On The Devil's Side of Heaven

by Roger Peppercorn

  “Awe rickets,” I say loudly.

  “My, that’s cute. When did you pick that up?” Ronald asks sarcastically.

  “Pick what up?”

  “The ‘rickets’ remark. When did you of all people start using made up words in place of good ole fashioned cursing?”

  “Really?”

  “Just asking, don’t get your panties in a wad,” Ronald says.

  “Ronald, why are you really calling me?” I question him.

  “Just thought I would let you know. And maybe see if you were still on time.”

  “Are you at the airport?” I ask him.

  “Not right now. I was but then I drove down to Colton’s Coffee House. Thought I would get some pie and coffee and wait for you to fall out of the sky like a drunken Santa,” Ronald replies.

  I answer him with some exasperation. “Ronald, I’m hanging up now. My plane should land in an hour or so. If you’re not there to pick me up, then I’m going to assume you’re either dead or at Colton’s.”

  “I will be at Colton’s.”

  An hour and ten minutes later, I am in a cab heading for Colton’s Coffee House. Inside my computer bag there is a roll of quarters. I take it out and put it in my fist, working the roll around until it has yielded enough to fit firmly in my hand. As I step out of the cab, Ronald comes outside to greet me. He is all smiles with outstretched arms.

  The last time we saw each other, Ronald stood just over six foot and had long sandy blonde hair that hung just below the collar. It had flowed like rivulets over his eyes and had contrasted with their dark and brooding opaque color. His shoulders were rounded with muscle that he had earned from years of hard blue-collar work… err, I mean killing. His chest and arms were taut with ribbons of muscle, coiled like a spring. His movements were so easy and precise, he looked like they had been choreographed.

  At the time of our last encounter, I had been lean and muscled. Standing under six foot tall, with close-cropped brown hair. If you were to see us together we often times got comments on how starkly different we were in appearance.

  Today, we are both still very starkly different in appearance. No longer are we both lean and muscled. Rather, the beginnings of middle-age has started to creep in. While Ronald had still retained the heavily muscled shoulders and arms, his belly I would bet no longer sported a six pack, judging by the bulge. This is not to say he didn’t look fit, but the years of eating home-cooked meals had left an impression. And the blonde hair was now showing signs of gray. The only thing Ronald still possessed were the opaque eyes that had no depth and practically screamed intensity. His dress would be what I would call redneck, woodsy casual. His shirt was flannel and untucked, his jeans were blue and faded, and his boots were of the hardcore hiking type.

  I, on the other hand, am still lean, but the definition of my muscles have long since atrophied. I no longer work out unless you count four to twelve-ounce curls (lightweight, but a lot of reps). I haven’t suffered from the home-cooked meals for many years. My ex and I effectively split up just after I had been fired from the Collier County sheriff’s department. And my hair is no longer close and cropped, but long and unkempt. It matches the hair on my face. I’m not sure about my eyes and hair color because I made it a point a long time ago to avoid mirrors, as I no longer cared to look at the reflection staring back at me. My dress code is modified beach bum – long sleeve tee-shirt with khaki cargo pants. My shoes are not boots. However, they are organically air conditioned, which is great considering the freezing temperatures. At least it isn’t snowing… yet.

  I return his smile and walk up to him with my arms extended as well. When we are close enough, my right hand swings downward and hits Ronald just below the temple.

  The smile fades and he staggers a bit, but then he straightens and the smile is back on his face. Except for his eyes. They are black and empty. And now it’s my turn to be afraid, nay, downright terrified.

  Chapter 12

  “If I had known you were going to kiss me like a girl, I would have puckered up. Hoz Thomas and Cassandra?” Ronald asked flatly.

  I’m looking into Ronald’s eyes, which are still black and empty. A shiver runs through my spine. I’ve known this man my entire life. He killed a man right in front of me without emotion and showed no remorse afterward. When we were in high school, a senior named Robert Scheffner had targeted my sister as the object of his unwanted affections. Jessica had tried to handle it herself but when it became apparent Robert wasn’t going to listen, she had gone to Ronald to handle it instead of coming to me.

  Ronald had met him in the parking lot after school and had beaten him into the hospital. When the police came and questioned him, Robert Scheffner told the cops the perpetrators were black and wanted his money. He never mentioned Ronald. When Robert got out of the hospital, his parents moved away to Grand Junction.

  Bullies gave me a free pass and the girls sought me out as a conduit to Ronald’s good graces. Ronald and I played football and wrestled all the way through school. We both had vacant parents throughout our childhood. My father owned his own heavy equipment business which always teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, which meant he was always out chasing a living. My mother was a stay at home drunk.

  Ronald’s father was a professional guide who spent weeks at a time in the wilderness with men who had paid a premium for the chance to kill large animals with big horns. His mother rode the needle all the way into the grave when Ronald was eight. Both of our parents were now long deceased.

  “That was for my sister. And you don’t get to ask about my kids!”

  “I doubt she would approve of your use of violence and it’s not really setting a good example for Thomas and Cassandra now, is it?” he says with a voice that has the grit of sandpaper and with the emotion of a man who may as well have been giving the observational view of grass growing in the summertime heat.

  I stare at him with incredulity, my jaw falling open. My fingers start to tighten on the roll of quarters. The muscles in my arms start to flex.

  “Don’t,” Ronald says. He has a deadpan stare and eyes that are empty and completely void of light.

  I continue to flex my fingers on the quarters. My face burns with anger. We stand like that for another minute, neither of us giving in or backing down. Finally, I toss the quarters to him and then walk past him, towards the front door of the coffee shop. “You still have a table?”

  Ronald caught the quarters and turned to follow me inside. “In the back, near the bathroom.”

  “Hoz the pie?”

  “Their apple pie is to die for,” he says to my back.

  I reach the door first and hold it open for him. Ronald walks past me, patting me on the shoulder as he does so. “Won’t happen again, I promise.” Our eyes meet and I know then the injury that the failed hit has done to him, and the disappointment he has in me for my actions register like a one arm bandit on tilt. This is just embarrassing me, which in turn plunges me into a foul mood. Okay, full disclosure, I was already in a shitty mood, but he’s not helping matters.

  “Don’t promise something you can’t control.”

  He nods knowingly and then continues past me. I followed him to the table. Ronald moves around the table so he can sit with his back to the wall. I take the chair across from him. He’s facing the room with a clear view of the restaurant and the front door. I have a great view of the men’s bathroom door. It’s a tale of two chairs.

  When we’re seated, the waitress whose name tag says Rhonda but looks like she could serve as an “Alice” stand-in comes over to take my order.

  “Coffee darling?”

  “Please, and a BLT with fries.”

  “Okay and how ‘bout you? More coffee?” she asks Ronald.

  “Please, and another piece of pie.”

  “Is this separate or all together?”

  “Together,” I reply. “I’m buying.”

  Ronald’s eyes slide over to me and then he smirks. “Well,
since you’re buying, bring me a steak, very well done with a loaded baked potato.”

  “It comes with a salad.”

  “Pass.”

  “I’ll put this in and it will be right out,” Rhonda says as she turns and heads to the kitchen.

  “I trust you're spending my money wisely?”

  “Well, since you gave it to me, I believe it’s my money.”

  “I think you misunderstood the intent of my loan,” Ronald says.

  “Funny, I don’t recall signing any loan papers.”

  “You really want to leap right into this now?”

  “Ronald, before my sister called me, I was just fine not talking to either of you, much less coming out here and laying eyes on you. But since you almost got my sister killed, I thought it prudent to see about helping her get out of whatever shit storm you’ve seen fit to bring upon her pretty little shoulders.”

  “Seriously Walter, you must quit blaming me and your sister for your life falling apart. Nobody told you to turn the other cheek and nobody – and I mean nobody – told you to take my fall!” Ronald said heatedly. “Remember? Huh? Do you? I told you – no, I begged you! – to just go ahead and turn me in. But you are the one who told me to walk. So stop blaming me for your mistakes. For the love of all that is holy, you were a cop! And cops don’t just let people walk away, least of all when they’ve just killed someone! For the record, calling you was her idea and not mine.”

  My face is burning now. I want to leave or crawl under a table, eat a bullet or just step in front of a swift-moving bus. But instead, I just sit there without a snarky response. The truth of the matter is he is right, I had a chance to hook him up and stuff him in the back of my cruiser. Instead, I had just told him to leave, to get out of town before I changed my mind. Which is what he did. He went on to shagging my sister full time and I lost my badge, gun, job, wife, house, car, kids, money, self-respect and dignity. I did, however, find the courage to keep moving forward thanks to my old friend Jack Daniels and all of his wonderful accomplices.

  After a moment of staring at each other, I say: “Ronald, you and I remember that day very differently. You were holding a gun on me when I walked up to you. And you didn’t beg me to do anything. In fact, and I’m quoting here, ‘Do what you have to do. I won’t fight you for it’ says the guy holding a large black pistol on me. Like, what? I’m just going to say ‘Go ahead and put these nifty bracelets on and let’s go to jail’. You had just shot poor Chaney Shannon to death right in front of me! And it doesn’t matter that it was her idea and not yours, SHE’S MY SISTER!”

  “I would never hurt you and you know that.”

  “Ronald, you had a gun pointed at my heart!”

  “I wasn’t serious. And besides, how come you didn’t just tell them it was me and then have me arrested after I’d left?”

  “Because…” my voice trails off to nothing. I don’t have a good reason why. To this day I can’t really answer the question as to why I let him go. But let him go is just what I did. And for a little while, I was okay with it. Maybe it was because it had felt like justice or maybe it was because it had been the right thing to do. It made my sister happy. I know this because she called to thank me. This had made me feel good until I was fired for it ten minutes later.

  “Because what Walter?” Ronald says to me as he leans in closer to see my eyes, which are facing the table in shame.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does if all we're going to do is bicker like little kids on the playground! Now, are you going to tell me how my niece and nephew are?”

  “Look, Ronald, I wish I could tell you why I didn’t finger you in the Shannon killing but I can’t. I’ve thought about that day a lot and the best I can come up with is… well, nothing. And stop asking about my kids, they are not your niece and nephew. Not now, not ever.”

  “I gotta know right now if you’re going to be able to function as a professional or not, Walter? Whoever put this hit out is both well connected and well financed. Plus, they know where I live. And I am their uncle, no matter how hard you deny it.”

  Just then the waitress with the bee-bonnet hairdo brings our food to the table. After she has left, Ronald says, “Do you remember Marcie Reynolds?”

  “You have to ask me that? Really, Ronald, you know damn well I remember her,” I say to him. “Why?”

  “Did you know she was a cop in Fruita?”

  I put my fork down and begin to massage my temples and then pinch the bridge of my nose to ward off the headache I can feel coming. “No, I didn’t.”

  Ronald digs out a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and then slides it across to me. “Just in case… here’s her number. You never know, it may come in handy someday. How old are they now?”

  “Ten and twelve,” I say, the defeat crawling out of my mouth like a bug. “Why would I call her? I’m not really high on her call list. It’s not like we’re on Facebook.”

  “You’re on Facebook? Since when?” he says with a grin and then a chuckle. This is followed by both of us laughing hysterically until we both have tears running down our cheeks.

  Then I said, “Facebook? Aw, rickets.”

  “Seriously, when did you pick up such a… unique way of expressing yourself?”

  “Ah hell, I don’t know, I guess about the time Thomas started to express himself like a parrot. Lori didn’t really see the humor in his mimicking my speech patterns.”

  “Cassie never uses foul language?”

  I laugh at the thought of my prudish twelve-year-old swearing. Cassandra, my daughter, is like her mother in every way. Lori and I were married for fifteen years. In all of that time, she never drank or swore. Sex was a chore because her mother raised her in the belief that proper young ladies only laid down with their husbands to procreate. It was a job, not a recreational sport. To say it was a cross I had to bear didn’t quite cover it.

  “Lori and my daughter were born from the same cloth. So no, foul language isn’t something she approves of.”

  “Ah, I see. Lori never did like me much.” His head is again nodding. “You know, you, your kids and Jessica are the only thing I have left in this world I can really call family. Not speaking for the last several years has been a strain on both of us.”

  “I know Ronald, but the thing with Lori and the kids is really a sore spot with me at the moment. Her lawyer made me out to be a burned-out drunk who can’t hold a job and can’t be trusted to be left alone with my own kids.”

  “Sorry to hear that. It’s gotta be tough. Can I ask you a question without you getting mad?”

  “You mean my drinking, don’t you?”

  He nods his head solemnly but doesn’t press me.

  I take a deep breath and exhale deeply. This is a question that drunks avoid answering truthfully. Ask a drunk how often or how much they consume at any one time and the answer given is often steeped in the misogyny of their own lies they tell themselves. Often times it is one they gauge as being socially acceptable to the listener because they fear the judging and hypocritical looks that will be heaped upon them in large doses. An alcoholic will go out of their way to hide the shame of their affliction from others. I’m tempted to lie to a man who has the same emotional qualities as a rock.

  “At first it wasn’t much. Just a beer or two after work. However, after a while it grew to a twelve pack, and then it was pints of Beam or Jack to go along with the beer. Then, later on, it was before work, just to get straight and well… you know. Shit, I kinda went off the rails, which is what got me canned in Texas. But I got sober for a while with the sheriffs in Collier County. But after Shannon, I really hit it hard. They used it to fire me because there was no evidence they could push against me. Now… I don’t know… it goes in spurts. To be honest, some days are better than others.”

  “How much today?”

  My voice gets lower to hide the shame of the little bottles I drank on the plane ride up here. I shrug my shoulders. “Enough to take
the edge off.”

  “Alright. But just so you know, I cleaned out all the booze in the house, which wasn’t hard anyway, since the shooter did a remarkable job of breaking all the bottles I had. Asshole.”

  “Which I guess brings us to it. Do you know who the shooter was?”

  Ronald plays with his coffee mug on the table and is sucking air through his teeth, which I know is his way of measuring how much to tell me.

  “Ronald, did you kill him?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Just what in the hell does that mean? You either committed actions that led to his demise or you didn’t. Now, which is it?”

  “There was a lot of shooting and in my attempts to protect my home, which by the way I am allowed to do under Colorado law, he was hit in the leg. His ‘demise’ as you put it, was due to excessive blood loss.”

  “So yeah, you killed him,” I say sarcastically.

  Ronald’s eyes take on that opaque look that only he can muster, and then he nods his head.

  “Where’s the body?”

  “Back at the safe house on my reloading bench,” he replied deadpan.

  “Jesus, Ronald!” I nearly yelled. Both of us look around at the other tables to see if we have been overheard, but no one is paying any attention to us. I whisper, “What were you thinking? What happens if the local law was to just happen to wander out? Huh? What were you going to do then?”

  “Relax, our house is way out off of 19 Road, in the adobes. Nobody comes out there except if they're lost. Cops aren’t lost when they venture that far out of town.”

  I shake my head at the arrogance of his statement. “You know, for a psychopath you’re really not that smart, you know that?” I retort.

  “Walter, give it a rest.”

  “Ronald, what am I going to do here? I mean, I don’t have a badge and I am not exactly in the best standing with any agency thanks to you.”

  “Are we really back to this?”

  The anger is starting to crawl up my neck and into my face. “Yeah, I guess we are. And you still haven’t answered my question.”