House of the Rising Sun

by Charlie Hustmyre

  Tony grabbed hold of Joey and started to haul himself up. He saw his. 38 on the floor. He let go of Joey with one hand and scooped up his gun. When he got to his feet, Tony had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He tasted blood. Using Joey’s massive bulk to steady himself, Tony raised his gun and fired.

  Ray Shane was on his hands and knees facing the window. At the sound of the shot, he dropped to his belly and slid away. Tony fired again. His aim was wide and he heard the bullet bounce off the tin roof.

  At the edge of the roof, Shane peered down into the water and hesitated for just a second, giving Tony time to line up the sights on Ray’s ass and squeeze off another shot. It seemed like it all happened at once: Tony jerking the trigger, the. 38 barking, and Ray falling from the boathouse roof. All so close together Tony couldn’t tell if he had hit the no-good ex-cop bastard or not.

  So he let go of Joey and hobbled to the window to see for himself. He climbed over the bleeding Rocco, who clawed at him and begged for help. Tony ignored him and half crawled, half slid down the sloping roof until he reached the edge. Looking down, he saw only the black water of the marina, and directly below him, a foaming mass of bubbles centered in a series of radiating ripples.

  Shane was gone. Had the shot hit him or had it missed? Tony Zello imagined the ex-cop lying on the muddy bottom of the harbor, blood flowing from the bullet hole in his ass and water pouring into his lungs as his mouth opened and closed, looking like a fish lying on a dock. The image almost made him smile, but not quite. Tony wasn’t going to smile about Shane until he was standing over his corpse, until he saw him dead.

  Rage poured through Tony and helped dull his pain as he thought about Ray Shane getting away from him. Nearly a minute ticked by as Tony stared over the edge of the roof, looking down at the water as it settled back to inky smoothness.

  Behind him, Rocco moaned. Tony turned and saw Joey trying to lift Rocco off the glass spikes on the windowsill. Tony would have to call the old alcoholic doctor they used. More time wasted.

  “Fuck you, Shane!” he screamed as he fired his last two shots, blowing holes in the black water.

  There was no air in Ray’s lungs. The twenty-foot belly flop from the top of the boat shed had knocked all the wind out of him. Then there was the cold, like a thousand needles stabbing into his skin at the same time, an acupuncturist gone mad. With empty lungs, he sank like a stone. The water pressure built against his eardrums as he went down.

  Ray’s shoes bumped the muddy bottom. The marina was only eight feet deep, just enough to accommodate the pleasure cruisers, sportfishermen, and sailboats operating out of the New Orleans Yacht Club. Plenty deep enough to drown.

  Although his eyes were open, the only thing Ray could see was a faint glow above him that contrasted with the pitch black below. The sharp reports of two more gunshots echoed through the water and Ray felt a pressure wave as the rounds struck the surface.

  He let himself sink lower and knelt motionless on the bottom, afraid to move as panic clouded the edges of his mind. He couldn’t stay down, yet he couldn’t go up. Tony was up there, Tony and his gun. If Ray surfaced, with his head bobbing on top of the water as he gasped for air, he would be an easy target. One shot and it would be over. Just another body recovery for the NOPD dive team.

  There were only a few seconds left to make a decision. The boathouse was behind him. Tony was probably at the edge of the tin roof, looking down into the water, but he couldn’t see inside the boathouse unless he hung his head over the edge. If he couldn’t see, he couldn’t shoot. Ray’s only safety lay inside the boathouse.

  With his lungs burning, Ray fought an almost irresistible urge to inhale as he clawed and kicked his way across the bottom of the marina toward the boathouse. Probably five feet, no more than eight, and he’d be under the protection of the tin roof. He swam as far as he could, swam until his vision began to go dark.

  The pressure in his head was unbearable as he angled up toward the surface. He was fighting his way through the water, each movement getting harder, like swimming through syrup. The pressure against his eardrums eased as he neared the surface. He was almost there. As long as he had swum far enough to get under the shed’s roof, he had a chance.

  Then Ray’s head collided with something, and the darkness closed in around him. He had hit the bottom of the boat. The thirty-eight-foot Rampage docked in the shed pressed down on him and held him under. Terror seized him. Blind terror. He was thirty feet from shore. No more than five feet from the dock. He looked left and right, up, then down. He was disoriented. Which way was the surface?

  Follow the hull!

  With one hand touching the boat, Ray kicked and clawed at the water. His lips peeled back as animal instinct, more powerful than willpower, forced his mouth open. He couldn’t stop it any more than he could stop his eyes from blinking, but with his last shred of concentration he delayed drawing a breath for just a second and kept his lungs from filling with the dark water. And that second was long enough.

  His hand broke the surface and he felt cold air on his fingers. One last kick, then his head was out of the water. He sucked in air-sweet, life-sustaining air-as overhead he heard Tony stomping his way across the tin roof back to the apartment. Common sense urged Ray to duck back under the water in case Tony looked into the boathouse, but he couldn’t do it. If he was going to die, then it was going to be a bullet that killed him, not water.

  Ray heard muffled shouts inside the apartment, then more feet pounding across the floor, the sounds echoing off the boathouse walls.

  His apartment door banged shut. Feet clomped down the wooden stairs. More shouting, this time from the parking lot, and still more from farther away, maybe neighbors. He hoped someone would call the cops. Ray kept treading water, still gulping deep breaths of air. Never again would he complain about hunger or thirst. All he needed was air.

  He heard a motor crank. Tires squealed. Then the deep roar of a big engine being run hard.

  “Where we going?” Joey shouted.

  Tony leaned farther back into the seat, both hands gripping his sore balls. “Just drive the fucking car.”

  Rocco was laid out on the backseat, bleeding all over it, bleeding all over the genuine Corinthian leather-whatever the hell that was-ruining the upholstery of Tony Zello’s almost brand-new Lincoln Town Car.

  Joey was speeding down Pontchartrain Boulevard, stiff-arming the steering wheel and crushing it with his massive hands. He glanced at Tony. “But how do I know where to go?”

  “Get us to the doctor.”

  “Feelgood’s?”

  “You know any other doctor we can go to?”

  Joey craned his head back over his shoulder to peek into the backseat at Rocco, who was rolling back and forth, moaning, and slinging blood. “How about the emergency room?” Joey said.

  “I don’t have time for that,” Tony yelled. “We’re dropping him off at Dr. Feelgood’s and then we’re going to find that motherfucker.”

  “You think he got away?”

  “Drive!”

  Getting out of the water turned out to be a lot harder than getting into it. The first thing Ray tried to do was reach up and grab the dock that ran along the wall of the boathouse, but it was four feet above the water, and he couldn’t reach it. Next he tried to shinny up one of the pylon foundations, but it was covered with green slime and he couldn’t get a grip on it.

  Not sure if the car that squealed away carried Tony and his two goons, or if maybe one or two of them had stayed behind, Ray didn’t want to swim out into the marina where he could be seen. He had to get out of the water-it was sucking the heat out of him-but he had to stay inside the boathouse.

  As he dog-paddled around the bow of the Rampage, Ray found a half-inch line hanging off the bowsprit. Gripping the line, he pulled himself up until the water was at his waist. Then he pushed his feet off the boat’s hull and swung toward the dock. He let go of the rope with his left hand and grabbed for the dock, catc
hing the tips of his fingers between two planks. For a second he hung suspended between the dock and the boat. One more push against the hull with one foot, he let go of the line and made a desperate grab for the dock with his other hand, and got it.

  Ray’s ribs screamed in agony as he dangled from the wooden planking. The goons had done a number on him, and it took him a while to muster enough energy and courage to try to pull himself up. This was going to hurt.

  He managed to hoist himself high enough to get his right elbow on top of the walkway and the fingers of his right hand all the way across the dock to the far edge. Then, after swinging his legs from side to side a few times, he built up enough momentum to use his elbow to leverage one foot up onto the dock. From there he clawed his way up until he was lying facedown on the wet wood, panting like a dog.

  Every bone in Ray’s body felt broken, every muscle felt torn, his head felt the size of a Fourth of July watermelon. Cigarettes and booze were out. He was giving them up. Join a gym instead. Just as soon as he got himself out of this mess. First thing he had to do was find out why Tony Zello was trying to kill him, but to do that he had to first get off this dock.

  From inside the boathouse door, Ray peeked out at the street. It looked clear, but what was he really looking for? There were no gun-toting thugs waiting to blast him, but even Tony had enough sense to hide. He’d already done a good job ambushing Ray inside his own apartment. Ray scanned the street again, then stepped out of the boathouse. It wasn’t until he had hobbled four or five steps and reached the foot of the stairs leading up to his apartment that he realized he was holding his breath, waiting for a gunshot.

  Halfway up the stairs, the sound of an approaching police siren stopped Ray dead in his tracks. Someone had heard the shots and called the police, but the cops were a day late and a doughnut short. They couldn’t do anything for him now.

  His apartment door was so close, only a few feet away, and he needed dry clothes. He was freezing. Suddenly, he remembered something. Ray patted his left front pocket and felt nothing. His keys were inside. He remembered them hitting the floor. The siren was getting closer.

  He turned and limped away.

  “You still want me to drive?” Joey asked over his shoulder.

  Tony was wobbling down a driveway in Old Metairie, just outside the city, the home of the guy they called Dr. Feelgood. Tony was several steps behind Joey. He couldn’t straighten up. His swollen balls forced him to walk stooped over like an old man. “Do I look like I’m in any condition to drive?” Tony said. “Of course I want you to fucking drive.”

  Feelgood was an old juicer who had his medical license pulled years ago. Since then he’d been practicing without one and was the doctor of choice for people who didn’t want the cops to know how they had gotten hurt. Rocco was inside having his legs sewn up.

  Inside the Lincoln, Joey asked Tony, “Where we going?” Tony had to think about that. He wasn’t sure. Shane had most likely gotten away. Unless one of Tony’s bullets had hit him. Replaying the scene in his mind, Tony was pretty sure that had not happened. Bullets hardly ever killed instantly, unless you hit a man in the head. Most of the time the guy flopped around for a while before he died. So if Tony had hit Shane, he probably would have popped to the surface, at least for a few seconds, and tried to grab onto something and get some air.

  Joey started the car but left it in park.

  Tony turned to the big man. “You got a car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind?”

  “A Camaro.”

  “A Camaro? Big as you are, why the fuck you drive a little car like that?”

  “It’s one of the new ones. Chicks dig it.”

  “But you can’t get comfortable in a goddamn two-door.”

  “Yeah, but it’s fast.”

  “Where is it?”

  “At Shorty’s.”

  “Fuck,” Tony said, and pounded the dashboard with his fist. “Just get moving.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the blood-soaked backseat. “First thing we’re gonna do is clean up this mess. Then we’re going back to Shane’s apartment.”

  “What about my car?”

  “Forget it.”

  Joey shifted into reverse and backed toward the street. “Why we going back to Shane’s?”

  “I want to see if his car’s there. It’s a lot easier to find a man if you know what he’s driving.”

  “Why did you want to know what kind of car I drive?” “Someone might have seen us driving away from the marina and given the police a description of my car.”

  “But you took the license plate off.”

  “It’s a big green Lincoln. It’s not hard to spot, especially with blood splashed all over the backseat.”

  Joey scratched his head. “So what are we going to do?”

  “Clean up the backseat and put the license plate back on.”

  “What about the cops?”

  “Fuck the cops. I pay half those motherfuckers anyway.”

  Joey drove out of the neighborhood. He hit Metairie Road for a couple miles, then made a left turn onto Pontchartrain Boulevard and headed back toward the marina. “Where do you think he’s gonna go, Shane I mean?”

  Tony was thinking that he didn’t have a clue where the ex-cop might go. Then he realized how little he knew about Shane. He didn’t know if Shane had family in New Orleans. Family was always a good place to start when you were looking for a guy on the run. He didn’t know if Shane had any friends, or a new girlfriend. Maybe after so much time in prison, he had a boyfriend.

  Tony slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and called the House. Someone there must know something about Ray Shane.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jenny Porter’s apartment was a one-bedroom walk-up on the third floor of a four-story building, and on mornings like this she hated those two flights of stairs with a passion.

  It was 4:30 AM.

  A weather front had come in late last night and it was cold, wet, and miserable. The only security was a self-locking iron door across the building’s front entrance. Behind that was a wooden door with a busted lock. Its only purpose was to keep the weather out of the foyer.

  Jenny stood in front of the security door, keys in hand, when she realized it wasn’t locked. Looking more closely at the dead bolt, she saw the bolt still extended from the cylinder. The door had been pried open. The spring hinge had pulled it shut, and the protruding bolt rested against the frame, leaving a narrow gap between the door and jamb.

  She dropped her keys back into her purse and pulled the iron door open. One of the hinges gave a tortured squeak. She pressed her hand against the wooden inner door and pushed it open. A wide hallway ran down the center of the building with four apartments on each side. At the far end of the hallway was the stairway leading to the second floor.

  Jenny stepped inside and pushed the wooden door closed behind her. Two big windows above the door illuminated the hall during the day, but before sunrise the only light came from an old chandelier that hung from the ceiling halfway down the hall. The apartment doors were set back about three feet from the hall, leaving a small alcove in front of each.

  Why was the door open? Maybe the lock was broken and the building’s maintenance man had left it unlocked. But it hadn’t been like that when Jenny left at eight o’clock last night, right after her encounter with Hiram Gordo. If the lock was broken, the maintenance man would not have pried the door open and left it unlocked all night. He would have fixed it.

  She looked at the double row of alcoves, each one hidden in shadow, and wondered if there was something or someone hiding in one of them. With her heart thumping against her chest, Jenny crept toward the stairs at the back of the building, peering into each shadow as she slid past it.

  At the end of the hall, Jenny stood at the foot of the stairs and gazed up toward the second floor. A single lightbulb mounted high overhead cast a dull glow along the empty stairwell. No ghosts or goblins up there.
At least none she could see. She started up the stairs, inching her way to the landing above.

  By the time she got to the second floor, Jenny started to relax. She told herself she was acting like a foolish girl. There was no madman, no escaped convict with a butcher’s knife waiting to cut her down. Nothing but a dimly lit, empty stairwell.

  And a pried-open front door.

  One flight to go. As she padded up the steps toward the third floor, she couldn’t help looking over the banister to make sure no one was moving around in the hall below her, but there was no one there. Nothing but tricks of light and shadow.

  Just before reaching the third floor, Jenny paused. Her apartment was the third door on the left, the second from the front of the building. She almost felt like calling out, half expecting that if she did, she would see Hiram L. Gordo’s big fat ass come slinking out from one of the alcoves. But she didn’t call out, and she didn’t see Hiram L. Gordo.

  She crept down the center of the hall, trying to stay as far away from each shadowed doorway as she could. At the first pair of apartments, Jenny checked left and right, saw nothing. Then the second pair of doors, again, just empty shadows. She was starting to feel silly, but remembered that she had slept with a night-light on until she was almost out of high school.

  The bogeyman wasn’t what she had been afraid of. Maybe as a little girl it was ghosts under the bed, goblins in the closet, kid stuff, but later, just after she hit puberty, she kept the night-light on because of her stepfather. His drunken visits to her room late at night, after her mom was asleep, were what really scared her.

  In the middle of the hall, she edged past the corner of the alcove in front of her door. Something moved. It was on the floor but it was big. Her heart jumped into her throat. “Who are you?” she shouted.