by E. C. Bell
He grabbed Marie’s arm. “Are you hurt?” he cried. “My God, I can’t believe you fell out of the car! Are you hurt?”
Marie ignored him, still staring at me. I could see her much more clearly. The sparks were disappearing, one by one. Poof. Then a little more light would get through. Another small piece of the puzzle that was this spot on the pavement at this exact time. Chewed gum. I could see gum ground into the sidewalk, beside Marie’s right hand.
One last languid spark popped though my skin, just above my wrist, stinging me as it struggled its way through to the light. It bumbled off, like a half-frozen wasp, then, with a small poof, disappeared.
“Are you here?” Marie asked.
“Yes.” I moved my arms, and then my legs, and felt like maybe I was going to hold together.
“Are you going to stay?”
I thought for a minute, then nodded.
“Thank God,” she breathed, and sat back on her haunches. “You scared me!”
“I scared you!” James said. “How do you think I feel! I think you need to go to the hospital—”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Marie replied, still staring down into my eyes. I could feel strength running from her to me and drank it in.
“Then who—” He stopped, and stared at her. “Did you hit your head or something? Maybe you really do need to go to the hospital.”
“I’m fine.” She continued to stare at me, and I continued to take her strength. “Do you think you can move?”
I knew she was talking to me, but of course James answered. She snapped at him, and he backed off, looking pissed and scared and most of all, confused. Welcome to my world!
“I think so,” I muttered. I struggled briefly, like a turtle on its back, then pulled myself upright, and though I swayed like I was caught in a big wind I managed to keep myself on my feet.
“Can you walk?”
I took a couple of tentative steps. “Looks like.”
“Good.” Marie turned to James, who was flapping around a few feet from us, looking like he wished he had something to punch. “Where’s the car?”
“Around the corner. Do you—need help?”
“No,” Marie said. “Just show me where it is.”
James took her arm. She tried to slap him away, but he ignored her, holding her protectively as he walked her to the car.
“Are you ever going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
“Someday,” she said. “Not right now, though. All right?”
He didn’t answer her, just kept his hand protectively on her arm.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” I said as I limped along beside them.
She didn’t answer because of James. From the look on his face, I believed she didn’t need the facade any more. But she clung to it, not saying another word about what had just happened as he bundled her into the car and headed back out into the congested street.
STAGE THREE
POOF!
Marie:
I Just Want to Save the Book Club . . .
THE DOOR TO that house was metal and painted black. I could see where someone—lots of someones, actually—had tried, unsuccessfully, to bash it in. Not much damage, actually. Scuffs on the paint and teeny little dents. That, and the heavy mesh over the windows, chilled me to the bone. We had a way in, but I couldn’t see an easy way out, if things got messy. And knowing us, things were definitely bound to go in that direction.
“This is a fortress,” I whispered.
“It is,” Eddie said. “Fuckin’ fortress of doom.”
James didn’t say anything. He hadn’t spoken a word since we got back in the car. Just drove, his hands so tight on the wheel that his knuckles pushed white against his skin.
He pulled the car into a space two car lengths from the house and shut off the engine. We sat in the silence, each of us staring straight ahead.
“We have to go,” I finally said, and reached for the door handle.
“Not yet,” James said.
Oh God, he wanted to talk. And that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. As afraid as I was of going up to the front door of that house, I was even more afraid of talking to James about why I had thrown myself out of his car at twenty klicks an hour down an extremely busy street.
“Honoria,” I said. “The book club.”
He ignored my words and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Are we alone?”
He turned and stared in the back seat, so I turned and stared, too. At Eddie, who didn’t look a lot better than he had before he’d stepped out of the vehicle and nearly moved on to his own form of hell.
James reached back and waved his hand through what should have looked to him like empty air. His hand ran through Eddie, who shuddered and pulled to my side of the vehicle.
“Are we alone?” James asked again. And then he looked me right in the eye. Pinned me to the seat, like a bug or something. “Is there someone else in this car? Someone you can see, but I can’t?”
I didn’t answer him, just gulped and gaped like a fish that had just been hauled out of the life-giving water and was busily in the process of drowning on air.
“You’re like Honoria,” he said. “Aren’t you? That’s why you wanted me to take this case. Because you and she are the same. Aren’t you?”
“Looks like he’s figured out your big secret,” Eddie said, rather unnecessarily, I thought. “Just tell him.”
But I couldn’t. I broke free of his stare and looked down at my hands. I couldn’t say a darned thing, though, because I thought I’d throw up if I opened my mouth. Oh my God. He knew. Not all of it, but enough.
“Tell him!” Eddie yelled.
“Tell me,” James said. His voice sounded hard and cold, like iron. “I want the truth. Now.”
He knew.
I looked up from my hands and out the windshield. What I saw gave me a moment of relief so pure, I almost sobbed.
“It’s the book club,” I said, and threw the door open. “We have to stop them before they get to that house.”
But as I ran across the street to intercept the women bearing down on the Fortress of Doom, I couldn’t think of anything but the fact that James knew my biggest secret.
He knew.
“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Queen Bea barked as I ran across the street toward them.
“I told you not to come here, Bea,” I said. “This is dangerous. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Danger does not concern us, girl.” Bea glared at me as only Bea could glare, but she did stop. Her entourage belatedly stopped, too, bumping into her and knocking her hat slightly askew. She whirled and her hat fell off. “Be careful, would you?” she snapped. She reached down, picked up her hat, and rammed it on her head. Then she turned back on me.
“So, are you going to help us or hinder us?”
“Ladies!” It was James, across the street, standing near his car. And he was smiling like everything was just fine. Great, in fact. “How can we help you?”
“Are you the private investigator?” Bea asked, imperiously.
“Yes,” he said, and walked across the street. He stopped beside me, close enough to touch me if he wanted. He didn’t. “My secretary told you to stay away from this place, didn’t she?”
The “secretary” jibe stung, but I didn’t say a word. The women were responding to his smile, and his “I’m a big strong man and I’ll look after you little ladies” persona. A couple of them tittered, and Bea seemed taken aback enough to glance at her entourage for support.
One woman was not taken in by James and his smile, though. She pushed to the front of the group and stood, gasping as though she’d run ten miles. It was Naomi Hansen, Eddie’s mother, looking like she’d aged a decade since I last saw her.
That’s when Eddie made his appearance, in a swirl of grey blue light.
“It’s my mom,” he said. He sounded like he was about to cry, and then he did. Bawling like a little kid, great luminescent tears
running down his face to his dirty white tee shirt. “Get her out of here, Marie. Please!”
“Mrs. Hansen,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice calm, even though my heart was beating a million miles an hour, at least. “Please. You have to leave.”
“No,” she said. She was still gasping, and I realized it was from fear more than anything else. I didn’t blame her for being afraid. I was terrified. “That drug fiend is in there. The one who came to my house.” She gasped. “The one who killed my boy. He has to pay.”
Who was she talking about? I tried desperately to remember what she’d screamed at me, the first time we met.
She’d accused me of being a drug fiend. Like Luke Stewart. Then I blinked. She’d said, “You’re looking for money, like the others.”
“Who?” I asked. “Who came to your house besides Luke, looking for Eddie?”
“Why, Raymond Dunning,” she said. And then she pointed at something—someone—behind me. “There he is,” she said, her voice suddenly as hard and cold as stainless steel. “And he killed my boy, too. I’d bet my life on it.”
I turned, slowly. All right, I don’t think I actually turned slowly, but it certainly felt like it. I watched James whirl, looking down the sidewalk, and then I heard Eddie scream.
“Not you!” he cried. “It can’t be you. You were—my friend.” He sobbed again, his voice breaking. “I thought you were my friend.”
Finally, I saw who Naomi Hansen had pointed to. It was Crank, but he didn’t look relaxed like he had when I met him at Needle Park. No, he looked horrified and angry. And the knife he held in his hand looked lethal.
Not quite as lethal as the huge man standing behind him, of course. But lethal enough.
“We have to leave,” I said to the crowd of women. “Now.”
“Are we gonna have a problem here?” James said, walking up to Crank menacingly.
“You!” Naomi cried. “Raymond! Raymond Dunning! What did you do to my son?”
Then I watched the angry mountain behind Crank reach over with his huge, angry hand and grab Crank by the shoulder. “Why does she know that name?” he asked.
Crank didn’t have a chance to answer, because the angry mountain clenched his fist and I heard something break in Crank. He screamed and crumpled to his knees. “Please, R!” he cried. “I didn’t do anything!”
One of the book club members cried, “Let the poor boy go!” and Naomi turned, her face a mask of hatred.
“He’s not a poor boy!” she cried. “He’s the son of a bitch who was responsible for the death of my son.” Then she turned back to R, the huge angry mountain of a man who was still standing over Crank as he cried and writhed on the sidewalk. “Kill him,” she said. “He deserves to die for what he did.”
“Go for it, Mom,” Eddie said.
James, surprisingly enough, did nothing but slowly raise his hands. “Just put the gun down, mister,” he said.
Gun? I hadn’t seen a gun. Then James shifted, and there it was, in R’s hand. Pointing at James. Pointing at us all.
“We’ll all leave, I swear,” James said. “Just put the gun down, please.”
“Too late,” the mountain said. “Everybody, move. Now.”
A couple of the book club members cried out, but didn’t try to run. No one did. The gun R was holding was huge, and there was no one on the street besides us.
“Into the house,” R said. He waved the gun at us and then grabbed Crank by the collar of his shirt, forcing a scream of agony from him. “All of you. Now.”
YOU WOULDN’T THINK that one man with one gun could manage to keep all of us under control, but he did. Quite handily. I kept hoping for someone—anyone—to show up, but the street remained completely deserted. Of course.
When that big black door boomed shut behind us, R made us all sit on the dirty floor of the entrance. I felt like maybe, just maybe, we weren’t going to get out of this one.
“Oh my God, you have to let us go,” one of the book club members cried. I barely recognized Bea’s voice, she sounded so frightened. For just a moment, I felt sorry for her. “You just have to!” Then she did a foolish thing. She opened her purse.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” R growled. He pointed the gun directly at her and she froze.
“I’m—I’m getting my cell phone.” Bea’s voice cracked. “I was—”
“Just give me your purse,” R said. He waved the gun over our heads, and a couple of the women wailed. “Everybody. Purses to the front.” He glanced at James, who was sitting with the rest of us, but did not look like he was cowed in the least. “And cell phones. All of them. Now.”
I handed my cell phone to James and tried to catch his eye. I was hoping for some miracle, like he’d somehow magically communicated with Stewart and the police were on their way. Even Stewart would be better than this.
But he didn’t look at me. Just took my phone and passed it forward to R with the rest of the useless junk we’d carried into this horrible place.
R tossed our cells into one of the purses and hung them all from one arm. Then he pulled out his own cell and made a call.
“We got a problem at the house,” he said. He looked over at all of us. “A big problem. You gotta come.”
I suspected he’d called Ambrose Welch. Looked like we were about to meet him. Lucky us.
R kept us on the ground for the ten minutes it took Ambrose Welch to get to us. He came in from the back and stood beside R, staring at all of us as though he couldn’t quite wrap his head around all the sudden visitors.
Crank groaned, holding his hurt arm in front of him. I suspected R had broken his collarbone. He shrank as R looked over at him.
“This is his fault,” R said. “He went to her house.” He pointed at Eddie’s mother, who was staring steadfastly at her hands, clasped in front of her like she was praying. “To get the money Brown Eddie owed. And he used the name Raymond Dunning.”
Ambrose’s face stilled. “He what?”
“He—”
“I heard you.” Ambrose looked down at Crank. “You did that?”
“I had to get the money, Ambrose.” Crank’s voice sounded young. And frightened. Very, very frightened. “You told me I had to get the money.”
“Yes.” Ambrose sighed and shook his head. “I did, didn’t I?”
Crank scrambled to his feet, still holding his arm to his chest. “Yeah, I was just trying to do what you told me to do. That’s all.”
He grinned and for a horrible second, he reminded me of a dog grinning grotesquely in an effort to appease its master.
“I get that,” Ambrose said. “But why did you have to use the name of the man who owns this house, Crank? Why did you do that?”
Before Crank could answer, Ambrose pointed at the doorway through which he’d so recently appeared. “You want to go and wait for me downstairs,” he said.
Crank’s face stilled. “But, Ambrose—”
“Now.” Ambrose Welch’s voice sounded calm, relaxed. “I’ll be right down.”
“But, Ambrose,” Crank said again. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“Now,” Ambrose said again.
Crank sobbed but turned, obediently enough. He took one shambling step down the hallway and then another. Then he ran.
Ambrose sighed as we all listened to Crank blunder down the stairs, sobbing and crying out when he bumped his hurt arm.
“Take care of him, R.”
R nodded once, dropped his armload of purses to the floor, handed Ambrose the huge gun, and walked to the back of the house. As he disappeared through the doorway, I thought I saw him pull something—maybe another, smaller gun—from his pocket. Then the door boomed shut, and we all sat in silence for a few moments.
“He’s done for,” Eddie said. And he smiled, a ghastly thing on his white, drawn face. “Good.”
The gunshots didn’t sound like anything more than a couple of soft pop-pops. Could have been firecrackers in the backyard, b
ut we all jumped as though we had been the ones who had been shot. One of the women moaned and slumped over in a faint, but no one reached out to help her. We all kept our eyes on Ambrose Welch.
He didn’t even blink. Just kept the big gun nonchalantly trained above our heads as he waited for R to come back. I had no doubt that he’d use it on all of us if we did anything. Anything at all.
Trust Bea to decide to use this moment to leap into action.
Well, she didn’t really leap. She growled something unintelligible and scrambled to her hands and knees.
“Are you crazy, woman?” Ambrose said. He almost looked amused as he pulled the gun down until the business end was pointed at Bea’s enraged face. “Sit back down.”
“I will not,” she said, and pushed herself to standing. She grabbed the head of one of the other women from the book club to steady herself, and the woman screamed as though Bea was somehow killing her. Another and another started wailing as Bea flailed around, still getting her footing.
Ambrose rolled his eyes. “I said sit down,” he said. And then he struck Bea hard with his free hand, knocking her back to her knees.
Bea cried out and grabbed her face where he’d hit her. She was bleeding, and the rage on her face leaked away, leaving only fear. But she couldn’t stop herself and said, “You have to let us go, young man. People know we’re here.”
“Who?” Ambrose asked and lifted the barrel of the gun until it was pointed at her face. “Tell me who, right now!”
“I’m not telling you anything,” she said. A tired dignity came over her, and she sank back down to the floor. “Not another word.”
“Leave her alone,” James said. His voice sounded amazingly calm, even when the barrel of the gun swung in his direction. “She’s just an old woman playing detective. They all are. Please don’t tell me you have been spooked by a bunch of women?”
“I have not been spooked!” Ambrose bellowed, sounding as frightened as I’d ever heard a man sound. “You better shut your mouth now,” he said, trying desperately to regain some of his lost dignity, and failing, miserably. “I’ll have no problem kicking the crap out of you.” He glanced at the rest of us. “Just to teach you all a lesson.”
