Much Needed Rain

by R. G. Oram

  To not make his presence known Lewelyn turned off the lights that had pierced through the dark. Depriving himself of any visible road surface, his only guide – the red eyes ahead and the traffic polished road surface. Having the SUV’s headlights on would surely have spooked Harris. Five o’clock on a Sunday morning, how many people would be up at this time?

  Whenever Lewelyn saw the bright eyes alter their position he’d acknowledge it, then count the seconds before he had to turn the same way. If anyone had been a passenger with Lewelyn, he imagined them telling him this is idiotic and suicidal and he’d reply: ‘Can’t argue with you there.’

  Inside the city now, Lewelyn minimised the car space when lights sprouted on the sidewalks. Curious why Harris needed to get up this early on a Sunday morning – the guy surely wasn’t a morning person – documented surveillance concluded that. Whatever got Malcolm Harris up must be important. To break a habit of not lying in bed for longer on a conventional resting day, suggested some situation had arisen.

  The sun wasn’t in the sky yet but it was gently climbing from its slumbers, the sky’s dark envelope started to change; black to a blue fringe. Lewelyn prayed for some clouds, he needed something to cloak his appearance. A storm would be nice, preferably one with torrential rain.

  California had a water shortage problem, almost went a full year without rain, only last month a monsoon of it came down. Enough of it to collapse a part of interstate 10. Lewelyn almost needed for that disaster to occur now.

  Flood it. Drown it if you have to, Lewelyn ordered.

  Unanswered prayers – still following. Clearly seeing the Ford ahead, this time with its roof canopied over. Passing a sign with the name Inglewood painted on a blue sheet of metal. Lewelyn saw buildings on both sides of the road he was on. He seemed to be in a commercial district, with stone offices and factories populating the place.

  The pursuit ongoing, no rain and the dark blue sky becoming lighter with every passing moment. Surprisingly, a few cars were getting out and about at this hour, providing the roads with their lifetime trade. Without warning, Harris’s car made an indicator-less turn, entering the open chain-link parking lot gates fronting one of the establishments in the commercial district. Lewelyn drove on, going as far down the road as he could, not allowing Harris to develop a single thought of suspicion.

  Lewelyn turned left into a new street and made a U-turn. Waiting by the red, amber and green traffic lights, telling him repeatedly to stop, ready himself and go. He halted, worrying that Harris watched the street from where Lewelyn last saw him, waiting for the sand, orange-tanned SUV to reappear. He crept through the intersection, gently massaging the automatic’s accelerator. Turning right he returned down the same place he had passed along, just that this time he was on the opposite side of the road. Stopping a safe distance from where Harris exited, Lewelyn grabbed the item under his seat, the twelve cartridge handgun he owned.

  He had a licence for it, though the only time it’s ever been fired, was on a shooting range and that was the one in the gun shop where he bought it years ago.

  Sometimes when he’s called in by the FBI he has to interview potential traitors; turned spies or agents, the kind of men or women who at one time were given the instruction to kill and not hesitate or question an order. Even trained professionals held grudges and he had helped unmask a few rogue operatives.

  He carefully checked all the bullets were accounted for and the chamber wouldn’t jam. He got out, slipping it in the pocket of his jeans, having to take his wallet and car keys out and stash them with the phone in his other pocket. The bottom of his long sleeve t-shirt covered the handle of the non-compact gun. He slid his body sideways on to the steeled fence outside where Malcolm Harris had turned. Luckily, no cars drove down this street; otherwise he might have inspired a few quizzical looks.

  Reaching the end fence, as the skin on his temple rubbed against the mesh, he chanced a quick glance to check around the corner – nobody there. He slipped around, walking through a sea of pot holes with depths inconsiderate to a driver’s spine. He checked the convertible, no keys in the ignition. Another car occupied a space alongside, not high performance or a high quality model like the sports car the actor owned. It looked dated and almost out of place. There was a hole on the front bumper where the manufacture’s trademark symbol would be. The owner did take care of it though. No sign of wear or tear, no sun burnt paint, in fact it was unbleached by the sun’s unforgiving rays; Lewelyn could almost see the depreciating bruise of his cheek on the car’s proficiently waxed hood. The interior looked new. Body and shape told Lewelyn its age. Neither were there keys in this one.

  There were at least two men inside: Harris and somebody else.

  Lewelyn walked over specked rubble – hearing it scratch the soles of his boots, he went up to a pair of rust-streaked doors, closing his eyes and listening intently, he heard nothing. Carefully he grabbed one door handle wearing a chain as a necklace. Overcoming its aged resistance he wrenched it open.

  What lay in front of him, a tiled floor and broken ceiling with a wide corridor leading somewhere but nowhere in his sightline. A shower of loose wires rained down to the floor; there were rips in their insulation revealing their multi-coloured electrical entrails. Light cascaded through from the open door, but gradually it diminished, the yellow rays on the floor creeping backwards, revealing less. The arthritic old door was closing, it seemed to weigh a ton. If he let it slam back shut, the antagonised metal would groan in protest. Its complaining sounds would travel through the building, advertising his position and not knowing where anyone was could make Lewelyn a sitting target.

  Reaching to catch the closing gap, over extending his arm in a vain effort to arrest the metallic door, the steel connected, though not with steel, with human flesh. Lewelyn’s wrist caught between the doors, crushing against it, the door refusing a welcome breath of more outside air. Feeling his hand on the outside shaking uncontrollably and resembling the fate of a trapped animal, Lewelyn used his free arm to prise open the door enough to retrieve the maddened hand and quietly closed the steeled entranceway, forcing a sigh through clenched teeth. The uninjured hand felt gingerly over its partner’s wrist, where no blood streamed, leaving it with a ghostly white complexion. Lewelyn clenched the tender hand into a fist – the fingers closed which thankfully meant it wasn’t broken.

  Then loud, fleeting echoes floated toward him, stemming from further down the corridor. Lewelyn tugged out his phone to illuminate the ground below. The closed door had excluded all the light in the windowless space.

  Using the phone’s screen he went forward, pushing away wired electrical vines which forested his path. He pictured himself holding a lantern with a grandfather’s nightshirt top that skirted below the knees and a sock hat dangling down the shoulders.

  The device begged him to consider calling Forsythe. Should he? Again what did he have? A lot of facts, but no substance to prove them. He reluctantly continued to pick his way carefully, using the digital lantern to navigate.

  One sentence repeatedly turned over in his memory:

  “You’re so stubborn and arrogant. They’ll be the end of you David.”

  Why his father’s words last words spoken to him came now, he did not know. He fought to ignore the old man’s disgruntled statement, uttered when he had learned his son had decided to leave the family business.

  Descending a small flight of steps, to Lewelyn the corridor seemed like it went on forever. You couldn’t make out its end, even with the phone light. But now he had worked out why he could hear the echoes so clearly. The tiled floor surface and smooth rendered walls, effortlessly conveyed sound flow throughout. Any noise made would be heard everywhere; a small missed could alert them he’s here.

  Carefully stepping along a blind walkway of darkness; obsessively watching the ground.

  It made you feel vulnerable not knowing what lies a
head – defenceless, naked, in a foreign land, with no solace.

  Silence is king here.

  Like a concealed creature that watched its prey. Scrutinising you, waiting for an opportunity, a mistake to be made. Loyal only to itself. It owned everything. A willingness to betray those who spoiled its sweet peaceful tranquillity. Each step Lewelyn took, made as if it was his last – like learning to walk again, one pace at a time.

  Every step, every intake and exhalation of air, more important than ever. Using the light of the phone, amplifying the soiled colour of the floor – broken tiles, dirt mounds; extreme hazards that could precipitate a fall. Letting one escape his vision could prove fatal.

  Gradually, the volume of noise increased to a point, where it was almost like a gunshot in a tunnel.

  He heard drumming, loud, and repetitive, ceaseless, his own racing heart beat. Fearing this rhythmic chorus was escaping his chest, worrying his body’s self-composed music gave the others he stalked a warning of his presence.

  Lewelyn still couldn’t see an end. There had to be one. Ahead, coherent words echoed. His hair drenched in sweat, reminding him of his previous interview as a suspect and being the number one contender as murderer. The voices grew louder and clearer, Lewelyn picked up full sentences:

  ‘What is going on?’

  ‘How is this happening?’

  Suddenly, just an arm’s reach away, he noticed a small projection in the corridor wall framing a pair of doors, the tinted glass not disclosing the secrets concealed within. Checking first for signs of movement or human presence behind them, he pushed one open slowly with his palm and hearing no challenge, slipped quietly into a foyer.

  Inside there were two doors not forming a single entrance, but side by side. Each door was open. Lewelyn couldn’t hear any sound, so he shone the phone into both. Their interiors were identical; these were places where someone could change clothes and get dressed. Lewelyn could see a wide range of lockers and wooden benches.

  He stepped forward again, but his foot slid forward, the shoe scraping sharply on the floor. Lewelyn was immediately off balance, falling backward, a crash to the floor almost inevitable. Flinging out his arms, despairingly snatching for any object that offered stability. Mercifully his outstretched hand found the wall, digging his nails into a tile, not knowing how fragile its state, grabbing it out of pure desperation. The pain shot an electric current up his arm as his nails dug in and found firm support. With no negative gravity reaction from his awkwardly stretched position, Lewelyn carefully eased himself upright. He had been lucky getting his hand on that crack, if the fingers had been a touch higher or lower he’d be on his ass right now.

  Listening to the voices up the corridor, the conversation seemed to continue, no pauses or a ‘what was that?’

  The phone no longer in his hand, he searched for it. Thankfully it was undamaged. It had fallen on its rear and the screen light shone needlessly like a beacon at the crumbling ceiling. Transferring its glow to where he had slipped Lewelyn found the perpetrator, a steady stream of water flowing unchallenged from one of the redundant changing rooms.

  Close to touching distance now, two more closed doors stood before him. Both fully glassed but painted in dirt. Placing his ear gently against one and treating them like those light swinging doors which separate a full restaurant from its kitchen, he determined that there were two men inside, their voices sounded very clear. One was calm but the other somewhat excited.

  Lewelyn couldn’t get any nearer to the conversation without being discovered, so he scrolled into the applications page of his smart phone and pressed the record button.

  Chapter 37

  Frank had heard it all before. It wasn’t their fault it was yours. Saying you said this, you said that and what you told them has not happened. Letting their emotions cloud their judgement.

  Malcolm Harris now laying spirit shouts on him, screaming in his face – calculated to intimidate. Having seen this countless times before, he just watched and waited, letting the testosterone surge pass, not bothering to listen to primitive grunts, growls and ramblings.

  When people performed in that kind of immature mental state Frank forgot they were there. The screaming and shouting like a child’s first efforts at assertiveness, a way to get somebody to do what you want. It was a technique used to camouflage the fact that the wild hysterics were in fact, an act of desperation. The truth being, they tried to scare you, make you do something that you wouldn’t normally do because they knew you actually have all the power and they had nothing. So the process tried to make you forget that – an attempt to hide their impotence, Harris blaming Frank for everything, attempting to bury his own mistakes.

  ‘How could you let this happen? Why did you leave the body there?’ the actor inquired, finally sticking with one sentence rather than half-page monologues.

  ‘Listen to me very carefully. Lower your voice and tell me what has happened.’

  ‘Weren’t you listening to me?’

  ‘I heard nothing from your primitive ape cries.’

  Harris had the look of a man who had just been mortally insulted. Then he painfully manipulated the muscles in his face into a more neutral expression.

  ‘Fine. What I needed to talk to you about, is that the cops came to my door step the other day.’

  ‘Did you let them in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where inside did they go?’

  ‘Just in the living room and one used the bathroom. They asked me some questions.’

  ‘And what did you tell them?’ Frank put a hand in his pocket.

  ‘What you told me to say.’

  The hand slowly withdrew from the pocket, ‘Then what is the problem?’

  ‘I just didn’t expect them to come visit me at my home.’

  ‘It’s procedure. They had to interview you because they have footage of your son at the apartment building. It’s not something the police could ignore. They were trying to get answers from you by scaring you.’

  And they did a good job of it too, Frank observed nonverbally.

  ‘Scare me? I’d have their jobs if they tried that.’

  ‘You’re not mayor yet,’ Frank understanding the reference.

  ‘I was just really surprised.’

  ‘Why? Considering your son’s arrogance and stupidity that night, you should have expected this.’

  ‘Do not insult my son in front of me,’ Harris growled.

  ‘There’s no point in being untruthful and I’ll say what I like.’

  Frank waited for a retaliatory reply, though not entirely surprised at what came.

  ‘All right, all right. Let’s just get back on track.’

  Frank listened abstractly to Harris’s ‘back on track’ statement; the man was using it to abandon the argument without showing cowardice.

  ‘Does the lawyer suspect anything?’

  Harris bellowed a ‘Hah’. ‘Guys like him are only interested in one thing. They won’t ask questions as long as their purse is filled.’

  ‘What else did you want to tell me?’

  ‘It’s about the kid, Shaun.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This week he calls me out of the blue. Said he wanted to discuss his contract. Said he wants more money. Tells me the risks are getting too high and wants to be compensated more for his efforts.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him we’d talk about it. So I went to his place to try and reason with him.’

  ‘You went to his house?’ Frank could feel the fingernails of his clenched fists biting into his palms

  ‘Yeah. The kid needed to be put straight.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you never to go there?’

  ‘What else could I do? It wasn’t like I could convince him over the phone.’

  ‘And did you…
convince him?’

  ‘No,’ Harris said in low volume, contemplating his boots at the same time.

  ‘You should have contacted me. That location is supposed to remain a secret. The boy’s existence is the only reason your son isn’t in prison.’

  ‘It still is. I wasn’t followed,’ Harris spoke defiantly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No doubt about it.’

  ‘Okay. So are you willing to pay him more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I shouldn’t have to. That little turd has it good. He’s got no right to ask for more. I worked hard for the life I’ve got. He should show some appreciation. He’s living in paradise. I’m not going to let him spoon me.’

  ‘Then what do you intend to do?’

  Harris seemed edgy and uncomfortable. What he was about to say, he paused for a few seconds as if his throat became clogged.

  ‘I think we need to get rid of him.’

  ‘Excuse me? Could you elaborate?’ Frank’s native tongue was starting to drift through his fictitious accent.

  ‘The kid’s getting greedy, becoming a liability.’

  ‘How will that solve the problem?’

  ‘Once the kid’s gone we can find someone else.’

  ‘That is what you want to do?’

  ‘The kid’s causing problems. We need to get rid of him before more surface.’

  ‘I think the problem is you and your son.’

  Frank reduced his distance to Harris – closing down the man in a display of slow burning rage.

  ‘When you asked me for my help, I told you first to listen, then remember and follow every order I gave. Simple and precise instructions. What a parent gives to their child. I expected you to have told your son this too, but clearly you didn’t. If your son had kept his head down and listened, everything would be fine. I told him to keep his hood forward and face down just in case there were any cameras there. And it turns out there were. But he decided to go with the arrogant fool’s approach and show the world his face. What made things worse was when he started strangling the girl, he broke her hyoid bone by squeezing it too hard. She starts to convulse and choke. He freezes, doesn’t know what to do. Looks to me for support while the girl is slowly straining for oxygen. He stands there terrified. Indecisive. And I have to break her neck. He is the one who is causing the problem.’