Under-Heaven

by Tim Greaton

  “Harry Bennerman?”

  “Yep, the one and only. There was no wallet or ID on the body, but Wagner had a pretty impressive rap sheet, especially when he was younger. Prints were all over our database. Didn’t take them long to identify him.”

  “They say any of this to the caller?”

  “Guy on duty said ‘no,’ but I’m guessing they said enough that whoever called knows something’s up.”

  Clay’s mind was running at top speed. Wagner in Florida; Bennerman in Boston; Bluto makes a phone call to Florida; Bluto tells Bennerman―”

  “Jesus Christ, Conroy!”

  “You got the puzzle?”

  “I think Bennerman sent Wagner on an errand, maybe to pick up a load of blow or something down there in Florida. Something takes longer than planned, or Wagner just up and runs off with the product. Bennerman grabs his kid and tells him to get his ass back here with whatever-it-is or the kid dies.”

  Detective Conroy finished the progression for him, “You think the big guy just found out Wagner’s dead or in custody, so now Bennerman has no more use for the kid.”

  “We have to get in there!” Clay said. He could imagine Bluto pointing a gun in the boy’s face even as they spoke.

  “I need cause, Clay. I can’t get a goddamned judge to let me in there with what we’ve got.”

  Clay knew she was going to say that. He had always been a by-the-book cop himself, but he didn’t intend to let Jesse die on a technicality.

  “What if I threatened to go in there alone, without you?”

  “We might get just far enough in to arrest you or drag your dead body out, Clay. You know better than that.”

  “What about an anonymous tip?”

  “Saying?”

  “I’m a homeless guy that won’t give his name, but I saw a big guy drag a kid into the tire warehouse.”

  “Not enough. Too vague, only one testimony.”

  “How about if you also add that Clay Gromkis has reported multiple suspicions about the same location.”

  Detective Patricia Conroy grunted.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, that might do it.”

  “You need the homeless guy to call you back from another line?”

  “No. They won’t check me on this unless Bennerman turns up clean and sues the pants off us. If that’s the case, none of this will stand up anyway. How sure are you?”

  Clay thought about it. This was exactly the sort of thing he never did when he was a policeman, and now he was asking this detective to make up false evidence in order to get a search warrant. But everything added up. It felt right. He could see Harry Bennerman’s expression of relief when they had first parted. He saw the Bluto look-alike, the black car, a call to Florida, Wagner’s death, and finally he pictured Bluto pointing the gun at the Jesse’s forehead—

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll have someone get a search warrant and we’ll meet you at the warehouse. How’s twenty-five minutes sound?”

  “Maybe too long,” Clay said, “but if that’s the best you can do….”

  “Quicker if we can. You think four units is enough?”

  “Detective, I’d swing anyone that’s free over here, just to be safe.”

  “Maybe six, then,” she said. “See you in fifteen or twenty.”

  The phone went dead.

  Clay sat staring at the large building. He imagined that even now the brute would be on the phone with Bennerman, telling him that his marionette Wagner was in trouble or worse. Bennerman’s first thought would be to dump the evidence, in this case the kid’s body. Clay just hoped the boy was still alive, but he couldn’t get the vision of a gun being pointed at Jesse Largess out of his head.

  He had to do something, even if it meant putting himself at risk with the law. He didn’t know what Patricia Conroy would think if she found him already inside when she got there, but given that or a dead child, Clay was willing to take his chances.

  He opened the door and got out of the rented Toyota. Watching the building closely, he slid a full clip into his 9mm Beretta pistol then strode across the street.

  26

  In the Balance

  Everyone else was gone and I had already said goodbye to my sister at the pool when I approached the door to Uncle Finneus’ basement. I had only been down there once, but that was enough to know if my uncle had decided not to be found it would take hours to search the entire area. Even so, I resigned myself to try.

  I opened the door.

  There sat my uncle, gray suit and pinstripes, on the top step, his back to me. His head was leaning into his hands. I didn’t know if it was my imagination, but the material of his suit looked even lighter than it had a few days ago.

  “Uncle Finneus?” I said.

  Slowly, as though turning on a rusty bearing, his head came around.

  “Young Nathaniel,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically weak. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn he had been wearing mascara. Black streaks extended from his eyes down to his chin. He had been crying.

  “I’ve been looking for you, Uncle Finneus,” I said. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

  “Let me come up out of this dank hole,” Uncle Finneus said, “so we can have a proper parting.”

  “I know by leaving here I’m forcing you to go back…down there,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  My Uncle smiled, and it looked genuine.

  “That’s my boy Nathaniel, isn’t it? He’s making big decisions about what to do with his own future but still concerns himself with how it will affect one dark, old man.”

  “You’re not old,” I told him with an impish grin. I remembered how he had made that same declaration the day I met him. He hadn’t wanted me to call him “grandfather” because it made him sound too old.

  “I’m proud of you, Nathaniel,” he told me. “When you died that day, I was horrified for you and your family. We see some terrible things down below, but seeing what it did to your soul, that was the hardest part. Then you got up here and worked through all that. Just like a champ, you came out all right. Those people on Earth are lucky to have you going back with them.”

  I hugged him and was so thankful that all my ridiculous fears about him and our relationship had proven false. Of all my relatives, he was the one I had spent the most time with. I had grown to love my Uncle Finneus for all the things that he was and wasn’t. It seemed to me, of everyone I had met since arriving in Under-Heaven, my uncle was the closest to still being human. Lord knew he had his faults, but he had his good points, too. Even if I didn’t remember him in my new life, I knew that on some level my soul would miss him.

  “I love you, Uncle.”

  It seemed he completely forgot about his own comfort zone as he drew me tightly into his embrace. For the longest time, we stayed like that. When we parted, it didn’t feel as though either of us wanted it to be over.

  “What will happen to you, Uncle Finneus?” I asked him. I half-expected his chest to puff out and his bravado smile to appear, but neither happened.

  “It’s not pleasant down there, Nathaniel,” he said, his face somber, “but with a little wit and some luck you can be reasonably comfortable. I have the wit and usually have the luck, so I should be fine.”

  “Will I ever see you again?” I asked, even though I feared the answer.

  This time I got the bravado smile.

  “They couldn’t keep me down the first couple of times,” he added, “so there’s no reason to think they’ll be any more successful the next time around. We’ll see each other again, and when we do I intend to pound you to smithereens on the chessboard.”

  We hugged again. As I stepped away, he disappeared.

  Clay crept along the edge of the building and peered through Harry’s office window blinds. The overhead lights in the small room were on, revealing it to be empty and the door to the warehouse beyond to be closed. He hoped the closed door would be enough to smother the noise he was about to m
ake.

  As expected, the window was locked. He slipped his jacket off and draped it across the glass. With the butt of his pistol, he tapped the pane gently in the corner through his jacket and heard a satisfying but mercifully quiet crack. He took his jacket down and pulled the loose glass shards out of the window frame. Unfortunately, the resulting hole wasn’t large enough to reach his arm through. Knowing how risky it was, he placed the jacket over the glass and tapped again. This time, the entire window exploded inward. Definitely not the quiet result he had hoped for.

  Clay used his elbow to break the worst of the glass shards away. Then, placing his jacket over the remaining jagged pieces, he pulled himself up and into the room. He left his glass-littered jacket on one of the chairs as he crept over to the door. So far, there was only silence.

  Bluto, where are you?

  In one way, Clay hoped he had heard the breaking glass. If the big man were investigating the noise coming from the office, he couldn’t be off someplace else killing the child. Right then, Jesse Largess’ safety was the only thing Clay could think about. Already, it seemed possible the boy could be dead. Clay blocked that thought from his mind.

  Turning off the office light first, he listened against the warehouse door then gently turned the knob. The door creaked only slightly as he eased it open. The warehouse was dimly lit with a pair of fluorescent lights hanging every twenty five feet or so. Bluto was nowhere to be seen. Clay slipped out into the main warehouse and closed the office door quietly behind him.

  What now?

  He could hear the sounds of a furnace from somewhere down below, but something else, too. He got down on his hands and knees and pressed an ear to the floorboards.

  “Jesus, Harry,” he heard faintly through the floor. “I …fucking responsibility …you …I don’t …if you want, but …what if he doesn’t …maybe …money …shit …body.”

  Though fragmented, the one-sided bits of conversation gave Clay a ray of hope. First of all, Harry couldn’t have been in the building if he was on the other end of the phone—and one criminal was always easier to deal with than two. But the most optimistic thing Clay picked up was that something serious was still going on. He hoped it meant that the child was still alive. It might also have meant he was already dead and they were discussing who was going to get rid of the body, but Clay didn’t even want to consider that.

  Knowing he had to find a way to the room below him, Clay slipped off his cowboy boots, held them in one hand, and went in search of stairs. About a hundred feet down the aisle, toward the back of the building, he was rewarded by a wide set of stairs that went down about four feet, stopped at a platform, then turned and went further down. The stairway was dark, and though Clay had a flashlight, turning it on would have been announcing his presence. His amateur entrance had been bad enough.

  It was pitch black at the bottom of the stairs, but he could feel concrete through his stocking feet so he slipped his boots back on. Though silence was important, mobility would be more important when the action began. Clay placed his free hand against a brick wall and moved slowly along it.

  Jesse had been drifting in and out of consciousness so much that he found it hard to tell dreams from reality. At one point, his father appeared, all dressed in a spiffy, black suit and explaining that he had found a new place to live with lots of nice people. But then that dream had been replaced by one with the big bear-like man switching a light on and nearly blinding Jesse.

  “Jesus, you’re a mess,” the man had said and pointed his gun at Jesse’s head. It would almost have been a relief to hear the shot of the gun, but nothing happened. Before Jesse knew it, the man turned into his father and left the room, flipping the light off as he went.

  Only a short time later, Jesse heard quiet footsteps passing outside his cell. The big man stomped like an elephant, but whoever this was seemed slower and quieter.

  “Dad?” Jesse croaked in a low whisper. He could barely open his mouth. As he spoke he could feel the skin at corners of his mouth crack where his upper and lower lips met. He thought it might be dried blood.

  The footsteps stopped.

  “Dad?” he said again. Was this still a dream?

  The boy’s raspy voice was more like a plea from the grave than a call for help. Clay’s heart went out to Jesse. He listened intently at the wooden door but there was no sound of movement or of another voice.

  “Dad?”

  Clay debated whether it was safe to say anything, but it seemed best to reassure the boy.

  “Jesse,” he whispered, “I’m here to help you. Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah,” the young voice came, stronger this time. That was a good sign.

  “You need to talk softly, Jesse, okay?”

  “Okay.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  “My name is Clay Gromkis,” he whispered, placing his mouth up near the door. “And I used to be a cop. Now I help missing children, children like you. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Besides this door, is there any other way in or out of the room you’re in?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know how many people are in the building?”

  “No, but I only ever see one.”

  “A big man who looks like Bluto?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which way does he go when he walks away from you?”

  There was a pause, and it occurred to Clay that a five-year-old might not yet know the difference between right and left. He was debating how he could explain it to him when Jesse said, “To the left, from the way you came.”

  Clay froze. Had he walked right past the guy? Was there a gun pointed at his back at that very moment?

  Jesse heard sirens. At first they were distant but then they got closer until it sounded like dozens of police cars were close by. He could hear the man on the other side of the door breathing. It seemed impossible to imagine, but maybe he was going to make it out alive.

  As he heard the sounds of wood breaking somewhere on the floor above him, he had only one thought.

  I hope my dad’s okay.

  Clay was both relieved and terrified when he heard the sirens. A moment of panic could send a criminal into a violent frenzy and he could easily imagine that hulk of a man charging down the hallway with a machine gun on steady fire. All Clay could do was to kneel down and keep his gun at the ready. He had considered shooting off the padlock on Jesse’s prison, but the noise would have given him away. Besides, the boy was probably safer inside than outside at the moment. The only way Bluto was getting through that door again would be over Clay’s dead body. Until local police arrived, it was the best protection he could offer.

  Suddenly, there was a crash up above as the police broke down the door to the warehouse. Clay could hear dozens of pairs of feet charging up and down the warehouse aisles. The academies taught officers to run in patterns: run a few feet, stop in a defensive position, reconnoiter then run another few feet before repeating the process. It sounded almost like a rhythmic dance as the teams of policemen moved further and further through the building, Clay held his breath.

  What would Bluto do when he heard them on the stairs?

  Clay kept his flashlight and gun hands locked together and ready to aim. At the slightest provocation, he intended to switch the light on and begin firing.

  “The police are almost here,” he whispered to Jesse. “I’m going to stay right here until they arrive, okay.”

  “Okay,” came the soft response; followed by, “Thank you.”

  Moments later, boots struck the stairway and flashlights darted back and forth in the distance. At any second, Clay expected Bluto to storm out of some dark hiding place and begin killing people, but it never happened. Several lights were bobbing down the stairs. Then, suddenly, he was flooded with bright light.

  Clay dropped his gun and flashlight.

  “I’m a cop,” he exaggerated, holding his now empty hands up and blinking against the g
lare. It seemed an unimportant lie, measured against the chance that some hyped up policemen might shoot anyone but another policeman.

  “I found Jesse Largess. He’s in the room behind me.”

  There was a large commotion coming from the other end of the hallway. It sounded as though they had found Bluto. No shots had been fired. The boy was safe.

  Jesse’s mother was dressed in an attractive blue blouse with a ruffled white skirt when Clay entered the hospital room. Though she still had that weathered look about her, the happy relief had lifted at least ten years from her face. Her smile was warm and genuine.

  “Mr. Gromkis, I know I’ve already said this, but thank you so much for everything. I really thought I’d lost him.”

  Clay looked over at Jesse in his hospital bed. Most of his face and hands were wrapped in gauze bandages, and a plastic brace was pressed against his chin. He appeared to be sleeping.

  “How is he, Mrs. Largess?”

  She motioned for them to step outside the room. Once in the hallway, she said, “Just Karen, please.”

  Clay nodded.

  Though she seemed to fight it, the smile slipped from her face.

  “Jesse’s jaw was broken in two places, and the doctor says one of the fractures extended up into his forehead. Fortunately, his skull only cracked and didn’t actually break into pieces. It looks like it will heal without any plates or screws. He’ll be in here a while and then laid up in bed at home for three or four months, but the doctor says he’ll ultimately be fine.”

  “I’m glad,” Clay said. “But I’m sorry about your husband. I’ve never been married, but I imagine it must be difficult.”

  Tears welled at the corners of her eyes, but she wiped them away.

  “Wagner was going to die from his drugs anyway. I loved him once, but that ended a long time ago. Unfortunately, Jesse still loved him, so that’s going to be tough.” Her lips quivered and the tears she’d been fighting began to flow.