Orchard Grove

by Vincent Zandri

  “Well if it isn’t my friends, Hollywood and Suzy Q,” he barked. “So who wants to get naked first?”

  One thing quickly became evident: drunk as a skunk or not, John could be tamed. At least, for a brief time anyway. And, not surprisingly, the tamer of the beast was Lana. She immediately took him by the arm, led him back inside the house where she proceeded to speak with him. I can’t be certain the words exchanged between them, or if John even said anything at all. But all I know is that when he returned to the deck, he’d washed his face, straightened out his shirt, and seemed far less aggressive and insulting in manner. He’d even removed his sidearm which took me completely by surprise since I could only assume it was biologically attached. In a word, he seemed suddenly to be acting on his best behavior. Naturally, his sudden attitude adjustment, temporary or not, made the task I was about to perform all the more difficult to contemplate.

  He popped the top on a tall-necked beer and took a seat at the table while Lana and Susan did the grilling. I was thankful that we didn’t attempt to shake hands or come too close to one another. After all, the palms of my hands were sweating, and my heart was beating so loudly I couldn’t believe no one else heard it. I needed to get this over with. Do it now.

  While the steaks roasted, I made my move.

  “You know, John,” I said. “I very much admire you.”

  He drank some beer and issued me a slanty-eyed look like, You’ve got to be kidding me.

  “Must be because of the wife,” he said.

  I laughed, trying my damnedest to be convincing.

  “Oh, you got me there, John,” I said, masking the fear in my voice. “But I was talking more along the lines of your occupation. You know, I write about cops in my scripts.”

  He shook his head, rolled his eyes. “TV and movie guys like you always get it wrong, Hollywood. Like I said before, you never get your facts straight.”

  Lana snuck a look at me over her shoulder from where she was standing at the grill with Susan. The look told me I was doing great, baiting John perfectly.

  “Facts,” I repeated. “How do you mean, John?”

  “I mean you guys have no idea about police standard operating procedure. You always get it wrong. You arrest guys without reading them their Miranda’s. You put a homicide dick in charge of a drug bust. You conduct high-speed chases in quaint suburban puckered ass neighborhoods like Orchard Grove. And then the next thing you know you’re winning some prestigious award like an Oscar or sticking your hands in wet concrete outside the TLC Chinese Theater. It just doesn’t go down like that in real life, Hollywood.”

  He drank down the rest of his beer, set the empty onto the table. He got up, retrieved another one, sat back down.

  “Well, believe me when I say I admire what you do, John,” I said. “Putting your life on the line day in and day out. It not only takes firepower. It takes guts. Real guts.”

  “Gee, thanks, Hollywood,” he said, his words slurring some. “How very white and neighborly of you to say so. Remind me to make your wife do things to my wife at gunpoint more often. Brings out the real pussy in you.”

  The old John was back and I was somehow happy for it. He laughed out loud like he’d just issued the most hysterical quip of his life. It was something a big bully would bark at the littlest guy on the playground. I was glad he said it though. Because that’s when the fear and anxiety exited my body like an exorcised demon, leaving only the desire to see him dead.

  “It’s okay, John,” I said. “I know you like to play rough. That’s understandable. No hard feelings.”

  “No hard feelings?” he said. “Like for realz?”

  “For realz,” I said.

  “Bullshit,” he said. “But then, I’d do it again in an instant. Maybe even tonight.”

  He tossed Susan and Lana a look like he was about to sink his fangs into the both of them. As for me, I just wanted him dead already.

  The girls stood by the grill, drinking glass after glass of red wine, laughing and flirting with one another as if they were the oldest friends on earth. What in God’s name was happening here? My brain was spinning with worry, anger, and the desperation I still felt for both women, especially Lana. For a woman who had only hours to live, that is I didn’t pull through with our plan to beat John to the death punch, she seemed relieved and worry free.

  I stole a look at Lana and Susan where they stood before the cooker grilling the red meat. Rubbing one another’s backs, planting little kisses on one another’s lips. I felt such an extreme need for both women that I knew I couldn’t possibly live without them. Maybe I was scared to death of what I was about to do to John, but I wanted to be with them right now, on the deck. I had to have their bodies all to myself. The sooner I could accomplish that, the better. My need for them was outweighed only my by hatred for John. Maybe the devil or one of his angels had somehow taken up residence inside of me, or maybe he hadn’t. In the final analysis, I knew the results were the same. I needed to remove John from the equation. Do it fast.

  “So where were we, John?” I said, bringing the beer to my lips, drinking.

  “We were discussing how you film writers screw up everything.” He raised both his hands, made pretend quotation marks with his fingers when he said “film writers.”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I could use some help with.”

  “Oh you will, will you, Hollywood?” he said, lifting up his hand, bitch-slapping the air with it, as if it were my face.

  “I need to know about guns,” I said. “My knowledge comes only from books and the Internet. Now if I were to have access to some real guns, and an expert like yourself to tell me all about them, that might make a real difference in my work.”

  Lana turned so quick I could practically feel the breeze blowing off her.

  “Why don’t you take Ethan inside, darling, show him your collection?” she said, a broad smile plastered on her face. A smile that looked and felt as natural as the waning sun.

  He drank some beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while rolling his eyes.

  “I don’t show many people my collection,” he said. “Hollywood types especially.”

  “Come on, honey,” Lana pressed. “Dinner won’t be ready for a half hour, and Susan and I would love some girl-on-girl time.” She took hold of Susan’s hand. Meanwhile my wife moved in closer to her, pressing herself against Lana’s side.

  “Girls will be girls,” John said, as he stood back up, a bit unsteady. Then, his eyes shifting from me to the wood deck. “What is that stuff?” he said. “That blood?”

  I stood up, adjusted my crutches. Looking down at my foot I could see that the blood on the sock was fresh.

  “My apologies,” I said. “Can’t seem to stem the flow.”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, don’t bleed on anything in my house,” he said. “Blood’s a bitch to get out. Take it from a cop.” Then, opening the screen door. “Follow me and don’t forget to bring your crutches, Tiny Tim.”

  “Right behind you, Detective Cattivo,” I said in my best imitation Boy Scout.

  His gunroom seemed a million miles away from the spot in which Lana and I stood this morning. It even smelled fresh, like it had just been Febrezed. I made sure to feign an expression of absolute awe as soon as I stood stone stiff inside the open door frame, as if this were the very first time I’d been exposed to his collection of firearms.

  “You see these weapons, Hollywood?” John said, waving his hand at the many pistols, automatics, and machineguns on display in the light-up cases. “I love them more than my wife.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “With all my frozen heart. Truth is, I’m not sure what it is exactly that I carry for Lana. It’s not love, I can tell you that. It’s more like a need, or a thirst I just can’t quench no matter how many trips I take to the well.” He pursed his lips, shook his hand, like he’d been struggling with the issue for years. “It’s the sam
e way a lot of people end up feeling about her.”

  Jesus H, I thought. Was this son of bitch actually opening up to me? Bearing his soul now that we were alone in his special room filled with one hundred different ways to die by gunshot? I looked at his round face, into his bloodshot eyes, and I nodded. Because in a small way he was taking the words right out of my own mouth. Susan’s too. But that didn’t make him a good person. It made him even weaker. A weak man who physically abused his wife.

  “I see the way you look at her, big shot,” he said. “I see the way your wife looks at her too. Saw the way she felt about swapping spit with her, and believe me, that gun I was pointing at her was only a prop, a sex toy, and an unnecessary one at that. You know it and I know it.”

  My pulse picked up. It’s no surprise he was on to me… to us. But this was the first time he’d decided to get it all out in the open.

  “Let me guess,” he went on, his face turning pale, “you’ve already fucked her.”

  My spine felt injected with ice water. I was standing in the doorway of a room filled with guns and he was accusing me of having sex with his wife, and he was right. But then, like a switch had gone off in his brain, he burst out laughing, slapping me on the shoulder so hard I thought the crutch might pop out from under me.

  Lifting my hand, I wiped the beaded sweat from my brow.

  “Don’t piss yourself, Hollywood,” he said, as he pulled a key from his pants pocket. “If I had a dime for everybody, man and female, who’s nailed my wife since I made the mistake of marrying her, I wouldn’t be living on Orchard Grove, trust me. I’d me living on a mansion on the beach in the Caribbean.” He exhaled. “But I’ve learned to get used to it, enjoy it even. Sometimes I get a kick out of watching her bed down with other people. But not you, Hollywood. So don’t get any ideas.”

  His partner Carl came immediately to mind. My guess is he would not have enjoyed watching him get it on with Lana anymore than he’d enjoy watching me. Not if he was planning on killing her for it. My guess is he loved Lana as much as he hated her, and the conflicting emotions were driving him insane. Driving him to murder. But then what the hell was I doing? Why was I so willing to be a part of a plot to commit murder for a woman who obviously had real issues when it came to fidelity? Maybe I was just as insane as John.

  Maybe I should have stopped what I was doing right there and then. Cancelled the plan I conjured with Lana. If I were a sane man, I should have quickly added it all up in my brain and called our plan (let’s be clear about this: Our collective plan) to assassinate John quits right there and then. I should have walked, or crutched, my way out of the house altogether, grabbed Susan by the arm and demanded that we head home and never speak with the Cattivo’s again. If I weren’t a crazy man at that point, I would have closed up the house, and got us the hell away from Orchard Grove as fast as possible.

  But I didn’t move from that gunroom doorway, precisely because I could not physically get myself to do it. It was the obsession inside me, controlling me, speaking for me. I was over the top crazy. Not common sense, not my sense of right and wrong, not my ever-wavering belief in heaven for good people and hell for bad, could dissuade me from taking control of John’s fate. Of playing God with his life and death. Of killing him at the roots once and forever. I wanted to do what Lana wanted me to do, and I wanted revenge for his pressing a loaded automatic against Susan’s head, and I wanted to kill him right this second, even if hell fire awaited me when they laid my coffin in the cold, cold ground.

  My heart pounded. My mouth went dry. My brain buzzed and my temples pounded. My Judas moment had arrived. It was now or never.

  “Excuse me, John,” I said, pointing to the agreed upon pistol, “that’s a Colt. 45 Model 1911, if I’m not mistaken. It’s the exact make and model that the main character in my new script… a hell of a good detective like you… carries with him into the mean streets of Albany. I’ve never touched one in real life and if it’s okay with you, I’d like to finally enjoy the opportunity.”

  He turned to me. “You get paid a God-forsaken amount of money for writing stupid stuff that includes idiots with guns and you’ve never actually handled a firearm up close and personal? Doesn’t seem right. But then, I’m not the least bit surprised, Hollywood.”

  “Hey,” I said, “you know what they say, John. Some shit you just can’t make up.”

  “No truer words,” he said, unlocking the case, pulling the Colt .45 off the wall. “Here you go. Don’t hurt yourself.”

  Won’t be me who gets hurt…

  He reached over to where I was propped up by my crutches in the open doorway, handing me the weapon. I felt its solid weight and its power. Raising it up, I planted a bead on the big oak tree that stood directly outside the slider window behind his wood desk. I closed the lid on my left eye, bit down on my bottom lip, like some excitable boy who’d stumbled upon his dad’s gun and now was about to shoot a squirrel off one of the green leafy branches.

  But then I slowly retracted my shooting hand and began to do something else. Inverting the barrel, I opened my mouth and brought the barrel to within inches of it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he said, snatching the gun out of my hand.

  “Oh, my bad,” I said, not without a faux giggle. “You see, John, in the screenplay I’m working on now, my police detective finally dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the roof of his mouth. I believe officers of the law refer to the sad action as, ‘Eating your piece.’”

  He gripped the Colt, its barrel aimed safely at the floor.

  “That’s right,” he said, not without a profound exhale. “And it’s the only honorable way for a good cop to go out if suicide becomes the only option.”

  My face began to beam. I looked one way and then the other, as if I were making sure I wasn’t being watched or overheard.

  “John,” I said, “would you mind doing me a favor? Would you demonstrate for me how exactly one goes about eating one’s piece?”

  “You serious?” He looked at me with a crooked grin, eyelids at half-mast.

  “Dead serious,” I pressed. “I have a script to finish and I positively need to get it right or my producer is going to drop me on my ass. And I soooo need this gig, bad. Need the dough-rei-mi.”

  “Pot patch casheshe isn’t cutting it, huh?”

  I shook my head, sadly. “You’re like Mister Supercop, John. You know so much and I know so little. I want to observe an expert in action, even if he’s only acting the part.” My face lit up. “And hey, if my new script gets produced out in Hollywood, I’ll have you hired on as an expert consultant. They pay ten large per week for that shit.”

  His eyes went wide. “Think you could get me a part? Like for real? Beside Bruce Willis maybe. Or Stallone. He’s a bad ass mofo.”

  I nodded, emphatically, crossed my hand over my heart. “With your good looks and solid steel frame, I know I could.”

  He cocked his head and smiled tightly, proudly, hopefully, his gray-white teeth grinding together at the promise of the Hollywood screen. I barely knew him, but I’d never seen him so happy. So encouraged. So looking forward to the future.

  “Looks like it’s time you saw the expert in action,” he said. “Even if I do think you’re kind of a pussy, Hollywood.”

  “I believe it is and I’m not really all that much of a pussy.” Then, “Quickly, John, before the girls come in and ruin our fun.” Bringing my hands together, making like a camera with my thumbs extended horizontally, fingers standing vertically at attention. “Action!” I said.

  “First of all,” he said, “you want to be sitting down for this, so that you’re perfectly steady, and comfortable.”

  He settled himself into the swivel chair behind his desk, making a show of relaxing his shoulders, like he was already an expert at preparing himself for suicide. It dawned on me then that it was possible he’d not only contemplated the act, but that he’d even gone so far as to attempt it on more than one occas
ion. Without actually pulling the trigger, that is. I recalled Lana telling me that he’d demonstrated the act previously on numerous occasions before his friends, omitting the little part about the gun not being loaded.

  “Once you’re comfortable,” he continued, the teacher to the student or, in this case, the actor to the camera, “you pick up the piece with your right hand, if you’re right handed, which in my case, I am.” He grabbed hold of the Colt, the barrel held at a sixty-five degree angle to the floor. “Then you cock a round into the chamber, like this.”

  It hit me then that there was the possibility of his catching the round entering into the chamber either by sight or by sound or both. Sure he was plastered, but I decided to distract him anyway, just to be sure. As he pulled back on the slide, cocking the gun, I dropped a crutch so that it fell from the doorway into the room. His eyes automatically shifted to me and the fallen crutch as the noise from the mechanical metal-workings on the Colt. 45 filled the small room. It sounded almost pleasant. Solid, well-oiled craftsmanship in action even on a weapon that was more than one hundred years old. I had to wonder then, while I awkwardly bent over to pick up my crutch and return it to under my arm, if Lana had fulfilled her end of the bargain. I had to believe that the sound of a single .45 caliber round entering the chamber did not register with him since he was already convinced the barrel was empty. Call it a matter of mind over bullets.

  I approached the desk, positioning myself only about a foot away from his profile. Then, making like a camera once more, I whispered, “Close up.”

  “Now that we’re locked and loaded, in theory,” he said, “you turn the gun around so that the barrel is facing you, the grip flipped over.” He did that too, turning the Colt upside down, so that his thumb rested on the trigger, and the inverted grip was held steady between his fingers. “You then open your mouth wide, allow the barrel to assume the position up against the soft roof of your mouth, just like this.” He opened his mouth wide, pressed the barrel against the upper palate. “And finally,” he said, his voice distorted and choked by the gun barrel, “you do the deed.”