Ashes to Ashes

by Nathaniel Fincham

Chapter 57

  Somewhere a telephone was ringing. At first it was only inside of Ashe’s head, which was slowly regaining thought and senses. As more and more returned, he managed to open his eyes and was immediately struck by a blinding light that was coming from directly below him. He flinched and fought to filter the light but found it difficult and painful. His head hurt. And his memories seemed stained with confusion.

  He had been hit hard on the head, Ashe was sure. Where was he? Why was he there? And why won’t someone answer the phone?

  Along with the ringing telephone, he could hear rain drops slamming themselves against what must have been a roof over his head. He was indoors, inside a house or some other type of building. But where? And why?

  Ashe realized that he was sitting in a chair, his hand and feet wrapped with something strong and sturdy. Wire…thin but strong. He struggled for a second against the restraints, unsure to why someone had felt the need immobilize him.

  He then became aware that someone sat directly next to him. And with the help of the rising light and he adjusting eyes, Ashe could see that it was his son, staring at him. Scott’s expression asked the same question that the psychologist had been asking himself ever since waking. Why was he there? At the sight of Scott it all came back to Ashe.

  He instantly grew enraged, at himself and at Lucky Barrett. He had once again made the wrong move against an unpredictable man. His aura of power and control after killing the head assassin had been fake, staged, a conjuring illusion, but Ashe’s ignorance and lack of common sense had been as real and as present as ever. And after everything he had learned about the pill and the extreme paranoia it caused, along with the connection he had made concerning Lucky Barrett, his state of mind and the insane things he might have done because of the pill’s influence, the psychologist had still stepped incorrectly. He had treated the men with the guns as the biggest threat, while it was truly the madman without a gun that he should have been the weariest of.

  And he knew that.

  Damn it.

  He knew that.

  The phone continued to ring and ring and Ashe looked over the Barrett, who was standing perfectly still. Finally Lucky Barrett acted as if he was going to pick up the phone and say a gentlemanly greeting. But he didn’t. Instead, he snatched the phone from the table where it sat, next to the entranceway to the kitchen. Yanking on the base of white phone, Lucky ripped the cord from the wall jack before spiking the entire device onto the floor like a football. It broke and bounced and landed next to the shards of a broken vase, the same one that had been collapsed across the back of Ashe’s skull. Lucky picked the phone up and again and repeated the move, further breaking the plastic device into piece. He then growled and strolled back to the shadows, just outside of the full reach of the lantern’s glow.

  Swinging an arm while flapping his thin fingers, Lucky Barrett motioned for the remaining assassin to come over to him. “Stay next to me. Whatever happens, stay right next to me.” He tried to sound forceful, but only managed to sound frenzied. “Okay?”

  “Yes sir,” the drone replied.

  “Are you okay, Scott?” Ashe asked his son, turning his attention away from the mad captain and his remaining mindless soldier. They both knew that the ship was filling with water and sinking. It had just hit an iceberg and the frigid ocean was rushing in and rising all around them.

  “I’ve been better,” Scott answered. “And so have you.”

  “Definitely,” he replied.

  “Enough of this family reunion,” Lucky interrupted, “however sweet and touching it may be. I don’t know if I should welcome you, Dr. Walters, or shoot you in the head, like you did to one of my men…even if was quite impressive. Never would have seen it coming. And I don’t get surprised very easily. Quite a twist of character, I have to say.”

  “You don’t know my character, Mr. Barrett,” Ashe shot back. “But I know yours.” And he did. Or at least he truly believed that he had finally come to an important understanding in regards to Lucky Barrett. He may have made some minor to major blunder during the last couple of days, but the man in front of him wasn’t as much of an enigma as Ashe had once viewed him to be. Unpredictable? Yes. But not unknowable.

  Lucky moved fully into the light, his drone at his side. “Do you?”

  Ashe nodded.

  “Tell me then, good doctor,” Lucky Barrett said, “what exactly is my character?”

  “You are a drug addict,” Ashe stated. “Plain and simple.”

  “Plain and simple?”

  “Most drugs are easy to understand,” Ashe continued. “The highs. The lows. The symptoms. The users. The abusers. But your addiction is a little more complicated than those that smoke crack cocaine or drop ecstasy, I have to admit.” While he talked, he calmly tested where the wire was holding his wrists together. Ashe wiggled, desperately searching for any potential flaws that he might be able to use to his favor. But the wire was sturdy and wrapped tight. Damn. His ankles were also tied with the same wire, individually bound to legs of the chair. Damn. “That is because your drug is a lot more complex than those normal types of substances,” he continued.

  “Much more complicated,” Lucky concurred. “In ways you can’t possibly understand.”

  Ashe tilted his head slightly. “I don’t think that you fully understand what it does either, Mr. Barrett. Lucky, may I call you?”

  “Mr. Barrett, please,” Lucky replied. “And I understand it more than anyone else. That is why I still stand before you today…alive. Well. Against popular opinion, that is.” He giggled like a child.

  He joked? How could he joke? Ashe wondered. Does he not grasp the extremity of what was taking place? Or perhaps he had become so out of touch with reality over the years that he honestly saw himself to be invincible. Did Lucky Barrett seriously believe in and have full faith in an absurd scenario where he would be allowed to walk away free and clear? Or maybe he was merely coming apart at the seams?

  Ashe figured it to be equal parts of absurd faith and departure from reality. “Take a look at yourself, Mr. Barrett. Find a mirror. Take the lantern if you want. Take a good look. No matter what your precious pill has you to conclude, this is the end for you. No matter what happens to anyone else in this room, you are going down. You prints are all over this and a can of worms has been opened. Your assassins came here to get you out of this cleanly and under the radar, but they had failed. Your failsafe failed. You didn’t fully appreciate and respect all of the gears that are at work, turning and turning inside of the current machine. You were unaware that you did not possess all of the pieces to this particular puzzle…and I know how much of a bitch that could be.” He didn’t know how accurate what he said was, because he couldn’t say for an absolute certainty what was going to happen to Lucky Barrett when things were all over and done with. Unlike what was believed of the mystery pill, he could not foretell the future. But he did know that Lucky had not gotten away clear and away from fault. Everyone would be given proof of his dirty hands. “You have remained on the outside for long enough,” he told the so-called gangster. “It’s time to bring it to an end and pay your dues. Maybe you shouldn’t have ventured outside of your home today. Maybe you had been smart in locking yourself from the threatening and dangerous world. I bet you want to take that choice back, huh?”

  “I have never killed a single person,” Lucky Barrett insisted, a statement that was obviously a well-rehearsed motto. But it was true. Technically.

  “That doesn’t matter, anymore,” Ashe informed him. “There are other forms of dirt and blood on your hands. And if you think that I am wrong, walk out that door into the arms of the loving police. Have them cuddle you and tell you that everything is going to be okay. Maybe they will pat your head and tuck you into a warm bed for the night. They may even have a cup of warm milk waiting for you. I doubt it, though.”

  �
�I may be a killer,” Scott threw in, “but I am the one who is tied to this chair. You are in control. Bring this to an end, why don’t ya?” Looking to Ashe, “I’m sorry, dad. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I don’t know how the hell I got to this place. It is like a strange and scary dream.”

  “I know,” Ashe assured his son. “I’m sorry that you didn’t feel like you could come to me for help…before things turned into…what they have become. I’m sorry that you couldn’t count on me. This is all my fault.”

  “It is my fault, dad,” Scott insisted. “And I did count on you. I really did. And you are here. You are here and I knew you would be. Deep down, somewhere inside, even within the hatred I thought that I had for you, because of what happened to mom, I knew you would be here for me. I don’t hate you dad. I never have. I want you to know that. I’m sorry it took getting to a place like this for me to realize it.”

  Scott had counted on him, in his own way. His son had simply lacked the ability to come completely and directly to him. The chasm between them had grown too vast, too wide to fully cross. Scott had in fact showed faith and trust in his father by leaving behind the so-called clues, and also by calling the house, risking exposure in order to speak with Ashe.

  Ashe was emotionally lifted into the atmosphere by his son’s expressed feelings toward him, by the revelation that Scott had never honestly hated him. But he was immediately brought back down the cruel earth by the reality of their circumstance. He suddenly became desperate, desperate to escape the whole mess with his son and himself still alive. Ashe had lost too much precious time with his boy, he realized, and he wanted to make up for those lost years at once. And Lucky Barrett would not stand in his way.

  “I love you, Scott.”

  “I love you, dad.”

  “Stop!” Lucky shrieked. “Shut down this father and son bonding moment and let me think. I know how it ends. I’ve seen it. And it doesn’t end in prison…because I don’t go. I’m in my office and it’s at least a few years from now. I’ve seen it. I don’t go to prison. You hear me? I don’t go to prison…at least not tonight.”

  “Because the pill showed you…what?” Ashe asked, becoming fed with the ratings and ravings of the delusional, ignorant asshole that was holding his son and him captive. “What exactly do you think you’ve seen, Mr. Barrett? Huh?”

  “You know,” Lucky replied. He began to fidget, like an addict needing a fix.