Slow Fall

by Edgar Warren Williams

  He brought his cast down hard on Tom's hand; Tom wailed, and bent to the blow. The gun exploded into the wall behind Pickett, then clattered to the concrete floor. Quickly, Pickett brought the cast back up into Tom's hairless face. Tom moaned and went over backwards into the advancing Bernie.

  “Shithead,” said Bernie, kicking Tom aside and moving toward Pickett.

  Kemp's hand went inside his coat.

  Pickett came up with Tom's revolver; it roared.

  The slug careened off the floor in front of Bernie, whined between his legs, and smashed into the door behind him. Bernie froze.

  Kemp slowly removed his hand from his coat, and held it, palm up, in front of him. “Easy, man.”

  Tom moaned and rolled onto his stomach. Bernie looked down at him without emotion, and then put his hand to the purplish brown stain on his own left cheek. Both he and the bruise looked angry.

  “Just take it easy.” Kemp pushed at the air with open palms. “Nobody wants to do anything they'll—they'll be sorry for.”

  Pickett smiled, painfully, and wiped his mouth with the finger tips at the end of his cast. “You oughta be sorry. Kidnapping's a capital offense—or'd you forget that, Ralph?”

  Bernie cocked his head to one side and took a step toward the man with the gun.

  “C'mon, Bernie, show's over.” Bernie stopped with one foot forward. “I think I'd feel a whole lot better if both of you put your hands behind your head.” They did. Though it seemed to cost Bernie considerable effort and no little embarrassment. “And sit on the floor.”

  “Oh for Chrissake—”

  “Sit!”

  Kemp sat.

  “Now… just sit tight.” And Pickett lowered himself back to the edge of the bed. He took a few deep breaths, all the while swinging Tom's .38 back and forth between the two men on the floor, as if trying to decide which to shoot first. After a moment, Pickett smiled with half his mouth and chuckled. “Let's make this quick,” he said in imitation of Kemp; then, in his own voice, he added, “I got a headache.”

  Kemp chuckled. “He's got a headache.”

  “Let's talk about yours first. What about Millie? What did you want from her?”

  “Oh, come on man… It's business.”

  “What sort of business? Blackmail business—”

  “You're way off—”

  “-- or murder business?”

  “Hey, come on now. You can't connect us with that Herb Purdy shit.”

  “Why not? He worked for you and he's connected to Millie. And you're after her. Want her enough to risk capital crime to get her. And Purdy… well, he's dead.”

  “Hey man, hold on. What I want with Millie aint got nothing to do with Purdy. And I don't know nothing about him and Millie.”

  “Why is it I don't believe you, Ralph?”

  “Who cares,” said Bernie.

  “Shut up, for Chrissake,” said Kemp.

  “Uh-arghf,” said Tom. He pushed up from his stomach to his elbows and rolled over. Blood matted his face from nose to neck.

  “You better turn him over before he chokes,” said Pickett.

  Bernie gave Tom a shove.

  Kemp muttered: “He might as well for all he's good for.” Bernie chortled. Pickett smiled.

  “Hard to get good help, Ralph?”

  “You better believe it.”

  “Then why burn Herb?”

  “You don't hear so good. I said I didn't know nothing about that.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Look, I went after the girl. Okay, it's business. She ran out on me. It's hard enough getting good meat for a dump like that, let alone let em think they can just up and leave whenever they want.”

  “You're breaking my heart, Ralph.”

  “She was holding out, too. Doing overtime with the customers, and not paying the management. We got overhead, you know.”

  “Overhead? Hell, that place's hardly got a roof.”

  “Overhead, man. What we're selling out there aint exactly legal in neither county. So, I put the joint on the county line. A little overhead sprinkled in each county and they can say it's the other one that aint doing their Christian duty. Get me?”

  “You want me to believe that Millie's the only one that ever held out on you?”

  “No, no, they all do, I know that. But they know they aint supposed to, y'understand—that I don't like it when they do. I let em though, cause it keeps em there. Soon as they start talking about leaving, I stick it to em. They gotta pay back the hold-backs. I even keep tabs on it. Sort of. That's what the old man's there for. See? It's just sort of a—”

  “You expect them to fall for that?”

  “Look—” Kemp was talking man to man now. “Those beavers I got out there aint too bright.”

  “Jesus!” Bernie jumped as Tom threw himself over and sat bolt upright. Tom looked quickly at Bernie, then Kemp, then Pickett, then back to Kemp, without seeing any of them.

  “Di' we ge' hiwm?” Tom managed through swollen lips.

  Kemp rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Sure, shit-head. We hog-tied him, beat the crap out of him, then gave him your gun so he could finish himself off. What the hell you think—”

  “Ah, Mifer Kemp—”

  “Shutup, for pete's sake,” said Bernie.

  Pickett cut in: “What were you doing at the Ayers' place?”

  All three were silent. Tom looked at Bernie; Bernie looked at Kemp. Ignoring them both, Kemp barked: “Business.”

  “You sure as hell do a lot of business. What sort was it this time? Blackmail business, maybe?”

  Kemp looked relieved. Bernie looked down and smiled. Tom showed the whites of his eyes.

  “What's with you, man? I said business. Legit. I got a construction company up Umatila. We done most of the work on the Temple. They was hitting those suckers for more dough for an extension to the TV studio, and Ed invited me over. I'm the contractor.” He and Bernie actually looked proud.

  Tom looked ready to pass out again. Pickett just looked tired.

  “Yeah, and I'm the Shah of Iran. Where's my flying carpet?”

  Bernie looked up.

  “My car, Bernie. Where's my car.”

  Bernie tossed his head toward the door. “Outside.”

  “Keys,” said Pickett.

  Bernie looked at Tom.

  “Keys.”

  Bernie stuck his hand into Tom's coat and tossed car keys at Pickett. They fell to the floor. Pickett watched them hit. When he looked up, Kemp's hand was fumbling inside his coat again, and Bernie was standing, violence in his eyes.

  “Now, now…” Pickett rose, flourishing Tom's .38.

  Tom fell over onto his side senseless.

  The other three men stared at him, exasperation on two faces, a wearied amusement on the third. He knelt and picked up the keys.

  “I'm gonna take my car and leave. After I'm gone, you'd best get him to the hospital.”

  “You're gonna be sorry for this,” said Kemp.

  Pickett pulled the back of his hand across his mouth, and looked at the blood that collected on it. “Like I'm not already… Anyway, you're the one, Kemp. I make it two counts of attempted kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, battery… That's without accessory on Purdy's murder.”

  “You're crazy. You know that?” said Kemp. “Fuckin. Crazy.”

  Picket laughed. “You know, Ralph, that's about the only thing you've said tonight that I believe. And Ralph… You best get yourself a new sling for that thing under your arm. That one's not for shit.”

  Pickett went out the door backwards.

  It was a motel, The Rambling Rose. And the Nova was outside.

  The third try, it started.

  16

  Bodie Pickett drove back to the boat-house with his good hand on the wheel and Tom's .38 in his lap. The windows were dark.

  The clouds, dark as well, were low and heavy. Large drops fell irregularly into the dust of the driveway.

  He pushed ope
n the boat-house door with his cast and waved the revolver at the dark. He pulled the string without effect. He crept up the stairs, which cracked and groaned with every step, and went through the apartment door like Eliot Ness. The place was empty.

  None of the lights worked, but the water did and Pickett stripped and showered in the dark. When he emerged, it rained softly and steadily. The air was heavy with moisture and the steam from asphalt streets still hot from the afternoon sun.

  Pickett dressed, fried two eggs, and chipped the remaining coffee out of the jar. The grimed floor of the porch was slick beneath his bare feet with the spray from screen-filtered rain. And the rain fell hard now.

  The palm fronds bent, and the canal frothed below. But as suddenly as it had come, it left. The roar became a patter, then measured pops, then, finally, the random drip-drop that would go on till morning. The usual night sounds returned, and with them, a wrinkle in Pickett's brow.

  He went back inside to the phone. It was as dead as the lights. J.B. had finally slipped from the register of the living.

  Pickett swallowed the rest of the coffee, and then went down to the Nova. The air was clear, and relatively cool. Moonlight glistened off the wet car. It looked showroom new.

  It sounded in need of a tune-up.

  Pickett tucked Tom's .38 under the seat and headed back toward Belle Haven.

  #

  The town was dark, as was the old courthouse; but fluorescent white shown from the Sheriff's annex. Excitement shown from the eyes of the deputy at the reception desk.

  “Does he wanna see you.”

  It wasn't a question so Pickett didn't answer. A second deputy, in the corner, fed a file cabinet. The graveyard shift.

  “He aint here now.” The first deputy nodded toward Homer's closet. “We got a call just a little while ago—” He paused, his eyes fixed upon Pickett's swollen lip and discolored jaw. “What happened to you?”

  “Bit a dog. What call?”

  The first deputy looked guiltily across the room at the second, who pretended not to notice. “Another body,” he whispered.

  “Whose?”

  “Dunno—just a body. A dead one. That was all they said. Homer—Sheriff Beane, I mean—he went out there with Singleton an hour ago.”

  “Out where?”

  “Can't say. Ficial business.”

  “Sheriff wants to see me. Right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So I'll go see him. Where is he?”

  “Well,” the deputy scratched his head, “Sheriff did wanna see you.” He looked to the second deputy. The second deputy stared at his papers, shaking his head in disgust—and not at the papers. “Out the old Orlando highway.” And the first deputy proceeded to give Pickett directions to Millie's place. “You know where I mean?”

  “I'm afraid I do. Any eye-dee on the corpse?”

  “Nope. A female. Caucasian. I didn't take the call.” He nodded toward the deputy in the corner. This time, it was the first deputy that shook his head. In amazement. “Man. There sure as shootin's something strange going on around here.”

  Pickett admitted that there sure as shootin was.

  17

  The motor court was dark, save for a stream of light from the open door of Millie's cabin. The stream flowed diagonally across the semi-circular lawn, emptying into the elliptical pool of a street light at the foot of the drive. Homer's men came and went from the bungalow, throwing spasmodic shadows down stream. Bodie Pickett U-turned beyond the court and parked across the street. Behind Tom's Buick—the one Millie had taken. It was empty.

  Save for the spit and prattle of the radio in Homer's cruiser, all was silent. An ambulance waited in the drive a little beyond Millie's cabin, the back doors open wide, awaiting a midnight feeding. Pickett walked through the pool of light and upstream, carrying an island of shadow with him.

  Two deputies stood in front. They talked with the exaggerated quiet and solemnity affected by public officials in the face of private tragedy. They looked up as Pickett approached. “I'm sorry, Mister, but—”

  “I'm Pickett. Homer wants to see me.”

  The one who spoke looked at the other, then at Pickett's ruined mouth. He shrugged, smiled, and nodded to the cabin. “Round back.”

  A silent storm raged there. Lightning flashed silently beneath the live oaks, setting the wet moss ablaze in moments of white light. Homer and half a dozen other men stood around in rough circle, their faces alternately lit and dark as the police cameraman took a last turn around.

  Millie lay on her back in the center, oblivious of light, time, and the stares of men. Her arms lay limply at her side, legs tangled, head turned to the side. Rain glistened on her face, the wet t-shirt a second skin.

  Pickett walked around the circle of men and light. Homer looked up; he was older, by decades. His weight hung like a burden just recently perceived.

  “Take a look.”

  Pickett did. Millie's one eye stared blankly, a drop of water balanced to the side of the iris. The other lid was half closed and concave, the eyeball collapsed around a small hole.

  Pickett looked to Homer.

  “The rain,” said Homer. “Must a been blood, not a hell of a lot, but some. Rain washed it away.”

  The photographer finished and nodded to Beane. “All right.” Homer motioned to the two white-coated men who stood across from them. “Let's get her outta here.” Then he turned to the dark man next to him. “When can I have it, Sal?”

  “I'll get on it first thing tomorrow morning, if that's okay.”

  Homer shrugged. “She aint going nowhere. Singleton?”

  Sal turned and disappeared into the dark. The skinny kid who'd fallen in the canal detached himself from the clot of figures around the body. “Sir?”

  “You go with her.” Homer nodded toward the two men in white. They were lowering Millie into a black plastic bag. “Stay with her till we get someone down there to relieve you.”

  “Yessir.”

  The man called Sal reappeared and put a hand to Homer's shoulder. “Forgot the warrant. It's out in the car. I'll give it to Franklin on my way out.” He patted Homer on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, you need it.”

  Homer said, “Right,” as if sleep were the last thing he were going to get.

  The men in white took up the stretcher and followed the man called Sal. Singleton walked behind and nervously touched the brim of his hat to the Sheriff.

  Homer directed his flashlight at the ground where Millie had been—had ceased to be. The grass was flat and dry. “Skeeter?”

  The remaining deputy straightened.

  Homer made a vague circular gesture with his left hand. “Get a rope around here or something.”

  “Yessir.” And Skeeter hustled around the bungalow leaving Homer and Pickett alone.

  “Well, boy, you sure gotta nose for murder, that's for sure. That's for damn sure.” His light was still on the dry spot. He walked around it to the opposite side, then turned the beam on Pickett's face. “Rough day?” He shut off his light, and walked slowly back around the circle toward the younger man. Homer set his jaw as he approached, stopped close in front of Pickett and thumped an index finger against his chest. “Playtime's over, boy. I wanna know where you been and what you know and I want it now.”

  Homer's eyes drilled into Pickett's; but Pickett said nothing.

  “I been running round this goddamn county for the last eighteen hours, and I find I'm running in your wake the whole goddamn way. I trace last night's stiff to up round Umatila, then to a jerk joint out Sanford. I pump some oily bastard for an hour, get nothing. Then, on the way out, some bimbo tells me that this guy sounds a helluva lot like you been round asking the same questions as me, but spreading a little green for sweetening. So's I got to threaten her with damn near everthin to jaywalking just to get the same thing out of her for nothing.”

  Skeeter busily strung orange tape among the live oaks and around Homer and Pickett, sealing off the crime sce
ne. Homer stopped and thumped Pickett again with his finger.

  “You listening, boy? I'm talking to you.”

  Skeeter pretended he wasn't there.

  “I mean, hell, I'm only the Sheriff, right? Why should anyone tell me nothing? So, I come back to Belle Haven, trying to get some kind a line on this Millie woman, and we get this phone call. Seems there's been some old West showdown earlier in the evening at the Krispy Krunch—a woman name a Millie Moses and some clown that sounds a whole helluva lot like you. Christ, I mean why should anyone tell me bout any of this? So… I get the home address from the Krispy Krunch lady, but nobody's home. So, whataya think, I get a call from Ralph Kemp. Yeah, right, member him? Says this lady stole his car. Now you shut up and just listen.

  “So I go back to the office, and whataya know—I get another call. Yeah. Says to hurry on back. Seems somebody's trying to plant a stiff in the backyard. Now, I high-tail it back, and what do I find? Huh? I find my goddamn witness laid out like a fucking slab of meat. And just then,”—Homer grinned and gestured expansively—”here comes old super sleuth hisself, prancing round like you was out for a walk or something.” The grin became a grimace. “Now you talk to me, boy, and I don't mean tomorrow. You about to get burned bad.”

  Pickett sighed, eyebrows raised, and talked. He gave Homer everything that he had since that morning. That covered the facts of the matter—as far as he knew them—and left Amy, Mark, and Jan Ayers out of it.

  Homer was unimpressed. “That aint the way Ralph Kemp tells it. Seems your friend here…” Homer pointed to the ground. He paused, then rubbed his brow. “Cording to Kemp, she up and stole his car. And you interfered when he tried to stop her.”

  “Come on, Homer, that's bullshit, and you know it.”

  “Course it's bullshit, asshole. But he's got two witnesses that'll back him and you aint got two cents worth of chicken-shit to prove otherwise.” Homer glared at Pickett for a moment in silence, then closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. He pulled a roll of Tums from beneath the flap on his breast pocket.

  “Look, son… Kemp's a two-bit greaser from way back. He's got his hand in every minor racket in the county. Prostitution, small-time gambling, some grass probly—that sort a thing. He aint smart enough for the big-time, but he's plenty smart enough to stay outta stir. And he covers his ass any way he needs to. You got lucky tonight, boy, damn lucky, cause Kemp's mighty worried—least he oughta be. Someone's unloading some heavy-duty junk in the county the last couple a months, and he's nervous. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if he figured someone was trying to move in on him. Aint no time to go pushing him around, boy, not if you wanna stay healthy. You was just plain flat out lucky tonight, boy, nothing but lucky.”