“Don’t,” she said. “Not now. Not for a long time. We must be strong.”
Her voice was somewhat drowned out by the wind, but I heard her all right. She wanted to be left alone. Even in the presence of someone who loved her so much he’d kill for her, she wanted only to be left alone. I guess I couldn’t blame her one bit.
I kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself for the rest of the drive to Crown Point.
The EMS van pulled up to the emergency drop off at Crown Point General. Two orderlies dressed in blue scrubs came running out, opened the back door on the van, and pulled the stretcher out. They immediately wheeled Sonny into the emergency room. The EMS van pulled ahead. I drove up to the emergency drop off. Cora got out and went in through the automatic sliding glass doors. Then I parked the Jeep in an empty parking space only a few feet away from the still idling van. Shutting off the engine, I got out.
That’s when Woods approached me.
“Bunny and Kate will take the EMS van back to the jail,” he said. “It needs to be available in case of another emergency.” Bunny and Kate got out, leaving the van doors open. My eyes shifted to Kate.
“Thanks for your good work, Kate,” I lied. “We couldn’t have saved him without you.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Bunny jumped in.
“You too, Bunny,” I added.
“If he lives,” she said, “it will be a miracle. Either way, I wanna treat everyone to a drink later.”
“We’ll be there,” Woods said.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if that was Bunny’s way of calling a meeting of the minds. Because even if Sonny didn’t make it, his family would be sending up reinforcements. And those reinforcements would be an army to be reckoned with. Bunny got back behind the wheel of the EMS van, and Kate hopped back up into the shotgun seat. Closing the doors, Bunny took off for the parking lot exit. Sheriff Woods turned to me.
“You realize he cannot live,” he said.
“That’s all I’ve been thinking about since his, ummm, accident.”
“Either way, the Torchis are gonna send in the troops, and when they do, it’s gonna be ugly.”
“How do you propose we proceed, Sheriff?”
He bit down on his bottom lip. Both his thumbs stuffed into his leather belt, he said, “My guess is he doesn’t make it through the day. But just in case, we’ll keep a close eye on him for now.”
His words somehow made me feel better.
“Shall we go in and pretend like we’re pulling for him?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you?” he said.
He started for the emergency room. I followed, knowing that I had mortally wounded Sonny Torchi. But I’ll be damned if he wasn’t taking a long time to die.
As soon as we got inside the big white room, we saw the team of medical professionals frantically working on Sonny. He’d been transferred from the gurney to a stainless steel table. His shirt and pants were now completely removed, and only a green sheet covered his privates. A bag of blood and another of saline were being mainlined into his system via an IV that was needled into the thick blue vein on the back of his left hand. A spaghetti of wires were hooked up to him. One or two of those wires were hooked up to a flat-screen television monitor that had an electronic green line running through it. Every now and then the green line would rise up like a snake slithering its way through the tall grass. It told me Sonny’s stubborn heart was still beating.
But then something happened. Something wonderful.
The green line fell flat, and a loud buzzer sounded.
“Defibrillator paddles,” a young doctor dressed in the same green scrubs shouted. “Paddles now, dammit!”
“Hold your horses, Doctor,” one of the nurses scolded.
She was short, with shoulder-length auburn hair.
“We’ve got a flat line, Doris,” Young Doctor said. “Don’t you ever tell me to hold my horses again!”
She applied some clear jelly to two white paddles that were attached to a portable defibrillator machine. She handed the paddles to Young Doctor. Sonny’s big, white, blood-smeared belly was shaking like Jell-O as Young Doctor pressed the two paddles to his chest and shouted, “Clear!” There was an explosion, and the caretaker’s body nearly jumped off the gurney. Every medical professional surrounding the gurney focused their eyes on the green line then, waiting for it to rise up in an arc. But it never happened.
“Again,” Young Doctor insisted.
You should have seen the doc’s face. It was almost as white as Sonny’s. It gave me the feeling he’d never lost a man before. Not on his watch anyway. The nurse prepared the paddles again. She handed them over.
“Clear!”
Young Doctor triggered the paddles and Sonny jumped again, but not as high this time. The green line stayed flat, too. That annoying buzz filled the otherwise empty ER, and all I wanted was for it to stop. The son of bitch was dead already. Couldn’t they see that?
I glanced at Woods. He shot me a glance in return that was so stone cold, it made me shiver. But it was nothing to be worried about. On the contrary, it was an expression that conveyed victory.
“Fuck!” Young Doctor shouted. “We’re gonna open him up. Get him ready.”
“Doctor,” Doris said. “You really think it’s necessary? He’s gone. We should just call it.”
“I’ve haven’t lost a patient before, and I’m not about to start now.”
As if God were listening to Young Doctor, the green line moved. The flatline turned into an arc.
“We’ve got a pulse!” Young Doctor shouted.
His eyes were wide like he was Dr. Frankenstein giving life to a man put together from a whole bunch of spare body parts. I felt my mouth go dry and my stomach drop to somewhere around my ankles. I shot a look at Woods, but he wouldn’t look back at me. He was entirely focused on Sonny.
I took a step forward toward Sonny. It was almost as if my gut was telling me to just kill him off once and for all. But that was ridiculous and the stuff of fantasy. What wasn’t fantasy was when Torchi opened his eyes, turned his head, and stared right at me. He opened his mouth then and mumbled something. It sounded like he was saying, “Him…him…him.” But his energy was entirely sapped, and it was impossible to understand precisely what he was trying to say. Or maybe I was fooling myself. Because I knew exactly what he was trying to say. He was trying to say I killed him. He was pointing the finger at me.
When the line went flat again and the alarm sounded, I felt only relief. He was dead again, and God willing, dead he would stay.
“We’re gonna open him up,” Young Doctor insisted.
“You’re sure?” Doris asked.
“I’m gonna open him,” Young Doctor said while pulling on a fresh pair of latex gloves.
What followed was a quick series of injections pumped directly into Sonny’s chest. Then, Young Doctor made a long, deep, vertical incision that began at the top of Sonny’s clavicle and ended down by his stomach. The doctor glanced at Woods and me over his shoulder.
“If you two don’t want to stay for this, I’ll understand,” he said. “It isn’t very pretty.”
“We’re staying,” Woods said.
“I’m ex-military,” I said. “I’ve seen worse, believe me.”
Young Doctor then split the clavicle open using a small hand saw. Blood was spraying everywhere. It was like a horror flick that, despite the brutal things I’d seen on the battlefield, made my stomach feel bad. It was a cruel procedure to witness, but Sheriff Woods and I were glued to it like a kid might be glued to a violent video game. When Sonny’s chest was split open, Young Doctor reached in and began to massage the dead caretaker’s heart, as if the act would somehow resurrect him. He must have massaged the heart for five minutes until finally, he let go of it. Making a fist with his blood covered hand, he pounded it on the table.
“Goddammit!” he screamed.
“You did everything you possibly could,
Doctor,” Doris said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Young Doctor removed his latex gloves, tossed them into a blue biowaste bin.
“Call and record the time of death, Doris,” he said. Then, glancing at us, “Sorry I couldn’t save him, Sheriff. He was just too bled out. The shock of it all was too much.”
Woods and I both feigned sullen expressions. “We appreciate everything you did for Mr. Torchi, Doctor,” the sheriff said. “I’ll alert his wife ASAP.” He said ASAP like it was a word.
I simply nodded. My eyes were glued to Sonny’s split open chest…his exposed lungs and heart. It was hard to believe this was the same man who was playing saxophone a couple nights ago, and who held a gun on his wife and me. His death was still not quite sinking in. But he was dead all right. What did Hemingway once say about death? The dead look really dead when they’re dead. I’d seen plenty of it on the battlefield, which is why I wasn’t shocked at the sight of Sonny’s mutilated body so much as sickened, if not a little bit saddened. Seemed a shame it all had to come down to this.
But on the bright side of things, now I would not only have Cora to myself, I would be that much closer to my promised one-hundred K. And no way in hell was I going to jail. The only witness to my cutting Sonny Torchi in the thigh with a chainsaw and opening up his femoral artery was now fast on his way to hell. I could only hope the devil was waiting for him with open arms.
19
I was driving Woods back to Loon Lake. He was quiet for most of the ride until he cleared his throat and ran both hands over his face.
“I don’t know how you managed to pull off what you did this morning on the Loon Lake Trail, and I’m not going to ask you how you did it. It was an accident, and when you’re dealing with chainsaws, bad accidents are bound to happen from time to time. That’s all this was, and that’s all I need to know. I’m just forever grateful it happened.”
“What about my one-hundred-thousand, Sheriff Grateful?” I asked, pressing the issue.
He was quiet again for a long beat. I felt the wind blowing against my face and against my hair. I knew that Woods’s brain was spinning right now. Sonny Torchi might be dead and gone but that didn’t mean our problems were solved.
“They’re going to come after us,” he said after a time. “When they find out Sonny is dead, they’re going to assume we somehow killed him.”
“Why would they assume that?” I asked, playing devil’s advocate. “Like you said, it was an accident.”
“Big Billy knows you were clearing the trail with Sonny. He doesn’t like you, doesn’t trust you. He knows you have eyes for Sonny’s wife. He’ll call bullshit on the accident theory and suspect you of murdering his boss.”
I recalled the spaghetti and meatballs dinner Sonny and his crew of biker goons enjoyed last night. I was sure my name came up more than once, and when it did, it wasn’t just casual conversation.
“They’re going to come after us hard,” Woods went on.
“So, what are you getting at?”
“I want you to help us defend Loon Lake,” he said. “When we’ve beaten the bastards back…when they’ve given up…the money is yours.”
The sheriff promised me one-hundred grand if I took care of Sonny and helped him save Loon Lake from some pretty bad gangsters down in New York City. I’d completed half the task set out for me. Completed it for him, for Loon Lake, and most of all, for Cora. I felt I deserved something for my efforts.
“I’ll take half now,” I said. “Or you’re on your own.”
He nodded and bit down on his lip again. “Okay,” he said. “I guess that’s only fair. I’ll work up the cash for you by tomorrow.”
We were quiet for a time while the town of Loon Lake appeared on the horizon.
“The state police will make an inquiry into Sonny’s death,” I said. It was a question.
“Almost certainly,” he said. “They’ll be angry that their cash cow is deceased. If they show up, just tell them the truth the way you see it. Let’s get them out of our hair as quickly as humanly possible.”
“Understood,” I said. “And my parole officer?” Slowing the Jeep, I pulled into the jail parking lot, stopped, threw the transmission into park.
“I’ll call him as soon as I get inside,” he said. “I’ll give him a full report on your employment and, naturally, the tragedy that went down this morning. I’ll tell him all about your heroic efforts to try to save your new employer. He’ll want you to call him directly sooner than later, but I think I can keep him at bay for you, for now.”
“So then,” I said, “how shall I proceed?”
“Go back to Loon Lake Inn. Let Cora know about her husband. Stay close to her. We’ll all meet up at Bunny’s at seven tonight. Make a plan.” He opened the door, got out, and turned to me. “There will be a funeral. People will come up from New York. Bad people. They will be the ones who we will eventually have to face down. The ones who will want to take our town. You understand?”
I nodded.
“This isn’t my town,” I said. “But with all due respect, my guess is they won’t wait until the funeral is over to hit us.”
“You keep telling yourself this isn’t your town, Kingsley,” he said. “But you’ve got skin in the game now whether you wanna believe it or not. You’ve got Sonny’s blood on your hands and your head wrapped around his widow’s heart. And you just might be right about the war starting sooner than later.”
“Guess I couldn’t have written that bit of dialogue any better,” I said.
“You’ll get half your money soon as I can work it up,” he said. “When this town is secure, you get the rest. Hell, you might even get to be the new caretaker of Loon Lake Inn.”
“Now, wouldn’t that be something,” I said.
“Stranger things,” the sheriff said.
“Stranger things,” I said.
Backing out, I pulled out onto the road and headed for a dead reckoning with Cora.
She was sitting on the porch steps of the tavern when I pulled in. Her face was pale and withdrawn, and I sensed the gravity of what I had done to her husband this morning was only now settling in. I parked the Jeep and went to her. She stood up and surprised the hell out of me when she wrapped her arms around me and held me so tight I thought my back might break. I wanted to kiss her. But I knew that would be the wrong thing to do.
She released me, wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Was he at peace?” she asked.
I recalled his coming back to life for a brief second.
Long enough to call me out on his murder. “Him…him…him…”
“He never regained consciousness,” I lied.
“That’s a good thing, I suppose,” she said.
“You’re free now, Cora,” I said. “You and me…we’re free to be together.”
She looked into my eyes. “Then why do I want to be alone?”
“That will change,” I said. “You have a funeral to arrange. I’ll help you as much as I can.”
Her face went ghost white. “His family must be notified,” she said. “They won’t like what happened. They’ll want to get to the bottom of it.”
“The sheriff and I are ready for that. We’re ready for the state police, too. They’ll make an inquiry. But like Woods already said, accidents happen with chainsaws all the time.”
“That might appease the state police,” she said. “But it won’t satisfy Sonny’s family. They already know how much the residents of Loon Lake hated him.”
“Mind if I ask you something personal, Cora?”
“You just killed my husband,” she said, not without a bitter laugh. “How much more personal can it get?”
Her comments caused a tightness in my sternum.
“Did Sonny have any life insurance?”
She shook her head.
“He might have had a small policy on behalf of the inn and the tavern, but it wasn’t for mu
ch. Sonny has family money. Dirty money. Gangster money. He never felt the need for life insurance.”
“How are you set for cash?” I asked.
“I have a little,” she said. “It will cover the expenses of the funeral. His family will chip in. They’re worth more than God.”
“I’m about to run into a little cash myself,” I said. “Listen, don’t take a dime from Sonny’s family. You don’t want to be beholden to them. Just pay for it on your own. I’ll help.”
She nodded. “Guess I better get inside and call the funeral parlor in Crown Point.”
That’s when we heard the thunder. But it wasn’t coming from the sky. It was coming from three Harley Davidson motorcycles speeding up the gravel drive.
Big Billy was riding point as usual. The other two followed close behind. Also, per usual, they were dressed in black leather. He pulled right up to the porch steps and came to a skidding stop. He dismounted while pulling off his black, imitation Nazi Germany motorcycle helmet. Slowly, he approached us.
“Billy,” I said not without a bright smile. “So, how’s your day going, buddy?”
His face was round and covered with stubble. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’d been crying. His two amigos were still seated on their bikes, the engines idling like angry tigers.
“I’m awfully sorry for your loss, Cora,” he said. “I loved your husband. You know that.”
Cora sniffled. She was back to acting like the grieving widow, and for very good reason. Big Billy was one of Sonny’s top men. Maybe the on-the-take state police were about to come calling at any moment, seeking out the truth to what happened in the woods along the Loon Lake Trail. But Big Billy wouldn’t be concerned with the truth, so much as he’d want revenge. Sonny’s entire family would want revenge.
“Mind if I have a word with Mr. Kingsley here alone, Cora?” he said.
I felt my stomach tighten and my built-in danger detector start up. Cora gave me a look like, be careful. But I think she knew I could handle myself better than most. She and the sheriff knew how good I could handle myself. How capable a survivor I really was. It was the reason they both wanted me to get rid of Sonny. Only I could make it happen. Only I had the guts.
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