The Devil Came Calling (Rolson McKane Mystery Book 2)

by T. Braddy

  On the ride here, I had contemplated my response, had thought myself capable of finding the meaningful and the concrete in something as ineffable as death – I had experienced enough of it, of late – but sitting here with its wretched fallout staring me in the face, all I could summon was a quiet resolve to wallow in this feeling.

  I’m going to make the asshole who did this to you feel it tenfold, I wanted to say but couldn’t. What good would it do? What comfort is vengeance but in its act?

  With the hand not holding Yaelis, I slid the .45 from my backside and placed it gingerly on the seat beside me.

  At some vague point, her phone lit up and emitted an elaborate ring tone.

  “That’s him,” she said. “That’s my dad.”

  “No, no,” I said, reaching out a shaking hand to take the phone. “Don’t answer it.”

  But she had swiped the cell and sidestepped my advance, answering the thing simultaneously.

  Her face lit up in a confused way as she began to talk.

  She said, “Dad, dad! Rolson – Mr. McKane – is here, and he says–”

  The happiness, which had been so unfettered, faded almost instantaneously, as the tears returned. She listened for a moment and then pulled the phone away from her ear. She was starting to go into shock.

  “It’s for you,” she said. “He wants to speak with you.”

  I slid Y’s phone from her hand and pressed it to my ear. Y’s face grew pale, and she collapsed again onto the couch, crying.

  “Listen,” I said. “I’ve got the money. Every last cent in the damn case. Tell me where to meet you, and I’ll meet you. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. But don’t hurt anyone else.”

  Yaelis sat up, eyes now filled with rage instead of tears. She mouthed the word money like a question. She lowered her head and ran her fingers through her hair.

  When the guy on the other end of the line spoke again, I could hear him smiling. “Oh, I’ll get the money. Every last penny of it. You think I couldn’t have found a suitcase hidden under the crawlspace of a house?”

  He laughed in my ear.

  “I don’t give two soft peckers about the money. The money is, like, the raison d’etre or some shit. It’s what got me down here. It was my meal ticket, but now that I’m here, I get to do whatever I want. And what I want to do is torture every last fucking breath out of you. Why you ever thought I could be bought off and walk away without ruining you makes me disappointed in you, Rolson. I thought you were a fighter. I thought you were some kind of misunderstood freak.”

  “So you don't want the money?”

  “Man. Fuck. Okay. I’ll get the money back. That’s a given. People, they always think they can hang onto the money, and then when things get bad, they just hand it over and be done with it. Doesn’t work that way. The money will leave town with me, don’t worry. The rest of it – well, that’s just for me. That’s my own personal bonus.”

  “You risk a lifetime in prison to, what, yank my chain? Are you insane?”

  “Yank your chain? You think that’s what I was doing? Your old lady’s bullshit came with me down to Savannah. Miracle she didn’t pawn it for skag, but the surprises end there. Yeah, I planted some shit in your house. Easy. Easiest part of this. How long’d it take you to figure out the ghost of some long-dead spirit wasn’t fucking with you?”

  “Too long, I s’pose,” I said. “I’m real slow on the uptake, sometimes.”

  “You’re fucking telling me. But you’ve got nine cats’ lives–”

  “That’s a lot of lives.”

  “–And a horeshoe jammed in your ass to get off of all of this. I thought maybe after I slit my compadre’s throat, they’d track you down, or at least you’d make a stupid-ass mistake. But no. Somehow you make it out without being skinned alive. I guess I realized that before, because dropping old notes like a poltergeist was fucking with you wasn’t doing the trick.”

  “Maybe you should have come for me first. You’ve done gone and let me have some self-confidence, now.”

  “Tell that half-breed little skank to tell her daddy hey for me when she sees him in Hell.”

  Y must have heard him. At this point, Yaelis got up, yanked the phone from my hand and said, “Fuck. You.”

  I said, “My thoughts exactly.”

  I was talking to her back, though, because she was already on the move.

  “Yaelis, it’s not safe for you to run away right now.”

  “It’s not safe for me here,” she said. “I’m going to LaZadie’s house until I figure out what’s going on.”

  “Nowhere is safe,” I responded.

  She had thrown open the front door and padded out to the driveway. Now, she spun on her heels to face me.

  “Because of you. My father is dead because of you. Other people are probably dead because of you. Do not try to follow me. Do not try to save me. I never want to see you again.”

  I reached my hand out to stop her from fleeing, but she slapped it away. “And fuck you, too.”

  Richie popped out of his car and raised his hands in a questioning gesture. I waved him away, and both he and I watched Yaelis get into her car and drive away. I hoped it wouldn’t be the last time I saw her.

  * * *

  “I’m not answering the door,” Allison said when I knocked. I had convinced Richie to chauffeur me one last time, and since she hadn’t answered her phone, I thought her house was the next feasible place to check out.

  I said, “I’m literally checking on everyone I know, see if they’re still alive.”

  “How many people came before me, Rolson? How many?”

  “Just one,” I said. “But you’re just as important to me.”

  “I didn’t answer my phone, and that should have been enough of a clue to tell you I wouldn’t answer my door, either.”

  “I’ll move along, just so’s you make a promise to get the ever-loving hell out of Savannah until people stop getting cut down like old trees.”

  “How’s about I stay in Savannah until you get cut down?” she said.

  Her silhouette filled the small window in the front door, but she did not budge.

  “We could just go after this guy,” Richie said from behind me. “Our defense being a good offense. That sort of thing.”

  “Is Richie with you?” Allison asked. “That son-of-a-bitch with you?”

  “Hey to you too,” he said, feigning a salute.

  “Give me five minutes,” I said. “Five minutes, and I’ll go.”

  Hesitation on the other side of the door.

  “No, uh-unh,” she said. “If I let you in, then you’ll give the me the full court press on all your misfortune, and I’ll forgive you, and I’d never forgive myself for that.”

  “Five minutes.” I said it as calmly as was conceivable.

  The door squeaked. I could see her loosening her hold on the door from the other side.

  “Five minutes,” she said.

  “Five minutes, and I’ll get the hell out of your life.”

  The deadbolt clicked.

  She opened the door.

  The interior of the house was immaculate, as though she were expecting company. Maybe she was expecting me, and maybe it was supposed to be under different circumstances.

  “I told you not to get involved with Bellerose,” she said, stomping out to the back porch.

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re going to follow your ex-wife right into a coffin. Is that what you want? What do you mean, you’re not involved with Bellerose?”

  “Just what I said.” Slight mischaracterization, but she had to see what was actually going on.

  “That massacre at the church – the one that was supposed to involve you – that’s not Bellerose’s doing?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sure looks like Bellerose.”

  “Out-of-towners,” Richie said, slightly smirking.

  “People are dead, Richie,” Allison said. “This isn’t a video game.”r />
  “I know that,” he responded petulantly.

  Allison leaned against the railing, grabbed and lit a cigarette.

  Richie said, “Have one? I’m starting to crash real bad, and cigs are the only thing that might keep me sane if I start to go into DTs or whatever.”

  She said, “Yeah. Great. Excellent. That’s what we need to have going on at my house.”

  “Things are bad right now,” I said, leaning against the railing beside her.

  “Rolson McKane. Master of understatement.”

  “Thing is, I came by to warn you. Tell you maybe it’d be a good idea to go on a vacation this weekend, starting, I don’t know, right now.”

  She took an extended drag on the cigarette and stared me down. “No. Uh-unh.”

  “Allison–”

  “I’m less safe because you are here,” she said, exhaling. “I told you not to throw your lot in with Bellerose, and maybe you didn’t, but you’re caught up in something else fucked up, and whatever it is, you’ve brought it closer to me. Dragged it in like a cat with a dead hummingbird.”

  “She’s got a point, dude.”

  “Shut up, Richie.”

  I said, “I recognize it’s my fault, but you can’t just stay here if a maniac like that is on the loose. There’s a good chance that if he knew about Winston, he knows about you.”

  “I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere. Rolson, I trust that, whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, you’ll have to be able to get yourself out of. You have to.”

  She took a drag, inhaled, and then balanced the cigarette on the edge of the railing. Exhaling, she took my hand and said, “I want to see you again. If you die, or if I die, how is that going to happen?”

  I leaned in close and wrapped my arms around her. She leaned into the embrace and whispered into my chest, “Or we could both get out of town. Disappear until this whole thing blows over. Or just disappear altogether.”

  My mind projected the most incredible version of that proposition, the two of us fading into a crowd on a white sand beach, and that, honestly, sounded tempting. Maybe sneaking away to a beach somewhere else, or finding a place up in the mountains. The money would last us awhile, and then I could find a gig, something to keep us busy until we figured out what to do after that. Didn’t sound too bad.

  But then I thought about the other aspect of running away. I imagined the lives that would be at risk around here. Yaelis. Richie. Mickey. Jess had already been attacked.

  I pulled away. “If I can get to that son-of-a-bitch, there won’t be any running.”

  She picked up the cigarette, puffed once, and then stubbed it out. “Do what you want. I have a shift to work later today, and I’m not leaving, so whatever you need to do, go do it.”

  Richie flicked his cigarette into the yard. “Heard anything about Jess?”

  “Stable. Somebody – I assume it’s your lunatic – fed her a whole bottle of sleeping pills. She was also high when they brought her in, but they don’t know if that was before or during.”

  “But she’s okay?”

  “She’s alive. Somebody called 911 from her phone and then disappeared into the night. Coincidentally, there was an attempted shooting right down the street a few minutes later. Wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you Rolson?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Oh, come on. I watch the news. Did you really try to take out some cops?”

  “I don’t think it was cops.”

  “You definitely put bullet holes in a cop car.”

  “Yes. But I don’t know they were cops at the time, nor do I fully believe they were cops at all. It feels like a set-up.”

  “From the Chatham PD? Are you serious?”

  “I got hassled by some dicks in uniform not too long ago. I’d be willing to be they’d trump up some charge just to get me taken in. Right now, I’m on the hook for two crimes I didn’t commit. If a manhunt hasn’t started for me, it will.”

  Allison leaned in and kissed me. “Then you better get to fixing this, before someone fixes you.”

  I kissed her again and said, “I will be back.”

  “I’m not waiting for you, Rolson McKane, so you’d better hurry.”

  Richie patted me on the shoulder. “Let’s go and get this sumbitch before he gets us.”

  I turned and looked once before leaving. Allison was framed through the back doorway of her house, bringing a cigarette to her lips and lighting it, staring directly at me.

  seventeenth chapter

  Richie stopped at a nearby gas station, where I purchased a burner phone and called the police. They put me right through to the watch commander.

  “This the asshole terrorizing our good Christian city?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m Rolson McKane, and what has happened here is because of me, but I’m innocent of most of it.”

  “‘Most of it?’ Well, then, tell me what it is that you did do, and maybe I can sort the rest of it out.”

  “You and I both know I can’t talk for long – maybe you can track this – but here goes: I didn’t kill the guy who broke into my house. I think he was an associate of the man who perpetrated the shooting at the AA meeting today. He’s a mean-looking dude. Dark hair, dark eyes. Scar on his face. Big tattoo on his neck. He’s purposefully sparked a witch hunt for me.”

  “And why would he do that?”

  “He thinks I owe him money.”

  “Oh, does he now?”

  “He works for a drug dealer based out of Atlanta – kind of a big deal, I’d assume – and this is the way they’ve decided to negotiate for the money.”

  “Then why don’t you just give it to him?”

  “I offered. It’s a long story, but he is tormenting me for the hell of it. I’ve tried to reconcile it, but he’s not satisfied with money. He wants me dead, and he won’t stop until it’s done.”

  “Well,” said the cop on the other end, “maybe you should just give that to him. Save the city a lot of pain and probably money.”

  “I’m thinking about it,” I said. “But in the meantime, I just thought I’d let you know you’re chasing the wrong guy. You should be looking for him. I know I am.”

  “You’re not a cop anymore, McKane.”

  “I know,” I replied, “but I still plan on dumping him on the front stoop of the police department, so you can do your jobs. That is, if he doesn’t kill me first.”

  “Well, now, McKane–”

  I hung up. He was baiting me, inviting me to stay on the line, but I couldn’t let that happen.

  “They’re going to pin this on me,” I said.

  “Didn’t need a phone call to figure that shit out, did you?” Richie asked.

  “I guess I did. He just patronized me the entire time.”

  “You can’t let them find you, then. They’ll pin you to the front page of the Savannah Morning News and keep you there until they’re satisfied you’re good and fucked.”

  “I think I may already be.”

  “Then you’ve never seen the way the Savannah legal system works.”

  “The money isn’t going to stop him,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “He just wants to see me dead.”

  “Yep.”

  I thought about Vanessa then. Thought about her final moments. Her eyes staring up at this man, wondering how she had reached a place where she received a death sentence for her actions.

  “How can we give him his best shot at it?”

  Richie only stared straight ahead. He was driving us toward the beaches, somewhere out of the city. We passed tourists in Hawaiian shirts and cheap straw hats. Lobstered parents holding the hands of kids sticky with ice cream smudges. Attractive young couples teetering under the weight of day drinking.

  I said, “I mean, if he wants to prolong the inevitable, how do I put myself in front of him to force the issue? He can kill me, fine, but it’s got to be on my own terms.”

  �
�Bellerose.”

  “I don’t think Bellerose would help me at this point.”

  “No, I mean, Bellerose is the guy. He’s your boogeyman’s equal and opposite force. He’s a goddamned boogeyman himself, if you want to know the truth.”

  “And he’d draw my potential killer out of the darkness?”

  “I’d imagine so. He might even contact your man, try to work out a deal. Bellerose sees that it’s bad for business. The, er, import/export trade gets kind of stiff within the city limits when gunfights break out on a near-daily basis. Cops start cracking down on that sort of thing, and it’s bad – I mean terrible – for business. Bellerose will want to stamp this fucking down as quickly as he can. So long as you don’t mind yourself becoming a human bargaining chip.”

  “I don’t care what happens to me, so long as my friends stop getting killed.”

  Richie’s hand clutched the steering wheel. I couldn’t tell if his death grip had to do with trying to dissuade me from meeting up with Bellerose again or something else entirely. “You’re going to have to hide out a few days. Bellerose doesn’t do business on anybody else’s terms.”

  All of the carnage of the past few days became an ephemeral slideshow of images in my head. The remaining living people lined up and begged me to go it alone, for me to go about my business on my own, without intrusion from anybody else.

  I didn’t listen to the voices in my head. Things might have turned out differently if I had.

  “Okay,” I said. “But impress upon him just how dire this situation is.”

  “He doesn’t care about your dire situation, man, but I’ll try. Won’t hurt, will it?”

  “It might.”

  “He’s got a shadow follows him around, even at night,” Richie said. “He ain’t a man impressed much by people’s wants and needs.”

  “What does impress him?”

  “Pain,” Richie said. “Suffering. Money. But even money is secondary by a long degree to the other stuff. He doesn’t care about people. They’re just objects to be toyed with.”

  “And he just happened into this business of being a half-assed gangster?”

  “Started life as a killer. Just plain and simple. Folks came from Haiti, brought him here. They got tangled up in some gang violence, ended up getting hacked up and fed to gators. He took it personal.”