by Gregory Ashe
“What money?”
“That cash deposit to your account.”
Tucker shook his head.
“That’s so weird. I don’t know why Will would have done that. You’re sure you don’t have any other idea who might have put it in there?”
Tucker cleared his throat. “Nope.”
Under the woolly layer of the opioids, an alarm bell began to ring. There it was again: Tucker’s tell.
“Tuck—”
“I think you’re right, North. No more regrets. No more living in the past. I’m going to start today.”
“Yeah, ok, but—”
Tucker was already moving toward the door. He threw it open and shouted, “Shaw, can you help me carry some stuff to the car?”
“What aren’t you telling me about that money?”
“I didn’t want things to be like this, North. I was willing to forget and forgive. I would have given it all up to be with you again.”
It took a great deal of effort, but North managed to raise himself onto an elbow. “Why aren’t you telling me the truth about the money?”
“You made this happen, North. I want you to remember that. I would have done anything for you, but this is what you chose.”
“Tucker, sit your ass back in—” North tried to rise, but a wave of dizziness bore him back down onto the bed.
“What’s up?” Shaw said, launching himself up the final stairs.
“I need a hand getting some of this stuff to the car.”
“Sure.”
“Tucker, what the hell is going on?” North couldn’t seem to get himself up on his elbow again. He felt like his bones had softened. The room was spinning. “What the…what the hell…”
“North—” Shaw said.
“He got worked up from our chat. Help me get out of here, and he’ll calm down.”
The wobbliness slowed. North focused on the doorway, and through it, on Tucker and Shaw at the head of the stairs.
Dolly was singing about the garden. Wildflowers in the garden. Time to go.
Tucker turned and shoved. The force of the blow was so great that Shaw’s feet left the floor, and for a moment, he was suspended above the stairs. Then he fell.
North lurched upright, the pain in his body like the hum of a high-voltage line.
Shaw dropped out of sight. A moment later, North heard his body hit the floor. His brain tried to make best guesses: maybe he only went as far as the landing, that’s only ten feet, not so bad. But the animal part of him kept replaying that frozen instant of Shaw’s bunny slippers floating above the steps.
Someone was screaming, an atavistic, wounded noise that predated words. North knew he was the one making that sound. He couldn’t stop.
Tucker stood at the top of the stairs, looking down, and then he glanced over his shoulder and feigned a wince. “Ouch. Well, I don’t think Shaw will be interrupting us for a while. Now, let’s see.”
North managed to cut off his screams. Instead, he took short, chuffing breaths as he tried to get up from the bed. His shoulder was an inferno. His leg, in its cast, made every movement awkward and difficult.
“Hello,” Tucker was saying into his phone. “Ronnie? Yes. Yes. We agreed—well, fine. In that case, I’ll have to be efficient.” He pocketed the phone and pulled up his shirt to remove his belt. It was leather, thick, and almost as wide as his hand. It came off with a slithering noise, and he clutched the buckle as he wrapped the belt around his hand twice, leaving a long tail. “I understand you’ve got some outstanding payments to make. Ronnie’s going to stop by and collect what you owe him, and he promised me that you and Shaw won’t ever say anything about my part in this.”
“Shaw,” North said through gritted teeth. He forced himself to open his mouth and shout, “Shaw!”
No answer.
“This is your fault, North. I was going to give Ronnie the money back. He thought he could buy me off, but I would have given the thirty thousand back. For you, North. I would have let Shaw off the hook. Do you know what it’s been like for me? Months of wanting to pay that self-righteous little bitch back for what he did to me, and then I had to play nice with him, set up house with him, listen to his bullshit and his feelings. When Ronnie called here, and you walked in on me talking to him, I thought I’d been caught for sure. But you and Shaw were so wrapped up in each other that you didn’t even think about little old me. So that—” He jerked a thumb at the stairs. “—is payback.”
“Shaw? Shaw? I need you to say something back to me.” Somehow, North was sitting upright, but when he leaned forward to put his weight on his feet, pain zinged down his leg. He swallowed another cry and managed to call out instead, “Say something. Say anything.”
“Oh, he can’t hear you.” Tucker moved into the bedroom. The belt hung from his hand like a dead snake. “Between you and me, I might have overdone it. Just a little. The way his neck is all twisted around.” Another of those feigned winces. “But hell, his parents can afford one of those nice, motorized wheelchairs for him, and you’ll be around to make sure his feeding tube goes in right.”
“You son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you.” North launched himself up from the bed, ignoring the white blaze that ignited in his leg. He managed one unsteady step. Then the belt cracked across the side of his face. The lick of the leather felt cold at first. It came within a hair’s breadth of his eye. And then the pain rushed in, and the force of the blow knocked North off balance. He hit the floor. Something in his injured shoulder made a snapping noise.
The next blow caught the back of his head. Then one on the neck. One on the back. More on the back, the arms, the legs. More and more, harder and harder, until North was curled up, trying to cover his head and belly, instinct taking over during the rush of agony.
Then it stopped.
North’s face was wet. He tasted blood. Above him, Tucker’s panting breaths competed with Dolly. She was telling everybody about the church down by the river.
“Now,” Tucker said, and he spat. The saliva landed in North’s hair; he flinched, and a wave of agony rolled through him. “We’ve only got ten or fifteen minutes before Ronnie gets here, so I’m going to work on your balls. If you beg me really nice, maybe I won’t bust them for good, and you’ll still be able to pump out a load now and then.”
Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was the endorphin rush as his body reacted to the pain. Maybe it was that filmstrip loop of Shaw levitating above the stairs, bunny slippers dangling, and the pictures North’s brain had cobbled together of him lying at the bottom of the stairs, broken, maybe dying. He started to laugh.
“You think that’s funny? God, I am going to make you squeal. I should record this so I can play it for Shaw, so he’ll always know that I hurt you more than he ever could.”
It was hard to bring down the arm covering his head. It was harder to roll onto his back and look up at Tucker. One of North’s eyes had been hurt, he realized now, and was crusted shut. Or maybe the belt had taken the eye and blinded him. Tucker looked mussed and breathless and sweaty. He moved the belt in a sinuous loop. A ritual to keep the evil alive.
“You dumbshit,” North said between bursts of laughter. “You stupid fucking dumbshit. You think Ronnie is coming here to collect some money? He’s coming here to murder us. You too, you giant cooz. What, you thought he was going to let you walk out of here? You are the stupidest motherfucker I’ve ever known. I cannot believe I used to let you put your dick in me.”
“No,” Tucker said. “No, no, no. He told me it was a debt. He’s going to settle up. He said he might have to get a little rough.”
“Jesus, Tuck. He’s going to pack us in oil barrels, cap them with cement, and dump us in the river. Get a fucking clue. Are you serious with me right now?”
Terror flooded Tucker’s face.
“Yeah, you fucking moron. Yeah. It’s sinking in, isn’t it? Just a debt. And you swallowed that horse shit?”
>
“I didn’t have anything to do with—I don’t know anything. He wouldn’t—he can’t!”
“You know his name. You’ve taken calls from him. You could tell the police about the whole deal. You’ve even got the money in your account to prove it. You sackless fucktard. He can’t let you walk around after this. No matter what you say, there’s only one way he’ll know that you’re never going to tell anyone about his part in making Shaw and me disappear.”
Tucker shook his head.
“’Fraid so. You booked yourself a one-way trip. Help me up.”
Shifting his weight, Tucker glanced toward the front of the house.
“Help me up, God damn it, if you want to get out of this alive. You stupid piece of shit. You think you can handle those guys on your own? You? You don’t even have the balls to beat the shit out of your husband in a fair fight; you had to wait until I was laid up like this. You’ve got to pop pills to get a hard on. What the fuck are you going to do? Help me up, God damn it. Help me up, you useless fucking eunuch.”
Fear and anger made people do a lot of stupid things. When Tucker reached down, North was ready. He caught Tucker’s wrist and pulled with his good arm. Pain still exploded in his other shoulder, but he had enough strength and the advantage of surprise to bring Tucker tumbling down. As Tucker crashed onto the floor, North rolled on top of him. He straddled Tucker. Tucker was trying to squirm away, but North brought his knee up into the crown jewels, and Tucker let out a gasping cry, his whole body reacting to the pain as he tried to cover himself. That distraction was enough for North to get his good hand around Tucker’s throat and squeeze.
“Mother. Fucker.” North growled as he raised Tucker’s head and slammed it against the boards. Tucker’s eyes went out of focus, but he clawed at North’s arm, raking bloody furrows into the flesh. North slammed his head against the boards again. He thought, briefly, that he might be crushing Tucker’s windpipe. Involuntary manslaughter. Minimum. But he kept seeing Shaw hanging in the air, the toes of his bunny slippers already pulled down by gravity, the way light caught in the cotton-tail puffs, and he squeezed harder. Tucker’s fighting changed to escape. He swiped at North’s face, trying to get eyes or nose or ears, but North reared back enough to keep himself out of reach. Tucker was young and strong and healthy, but he was also a bully and, therefore, a coward. He had no real experience with a fight, not this kind of fight anyway, and the fear in his face sent a saw-toothed satisfaction ripping through North.
The next time Tucker’s head hit the boards, he went still. North held him for a moment longer. His own breathing sounded loud and savage in his ears. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see ribbons of red winding down his arm. He refused to look; for a little bit longer, while adrenaline and endorphins buffered him from the pain, he didn’t want to know.
First thing: he flipped Tucker over and used the belt to bind his arms behind his back. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even very good. But if the fucker woke up early, North wanted something to slow him down. Second thing: a weapon. Shaw’s gun safe was bolted to the boards under the bed, and it was secured. North didn’t know the combination and he didn’t have the backup key. His own gun was in a similar safe under the bed in his duplex. He settled for the pen next to an artist sketchbook where Shaw had written CONCORDANT OPPOSITION/OUTLANDS and drawn something that might have been an amoeba.
Third thing: police. He stretched for his phone, and sheet lightning crackled along his back, running from his injured shoulder to the slashed-up arm. After unlocking the screen, North placed the 911 call. He gave the dispatcher Shaw’s address, told her someone had fallen down the stairs, and informed her that there was an active shooter in the home. He kept the call open as he shoved the phone into a pocket of his mesh shorts and crawled toward the door. The dispatcher’s voice yapped at him.
“Oh Jesus,” he muttered at the top of the stairs. Shaw lay motionless at the bottom of the stairs; as far as North could tell, he wasn’t even breathing. He hadn’t stopped at the first landing. He must have come crashing down somewhere near the bottom, because his head was turned sideways, the lowest step biting into his cheek. Blood stained the runner under him. His arms and legs reminded North of a crushed bug’s, curled up and twisted. At least one of his arms was definitely broken. “Oh sweet Jesus,” North said as he dragged himself down the steps, cast bumping behind him, each movement hammering spikes of pain into him. “Please let him be ok. Sweet Jesus, please let him be ok. Please let him be ok. Shaw, you’re going to be ok. Can you hear me, sweetheart? You’re going to be fine.”
He made his way down the stairs like that, pleading and calling out until he reached Shaw. He put a hand out, and then he stopped because he thought about spinal cord injuries and all the ways he could make this worse. A vise tightened around his chest. Someone was sobbing, and he wiped his eyes because he had to do something, he had to fix this. He settled for touching that coppery patch of hair as gently as he could. North’s chest hitched like his lungs were being pulled out. “You’re ok, love. You’re going to be fine. Can you hear me? Oh my God.”
A sound at the front door made him draw in a shaky breath. The sound came again. Someone trying to open it. Thank God, North thought. The urge to laugh made him dizzy. Thank God for Tucker and his love of the dramatic. Thank God he stopped and set the deadbolt because he wanted to be an ominous motherfucker. The door rocked in its frame, catching on the deadbolt again.
“Go the fuck away,” North screamed. His hand tightened around the calligraphy pen. “You come in here, and I’ll kill you.”
The door rattled again.
“I swear to God, Ronnie. I will put two in your chest and one in your head. I am not fucking around. Tucker learned that the hard way.”
Nothing. Or laughter? Faint, mocking laughter? North couldn’t tell over the pounding blood in his ears. He clenched his teeth; his breathing was too fast, black specks sandstorming across his vision. His hand ached around the calligraphy pen.
Then sirens sounded in the distance, and North sobbed once. “The police are coming, you dumb fuck. They’re coming. Nice fucking try, but they’re coming.”
On the other side of the door, someone started whistling the theme for Green Acres, and the sound moved away slowly. North scooted closer to Shaw, grabbed a handful of his shirt, as though Shaw might drift away, on high alert until the jaunty tune had faded completely. The sirens came closer. Then North let his head thump against the wainscoting as he fell apart completely.
Chapter 32
THE FIRST NIGHT, North spent in a hospital bed of his own, buffered from the world by generous use of narcotics. Some of the scratches had needed stitches, and his whole arm was bandaged, and the doctors ordered lots of X-rays and shook their heads and touched his shoulder. North ignored them and asked about Shaw, and they ignored him and talked about his shoulder, and the whole thing escalated until North was swinging a blue plastic bedpan at them, trying to clip one of the doctors right across his bearded jaw.
“God damn,” Jadon said from the doorway. “Enough. North, that’s enough!”
Panting, and woozy from the rush of blood and the good stuff they’d packed him full of, North flopped back against the bed.
Jadon got the doctors out of the room. He stood next to the bed. With a lion tamer’s look, he eased North’s fingers off the bedpan and set it out of reach. He was in cut-off sweats and a gray tank and those shoes that pretended to be sandals.
“It’s your day off,” North said. His voice sounded woolen and distant.
“I sure know how to relax,” Jadon said. “He’s going to pull through. He’s got a bad concussion, a broken wrist, some broken ribs, and internal bleeding. That’s what they’re really worried about, but they say it’s not getting any worse, so they’ll just keep him stable while his body heals. No spinal cord damage, as far as they can tell. They’ll know more, especially about the concussion, when he wakes up.”
North started to cry. It came in huge waves that drowned him, and he tried to cover his face, but both arms hurt like hell to move, and the good stuff made him feel like the world was a little slippery and sliding out from under his touch, so he all he could do was cry harder. It took him a moment to realize he was clutching Jadon’s hand, and Jadon was rubbing his neck. That made everything a million times worse, but North didn’t have a lot of options, so he sobbed until he’d sobbed himself out. When he was finally semi-calm again, he was still holding Jadon’s hand, and Jadon was still rubbing his neck.
“I want to tell you to fuck off so badly right now,” North croaked.
“I know, buddy. I know.”
That night, he dropped off the face of the earth and didn’t wake up for twelve hours. They took him off the really good stuff, and after the X-rays and a few more conversations, they told him he could go home. That meant he hobbled off in search of Shaw’s room, which was—big surprise—a private room, even though North had shared his with a heavyset man on a CPAP machine. Shaw’s parents were already there. Wilson fixed him with a look that should have burned North to cinders. Phoebe stood and walked out of the room, her whole body stiff as she passed North. Shaw looked ten years older, pale and thin and hooked up to a dozen machines. The hospital johnnie had slipped sideways on him, and North wanted to straighten it.
“You can have a few minutes,” Wilson finally said. “And then we’d like time with our son alone.”
“Thank you,” North said.
He hung his head as Wilson passed. Then he sat in the chair Phoebe had abandoned. He took Shaw’s hand. He closed his eyes and listened to the machines until Wilson Aldrich cleared his throat, and North had to leave. He checked on his dad, who was in the same hospital but who had stepped down from critical care to a regular medical floor. David McKinney was meaner than hell, which meant he was going to recover. When North tried to leave the first time, his dad pulled him into a hug; North couldn’t remember the last time his dad had hugged him, so he sat and stayed until his father slept.