenty-two. Lyon’s hands perspired and his breath came in shallow gasps. He drew his legs under him until almost in fetal position and inched toward the right, away from the mill. He knew it would be impossible to stay in this position long; his legs would cramp from the awkward stance. On hands and knees with his hunched back inches below the top line of the rock, he dug his toes into the sandy dirt in sprinting position. A last look at his watch. Five twenty-five.

  Lyon sprang forward, hurtling toward the protecting pines, and in the last few feet dove head first.

  The shot hit the tree above him, and he rolled over into the pine brush and caught a quick glimpse of the man … halfway down the slope. Another shot and another. The bushes hid him from sight as the rifle rounds cut a nearby branch. The man stopped to reload.

  His present cover gave him only slightly more freedom of movement, and hardly more protection than he had before. He began to inch backward, using each particle of foliage as cover, constantly going backward until his feet dangled over the edge of the lake bank.

  The waiting game would be over for his attacker and he’d soon be here. He pushed himself farther backward until he felt his feet touch water. He pushed until his thighs and then his torso and head were over the bank and he lay prone in the lake water with only his head above the surface.

  The lake bank rose a foot above the surface of the water with grass growing from the shore, hanging long tendrils over the edge of the bank to brush the surface of the water. He remembered the school of fish swimming out from under the bank. There would be a few inches of bank indentation. Behind the slight mat of grass growing over the bank’s edge would be a small hollow, caused by the natural erosion of water as the lake level fell and rose in its yearly cycle. He turned on his back to slide his head under the bank grass. The translucent waters of the lake hid his body and he could breathe behind the thin veil of foliage.

  His feet searched for and found a large boulder on the lake bottom. He wedged his toes under its cantilevered edges in order to keep his body at an angled position and his torso below the three-foot depth. He knew his face was hidden, and the beat of his heart began to slow to a more normal rhythm.

  Unless his arm began to bleed more profusely he could stay in this position for an indefinite period. He would have to stay until nightfall. Now, the prime danger would be fear and panic etched to a high degree of senseless nonreasoning over the long hours’ wait. He would have to think, to curb the natural propensity to jump up and run, to ignore the cramp in his left instep. Lyon felt the lake. He willed himself to be a dispassionate observer watching the ruined mill, the quiet waters, and all around this quiet spot.

  Lyon Wentworth thought about frogs. He contemplated the strange wonderment of metamorphosis, the grumpy dignity of a sitting bull surveying his domain, the odd appearance of the swimming animal, eyes only protruding from the lake’s surface. Lyon thought about frogs and children and the problems these small reptiles might have.

  Once the sun spent itself, the surrounding hills of the small lake valley brought dusk quickly. He inched his head away from the protecting bank and slowly turned over. His feet fought for balance on the lake bottom as he slowly crawled from the water to lie on the ground.

  He massaged his legs until feeling began to return to cramped muscles. Half-standing, he crouched his way toward the tree line and lay behind a protecting pine. It was quiet except for the usual night noises. In the dim light, dark tree shadows protected him as he made his way slowly up the hill toward the ridge.

  The glow of the man’s cigarette revealed him at the grave site. He sat on a flat rock, rifle across his knees, and smoked impatiently. On the road below, ribbons of moonlight illuminated Lyon’s waiting car. An easy shot. The assassin waited out Lyon from his vantage point. Waited for a fleeing man to run across the road toward his car.

  Lyon stopped stock-still twenty feet behind the waiting man. Unheard so far, he was afraid to turn and retreat back up the hill, or even to work his way sideways in the hopes of outflanking and avoiding the waiting killer.

  As Lyon ran forward the man turned, rifle in hand. Lyon threw himself forward at the hulking figure, and they both fell backward into the gaping grave.

  The rifle sideways between them bit into their bodies as Lyon’s fingers felt through the pudgy flesh for the fat man’s throat. Their breath came in grunts as the man clawed for Lyon’s face and eyes. Fingers worked their way into Lyon’s mouth and pulled his lips sideways. He caught the heavy scent of nicotine as his teeth ground into the man’s fingers.

  Lyon’s thumbs pressed against the other’s windpipe until his racking gasps began to subside. His knee found the man’s groin, and then he quickly let go as the other man grasped for his neck.

  Lyon was out of the hole with the rifle as the fat man lay gasping. The man got to his feet with labored breath and crawled from the grave. Lyon stepped backward with leveled rifle.

  “Stop! For God’s sake, stop,” he heard himself say in an unfamiliar voice.

  The breathing of the fat man increased in intensity as he came toward Lyon.

  At a range of ten feet Lyon’s first two shots missed Bull Martin. The man came steadily toward him. The third shot caught him in the stomach and flung him backward into the grave with an astonished look that quickly changed to horror.

  Bull lay in the grave with both hands grasping his stomach. “Help me. Oh, God … help me.”

  Lyon knelt next to the dying man. “I’ll get help. You killed them. You killed them, didn’t you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You killed them.”

  “I beat him senseless … the bastard. I beat his damn brains out … he was too perfect. No tolerances, he said … no tol …”

  “And the others?”

  “I beat … beat his …”

  The man was dead. Lyon looked at the fat body at the bottom of the grave, the hands still clutched over its abdomen. As moonlight broke through the trees Lyon saw his own body. He was covered in blood from his wound and Bull’s, and his clothes were wet and streaked in mud. He swung the rifle by the barrel and let it fall through the brush. Then he began to tremble.

  The nurse who came to complain about the noise was now half-squiffed and sitting on the lap of the intern who had been dispatched as the second noise-abatement emissary.

  The room rocked with laughter as Rocco recounted the aftermath of his ripping off the IV and orthopedic sling. In the corner Lyon shook a container of Manhattans with one hand; the other arm was encased in a sling.

  “What … what almost killed me,” Rocco laughed, “was this intern who came in to see me the next day and told me that I wasn’t allowed out of bed until they took me off the critical list.”

  “Where in hell did you think you were going?” the intern asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rocco replied. “I only knew that I wasn’t going to lie here and listen to everyone discuss my demise.”

  “You were damn lucky,” Lyon said.

  “YOU WERE BOTH LUCKY,” Beatrice retorted.

  “Have you had your hearing checked recently?” the nurse said and hiccuped.

  Lyon slumped into a chair and handed the cocktail shaker to Bea. With a
smile and a pat on the shoulder she proceeded to make the next batch of drinks. He looked around the room. The head of Rocco’s bed raised him to a partial sitting position, while one leg extended outward in an orthopedic sling. Rocco held his glass high with a grin that swept through his bruised face. His wife, quiet for once, and even smiling, stood next to him. The intern and the nurse in the far corner were involved in an intimate, whispered conversation, while Bea poured everyone a fresh drink.

  Lyon thought the room had an aura of a successful transatlantic balloon crossing, the discovery of the mother lode, victory over the infidels, the shooting of the Red Baron, and he wondered why he wasn’t happy.

  “You’re looking too glum, old buddy,” Rocco boomed. “None of that. You’re the man of the day. I propose a toast to Lyon.”

  They all raised glasses, and even the intern staggered to his feet. “To Lyon Wentworth,” Rocco continued. “Writer of children’s fantasy, menace on highway and airway, and lousy shot.”

  “Hear, hear,” they said and drank.

  “I didn’t want to kill the bastard,” Lyon said.

  “Why not?” Rocco replied. “I would have. Gladly.”

  “I should have incapacitated him by shooting him in the leg. I’m afraid I was very frightened.”

  “I didn’t mean you were a lousy shot because of that,” Rocco said. “I meant you should have hit him the first time.”

  “If I had any presence of mind I could have hit him over the head with the damn thing.”

  “No matter. You got the bastard. I’d as soon feel remorse over that pig as I would a snake. You got him and the confession; that’s all that matters.”

  “‘I beat his damn brains out,’ that’s what he said.”

  “And that’s a confession. Otherwise, why would he be after you, and why come after me? You scared the living be-Jesus out of him because you were too close.”

  “Now we can close the files,” Bea said. “Rocco goes back to parking tickets, and Lyon to his Cat.”

  “I’ve got the next book,” Lyon said. “It came to me recently when I had some time to wait and think. How does ‘Pollywog in the Pond’ strike you?”

  “He’s got to be kidding,” the nurse said to the intern.

  “I think they’re all nuts,” the intern replied.

  An hour later Rocco had disengaged himself from the orthopedic device and was sitting in a chair opposite Lyon. The nurse and intern occupied the bed, while Bea and Martha had left to find a pizza parlor. The two men smiled at each other, the glow of partial inebriation blunting the edges of pain and briefly tinting the edge of the world with soft colors.

  “Damn, I feel fine,” Rocco said.

  “You know, we’re both lucky to be alive,” Lyon replied.

  “We did it, man. We found out who they were, we tracked the bastard down, and it’s done.”

  They drank to that, and they drank to their wives and to their respective jobs, and they drank again to the solution of the crime. They were both asleep in their chairs when the wives returned with pizza.

  With the aid of hospital personnel, Bea and Martha carried Rocco back to bed, ushered the intern and nurse out, and placed Lyon in a wheel chair and pushed him to the emergency exit, where Bea poured him into the car. Lyon awoke as the car pulled in the drive at Nutmeg Hill.

  “I bet you think I’m squiffed,” he said to his wife.

  “Of course I don’t, dear. I think you’re smashed out of your mind.”

  “You’re right and you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  The car stopped by the steps, and after a bit of fumbling, Lyon managed to get the door open. He staggered up the steps and threw himself in front of the door, blocking Bea’s entrance.

  “You can’t go in until you hear me out,” he said.

  Bea smiled in a resigned manner and laughed. “You’re going to feel terrible tomorrow.”

  “I feel terrible now.”

  “If you’re going to be sick, don’t do it in the rose bushes.”

  “I am not going to be sick in the roses … I am sick here,” he said and pounded his chest.

  “You can sleep on the couch tonight,” she replied.

  “I’m glad I killed him, Bea. I’m glad he died in the child’s grave.”

  “He would have killed you without a moment’s hesitation,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “Maybe I enjoyed killing him. Maybe there was a great satisfaction in pulling the trigger. I did that once before in the service. I was caught on the line during an attack, and I fired. I didn’t see them very well, but I pulled the trigger then … again and again … and I was glad afterward.”

  “Glad you were alive.”

  “Yes, glad I’m alive and glad that he’s dead.”

  “It’s over now, that’s all that counts,” his wife said and stepped toward him.

  “You think I’m drunk,” Lyon said as he stepped off the porch and fell into the fish pool. He stood to scream at his wife, the house, the river. “You think I’m drunk, and I am. But he didn’t kill them, Bea. Martin didn’t kill them.”

  Seven

  On the couch in his study, America’s greatest creator of children’s fantasies awoke with a massive headache. Wind whipped rain against the window panes, and Lyon turned over to bury his head against the cushion, only to find that any possibility of sleep was gone.

  “Perfect, perfect, no tolerance … I beat him …” The words synchronized with the wind and the rain as he got up. In stocking feet he trod an unsteady way toward the kitchen. He found Kimberly tacking a massive poster of Lenin to the wall near the fireplace.

  “Take that off the wall,” he mumbled as he rocked past her.

  “Bourgeois pig,” she replied without turning.

  “Your vocabulary is very limited. Do we have a Coke, a soft drink, something?”

  “How about a soul drink?”

  “Anything.”

  Kimberly pushed past him and opened the refrigerator door. She handed him a large glass filled with red liquid. Lyon drained half the glass. “This is good,” Lyon said and drained the rest of the liquid. “What is it?”

  “Soul drink. Tomato juice, watermelon rind, clam juice, all mixed up with four shots of vodka.”

  “No wonder I feel better.”

  “You want eggs and bacon?”

  “Sadist. Is Bea up yet?”

  “Long gone. It’s ten o’clock.”

  Below the hill, wind whipped the river as trees bent under the onslaught of rain. From the depths of the house he heard the chug of the sump pump, and felt surrounded by things mechanical. “Perfect … perfect … no tolerance.” What did it mean?

  The ringing of the phone shattered his nerves and he jerked in surprise. One hand pressed his forehead to stop the pounding as the other picked up the receiver on the kitchen wall.

  “Lyon Wentworth?” the deep voice asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Asa Houston here. I wanted to express my profound thanks for the job you performed on that Meyerson matter. And also the relief all of us at Houston Company have over your well being. You were damn lucky to come out of that incident alive.”

  “I’m not so sure of that either.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Houston. I’m just not too well this morning.”

  “Well, sorry about that. Perhaps it might help if I tell you that the Houston Foundation is sending you a check for five thousand dollars as a token of our gratitude for what you’ve done.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Nonsense. You risked your life for one of my employees. Even if the man was an employee thirty years ago, he was still under the protection of Houston Company. I suppose the confession from Martin wraps it up.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does. Mr. Houston, he did say something to me that I don’t understand. ‘Perfect … perfect … no tolerance.’ Do you have any idea what that might mean?”

&nb
sp; There was a slight pause. “Perfect. No tolerance. That’s an impossibility, of course; a certain degree of tolerance is a necessity for any part or tool. Complete perfection is an impossibility. It’s strictly a question of what’s allowable under the particular specifications.”

  “You think he was referring to work?”

  “From what I read in the paper, he said that and went on to say he beat Meyerson to death. Isn’t that correct?”

  “Beat him senseless.”

  “Same thing. I suppose they had an argument about something on the floor … a piece of work, set-up of a lathe or some such thing, and that’s what started the whole thing. Does it matter?”

  “Matter? No I suppose not.”

  “Once again, I can’t tell you how happy we all are that the matter is concluded so neatly. You’ll receive the check in the mail.”

  Lyon replaced the phone slowly and thoughtfully, then picked it up again and dialed the Houston Company. The operator put him through to Jim Graves, chief of production.

  “Fine job, Wentworth. What can I do for you?”

  “One last point. What was the factory making in 1943?”

  “1943? Let me think. Same thing we now make in Department J. Of course with the prevalence of jet engines it’s only a minor part of our production these days. Back in the forties it was the largest part.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Airplane reciprocating engines and components. In 1943 we were probably still making them for the B-24 Liberator, or we might have begun prototype production for the B-29, I’m not sure. I could find out if it’s important.”