Blood Wine (30 page)

“Still there?” asked Tony.

“No,” said Miranda. “They decided we're too tough.”

“Can we call for reinforcements?” asked Francine.

“Cops. You want me to call in the police. Lovely, Francine. The irony's almost worth the risk.”

“Can we?”

“Sure, but I guarantee these guys aren't going to wait.”

“How many of them are there?” said Tony.

“I don't know. Two, I think.”

“Okay, our car's in the drive. Miranda, you drive. Give me your Glock. I've got my own. Vittorio wouldn't let us keep guns in his house, but I'm carrying, I picked it up in Toronto.” Tony took out a shiny semi-automatic, and grasping it awkwardly between his stump arm and his ribs, he slid the action back and forth, then he took Miranda's gun, checked it, and tossed her the car keys.

“So much for village life,” said Tony. “Let's get out of here.”

They slipped out the back door, out of sight of the parked car. Miranda got behind the wheel. Frankie climbed in beside her and Tony got in the back and rolled down the window.

“They facing this way?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” said Miranda.

“Then drive straight at them. And miss. It'll take them a minute to get their shit together. Let's go, we're off.”

“You're a good boy, Tony,” said Frankie.

“Thank you, Francine. Let's go!”

Miranda peeled out of the driveway and barrelled down the road, dead set to hit the parked car, then careened around it, jamming the gas, sliding, roaring past The General Store in a whirl of noise that brought Mrs. DeBrusk, disgusted, to the door. The other car wheeled around and followed in roaring pursuit, no more than ten car lengths behind.

Tony was gazing through the rear window, waiting for a good shot.

“For God's sake,” Miranda shouted, “don't fire in the village.”

“You know this road,” he yelled back. “Take it to the floor.”

“It's a straightaway,” she yelled. “A few hills, no turns, they're gaining.”

“Tony,” said Francine with authority that penetrated the noise as she rolled down her window. “Give me one of those guns.”

He started to protest. She glowered at him.

“You've only got one arm, give me your goddamned gun, Tony.”

He handed her Miranda's Glock. She leaned out the window, and the shrill whistle of a bullet made her flinch but she did not withdraw. Holding for a steady aim, she waited then fired.

“You got them,” shouted Tony. “Got the windshield. Damnit, you need mushroom shells, Miranda. It just made a neat hole and missed the guy's head.”

Tony leaned out and took a couple of shots. The oncoming car swerved without slowing, as if they were dodging the bullets.

Miranda could not wring any more speed out of their car. She knew this road along the river like the back of her hand. Over the next rise there was a sudden dip. If she braked when they dropped for a moment out of sight, she could swerve through a gate into the trees. Then what? The only thing for it was to maintain the gap, if she could, until they reached Galt city limits, then try to lose them, oh God, on residential streets. That wasn't the answer.

Suddenly she heard a loud crack and a thump and the car swung crazily side to side. A tire had been shattered. She kept her foot down on the gas, rose up over the hillock and dropped down, wheeling sideways into the wooded lane.

As the car shuddered to a stop among trees within sight of the road, Frankie fired off a couple more rounds into the other car as it skidded to a halt. Tony leaned out and fired. There was another thump and Tony twisted violently, slamming against the back of the seats.

“Tony!” Francine screamed.

He was alive and reached out to her. “Give me your gun,” he demanded. She reached to hold him. “Give me your goddamned gun. Now get the hell out of here, you two. Go, go, go.”

Miranda reached back and brushed her hand against his face. “Thanks, Tony.”

“I pay my debts. Go, take Francine, go on.”

The shrill sounds of gunfire pursued the two women as they ran among maple trees, then cedars, toward the river. Suddenly there was a deadly silence, then a single shot. Both women knew what it was, but they kept running.

On a small rise, they slowed and Miranda looked back. She could see the assassins making their way through the underbrush. She turned toward the river. This was familiar terrain. A sheer cliff dropped off ahead, but she knew where there was a cleft among the cedars that led down to the water. She grasped Frankie's hand and drew her along like a friend through a treacherous obstacle course.

“The Devil's Cave,” she said, and Frankie nodded acquiescence, as if Miranda was making sense.

Miranda used to come here with her father. Her sister always stayed home, but she and her father would clamber down through the fissure in the cliff and walk along to a bit of rubble that betrayed the cave in the limestone wall above. They would climb up, and her father would tell her about Foxy Smith, either a bank robber or a war veteran and homeless derelict, depending on which story he chose, who used to live in the cave. And that made the cave seem bigger than it was.

They would hack open a tin of Libby's pork and beans and warm them in the can with a small fire on the cave floor, then eat them with their fingers, and they would wipe their hands off on their clothes and share a tin of Allen's apple juice down to the dregs. Miranda would imagine that the great caverns and catacombs she had seen in
National Geographic
could not have been more thrilling than this shallow cave overlooking the Grand River and the fairway of the golf course on the far side.

Not long after her father died, she came here with her friend Celia, who stole a full package of cigarettes from her mother, and they smoked the whole pack in an afternoon. Celia was fine, but Miranda threw up on the way home and never had another cigarette, ever.

Now, as she gazed up at the opening of the cave, she shifted her attention back to the matter of their survival. There was a rope hanging down from a bent cedar on the ledge above; kids had obviously found a new way in from the top. She clambered partway up the rock, then carefully backed down until she was standing beside Frankie again.

“We've got a choice,” Miranda explained. “Those guys are coming, there's nowhere to go except up or across.” She motioned toward the river. It was churning, murky and ominously wide. Miranda shrugged. “I'd opt for the river, but if they see us, we're sitting ducks. They can run along faster than the current and pick us off from the top of the cliff. I'd say we're better here.” She tilted her head back, looking up at the mouth of the cave.

“How deep is it? Won't they find us?”

“Yes, they will,” said Miranda. “Sooner than they think. We can't hide in there, but we can catch them by surprise. If they check it out, they'll assume we're in deep. We'll get them on the way up.”

“You think it'll work?”

“Guaranteed.”

“Good,” said Frankie.

“Let's climb.”

The cave was only twenty feet from the rubble at the base, but it afforded a spectacular view of the river valley. A couple of golfers stopped their cart on the fairway opposite and waved excitedly across to them.

“What the hell,” said Miranda, and waved back. “I guess we won't count on not being found.”

Frankie waved as well. “They're women,” she said. “They must identify with us as intrepid spelunkers or something. They certainly are making sure we see them. Maybe our friends won't risk killing us in front of witnesses.”

“Don't count on that,” said Miranda, leaning out to spy along the trail running the base of the cliff. “Here they come.”

“Miranda,” said Frankie. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about Tony,” said Miranda as she reached around and dislodged a chunk of limestone the size of a stack of dinner plates.

“He was a good boy,” said Frankie. “Vittorio loved him like a son. Maybe more. Me, I'm a mother, a stepmother, I liked him almost as much. So, what do you want me to do?”

Miranda reached out and grasped the thick rope dangling in front of the cave. She pulled on it, testing its strength. Then she pushed a short length of it into a crevasse so that it caught where she could reach it. She looked at the other woman and could not help but admire what dignity she had, even in these circumstances, covered in the fine dust from the cave floor that had caked them as they clambered inside.

“Morgan, you know,” she began. “He, he thinks you're special.”

“Funny thing,” said Frankie, “He thinks you're special — in a different way, I'm sure.”

“So Morgan,
morituri te salutamus
.”

“Grade ten Latin. You don't sound like you were any better at it than I was.”

“‘We who are about to die, salute you.' I might have the cases wrong? Yeah, it's nice when a good man thinks you're special, whatever it means.”

“Yeah, so what do we do?”

“Grab hold of that other slab. Okay, we crouch low. When the first one pokes his head over the top we stand and we throw. Don't use it as a club. Bash his head in from where you are or you'll go over the edge. And don't hold back.”

“Gotcha.”

They squatted low in the shadows to the side and waited. After a few minutes they could hear shuffling among the boulders below and low voices. Then there was silence and they knew at least one of the men was climbing up. Briefly they could see a flash of dark hair. It disappeared, then suddenly he surged upright with his gun pointed into the cave. Simultaneously, they rose, screaming, and heaved their slabs of limestone at his head. His revolver went off as his skull split open and the bullet ricocheted around them as he fell straight out away from the cliff.

“That's one,” Miranda whispered.

Frankie smiled.

“A qualified triumph,” Miranda said. “There's still one to go. He's not about to give up.”

They crawled around in the thick dust and charcoal detritus on the floor, trying to pry loose more rocks. Nothing yielded so they leaned back into the shadows.

“My dad and I, we used to come here,” said Miranda. “There was an old guy, before my dad was a kid, who lived in this cave. Foxy Smith. He was a dangerous bank robber.”

Frankie looked at her in amazement. She could not imagine a past rich in memories like that with her own father.

“Okay, he's coming. Now here's what I want you to do. Stay perfectly still. You're going to be all right, I promise you, Frankie.”

Miranda reached over and dislodged the rope very gently so that someone looking up would not notice it moving. She grasped it firmly in one hand and slowly moved back into the shadows.

“Frankie,” she whispered. “When you see him, nod.”

They both stayed absolutely still — then Frankie nodded, Miranda exploded from her crouching position, leapt forward, swinging out on the rope over the man's head, then she relaxed her grip and let the rope burn through her hands as she dropped on top of him, sending him spiralling down onto the boulder rubble, his gun clattering away. Miranda dangled for a moment but her burned hands would not hold and she dropped, hit boulders, and rolled to the side.

Frankie screamed as she stared down at Miranda, who was splayed between the man with his skull split open and the other man, who was moaning but not moving. Miranda opened her eyes, gazed up at Frankie, and winked.

“Oh my God, you're okay,” shouted Frankie. She scrambled down the rock face. “My God, my God, do you want me to kill him?”

Miranda struggled to her feet and lurched toward Frankie, who was raising a boulder over the groaning man's head.

“No, Frankie.”

Frankie held the boulder poised and gazed into Miranda's eyes. She wanted to smash in his skull for Tony and Vittorio, for Carlo and Linda, maybe even for Gianni, the kid who sold out.

“No,” Miranda repeated emphatically. “We're being observed.” She said this as if otherwise it might have been acceptable. She was looking across the river and Frankie followed her gaze. There were three golf carts now and a cluster of people all watching them. A couple of elderly men were playing through, obviously annoyed by the distraction.

“We should tie this guy up,” she said.

“Around the neck with a noose.”

“All in due course,” said Miranda and surprised herself by wincing in pain. She looked down at her hands. The flesh of her palms and the insides of her fingers was burned raw from the rope. She had not noticed until now. Her back hurt and her ribs ached but as she ran a quick inventory of her various pains and contusions, she decided nothing was broken.

Stones dropped onto the rubble beside them. There was shouting from across the river. Both women looked up and could see a man leaning over. He fired a shot but they were in too close to the rock face and it went wide. He fired another and then slipped out of sight. On the far shore, several people were shouting and gesticulating wildly.

Miranda turned directly to them. She raised her arms and swung them down in a spontaneous attempt at semaphore. The wild gestures stopped. Then a woman stepped forward out of the crowd. She turned and yelled something at the others. Then signalling Miranda, she pointed to the clifftop and slowly moved her arm, marking the third man's progress.
Damn
, Miranda wondered,
how could we have missed him? He was in the back seat. We missed him.

The woman across the river dropped her arm sharply, raised both her arms high, and swung them downwards. The man was descending the cleft. Miranda looked upriver and down. In the direction the man was coming from, the cliff base widened out into a field in the distance, but they could never get by him. In the other direction it narrowed to nothing. Water swirled and eddied against the rock.