Veteran Avenue

by Mark Pepper

  Without the blood loss, shock and near-concussion, she might have been more circumspect, but at least she and Larry had finally found some common ground: they were both repulsed by the thought of Hayley and John together.

  ‘Maybe you’d feel better if she was, but she’s not,’ Virginia said. ‘He’s my boyfriend, not Hayley’s. It’s a long story, but I guess you could say their families have known each other for years. It’s not a boy-girl thing. It’s more like brother-sister.’

  Larry grunted. Miserably, he said, ‘Shit, why can’t she talk to me? Tell me these things?’ which Virginia decided was best left rhetorical. Even to a professional counselor, this was one marriage way beyond salvation. Larry probably knew it himself, but she was not under any illusion that knowledge would halt his crusade. He had caused too much irreparable damage. There was no way back. Ultimately, he would be killed or jailed so what did he have to lose? However futile his goal, it might at least provide a few extra hours in which he could satisfy the basic human need to feel purposeful. Given a choice, who would want to go meekly? All of which made Virginia even more acutely aware of the danger she was in. Having promised information, she had just denied any knowledge of Hayley’s whereabouts.

  He suddenly made a move, but not towards her. He shoved the .357 down his pants, bent down beside the chair she had been sitting in to sketch, and stood up with her bag. His crazy-face was back, like he was about to unearth the Ark of the Covenant. He tipped its contents onto the bed, the stun-gun among them, and Virginia cursed quietly as the word payback came to mind. But Larry ignored it, spreading the other bits and pieces with his fingers and selecting her cellphone.

  ‘What’s his name?’ he asked with a hint of triumph.

  ‘John, and he doesn’t live here; he’s on vacation. He doesn’t even have a cell.’

  After a momentary pause, Larry growled and hurled the phone at her, which she managed to deflect with her hand.

  ‘Then give me the name of his fucking hotel! Now!’ Larry screamed, storming across the bedroom to loom above her, the silencer’s muzzle pressed cold against her forehead.

  ‘Westwood!’ she blurted, and felt an inch gap open between skin and steel.

  His temper visibly cooled. ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘No, that’s where they’ve gone.’ She felt she was betraying John by talking, but she knew her death had been only seconds away, and such pure fear could free even the best-kept secrets. Besides, it was hardly the greatest scoop for Larry. Including the UCLA campus, Westwood was no small area to scour.

  ‘Westwood,’ he whispered, thinking.

  ‘That’s all she said,’ Virginia added. ‘She was behaving real odd, insisting he come some place with her like it was the most important thing in the world.’

  The blossoming smile on Larry’s face was interrupted by a ring on the front doorbell.

  Assuming she was about to shout a warning, Larry clamped a palm over her mouth so forcefully that her head cracked the wall, making her eyes squeeze shut.

  It was them. He could sense it. They were back. He had to answer the door before they became suspicious waiting, but he didn’t want to silence this woman permanently because she might make a good bargaining tool. Neither could he just leave her upstairs in case she grabbed a gun from somewhere. And he was loath to deliver a knockout blow because it might not simply knock her out; such finely-weighted violence belonged only to his wife’s world of TV fiction. In real life, people died.

  He had an idea and needed both hands free, but thought he could rely on his superior strength and her weakened state. With one hand still maintaining her silence, he de-cocked the silenced Smith & Wesson and slid it away, then used that hand to grab her hair and yank her up and onto the bed. She seemed to realize his intent at that moment because she began to struggle, but Larry reached for the stun-gun and hooked her thigh up to its million volts.

  The doorbell sounded again. Larry climbed off her limp form, retrieved his gun from the carpet and popped the clip from the butt to check how many rounds were left. Three, and one chambered. Plus six in the Magnum down his pants. He slid the magazine back in and thumbed the hammer, then made his way quietly downstairs and crept to the front door where he looked through the security peephole. The fish-eye view of Joey DeCecco was not what he expected, but at least his day would not be a complete loss if his hunch about Westwood proved incorrect.

  Wearing an anticipatory door-to-door salesman smile, DeCecco did not look exactly combat-ready. He would be as surprised to see his ex-partner as Larry was to see him, and Larry suddenly understood the deal: DeCecco was somehow in league with the late Dodge Chester.

  The conspiracy against him was unbelievable. Larry was incensed. His life had been wrecked by that fucking soldier-boy outside. He was tempted to just open the door and pull the trigger but decided that would be too quick. With all DeCecco had done to him, Larry wanted to see pain in those eyes – the emotional pain of realizing that parenthood would be an extremely short-lived affair; that his wife would be a widow, his son left fatherless.

  Larry snatched the door wide open and simply stared, relishing the shock in DeCecco’s eyes. With a gun pointed at his heart, DeCecco stayed perfectly still. After a moment, he ventured a question.

  ‘You gonna use that?’

  ‘Already did. Hook out your piece, Joey – careful. Left hand.’

  DeCecco awkwardly delved inside his jacket under his left arm, tugging the Browning Hi-Power from his shoulder rig. He pinched it harmlessly between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Lay it on the step and back away,’ Larry told him.

  DeCecco was in no position to argue so surrendered his weapon and moved back a few paces. Larry picked it up and put it down his waist next to the Magnum. His pants were getting very tight.

  ‘You thought I was dead, huh, Joey?’

  ‘Why would I think that?’

  ‘Sure, you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, right?’

  ‘That is right.’

  Larry shrugged at the dumb act. ‘You’re too late.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I canceled his contract.’

  DeCecco frowned. ‘Contract? What? Whose?’

  ‘I don’t need you, Joey. I know where Hayley is. Westwood. Veteran Avenue. The cemetery. I’d bet my last dime on it. You failed. All of you.’

  ‘Larry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Just put the gun down. I talked to Gilchrist and you’re not in the trouble you thin–’

  Larry fired four times point-blank into DeCecco’s chest. DeCecco stumbled backwards and fell into a bed of shrubs, practically disappearing among the greenery.

  Larry was fascinated by his own wickedness. Killing DeCecco marked the moment where his self-image aligned with the view he reckoned the world had of him. He could claim self-defense with the Armenians; he could claim a pre-emptive strike against Dodge; and, however thoroughly she had implicated him, he was truly innocent in the death of Marie Olsen.

  But this was a coldly-calculated homicide. He stepped forward into the shrubs and kicked DeCecco gratuitously in the head. It was somehow more satisfying than the actual kill.

  He now had to move fast. Although the shots had been muffled, the confrontation had happened in full view of the neighbors. None had come out to remonstrate, but who with half a brain would have done? Any sensible onlooker would have dialled 911, which meant a unit might already be on its way. He raced back inside and up the stairs. He needed Virginia. If the English guy refused an exchange, she would at least be a hostage for when the cops showed. It was the only reasoning he could apply – to anything. So much had gone wrong that his mind had delegated responsibility to his autopilot. It was all that stopped him from sinking to his knees and bawling. He couldn’t even anticipate his reaction if he did find Hayley. Would he apologize to her or shoot her?

  Virginia Chester was still lying inert on the bed, uttering low moans. He was glad now he had let her apply the t
ourniquet; she was no good to him dead. He discarded the empty Smith, lifted her over his shoulder and went carefully back downstairs, feeling her blood soaking into his shirt front where he held her legs.

  Outside, he wasn’t able to manage even a glance in DeCecco’s direction and realized he didn’t feel too proud of himself. He thought of Laura and the new-born waiting for daddy to visit. They were the ones who would really pay for the events of today. Despite his remorse, Larry didn’t break his stride as he headed for the Jeep. His autopilot wasn’t really designed to receive emotional input, only give out physical instructions. He dumped the woman out of sight on the floor behind the front seats, then climbed in and reversed onto Angelo Drive.

  Hayley’s final direction to John was to pull over and switch off the engine. Although their destination was no longer a mystery, John did not experience an easing of tension. The vista of white headstones beyond the railing fence made him shiver, and Hayley’s incongruous beaming smile somehow made it doubly morbid.

  ‘This isn’t the Universal Studios Tour,’ he said, trying to lighten his own mood and change her eerie smile into laughter. The attempt failed on both counts. Hayley merely shifted her contented gaze from him to the cemetery before getting out of the car and waiting.

  ‘In for a penny ...’ John said to himself and followed suit. Neglecting to alarm the Audi, he joined her at the entrance. Hayley looked at him and her smile widened, which he hadn’t thought possible.

  ‘I usually bring a white rose,’ she said, ‘but you’re here now.’

  If that was meant to make sense it didn’t, but John nodded rather than request a premature explanation he knew he wouldn’t get. Hayley heaved an expectant sigh like they were about to enter Xanadu, then took his hand and led him into the cemetery. John soon realized she was not going to let go of him.

  As they walked, he read several inscriptions either side of him. It began to play on his mind how inappropriate it was to be packing a gun in the midst of deceased war veterans. He now had a pretty good idea what Hayley was doing there, but it didn’t make him any less confused about his own seemingly vital presence.

  ‘Is your father buried here?’ he asked gently.

  She replied with a nod and kept on walking. A quarter mile in front, the traffic on the San Diego Freeway was moving steadily, throwing up a visible pall of pollution; an endless stream of lives passing each other by, never meshing except by way of a fender-bender. And what were the odds on that contact being significant to both parties, other than for reasons of personal injury or litigation? Not for the first time did the theory of coincidence seem a little weak, even to a stalwart skeptic like John.

  After thirty seconds that seemed much longer for the silence in which it passed, Hayley stopped and offered the smile John had come to think of as intensely irritating. He tried to reciprocate but felt a major component was missing – happiness. If he’d believed in a sixth sense he would have been very worried by the alarm bells it had set off in his head. As it was, he put it down to the simple discomfort of being with a woman who appeared just as self-cozened as her grandfather had been. She nodded in response to nothing he had said, then led him off the path and through the headstones, until she stopped again and stared down at one commemorated by a dying white rose and a thoroughly lifeless bunch of red ones.

  John took in the information before him.

  HAROLD T OLSEN

  MEDAL OF HONOR

  SGT

  US ARMY

  VIETNAM

  JUNE 1944

  NOV 1969

  ‘Kneel with me,’ Hayley said, squeezing his hand.

  John did so. The seconds dragged as he waited for Hayley to talk, but nothing came from her. He read the words to himself again.

  ‘So young,’ he said, purely to break the silence.

  ‘Mmm,’ she went, not looking at him.

  ‘Not as young as most in that war, though.’

  ‘You know a lot about Vietnam?’

  ‘I’ve had an interest since the Legion. My old regiment was at Dien Bien Phu in fifty-four.’

  ‘That’s why the interest?’ she queried doubtfully.

  John gave her a confused look, and then thought he understood. ‘Oh, you mean because of the business with Chuck when I was a kid. No, it can’t be that, not even subconsciously; I didn’t learn of the Vietnam connection until just recently.’

  Hayley turned back to the headstone, but John thought her expression suggested a superior knowledge he would never possess. Her smugness galled him sufficiently to pull his hand away and speak bluntly.

  ‘All right, enough. Talk. What am I doing here?’

  Placidly, she said, ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No, I don’t; how should I? God, Hayley, you nearly wreck my relationship with Virginia, you bring me here like you’re about to reveal the second coming, then you expect me to throw my hands in the air and scream hallelujah like it all makes sense. Well, it doesn’t!’

  The first trace of disquiet appeared in her eyes. ‘You don’t feel at all strange being here?’

  John was flashed back in time to 1978 and a lonely cabin in the Oregon wilderness. Hayley’s words were almost a perfect echo of Chuck’s at the moment when he first began to realize his young guest might not have shared the same vision as him. He couldn’t pretend to grasp the situation any better now.

  ‘Hayley ... I feel sad that your father died so young; I feel sorry you grew up without him; I feel sorry you got screwed up as a child, fell out with your mum and married a man who hurt you; but most of all ... most of all, I feel sorry you’ve been reduced to this.’

  ‘To what?’ she said warily.

  ‘Clinging to a complete stranger for comfort.’

  ‘I’m not. You’re not a stranger.’

  John got to his feet. ‘Yes, I am. That’s exactly what I am. Okay, there’s a connection, and I admit it’s pretty mind-boggling, but it doesn’t change the fact that you and I had never met before today.’

  ‘You can’t walk away from this, John. You can’t.’

  ‘Listen, Hayley, I’m honored you brought me here, but if I stay you’ll just make me argue with you, and I have too much respect for the sanctity of this place to do that. You’re obviously a lot more open-minded than I am – most people are – but I’m happy in my ignorance. If you believe Chuck was some small-time Nostradamus, fine, that’s your constitutional right as an American, but I don’t have to listen to it. Now, I don’t want to leave you here alone so, please, come back with me. Being here is only going to upset you.’

  Hayley turned back to the headstone. ‘Bullshit. I’m happier here than anywhere. And if you really had respect for the dead, John, you’d sit your ass back down and grant me five minutes of your precious time. You don’t have to say anything, in fact I’d prefer it if you didn’t – not until I’ve finished. And then if you still have nothing to say, you can go with my blessing and never see me again.’

  John scanned across the stones until he located the Audi on the street. Its pull was strong. He pictured himself sitting behind the wheel with no one to his right, heading back to Beverly Glen and things he understood, like love and sex and a cold bottle of Bud. Then he looked back to Hayley, still staring straight ahead, her face cut and bruised, several teeth short of a decent smile, her plastered arm in a sling, and he really couldn’t see any harm in giving her what she wanted.

  Thankfully, Virginia had not received payback on a par. In his haste to answer the door, Larry had delivered a mere half-second shock, around four seconds less than she had given him. She guessed maybe ten minutes had passed since then because she was still dazed and experiencing muscle spasms, but it could have been longer if her previous trauma was delaying her recovery. But even in perfect health she would have found movement difficult. She was lying cramped in the rear foot-space of a speeding, swerving vehicle, which she recognized as the Jeep. Her head was on the driver’s side, and her view under the seat showed Larry’s legs o
perating the pedals. She squinted to focus on his right ankle; there seemed to be a patch of blood on his white sock. She wondered how it could have transferred from her calf. Maybe when he picked her up to bring her downstairs. But what was the shape inside the sock? Long, thin.

  She closed her eyes against the onset of tears. Even with her brain still scrambled, she thought she knew what it was: the knife that had killed her father. In a way, it was her blood.

  Hatred like this had never before been a factor in her life. It belonged to the film scripts she read. She finally understood her father’s illness since Vietnam; the desire to kill consumed her like a demonic possession. If she had been able, she would have ripped Larry’s beating heart from his chest. A gun was too removed, too clinical. She literally wanted his blood on her hands.

  She tried to order her thought processes to coincide with reality. In her current position, Larry’s death happening any time before her own was a pipe dream, never mind it happening by her decree. She had been shot and stunned already. Now she was lying in a confined space, fearful of any movement that might attract his attention and warrant more of his discipline. What further use did he have for her? Was she a kind of surety? She had no doubt she was expendable.

  It seemed wise to keep still, play dead. He would find a pulse if he checked for one, but, providing he didn’t suspect a bluff, he would hopefully assume she was unconscious and leave her there while he went off to roam Westwood. Then she could raise the alarm and get medical help. She looked at Larry’s blood-stained sock again and prayed it work out that sweetly, although hearing on the evening news how some SWAT team had finally taken the bastard out would still be second best to doing it herself. Unfortunately, the worsening pain in her leg was making it harder by the second to keep her face immobile. If he looked at her for long enough, no way would he miss the involuntary muscular tics that betrayed her true state.

  She closed her eyes to begin practising, but her lids had barely touched when they opened again – wide. Something fantastic had registered. Something unbelievable. Something in the shadow beneath the driver’s seat.