Grayson's Knife

by Russell H Aborn

  “How come you were there?” Hugh says.

  “I checked on the biker’s place. No dice. I thought maybe Gumby grabbed you. I have the .38 Donny bought so I had protection. If they asked what I wanted I was going to pretend I wanted to sell them back the cattle prod.”

  “Cattle prod?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “I appreciate you coming to look for me. That was ballsy.”

  “I was scared as hell.”

  “Makes you even braver.” Hugh says.

  “You’re my brother.”

  “Did Amy go into hiding?” Hugh says.

  “Let me tell you about Amy.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Grayson is in Hugh’s apartment getting some clothes for Hugh’s release tomorrow from the hospital. He’d told his father Hugh had been in a car accident yesterday and they were keeping him until tomorrow.

  Before he gets out the door, the phone rings, he’s startled by it and considers not answering.

  “So, Little Mikey Grayson,” Amy says. “Did all your snooping around make you feel better?”

  “Who’s this? Amy Nihill? Or Amanda Hawthorne?”

  “Both,” she laughs. “Or maybe neither. Hey, have you seen Stan?”

  “Not in what a day or so. I saw him down the beach. He might be there still, some tiny, little bits of skull and hair, anyway. But hurry, once the seagulls get on the job---”

  “That’s funny,” she says.

  “No, it’s true,” Grayson says.

  “I know. The top cop on the State Police told me this afternoon that they had a lead in my husband’s case. A gunman was killed last night in a shoot-out with MDC police, and the dead gunman had a weapon that ballistic tests revealed to be the gun that killed poor Billy. They expect to get the name of the dead man through fingerprints. He also had a tattoo that marked him as a member of The Dark Lord’s motorcycle club. Last night they set fire to their own clubhouse and police now theorize that the fire was an attempt to destroy evidence in the case. Four men are in custody and the other members are being sought. They are presumed to be armed and dangerous. The Commandant of the State Police assured me that cop killers rarely make it to jail alive.”

  “Poor old Stan,” Grayson says. “You don’t seem too broken up about your brother getting killed.”

  “He said that?” She laughs. “He did love to shock people.”

  “So, he’s not your brother?”

  “No comment,” she says. “That’s two of our guys you’ve taken out. I’m impressed with how you pulled all that together at the beach. That was a nice piece of work. Very tidy. I really wish you would join our movement.”

  “Bird was an accident, and Stan got ventilated because he chose to point his gun at the cops, a poor choice, but one he made, not me.”

  “Oh, please,” she says. “Be a man about it. Look what you did to your own brother, I heard about you running him into a telephone pole. You’re like one of those sorority girls in the 50’s, pulling her skirt up, and while saying to her boyfriend, ‘Please. Don’t. Stop.’ You love it but can’t admit that because you don’t want to face the truth about yourself.”

  Grayson chuckles, but finds nothing funny about what she said. Instead, it made him angry and almost sick. Is she right?

  “My guess is you’re not actually a revolutionary,” Grayson says.

  “I am so. It’s just that I have another life, too. Plus, I like my efforts to yield benefits on many levels.”

  “Also, you don’t like cops,” he says.

  She hesitates. “Wrong again. I do like them. I find them admirable adversaries in many ways. They have so many sterling qualities. They just happen to be on the other team.”

  “You like and admire them so you bomb a police station?” he says.

  “Ah, I see. ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am legion.’ Guess who said that? His initials are WW.”

  “Woody Woodpecker?” he says.

  “No, wait a second. I don’t think legion is the right word in that quotation.” She pauses. “In any case, Billy was at a meeting with the drug cops in the station that day. Too bad it failed.”

  “You must have really hated him,” he says.

  “His death was an act of mercy. He was a tortured soul. Do you know who got the drugs his sister OD’d on? Him. That’s how I met him. His sister was at Brandeis-”

  “More bullshit.”

  “He dropped off some smack for her, and that’s when I met him. He was rich and handsome, and tall, and rich, and funny, and rich. That weekend she used the dope and wound up dead. Maybe from a hot shot? Who can say? Billy didn’t understand, since he and his hoity-toity Harvard pals used dope from the same stash. I was able to comfort him, poor baby. I was there for him. He loved me. I didn’t hate him, not at all. I liked him enough that I hated to see him suffer from the guilt of providing heroin to his sister, which killed her. He’s at peace now.”

  Grayson says, “You’re a fucking monster.”

  “A very rich, beautiful, newly single monster. You think it’s a big deal because Billy died, and his sister. Everyone dies. Ev-ery-one. It’s just a matter of timing. You were born, in what, 1949 or 50? You did not even exist for 15 billion years, and you’ll be dead for eternity, so what difference does sixty or seventy years make, one way or another? You’re a one second spark from a fire, a fire that lasts ten million years. You’re nothing.”

  “You did all of this to get rich?”

  “Rich-er. I was rich the minute he married me. I still intend to redistribute it. Some of it, at any rate.” She pauses. “It’s funny. You think a hundred million is a lot of money when someone else has it. When it’s yours, it doesn’t seem like as much. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Not really. So, I guess the gun hijack is off the table, huh? Now that your flying monkeys are on the run.”

  “You think so? No, sadly for you, it’s on, very much so. My buyers are more excited, now that the Lords are out of the deal. Twice as many guns for them. Theirs is a wonderful cause, so I’m happy to help.”

  “Who are they? Maybe I’m partial to their struggle, too.”

  “Baader Meinhof,” she says. “Let’s just say they make Stan’s crew look like Eagle Scouts. We, my small band and I, are hoping to go from affiliate status to full-fledged members.”

  “I wouldn’t order new business cards, just yet. I found Hugh. He’s safe.”

  “You did? That’s interesting. Where did you find him.”

  “You know where he was. At Gumby’s. What you don’t know is Gumby’s dead.”

  Silence on her end for a good half a minute.

  “Hello, hello?” Grayson says.

  “Who killed him? You?”

  “And now I turn my attention to you.”

  She quickly says, “We know an awful lot about you, probably more than you know about yourself. And that little cutie who is preggers, we know all about her, too. Although, the last I heard they were trying to figure out why she’s in a Vermont hotel with an entire hockey team. Is she that high spirited?”

  He lets his silence do the talking for him.

  “Listen,’ she says. “We’re done fooling around. You get on board or dust off your funeral suit. I’ll meet you at Hugh’s place tonight, after the funeral. Billy’s brothers don’t like me so they’ll go back to their big jobs at H&H Capital in New York. I’ll be surprised if a bomb doesn’t go off in their office sometime soon. I’ll ask the police to leave. I’ll choke out a sob and tell them it is too sad to see uniformed policemen, and I need to be alone. You know I can act. Now that we’ve tested each other’s mettle, maybe we can arrive at an accommodation. I want to point out a few things and see what you think then.”

  She hangs up.

  Grayson is rattled by the facts: Amy and her thugs know Catherine is in Vermont. Amy made her point; she had people who could follow Catherine anywhere, and get to her any time they wanted. But not tonight. Toni
ght, Catherine was safe.

  Grayson has to take the fight to Amy. He couldn’t wait for her to come to him. He always believed the best defense was a good offense, except for when he believed the best offense was a good defense. Like The Old Man’s “Hang On” and “Let Go” AA sayings, you just had to know when to do one or the other.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Grayson drove The Goat hard, muscling his way through the gears, once more flying by the “No Jumping” sign, and over the Fore River Bridge. The thought came that he is on the road to Hull with bad intentions. When he got to the Cohasset turn off at the rotary, he took it, his mind going faster than the car, but in due course, he stops well short of the Hawthorne house.

  Back down the street, high on a hill behind him, on the opposite side, is the skeleton of a huge house under construction. He drives back to check it out. The house is roughed out, the framing work done, the bones fully exposed. He pulls on to the lot, where there are a couple of dumpsters and a construction office trailer. The tires slip and grab as he rolls up the muddy incline. The driveway is a series of ruts and mounds. He parks in between the dumpsters. Getting out of the car he makes sure of his footing, because the recent rain and ongoing thaw makes the muddy, bare ground very slippery. He zips his Baracuta Jacket against the wind, and snaps the pockets closed.

  By the light of the nearly full moon, he spots a plank leaning against the foundation in the rough cut where the front door will be hung. He walks the plank up into the framework, and ahead sees the stringers for a staircase that opened wider and curved as it descended to the first-floor landing. It stood out amidst all the other raw wood banged into angles. If he can’t see Amy’s house from the first level, he’ll have to get up to the second, but the stringers have no treads. He picks his way across the floor. There is just enough ambient light to think you can see where you’re going. He steps carefully among the piles of lumber, stacks of plywood, and bundles of roofing shingles, kicking into the odd take-out coffee cup. He walks the bouncy floor over to the wide hole where a picture window has been boxed out. He can almost see all of the front and one side of the Hawthorne house from here, but he can’t see it all the time because of the trees waving back and forth in the wind. There were several cars in the circular drive, but not Amy’s Corvette. It must be behind one of three doors in the free-standing garage.

  He has no firm idea what he is going to do but he has a clear eye on what he wants the result to be. He wants Catherine and the baby to be safe, and he wants his brother left alone.

  In any event, he can’t do anything now because the post-funeral get together seems to be still hanging on. He smokes and watches her house and the driveway. As time passes, people get in their cars and drive away in Mercedes, Caddies, and Volvos. There are no Harleys at this gathering. Off and on, Amy, would walk her guests to their car, hugging herself against the cold March wind which carries the smell of rain. The wind is strong enough to push around the pines and bushes, here and across the street.

  When the last car pulls out of the driveway, a light rain begins to fall as she walks slowly back inside, alone, arms folded across her chest, like the brave widow in a 40’s war movie.

  His eyes had adjusted all they’re going to, so the movement he believes he sees in the deeper darkness beside Amy’s house came with a disclaimer. He doesn’t know if the movement is animal or vegetable; it may have only been the wind slapping a hedge around.

  Twenty or so minutes pass, when door number three on Amy’s garage rolls up, and the Corvette backs out, turns and zips to the top of the driveway and sits with the turn signal blinking. Then she turns the car toward Quincy.

  Grayson runs heedlessly across the cluttered floor, tight-rope walks down the bouncy plank until he reaches a height safe for jumping, and leaps in the direction of his car, pitching forward on impact, so that he ends up on all fours. He stands and tries to wipe the mud stains from his hands onto his pants before he reaches in his pocket for the keys. His view of his hands improves immeasurably when the Corvette pulls onto the lot, too, and lit him up with headlights on high beam. She gets out of the car holding a gun.

  “Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” she says, followed by a peal of laughter. “Doesn’t that sound so fun.”

  She’s changed out of her widow wear to dungarees and sneakers.

  Grayson says, “How do you like this neighborhood? I’m thinking of buying this place.”

  “You couldn’t afford the taxes, never mind the house. Not even if you stopped smoking. I spotted the glowing tip, looked out poor Billy’s telescope and saw you lurking in the shadows.”

  “Listen, I thought I’d meet you here, save you driving up to Quincy, your eyes all full of tears.”

  “I have new orders. I’m going to kill you. You’re not going to hijack the truck, you’re lying and stalling for time and without an inside man, we’re out of business. We were looking forward to getting a trailer load of guns. But, there will be other ways on other days to acquire weapons. You’re too much trouble.”

  “Sorry. I hope you’re not in any trouble with corporate.”

  “No, but I do want to tell them I killed your chick and her baby and your brother in revenge,” she says. “And then you, but only after I let you live long enough to suffer through it, knowing it’s your fault they’re all dead.”

  A heavier rain moves in and washes her hair over her eyes. She pushes it back with the same hand holding the gun, giving him time to duck between the dumpster and his car. He unsnaps the jacket pocket and takes out the .38 he’d gotten from Donny’s oven. When he pops his head out, she fires, shattering his passenger side headlight. She turns and slips and slides back to her car. Grayson starts toward her but the bumpy, slick ground got the drop on him. His feet flew out from beneath him and he wound up flat on his back sliding toward her car. He decides to stay sitting on the ground where he is, about ten feet away from her. He holds his ground and trains the .38 on her.

  “Don’t move,” he says. She looks at him and the gun and then rolls her window down.

  “I said, don’t move. I will shoot you.”

  He means it. He can’t take a chance that she will get away, he believes her now when she says she’ll go after Catherine and the baby. He has to make sure she doesn’t get away. He’s going to have to turn her and himself in and tell the entire story to the cops or the Feds or whoever.

  She says, “Where did you get a gun? I thought you were against them, Mr. Limp Dick, stick-in-the mud.”

  “This is the gun Bird sold Donny. Ironic, huh?”

  “I’m leaving.” She smiles. “Go ahead, Killer, shoot me.”

  “Don’t move or I will.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m off to coordinate the kidnappings. I mean, of little Cathy and her tadpole, plus Hugh. I shouldn’t have said tadpole. The fact that you’ll suffer so greatly when it’s dead, proves it’s a baby.”

  He gets up and moves toward her but stops when she unleashes a loud, almost glass shattering scream.

  She says, “I’m sure the neighbors heard that. How long before the cops come? Who are they going to believe? Me? I live here on Jerusalem Road and I’m the widow of a heroic slain policeman. Or you, a would-be rapist from Whitetrashville?”

  She puts up her window and locks the door, smiling all the while.

  He shuffles forward, careful not to fall on his ass again, and stands near the window, pointing the gun at her.

  “I will shoot you,” he says. “Stay there.”

  She shakes her head and starts the car. He holds the gun out, and cocks it.

  She rolls the window down slightly. “See? You’d love to kill me. Come on, admit it.” She smiles and puts the transmission into reverse.

  “Final warning,” he says.

  She says, “Bye-bye, tell your little girl I’ll see her soon.”

  He extends his arm, aims and squeezes the trigger, again and again. The car rolls backwards out to the road, and Grayson looks at the .38 in
his hand.

  Out on the street, she runs the window down. “You fired right at me. Lucky thing Bird took out the firing pin before he gave it to your handsome, but stupid, cousin. Ironic, huh?”

  She puts it in gear and takes off.

  He makes his way up the hill and jumps in the GTO, rolls out to the street and turns after her. He reaches into the glove box and pulls out Donny’s .22, and puts it in his jacket pocket.

  Grayson hits the gas and speeds through the turns along the hilly road. He sees her taillights ahead and he turns off his headlights. He closes in on her and runs his front end up close to the tail of the yellow Vette, pulls his lights back on, steps on his brakes and flashes his high beams, dropping back quickly. She slams on her brakes and comes almost to a full stop. He veers to the other side of the road, planning to run up in front of her to box her in, but she figures it out and rockets off. He jumps on the gas and they slalom along in tandem on the unlit road. They fly up and over the hills and down again and skid into the turns on Jerusalem Road, but they are going too fast when they head into the lazy S turn close to her house. Before they reach the low bridge over the channel that linked Little Harbor to the ocean, Amy jumps on the brake and then speeds up again, but this time Grayson doesn’t slow down. He pulls the GTO to the left of the Corvette and races up on the other side of the road, pulling even with Amy. He blows his horn and veers toward her, pulling back before the cars make contact, but she doesn’t pull over and stop. Instead, she flinches and snaps the steering wheel away from him and the Corvette launches off the road, flies between two trees, turns driver’s side down and bounces over a few smaller boulders before landing upright in the water of Little Harbor. He jams on the brake, backs up and looks out at the car. The window and windshield are in place but shattered. The car door is badly damaged. There’s no movement in the car that he can see.

  Grayson rolls onto the bridge and stops. He jumps out and runs to the railing on the Little Harbor side. He sees the yellow Corvette sitting in water up to the bottom of the window. The water is too shallow here to swallow it whole, but deep enough to carry much of the weight, and the Corvette body is made of fiberglass, just like a Boston Whaler.