Errant Knight

by George Wier

  “Dammit,” Gil whispered.

  “What is it?” Skillet whispered back into the silence from two rooms away.

  “Someone pulled up out front. It’s a guy. They’re talking out there.”

  “What about?”

  “How the hell should I know! Maybe you want me to ask them?”

  “Naw,” Skillet replied. “That’s okay.”

  Gil shook his head. He sneaked another peek, only to see the two now getting into the fellow’s vehicle. He watched as they sat and talked for several minutes.

  “Skillet,” he called.

  “Yeah?”

  “How’s the foot?”

  “It’s all tingly. So tingly it hurts.”

  Gil looked again in time to see the car pull away from the curb and disappear down the road. Gil’s Ford Expedition was parked two blocks away. The two had walked up to the house in broad daylight, scaled the side fence into the back yard, had checked for an alarm system with the little device in his pocket, and finding the place unprotected had picked the back door lock. Getting out was going to be a breeze. They would look carefully to make sure none of the neighbors were out or otherwise watching, then they would walk out the front door. Since they weren’t stealing anything, no one should be overly alarmed.

  “I think it’s time we got the fuck out of here,” Gil said.

  From the kitchen Skillet let out a big sigh and said, “You’re the boss, boss.”

  Gil had the front door open waiting for Skillet when the tall bald man reached inside the door, took a handhold of Gil’s shirt beneath his neck, gave it a twist and lifted Gil into the air.

  “What the fuck?” Skillet said.

  And then the fight was on.

  It was getting on to late evening with the sun filtered behind distant trees when Billy Strongbow caught up with Rachel Ward. The GPS device he had placed on the undercarriage of her car before their first meeting allowed him to catch up with her, and he remained a safe distance behind her as she wove through the post-rush hour traffic. Interestingly enough, he’d found a GPS device already there, and wondered who it belonged to. Billy dithered on it for all of half a minute before removing the device and breaking it under the heel of his shoe.

  Since that time, his own device had tracked her movements during the previous night and today, and one of her stops was notable as being Shelby Knight’s residence. He knew she hadn’t seen him in years, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he had somehow penetrated her defenses and had brought her back into the mix enough for her to go looking for Shelby herself. Not that he expected her to find her ex-husband. Shelby had, for all practical purposes, dropped from the face of the Earth. Which was well and good. Billy suspected that not long after he surfaced he would either find himself in lockup, or in a wooden box prepped for burial.

  Billy had an appointment in the next hour, and he was intent on bringing Rachel along with him to that meeting. The meeting was with Jonathan Holloway.

  When she turned onto Mopac Expressway, headed south, Billy knew she was going home. It was getting that time of day, and Rachel Ward impressed him as the kind of woman who preferred to cook her own food.

  She turned off on Ranch Road 2244 and toward West Lake Hills, but she surprised him by circling around the neighborhood, spiraling inwards to her home. The last half a dozen blocks took her twice around the neighborhood bordering her home. Billy pulled over and waited until the dot on his dashboard screen showed her pulling up in front of her house.

  Rachel was at her door when he pulled up out front.

  Something itched away at him. There was the dim and distant sense that things weren’t quite right. He shrugged it off, got out and called to her.

  She paused at her doorway and turned to look at him.

  Billy got out with a painted-on—and hopefully disarming—smile.

  “Ms. Ward, do you have a minute?”

  She stepped slowly back down the walkway toward him. “I’ve been meaning to call you,” she said.

  “That’s a good thing. I have an appointment across town in a little under an hour. I thought you might want to accompany me.”

  “An appointment with whom?”

  “Jonathan Holloway.”

  “I don’t think—” she began, but he quickly cut her off.

  “I think it’s important. It’s not about finding Shelby. I think you should hear what he has to say. That is, if you still care about Shelby.”

  Rachel stared at the FBI agent.

  “Please,” Billy said.

  “May I call you Billy?” she asked.

  “Certainly.”

  “I was going to fix myself some dinner. I’m actually starved.”

  “I’ve been wanting to try the restaurant where we’re to meet. It’s a place called Mothers. It’s a bit northeast.”

  “I’ve eaten there,” she said. “It’s vegetarian, but the food is superb.”

  “That’s what Mr. Holloway says. Tell me, have you ever talked to him?”

  “I’ve never had the occasion.”

  “You went to his son’s funeral, didn’t you?” Billy asked.

  “I did. Shelby couldn’t bring himself to do it. I didn’t talk to Mr. Holloway. I sat at the back and left as soon as it was over.”

  “He knew you were there.”

  “Did he? I had no idea.”

  “People have a way of remembering who attends weddings and funerals. It must be part of the genetic makeup.”

  “And Mr. Holloway wants to talk to me?”

  “Yes. He wants to tell you something. Shall we take my car?”

  Rachel turned and looked back at the house briefly.

  “Yes. I’m too hungry to drive right now.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Billy said. He deftly walked up beside her, interlaced his arm with her own, and led her to his car.

  Sully had watched and listened to the parade, and it made him more than a little sick. It wasn’t a literal parade, but more of a bad comedy in several acts. First, the two goons had gone inside Rachel’s house and were apparently waiting for her to return before killing her. His Android phone app had picked up the signal from whatever network he happened to be traveling through, relayed from the remote router in the bushes outside Rachel’s home. At the moment he heard the buzz from his phone, he happened to be in traffic and so didn’t have time to flip open his laptop and finely tune the sound. He was behind the FBI Agent’s car that was following Rachel! He’d seen the man remove the GPS device Sully had placed beneath the undercarriage of her car and stomp it into pieces in the leaf-strewn gutter by the road in front of her house. Then, while the Agent was inside Rachel’s house, Sully had placed another GPS wafer under her car on the opposite side, and then for good measure (as if it was all a huge joke) placed a second GPS wafer underneath the FBI guy’s car. Since that time he’d been following Rachel and tracking the Agent. At the moment, he happened to be doing both, hanging far enough back from the Agent’s car to make sure he wasn’t spotted. He had the advantage, though. He knew the Agent wouldn’t be looking for a tail; he’d be watching for Rachel instead. Since Sully couldn’t work with the laptop in traffic without risking being seen or having an accident, he opened up the Surveillance App on his Android and had it feed the audio through his car stereo speakers.

  Hey. Hey! I told you to wake up.

  Sorry boss. I’m awake. I’m ready to move at a moment’s notice. Maybe it would help if we talked about something. I don’t know.

  Talk? About what?

  I don’t know. Something. We’ve been here for hours I think. This is normally my naptime.

  You remember how much money was in the bag?

  Sure. I remember. It was twenty thousand. That’s ten for me and ten for you.

  The next time I can’t see the underside of your chin, it’s twenty for me and nothing for you.

  This back-and-forth banter was followed by slapping sounds.

  Stop doing that. Why’re you doing th
at?

  So I can stay awake.

  It makes you look like one of those crackheads that live outside your house.

  Those are my cousins.

  Your cousins are crackheads. If I ever catch you using that shit...just don’t do that shit.

  Oh no. I ain’t no crackhead. Never tried it. It makes you do crazy, crazy things. People be walking around like zombies. They lose their...they lose somethin’.

  Their moral compass. Next thing you know, they’re stealing shit to pay for the drugs. It’s really nothing but downhill after that.

  After that there was silence for a long time.

  Rachel had turned off of Mopac into Westlake Hills and the FBI guy had followed. Of course. Sully brought up the rear, still at a safe distance.

  It began to sink in. Rachel was in real danger. A couple of idiots were laying in wait inside her house. The minute she stepped inside, they were going to kill her. If the FBI guy was simply following and watching her, Sully would have to intervene somehow. For him to go up and physically stop Rachel from entering the house would not only violate Standing Order Number Two—Don’t-let-Rachel-see-you—but it also run complete roughshod all over Standing Order Number Three: Don’t-let-the-cops-see-you. Rachel knew all too well exactly who Sully was, and it would come from Rachel straight back to Lily. Rachel couldn’t know, of course, about his secret worship of her, but what difference did that make? Running up and stopping Rachel from going inside her house did, however, fully prop up Standing Order Number One, which was: Protect-Rachel-at-all-costs. That’s what he had to focus on: S.O.1. If he hesitated at the wrong moment, it would all be over with.

  These were Sully’s thoughts as he followed the parade.

  Rachel had stopped in front of her house, and her door was opening.

  “Shit,” Sully said to himself. “Shit shit shit shit.”

  Get ready. I want you behind the door.

  What’s wrong with you?

  Foot went to sleep.

  Dammit. Stand up. Tap it on the floor until you get feeling.

  Sully heard the tapping sounds. He would have laughed at the utter idiocy of these fellows if he hadn’t been, at the moment, very nearly shitting Dallas-sized bricks.

  Is she coming?

  Yeah. She’s halfway up the walk. Get into the kitchen and get yourself ready in case I need help. I’ll get behind the door. Foot went to sleep.

  It did.

  Sully heard the rattling of keys and had his door halfway open when he noticed Agent Strongbow’s car door come open three houses ahead.

  It hit Sully like a thunderbolt. It was insane, of course, but he couldn’t shake it. For a moment it was within the realm of the possible that Agent Strongbow was going to shoot Rachel.

  He saw Strongbow run up the walkway behind Rachel, even as he heard one of the guys inside the house counting over his cell phone.

  Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen...

  Rachel turned around and looked surprised to see Agent Strongbow. A conversation ensued between the two of them. He wished he could hear them instead of the guy counting behind the front door inside the house.

  Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven...

  Sully waited. Whatever the hell they were talking about, Rachel was asking for clarification, and the explanation was taking time. Strongbow, however, seemed both persuasive and insistent.

  Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine. Sixty.

  Dammit.

  What is it?

  Someone pulled up out front. It’s a guy. They’re talking out there.

  What about?

  How the hell should I know! Maybe you want me to ask them?

  Naw. That’s okay.

  Sully breathed a sigh of relief when Rachel turned and followed Billy back to his car.

  He watched as they drove away. Everything was all right. He could still follow them via his GPS.

  Sully was suddenly furious. He was, perhaps, more angry than he’d ever been before.

  He stepped out of his MG, ever the giraffe from the nether regions of the goat, and walked three houses down, cutting across lawns as he went. He kept his cell phone in his hand and listened as he walked.

  Skillet.

  Yeah?

  How’s the foot?

  It’s all tingly. So tingly it hurts.

  I think it’s time we got the fuck out of here.

  As Sully stepped up onto the front porch, the door came open and he heard what at first seemed an echo. It wasn’t. It was the man farther inside saying, You’re the boss, boss.

  Sully reached inside the opening door, grasped the shirt of the man standing there and twisted it into a knot.

  He heard the echo again: What the fuck?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Billy Strongbow made the appropriate introductions, and the three were seated in the Garden Room at Mother’s Restaurant. A plump waitress complete with tattoos and streaks of purple hair took their drink order, then skittered off.

  “Thank you, Ms. Ward, for coming to Aiden’s funeral.”

  “I felt I had to. Shelby...my husband at that time, couldn’t bring himself to do it.”

  Billy Strongbow sipped his water, leaned back and listened. Jonathan Holloway nodded. The man had aged twenty years in the previous ten. His head was completely bald and he was thin as a rail. His suit, however, looked new, and there seemed to be a repressed humor behind his eyes.

  “That’s completely understandable,” Holloway said. “I was rather surprised when Agent Strongbow contacted me last night. I told him something I have not told another soul. I don’t know why I did, except... Ah. I suppose that’s another story. I once interviewed this old woman for a history section I was working on for my history thesis. This woman was an eyewitness to an event that occurred along about 1933, or thereabouts involving some of the confederates of Bonnie and Clyde. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”

  “Who hasn’t.”

  “Exactly. Anyway, I interviewed this rather nice lady, and she told me some things that no one ever knew about the robbery and the subsequent trial. It made for a rather large chapter in the thesis. Two weeks later, she dropped dead of a heart attack. It was like she had waited sixty years to tell the tale, and then, her purpose being completed, she gave up the ghost.”

  “I’m sure you’re not going to die after telling me what you have to say,” Rachel said.

  Holloway laughed. “Hope springs eternal. No. I have no intention of doing so.”

  “Go ahead and tell her,” Billy said.

  “Yes. I can get rather long-winded. My apologies.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Rachel said, and then frowned at Billy.

  “After Aiden was...dead—I guess it was about three years later; this would have been after you had already left his life—I came to see your husband.”

  “Ex-husband,” Billy said.

  “I’m sorry. Your ex-husband. I came to...well, to be blunt, I came to kill him.”

  “I have trouble believing that,” Rachel said.

  “It’s true. I had my father’s German Mauser—which he had brought back from storming Berlin—and I was intent on killing him. I knocked on the front door and he opened it. I raised the gun and pointed it at his heart. But...I hesitated.”

  “Oh my God. What happened?”

  “Shelby told me, ‘Do it.’ ”

  “He what?”

  “Your ex-husband begged me to kill him. I had gone through three years of the worst hell I could have ever imagined in my life, and the man who had brought that hell down upon me was begging me to end his life.”

  A tear tracked down Jonathan Holloway’s cheek, and he quickly wiped it away, as if it was a singularly personal aberration.

  “I looked into his eyes and I saw the same pain that I had endured, but magnified a hundredfold.”

  “He begged you...” Rachel said.

  “He did. And now, all this trash in the paper about Mr. Knight taking another life. I am telling you, Ms
. Ward, it is not...it is simply not possible.”

  Rachel pursed her lips, and fought back her own tears. Why are you here? Shelby’s words echoed in her ears.

  “Why?” Rachel asked. “Why would you tell me this?”

  Jonathan Holloway leaned back in his chair and interlaced his hands. “Because, as much danger as he may be in from others, it probably doesn’t compare to the danger he is in from himself.”

  Rachel looked at Billy Strongbow. “Suddenly I’m not very hungry,” she said. “Would you please take me home?”

  Billy nodded.

  The three stood.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Holloway. I believe you’ll be dining alone tonight.”

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  “Mr. Holloway?” Rachel asked.

  “Call me Jon.”

  “Jon, what you did tonight was very brave. I want to thank you.”

  “It may surprise you to believe me, Ms. Ward, but there are good people in the world, and there are very bad people. It is evident to me that because of the terrible thing he did to my son, and because his life essentially ended at that point, Shelby Knight may be one of the good ones. Because of that, something has to be done.”

  Rachel hugged Jonathan Holloway quickly, pressing his spare frame into her, then released him.

  She nodded. “Good night, Jon,” she said.

  Shelby awoke from a nightmare in which he was shooting into a crowd of people, killing them indiscriminately in order to find the Evil One. The Evil One was there among them in the art gallery along Congress Avenue, and Shelby stood with his old weapon in his hand. After each shot his gun would speak, “Wrong one. Try another. He’s here, somewhere.” He shot and blood was thrown against an old Renaissance masterwork, he shot again as they tried to crawl away along the corners of the high-ceilinged room. He fired again and again and his weapon never ran dry. It called to him, “Wrong one.” And then, amid the carnage, he stood alone. The weapon in his hand was no more than an inanimate object, and the voices had come not from it, but from inside his own head.

  Shelby awoke and began donning his armor by the bare bulb of the garage sale lamp beside his cot. Sheppard was long gone for the night and he wouldn’t see him until around breakfast tomorrow.