by John Evans
“This money he asked for,” Devereaux said thoughtfully. “Tell me about that? You borrow money from him or something?”
It was the “or something,” I’m sure that Devereaux wanted to hear about.
“Not from him,” I said. “Cash gave me a loan so I could get my car fixed.”
That piece of fiction exploded into the conversation and seemed to open the door to a relatively reasonable explanation for Stomp’s visit. I let it flow.
“Since I quit on him, Cash was afraid he wouldn’t get his money—that’s why he delivered it personally.” I pointed to the bloody bill in Devereaux’s fingers. “He had money in an envelope so he could cash my check. He wasn’t taking any chances.”
“Tell me more.”
“The thing is,” I continued, “I already paid him. He said I didn’t—still owed him two hundred. It was all bullshit. He was just pissed because I quit. That’s the way it is between us. He pisses me off. Then I piss him off.”
“That’s why he beat the crap out of you?”
“Wouldn’t doubt it.”
Devereaux held up the fifties. “Why didn’t he take the money?”
I paused, knowing my story had taken me to shaky ground. “He tried to,” I said.
Devereaux scanned my face. “You got in a lucky punch?”
“I kicked him in the balls. End of fight.” We looked at each other for a moment and then I capped off my tale. “I think he sent Stomp over to collect and settle the score.”
Devereaux’s mouth tightened as he weighed my story. He traced the arc of sprayed butter around my kitchen and his eyes fell on the cast iron frying pan in the corner. “So you clocked him with a frying pan?”
“Yeah, me and Osama bin Laden.”
I told Devereaux about the phony money story, and his mouth spread into that weird smile that seemed so out of place on his face. He held the fifty-dollar bill up to the light to inspect the clouds. I confessed that I had hit him as hard as I could and that he staggered through the screen door to the porch railing where Devereaux saw the rest.
He paused and then he asked, “Are you going to press charges?”
I stood in stunned silence. I was expecting to go off to jail in handcuffs.
“I don’t know,” I said softly, trying to think my way through the tangle of implications of getting more involved with Stomp. I was hoping he’d simply go away.
“I was you,” Devereaux said frankly, “I’d be screaming home invasion.”
He let his words hang there as the tangle unwound to reveal “self-defense” in large screaming letters. Stomp had bulldozed his way into my home, physically assaulted me, and helped himself to two hundred dollars of hard-earned cash.
Devereaux watched until the light bulb above my head popped on and then he grabbed my hand and rolled it palm up, exposing a small blister in the web between my thumb and forefinger. “You ought to have that looked at,” he suggested meaningfully. “I’d stop at the emergency room.”
I was fully in tune to his thinking now. The doctors might laugh at my wound in their break room, but they’d write a report of an injury just the same. If Stomp died, I’d be covered. The filed charges of home invasion, a medical report indicating that I was injured defending myself by grabbing a hot frying pan—barehanded—all added up to an innocent homeowner acting in self-defense.
“I want you to come downtown. Make a formal complaint. Sign a statement.”
I tried to convince myself that I was doing the right thing.
“I’ll drive,” he offered and took a step toward the door and stopped. He still had my fifty-dollar bill in his hand, and he waved it as if he was thinking of something. “Osama bin Laden,” he grunted. “That’s a good one. I can’t believe Stomp swallowed that.”
I shook my head, too embarrassed to admit my own gullibility. Cash was right—I’m too damned easy.
“Have to tell my wife that one,” Devereaux continued. He paused, looking troubled, and it was one of the phoniest acts I ever saw. “Trouble is, you don’t see many fifties. Mostly twenties or hundreds.” He waved it in my face. “Could I keep this?” he asked, reaching for his wallet. “I’ve got change.” I caught a glimpse of his gun as he pulled out his wallet. He didn’t give me a chance to refuse. He simply handed me two twenties and a ten and tucked the fifty into his wallet. Evidence.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You might want one of these, too.” I plucked a hair out of my head and held it out to him. Even without a magnifying lens, I could see the pulpy follicle filled with DNA on the raw end.
He stared at me long and hard, stone-faced and grim.
“The trouble with you is you think too much.” Then he reached out and took the hair.
CHAPTER 28
Devereaux drove me to the police station and walked me through the process of filing a complaint against Jason Jessup, AKA “Stomp,” for home invasion—serious shit that would keep the police off my ass if Stomp died from the fall from my porch. It would also keep Stomp off my ass if he should live. At least that was the theory. Stomp gets arrested in the hospital and is held without bail until his trial where he is sentenced to jail. While in his cell, he learns the error of his ways, finds the Lord, and forgives me for cracking his skull open with a frying pan and we live happily ever after.
I refused Devereaux’s offer to drive me to the hospital to have my second degree burn checked out. The three-block walk gave me a chance clear my head and review the story I told about Stomp and Cash. Everything fit together—the car repair loan, my quitting, and Cash wanting his money. Even my face verified the fight. The only thing I didn’t like was that Devereaux knew Stomp.
The emergency room was quiet, and I was able to walk right up to the registration desk manned by a beefy receptionist with Greta on her ID badge.
“What does the other guy look like?” she asked in what was an unfortunate attempt at humor. An instant image of Stomp snapped into focus and I pushed it aside.
“I didn’t come here for this,” I said, pointing at my face. “I burned my hand.”
When I showed it to her, she stared at me over the tops of her glasses.
“Maybe we should Med-Evac you to the burn unit in Philadelphia.”
“You can do that?” I asked.
“Yeah, but first I’d have to set you on fire.” She shook her head and tapped at her keyboard to pull up a fresh screen. She peered over the counter at my hand. “What’d you do? Stand too close to the deep fryer?” She rolled her eyes and I wondered if the smell of McDonald’s was still in my clothes.
“I grabbed a hot frying pan . . . look, before we start trading punches, let me tell you something.” She locked onto my bruises again, and a look of uncertainty and maybe a touch fear of flashed in her eyes. “I don’t like wasting your time with this. I’d rather not be here, but the fact is, I was just the victim of a crime—a home invasion. I defended myself with a hot frying pan. The guy I hit is probably with his lawyer right now planning how to clean me out. The police said I should have this looked at—this little blister may be the only thing preventing the wrong guy from going to jail.”
I watched her face soften.
“Sign in.” She swung out of her chair. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared around a partition that separated her from a room filled with filing drawers. I picked up the clipboard in front of me, and the name Dustin Bates, Jr. hooked my full attention. A quick scan of the date and times told me that Dusty had been at this desk last night.
Greta came back with a warm smile. Evidently serving on the side of justice was something she enjoyed.
“You’re lucky,” she began, “we’re extremely light today, so we have time to do this right.”
With Greta playing pulling guard, we did a nifty end run around the hospital bureaucracy. Three doctors with little to do at that moment took turns examining my head and hand. They asked leading questions designed to lay the groundwork for a medical report that would m
ake it appear that I had barely survived my ordeal, which obviously left me deeply traumatized. My blister, the size of a pea, was lanced, cleansed, and wrapped in a gauze bandage, and I was sent on my way.
As I passed the registration desk, I stopped to thank Greta. She greeted me like an old friend and gave me the thumbs-up sign. I approached her desk. “I wanted to thank you,” I began.
“Not a problem,” she smiled and we fumbled with an awkward moment of silence.
“Maybe you could help me again,” I started. “My brother Dusty came in here last night. I was wondering how he’s doing.”
She checked the clipboard and stared at me for an instant. “Dustin?” I could tell she was weighing the differences in our last names. She continued with a smile that had lost some of its warmth. “Tell you what.” She ran her fingers over the keyboard, “He’s in room 319, bed B by the window. You can ask him yourself.”
Dusty was in the hospital?
I smiled a thank you and went through the emergency room door leading to the main building and managed to slip through the elevator doors as they closed. As I navigated my way through the maze of corridors to room 319, a small corner of my mind was busy trying to figure out why Dusty was in the hospital. I didn’t like the theory that was forming in my head.
I found room 319 right on the other side of the nurses’ station and my steps slowed as I approached. The bed near the door was curtained off, so I had to peek around as I entered the room, catching sight of Dusty’s feet poking straight up under the white blanket. My field of vision widened as I rounded the corner of the curtain, and Dusty’s face came in to view. My immediate and totally unprofessional diagnosis was that he had been hit by a bus. His face was swollen, bruised, and cut, and someone had given his face several generous coats of antiseptic that turned his skin an ugly orange. A bandage covered most of his left eye, a strap of tape covered his nose, and a bloody wick of cotton plugged his left nostril. Both eyes were shut.
“Jesus Christ, Dusty,” I said in an awed whisper.
His right eye cracked open a slit and he stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. Then, without moving his head, the eye moved in small jerks until he saw me. His left eye pried open.
“Run,” he said in a voice that sounded like he had been strangled. He took a deep breath. “You got to get out of town.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Stomp wants his money back . . . caught me last night and kicked the shit out of me . . . said we killed Stemcell.” He took several more breaths, getting his strength up. His eyes opened. “I told him you did it.”
He was silent for a moment. “I wanted to warn you, but he had to finish his beatdown. He was having too much fun.”
“It’s OK, Dusty. You did what you had to do. I was next anyway.”
Dusty scanned the bruises around my eyes. “He caught you, too. You’re alive. You paid him. Where’d you get the money? Your old man?”
“Cash did this,” I said pointing at my face. “Part of my severance package.”
A moan came from the other side of the curtain.
“Stomp paid me a visit this morning,” I continued.
“And you paid him?” There was hope in his voice.
“I brained him with a frying pan.”
Another groan came from the curtained bed and twisted into the sustained growl of a junkyard dog.
Dusty raised his head and looked at the curtain. We exchanged a glance and the low snarl stopped. A deep voice rumbled, “I hear dead people.”
Dusty’s eye widened and we stared at the curtain in disbelief. His voice quavered, “Oh, shitbird!”
I grabbed a handful of curtain and swept it aside.
Trussed up in a tangle of wires, pulleys, and blue casts, Stomp glared at us, his lizard eye straining to keep focus on us. A wire ran from a counterweight, through a pulley, to the cast on his foot, elevating his left leg. His elbow was also in a cast, and his head was wrapped in a turban of bandages. He was totally helpless and posed no immediate threat.
“You fuckers are dead,” he rumbled, pulling himself off his pillow by grabbing the triangular trapeze hanging from the framework of tubing. Stomp was still a formidable figure even in a hospital gown and deep blue casts on half his appendages. I swallowed and both Dusty and I waited for him to try to roll out of bed. I would have given anything for my frying pan and glanced around the room for something to belt him with. He glared at us for a terrible moment and then his left eye swung away and he lowered himself to his pillow. His eyes fluttered shut.
Dusty and I watched him for a long time. Apparently he had gone to sleep, lost consciousness, or slipped into a coma. Death was too much to hope for.
Dusty whispered, “Ull-pay the ug-play.” When I didn’t respond he repeated with more urgency, “Ull-pay the ug-play! . . . Pull the freakin’ plug!” he whispered hoarsely.
“Dusty, he doesn’t have a plug. He’s . . .” I groped for the right words, “in traction.”
“Then smother the fucker!”
We studied him for signs of life. He was breathing, but ignoring us, or maybe he was out. Dusty’s head was turned uncomfortably toward his roommate. “You think he can get up?” he asked in a whisper.
“Not with his foot chained up in the air like that.”
“I gotta get out of here,” Dusty continued and allowed his head to roll back so that he stared at the ceiling. “I feel like one of those crickets they throw in with the lizards at Pet World—it’s only a matter of time. Holy shitbird.”
“You’ll probably be out of here before him.” I tried to sound confident.
Dusty closed his eyes. “They said today. They kept me overnight for observation. They just brought him in a little while ago. If they keep him overnight, I can be in Brazil or someplace.”
There was a long silence. Dusty finally said, “When he gets out of here, you’re going to wish he had a plug. He’s not going to forget this.”
Dusty was right. Even if they gave him heavy jail time, I could expect a visit from Stomp someday.
“Dusty,” I said, “get some rest. Call me when they discharge you. I’ll pick you up. Right now, I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t blame you, bro.”
I touched his shoulder as an expression of compassion and then turned to leave. I stared down at Stomp for an instant and then drew the curtain between the lizard and the cricket.
CHAPTER 29
As I returned to my apartment for perhaps the last time, I thought about Dusty and Brazil. His solution to life’s problems was to jump on a plane and start a new day—leave everything behind. I couldn’t do that. I felt an unaccountable need to fulfill the bargain I made with my father to crawl back into the family nest—and maybe drag Dusty into the family circle as well. I also wanted a future that did not include McDonald’s or looking over my shoulder for Devereaux, Stomp, or Cash Williams. I needed to stick around and work myself out of this mess.
Climbing the stairs to my apartment, I found myself pounding heavily on each step the way Detective Devereaux, Cash, and Stomp had on each of their last visits. The rat was still at the door. A faint odor of death swept across the porch and into my face—and I was stunned by a sudden thought. When Devereaux checked with Cash Williams, the story I told would smell worse than the rat—unless Cash confirmed my story. I had to call him.
I punched in the number for McDonald’s and Cash picked up on the second ring—at his desk working on his crossword puzzle.
“Cash—” I began.
“Who is this?”
“Mark,” I said, and I felt the insecurity in my own voice. I was now afraid of him. He was capable of doing unspeakable things, and now I needed him to back up my story.
“Mark who?” The bastard. Toying with me.
“Mark Cameron. Cash, I—”
“Don’t know a Mark Cameron. I may know a Mark Moron . . .”
“It’s Waldo,” I said.
His voic
e suddenly energized. “Waldo! Now I remember. There you are—lost in an identity crisis.” There was a little pause. “Say, listen. I think I left four fifties at your place the other night. That what you calling about?” He was jubilant. I was groveling.
“I need your services,” I said with as much business-like tone as I could muster. There was a longer pause. I pictured his lips parting slowly, shark teeth gleaming and his eyes sparkling with anticipation.
“Go on,” he said.
“Have you seen Devereaux?” I asked, getting right to the point.
“You mean today? No. Last time he talked to me he asked about your time card.”
“Listen. He’s probably on his way over . . . if not now, tomorrow. I told him a lie and screwed up. I . . .”
Cash chuckled into my ear. “Master criminal at work.” I could see him shaking his head. “Don’t tell me—you handed him a turd and now you want me to polish it.” He chuckled again. “Christ!”
“I just want our stories to match . . .”
“Our stories?” Cash became serious. “Devereaux isn’t interest in our story. He’s interested in your story. He wants to check it against the facts . . . I’m the facts.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this over the phone,” I suggested.
“You’re right about that,” Cash said, “but this time . . . maybe we should make an exception. Devereaux just pulled into the lot.”
Fuck!
“Better be quick. What did you tell him?”
“He asked about my face—the bruises. I said we had a fight. You gave me a loan to fix my car and you delivered my check so you could collect. Then you said I owed you another two hundred . . .”
“Now you makin’ me out a loan shark.” He feigned indignation.
“I wouldn’t pay and we had a fight . . .”
“Here comes the turd,” he said.
“I kicked you in the balls and you left without your money.”
“Oooh, I guess you did lie,” Cash laughed.
“And you sent this guy Stomp over to collect the next day.”
“Stomp?”