Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  “Just passing through,” the Executioner said.

  “I thought so. Didn’t think I’d seen you around, and you don’t have a tan.”

  The Executioner examined the barber’s mahogany arms. “Dead giveaway in Arizona.”

  “Gotta burn the elbow that hangs out the window, at least,” the barber agreed. “Are you in town for business or pleasure?”

  “The latter. I’m driving to California.”

  “On Route 66?”

  The Executioner nodded. “I’ve racked up too much vacation time and the boss says use it or lose it. So I decided to get my kicks. Just like the song says.”

  “What song?”

  Now that’s sad! “You’re awfully young to work this late, aren’t you?”

  “Hah! I wish! I’m twenty-two,” the barber said, snipping away. “Dad and Grandpa work days. I’m still going to school, so I take the night shifts.”

  “Three generations of cutters?”

  The barber smiled. “Four, I hope. My wife’s expecting.”

  “Congratulations,” the Executioner said. “Hoping for a son?”

  “Doesn’t matter, as long as he’s healthy.”

  “Gotcha.”

  The barber smiled. He finished the top, then moved to the sides. “Congratulations, by the way. You’re my very last customer of the night.”

  “Explains why you put out the closed sign and pulled the blinds,” the Executioner said, knowing very well the shop schedule. “I thought it was me.”

  “Nah. I’ve been on my feet all day,” the barber said. “School, then work. The governor himself could ask for a trim, and I’d still close up at nine.” He squared the left sideburn, scooted over to the right. “You enjoying the drive?”

  “Very much. Tons of scenery. Restaurants along the way have been good.”

  “Got some great ones here in Holbrook. Tell them I sent you, and they’ll knock off ten percent,” the barber said, naming several. “I’m Frank Mahoney, by the way.”

  “As in Three Franks Barber Shop?” the Executioner said, pointing to the backward lettering on the picture window.

  “That’s right,” Mahoney said. “Grandpa, Dad, and Roman numeral.”

  “Glad to meet you, Frank the Third.” The Executioner stuck his hand from under the cotton bib, the stripes of which matched the pole out front. They shook.

  “Why are you wearing gloves?” Mahoney asked, going back to the scissors.

  “Burned my hands while barbecuing,” the Executioner lied. “Doctor says the gloves make it heal faster.” He raised an eyebrow. “Hey, do I detect a Midwest accent?”

  “You’ve got a good ear,” Mahoney said. “Grandpa’s from Illinois and still talks funny. Guess I picked up a little.”

  “We don’t talk funny,” the Executioner said. “You do.”

  Mahoney laughed. “That’s what Grandpa says. He loves Illinois.”

  “Why’d he move to Holbrook, then?”

  “Says all that snow got to him. He was a dentist in Springfield. That’s near Chicago, right?”

  “Three hours south.”

  Mahoney’s shrug said, Close enough. “Anyway, Dad says Grandpa liked winters till 1972, then all of a sudden had enough. He pulled up stakes and moved the family here.”

  “Why a barber shop when he was a dentist?”

  “Holbrook already had two dentists,” Mahoney explained. “Plus he was tired of putting his fingers in everybody’s mouth. The shop was successful right off, and Dad joined him. Then me.”

  “The family business.”

  “For longer than I’ve been alive,” Mahoney said. “What do you do?”

  “Food service executive,” the Executioner said.

  “Cool.”

  “Keeps me busy,” he said, nodding toward the window. “Do you like Holbrook?”

  “Well, it’s the gateway to the Painted Desert,” Mahoney said artfully.

  “And hours from Phoenix, Vegas, or any other big city,” the Executioner said. “I’d think it’d get pretty lonely sometimes for a young man going places.”

  Mahoney smiled. “You’re never lonely in a small town. Everyone stops by to stick their nose in your business.”

  “Touché,” the Executioner said, laughing.

  “Where are you staying tonight?” Mahoney asked as he rubbed steaming white lather onto neck, cheeks, and chin. “Best Western? Holiday Inn? Or out at the Wigwam?” He grinned at the perplexed look. “It’s a motel. Concrete wigwams with beds, bathrooms, and air-conditioning. I know it sounds touristy, but it’s actually cool.”

  “Sounds fun,” the Executioner said. “But I can’t. I’m pushing through to Los Angeles.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Soon as I’m done with you.”

  Mahoney frowned. “That’s an awfully long drive. Nine hours, at least. Hotter’n hell crossing the Mojave Desert in August - even at midnight it’s over a hundred. Your car breaks down, you’ll fry like bacon before the highway patrol shows up.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You sure you need to push that hard?” Mahoney pressed. “Especially on vacation and all? I’d be glad to call the Wigwam, get you the Three Franks discount.”

  The Executioner shook his head.

  “Well, it’s not my business, anyway,” Mahoney said. “Man wants to see the Mojave by moonlight, no one should tell him otherwise.”

  “That what Grandpa says?”

  “Nah, that’s me.” He bent close, touched steel to flesh. Several dozen strokes later, he was wiping the Executioner clean with a hot towel from the baseboard steamer.

  “Terrific job, Frank,” the Executioner enthused, watching the white fog billow into in the shivery air. “Best shave I’ve had since . . . well, ever.”

  “Thanks. I pride myself on them. The razor helps.”

  The Executioner reached to the shelf to examine one. He stopped midair.

  “Oops, sorry,” he apologized. “All right if I sneak a look?”

  “Oh, sure, be my guest.”

  The Executioner raised the straight razor to the light, turned it this way and that. No tool marks. No burrs. Just gleam and perfect mating of ironwood handle to hollow-ground carbon steel blade. “This is a work of art,” he said, deeply impressed. “And you’re an artist with it.”

  “Thanks,” Mahoney said, young chest puffing under the white smock. “That’s genuine Solingen steel, all the way from Germany. Grandpa got them off the Internet. They’re pricey, but they keep a nice sharp edge, which you need to clip those annoying loose ends.”

  “Funny you should mention that,” the Executioner said, reaching to put the razor back.

  “Mention what?” Mahoney said, bending to the steamer for the final hot one.

  The Executioner sliced the kid from ear to ear, Solingen steel sinking so deep the edge clacked off the cervical vertebra.

  “Awk . . . wha . . .” Mahoney gurgled as his eyes went full-moon.

  “You’re a loose end,” the Executioner said, backpedaling to avoid the blood shot. “And I just clipped you. Pretty funny, huh?”

  Mahoney collapsed like a brain-shot calf.

  “No tip necessary, you say?” the Executioner said, snapping the kid’s nose with a heel strike. “That’s damn nice of you, Frank. You’re a chip off Grandpa’s block.”

  No reply.

  The Executioner scrubbed the razor with blue germicide from the comb jar. It was great fun using such an exquisitely crafted weapon - everything just died better. He’d save the knife he’d mailed to himself at Phoenix General Delivery for another target.

  He checked the street - still clear - then removed two matches from his briefcase.

  Ten seconds later he shook them out. He walked to the TV stand and pitched them underneath.

  The cut to the bone took almost no effort, he reflected as he merged onto westbound I-40 to California. Easier than the cervical lance in Naperville, and far more satisfying. All that nice frothy blood. It was pr
imeval. The way Bowie liked.

  He wished he could call.

  August 12, 1966

  Earl Monroe breathed as shallowly as possible. Anything else reignited the incredible pain.

  Thank God he’d been hit by solid-nose bullets. He’d seen a man shot a dozen times with those and recover with bragging rights. If the cops had carried those fancy new hollow-point bullets, the so-called “Super Vels,” he’d be toes-up in the county morgue.

  Course, when the cops are done with me, I’ll be toes-up anyway.

  He took in the hospital room for the thousandth time. Cinderblock walls. No windows. Linoleum floor. Worn linen. A metal tray for his food. Another to hold his bedpan. Two IV bags, one empty, one almost, hanging from a steel hook. An ashtray full of squashed butts. An unoccupied bed to his right.

  A uniformed policeman was parked outside his door. Now and again he poked his shiny head inside, but didn’t say a word. Just glowered. Right now he was gone. Bathroom, snacks, or feeling up a nurse, Earl didn’t know. Didn’t care. The guy was a lump.

  He moved his left hand under the blanket. It rattled. Same with his right ankle.

  He was handcuffed to the bed.

  Just like yesterday.

  And the day before.

  No police interrogation so far. That surprised him. Then again, the detectives were probably waiting for him to get “well” so their breaking-down would be more effective.

  More fun.

  The doctor was pleasant enough. Didn’t curse or scowl, just checked the ankle cast, tended the bullet wounds, and chatted about weather and sports.

  The nurses weren’t. They pursed their lips, muttered under their breath. Anything Earl requested, they ignored. Or spat something rude, “slimeball” on the end more times than not. Jabbing harder than necessary when drawing blood, positioning the bedpan just far enough away that he’d miss and have to lay, humiliated, in soaked sheets.

  The nickel-and-dime harassment that came with “cop-killer.”

  He winced at the burn in his chest, back, and legs, and realized his breathing had speeded up. He forced himself to relax.

  The burns cooled.

  His thoughts ran double-time as he analyzed what happened, and what he’d do about it. Same conclusion as yesterday. It all depended on what happened to Danny. It’s not like he could ask someone. Was his brother home, eating cornflakes? Gritting his teeth in agony down the hall here? Absorbing the bad breath and rubber hoses of a police interrogation, an altogether different agony? Or laying, chilled and hairless, in the county morgue?

  Earl sighed. Two days, and the only thing he knew for sure was that the detectives would come soon. Wouldn’t be pretty when they-

  “Damn,” he whispered.

  “Hi, Earl,” Danny said.

  “Well, that answers one question, anyway,” Earl said.

  “What’s that?”

  “If you’re alive enough for me to break your neck.”

  Danny dragged a chair next to his brother.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry don’t cut fish with detectives, boy,” Earl snapped.

  “I know. I didn’t mean to get you involved.”

  “Good to hear. Hate to see what involving me feels like,” he said, pointing to his gauze patches. “These aren’t good-luck charms.”

  “I know.”

  They fell silent.

  “Well, anyway,” Earl said, finding it impossible to stay mad at little bro. His heart was in the right place with those grenades. Even if his brain was out to lunch. “I’m glad you made it.”

  “Wish you had, too,” Danny said. “Honest to God, Earl, I had no idea you’d be at the motel. None at all.” His eyes were wide open, his mouth a downward U. “I can’t explain why I did it. When I was at the garage that day, I overheard the Brendan Stone deal. Something just clicked inside me. I already had the grenades, so I put on that janitor disguise and took him out.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause you’re my brother, goddammit,” Danny said, flaring. “Why the hell else would I do something so insane?”

  Earl heard the distinctive footsteps, put a finger to his lips. “Hush down. Cop’s coming back. Don’t want him hearing this conversation or there’ll be two Monroes on Death Row.”

  “Death . . . Row?”

  “What you think they do to cop-killers, man?” Earl said. “Throw flowers?”

  Danny’s face crumpled in on itself. “I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”

  “Clearly,” Earl said.

  The cop froze in the doorway, then stomped inside. “You’re supposed to clear visitors with me, Monroe,” he grafted, all suspicious. “Who the hell’s this?”

  “My brother Daniel,” Earl said. “Came to see me all the way from Purdue, where he’s getting his master’s degree in engineering. You weren’t at your post when he arrived” - he nodded at the steaming coffee - “so I told him to wait till you returned.”

  The cop considered it.

  “OK,” he told Danny. “You can have twenty minutes. Go lean against that wall.”

  Danny took the frisk, and the cop left.

  “You weren’t thinking that far ahead?” Earl prompted.

  Danny nodded. “My brain just flooded. I wanted to save you from Covington. I couldn’t think of any way but the grenades. That’s why I did it, and why I’d do it again.” He patted Earl’s arm.

  “No contact with the prisoner,” the cop growled from his chair.

  “Sorry, sir,” Danny said, pulling back.

  The cop grunted, went back to his Field & Stream.

  “It’s all academic anyway,” Danny said.

  “Meaning?”

  “You’re going to be fine, Earl. I’m going to the police and confess that I did it.”

  “Nope.”

  “What do you mean, nope?”

  “I mean you aren’t confessing, little bro,” Earl said. “I am.”

  Danny’s eyebrows jumped.

  “Not much to do here but think,” Earl said, shifting the few inches the shackles allowed. “So I did. Here’s how it’s going to go. Wayne Covington saw me slaughter those cops. He knows it like the devil knows pitchforks, and he’ll be so convincing on the stand that a jury of Quakers would draw straws to pull the switch on me. I’ve decided to let it happen.”

  Danny stared, jaw slack.

  “That’s right, it’s gonna be me that dies in that chair,” Earl said. “I’m keeping you out of it.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Not crazy enough to ace a load of coppers in broad daylight, pally buck,” Earl said. “But since I clearly did, I gotta take my punishment.”

  “Earl, there’s no way I can let you-”

  “You got no choice, Danny,” Earl said. “You’re gonna walk out of here and not look back. You’re so horrified at what I did that we’re not brothers anymore. No further contact between us. No letters, no calls, no nothing. From now on, you don’t know me.”

  Danny shook his head so hard his hair couldn’t keep up. “I can’t do that, Earl. There’s no way I’ll abandon you.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you gotta take care of Mom.”

  Silence.

  “Face it, Danny,” Earl said. “I’m a gangster. Mom loves me, but she’s not proud of me. Can’t be, not with what I do. You, on the other hand, are Mr. College. You’re smart, striding, gonna grab the world by the throat and shake it up. With your degree, you’re gonna work for NASA or some other important program. You’re the son Mom can be proud of.”

  “What’s that got to do with the price of Sanka?”

  “Everything,” Earl said. “The state’s gonna kill someone for this massacre, Danny. That’s carved in stone - someone killed family, and someone’s going to pay. That someone is me, ‘cause Covington told ‘em so. Trial’s just a formality.”

  “But if I tell Covington-”

  “That
will do exactly one thing - put you in the chair next to mine. Meaning Mom will bury both her sons, not just one. We can’t do that to her.” Earl motioned for the water jug. Danny poured a cup. Earl drank deep, smacked his lips.

  “Covington’s not gonna let me go,” he said. “To him, I’m a stone-cold gangster who killed his baby brother. Buzzing me is personal now - a family obligation. If you tell him you’re involved, he’ll execute you with me. Not instead of. Because you’re my, uh, what do you call it . . .”

  “Accomplice?”

  “Yeah. Accomplice.” He cranked his head to look Danny square in the face. “One of us has to survive this. To keep the family name alive, and to take care of Mom. I can’t, so you have to.” He swallowed, hard. “Something else.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you to die,” Earl said, so quietly Danny strained to hear. “I can’t handle what’s coming to me at Stateville unless I know you’ll be all right. You’re doing this for Mom and the family honor, Danny. But you’re doing it for me, too.”

  Silence.

  “Five minutes,” the cop in the hall said.

  “Thank you, Officer,” Earl chirped.

  “Don’t get wise,” the cop said.

  Earl smirked, went back to Danny.

  “So that’s it,” he said. “I’m taking the fall. You’re going on with your life. It’s gonna be a great one, and you’re gonna take care of Mom. You won’t contact me again. No cards, letters, or calls. Especially no visits - cops see us together after today, they’ll start thinking you’re maybe involved. They’ll get you kicked from school, maybe drafted. They’ll ruin your life.”

  Danny kept shaking his head.

  “You got no choice,” Earl snarled, full metal gangster. “You messed up doing those grenades, and this is how you’re gonna pay for it. It’s my job to do this. It’s yours to take care of our mother and have a life worth bragging about. Savvy?”

  Danny made a little sound in his throat.

  “Gonna be hell for me, too,” Earl said. “We been thicker than thieves all these years, the Monroe brothers. Two peas in a pod. Not seeing you again is gonna hurt like cancer.”