Two for Flinching

by Todd Morgan

  “Not for long.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Seriously, how is Erin working out?”

  “She’s an angel. I couldn’t get by without her. Any chance you can convince her to get her master’s? Maybe a doctorate?”

  “Only if you’re paying for it.”

  “Sounds like the girl is out of luck.”

  “You know what you could do?”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Find a woman. Sarah needs a mother.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  “Erin says she thinks you are seeing someone.”

  “Erin says lots of stuff.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “She’s not married is she?”

  “I’m…between women right now.”

  “Well, whatever you do, go against your natural instincts.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You always go for the blond with big tits and tiny waist, a little on the wild side. The kind that drinks bourbon and smokes cigarettes.”

  “Bourbon?”

  “Be honest, Beason, you’re type hasn’t worked out too well for you. Ever.”

  “Thanks, mom.”

  “Speaking of mom, have you seen her lately?”

  “It’s been a while. The last time, it didn’t go so well.”

  “Get over it. She’s still your mother—our mother. I’m way up in Huntsville and Gus is busy with work and the kids.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “Not from what I hear.”

  “I’m locking Erin in the basement.”

  “You don’t have a basement. I’m worried about dad. This is killing him.”

  “I’ll go visit her tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  “And I’ll tell her you’re doing porn on the internet.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “You’re the second person to call me an idiot today.”

  “That’s all?”

  “So far.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Why are you wearing a hat?”

  “Why does everybody keep asking me that?”

  “Because it makes you look like a moron. Even when you were a little kid worshipping the ground I walked on, you couldn’t pull it off.”

  “Thanks, Gus.”

  “No problem. That’s what brothers are for.” Gus pushed back from his desk. The desk was covered by diagrams and maps, road maps, geological surveys, others I couldn’t even begin to describe. “What’s going on?”

  “I got a call from your sister last night.”

  “Yeah. What did Lisa want?”

  “She wanted to give me a list of instructions.”

  “She’ll do that. What kind of instructions?”

  “About mom. When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Sunday.”

  “Sunday? I spent the afternoon with you Sunday.”

  “Uh huh. We went right after you left. Me, Tonya, dad and the kids.”

  “Why didn’t you ask I wanted to go?”

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t want to. I didn’t want to get into it with dad there. I figured it would upset him.”

  “Oh.” I felt a deep pang of guilt. Gus, busy with his job and kids had found the time to visit our mother and I had not. In a long time. “Well, I’m going over there now.”

  “Bully for you,” he said. “You here looking for a gold star or something?”

  I shook my head. “I guess I just wanted to know what to expect.”

  “About the same.” Gus rocked back in his chair and interlocked his fingers behind his head. “If you didn’t wait so long you wouldn’t need an update before you visit your mother.”

  “What I don’t need is a guilt trip. The time for that would have been last week. I told you I’m going today.”

  “What you need is a kick in the ass.”

  “You going to give it to me?”

  Gus grinned. “The last time didn’t work out too good.”

  “For either of us.”

  He laughed, shaking his head at the memory of us, him in his early twenties, me in my late teens, swinging at each other in the front yard. “How is the princess?”

  “Good. I just dropped her off at preschool.”

  “How is the search going for her new mother?”

  First dad, then Lisa, now Gus. I guess I should have been glad so many people cared. I wasn’t. “I didn’t know I was supposed to be on one.”

  Gus had his head tilted to the side, examining me. He suddenly shot forward in the chair. “You are such a fucking moron.”

  “What?”

  “You sat in Hannah Merriweather’s chair. That’s why you’re wearing that stupid hat.”

  “It’s Hannah Strange now. And she’s a highly respected hair dresser.”

  “Who said she wasn’t? Tonya goes to her every two weeks. But you…” He waved a finger at me. “You should have known better.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She hates your guts. With good reason.”

  “Hey—“

  “All Stella had to do was flash you that smile, bat those eyelashes, show a little leg and you dropped Hannah like a hot rock.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Biggest mistake of your life, little brother. Dumping an angel like Hannah for a ho like Stella.”

  Here we go again. “I did get Sarah out of it.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “I can tell she didn’t use a straight razor for those little hairs on the back of your neck.”

  My hand instinctively went back there. The skin felt smooth. “How can you tell that?”

  “Because you still have both your ears,” he explained. “You’re a true idiot, Beason.”

  “Why does everybody keep calling me that?”

  Gus gave me his dumbfounded look. “Because it’s true.”

  ***

  The wind had picked up, cutting through my bomber jacket. Low clouds raced across the sky, rain in the forecast. Another cold front on the way. I almost went to the office, but failed to find anything else I could do in the search for Amber. Or Stella. I had already been to the gym for a full workout, elliptical machine, weights, and the heavy bag. I had even lingered on the court, hopelessly throwing basketballs at the goal. I knew I was delaying the inevitable. That was the whole point of stopping by Gus’s office, maybe hoping he would talk me out of it. He hadn’t.

  I pulled the coat tighter, still unwilling to zip it up in case I needed to get to my gun in a hurry, and crossed the half empty parking lot. If the battery was dead, that would take some time and something might come up. The Jeep fired right up. I drove (slowly) across town and it took fifteen minutes to reach my destination.

  The Shady Grove Retirement Home was a single story complex, a flat U with two wings. The front part was the reception/office/community room. The living quarters occupied the two L’s. The right wing was home to retired men and women who didn’t need much care, able to get up and around, but no longer able to care of the family home. The left wing was for clients who needed more attention. Technically, it wasn’t a nursing home. Medicaid would pay for a nursing home, but the quality wasn’t the same. This place must be costing dad a fortune.

  The receptionist looked up from her desk as I came in. She was in her mid-forties, wearing pink scrubs. She had an air of patience about her. “Can I help you?”

  She would know Gus by sight, maybe by name. Dad wouldn’t need the tag to ask how her kids were. “Deloris Camp. She’s my mother.”

  “Oh. Do you know how to get to her room?”

  “Yes ma’am.” I walked through the community room. A half dozen people were sitting on couches watching the game show on the flat screen television. I continued to the left, down the hall. A few of the doors were open and I could see into the rooms, people lying listlessly on their beds. The right wing
had always been more lively, people walking up and down the halls, visiting with one another. This was only my second visit to the left wing.

  I tapped on the half-open door and pushed in. She was on her bed, in a pink nightgown, the television over the bureau dark.

  “Who are you?”

  The sight took my breath away. She had always been thin, a long and lean body type, had always taken great care to keep her hair colored. Now she was so thin as to be emaciated, her body twisted on the bed. Her once long hair was shorn short in an institutional cut, completely white. “It’s me, mom. Beason.”

  She shook her head. “Beason,” she snorted. “That boy of yours is gonna cause nothing but trouble.”

  “I’m Beason, momma.”

  “Winston, you’re gonna have to do something with him before he ends up in prison.”

  I gave up and sat in the overstuffed recliner next to her bed. “How you doing, mom?”

  A flash of her former self. “Can’t complain.” Deloris Camp could never complain, not even to her husband of over forty years. “You finish that job at the community center?”

  “It’s all done.”

  “I hope they don’t wait too long to pay us. You know how slow the city is.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She gave me a confused look before shaking it off. “Gus get his homework done before he went to play ball?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “I guess Lisa must be spreading her legs for that Braum boy.”

  I laughed. My mother had always been polite, kind, sweet, and gentle. Right up until you crossed her. “That boy might turn out to be a rocket scientist.”

  “And I’m going to be Miss America.”

  “You’ve got the looks for it.”

  She grinned, the right side of her face barely moving. “Oh, Winston. You’re just trying to get into my pants.”

  “Is it working?”

  She playfully slapped at my hand. “Beason kick anybody in the head at school?”

  “Not today.”

  “Praise God. You sure it’s a good idea to take him to all those karate classes?”

  “He’s going to get into fights anyway,” I said, “he might as well win.”

  Her hand rested on top of mine. “You think we can go to the boardwalk tomorrow?”

  The boardwalk had been torn down twenty years ago in favor of a riverfront development. “I don’t see why not.”

  “We haven’t done that in a long time.”

  “No.”

  “That will always be our place.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Our place.”

  Her eyes focused on a long ago memory. “You were so scared to ask me out on that first date—I thought you had a speech impediment. You borrowed your uncle’s car, washed it and everything. Took me to the drive-in and I thought you were going to get fresh.”

  I have to admit, it weirded me out talking to my mother as her husband. Her lover. But you do what you have to do and for whatever reason, she needed this. This escape. “You wish.”

  Another lopsided grin. “Maybe. Then when we got to the boardwalk, you were too afraid to hold my hand.”

  “You always intimidated me.” That much was true.

  “I’ll never forget that night. Our place.”

  I am a selfish person. I will admit that. The reason, though, why I didn’t visit my mother wasn’t because I didn’t love her, didn’t miss her. Nor was it because the last time I came she accused me of being one of the boys who kept rolling her yard and cursed me. It was because I did love her and wanted to remember her the way she was before the stroke took her mind and ravaged her body. I was afraid seeing her would push out the memories I had of her as a child, playing baseball with us, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, cheering at my tournaments and ball games, and leave me with the only picture of her on this bed.

  Her eyes were closed. I sat silent as she slept.

  I was wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Jeremiah is crossing the Rubicon.”

  “How many?”

  “Three. They will be there in ten. I will be there in fifteen.”

  ***

  My feet swung from the bed to the floor. I reached back and shook the sleeping form. “Wake up.”

  “Ugh,” she groaned. “Your niece isn’t home, remember?”

  “Wake up.”

  She rolled over, away from me. “I told you I would leave before Sarah got up.”

  I yanked the covers from her. Even in the current circumstances, I admired her bare back. Nice ass, too. “Madison, three men are on their way to kill me. Get up and meet me downstairs.”

  I pulled on my jeans, stuffed my feet into the sneakers, and pulled a sweatshirt over my head. Madison struggled from her sleep. “What? Huh? The hell is going on?”

  “Move. Downstairs.” I grabbed the .45, shoving it into my waistband and ran silently down the hall.

  Sarah slept with about a dozen blankets, most of them shoved to the side. I wrapped her in three, cradled her in my arms and padded down the stairs. Sarah did not stir.

  Madison was waiting for us in the foyer. Blondie, too, examining us in that cockeyed way of hers. Madison was visibly in that land between sleep and alert, not sure if this was some kind of bad dream. “Grab that leash and put it on the dog.”

  Madison stumbled for the leash. Blondie’s tail began thumping. “I still don’t understand.”

  “Later. You got your phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Call Steven and tell him to open his front door. Right fucking now.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police?”

  “No. By the time they get here, this will all be over. Call Steven.”

  The rain had eased. We ran across my yard and into the Noble’s. I kicked the door with my foot. Blondie started barking. I knew it was pointless to attempt to quiet her. The door swung open, Steven in his boxers rubbing sleep from his eyes. “The fuck is going on, Camp.”

  “You gotta bedroom I can put my daughter in?”

  “You should know.”

  I bit my tongue. I had been in Amber’s home exactly once—and then only to wait for her to shower. Violating a man’s wife was one thing—his home another. “Where is it?”

  “First door on the left.”

  It was a guest room, a daybed full of throw pillows. I threw them aside and gently laid Sarah on the bed. Blondie circled the floor twice before laying down next to it. “Good girl. You take care of her.”

  Blondie didn’t reply.

  “Beason, you can’t walk in here like you own the place—“

  “Steven, some bad people are coming for me. I don’t have time to explain right now. All I ask is shelter for my little girl for a while.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the cops?”

  “No. We don’t have time. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Well.” Steven looked uncertainly at his sister-in-law. “What are you doing here?”

  “Long story.”

  ***

  I slipped out the door, the Colt now in my right hand. I didn’t have much time. I didn’t need it. The Ranger in me had long ago assessed the security of my home. The front was out. Illuminated by the streetlight at the corner, it offered little in the way of cover. That left the back. I went around the side of Steven’s house and jumped the common fence. The lot behind mine was empty, another victim of the housing bubble, nothing aside from high weeds, a few trees and garbage.

  I settled beneath the towering oak. How long had it been since the call? I didn’t have my watch, was unwilling to pull out the cell. I went with seven minutes. That seemed reasonable. I had been moving fast, but it still took time to move two women from one location to another. That left three minutes.

  How accurate was the estimate to begin with? People said ten minutes, they meant more than five and less than fifteen. I wasn’t faulting the source. I knew it was an estimate. Two minutes. How accurate was the information he had bee
n given? It didn’t matter. I was in position. Even if I had more time, the only thing I would have done different was grab another clip. The rain began again, a few drops followed by a steady downpour. Check that, I would also have grabbed my coat.

  They came at nine and a half minutes. I saw headlights flash and then die a block over. Three of them creeping across the vacant lot, stepping uncertainly through the mud and weeds. They reached the fence and clumsily climbed over. The moon was hidden behind the clouds. The yard would have been the perfect place to take them, but they spread out as they crossed it. I made out Trey, a hulking shadow in the middle, flanked by the other guy from the gas station. Quentin? The last guy must have been the driver. Trey and Q were carrying long guns, Trey’s had the signature curve of an AK-47 or a knockoff. I was betting knockoff.

  They crept through my back lawn, whispering to one another.

  This the right house?

  Yeah.

  Sure?

  Yeah.

  What if he ain’t home?

  Shut the fuck up.

  I let them pass, completely unaware of my presence. I waited until they bunched up at the back deck. The Ranger double tap was not an option. Six shots, too much noise. Plus that would leave only one more round. I had never enjoyed shooting another man in the back, but in war, that was often what you did. What you had to do. I had learned long ago that there was no such thing as a fair fight. Someone was always the stronger. Or the faster. Or the smarter. Or had greater numbers. Or superior firepower. I believed in dying with honor, but in the end, what difference did it make? You die suddenly or you go out guns blazing—you still go out. Your life shouldn’t be defined by your last moment. I knew it often did.

  Or I could step out and yell, Freeze! Police! It wouldn’t work. Three cornered men, already hyped up on adrenaline and who knew what else, the natural reaction would be to fight. Maybe if I wasn’t alone, if I could blind them with a flash/bang grenade, they would surrender. Then what? A couple days in jail and we would be right back in this place. I had tried once to be a soldier and a cop. It didn’t fit, they couldn’t go together. You had to choose.