The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel (6 page)

Oddly enough I snagged the deodorant the second I turned the corner into the aisle. I glanced left and there it was. I took the four items and hit the pharmacy counter, asked for the prescriptions for Rand. I gave our home address and phone number. The pharmacist handed me four bottles.

Three were for Shepherd Rand. The last was for Pinscher Rand. I checked the label.

Donepezil
.

I didn’t have to ask the pharmacist what it was. Each bottle came with its own paperwork. But I didn’t need that either. Gramp was taking the same medication.

My father was being treated for Alzheimer’s.

“You can pay for that here,” the pharmacist said.

I stared at him.

“You can pay here at our register. Your medications and your other purchases. Instead of going to the front of the store.”

I handed him the cash. He stuffed Gramp’s meds into one small paper bag, my father’s in another, and then he stapled them together along with the paperwork. He placed the other items into a blue plastic bag with the store’s name on it in bold letters and shoved it all toward me with a smile. I scooped it up and hit the door.

The piece-of-shit brown Chevy Malibu was parked in a handicapped spot directly in front of me. I finally figured out what was wrong with it. The car hunkered down much lower than it should have. Its carriage had been reinforced to take a serious beating in case of a high-speed chase. A lot of extra welding had gone into the chassis. It carried more weight but the engine would have been souped to handle it. Chub always made sure the getaway cars he worked on could cope with going over a median or a high curb at eighty without bottoming out.

All of this came to me at once as the four-man crew wearing their look-alike black clothing and wool hats moved in on me. There was no time to make a break for it. Fighting would be useless, but sometimes you had to bare your fangs just to let them know they couldn’t walk over you. There were no guns in sight but I knew they’d be carrying. I controlled my panic. I let my muscles tighten. I steeled myself.

I muttered, “Fuck.”

I managed to tuck the two small paper bags of meds into my pocket">“No,” I saidplas. It felt very important not to drop the prescriptions even if I wound up with two from a .32 in my temple. I placed the bag of Dale’s things gently on the walkway beside me just as the driver reached to get a grip on my arm. I’d made a big deal out of my mother
reading off the entire list and I wanted to prove that I had managed to find the four items. I had confirmed my usefulness, resilience, and self-worth. You think weird shit when a slick four-man crew with guns gets the drop on you.

“Hey, gents,” I said.

I snapped my arm back, spun left, and drove my elbow hard into the driver’s collarbone. The move knocked his little hat off. He had short blond hair with a deep scar crease over his ear from an old bullet wound. Someone someplace would recognize him from that. He groaned heavily, took a step back, and reacted the way I thought he would.

He jumped me. It was enough to throw the others off. The driver threw a wild swing. A surge of satisfaction filled me. That excessively calm pro exterior was pretty infuriating. I was glad I could get beneath it. Whatever happened now we’d all be nice and clear on the parking lot cameras.

Two of them grabbed me by the upper arms while a third frisked me quickly and carefully. Number three said, “That wasn’t smart.”

“Only play for me to make.”

The driver put his wool cap back on. The guy who’d wandered around Chub’s parking lot looking for trouble walked along behind us and kept a lookout. Then number three put a hand between my shoulder blades and shoved. I resisted out of pure mulishness. This might be my last stand.

A few people stepped in and out of the store. A rushed lady dragged a small boy along so quickly his feet hardly touched the ground. The kid went “Ahh,” every time he made contact with concrete. Nobody noticed us much.

I’d never shaken them at all. They’d been on me since I’d trailed them from the garage out to Wantagh Parkway where they’d lost me with ease. Despite my efforts to shake a tail they’d followed me to the
Elbow Room and kept watch while I sat around drinking with Darla. They’d been right there on top of me ever since.

The crew got more insistent, dragging and pressing me along. I thought they might try to yank me into the Malibu, but instead they led me around the blind side of Schlagel’s to the back alley.

My uncle Mal always said if you couldn’t win a fight you might as well get the first lick in. They shoved me into the alley and I took two quick steps like I might be trying to sprint away, then turned and fought dirty as hell. I kicked, bit, and scratched, threw tight hooks at their chins and cruel body shots. I did pretty well for about twenty seconds. Then they just crowded me and I was all done.

In silence they worked me over for a while. They were pros at that as well. Nobody got too vicious and nobody tried hard to break anything on me, except the driver, who was still miffed about the cheap shot.

I pulled my chin in, tightened my arms across my chest, and tried to stay on my feet. I managed it well enough until someone got a lucky punch to my kidneys.

I fell down, curled up, rode it out, kicked and lashed out some, and then it was over. They let me catch my breath for a couple minutes. I’d done some damage their way too. Good. You never want to be the only guy hurt in a fight.

The bright red at the edges of my vision began to fade. Two this many times before to be Q of them grabbed me by the arms and got me up again and number three, who seemed to be running the crew, said, “Considering you’re in our line of work, you should know better than to get so close.”

I spit blood. “You’re right.”

“So, you planning to deal yourself in?”

“No.”

“You followed us the other night. You weren’t cutting in? You didn’t try to tag us?”

“Not really.”

He didn’t like the answer. I didn’t blame him. He let loose with a flurry of rapid-fire hooks to my belly that went on for maybe ten seconds and felt like forty days in the desert. I fell down again and then they picked me up again and he asked me the question once more. “You weren’t cutting yourself in?”

“No,” I said.

I didn’t understand why they were bothering with this. When you’re a thief you expect other thieves to steal from you. There’s not much point in asking them why. You already know why because you’re a thief too.

“So why were you chasing us?” the driver asked.

“It wasn’t exactly a chase.”

“No, it wasn’t. You’re not a very competent tail.”

I wiped my mouth and said, “My first time.”

“Could be your last too, little doggy.”

I let that slide. I didn’t have much choice but to let it slide. “I’m not here to juke your play.”

“Juke our play?” He frowned and slid his hat a little farther back on his head. A few blond hairs of a widow’s peak appeared. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ruin your score.”

He lit a cigarette and sucked on it slowly, studying me. He was thinking about kicking the shit out of me again but decided it wouldn’t work any better than before. The next step was to blow out one of my knees. He leaned back against the brick building, finished his cigarette, and flicked the dying butt over my head.

“Your face is known,” he said. “You’ve been on television. You look just like your brother.”

It pissed me off, hearing that. “Not so much.”

“You a maniac like him?”

“Not quite.”

“So what’s it all about?”

A twinge of pain went through me and I almost dropped. I groaned and caught myself in time. “If you know who I am then you know Chub and I used to be friends.”

“I hear that was a long time ago.”

“It was.”

“So then what?”

“So I want Chub out of the life. I don’t care about your heist. Or who you are or what you do. I care about Chub. He’s got a wife and daughter and if he keeps playing around with strings like you he’s going to get sent up. I can’t allow that.”

Now the driver laughed. It was a brisk short chuckle without any humor to it at all. “You want">“Is it?”tp. You care. You can’t allow. Take it up with him. Stay away from us. There’s no cool way to say this, but we know where you live. We watched the house. We know everything about your mother, father, sister, your dog, your granddad, everybody. Back off.”

“Why the firepower?” I asked. “You’re a wheelman. Drivers don’t carry. You sit at the curb and wait for the others, and then you get everyone the hell out. Drivers put two hands on the wheel. They don’t carry. So why the hardware?”

I saw his teeth this time, but he wasn’t smiling. “You might not be a maniac but you are a moron. I’m trying to give some professional courtesy here and you’re spoiling it. Are you a suicide case? Do you want us to ace you?”

I felt the barrel of a gun against the back of my head. I didn’t know much about guns, but it was big and ice-cold and I had no doubt that the bullet would turn everything above my neck into custard. I thought about my mother standing at my closed casket.

“No,” I said.

“You caused us a setback. We can’t trust our escape route anymore.
Maybe we can’t trust your friend Chub anymore either. That might not be so good for him. I ought to kill you for the trouble.”

“He doesn’t know anything about this.”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t bother us again.”

The barrel of the gun withdrew. I expected at least a chop behind the ear, but it didn’t happen. They walked down the alley single file. I stood there wavering and watching them ease away. They moved in perfect sync. They turned the corner and were gone.

I took a step and fell over. I crawled back to my feet. At least one rib had been cracked. A couple of teeth were loose. The blood ran down the back of my throat and made my belly tumble. I went into a long coughing fit that shook everything that hurt.

It took ten minutes to make it to the mouth of the alley. I walked back to where I’d dropped the bag full of my sister’s stuff and was surprised to see it was still there. I bent over to pick it up and vomited. I almost tipped over again. I managed to grab the bag and make it back to my car. By the time I got behind the wheel I was seeing double. I wasn’t going to be able to make it home.

I drew my wallet, found the card, and pulled out my phone. I misdialed twice. I wiped sweat from my eyes.

A lovely voice answered. I tried to respond but the blood kept running and filled my mouth. I rolled down the window and spit streams onto the asphalt.

“Hello?” she said. “Hello?”

“This is Terrier,” I said. “The guy who’s not like the rest. That’s true, you know. I’m worse. I’m much worse. But I really need your help.”

“Where are you?” shC;You know I d

She helped me out of my car and into hers,
straining under my weight while my blood smeared her hands. She laid me in the backseat and put a folded sweater under my head. I stretched out gagging in pain, holding the plastic Schlagel’s bag full of beauty products tight to my belly. I wondered where the baby seat was.

I passed out and came to on my feet, taking stairs slowly. She had an arm around me, tight on the broken rib. I went, “Nghh.” She let me go and I clung to a freshly stained handrail.

She said, “Are you okay to keep going?”

I said, “Nghh.” I might have been trying to say
I love you
. I might have been trying to say
I hate you
. I might have been trying to say
I give up on you. I want to give up on you, but I can’t
. Call that what you like. Call me what you like.

Her fingers grazed the side of my face. We stumbled up the cramped staircase to the second floor. She unlocked a door and shoved it open. The smell of moldy, acidifying paper sneaked in under the stink of my own blood.

“Here, take these. Drink this.”

She stuck a couple pills on my tongue and pressed a tall glass of water against my teeth. The pain flared again and I sputtered and gagged. I heard both pills go bouncing over the tile across the room. She placed two more in my mouth.

“Try again.”

I managed to get some water down this time. I knew the Donepezil wouldn’t save me or my old man. Nothing had helped Gramp retain his personality, nothing had kept Grey from going crazy. No
sane thought had entered my brother’s head to stay his hand from killing old ladies and children during his spree. Meds, what the hell was the point. They wouldn’t help you hold on to your memories. You had to run them over in your head again and again, dig them in deep, hide them in the layers and folds of every aspect of your life. I had to live in the moment and live in the past.

I had to remember.

I couldn’t allow myself to ever forget.

I thought, Intimate Clinical Strength Antiperspirant and Deodorant Advanced Lady Solid Speed Stick, Light and Fresh pH-Balanced.

I turned and hip-checked a three-foot tower of poorly stacked hardbacks. I muttered “Sorry,” and stooped to pick everything up. My skull rang four times like some bastard leaning on a doorbell, and then a spray of colors leaped across my eyes.

It wasn’t until she had me in the shower lathered up that I realized it wasn’t in a bikini and high heels. at the Q Kimmy at all. Darla was under the nozzle, kissing me softly, saying my name, and I was saying Kimmy’s.

Between my feet heavily pink water circled the drain. I wasn’t sure if I was awake or even alive anymore. Most of the pain was gone and I was high on something. Felt like Percocet. That’s what she’d fed me.

On the rim of the bathtub was the open bottle of my sister’s Cool Sea Breeze. Darla pushed forward and pressed me against the shower wall. She said, “You’re back, aren’t you?”

“I think so. Mostly.”

I stared at her gorgeous body and became aroused. She let out a throaty giggle and used her hands on me. I felt an intense shame for some reason I couldn’t explain and looked away.

“It’s all right,” she said, nuzzling me. “It’s okay.” She pecked at my bottom lip. With her makeup washed away she looked much younger than before, innocent, even chaste.