Veteran Avenue: The gripping thriller with great plot twists

by Mark Pepper

  This time she knew it was death had crept up on her.

  ‘Hey, Mom.’

  Marie’s head snapped upright to see Larry smiling down on her, although not with any affection, and with his hands menacingly behind his back.

  ‘Long time no see. Remember me? Gary? I think that’s my name. I can’t recall. Someone shoved a cattle prod up my ass, but you know that already.’

  Once the initial surprise had passed, she was actually glad to see him. If he was here in Venice Beach, he wasn’t in Beverly Glen, and obviously didn’t know that his wife was. And why should she be afraid? If he killed her, what would he be taking from her? Days. Nothing more.

  ‘Larry,’ she whispered, the equal of his unflinching stare.

  ‘Larry, of course,’ he said. ‘It’s all coming back to me now. Yeah. Everything is coming back to me. Including my wife. So where is she?’

  ‘Safe.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  Marie shrugged. Her breath was short. Even long, it would have been wasted on him. She hated Larry for abusing her daughter. Having allowed a man to do that once before, now it would be over her dead body.

  ‘Who were those people with her?’ Larry asked. ‘I heard you mention Virginia? Who’s Virginia?’

  ‘You mean where – where’s Virginia. It’s a state on the east coast.’

  Larry produced a pistol from behind his back. ‘Now, Mother, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.’

  ‘Either way, you can fuck off.’

  ‘My, that’s a foul mouth for an old lady.’

  ‘Well, Gary, you must bring out the worst in me.’

  Larry thrust the muzzle between her eyes. ‘I’m gonna count to three ...’

  ‘That something you just learned?’

  His eyes blazed and his lips puckered tensely. His lack of effect was making him mad, and Marie experienced a buzz unrivalled even in perfect health. This was the best she had ever done for her daughter, and when it mattered the most. In another hundred years she could not redress the balance, but she had tipped it as far back level as it would go. She closed her eyes as Larry counted slowly through one, two, and three.

  ‘Shit!’ he shouted. ‘Where’s my fucking wife?’

  Marie looked at him, feeling her serene acceptance of death glowing in her skin. He had stepped back, the gun lowered, pleading tears in his eyes.

  ‘She’s safe, Larry, and I hope you don’t see her again as long as you live. I hope she finds someone else, settles down with them and lives the rest of her days in perfect bliss. She will, you know. You never deserved someone like her. She is going to start afresh with another man while you drink yourself to death in some seedy Hollywood bar. But before you peg out you’re going to look up at the television in the corner of that bar and see your ex-wife there, a successful actress, and you’re going to think of the life you could have had with her if you’d only stopped being such a pathetic loser for one minute.’

  The muzzle of Larry’s gun was wavering around her forehead again as furious tears spilled down his cheeks. One more inflammatory comment and he’d shoot her. She had to make it count.

  ‘Hayley always said you had no balls.’

  His eyes flared wide and Marie thought she’d succeeded. Then his expression altered like he was surfacing from a hypnotic spell. He gave a quizzical look that seamlessly turned to a smile, before he retreated a pace and lowered his aim.

  ‘Hayley always said that, did she?’

  Marie nodded, but realized her mistake.

  ‘That was when exactly, considering you two haven’t spoken in years?’ He snorted his disdain. ‘I know your game, Marie. I see the morphine on the counter there. I saw it in your bedroom. What is it? You dying? That why you and Hayley made up? You got cancer or something?’

  She didn’t mean to, but she must have reacted because Larry’s smile broadened.

  ‘Oo, the Big C, that’s tough. You want flowers or a donation to charity?’

  ‘I want you buried next to me, before I get there.’

  ‘Or behind bars. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? That’s why the taunts. I kill you, you don’t care, you’re dead anyway. In fact, I save you some pain. But your daughter’s free of me. You’d sacrifice yourself to save her. Shit, you must have hurt her real bad when she was a kid.’

  ‘I did,’ Marie said through gritted teeth.

  ‘So we’re not so different, you and I. She forgave you; she can do the same for me. I do love her.’

  Marie was disgusted by him and let it show. ‘Larry, we’re worlds apart. What I did, I never meant. Yet when I knew what I’d done I loved her so much I couldn’t face her. But you? You want to jump straight back in her life like nothing’s happened. You don’t love her. You wouldn’t be here now if you did, you’d be lying on a shrink’s couch getting some help.’

  Larry affected a bored expression. ‘Yada yada, you done? Because I’m done with you. You know, Marie … I’m gonna let you live. Rather, I’m gonna let nature take its course, let you die slowly, painfully. I’ll find Hayley, don’t think I won’t. If you won’t tell me where she is, some clue in this place will. And if that fails, just remember I’m a cop. I’ll track her down. She can’t stay hidden for ever. She won’t want to – she’s an actress, for Christ’s sake.’

  Marie watched him exit the kitchen and she felt defeated. He was right: sooner or later Hayley would reveal herself. Fame and fortune had been tantalisingly close. Once recovered, she would not be able to stop herself.

  The bungalow was small. Larry reckoned he could tip the place upside down before Marie could bring a black-and-white to the curb. If there was an address book, he would find it. Thinking about it, the black guy at the apartment was Marie’s age. Maybe he was wrong about the Limey. Maybe Hayley wasn’t connected to either of them. Maybe it was Marie.

  In the living room he slipped his gun in the back pocket of his jeans and opened a bureau next to the telephone table. His fingers searched quickly through the shelves and drawers inside, sifting and discarding.

  Then he smiled and ceased rooting for a moment. He had come across a photograph of Hayley as a young girl, standing in the ocean’s surf, holding an ice cream. Her dress was billowing in the breeze, a dress patterned with Mickey and Minnie Mouse inside love hearts. He recognized the material as the same she tied in her hair on occasion. He had never known its history and had never bothered to ask, which now struck him as very sad. Given his time again, he would extract every last trivial piece of nonsense from her. Because none of it was nonsense. Without all the bits of her past, how could he hope to know the woman she was today? Would she be estranged from him today if he had made the effort to question what made her tick? Maybe he hadn’t nagged enough so she was never convinced he really wanted to know the thoughts that haunted her, or made her laugh. Captivated by regret, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her image.

  Something stroked his butt and he whirled round to find Marie pointing his gun straight back at him, hammer cocked. For the second time in twenty-four hours he was staring into the business end of Laura DeCecco’s nine mil Sig Sauer, which he’d taken from her and left in the Beetle overnight.

  He couldn’t speak. The absolute certainty of death had struck him dumb. A loaded nine mil held by a woman who wanted him dead, who had nothing to lose by killing him, and in her view everything to gain for her daughter. What a thoroughly crappy end to his life. At least yesterday he might have been killed by a badass Marine. Now he was going to die at the hands of a skinny-assed Marie. It was just plain fucking embarrassing.

  Marie held out her free hand. ‘Photo. Give it to me. I don’t want your filthy paws on my baby; not even her picture.’

  Larry did what he was told, then Marie stepped back to put a safe gap between them.

  ‘God, you have no idea how badly I want to pull this trigger. It would solve everything. And I wouldn’t have to live with the guilt for very long – that’s if I felt any at a
ll.’

  She was talking. Good. While she had something to say, he had to be alive to listen.

  ‘What I really want, though, is for you to go to jail. They’d love you in there, a famous police officer like yourself. Especially the Armenian fraternity. I think you’d have a lot of fun in the shower. You’d be the resident soap picker-upper.’ She chortled at the image in her mind. ‘You see, I want you to suffer for what you did to Hayley. I want you to know what it’s like to be scared, to be bullied.’

  Marie paused for so long that Larry felt compelled to speak, and suspected he was meant to, kind of cueing in a punch-line.

  ‘Why would I go to jail?’ he asked carefully. ‘You mean if Hayley pressed charges? Me threatening you? What?’

  ‘Where exactly would you serve life without parole, Larry? I want you to talk about it, make it real in your own mind. Where would they send you, Larry?’

  Although he couldn’t discern any logic in the question, he thought it prudent to indulge her. ‘Uh ... the state prison’s at Lancaster … probably there.’

  ‘And where for Death Row?’

  ‘Death Row? San Quentin. Why?’

  ‘And can you picture yourself there, Larry, waiting ten years for all your appeals to fail before you’re strapped to the gurney and the toxic chemicals enter your bloodstream?’

  He shrugged helplessly. ‘Well ... not really. I mean ... I’d have to murder someone in cold blood.’

  ‘You did.’

  Marie swung the muzzle back at herself, put a shot past her head to the right, past her head to the left, and then stuck one straight between her eyes.

  Dodge had been fortunate not to pick up a speeding ticket. He had been even luckier avoiding a felony arrest for packing a silenced handgun. Had he dropped by Quealy to explain his intentions he would have been locked up again, and not released for a very long time. It appeared that his thought processes had started operating with the same skewed rationale that had led to the destruction of DODGE CITY. But Dodge knew this was different. His face was not painted, he was not dressed in camo gear, he was not shooting at a phantom enemy to save a long-dead comrade because he was mourning his son. He was trying to protect living, breathing people from flesh and blood malevolence, and he believed he would have done so regardless of history.

  He roared up the street and stopped outside the bungalow.

  His dash through the city from hill to coast had been in vain. The wide-open front door, the neighbors out on their stoops, the approaching sirens – Dodge didn’t need X-ray vision to know that Marie was lying on the floor inside. The only question was whether Larry had pre-empted that cellular mutiny in her body with something less insidious but equally fatal. He wanted to see for himself, help her if it wasn’t too late, but he couldn’t risk being detained by the cops at the scene. Apart from any awkward questions, Larry already had the jump on him if Hayley’s whereabouts had been discovered. He called through his window to the nearest neighbor.

  ‘You see the guy?’

  The elderly man in the Panama hat shook his head. It may have been the truth or a reluctance to get involved.

  ‘What happened?’ Dodge asked.

  ‘Gunshots. Three of them.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘No more than two minutes. You a cop?’

  ‘Was he driving a Bug? Corvette? What?’

  ‘On foot.’

  Dodge scowled. ‘And you didn’t see him, huh?’

  The man tipped his head to hide his face behind the Panama’s brim, and Dodge screeched away. But before he could reach the end of the street, a white Beetle streaked across the intersection.

  Confessing to Virginia had been a wise decision. Had John chosen to pursue the deceit about her father seeing Quealy, it would not have worked. The moment they walked in the front door a buoyant Hayley greeted them with her news. Her mother had answered the phone at last. A second call ten minutes later had received no reply, which meant Dodge had safely picked her up. They were on their way, and Hayley could rest easy.

  Only after she had finished did her brain catch up with her careless words. She offered John a squirming, apologetic look, and was relieved to hear that it wasn’t necessary. Then the momentary eye contact with Virginia restored her dismay. Her willingness to participate in the lie had not endeared her any.

  John was therefore amazed when Virginia suggested he spend time with Hayley while she worked on some sketches upstairs. He escorted her up to the bedroom for a whispered exchange.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re a free agent.’

  He groaned – did his reassurances count for nothing?

  ‘No, John, listen. What I’m saying is, I trust you. If you truly see her as some kind of sister figure, you must have so much you want to ask her. If I tried to stop that you’d only resent me. When you come back to me, I don’t want you still thinking of her. Satisfy whatever curiosity you have, get it out of your system, and when you’re done, I’ll be here. Now, go away, I have to work.’ She playfully pushed him out of the room, winked and closed the door.

  Downstairs, he found Hayley sitting at a kitchen counter, looking out over the street. He sat on the stool next to her. They smiled at each other but neither said a word. As the seconds passed, John realized this was the antithesis of the comfortable silence he enjoyed with Virginia. He had no idea what to say to her. To make him feel slightly less awkward he angled himself away to lose her from his peripheral vision. It was true: Hayley did feel like a long-lost sister, there was a whole life to catch up on, but what right did he really have to hear any of it? Though he had carried her photograph since childhood, she was no more connected to him than a random face cut from a National Geographic.

  After several agonizing minutes he was ready to open the only topic of conversation he could think of. He didn’t relish asking why she thought Chuck had given him her picture – so far, no one seemed willing to simply accept it might all be an amazing coincidence worthy of a slot on the appropriate TV documentary – but the prospect of their not communicating for another five minutes was infinitely worse.

  Drawing a breath to speak, he turned to her ... and said nothing. Hayley was staring at him, eyes wide and rapt, a curious smile on her face, and John reckoned his reluctance to speak had been justified. She looked all set to impart some great theory with which he would not be terribly impressed.

  ‘What?’ he said warily. ‘Have I got food in my teeth?’

  ‘How do you feel about the States, John?’

  ‘I told you this morning.’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘Very at home. Why?’

  She shook her head but appeared strangely content.

  ‘Hayley, I’ve seen that look before. From your mum. I didn’t like it then.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you tell me: what’s the thinking behind it? I haven’t been sent across time to save you. That’s a Schwarzenegger movie.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Really. Chuck did not know what he was doing when he gave me your picture. He’d been on his own for months, literally waiting for some dream to come true, waiting for the one. He was desperate, probably crazy. If I hadn’t come along, I expect he’d have given your photo to a passing elk. Besides which, it wasn’t me who saved you today, it was Virginia.’

  ‘But without you, Virginia wouldn’t have known me to protect me.’

  ‘I give up,’ he said, holding his hands in surrender mode. ‘I admit: I am from a distant galaxy and you are the mother of the unborn savior of our universe. Okay?’

  She smiled, a glint in her eyes again.

  ‘Hayley, why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘It feels nice being with you,’ she said candidly.

  John was glad Virginia couldn’t hear this, or see his reaction. His skin had flushed red; he could feel the warmth. Before he knew it he had kissed her.

  ‘What was that for?’ she asked softly.

/>   Blood boiling in his cheeks, utter confusion in his mind, John apologized. Had the impulse been platonic, pseudo-brotherly, or had his girlfriend been right?

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Hayley said. ‘I know why you did it even if you don’t. You think you know me. It seemed natural. I feel I know you, too, John, almost as though I’ve had your photograph with me. There’s something about you. I didn’t sense it when we first met but I feel it very strongly now.’

  John could hear the heavy footfalls of the Mumbo-Jumbo approaching. He faked a pensive expression before turning back to the window, but Hayley tapped his arm.

  ‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

  He looked at her. ‘I think you’ve had a raw deal.’

  ‘I know I have, but what I’m saying is not down to some knock on the head. Nor am I on the rebound, trying to cling to the first guy I meet who’s my age. Virginia has nothing to fear from me. She may not believe that, but it’s the truth. I like that you kissed me, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.’

  Hayley had him all wrong. She thought he was afraid of a romantic interest on her part, but he could handle a mere crush. It was equally ominous that she had not interpreted his intentions as sexual.

  ‘When Dodge gets back with my mom, I’d like to show you something. Will you come?’

  John nodded. How could he refuse? He had made this happen. He had waited a lifetime to meet Chuck’s granddaughter. It was too late for denial.

  At Santa Monica, Larry joined the Pacific Coast Highway heading north. Until he could work out the probable conclusions of the official detective assigned to the case, his best option was to get out of the city. His eyes moved between the rear-view mirror, the road ahead, and the speedometer. There were no cops on his ass and he wanted to keep it that way.

  ‘Fucking bitch,’ he muttered. ‘Sly fucking bitch.’

  His mental autopilot took over driving; the windscreen was replaying the death of his mother-in-law. First shot into the wall behind to her right, second shattering the glass of a picture frame to her left, and the third into her forehead, the hairy piece of skull flying off the back, punched out in a bloody spray by fragments of bone and lumps of brain.