Shotgun Lullaby

by Steve Ulfelder

  I stepped again, onto the couch this time. Needed to crowd the beard, get between him and whatever he was scrambling for.

  I knee-slammed his ear. His head bounced off the sofa’s arm just as he pulled a three-inch lock-blade knife from his jacket.

  Then time slowed in a good way—my brain clicked into some kind of animal mode I don’t understand, all senses maxed out. I took in everything. Everything. I knew what had just happened. I knew what was happening right now, every movement of every player in the room, including the ones I couldn’t see.

  Best of all, I knew what was going to happen in the next few seconds.

  Past, present, future: I saw it all.

  I can’t explain it any better than that.

  I stood on couch cushions looking down at the beard, who was on queer street.

  Under the music, the girls bitched about the mess, the spilled bong. Kaydee was whining at the doughy kid to do something, don’t be a pussy. I felt bad for him. Kaydee and every movie he’d ever watched were nagging him to back up his pal, but his belly was telling him to run like hell.

  His belly was the smart one.

  As all this worked through my head, the beard shook his to clear it. He made a blind move for his lock-blade.

  I’d been waiting for that. Hell, I’d been looking forward to it.

  I pulled back until it seemed my elbow would brush the ceiling. Then I freight-trained a right into his temple. My allies were gravity, adrenaline, fury at the wicked knife, heartbreak over Jessie. To me, the punch felt like dropping a cinder block. From an airplane.

  Don’t know what it felt like to the beard, but something in his head cracked and his eyes rolled back.

  I grabbed the knife and turned to the doughy kid.

  Kaydee had convinced him, for a few seconds anyway, to stop being a pussy. He stood in what he probably thought was an Ultimate Fighting stance: bouncing on the balls of his feet, holding up loose fists in a southpaw stance.

  I stared at him maybe ten seconds.

  He stopped bouncing.

  I flicked open the knife and used it to point at the door twelve feet behind him.

  He looked at Jessie, Kaydee, the out-cold beard, the knife.

  He looked at me.

  Then he turned and walked out fast without looking back.

  He’d listened to his belly. Smart kid.

  With all threats gone, I thrummed and panted. I was adrenaline-jacked, with nobody left to hit.

  I took it out on the music. Two fast steps brought me to a black component stereo. I kicked it, stomped it, killed the awful noise.

  The quiet almost hurt.

  Kaydee said, “You prick!”

  Jessie, arms folded, stood by the sofa looking down at the beard. “I think you killed him.” She wore a ratty-ass bathrobe a foot too long for her.

  Bathrobe?

  My heart fell another inch in my chest.

  Kaydee said, “You fucking prick!”

  I looked at her for the first time. Her hair was in pigtails. She wore a white blouse with a black bra showing through. The blouse was tied off, showing soft pale midriff. She wore a plaid miniskirt, kneesocks.

  My heart sank into my belly as I stepped down a short hall, knowing from the girls’ getups what I’d find.

  Sure enough, the apartment’s only bedroom was rigged as a studio. Tripod, expensive still and video cameras, banks of lights. The queen-sized bed was covered by a little-girl spread. A dozen stuffed animals were parked against the headboard. Some of the animals still had price tags. Target.

  I wondered if they took them back for a refund when the shoot was over.

  Somehow, that was the thought that lit me off.

  I’m not proud of it.

  I wrecked everything. Destroyed the room, screaming while I did it. Cameras, tripods, reflectors, all other gear: out the window. I used the lock-blade to slash a giant X in the mattress. That wasn’t enough, so I did the box spring, too. Stomped the bed frame, made it matchsticks. Picked up an old six-drawer chest, held it head-high, dropped it.

  Again.

  And again. Screaming, stomping, keening, losing myself in it, not knowing who I was or what I was doing.

  Then I stood, panting and looking the room over.

  “I call it good,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound like mine.

  On my way out, I grabbed another bathrobe from a chair I hadn’t noticed before, one partially hidden by the door.

  Then I chucked the chair out the window.

  Then I snapped the door off its hinges and chucked it after the chair.

  When I got back to the living room, both girls were staring at me with huge eyes.

  Jessie pointed at the beard. “He’s not dead.”

  I went to Kaydee, shoved the robe at her. She folded her arms and let it drop. I picked it up, grabbed her, spun her, began to force the robe on.

  She said, “Hey!”

  I pushed her arm through a sleeve.

  She fought me. “Copping a feel, pre-vert?”

  I pushed her other arm, spun her again, cinched the robe. Kaydee stared at me and curled her lip in her version of a smile.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Are you crying, pre-vert? Jessie, the pre-vert is crying.”

  Jessie said, “Shut up, Kaydee.”

  It was the nicest thing I’d heard her say since she came home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I managed to not punch Kaydee in the face during the ride to her folks’ house. They weren’t home, which spared me a tough decision—tell them or don’t?—for now. On the one hand, she was twenty. On the other, she lived in her parents’ basement when she wasn’t clerking at a toy store. Or making porn vids.

  Without Kaydee calling me a faggot and mocking me with boo-hoo-hoo noises, my truck was quiet.

  “Remember the other night,” Jessie finally said, arms folded like she wanted to cut herself in half at the waist, “when you said I was breaking her heart?”

  I knew who she meant. “I remember.”

  “If you mention this, it really will.”

  “Yes.”

  “Bad memories. The acorn falling close to the tree.”

  “Yes.”

  We stopped at a light. The rain had settled in. Mental note: get new wiper blades.

  “So,” Jessie finally said. “Are you?”

  I said nothing.

  “Going to tell her?”

  “I knew what you meant.”

  The light turned. I waited to make my left. I licked my lips. “How’s Roy doing?” I said.

  “Aha. Quid pro quo.”

  “I don’t know what that means. How is he?”

  She said nothing.

  “He doesn’t return my calls,” I said. “My texts.”

  “His silence speaks volumes.”

  Traffic opened up. With my front tires cocked left, I hit the throttle harder than I needed to. On the slick road, the truck’s back end jumped wide and stayed wide, and I spent a few busy seconds working the wheel and the gas to catch up.

  “If you’re trying to scare me to death,” Jessie said as I got us pointed more or less straight, “try harder.”

  “For chrissake, Jessie,” I said in a voice that made her head swivel my way, “just tell me one thing. The one thing.”

  She knew what it was.

  She said nothing.

  She was going to make me beg, make me ask out loud.

  So I did. It came out raspy. “Is he using?”

  We were in Charlene’s neighborhood now, and the rain made for an early dusk. Between that and the wet roads and the excitement back at the traffic light, I was driving like an old lady.

  But there was another factor. We were in a bubble. I had Jessie on my turf, or as near to it as I could hope. The second we pulled up and her door opened, the bubble would pop. She would hustle to her bedroom fortress and her phone and her laptop and her TV, and that would be that.

  I drove slow and kept my mouth shut
. And hoped.

  Prayed.

  Prayed she would tell me that one thing. Prayed that the goodness inside Jessie Bollinger—a smart, watchful, deadpan girl who’d served at age eight as a two-year-old’s mommy—would trump the hate and darkness that’d steamrolled her these past few years.

  I could feel her, truly feel her, waffling. Waves rolled from her. I sat dead still, like a man who just found a finch on his shoulder.

  My prayers almost worked.

  She almost turned to face me, human to human.

  She almost talked.

  About Roy.

  I could tell.

  But then we pulled into the driveway. Jessie opened her door before I even got the truck in park. She pounded up concrete steps, hunched against rain, thumb-typing a text message without looking back.

  I stayed in my truck so long Sophie came to fetch me.

  * * *

  Charlene closed the bedroom door, waited two beats, and whipped it open.

  I said, “Looking to bust Sophie spying?”

  “You bet I am. And not without reason.”

  She shut the door for real. And locked it. “What was that all about, Conway Sax?”

  “What was what about?”

  “What was tonight about? Don’t play dumb. You know I hate that.”

  I did know it, but I was in a jam. The whole evening had been an unspoken agreement between me, Sophie, and Jessie to keep Charlene in the dark. Jessie had it easy—she’d spent an hour in the bathtub before locking herself in her room. I’d been scared that if I said much of anything, Charlene would know something was wrong and pry it out of me. Sophie must’ve felt the same way, because she was so quiet Charlene asked if she felt okay.

  “Guess everybody was just tired,” I said, closing the blinds. I had a plan to sidestep Charlene’s curiosity, and it was one the neighbors didn’t need to see.

  “Tired my ass,” she said. “There was another grand conspiracy going on. I’m sick of those.”

  I needed to show her a little leg, throw her off the scent. “Sophie had a half day today.”

  It worked. Charlene grimaced, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit.”

  “Not a big deal. She’s old enough.”

  “I know, but she needs new cheer shoes, and I’d promised today was the day. The two-month-old white sneakers she’s worn a half-dozen times apparently aren’t white enough for the big competition. Can you explain that to me?”

  I was too busy feeling relieved to say much.

  So I crossed the room and kissed her.

  She kissed me back like a Freightliner. Damn near knocked me backward to the bed. Which maybe she’d wanted to.

  To show her who was boss I crouched some, got my hands under her rear end, and lifted. She didn’t have much choice but to wrap her legs around my waist. I got us turned around, so now it was me dumping her onto the bed, falling atop her. Both of us giggling and kissing the whole time.

  I forget which of us switched off the lamp.

  After, she slept and I dozed. Couldn’t afford to do more—had to meet Donald.

  At twenty past nine, I slipped out of bed and dressed.

  There’s a certain look to a woman’s shoulder blades in half-light. So pretty. So lonely.

  * * *

  The rain had pushed through by the time I eased to the locked main gate at Hopkinton State Park. Deep mud ruts told me Donald had driven around it, the way I’d explained. But he had four-wheel drive, and I didn’t.

  I rolled into the ruts. Bogged. Fought three seconds of worry that I’d get stuck and have to tap-dance with a local cop. But my rear tires found enough grip to shove me through.

  It’s a decent-sized park, but most of the roads are gated off at night, so there’s really only one place you can drive. I killed my headlights. With clouds still blocking the moon and stars, I had to move slowly.

  Bear right, up and over a hill, bend left to a string of parking lots serving a reservoir I could feel but not see. I’d chucked a few guns in there—it was one way I knew this place.

  The other: most summer Sundays, Floriano and his kin, along with half the Brazilians in the state, mob the place for all-day grill fests and beach parties. I’d joined the Mendes clan here a few times, eating my weight in Brazilian sausage and beef.

  Damn, but it was dark. Even the dashboard light would screw up my night vision, I knew, so I dimmed it all the way down.

  I drove, listened, looked.

  I heard only halfhearted waves tickling the reservoir’s angled sides.

  Rolled forward twenty yards at a walking pace, stopped, looked, and listened again.

  Nothing.

  Did all this again. Again. Again.

  After five minutes that felt much longer, I was cursing myself for being vague about the location of the meet, wondering if Donald had managed to find another lot somewhere. I pulled my cell. He was probably close enough to hit with an apple core, but in this dark I’d best call.

  That’s when the gun went off.

  I wish I didn’t know that sound so well, but I do. And it wasn’t anything other than a handgun. I fumbled my cell, ducking instinctively in my seat even as I registered the sound and a white flash to my left.

  I came out of the panicky duck and looked that way in time to see another flash, hear another pop. Sure enough, the flash told me it was Donald’s big-ass Cadillac SUV. As I’d guessed, it was no more than fifty yards away.

  I jumped out. I ran toward the truck’s outline. It lit up a third time and I flinched, stumbling—but this time there was no pop to match the flash. A dull thunk told me a door had closed, and I began to fear what I was going to find.

  Hit the Escalade’s left side running hard, both hands out to stop me. I half-registered slop on the driver’s window, grabbed the handle, pulled hard …

  … his lime-sherbet-green cowboy hat fluttered past my shoulder.

  And Donald Crump, all five foot two of him, a man who could eat barbecue all day long and never admit he liked it, a man who could impersonate an NFL lineman one week and run a solar company the next, fell into my arms with a little hole in his right temple and a big hole in his left.

  I saw it all by the Escalade’s dome light. I saw more than I wanted to see. I saw too much.

  The keys were still in the Cadillac’s ignition. A chime went ding-ding-ding.

  Donald’s dead weight took me down slowly. I ended up splayed on the tarmac with his body between my legs.

  I spoke. I babbled. I said something. I didn’t know what.

  Later on, the Hopkinton cop who made the scene first said I kept saying, “Aw, hell.” Only that. Over and over.

  Until they pried me away from Donald and cuffed me and shoved me in a cruiser.

  * * *

  They didn’t haul me out of holding to speak with Lima until eight the next morning.

  Don’t know whether I ought to tell this—it’s an embarrassing thing to know—but when it comes to jail, most everything you see on TV and movies is horseshit, pure and simple. Unless you’re a prize jerk, most cops treat you okay.

  The night before, cuffed in the back of the cop car, I’d told the Hopkinton PD they ought to call the staties before deciding what to do with me. They had. I spent the night in a decent one-bunk holding cell in a back corner of the staties’ Framingham barracks. Sure, I wore prison orange—but only because they offered to have my clothes washed overnight. Dinner and breakfast were from Burger King. I’m a McDonald’s man, but I hadn’t complained.

  So don’t picture that squirrelly guy who begs the detectives for mercy because he spent all night on a bench fending off rapists. At 8:00 A.M., when they nodded me into the interrogation cube, I had a good night’s rest, a full belly, and lemon-scented clothes.

  I also had cuffs on my wrists. That part’s not horseshit.

  Neither is the worry. If I’d had my phone, the staties would have let me call Charlene—the one-phone-call bit is more T
V nonsense—but I’d dropped it in my truck when the shots were fired. And, the guard told me after checking, my truck was part of the crime scene. It was getting the full forensics treatment.

  “The hell for?” I’d said to the guard. “All I did was drive into a parking lot and watch my friend get shot.”

  “Don’t tell me,” he’d said, squinting at his clipboard, “tell Detective Lima.”

  And here he sat, lips pressed together, both hands flat on the beat-up table, manila folder open before him.

  “Why am I here?” I said. “I drove into a parking lot and watched Donald Crump take two in the head.”

  “Sit.”

  I sat.

  “Pure as a mountain spring,” Lima said. “That’s you. Billy Bob Bystander. So why’d you bust into a state park with a locked gate and clearly posted hours? And why’d you black out your truck while you drove around?”

  “Donald called. He wanted—”

  “Fuck Donald Crump!” Lima screamed it, blowing his top for the first time I’d seen. “Everybody loves Crump! Everybody wants to hug him and take him home for dinner! He wasn’t a pint-sized black leprechaun committing pranks, Sax. He was a fucking-A thief/con man/douche bag who’d steal your gold fillings if you gave him half a chance.”

  Boy, was he pissed.

  I counted to five. Maybe Lima did, too.

  “Donald Crump called me yesterday,” I said. “He was shook up. He wanted to meet in a quiet place. I told him the place.”

  Lima stared at the report in his folder. He looked like a man trying to will the ink on the pages to shift until it said what he wanted it to say.

  Huh.

  I thought.

  Then I thought out loud. “You’ve got his cell and mine. So you know it’s true he called yesterday afternoon.”

  “Right. So you remembered the call and fed me BS that would fit. Big deal.”

  But Lima was trying to sell himself. And failing.

  Then there was a nice click, and I half-smiled in spite of everything.

  “You knew I was rolling with my lights turned off,” I said. “You’ve got a goddamn witness.”