Undermind: Nine Stories (7 page)

“Danny! It’s me, Dave. I need you to meet me at
the closed down gas station north of the general hospital. It’s
urgent, and I need you to bring the thing you showed me in your
back yard last year.”

“Fuck. On my way. 5 minutes.”

The line went dead and Dave smiled. He and his
brother disagreed on a lot of things, but no matter what, they were
always there for each other when it really mattered. He was glad
that Danny didn’t even ask a single question. He was simply on his
way. Just like that.

Four minutes later, Dave saw his brother’s SUV
pull into the dark gas station and after a brief hesitation, came
gliding up to him by the front doors. Dave ran around to the
passenger side, hopped in and said, “That was fast! Head north, and
don’t get pulled over. I have very little time.”

On the way there, he explained what his plan
was, and how he knew it was weak, but he hoped it might convince
Ron that he was messing with the wrong family. Danny agreed that
the plan was weak but was willing to go along with it, especially
after hearing everything that had happened to his brother’s family.
He was even willing to do more than he was being asked, but Dave
wouldn’t allow him to take such a risk, even though Danny’s offer
would solve the Ron problem permanently.

A block before they reached Ron’s house, Danny
stopped the vehicle so he and Dave could trade places. Dave had
objected to this change in his plan, but his brother insisted on
being the one to actually commit the crime. He’d been in jail
before and he could survive it again. He also didn’t have a wife
and child waiting for him and depending on him to remain free and
come home.

Dave’s heart was beating like crazy as they
slowly approached the house. His hands were sweating and slippery
on the steering wheel. He almost couldn’t believe they were doing
this. It was so out of character for him. Since Danny was willing
to do the worst part of the job, maybe he should call this off and
let him do it alone, later. Why risk both of them going to jail?
No. He couldn’t do that. This was his problem. It was enough that
Danny was helping. He wasn’t going to push the whole thing off on
his brother.

He re-focused his attention on the houses they
were slowly passing on the dark street. He saw the big white truck
in the driveway and said, “There!” Danny didn’t hear the next thing
he said, which was, “Wait! Not that one!” The sound of the shots
drowned out his voice as Danny fired at the upper part of the large
front window.

Even with the gun held outside the SUV, Dave
thought he was going to be deaf for the rest of his life. When
Danny stopped firing at the wrong house, Dave yelled, “Fuck! Fuck!
Fuck!

“There’s no going back now, brother,” Danny
said.

“That was the wrong fucking house. It was
supposed to be this one,” Dave said, pointing at yet another house
with a white truck in the driveway.

“No problem,” Danny replied, and fired off
another four rounds.

***

When he got out of the SUV at the hospital, Dave
was shaking like crazy. His ears were still ringing and everything
felt unreal. The same parking lot he was in thirty minutes ago
looked completely different to him now. Even the hospital looked
different. So did the sky. Everything had changed.

He went back in the rear exit on wooden legs and
tried to clear the ringing in his ears by forcing himself to yawn
and wiggling his jaw around. The fluorescent lights in the hallway
seemed unnecessarily bright as he made his way back to the
restroom. He entered and bumped into a man on his way out. He was
old and looked morose. Dave stammered an apology as he brushed past
him. The man left without saying a word or looking back at him.

No one else was in the room so he got down and
slid under the stall. His phone and shoes were still there. He
quickly put his shoes on with his still shaking hands, slipped his
phone into his pocket, then went out and rinsed his face several
times before leaving the restroom and heading back to the waiting
area.

Sometime later, he had no clue how much later
since time had both stopped and seemed to have gone sideways, a
nurse approached him.

“Mr. Parsons?” she asked.

Dave jumped up. “Yes?”

“Your wife is out of surgery and she’s going to
be just fine. I’ll come back and let you know when you can see her.
She’s still sedated and will need some time. Okay, sweetie?”

“Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Dave went outside through the emergency doors
and was glad to find someone out there smoking a cigarette. He
offered the man a dollar for a cigarette. The man declined the
offer and gave him one for free.

Dave stood next to the man, silently taking deep
drags and blowing the smoke up into the sky slowly, wondering if
his plan was going to work, or if it would backfire and turn Ron
into a raging maniac.

He laughed out loud, thinking that Ron was
already a raging maniac before he’d had the holy misfortune of ever
running into the evil bastard. Things couldn’t possibly get any
worse. Could they?

***

When a nurse informed him that it was time to
end his visit with Nikki because she needed her rest, he didn’t
argue, even though there was nowhere else in the world he wanted to
be than beside his wife. Nikki insisted that he go home and get
some decent rest.

Dave couldn’t stand the way she sounded with her
face all bandaged and swollen. The whole time he’d spent talking to
her, looking at her, and listening to her, all he could think was,
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him.

He kissed her on her forehead and fought back
tears when he said, “I love you, Nikki. I’ll be back in the
morning.” He turned away quickly so she wouldn’t see that he was
crying and left the room.

The next morning he awoke to the sound of
circular saws and hammers. Then someone knocked on his bedroom
door. It was one of the construction crew who was there working on
Jake’s room.

“Sorry to bother you, man, but you got cops
bangin’ on your front door.”

Thoughts rushed around Dave’s mind as he
recalled the night before. The drive with Danny. Seeing Nikki’s
face wrapped up like a mummy. Not able to face Joy and Jake just
yet. Needing be alone; to sleep in his own bed. To feel like
something – anything – in his completely off-kilter world was
normal and familiar.

Now he could distinguish the rapping at his
front door from the sound of the pneumatic hammers in Jake’s room.
Cops. Shit. But maybe they’re just here to give me a status
update on Nikki’s assault.

He needed coffee before talking to the police,
but he couldn’t just leave them out there knocking, so he went to
let them in.

“Mr. Parsons, may we have a moment with you?”
one of them asked as soon as he opened the door.

“Yeah. Come in. But please follow me to the
kitchen. I just woke up and need to kickstart my brain with some
coffee.”

He offered them seats at the table as he filled
the coffee maker. One of the cops told him their names, but they
didn’t stick. He really needed the coffee. One of them started
talking as he gathered a cup, creamer, and sugar.

“Where were you last night between seven and
eight p.m.?”

“What?” Dave pretended to be shocked. “What kind
of question is that? I was obviously at the hospital where my wife
was in emergency surgery. Why aren’t you asking the crazy
sonofabitch that attacked her where
he
was yesterday?”

“We spoke to the suspect yesterday. Now we need
to talk to you.”

Dave shook his head in disgust as he poured
sugar into a teaspoon. He looked up and said, “For the record,
you’re wasting your time. You should be arresting that motherfucker
and putting him in jail where he belongs.”

“You might’ve been right yesterday,” one cop
replied. “But today he’s dead. So, now I need to know who can vouch
for you being at the hospital last night between seven and
eight?”

“What?” Dave’s hands began shaking and he poured
some coffee onto the counter next to his cup. “He’s
dead
?
What happened to him?”

This was not how it was supposed to go. He
didn’t mind the bastard being dead, but now Danny could be wanted
for murder. Dave had managed to save his family at the expense of
his brother. He felt like he was going to collapse.

“Someone shot him. Do you own a gun, Mr.
Parsons?”

“Yes. I mean, no. Not yet. I’m trying to buy
one, but it’s at the store. The uh… gun store. I’m waiting for the
cool off, and um, you know… the background.”

The cop that was doing all the talking glanced
at his partner then looked at Dave who remained standing next to
the coffee pot. He poured creamer into his cup and managed to get
it all inside.

“You’ve applied for a firearm purchase and are
waiting for the background check to go through?”

“Yes, sir,” Dave replied, and began sipping
coffee from the top of his cup. “I’m sorry, can I get you some
coffee?”

“Thank you, but no. How about last night? Can
someone verify that you were at the hospital during the time in
question?”

“Uh, sure. Yeah. I’m sure plenty of people can.
Doctors, nurses, other people in the waiting room. And I talked to
a cop while I was there. I don’t remember his name, but I can find
out. He spoke to my sister yesterday. She’ll have his name.”

“We can find out who that was. Can you name
anyone specific at the hospital we can speak to?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get anyone’s names. My wife
had just been attacked by crazy person and was unconscious and
covered in blood. And now you’re telling me that psycho is dead? I
won’t tell you that I’m upset in the least to hear that, but can
you tell me what happened, and why I need an alibi?”

“Ron Mackey died in a shootout last night. His
wife was also killed.”

Dave felt his face turn white as the blood left
his head.

“Oh my God. What about their child? Was Theodore
hurt?”

“When we arrived on the scene, the child’s only
injuries were those he suffered prior to the shooting. He was
asleep in his bed while his parents were shot to death in the
street outside their house.”

Now Dave was really confused. How could that be?
But if what they were saying was true, then Danny wasn’t a suspect.
And he shouldn’t be either.

He came around the counter with his coffee and
took a seat at the table with the officers.

“I know I just woke up and the caffeine has
barely had a chance to work, but I’m completely lost here. Someone
killed both of the Mackeys, in the street? And you think it was
me?”

“Not at all, Mr. Parsons. We know who the
shooters were.”

Shooters? Jesus, could this get any
stranger?

“You caught them already?”

“We have one in custody, and the other is
deceased. Died in the street, not far from Ron and Gloria.”

Dave rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands
and shook his head.

“I obviously had a beef with Ron Mackey, but you
also know I didn’t shoot him. What does any of this have to do with
me and where I was last night?”

The other cop decided to lay it all out. He
already knew they weren’t going to get anything out of Dave and he
wanted to be done with it.

“Here’s what it looks like. Someone shot into
the house of a guy named Juan Rodriguez, a local gangbanger who
lived two doors down from Ron and Gloria Mackey. Apparently the
same shooter then fired shots into the Mackey house. Rodriguez and
one of his boys came outside armed to see who had just done a
drive-by on them. What they found instead was Ron Mackey, with a
gun. We can’t tell who fired first, but Ron managed to kill one of
them and wound the other. Mrs. Mackey apparently came out when she
saw her husband go down and the wounded gangbanger shot her in the
back of the head as she leaned over her dead husband’s body.”

“That’s terrible. Where’s Theodore?”

“He’s with a relative.

“Is he with his aunt?”

“We can’t say, and it doesn’t matter. Only thing
that matters right now is whether you can prove you were at the
hospital last night when this little bloodbath went down. And so
far, it doesn’t sound like you can. You got no names.”

“You think I fired the shots into the
houses?”

“Let’s just say you’ve got the best motive of
anyone in town.”

“I’ll get you some names. I’ll find out who was
working at the hospital last night. And there’s also the cop I
talked to. And there was one guy I bumped right into. I’m sure he’d
remember me if there’s any way I can find out who he was. Maybe
he’ll be there today. I know I will be.”

“We’ll find out who took the report from your
sister. You see if you can get us some other names. Maybe it
was
just a drive-by.”

The cop stared at him for a moment and Dave felt
as though he was being assessed, as if the cop was considering
whether Dave was smart enough to have orchestrated the death of his
nemesis.

***

That evening while Dave was sitting in Nikki’s
hospital room feeling thankful at the news that Nikki would heal
completely, and in time, would be good as new except for some minor
scars, his phone rang. He cursed himself for forgetting to silence
the phone and answered it quickly before it could wake Nikki.

He quietly exited the room and said,
“Hello?”

“Mr. Parsons? Detective Burke. Got a minute?

“Yes,” he said, stepping into the hall and
quietly shutting the door to his wife’s room.

“I spoke to the officers who came to see you
this morning and then I spoke to the officer who took the report
from your sister last night. He could not verify that you were at
the hospital at the time of the shooting. He spoke to you about a
half hour before he went to her house.”