Final Stroke

by Michael Beres

  She mentioned the traffic jam caused by the accident earlier that evening. He said he was glad it happened before he came on duty. She mentioned something about all the “crazies” out there this night and wondered if there was a full moon hidden by all the clouds. He asked what kind of “crazies” and she mentioned a report about cars and a van traveling at high-speed on a back road just before he came on duty. Something about a red car and a van and a couple other cars with people throwing garbage out the windows. She said a farmer called it in and called back a while ago wanting to know if it was all right to go down a certain road.

  When the scanner jumped ahead to the next frequency in its se quence, Steve cradled the steering wheel as best he could with his rot ten right arm and reached across with his left hand and picked up the scanner. He held the scanner against the steering wheel, trying to push the correct button. But he was unable to do it and quickly pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Then he punched the button to go backward in the sequence until he was back at the Frankfort fre quency, and froze the scanner there.

  The frequency was silent. He sat there, staring at the scanner. He had pulled into a right-turn lane and knew he could not stay there long, so he drove ahead and turned right into the parking lot of a bank. The frequency was still silent. He adjusted the squelch until he got the hiss of FM static. Still nothing.

  Then, suddenly, the male voice boomed out. “Frankfort. Where’d you say the farmer saw the speeding litterbugs?”

  Then the female voice, even louder. “North to south on Parker Road just north of Thirty. Says they were throwing trash out when they turned eastbound on One-hundred-eightieth. Pavement ends there for railroad tracks. Farmer says they parked for a time, then took off, but he’s not sure if they all left. Happened a couple hours ago so could be he’s on edge.”

  “Roger, Frankfort. Guess I’ll make sure. If anybody needs sleep, it’s farmers.”

  After having a hell of a time finding the location because the rental agency map wasn’t detailed enough, Steve sped south on Parker road staring out into the darkness. He had the Lincoln’s brights on and could see a sign for a T a quarter mile ahead. Then he saw a squad car cross the road at the T and slowed the Lincoln to forty. There were farms spaced out in the area, a few of the houses with lights on, but nothing else. It was after eleven-thirty.

  He slowed the Lincoln to a crawl well ahead of the intersection where the squad had crossed. He paused at the T, waiting at the stop sign until the taillights of the squad were out of sight to his right. He was about to turn left when he noticed something lying in the middle of the road. It looked like a jumble of paper. The call on the scanner had said someone had been throwing trash out. As he stared at what he now could see was a magazine on the road, he remembered that be fore he spotted the squad, and while he was driving slowly after that, there had been an abundance of paper, perhaps other magazines.

  He put on the Lincoln’s brights and turned down the road the squad had come out of, already making up an excuse should the squad come back. Something about looking for U.S. 6 and 45. The Frank fort frequency on the scanner was silent, but he figured he’d probably hear another call to the squad if the farmer who called in was still watching.

  As he drove down the road he saw more magazines and thought, kids. A stash of dirty magazines that can’t be left in mom and dad’s car or can’t be brought into the house. Right, a stash of dirty magazines thrown out by kids in vehicles borrowed for a night of joy riding.

  But as he drove more slowly, a shiny magazine cover blew up in the wind and he saw the familiar yellow bordered cover of a National Geo graphic Magazine, then he saw another cover, its title Time. As if he were in therapy trying to solve a complex puzzle, he had a sudden feeling of success, but it was followed instantaneously by a feeling of dread.

  He pulled far to the right on the shoulder and stopped next to a magazine. He opened the door and reached down, bracing his good leg beneath the steering wheel so he wouldn’t fall out onto the road. The magazine was cold and wet. This one was U.S. News and World Report. The cover had something about The Iraq War. He looked at the date. 2003.

  He threw the magazine on the passenger seat, kept the door ajar while he drove and pulled to the right again. Another U.S. News and World Report. The magazine had flipped open to a page showing pho tographs of George W. Bush and Al Gore in debate. He remembered relearning about the 2000 election from Jan. Going over and over news from magazines just like this that Jan brought in to Hell in the Woods whenever she visited. Magazines she’d gotten from the librar ian who said they were online and would be thrown away. Magazines that filled the back seat of Jan’s Audi.

  He threw this wet magazine on top of the other on the seat beside him and drove ahead. He did not stop at other magazines on the road but sped toward the dead end. Now there were no more magazines and he passed a sign that said, “Pavement Ends.” The dead end was marked not by a dead end sign, but by a sign with double arrows point ing left and right.

  It was dark at the end of the paved road. Rather than an actual dead end, there was a narrow gravel road to the left and a muddy two-track to the right. He shut off the Lincoln’s lights and engine. He threw the wet magazines into the back seat and got his flashlight out of the bag on the floor. He slid to the right, reaching over to open the passenger door. The transfer to the wheelchair took only a couple minutes.

  The rain had stopped completely and the only sound was the drone of traffic in the distance. He wheeled along the edge of the pavement scanning the ground with the flashlight. There wasn’t much to be seen except some broken glass and smashed beer cans. But along the edge of the pavement where the mud two-track went south, he saw what looked like fresh tire tracks. The tires had sunken deep into the mud. Where there were puddles the tracks were simply trenches with out pattern. But between the puddles, where the ground had drained, he could see the patterns of tire treads.

  He found a spot along one side of the tracks where he could roll his chair on the weed bed without sinking in. He examined the tracks, de termining that at least two vehicles had recently turned in and backed out. He also saw footprints, most of them large, one set medium size. He knew someone had been here recently because the heavy rain from earlier in the day would certainly have washed the detail away. It had not rained for long on these tire tracks and on these footprints. But unless he were able to study the tires on Jan’s Audi and unless he knew exactly what kind of shoes she was wearing …

  In the dark, at a dead end, sitting in his wheelchair in the weeds, he wept. Back in the car with the heat on high to take off the chill, he wept. He swore aloud at himself. “Goddamn fucking stroke! Crying no fucking good now!”

  The only thing of significance he was able to gather, without the aid of forensic equipment and records and expertise and time, was that one of the vehicles which had turned into the muddy two-track had rain tires. He recognized the tread design with the deep center groove, recalled seeing commercials for rain tires on television. Unless Jan bought rain tires without telling him, he did not think her Audi had them. If she had bought rain tires, she would have told him because she told him everything. Everything.

  A call blasted out of the scanner, the female base station operator again. “Car ten. Frankfort.”

  “Go, Frankfort.”

  “Farmer called again. Insists someone’s at the dead end.”

  “Roger, Frankfort. I was there a while ago. Probably saw me.”

  “Farmer’s on the phone now. Says someone’s there.”

  “Okay. I’m ten minutes away, but I’ll check.”

  He turned on the Lincoln’s lights, turned the Lincoln around being careful not to drop a wheel in the mud, and drove back down the road. For a moment he wondered if he should pick up more maga zines, but decided it would be pointless. He turned the scanner back on automatic full scan and drove away, heading west, then north, then back east to Route 45. The babble on the scanner was back.

&
nbsp; Heading north back on 45, he decided to try the parking lots one more time. The pain in his right side had increased substantially. He reached into his left pocket, took out one of the Valiums he’d brought along and spit-swallowed it. Then everything changed, but not from the Valium. It was like another stroke. A stroke that turned back the clock and made the present time into a time that hadn’t happened at all. Maybe he had brainwashed himself into believing it could hap pen. Maybe he was having a stroke, neurons wagging in pain as they died. Maybe this time the bullet in his brain was out to give him a brand new fantasy world. Maybe the light would go on in his room at Hell in the Woods and he’d wake up in bed and Jan would be there all smiles, face cool and smelling of outside night air.

  The call came in from one of the Chicago channels. He skidded to the side of the road and hit the scanner’s freeze button as soon as he heard the first part of the call.

  He was making it up. He had to be making it up. But then the call continued.

  “… located in parking lot, Saint Mel in the Woods. Red Audi, Illinois license J-B-A-B-E. Registration matches missing person Janet Kowalski-Babe. Car unlocked. No keys. Driver’s door window smashed in.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  SEVEN

  Dino had Legless park in the front lot at Hell in the Woods. The van backed into a spot far out in the lot in the last row that bordered the woods along the entrance road. Her ankle throbbed, tears came from her eyes, and the tape on her mouth tore at her face. Although Dino sat beside her and turned to stare at her from time to time, she was not sure if he was aware of the pain she was in, or if he did know and did not care.

  Dino told Legless to turn up the police scanner and they sat there listening to the litany of police calls. When the announcement came that her Audi was in the parking lot at Hell in the Woods, she looked ahead through the windshield. There it was, her Audi parked here at Hell in the Woods. Although a police car was parked next to it, she could not help imagining that her Audi was here because she has come to visit Steve and has gone inside to be with him.

  The Audi and the police car were up closer to the building. One policeman stood outside the squad car having a smoke while another shined a flashlight into her Audi. The van was parked too far out in the lot to draw the attention of the policemen. And as she stared at the Audi and the policemen who were so close, yet so far away, she realized her captors had parked here because they wanted her to see the Audi. It had been brought back here to make an impression on her, to let her know they could do anything.

  Beyond the Audi she could see the front entrance of the building. As she stared at the entrance, she felt at any moment she would see a man in knit cap and leather jacket wheeling Steve out in his wheel chair. Steve would be strapped into the chair so he could not move. And when they wheeled him calmly out into the parking lot, past the policemen and to the van …

  No! She’d have to do something. Tell them something to delay whatever it was they had planned. But even if she could think of something to say that might delay them, how could she with the tape on her mouth?

  She glanced to Dino and saw him watching her. When she looked back out at the Audi and back to Dino, he turned toward the front and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  As the van began driving off, she struggled. Despite the pain, she struggled, knowing it was pointless, but wishing nonetheless she could do something to attract the attention of the policemen.

  Tyrone wished the rain hadn’t stopped because the streets were still wet and the spray from other cars coated the DeVille with road slime. He hated having the DeVille get dirty almost as much as he hated coming back to Hell in the Woods. Especially when he wasn’t sched uled to work. That was the shit of it, having to come back to this place at night when he should be banging Latoya back at her apartment.

  Because he was just visiting, Tyrone stayed in the front lot instead of driving around back to the employee lot. After parking the DeVille in one of the empty handicapped spots near the entrance, he rum maged around in the glove compartment for the handicapped permit. He’d found the permit some time back. An old fart with memory half gone had left it lying on the reception counter. He’d never used it here at Hell in the Woods where someone he knew might see him coming in to work. But the late shift had started a while ago, no one coming on or going off for a few hours at least, and he felt somewhat reckless tonight. Feeling reckless was part of the act, part of preparing himself for what he had to do. When he finally found the permit, he hung it from the rearview mirror and got out of the car.

  Farther out in the parking lot, as he walked toward the entrance, Tyrone saw a cop standing next to a squad car and almost turned back to the DeVille to move it. But the cop seemed to be attending to an other car in the lot. Tyrone couldn’t see the car the cop was messing with because it was behind the squad, but he saw the cop shining a flashlight around and figured the cop was busy hassling someone else and so he kept walking.

  Fool, he thought. Come to scare a cripple, got help coming even, and you’re scared of a goddamn bluecoat doing his traffic thing.

  After Tyrone went through the front entrance he veered off to the side, directly toward the office where the time clock was. This made the guard at the counter ignore him. Dumb shit guards makin’ just above minimum wage didn’t give a shit, and who could blame them?

  In the hallway outside the time-clock room, Tyrone checked his watch. Flat Nose wasn’t due for a half hour. That would give him time to clear the way at the loading dock entrance. As he headed down the office hall that led to the exit, which would take him to the nurs ing home wing, Tyrone imagined how big that Babe guy’s eyes would get when he was awakened by both him and Flat Nose. No messing around this time. In the morning he’d probably think he’d had a nightmare. Yeah, a nightmare from Hell in the Woods he’d never for get. A nightmare that just might shut his fucking mouth forever. So much for therapy, fuckhead.

  But once he was in the main hall to the nursing home wing, Tyrone had second thoughts. Not that he wouldn’t go through with it. His second thoughts were about him calling Flat Nose. He must have really wanted the fucker’s help because he had to call several times, getting the same message at Flat Nose’s apartment, then finally getting through to the fucker on his cell and having to listen to the fucker’s lip.

  As he stood in the dark hall, the thought of going down to the end of the wing to let Flat Nose in depressed him. He knew Flat Nose would jive him about being a pussy. Or maybe Flat Nose would even say something to DeJesus about Tyrone not being able to handle it.

  Tyrone looked at his watch again. Still at least twenty-five min utes before Flat Nose was due. And in twenty-five minutes … yeah, maybe there was time. Maybe if he went up to three and the fuck head was asleep and he took care of things himself and that got back to DeJesus, then Flat Nose wouldn’t be the only tough motherfucker. Maybe that was the only way to move on up the ladder, get a flashier set of wheels than a DeVille, impress the hell out of the chicks.

  He knew he could be smarter, much smarter than Flat Nose. He’d go on up to four first, in case he met up with anyone he knew on the elevator, then take the stairs back down to three. He’d take care of everything himself. And when it was over, he’d just ease on out to the loading dock and tell Flat Nose a thing or two about who’s got the balls for this business. Yeah, he’d get tight with DeJesus, even make like he’s a woman-hater just like DeJesus if he has to. Exaggerate the old gang-bang days, make off it was like being in the military, maybe even hint he’d iced a couple assholes while he was gang-bangin’. And when he and DeJesus had meetings, he’d talk about his ma a lot, be cause DeJesus lives for his ma.

  Tyrone could almost smell the inside of the brand new Benz as he headed for the elevator.

  Instead of driving away from Hell in the Woods after seeing the po lice at her car, they drove around to the back of the complex, far out toward the dark woods surrounding the nursing home wing where she knew employ
ees parked. Before the van pulled into a spot, she could see there were two newer large cars parked amongst the older, more battered employee cars. The van pulled in next to one of the newer cars. She was not certain, but she thought these were the cars that, along with the van, had chased her. Because they were parked in a darkened area between overhead lights spaced far apart in this remote part of the lot, she was unable to see into the cars, but assumed there must be men inside, perhaps the men in knit caps and leather jackets, waiting to be called on their cell phones and told what to do. Just like the driver of the semi that had driven over Tony Gianetti’s Prius had probably been told what to do.

  After the van parked and the engine was shut off, Dino spoke to the driver.

  “Tell the others we’ll stay put here for a while. Get in with them and stay low. No smoking and no one out walking around in case a cop cruises by. Turn on the scanner in the car and let me know if you hear anything.”

  Because there was some light in the van from distant overhead lights, she was able to watch as the driver made his way into his wheel chair and backed it onto the lift. As he sat on the lift and the door was sliding open, more light came in the open doorway and she watched as he glanced in her direction. He had his knit cap back on, and pulled it down more tightly on his head as he stared at her. After the lift moved the driver outside and down to the ground and the lift returned empty and the door closed, she heard a car door slam.