by Mike Bond
Car coming uphill. Abigail?
It slithered past.
I crouched to glance under the table. Hard to see but maybe no one. All shadowed from the frosted streetlight through the tall panes, the darkness. I held my breath but heard no sound of breathing, motion.
Why would he be here anyway? Better to come up behind me while I’m kneeling here.
I circled the table. No one behind the chairs or by the china buffet or against the walls. No one under the table. No one in the front parlor nor at the front door where the red letter had once lain.
Beyond the front door the living room was bathed in silvery darkness. No one behind the three silk couches or two ottomans and armchairs. Nothing else but tall windows and taller bookshelves. I switched the knife to my left hand and from the fireplace took a steel poker.
No one in the little study beyond: just a Shaker desk on dainty legs, a cassocked chair, more bookshelves, a cacophony of book covers in the dim light.
If Jesús was here he wasn’t on this floor.
Except I’d forgot the laundry room.
Off the kitchen a walk-in pantry and laundry room, and beyond that the cellar stairs. I’d forgotten them.
If he had been there he could now be anywhere behind me.
It was like an infantry sweep. If the enemy gets in behind you, you have to do it all over again. At even greater risk.
If I turned on a light he’d shoot me. The silencer’s little pop and I’d bleed out on one of these rugs.
It’s amazing in these situations how incredibly tight you get, how every irrelevant stimulus is wiped out. You’re there, soles on the carpet, knife in your hand, listening for every tiny sound – air disturbed by a moving hand, an intake of breath through nostrils, the shift of weight on a floorboard – and every instant can bring you death.
I unlocked the front door and ran round the building to the back door but it was locked.
He must have just locked it. Or before? Was he still downstairs?
I sprinted back through the front door into the dining room behind the table holding my breath.
A click from the kitchen, a low hum. The freezer switching on.
He liked knife work, the Feebies said. So maybe he’d try that, not use a gun.
It was all I had to hope for.
A creak overhead. Her bedroom. Or the wind.
I waited for my heart to slow then inched into the kitchen. No one. The pantry had no door, no one inside. The laundry room door was closed. Had it been?
I tried to remember the kitchen when I’d first entered. On my left in darkness had been the laundry, the pantry to its right, beyond them the door to the cellar.
Yes, the laundry door had been open.
He wouldn’t have shut himself inside. I yanked it open and whipped the poker into where he should be.
Nothing.
I slid the cellar door bolts shut. If he was down there now he’d have to break the door to get out.
In the darkest corner of the kitchen I texted Abigail: Don’t come home.
Then slid back into the dining room, to the darkness behind the table.
His move.
His Move
WIND CREAKED the shingles and wailed across the ancient glass. It hissed snow down the streets and tore at the trees. The house crouched under it like a beaten dog.
I wanted badly to bring in the cops. But that wouldn’t work. I crossed to the stairs and dashed silently up to the second floor.
Here I had to make a choice. If I went to the third floor first he could follow me. But if I was able to clear the third I’d know he was below me. I sprinted upstairs and there was no one on the third floor landing.
One by one I checked the rooms. No one.
Somewhere below a floorboard creaked. I had an instant of shock, that he could be so maladroit. Or was it a trap, and he wasn’t there at all?
I thought of Genghis Khan: Never be where you seem.
I didn’t have that choice. But he did.
What he didn’t expect was speed. I dashed to the second floor and her bedroom, swung the poker into every corner and under the bed, grabbed the headlamp off her bedside table and moved into her office where I doubted he was as there was no place to hide.
Across the corridor the master bath with its white porcelain clawfoot tub and the glass shower where Abigail and I had once made love happily under the pounding hot water. A sink with a shelf over it and a mirror cabinet above.
You never know in the peripheral darkness but it seemed inside the tub was darker. Expecting I had a gun he’d shielded himself in the cast iron tub till he could get a clear shot at me.
Holding the headlamp wide in my left hand, my body protected by the door jamb, I flashed it on. In the clawfoot tub were three pillows, in the shape of a torso with a raised head.
“Nada màs,” Jesús said behind me. “Don’t move a fucking muscle or I blow your head off.”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
He flicked on the lights. “Drop them, the knife and that metal thing.”
I did, blinking against the sudden brightness.
“Turn round.”
I did, still cursing myself for being so stupidly trapped. He was smaller than I’d thought. Wiry, dark, narrow-faced, black ponytail, silver rings on two fingers, gold earring, rolled-up sleeves with bluish tattoos and a silver bracelet on his left, what seemed to be a 9 mm Sig Sauer in the right hand.
“So tell me,” he said. “What the mierda you here for?”
The question seemed ridiculous, given he was going to kill me. But I had to get him out of here before Abigail arrived.
“I live here. That good enough?”
“Mierda you do.” He looked at me critically. “You fucking this cunt?”
I shook my head. “Just a renter.”
That seemed to satisfy him. I took a breath. Could it be he didn’t know who I was?
“I should have shoot you,” he said. “On that mountain. Now I got to do it all over again.”
I wanted to say Maybe you’re a better shot from ten feet, but didn’t dare.
“So maybe I make you a deal,” he said, “instead.”
I waited.
“You don’ want hear?” He poked his chin at me, cocky as a little rooster. My gut was knotted in fear of death; it felt even worse to be shot by a scumball like this.
“So what you want to know?”
“How you find about me?”
So he was worried about invisibility. Because if I knew about him probably someone else did too. He needed to find out who and kill them also. Anyone who knew.
“I got into Verizon,” I said. “Tracked your calls and where you were when Ronnie was killed. Easy, a kid could do it.”
“You mierda motherfuck you don’t know how to do that.”
I couldn’t keep my eyes off the Sig Sauer. The suppressor on the front made it seem even more deadly When you’re about to be shot the greatest terror is the black hole in the muzzle. Waiting for the bullet to smash you down. “I took a class.”
“You lying.” He nodded at the bathroom. “Get in, that tub.”
This was to avoid spreading blood everywhere. My blood. I tried to smile. “I’m not that dirty.” My mind racing to tell him something so he wouldn’t kill me, how to get him out of the house before Abigail came.
“I got into the Senate phone logs,” I said. “Dannon Ziller called them after you killed Ronnie. They told me.”
“Who tell you?”
“The two Senators I talked to.” I looked at him. It was my only chance. “They gave you up, Jesús.”
“Bullshit they did.” He nodded at the bathroom. “Get in the tub.”
“You said we made a deal –”
He smiled. “You tol’ me already, how you find me. So we don’ need a deal any more.” He twitched the Sig. “Get in the tub.”
A car was climbing the hill, the familiar muffle rattle of the Saab – a tailpipe clamp was m
issing and I’d been waiting for warmer weather to replace it.
This was the worst thing that could possibly happen. If she came in, he would get us both. And would make it look like one of us had shot the other. Case closed.
The offended squeal of the barn doors as she shut them behind the Saab. The squeak of her boots across the back yard. Please Abigail please go.
Then nothing.
I leaned back against the doorjamb I had so recently used as a shield against his expected bullets. There were ten feet between us. I’d be dead before I reached him.
But Abigail would hear the shot.
And hopefully run.
But that was not like Abigail.
“You bullshit me too much,” Jesús said. He raised the gun, stepped forward. “You wanna know when you die? People, they like to know.”
He moved a step closer. His finger tightened on the trigger. I couldn’t stop watching the black muzzle hole. Waiting for the flash.
A shape behind Jesús coming up the stairs. A wraith out of the darkness that became Abigail. I shook my head, wishing her away: Leave while you can.
“What you shake you head for, man? That ain’t goin’ save you.”
He was a sadist, wanted to drag this out. Go, I told Abigail silently. Go away. “How many people you waste, Jesús?” Appealing to his ego.
He strutted a bit. “I tell you, man, you only the nine person I kill.”
“Wow. Does that include Don and Viv?”
“Don and what?”
“The folks in the house you burned down.”
“Oh that, that was accident, man. I was following you, to shoot you on your drive home, then that mierda cop he arrests you… So what could I do? I go back, burn down the house so those signed papers they disappear.”
Abigail moved closer, a framed tennis racket in her hand; now I had to distract him, keep him talking. “How’d you know I was up on Eagle Mountain?”
“When I shoot at you? They tell me to. They hear you are coming from Hawaii, so they get worry. Not my fault – I had to shoot you.”
“They?”
“Same guys, hombre. Get in the fucking tub.”
Closer Abigail came, twitching the tennis racket like a whip. “How’d you get Bucky’s gun?” I said.
“When he shoot the towers, Mass Hauling send me up there next morning, see if I can find who did it. So I track him over that mountain, find the gun, no problem.”
“Then you used it to kill Ronnie Dalt…”
“They tell me, use the same gun. So I do.”
“I bet it was you who left the cartridge casing up by the turbines he shot out –”
“I fire that gun, take the casing up top, leave it where he was shooting.”
“Then you left one in the bushes where you shot Ronnie…”
“They’re easy to fool, the cops.”
He started to turn; I feared he’d seen her. “Jesús!” I said. “Guess who else knows about you?”
He rounded on me. “I already can figure that, fuckface.”
She smashed the racket into the back of his skull and he dropped with a thwump.
Talk about a forehand.
“I TOLD YOU NOT to come.” I said.
“Lucky I did.” She looked at Jesús on the floor. “Back door was unlocked. You would never leave a door unlocked.”
“Never.”
She gave me a quick kiss. “It’s one of the things I love about you. I feel safe.”
My eyes were wet. Must have been what we’d just been through. “And loved.”
“Mmmm,” she kissed me again, one of those self-surrendering kisses that make you self-surrender right back. “And loved.”
In her office I tugged an extension cord from the wall. Her yellow printer light died out.
“Pono what are you doing?”
I held it up. “Can you get more more of these?”
Her eyes widened. “What are you planning?”
Ecstasy
“YOU GOT TWO OPTIONS, JESÚS,” I told him when he returned to the land of the semiliterate. He moaned. Blood was trickling down the side of his head. He focused on me, tried to swing a fist, without success as both wrists and ankles were wired with extension cord to the four legs of the tub, and he was inside it. Naked. This was not to my eyes a pretty sight, but maybe Abigail enjoyed it.
It took him a while to integrate all this. “What you want?” he said, a little unclearly.
I explained him.
“I got nothing to do, that guy getting whacked.”
“So why are you here?”
“Met her at the bar, wanted to see her, when she got home.”
“To kill her?”
“Shit no.” He looked around. “Gimme my clothes.”
“Who were you killing her for? The same people you killed Ronnie for?”
“You!” he spit, “you’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Have it your way.” I re-gagged him with a hand towel while he swore and bit and twisted. “We’ll come see you every so often. So you can lie there and decide how long before you tell us. We’re in no rush.”
“GOT ANY DRUGS?” I asked her when we’d stepped across the bedroom out of hearing.
“You know where I keep the weed.”
“Real drugs. LSD, mushrooms, peyote –”
“Whatever I had’s long gone.”
“How soon can you get some?”
“Tonight? It’s almost midnight –”
I shook her head slightly, hand behind her neck, leaned closer. “It’s important!”
She sat on the chair at the top of the stairs. “Let me think–” I went in and checked on Jesús. Happy as a clam in shit. Nearly.
“I know a guy,” she said.
I fished in Jesús’ wallet, gave her three hundred bucks. “Whatever it costs, just get some.”
“He’s a pretty well-stocked guy. What you want?”
“The best would be acid, uppers and ecstasy. If you could get that…”
She was gone, the Saab’s tires squeaking on the new snow that had started falling. I sat with Jesús, feeling the need to cheer him up.
He looked at me balefully, shook his head and grunted, from which I discerned he wanted me to take off the the gag. When I did he inhaled fast and opened his mouth to yell so I had regretfully had to pop him one, which put him back out. I’d never hit a restrained person before and it didn’t feel good, but he was a heartless killer and I had no pity for him.
I dug snow off the window ledge and dumped it on his face. He grunted, tried to pull with all his might at his extension cords, fists white with effort.
“Ain’t gonna work, Jesús,” I said.
“What you want?” he said again, his mouth working funny from the whack on the jaw I’d given him.
“I told you.”
“My head hurts, I don’t remember.”
I explained him again. “I don’t need to turn you in, Jesús. I just need to know who’s paying you. It’s them I want. You give me proof who it is and I let you walk. I will however ID you to all my Special Forces buddies, and if anything ever happens to me – even a bad cold – they’ll find you and totally destroy you no matter where you hide. So that will be our deal: you leave me alone and I leave you alone…”
This of course was a lie, but now was no time to tell the truth.
WHILE JESÚS was digesting all this I called Mitchell. “So Abigail snuck up and whacked him?” Mitchell said, “I have to meet this girl.”
“If she hadn’t we’d both dead.”
“What a silly way to die, Pono. You’re losing your edge.”
“Question is, should I visit this Dannon Ziller from WindPower? He has to be who ordered the hit on Ronnie Dalt.”
“No need. The cops can find the phone logs, same as I did. And Jesús will sing on plea bargain. So let the cops dig into this guy Ziller, not you.”
“By the way, I have Jesús’ iPhone.”
“So plug it into
a computer somewhere and I’ll download it.”
“He needs to get put away. For a long time.”
“Looks like he’s going to be. Him and WindPower both.”
“High time.”
Mitchell chuckled. “You might say that.”
ABIGAIL CAME BACK with three acid capsules, a small bottle of Adderall and four tinfoil-wrapped tabs of ecstasy.
“Fantastic!” I exclaimed. “What you have to do for it?”
She handed me back Jesús’ money. “What you think?”
“Was it fun?”
She grinned. “When isn’t it?”
I ground up a tab each of acid, ecstasy and two Adderall and powdered them into the bottom of a Portland Seadogs mug, added a little water, and left it on the bathroom shelf where Jesús could see it.
“I gotta piss,” he said.
I looked down at him. “That’s why you’re in the bathtub.”
“Christ,” he mumbled, “you people are animals.”
As I love animals I didn’t take this at all askance. But he’d given me an idea. “Can you go down to the pantry,” I asked Abigail, “and bring up those two rodent deterrents on the third shelf up, right hand side?”
“We don’t have rats –”
I smiled down at Jesús. “Yes we do.”
When she brought them she looked at me strangely, tugging back her hair, so pretty and alive I wanted to make love right then, but Jesús was in the way. “You like rap music?” I asks him.
He grimaced. “What you care?”
I plugged in the two deterrents and they started yowling. The principle, as I remembered, is infrasound – that horrible sub threshold wavelength that wind turbines emit and that tortures people for miles around. And in addition a sharp jagged tweeting and moaning that would drive even the deaf crazy. This combination is sometimes very good for chasing off rats in my experience but less so for mice.
In the Legislature, however, it would work quite well for both.
In a closet Abigail found one of those light show lamps that flash kaleidoscopically jagged colors, so, not wanting him bored, I installed that on a chair beside him.
Jesús didn’t seem to appreciate all this concern. It was clear he didn’t like rap at all, and wasn’t really into light shows. To avoid going deaf Abigail and I stepped out and shut the bathroom door, and I sat down by the keyhole to keep an eye on him, his pretty little Sig Sauer on my knee.