The Sweet Golden Parachute

by David Handler

  “Hon, I’m not proud about that chapter of my life,” Eric confessed tonelessly. “But I’ve healed myself. We’re talking about something that happened a long, long time ago. It’s been over for years.”

  “He’s right about that,” Mitch conceded. “Allison’s good and through with him—mostly because Eric wasn’t straight with her.Kept bragging about how rich he’d be one day. How he’d divorce you and marry her. But as soon as he’d had his fill he dumped her. Nearly destroyed her, too. She’s doing a lot better these days. Not great, but okay.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about her,” Eric muttered sourly.

  “Well, yeah. We just spent the night together.”

  “You did what?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Eric,” Mitch pleaded. “Because then I’ll start wondering whether you were hoping to take up with her again after you made your big score. And I’m not sure I can handle any more weirdness right now.”

  “That wasn’t going to happen,” Eric told Danielle earnestly. “Don’t listen to him, okay? He’s strictly playing with your mind. You can see that, can’t you?”

  Danielle stared at him dumbly. She seemed dazed, as if she’d just staggered away from a head-on collision with a bus. “How could you do that to me?”

  “He’s a ruthless, scheming murderer, Danielle,” Mitch pointed out. “Everything about his life is a total lie. What made you think he’d be honest with you?”

  “We’re in this together,” she said hopelessly.

  “You’re wrong, Danielle. Eric betrayed you with Allison. And he figured you were betraying him with Mark. This may not be the ideal time to mention it, but you two have some serious problems with your marriage.”

  “If you don’t shut your big mouth,” warned Eric, biting off the words angrily, “I swear I will slit your throat right now!”

  “Eric, you’re almost enough to turn me off of do-gooders entirely. But not quite, because I’ll let you in on a little secret—I believe in people.” Mitch gazed up toward the balcony now, smiling hugely. “I believe we do the right thing most of the time. I have to believe that, Eric. Because if it’s not true, then where are we? We’re… well, we’re you.”

  “Hon, d-don’t listen to this guy!” sputtered Eric, who was now quivering with rage. “This will be okay. We can still get away.”

  “And do what?” Mitch persisted, goading him, inflaming him still further. “Forget about your farm. Your so-called mission is history. Where will you go now? You don’t trust each other, so you’ll pretty much have to stay together twenty-four, seven. And won’t that suck. It means no more nubile teenaged girls for you, Eric. Just plain old Danielle, morning, noon and—”

  “I told you to shut up!” Eric screamed, an animal roar coming from his throat as he punched Mitch in the ear with all of his might, pitching Mitch over to the floor with a hard slam.

  Now Mitch’s head was ringing.

  And Danielle was sobbing, “No, Eric! No!”

  As Eric kept screaming, “I told you! I told you!” His eyes blazing at Mitch like a wild man’s. Now the wild man was on top of Mitch, pummeling him in the head with left-hand punches. “I toldyo u!” Danielle screaming at him to stop. And now he had that Leatherman raised high overhead in his right hand. “Say goodbye, you fat son of a bitch! Because I am going to stick this in your eye! So help me I’ll!…”

  CHAPTER 28

  THAT CHOPPER WAS A BLESSING.

  As it moved in closer overhead, the whirring of its rotor blades masked the sounds they couldn’t help making no matter how hard they tried to be silent.

  First, there was that old stairway up to the cloakroom. Its wooden treads went snap, crackle, pop even though they tippy-toed. Then there was the door at the top of the stairs. Des got to it first, Soave and Yolie right behind her as she turned the thumb latch. She eased the bolt slo-o-owly open but there was still an audible click. And those door hinges hadn’t been oiled since Hoover was in the White House. They squeaked and groaned as she eased the door open, flooding the stairway with bright daylight.

  As Des paused there in the empty cloakroom, blinking in the sunlight, she could hear a steady murmur of conversation inside the sanctuary. No raised voices. No footsteps.

  They were okay.

  Her SIG drawn, she inched her way across the cloakroom toward the foyer itself. There were two stairways up to the balcony, one on each side of the foyer. She had to find out whether those foyer doors were open or closed. If they were closed then the three of them could split up now, unseen by anyone inside the sanctuary. If they were open then they’d have to take the same stairway up and fan out once they reached the balcony. That would make their job harder because they’d be exposed that much longer—should Eric or Danielle chance to look up. Not an impossible job. Just a riskier one. Because if they didn’t have the element of surprise on their side then they had nothing.

  Only a disaster waiting to happen.

  Soave and Yolie remained behind her in the cloakroom, their SIGs drawn, as she poked her head through the cloakroom doorway into the foyer itself and…

  The foyer doors were closed.

  She took a deep breath and darted her way across the building, making not a sound. When she reached the far balcony stairs she paused, glancing back toward Soave and Yolie. They were in position now to climb the stairs next to the cloakroom. Yolie pointed to her own weapon to remind Des that she’d take the shot if there was one to take. Des nodded.

  Then they climbed.

  Happily, the balcony stairs were carpeted. Des crept her way up, up to the church’s wraparound balcony, staying low to the floor as she came out right alongside the organ. From her crouch there at the top of the aisle she couldn’t make out Mitch or the killers down there. But she could certainly hear them—the acoustics were so amazing that the clarity of their voices startled her. Mitch seemed to be doing all of the talking. Big surprise there. Some noise about a young director named Stanley Kubrick. Why on earth was he talking about Kubrick at a time like this? Because he was Mitch Berger, that’s why. Not that Danielle seemed to have the slightest idea what he was going on about. Des couldn’t blame her. Because now her doughboy was talking about hot pink Jimmy Choos.

  Soave and Yolie were crouched low across the balcony from Des. Meanwhile, through the balcony windows, she could see a whole herd of cube vans parked outside. The hostage unit had arrived.

  Yolie slithered her way on her stomach between two rows of seats until she reached the balcony’s center aisle. When she got there she nodded to Des. Now all three of them began inching forward on their stomachs, snaking their way row by row down to the lip of the balcony for an actual look at the situation. Slowly, Des raised her head over the top of the protective facing and…

  It wasn’t pretty. Danielle was no problem. She was seated in the front row of pews, her back to the balcony. The problem was in front of her on the floor, where Mitch and Eric lay propped against the dais, Eric behind Mitch. Under Mitch, really. He was employing him as a human shield. And Mitch made for one hell of a shield. Hardly any of the thinner man’s body was exposed. Nothing but his arms. His left was wrapped around Mitch’s chest. In his right hand Eric held a knife to Mitch’s throat.

  Mitch’s cell phone lay next to them on the floor, as did his smashed tape recorder.

  Mitch was still doing the talking. Going on about Allison Mapes now. How she’d spent the night with him last night. Say what? How she’d told him that she and Eric had been lovers back when Allison was a tender teen. Which sure came as news to Danielle, who seemed totally blown away.

  Eric was trying to reassure her: “Don’t listen to him, okay? He’s strictly playing with your mind. You can see that, can’t you?”

  Des sure could. Mitch was trying to turn them against each other. But Danielle didn’t care. She was too pissed at Eric.

  “How could you do that to me?” she wanted to know.

  “He’s a ruthless, scheming murdere
r, Danielle,” Mitch explained. “Everything about his life is a total lie. What made you think he’d be honest with you?”

  “We’re in this together,” she responded.

  Now Mitch was telling her how wrong she was. That she couldn’t trust Eric. That the two of them had serious marital problems. Des could have sworn the fool was purposely trying to rile Eric. And it was working.

  “If you don’t shut your big mouth,” Eric snarled at him, “I swear I will slit your throat right now!”

  Des continued to lie there on the balcony floor, powerless. There was nothing they could do—not with the way Eric was using Mitch as body armor. Des was not taking this horrible realization well. Her breathing was shallow and quick, her hand clammy around the SIG. That was the man she loved down there. She was practically ready to dive right off the balcony. But all she could do was exchange a signal with Yolie and Soave to wait. And watch.

  And quietly go nuts—because with each passing second Des was becoming convinced that Mitch Berger had a death wish.

  “I believe we do the right thing most of the time,” he was lecturing this deranged murderer who held a knife to his jugular vein. “I have to believe that, Eric. Because if it’s not true, then where are we? We’re… well, we’re you.”

  Des had to stop herself from screaming: What in God’s name are you doing?

  As he lay there in Eric’s clutches, Mitch told her. His round face was turned upwards toward the balcony and he was smiling. It was a blissful smile. A smile that told her he knew something that Eric didn’t know:

  Mitch knew that Des was up there.

  How? Didn’t matter. All that mattered was he knew.

  Now an enraged Eric was sputtering at Danielle to ignore Mitch, insisting they could still get away.

  As Mitch kept pushing and pushing: “Where will go now? You don’t trust each other, so you’ll have to stay together twenty-four, seven. And won’t that suck. It means no more nubile teenaged girls for you, Eric. Just plain old Danielle, morning, noon and—”

  “I told you to shut up!” roared Eric, punching Mitch in the head, driving him into the floor.

  Danielle cried out, “No, Eric! No!”

  But it was no use. The organic farmer was a man possessed. “I told you! I told you!” he screamed as he pummeled Mitch in the head again and again. “I told you!” And now he was over Mitch, raising that knife high up over his head. “Say good-bye, you fat son of a bitch, because I am going to stick this in your eye! So help me I’ll…”

  Yolie did not hesitate, did not waver, did not miss.

  She pumped three shots right into Eric Vickers with her semiautomatic. The first went into the center of his back. The second into his neck. The third blew out the back of his head. So rapid and precise was her gunfire that, for a brief moment the meat sack formerly known as Eric Vickers was still suspended there above Mitch, clutching that knife overhead.

  Until he collapsed on top of Mitch in a dead heap.

  Danielle fell to the floor before him, screaming.

  Soave sprinted down the stairs and cuffed her as Yolie threw open the church’s front doors to give the all-clear sign. Des was the slowest to make it down the stairs. Her knees didn’t seem to be working too well.

  As for Mitch, he didn’t seem the least bit fazed, despite the knife-point hostage ordeal, the punches to his head, Eric getting shot to death. The man’s blood was all over him. And yet, the very first thing Mitch said to her after he’d struggled out from under Eric’s body was, “What took you so long, slats? I was running out of things to say.”

  Des stared at him, dumfounded. “You knew I was up there,” she said hoarsely, as a pair of uniforms led the stricken Danielle outside. “How, Mitch?”

  “Because you’re you. I knew you’d never wait for that hostage unit to get here.” He removed his bloodied jacket and calmly tossed it aside, grinning at Soave and Yolie. “But I wasn’t counting on backup. Thanks large.”

  “No prob,” Yolie said. “Wherever my baby girl goes, I go.”

  “I never believed this was possible, Berger,” Soave said, shaking his head. “But if anyone on earth could do it, you were the man for the job.”

  “What job, Lieutenant?”

  “You actually talked that man to death.”

  “Hey, you go with your strengths.” Mitch pulled a clean, folded handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out to Des. “Here, you’ll be needing this. That cellar’s mold city.”

  He knew her better than she knew herself—which sometimes irked the hell out of her. Right now, as Des proceeded to sneeze her head off, it just made her feel cherished.

  “Des, I want you to know that Allison slept on the couch last night.”

  “Of course she did,” Des snuffled.

  “And Quirt peed in her sneaker.”

  “That’s my man.”

  “Oh, and one other thing. It was Claudia who was next, not Poochie. They were going to make it look like a suicide. I’m sorry to say I don’t have that on tape. He broke my recorder.”

  “Danielle will give it up,” Soave said confidently. “A full confession’s her only chance.”

  “School me on something, boyfriend,” Des said. “You knew those Bilco doors were unlocked?”

  “I did.”

  “And that there was a stairway into the cloakroom?”

  “I didn’t. But I assumed you’d figure something out.”

  “Mitch, what if I hadn’t?”

  “The thought never crossed my mind. I believe in you.”

  “But that’s total lunacy!”

  “Des, it’s not any such thing.” With his eyes he told her what it was.

  She gazed back at him, swallowing. “I swear, I don’t know whether to hug you or hit you.”

  She hugged him. And even though he’d been acting all gallant and cool, she knew he was plenty shaken. Because when Mitch hugged her back he held on tighter than she’d ever been held by anyone in her life. He was still holding on when they came in to take care of Eric’s body.

  Epilogue

  (TWO DAYS LATER)

  THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE OUT on Big Sister was kept padlocked shut. Mitch had one of the keys. Des held the kerosene lantern for him while he used it in the darkness of midnight, hearing the forlorn foghorn from the lighthouse across the river at Saybrook Point. The hinges creaked mightily when he swung the lighthouse’s massive steel door open. Inside, the spiral staircase up to the lantern room resembled a six-story-high corkscrew.

  “We won’t be able to see a thing in this fog,” Des pointed out, remaining there in the doorway with the light. “Visibility’s less than a quarter-mile.”

  “There’s something up there I want to show you,” Mitch said as he began to climb the twisting cast-iron stairs. “It’s a surprise, okay?”

  Des didn’t budge. “Mitch, I hate surprises.”

  “I know this. Just come on, will you?”

  Reluctantly, she joined him, their footsteps echoing in the narrow enclosed cylinder.

  It was the first evening they’d managed to spend together since Yolie Snipes shot Eric Vickers dead on the floor of the Congo Church. Danielle had been arraigned in New London Superior Court on two counts of murder in the first degree. She was being held without bond and, as Soave had predicted, was talking her head off. Blaming it all on Eric. The news of her arrest had served as a major wake-up call for Mark Widdifield. That very same day he paid a visit to Claudia at their cottage. Stayed for dinner and never left. The two of them were trying to work things out, Mitch had heard. Claudia was also spending more time with Poochie. Her famous mother was lonely and adrift without Guy Tolliver in her life. Plus she still wasn’t allowed to drive. So it was Claudia who was now chauffeuring her around Dorset. Claudia who was helping her shop for a vintage Mercedes to replace her fabulous, long-gone Gullwing. Claudia who was bringing her around to the idea that someone ought to catalog her art collection. There was even talk that she’d convinced Poochie t
o get a physical exam, but Mitch was fairly certain this was merely idle gossip. Likewise the rumor that young Bement was going to take over operation of Four Chimneys Farm.

  Mitch’s literary agent had started reading Justine’s manuscript and couldn’t put it down. Called Mitch immediately to tell him that he wasn’t crazy—She’ll Do Ya was indeed great. And that he wanted to represent her. Justine had shrieked with girlish delight when Mitch phoned her with the news.

  Actually, Justine was the one person in town who wasn’t shocked by what Eric and Danielle had done. “Well, what did you expect?” she said to Mitch. “All people are liars. Except for you. You’re okay, even if you are stuck in a hopeless relationship.”

  Mitch didn’t know what she meant by that last comment.

  When he stopped by McGee’s Diner to see how Allison Mapes was coping, Mitch discovered that she’d cleared out of Dorset a few hours after Eric was shot. Taken off for Daytona Beach, Florida, with Stevie and Donnie Kershaw. She’d told Dick McGee that the three of them planned to find work down there and never come back. Which didn’t sit very well with Milo. The snarly little swamp Yankee seemed like a broken man when Mitch encountered him at the A&P So downcast he didn’t even bother to be nasty. Rut Peck told Mitch that the little guy was positively devastated by his boys leaving him.

  Maybe, Mitch reflected, the little guy should have been nicer to them.

  Mitch was huffing and puffing by the time they’d climbed their way up to the old lighthouse’s lantern room. Once upon a time, twin thousand-watt lamps had been positioned up here to warn seafarers of the treacherous rocks. Now there was only an empty, glass-walled chamber with amazing views in every direction. On a clear night, the lights from Long Island’s north shore were clearly visible across the Sound. Tonight, Mitch could barely make out the lighthouse at Saybrook Point. He’d already been up here twice today. Once to sweep up. Once to lug everything up here and arrange it just so. The bottle of Moët & Chandon in its ice bucket. The long-stemmed glasses. The dozen roses in a vase, candles that he’d positioned everywhere. There was a blanket for them to sit on.