He ignited the Saturn and sped from under the carport as he heard sirens nearby closing in. Only one cop to beat as he cut over the grass to the right opposite the squad car. Bullets were now flying furiously from Patrick’s gun. Instinctively, Reubin concluded he’d do best to keep his head down below the windows and guesstimate where the alley met the yard. Within two seconds, glass began to shatter around the Saturn and Reubin felt scores of shards hit his left ear and that side of his face. But he was still alive and his guesstimate of where the grass ended and the alley began was perfect. Now he was approximating how to keep the Saturn in the middle of the alley until he came to the side street only a couple of seconds away. He figured that there he would be safe enough from Patrick’s bullets to raise up, get his bearings and decide which way to continue his getaway. Again, his estimation of where the concrete of the side street began was perfect.
“I got this shit,” he said with complete confidence before he raised himself up to quickly glance out the windshield. He looked left and right, decided to go left feeling a tremendous crackling of bone and cartilage at the base of his neck. Suddenly, he could not control the car. He had started to turn left so the car continued that way at a high rate of speed for a few more yards till it careened into the curb across the side street, jarring Reubin’s already excruciating head.
He was still alive but his body didn’t want to function, to think. There was no more “what do I do next?” There was only dominating pain, almost crushing him onto the front seat. His brain, still barely able to perceive, heard the sirens and saw the headlights of the next police car to arrive on the scene. Maybe it was all instinct by this time, but Reubin grabbed his shotgun and opened the car door. When the two approaching officers saw that shotgun come out of the car, they opened fire and dropped big tough Reubin Tatum before he could completely exit the vehicle. In fact, so many bullets hit Reubin Tatum and with such force that his final landing spot was lying on his back on the front seat of his Saturn. Fractures of glass were imbedded in his cheek, ears, hands, legs and back.
It was 5:04 a.m.
* * * * *
In four minutes there had been four deaths. Art Barclay and Larry Mills lay dead two feet outside the house, victims of a single double barrel blast from a booby trapped shotgun, jimmy rigged to a tripwire set five inches above the floor.
The house was eerily silent, except for Natalia’s barely audible whimpering. She had not yet moved and would not move until a female St. Pete Police officer literally almost pried her off her bed several minutes later.
Patrick had rushed to Toby’s side a moment after he saw one of his own bullets rip through the neck of Reubin Tatum. Toby was lying on his back, motionless. His life vest was splattered with pellets but so were his neck and chin. Just enough pellets had found his carotid artery and shattered it. Toby’s had been a painful death, one he tried to avoid by pressing both hands against the bleeding. He lasted ninety-three seconds, spending his last eighteen seconds in the arms of his friend.
* * * * *
At my house, Jack Harris was saying good-bye to a guest when my alarm clock went off at 6:45 a.m. I sprung out of bed with more joy in my heart than I’d had in a long time. I was one day away from two of my most looked forward to events in many years. My first was being at least able to tell Mary Bauer that the detectives were closing in on her abuser. I was hoping that I would run into Toby tonight at the Serenity Club, and he could fill me in with a little more information about the take down of Tatum. Of course I was not planning to share his name with Mary—not wishing to compromise the investigation in any way. But I was looking forward with every fiber of my being to pragmatically alleviating a significant portion of her fears. That’s the same way I was looking forward to my evening with Christine. Every fiber of my being longed to be in her presence. I couldn’t wait to share with her my recent awareness, my achievements, my phone calls to the kids, my change of routines, and most of all the song I had written for her.
Since my running shorts and T-shirt were already on, I hopped out of bed and turned off the radio on my way to my chair where I got into my socks and tennis shoes. In a single minute I was into the living room sitting on the piano bench. I played Christine’s song at regular tempo, grabbed my keys, and headed out the door. Today I would run a little faster and maybe a few blocks longer. I felt like I had wings on my shoes that would propel me. I was happy and excited.
When my run was complete, I began the rest of my normal morning rituals. I decided to have two pieces of Publix American cheese between two toasted and buttered pieces of Publix brand honey wheat bread. I poured myself a tall glass of vanilla soy milk mixed with chocolate soy milk, headed into the living room, plate and glass in hands. I would give myself five or six minutes to eat and watch TV. I turned on the TV and flipped the dial to News Channel 8 because I enjoyed watching the Today Show and was absolutely moved every time I heard a snippet of John Williams’s uplifting theme song. It was 7:55 a.m., time for the local news.
I took my first bite of my cheese sandwich as the female news caster began telling the story of the takedown of Reubin Tatum. “Three officers are dead this morning as well as the perpetrator in what was supposed to have been an easy arrest. Unfortunately, nothing went as planned as Detectives Larry Mills and Art Barclay, the first on the scene, were gunned down by a booby-trapped shotgun as they entered the house of Natalia Greene in South St. Pete in search of Reubin Tatum who was wanted as the primary suspect in a string of at least seven local robberies. Tatum, awakened by the shotgun blast, began his escape attempt by fleeing out of the back door, taking the life of Officer Toby Magnessun as he raced for his car. Tatum was killed only a few seconds later by a bullet from Patrick O’Malley, Magnessun’s partner.”
She continued and I listened intently. As soon as I heard that Toby’s life had been taken, it felt like an emotional shotgun blasted its harmful pellets into the pit of my stomach. My eyes filled with tears, and pain and shock snatched my breath from me. This was my fault. If I hadn’t asked Toby to help me, he would be alive this morning. Who would take care of his wife now? Who would love her through her ongoing battle with cancer? I knew immediately I would do something phenomenal to help her and her children—but anonymously. I could never reveal the truth to her or anyone that I was the catalyst behind her husband’s death.
My morning joy had transformed into abject horror and shame. I didn’t think I was a murderer, but now I knew what it felt like to be an accomplice. The death of my parents and grandparents with all of its accompanying pain came crashing into me like a runaway freight train. Christine’s rejection, my pitiable nature, my pathetic thirty-year dependency on rum and Coke, my isolationist tendency, my direct involvement with the murder of my client and friend and my preoccupation with devil dreams and a nonsensical Two-Knock Ghost, took hold of me and turned me into a piece of immovable patheticness on the couch. Suddenly, there was no more me. There was only pain, which needed to be quelled.
I found myself watching the television through tear blurred eyes, but I wasn’t hearing its sound. Instead, I heard the rampaging of my own inner voice saying, “You can’t take this. This is too much to bear. You don’t owe anybody anything right now except yourself. You need to make the pain go away. Nobody has to suffer as much as you are right now. There’s comfort out there for you. You know where it is. It’s only a couple of blocks away. GO GET IT RIGHT NOW!”
And I listened. First I called Amanda and told her to cancel my appointments for the day.
“Are you okay, Dr. McKenzie?” she asked me tenderly.
“Just a terrible pain in my stomach.” I didn’t lie.
“I think it might be a virus or food poisoning.” I had to lie. “I’ll try to make it in tomorrow. When you feel like you’ve completed your work for the day, you may leave early.”
I was screaming inside at myself. Even though it was the sweet Amanda, I di
dn’t want to talk with her. I didn’t want to talk with anyone. I only wanted to stop my waking demons from tormenting me. I only wanted the stomach pain to abate immediately. I was totally living in the moment and it was hell. There was no tomorrow. There was no hour from now. There were no consequences for what I would choose to do next. Men have to do what they have to do. I was a man and I had an absolute right to do whatever it took to survive my pain. Who else was going to take care of me? Not Christine. Not my kids. Not Dr. Banderas. Not Toby. Maybe if I had chosen a sponsor, I could call him. But I hadn’t even gone that deep into AA that I had picked a sponsor. Another bad choice. Maybe if I had made a friend at the Serenity Club. I had not. Another bad decision. Why was I such an isolationist? All of my life it had been me, my family, my clients and not much of anyone else. There was something else. There was rum and Coke. My friends in a bottle. I needed them now. I grabbed my keys and left the condo. I drove up Park Street to the liquor store at Park and Starkey, but it was closed. It was barely 8:30. What was I thinking? The store didn’t open until 9:00 a.m. I pulled into a parking space, turned off the engine and pounded on the steering wheel at least a dozen times. I was blinded by rage toward myself and the scum bag who killed Toby. Now I had to sit out here and wait—stewing in my own excruciating juices. I couldn’t control the torrent of tears that flowed from my eyes.
When I finally got home, I drank like a madman. In truth, there was no like a mad man. I was a mad man drinking. There was no sipping, no pacing. There was just downing. I got as much rum into my system as I possibly could as fast as I could tolerate it. With all my windows and blinds closed and the air conditioner humming, I screamed “SHIT” over and over between guzzles. I only hoped nobody near me, my neighbors below and beside me, and anybody walking outside the condo, would think I was certifiable.
During my intimate moment of personal depravity I only wanted the pain to go away. As the swallowing continued, I streaked closer to my goal. Oblivion. Oblivion is what I craved … a state of mindlessness where nothing existed. Not pain, not guilt, not worry, not hopes or aspirations, no thought of any kind. There also were no dreams of any kind. Even I would not be able to appreciate my hours in Oblivion. I merely wanted to get there as quickly as was humanly possible. I had only been there a time or two in my entire life and I might never go there again. But my goal was swiftly approaching as I could not wait to escape my real world agony. Before I entered the blackness I was seeking, I wondered if I should have bought a second bottle.
I was in my bed by the time Oblivion found me. I wish I could say that it was wonderful and that I enjoyed it, but I cannot. It simply existed and I was there. It lasted for hours and there was nothing as I had hoped for except for the very end.
I heard a voice in my bedroom gently urging me: “Wake up, Dr. McKenzie. I have something to tell you. Wake up, Dr. McKenzie.” So I did, but within my dream I believed, not in my waking world.
There was Toby, standing at the foot of my bed.
“Toby!” I exclaimed both shocked and overjoyed to see him. He was wearing stunning white silk pants with a matching shirt. He looked angelic.
“I’m here to comfort you, Dr. McKenzie. There’s no need for you to beat yourself up. I’m in a better place. There is no pain here. It’s okay, Doc. I’m okay.”
“I feel so bad,” I said like a saddened child. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“Lead a good life, help more people, maybe do something special for my wife and kids. Alicea knows all about you. You’re a topic of pleasant conversation around our house.
“Does she know I’m the reason you’re dead?”
“You’re not the reason I’m dead, Doc. Reubin Tatum is. And I never told her that you asked for my help to catch him. I didn’t want to worry her. She’s always had so much to worry about these last few years.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him from the most sincere crevice of my heart.
“I know you are, Doc. I am too. I wanted you and I to be friends for a long time.”
“I wanted that too, Toby.”
“I’ve got to go now, Doc. Take care of yourself and your family and look in on mine if you can from time to time. But most of all, no guilt, Doc.” I made a negative face to indicate I might not be able to comply.
“Promise me,” Toby said emphatically.
“I promise,” I said while knowing what I really meant was that I would try my best, but it might not be good enough.
Then Toby faded into nothingness, and I fell back to sleep. I’m not certain if my Toby sighting was a dream or if I had seen his ghost. If I had been certain that it was his ghost, I would have believed everything he told me implicitly. But since I did not believe in ghosts, I chalked my experience up as having been a dream. Because of that, I placed significantly less credibility into what Toby had told me, especially when he mentioned that he never told Alicea that I’d ask him to help me find Reubin Tatum and that I had always been a pleasant topic of conversation around the house.
When I finally awoke from Oblivion minus one rather soothing dream, I wondered why I had labeled the Two-Knock Ghost with that moniker. Why hadn’t I called it the Two-Knock Demon? One thing was for certain. I was not sure of any of the deepest parts of my mind. I was also not sure of how I processed information and came to so many of my vital life conclusions. And if my brain wasn’t muddled enough with my sober reflections, what must it be in that horribly hung-over condition I woke up with that evening? It was 7:30 Thursday night, only 11.75 hours before I was scheduled to wake up again and begin the day when I would tell Mary Bauer about Reubin Tatum and take Christine out for what I thought might be the most important date of our lives to this point. I couldn’t do it all. I could see Mary, but there was no way I could take Christine out and bestow upon her the love she deserved, combined with the high degree of spiritual upliftedness I felt as recently as this morning. I got out of bed and went directly to the kitchen counter where I believed my rum bottle to be—not to drink any but to throw away whatever was left. The bottle was where I had left it, but there was no rum in it to discard. I had drunk it all. That explained why I felt so monstrously ill.
Though I was feeling lonely, I knew I had to call Christine to cancel our date for tomorrow night. I could never recover fast enough to show her the new man I had become, at least through almost eight o’clock this morning. As I drank a tall glass of apple juice with seven ice cubes, I dialed her number. Fortunately, she answered, the sensitive voice I longed to hear more than any other.
“Hello,” she answered simply, after the first ring.
“Hi, Christine, it’s Robert.”
I had tried to be neutral in my vocal affect, but she picked up on something immediately, knowing me better than anyone in the world.
“What’s the matter Robert?” she asked plaintively.
As soon as I heard the concern in her voice, I realized that was both exactly what I needed to hear and what I didn’t need to hear. I crumbled, almost hanging up the phone before I spoke another word.
“Some things have happened in the last few hours, terrible things, that make it impossible for me to see you tomorrow night.” I spoke through a tumult of tears and with a voice that uncharacteristically quivered.
“What things, darling?”
Darling? I was darling now when I felt like yesterday’s garbage?
“Have you seen the local news today?” I asked, my voice barely able to sustain itself.
“Yes.”
“Did you hear about the police officer that was killed?”
“I thought there were three.”
“You’re right, Christine. There were two detectives that were killed coming in the front door and a cop that was killed in the backyard.”
I paused a moment as my wife listened silently.
“The cop in the backyard was my client and I dare say, my friend.”
I gasped for air and spit out, “The way that he died is killing me because I think I am responsible.”
“I’ll be right there, Robert.”
“No, Christine. Please don’t. You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m going to wash my face and drive right over there. I’m hanging up now. I’ll see you shortly.”
Her voice had transitioned from genteel caring to the adamant drill sergeant who had made up his unbendable mind.
“Thank you, Christine.” Click.
I immediately got up from the couch in the living room and put the empty rum bottle in the garbage under the sink. As soon as I closed the cabinet door, I thought, “That isn’t enough.” I took the half-full plastic Publix grocery bag out of the waste basket, tied it and took it downstairs to a trash bin in the breezeway of my building. My head was throbbing and I was nauseas, but I came quickly upstairs, peed like a race horse, then got into my shower and tried to scrub the stains of the day away. I brushed my teeth and used Listerine sumptuously. By the time Christine arrived, I was feeling a touch better physically, but emotionally I was feeling overwhelming shame and guilt over Toby’s death and how I had reacted to it. Christine’s coming over was not what I had planned. In some ways, it was the antithesis of what I wanted now. I awaited her visit with a combination of hopeful anticipation and dread.
The Two-Knock Ghost Page 20