Heartbalm
Page 29
“Not in so many words, but she didn’t have to. A woman can sense these things. I can see it all now: she’ll be Lana Turner to my Linda Darnell.”
“What about Drey and Tyranno? Why’d you kill them?”
“You’re so thick sometimes, Johnny. Every time you went out, you no sooner left the cabin I’d take off on Snug’s bike half a minute later, take the scenic route and still beat you to the office. I listened to all your messages and read your emails, too. Didn’t you even notice the flashing light was off on the answering machine?”
“I thought it went off after I retrieved them on my Blackberry.”
“Those two chiselers thought they had the dope on you. I couldn’t very well let two cheap shakedown artists clean you out of all that money, now could I? What were Diane and I supposed to live on after I killed you?”
“All what money?”
“Don’t try and kid me, Johnny. Lawyers are always rich. The way I had it figured, you’re bound to have a lot of dough stashed somewhere. Otherwise, why would those two crooks bother?”
Were the Belleville cops dumb enough to use the red lights and siren? Had Tatiana and the other kids made it to safety? Thinking we’d live forever, I hadn’t prepared wills for Diane and me to designate guardians for the children in the event we both died. The only thing to do was to keep Heart talking.
“You think Diane will still love you after you murder all four of her children?”
A faraway look came over Heart, a zombie-like death mask of an expression I had never seen in her before. I searched for a point of reference. Finally it came to me.
She looked exactly like Little Eve there on the porch that morning, just before she ran from me: wary, terrified, paralyzed by fear and unspeakable realization.
In a sleepy little-girl voice Heart spoke softly, as though repeating an incantation by rote, an incantation heard long ago through a fog of tortured memory. “They’re no good to him. The boys are no good. He doesn’t go for boys.”
“Who are you talking about, Heart? The boys are no good for who?”
Heart was in no shape to correct my grammar. “The girls are too old. Eleven’s too old. Ten is good, but seven’s better. Lucky seven. Fucky seven. Seven cum eleven, go to Heaven.”
“Why’d you kill Ruth, Heart?”
“She was giving you titty. She wasn’t supposed to give that to anybody except my Daddy. And she let you ride her like a horsie.”
Heart still had the automatic trained against my head, but seemed no longer aware of it in her hand. Still, I didn’t want to take the chance of being wrong. As it turned out, I didn’t have to.
“You like horsies?”
Heart’s face brightened. She lowered the pistol and turned toward Grimm’s voice. He stepped from behind the bedroom drapes.
“I know where there’s horsies that let little girls like you ride on their backs,” he said, nodding and smiling encouragement to her.
“Where? Where?” Heart said, eager as a child.
“Somewhere close,” Grimm said, edging nearer. “Ever feed a horsie a carrot?”
“No. Oh, could I? Could I?”
“It just so happens I got me some carrots out in the car. Fresh, juicy carrots, the kind horsies eat right out of a little girl’s hand. Wanna see?”
“Yes! Show me!”
“Horsies don’t like guns, though. Horsies are afraid of guns.”
“They are?”
“Oh, yeah. They’ll run away first thing if they see a gun. Better let me take it and hide it in the trunk for you while we go see the horsies.”
“Okay.” Heart readily handed the automatic over to Grimm, who slipped it into his coat pocket. “Now can we go see the horsies?”
“Sure,” he said. “The place I’m taking you to, you’re gonna like it there. They got more horsies than they know what to do with.” Heart, enthralled, walked with Grimm hand-in-hand out the sliding door and onto the deck. I watched him tenderly place her in the cruiser and slam the door shut.
I ran to Diane and cut away her bonds with sewing scissors. We hugged each other wordlessly. The bedside phone rang: it was Grimm.
“Sorry to catch the missus indisposed,” he said.
“Under the circumstances, neither of us minded.”
“Anyhow, I averted my eyes.”
“You showed up just in time to save us from a very scary psychotic woman. We’re grateful to you. I hope they can keep her confined.”
“No sweat there,” he said. “Mudge’s replacement’ll call in that dothead shrink to go over her as soon as she’s been arraigned. Doesn’t take a legal genius to flag this one unfit to stand trial. And once ballistics ties that automatic of hers to the string of murders she’s pulled, we’ll have our serial killer. I figure her for a long-term stay up at Alton State.”
“She hid it pretty well, at least from me.”
“See, that’s the thing: you were blinded by lust, like your priest keeps trying to tell you, Counselor. Try listening next time.”
“Hold on.” I ducked into the master bath and closed the door before continuing in a whisper tinged with righteous indignation, “This from a guy who won every pot in a circle jerk? A guy who put me on a mailing list for men-only jackoff parties?”
“Here’s how it is, Ricky: lust is no different than booze. It’s not for everybody. Some guys can drink responsibly with no problems, just like some guys—me, for example—can manage their lust. Other guys, guys like you for instance, you have to keep your mind off lust altogether. Otherwise you can’t handle it, same as a guy who can’t hold his liquor. That’s one thing I’ve learned after twenty-four years in law enforcement.”
“I’ll give it some serious thought,” I said. And I meant it.
“Your kids are safe over at the neighbors. You want my advice, let them spend the night there. You was to ask me, you and your old lady need a little time to get reacquainted.” When I didn’t say anything he added, “Play it by ear, Counselor. No matter what went on in the past, two decent people with a history like yours can stay together if they really want to.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. I mean it.”
“Why they pay me the big bucks,” he said. I could hear the casual shrug of his shoulders in his remark. As he was hanging up I thought I overheard him say something about horsies.
Diane and I held each other in silence. Waiting for morning.
Maybe three months passed before I found the time to visit my former sponsor Kevin up at Happy Meadows. In the meantime I had found a new sponsor: Stan. During my hiatus from the meetings he’d managed to wean himself off the glory hole trip. I admired his determination.
Happy Meadows looked like a day camp for adults on serious medication. Kevin and I strolled along a sunny path until we found a park bench where we could sit and feed the squirrels.
“How’s it going, Kevin?”
“About average. They elected me resident advisor of my cottage. Kind of an honorary thing.”
“Congratulations. How you getting along with the staff?”
“Pretty damn good. There’s this one guy, Hal? He’s kind of a lay preacher as well as an orderly.”
“This Hal seems to be helping you out, then?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s down on the Cat Lickers more’n I am. We just set and talk, man-to-man, about life and that. Spiritual shit. He’s one hell of a lot nicer than them defrocked ass fuckers they got back in Belleville. You know one of the things he says that I particularly like?”
“No. Tell me.”
“He says ‘God is not a thug.’ Want to know another thing he says? This one’s good. He says too many people, when they pray to Christ and His Blessed Mother? It’s like they was talking to the parole board, instead of, you know, family and that. That fuckin’ Hal, boy, he sure could teach them Cat Lickers a thing or two.”
“‘God is not a thug,’” I repeated. “Hmm. I like that.”
“So how are you and your old lady getting along these
days?”
“We’re kind of taking it one day at a time, Kevin. There are good days and bad days, but all in all, I think the good days are gaining on us.”
“See what I mean? If God was a thug like most people believe, do you think he’d have given guys like you and me another chance after all we done?”
“I guess not, Kevin. Maybe this Hal guy is onto something. I wonder if he could settle a bet for me.”
“What’s that?”
“My parish priest tells me that any man who entertains a lustful thought takes fire in his bosom. Lieutenant Grimm on the other hand says that lust is like alcohol: some guys can take it or leave it, while others have to leave it alone entirely.”
“You know what I think, Ricky?”
“I’d love to know what you think, Kevin.”
“I think you go listening to a guy like Grimm, you’ll wind up with patches on your ass. Something tells me Hal would say the same thing.”
“Sounds like quite a guy. What’s he like, anyway?”
“He’s a big bastard, Hal. Looks like he could break you in half, he was to set his mind to it. But he’s gentle, you know? A gentle giant.”
“I’d like to meet him sometime.”
“No time like the present,” Kevin said, draping an elbow over the back of the bench and nodding behind him. “Here he comes now.”
From in back of us across the soft bluegrass lawn came Hal dressed in hospital whites. I had known him in another life as Harold “Snug” Robbins. He had grown out his hair and spiked it with mousse into porcupine quills.
“Ricky, meet Hal; Hal, Ricky.”
“Pleasure,” I said, not letting on we had already been formally introduced.
Snug’s grip threatened to rearrange my metacarpals. “You meet all kinds in a place like this,” he said.
“Isn’t that the truth? I understand from Kevin here that you’re quite the preacher, Hal.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t always. Here, let me show you something might interest you.” Snug reached inside his shirt and slid out a medallion hanging from a leather cord necklace. He rested it in his palm and leaned over me from behind so I could examine it closely.
A link of heavy chain, the kind of chain Snug used to wear as part of his biker gear. Only this particular link was different; there was a deformed thirty-eight slug welded into the metal.
“God saved my life one night. It was only when I woke up in a ditch with a welt on my chest instead of a bullet hole that I started listening to Him and living my life the way He wants me to.”
“It wasn’t me who shot you, Sn—Hal.”
“I know who it was. And I know why. She’s here, did you know that?”
“Heart is here?” The news amazed me. “How—how can she afford to stay here, first of all?”
“Who you guys talking about?” Kevin asked. “Am I missing something?”
“My wife,” Snug answered. He stared at the chain link and bullet as though meditating on a religious medal and then slipped the whole works back inside his shirt. “I make a little money working here,” he said. “It ain’t much, but then again it don’t cost me much to live on-campus. I help her out all I can with expenses. Don’t tell her, though.”
“Don’t tell her what?” Kevin demanded.
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
“I bet he talks to his wife about God, too, don’t you, Hal?” Kevin said. “You ever talk to her about God?”
“All the time.”
“What’s she say?” I asked.
“She tells me to shut my big yap.”
THE END
HEARTBALM, a novel by Malachi Stone
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Malachi Stone is a practicing attorney. He is the author of eleven novels and RUDE SCRAWLS, a book of short stories. All are available online.
CONJURER'S OATH
DEAD MAN'S ACT
DEVIL'S TOLL
GREEDY AS THE GRAVE
HARD BREAK
HEARTBALM
OZARK BANSHEE
PRIVATE SHOWINGS
SHARP FORCE TRAUMA
ST. AGNES' EVE
WICKED KING DICK
and
RUDE SCRAWLS
CONNECT WITH ME ONLINE:
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Malachi Stone
Email: mailto:thegenuinemalachistone@gmail.com
Be sure and listen to the FREE MP3 version of the first ten chapters of HEARTBALM performed by the author. Start here:
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