From A Dead Sleep

by John A. Daly

  The only firearm I can see between them is Alvar’s rifle, which he’s peering through the sights of as he pans the riverside, but the others are surely packing as well. I’m a sitting duck down here. The second I try to leave the cover of the rocks, I’ll be a quick casualty in a shooting gallery. If I was only able to grab the gun from Alvar’s trunk, I’d at least stand a fighting chance, even if it was a poor one.

  For now, all I can do is sit here, keep quiet, and wait for them to make a move. After a few minutes, that’s exactly what they do.

  There’s some shuffling of flashlights between them and then they spread out. One of the beams hikes upstream and the other one heads down. Alvar remains stationary, like Christ the Redeemer from atop Corcovado Mountain, gazing down with a watchful eye over Rio de Janeiro. That’s as far as the comparison goes. Jesus isn’t trying to kill Brazilians. They must only have two flashlights between them because Alvar’s standing in the dark and relying on the other two to guide his aim.

  Whoever’s walking downstream is closer to me. I watch their spotlight glide along the shoreline. It illuminates some flatter terrain where a narrow bank of sand and pea gravel resides. A little farther down there’s a row of leafy trees whose modest branches dangle above the river. If I can make it to them, I’ll at least have a little cover to try and make an escape. Getting there’s the tough part. There’s practically no cover between here and there.

  My feet, especially my toes, are beginning to numb up from the freezing water they’re submerged in. I’m concerned that they’ll trip me up if I make a run for it.

  The circle of light cast from the man downriver flashes up from the shore and it doesn’t return. To find out why, I crawl forward and peer from behind the rounded, lower edge of the rock my shoulder is pressed firmly to. The flashlight’s still on but it’s pointed directly in front of the man holding it. He’s lighting up a path. He’s found a way down. I force myself not to hyperventilate as he shuffles his way down the ravine, several times grabbing onto the stems of thin but strong shrubbery. I press my back flat up against the rock. Closing my eyes, I strain in desperation to decipher a passage to freedom. A last resort could be to throw myself into the river and let it carry me away, but its force is unreal. My chance of surviving might be even worse than if I put my hands in the air and gave up to Moretti’s goons.

  He’s about to the bottom of the ravine now. I’m out of time to come up with some brilliant maneuver. The best I can hope for is to make a mad dash for my life and hope to God that I don’t get shot. My shoes slide in the mud when I plant my heels in preparation to spring and a group of rounded stones, the smallest one just a hair larger than a softball, bumps against my ankles. Without thinking, I grab a hold of one in each hand. I jostle them in my forearms until I’ve got the larger one in my left hand.

  When the man with the light gets within a dozen feet of me, I don’t wait for him to guide his beam around the side of my shelter. I backhand the larger stone to the upstream side of the shore to hopefully get his attention elsewhere for just a moment. Almost immediately afterwards, I spring upright and hurl the other stone as hard I can, aiming for directly above the flashlight. I know it connects when I see the outline of the man topple backwards with his flashlight falling from his hand. Under the green tint of the goggles, I watch as something else bounces along the ground beside him. A pistol. If I dash off, there’s a good chance he’ll snatch the gun and fire a shot in my back before I can get clear. That’s not going to happen.

  I see now that it’s Frank. The glazed look in his eyes tells me that he hasn’t a clue what hit him. He scrambles along the rocks, either trying to get to his feet or trying to get to his gun. I nail him in the side of the head with the toe of my shoe. I barely feel the impact, thanks to the temperature of the river. I grab the gun from the rubble beside his neutralized body and take off along the shore, leaping over and between rocks. I beat back the pain jolting through my knee and turn my head and see the other flashlight’s beam dashing back to where Alvar had been standing. I’m hoping the altercation caught the big man off guard and he’s uncertain who his target is. It doesn’t take long for him to figure it out. I see my shadow appear along the rocks in front of me and I know I’m being lined up between sights.

  My gut tells me to weave to the left. When I do, sparks bounce off the pile of rocks to my right. My heart’s bashing my chest and my eyes are drawing tears with each breath. Without looking, I swing my arm back toward the top of the ravine and fire off a shot, merely meant to give them pause. The recoil nearly knocks the piece from my hand, but I manage to keep hold of it.

  The row of trees along the bank is just a few steps away. I haven’t sensed any more shots since the one that sent sparks flying. The vision of the helpless rabbit dangling from Tony’s branch jolts through my mind and I can’t circumvent the notion that I’m being sized up by Alvar, like it was, to lay in the perfect shot. He knows anyone in their right mind would seek the shelter of the trees. I show him that I’m not in my right mind by abruptly weaving in the opposite direction, digging into the muddied pea gravel closer to the river. A sharp breeze whisks by my ear and I’m sure it’s the trail of a bullet. A little further to the right and it would have picked me off. Only then do I venture up under the trees.

  I latch onto a web of tree roots that stray out from the crumbling earth like a partially buried cargo net. Dirt fills my shoes as I desperately search for footholds. My injured knee buckles every time I try to dig in. I find little solid ground, but I’m able to lift myself upwards with my arms nonetheless.

  By the time I find the crest of the hill, a broad beam of light rises above its jagged horizon and I know one of them is close. I fire another stray bullet in that direction to slow them, not recognizing its futility until I’m back on my feet, realizing that a gun with a silencer isn’t going to send anyone diving for cover. Hell, they probably didn’t even know I shot at them.

  Fighting through the hindering pain in my knee, I find that I can run well enough if I keep my leg relatively stiff and lead with my other. I stray away from the river a bit, where the forest is thicker, and I don’t look back, barreling between trees like a horse fleeing a fire.

  Chapter 40

  Countless times throughout the night my weary eyes would define the outline of a tall man standing perfectly still among scores of lanky trunks and branches that swayed with the wind. But with each compliant step forward, his contour would blend back in with the wilderness and convince me that my mind was simply exhausted.

  I don’t know why they stopped pursuing me. Maybe I got lucky and sunk one of those stray shots inside one of them. Maybe they thought I headed off in a different direction—into the heart of the forest instead of sticking to the shoulder of the river.

  My knee is swollen tightly and each painful, unbalanced step feels like it could be my last, but I continue on. My leg buckles when I slip on a large, smooth stone just as I crest a long hill. I grunt and leap forward to keep my balance and stay upright. My arms go horizontal and I scramble down to the bottom of the embankment, slipping and stumbling along the way. I reach the bottom where small rocks and dislodged chunks of earth bang against the backs of my ankles. I take a breath that lingers visibly in the air and continue on, pulling my thin, dirty fingers now clenched into fists back under the dark trench coat sleeves for warmth.

  I rested little, merely five or ten minute breaks here and there after collapsing to my knees and letting my chest rise and fall. I didn’t want to stay idle for long. Each time I did the image of Arianna’s lifeless eyes returned and pried into my soul like a hot spear through my rib cage.

  My lips and throat are dry, and when I drink from the river, my thirst only returns a minute or two later.

  Still, the rushing river remains my constant companion, encouraging me that signs of civilization will emerge into sight, along with the rising sun. The sun’s rays jet through the sky and clouds above in rejuvenation, like the promise of cont
inuing life, though I can’t yet feel their heat. It’s a beautiful sight but a disheartening one, too, because I know that my life has no purpose without Arianna. She’s gone, and I can’t fathom a day when that wound in my heart could heal.

  I wonder when Moretti did it. If he delivered her the fatal blow before they ever got back to the house, there truly is nothing I could have done to stop it. But if he returned to the house with Arianna still alive, it’s possible my absence is what proved to him Valentino’s claim, and in a rage, he ended her life. Maybe if I had stuck around, she’d be alive right now.

  All of that effort to deceive them into believing that the man who escaped their clutches was Valentino—it could have well been the catalyst for Arianna’s death.

  If they’ve figured out by now that it’s me and me alone that they have to worry about, I’m uncertain of their next move. What I do know is that they won’t stop until they find me—not until my head is a trophy on Moretti’s mantel.

  I know how Moretti thinks. He’ll take whatever revenge he can against me, and that includes coming after Lisa. He’ll see it as an eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. At least she’ll be safe for the moment. They don’t know where she is.

  I never should have let Moretti know about Lisa at all, but there’s no way I could have kept her a secret from him. He’s got too many connections in Vegas—too many people who’d recognize me with a mysterious woman. When I built up the nerve to tell him of my second life, he laughed hysterically for ten minutes straight and to my surprise seemed to admire my creativity. From his standpoint, the gimmick was preferable to worrying about a spouse knowing too much about his business. Again, plausible deniability. He probably figured the marriage wouldn’t last two months anyway, let alone two years.

  Still, Moretti felt compelled, in direct terms, to help me with my charade. That’s how he phrased it anyway. He insisted that he take Lisa and me out for dinner one night so he could play the part of a retired colleague at the FBI. It was a terrible idea—an impending disaster—but I had no choice. The anger that began to stew in his eyes when I expressed my reservations told me that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  Lisa was actually eager to meet my former colleague, Lawrence Falcone. It was an alias Moretti had come up with quickly, as if he’d used it before or knew someone of that name. For Lisa, it was the promise of some much awaited insight into a secretive, exciting career that I avoided talking about. Moretti didn’t disappoint. While scarfing down medium-rare steak and wine, he rattled off anecdote after anecdote of fabricated stories—the details of which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I was astonished by the amount of preparation he must have done in order to so convincingly deliver such fiction. He’d even turned off what was left of his Italian accent.

  Moretti was enjoying himself, and I could sense that he was sending me a message with his performance—a message that he was a puppet master who held my immaculate deception in the palm of his hands. He could cut the strings at the moment of his choosing. He’s always liked being in control—of everything.

  He told Lisa the tale that his marriage ended because he too often brought the job home with him, making the mistake of exposing the gory details of crimes committed by the worst of humanity to his wife. He spoke of how he burdened her, wore her down, and pushed her away. It was as convincing as hell. I swear I even saw a tear form in his eye. Lisa seemed to take his words to heart. She rarely pressed me on the details of my work after that. I suppose, in that sense, that Moretti did me a favor, but if I could take any of it back, I’d take it all back. I would have never married her. I would have never exposed her to any of this.

  I could run to the Feds and turned state’s witness, but who would be testifying against whom? I killed a man. I did it in cold blood, and to the Feds, that might not make me any less of a notch on their belt than Moretti. Sure, I’ve got a lot of dirt on the big guy, but he always insulated me from the worst stuff. I’ve got his books, which are important. But if the Feds have the paper trail, they don’t need me. And without the evidence, how much am I worth to them?

  Even in a best case scenario, I’d end up in witness relocation with Lisa by my side, condemned to live with a man she had no idea was a cheating, pathological liar, and now a murderer to boot. She’s had no part in any of this.

  Valentino Greco weighs heavily on my conscience. The man was no saint, by any means, but did he deserve to die? I killed him for nothing. His death was pointless. As hard as I try to fight the crushing realization that I drained the life from his body—that he died at my hands—I’m unable to absolve myself of the dark, punishing guilt that hangs over me.

  God, I’ve destroyed so many things. Lisa keeps entering my thoughts. Prior to today, it had gotten to the point where our marriage had become nothing but a burden, an obstacle that stood in the way of the clarity I felt whenever I’d fantasize about my future plans with Arianna. She was standing between me and a fresh start. I resented her. I had contempt for her. Now, I can’t stop thinking about her. Maybe it’s the epiphany that the same lifelessness I saw last night in Arianna’s eyes is what Lisa’s been seeing in mine for over a year. And now, I’ve placed a target on her back, too. If I’m to set her free from all of this, and set myself free from all of this, there’s only one thing left to do.

  I glance down at my trench coat that spent the night in my brief bag. Its sharp and clean appearance is a stark contrast from Tony’s grimy, muddied jacket that I buried between some rocks upstream. It covers so much of my body that you’d never know I spent the night in the forest. I look like I’m headed to a job interview.

  I sense movement out of the corner of my eye and observe a small white blur in the distance. It flickers through the gaps in the sporadically dense wilderness, unhindered by the terrain and moving quickly from east to west. A cloud of dust floats behind it and I realize that it’s an automobile along an apparent dirt road. The car doesn’t slow down when it reaches the path of the river. It glides on over to the other side. There must be a bridge ahead.

  The theory is confirmed when I reach a small clearing along the riverside. The bridge is constructed primarily with wood but has two vertical, cement piers that rise up from the water to support it. There’s text branded along its lower wall. It reads “Meyers Bridge – CR 2.” I assume that the CR stands for County Road and I pull a ripped piece of newspaper from my bag that I discovered during the night. It had fallen in there along with other items from the top of the desk back at the house when I was in a hurry to grab Moretti’s ledger. I had used it as a piece of scratch paper during the meeting in town, earlier in the day. On the backside of the paper is a local map. On it, I see a County Road 1, but no 2. It must be farther south because this is the first bridge I’ve come to. That would make me close to the town of Winston if the promoters of the 7th Annual Beggar’s Basin Fish-Off were true to their representation.

  It takes a desperate man to put such faith in the hands of an oversimplified map from a newspaper advertisement, but I believe it has served me well.

  Another car comes into view through the trees, traveling in the opposite direction from the first one. It’s a dark shade of gray, and I dart for cover behind a tree with my chest pounding, aware that I no longer wear the cloak of night to help hide me. The car’s moving slowly but is not coming to a stop. I peer through a web of leaves and brush as it continues on its way, prowling along methodically like a steel shark in search of food. It’s Alvar’s Buick. Shit.

  I’m exhausted. I no longer have the will or the strength to fight for my life, but I may not have to as they haven’t spotted me. They’re probably just canvassing the area, hoping to get lucky. Moretti’s Cadillac is most likely out somewhere on the same mission. The car’s lit headlights tell me that they’ve been at it for a while.

  Exposing as little of my face as I can, I watch them slowly vanish behind a ridge to the east, in front of what I believe at first are fence posts. A concentrated st
are divulges them as rural mailboxes. The disappearance of the car is so illusory that I half wonder if its presence was even real or if my exhausted mind was playing a cruel trick on me.

  I check my watch. It’s nearly six a.m. I don’t have a lot of time to make this work. The event starts in just a few minutes.

  I’d planned to be farther down the river by now, but it might actually work to my advantage if one of the locals later remembers seeing a gray Buick driving down County Road 2 in the early morning hours. This is the place to do it.

  I dwelled hard during the night, and I’d succumbed to the notion of letting Lisa find out about me from the police during the investigation. She’ll be floored by the raw details. She’ll take it hard. Of this I have no doubt. But she’ll one day get past it and live the kind of life she’s always wanted. Of this, I also have no doubt.

  The sight of the mailboxes gives me pause, though. I hadn’t expected such an opportunity to present itself. It’s as if I’m being sent a message from God himself to both make things right with Lisa and ensure Moretti gets what he deserves.

  I sit down on a large, rounded rock that makes a convenient seat. I open my brief bag and spread it across my lap. I yank a couple sheets from the back of Moretti’s thick financial ledger and turn them over where they’re blank. In my haste, the only writing utensil I managed to sweep into the mouth of the bag was a red ballpoint pen. It doesn’t write at first, but some scribbling brings it to life.

  One would think that an exhausted man with no soul left in his body would have trouble finding the words to write, but they come effortlessly. I tell Lisa nearly everything—who I really work for, the affair, what happened last night, and why she’ll never see me again.

  I let her know that when my body is found, the authorities will look at Moretti. All kinds of people saw us together in Lakeland. Our entourage of slick Italians, a hot woman, a giant Mexican, and a blonde-haired pencil-pusher stuck out like a sore thumb. And if that’s not enough, the FBI in Vegas will receive a blueprint of my murder, along with details of Moretti’s numerous illegal activities on their doorstep in a couple of days. I tell her that she’ll be safe, and that Moretti won’t bother to seek retribution against the wife of a dead man who wronged him—especially if he thinks that man was murdered by another adversary.