Cicero's Dead
Page 24
I grabbed Jade, trying to pull her off Richard. “Stop, Jade! Let him go!”
She made not a sound, but Richard was screaming loud enough for both of them.
“Jade!” I yelled with one final violent tug, pulling her up off him.
I steadied her on her feet and she pulled away from me. Mrs. Clipper stepped forward, unsure what to do. Arnold helped up Richard, who was crying, and handed him back his knife.
“It’s okay, it’s just a scratch,” he reassured him, gently wiping the blood away with his sleeve.
Richard turned to Jade, pain, fear, love, confusion rippling across his face. He stepped toward her and she smiled, but it was a weird contortion, without warmth, without soul.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Jade nodded and came forward. Richard’s blade flashed and dug deep in her chest.
“No!” I shouted and ran over, catching her as she collapsed into my arms.
Arnold looked surprised and turned to Richard, who was obviously having trouble comprehending what had just happened. He rubbed his eyes and stared at his sister, the handle of the knife still in her chest. I could just make out the butterfly tattoos above her breasts, purple and gold. Her right breast was pooling with bright red blood. I laid Jade gently on the grass, stood up and glared at Arnold. He shrugged, smirked and aimed his gun at me. I dodged to one side and knocked Mrs. Clipper over as I leapt behind the gazebo.
Arnold, his gun leading the way, laughed as he came toward me. “That’s not going to help.”
Half-hidden behind the latticework, I popped the clip into my Walther.
Richard intercepted Arnold and started screaming at him. “You bastard. Look what you made me do.”
He replied, “Calm down. It was an accide--”
CRACK! Richard slapped him hard across the face. I think we were all a little amazed and Arnold stood there, his expression a mixture of pain and embarrassment.
“Richard, stop!” screamed Mrs. Clipper.
Arnold held out his hands to Richard in a pleading manner. He side-stepped Arnold’s proffered embrace and swung a glancing blow that caught him square on the jaw, spinning him halfway around. Mrs. Clipper had seen enough. She aimed her pistol directly at Richard and fired three rounds. The first hit Richard in the throat, the other two sailed past his face. His hands flew up to the gaping hole squirting blood like an open tap. He gurgled something indiscernible and sank to the grass. Again Mrs. Clipper took aim at Richard, who was lying on the ground, his life ebbing fast.
“No, Mother!”
Arnold, his face contorted with desperate rage, charged, slamming her to the ground. Instantly he was on top of her, slapping her face and head with both hands. To my amazement, a lean elderly figure emerged from the back door, Mr. Clipper. He was no longer in the wheelchair. Instead, he was walking with reasonable balance, aiming a gun more or less at Arnold.
“Stop! Now!”
Arnold just kept hitting his mother; the steady slap slap slap cutting through the air. Mr. Clipper’s bullet slammed into the dirt near Arnold, who looked up at his father, bewildered. He got to his feet, reached into the pocket of his overalls and extracted his pistol.
Mr. Clipper aimed at me, but I fired first, hitting him in the face. His head jerked back as blood and gore exploded out the back of his head. His body hesitated and collapsed to the ground.
“Father!” Arnold screamed.
Tears flooded down his face and slowly, deliberately, he aimed his gun at me. Although I wanted nothing better than to snap the son-of-a-bitch, I shot him in the shoulder. He dropped the gun, but didn’t call out or say a word. I didn’t see Mrs. Clipper get to her knees, picking up her pistol, but I heard the CRACK as she fired. Only it wasn’t hers. It was Tony’s and his bullet hit her center mass. She must’ve been made out of rock because like her son, she didn’t make a sound, or drop the gun, or fall to the ground. Instead, she aimed at Tony as he came across the lawn in the law enforcement attack position.
“Police! Drop the gun!”
Mrs. Clipper smiled a mouthful of blood and took careful aim. Tony fired three more rounds. The police issue bullets punched though her, spraying blood out of her back. She was dead before she hit the ground.
Arnold screamed his rage and charged me. I could have shot him but I wanted something much more close and personal. I tossed my gun away, stepped forward and dropped down, sweeping his feet out from under him. He crashed to the grass and I was all over him, punching as fast and as hard as I could. I beat him for all of the pain, blood, death and misery he had caused. Maybe he felt he deserved it; he stopped resisting and smiled up at me as I beat him bloody.
“That’s enough, Nick! Stop!” yelled Tony, pulling me off.
I sat on the grass, blood and teeth around me, one of which, an eyetooth, was stuck in my hand. I pulled it out and threw it at Arnold’s face.
Tony snapped the cuffs on him, although it was pointless as he was all but comatose. I went over to Jade, who was unconscious, but still alive.
“I’ll call it in,” said Tony, getting on his cell.
I held her and looked over at Richie, but he was stone dead. During the melee, I had forgotten about the dog. Someone’s stray bullet had apparently found it and it too now lay on the grass. I tried to breathe slowly, but my cracked ribs hurt like hell and I could barely take in air. In a stand of tall trees in a neighbor’s garden, a lone, enormous crow settled onto a branch, warily eyeing the carnage. It jerked its head sideways, looked directly at me and shook its head in mock disapproval. “Shit,” I thought. “Shit, shit, shit.” Then I shut my eyes, wishing I’d never have to open them.
Jade was kind enough to send me a bonus check for another hundred grand. I split it 50-50 with Bobby and put my half into our daughter’s college fund. The dead bikers had been wanted felons and since I have a bounty hunter’s license, Tony, with the able help of Bill Boxer, was able to eventually negotiate a deal for me with the District Attorney’s office. Some kind of bogus misdemeanor conviction. No time and a year of probation, and just to rub it in, 50 hours of community service picking up the trash alongside the freeway with the orange jacket crew. The cops still hated my guts and every now and then would haul me in on some phony charge, just because they could. I understood and kept my big mouth shut and later rather than sooner, they ended up with a sort of grudging respect for me.
Brad moved up to San Francisco and Bobby went back to his goats. I go over there same as always, and every time I see his goats, I can’t help thinking about the hog farm. Cassady used some of the hundred grand from Halladay to buy new French doors, which made her very happy for a while. Bur neither she nor I could forget and we finally sold our house and moved across the hill to Avocado Heights.
They say that time heals all wounds and that sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care and I hope they’re right. But sometimes I can’t feel anything at all. And other times I feel things no man should ever feel. But most of the time I feel all right, as if some things just are and other things have to be. Once in a while, Cassady insists we look in on Jade. She’s about as bad off as you might expect. Maybe worse.
Richie and Cicero are buried side-by-side in Forest Lawn. One day driving by on 134, I stopped in and paid my respects. I don’t really care about Cicero but for some reason I wish I’d gotten to know Richie a little better. Maybe because deep down I think he could have been a good man.
In my darkest moments, I curse the day I met James Halladay. He was not a good man. Arnold Clipper was even worse.
When I think about it, I know that I really tried to do the right thing. We all did -- Bobby, me, good old Brad, who from what I hear is still on the wagon, and of course the actor, Ron Cera. I keep telling myself that I owe his mother a visit. I even went so far as to locate her on Merlin one night when I couldn’t sleep. But I haven’t been out to see her yet. Maybe it’s because every time I think I’m ready to go my mind drifts back to the sight of Ron’s severed head, lying th
ere on Towne Street, staring out blindly at nothing.