Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy

by R. E. Schobernd

  He turned at the corner of Seventy Second Street and Jurguson and watched for Morton's Hardware. It was the third storefront from the corner, with a closed sign on the door.

  The following morning, after a frightful night and half a bottle of bourbon, Clay walked into Morton's to the plumbing section. A clerk approached the man wearing a utility company uniform and asked, “Can I help you?”

  “I was in two weeks ago and spoke to a different clerk, I’d like to have him help me if he’s here today. He’s short to medium height, thin and has dark hair.”

  “Oh, you're looking for Dick.”

  “Yes, Dick ummm Collier I think.” Clay went fishing for a last name.

  “No, it would be Dick Horstman.”

  “Yes. Yes. Dick Horstman. Is he in today?”

  “No, I’m afraid Dick quit yesterday morning. He came in an hour late, said “’I’m sorry, but I have to quit.” Then he just turned and walked back out the door. I hated to lose him after twenty two years and I haven’t seen him since.

  Clay dug deeper, “Sure hate to hear he's gone, he seemed like a decent type.”

  “Dick? I’ll say, he’s as good a man as they come. Who else could put up with having his wife run off a couple of years ago and having a less than upstanding grown daughter living at home.”

  “How old is the daughter?” Clay lowered his glasses to peer over them at the gasket selection, arranged in small wooden bins.

  “I’d guess she’s about twenty four or five now. Pretty thing, but wild; runs after men all the time. Dick tried to get her back into the church and to settle down, but it didn’t seem to help. I probably shouldn’t repeat this, but rumor is she went and got herself knocked up; some older guy twice her age.”

  Clay had learned enough and didn’t want to push his luck. “Sorry to hear about his troubles. I need a gasket, the one right here for nineteen cents.”

  Outside the store Clay tossed his purchase in a trash can, and walked to a phone booth he had seen down the street near where he had parked. In the phone book he found the listing for Richard Horstman at 12652 Logan Street. Another dime went into the parking meter and he sat in his stolen pick up locating Logan street on a city map. Logan was only half a mile from where he was sitting. In five minutes he had found the house and was driving down the alley behind it. The place was neat and well cared for, every thing put away, nothing out of place. A block and a half away he found a shuttered gas station and parked beside a junk car left near the garage end of the building. He was wearing a Commonwealth Edison uniform and coat, and had the matching cap on, with the flaps down over his ears. From the passenger side floor he removed a small tool box with electrical meters, wrenches and other hand tools, and set off for Horstman’s house. He chose the alley and back door rather than go to the front door on Logan. The gate in the chain link fence opened after enough force was applied to push four inches of snow behind it. There had not been any fresh tracks made from the house to the alley, but foot prints were captured in the snow from the single car garage to the back door.

  Clay removed his glove long enough to knock loudly on the glass storm door. After waiting a minute he opened the storm door and pounded on the wood door as loud as his knuckles would allow and yelled, “This is Com Ed. There’s a problem with your electrical system and I need to check it out. Please open the door.” Again he knocked loudly. He heard movement from inside.

  “Go away; you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “I can’t leave. We’ve located a short in the system and have it traced to this block. I’m pretty sure it’s in this house. Please open the door so I can work on it.”

  “No, go away, I’m busy.”

  “I can’t leave and the rest of my crew will be here shortly. If you don’t open up I’ll have to call the police and get them down here. It’s a safety issue Mr. If your house catches fire the rest of the neighborhood could go up in flames too. Now, please open the door for me to inspect.”

  “All right, give me a minute,” Dick Horstman finally relented.

  Shortly, Clay saw the curtain part as a man peered out at him. Then he heard the skeleton key being turned inside the lock and the door opened a few inches while the man got a better look.

  Dick Horstman hadn’t shaved for the last two days, and didn’t appear to have slept either. Apparently satisfied by the worn utility company uniform and scratched and dented tool box he finally opened the door for Clay to enter.

  All of the lights were turned off in the kitchen and other connected rooms were dark as well.

  “Where’s the fuse box located?” Clay asked.

  Dick replied while pointing at a door in a corner of the room, “On the basement landing behind the door.”

  Clay had been assessing the man and the room. Dick Horstman was limping and there was a wet spot on his dark pants on the outside of the left thigh. So much for eye witness accounts. The room was messy and cluttered; dirty dishes, newspapers, the waste can full to running over. But it was just on the surface; recent trash. Beneath the sloppiness the room was as clean as his mother’s house. There was no sign of dirt in the corners or along the baseboard quarter round, and the windows were clean. What ever had occurred to change Horstman had come about suddenly and without warning.

  Clay stepped through the basement door and closed it behind him. After noisily setting the tool box on the floor and flipping the switch on the dim ceiling light, he opened the door of the sixty amp. fuse box. From the tool box he removed an Ohm meter and a screw driver and made some noise as he opened the inner cover on the box. After two minutes he put the tools down and opened the door enough to pass through the space. Horstman was sitting at the table looking at the floor, oblivious to Clay’s presence. Walking backward to the sink he leaned against it and slipped his right hand into his jacket to withdraw the silenced semi automatic.

  Horstman raised his head and looked up at him without expression. A .38 revolver was in his right hand, moving up from beside his leg where it had been held out of sight.

  “I came here to kill you,” Clay said softly as he looked down the barrel of the revolver.

  “Yeah, I know; I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “You’ve what?”

  “I’ve been waiting here for someone to find me; I thought the police would get here first.”

  Amazed by the man’s statement Clay asked him, “Why did you kill Tony Giliano and the others at the bar.”

  “Because he was a no good S.O.B.”

  “And it had something to do with your daughter?”

  “He corrupted a young woman and made a cheap whore out of her. He changed my Irene. Tony Giliano made her pregnant and then threw money at her to kill her baby because he was done with her. And why did it happen yesterday? Because Irene came home early in the morning, bleeding after somebody butchered her insides. She bled to death in her room. I found her when I got up. Found a note she wrote to me too. She was ashamed to face me and had packed her clothes to leave, but she didn’t make it out of her room. She died right in there in her bed in a puddle of blood.”

  “And you felt you were entitled to kill three men and wound four others because your daughter went to a back alley quack instead of involving you and getting a good doctor? Maybe she knew her pious father would look down his nose and call her a whore because she didn’t live up to his idea of what a proper woman should be.”

  “No, I loved my daughter, even if she was wild and didn’t obey my rules.”

  “And I guess the wife who left you was a whore in your eyes too? She was probably just a normal person who got tired of your crazy talk and holier than thou attitude.”

  “I sat in the Devils lair and drank the Devils drink and then I rose above it to punish him. I’ll go to meet God with righteousness on my side.”

  “God isn’t going to be where you’re going but he’ll hear you singing your heart out.”

  “You're talking big for a man who has a gun trained on his ches
t; you probably don’t know it, but when I was in the Army I was on the international pistol team. I was one of the top marksmen, and I have the trophies and medals to prove it. Are you as good?”

  “Yeah, I’m even better! Shooting at targets is one thing, but before yesterday, how many times have you actually looked into the eyes of a man you were going to kill. Yesterday you had a passion to kill Tony Giliano; do you have the same passion today? And do you feel the difference in a slow methodical kill vs. one that happens quickly and then it’s over? Are you comfortable with sitting here talking with me and having to look me in the eyes? Up close, the eyes are what make the difference. Can you look into my soul and then kill me?” While he was talking, Clay slowly slid down the front of the cabinet to sit on his heels, never letting the silencer leave Horstman’s chest. His angle of fire was wrong while standing across from Dick sitting in the chair. For a sure and immediate kill he wanted the angle to be up; in Dick’s right eye and up into his brain.

  The two men sat watching each other from sevent feet apart, guns trained on their targets, neither wanting to take the chance of the first shot.

  “Dick, what were you going to do when the police came? Were you going to surrender or have a shoot out and try to take as many of them with you as possible?”

  “I won’t surrender; but I won’t kill innocent men either. I planned to step out on the stoop with a gun held behind me, then raise it over their heads and fire. They could shoot me in self defense and it would be over.”

  “Doesn’t your religion condemn suicide?”

  “It’s not suicide if they kill me.”

  “The hell it’s not. Your actions will guarantee they shoot and that makes it suicide in the eyes of any church.”

  “No it’s not,” yelled Dick Horstman.

  Clay laughed loudly and gave Dick a contemptuous smirk. “You’ll let them kill you because you don’t have the balls to do it yourself. If you were half the man you think you are you wouldn’t burden an innocent man; you’d go in and sit by the butchered daughter you failed, and do the right thing yourself. The only reason you could shoot those seven men in the bar was because you got your belly full of beer and shot them while they were unarmed. You’re a coward.”

  Dick was grinding his teeth and clenching his left hand in anger, and while staring at Clay he yelled, “I’m not a coward.” Tears began to form at the corners of his eyes. His hand holding the gun was wavering, shaking slightly and had trailed slightly to his left.

  Clay seized the moment, elevated the barrel of the pistol and fired while he pivoted to his left. A second shot followed the first and hit Dick in the neck just as Clay felt a burning punch to his right rib cage. While falling on his left side, Clay continued to fire as Dick rolled out of the chair.

  Dick’s body flopped on the floor as his brain sent its final disoriented signals, causing muscles to react for several seconds, as if its limbs were being controlled by a maniacal puppeteer.

  Rolling to his left Clay used his left arm to rise so he could assess the damage to himself.

  Blood hadn’t yet soaked his coat. Moving his right arm made him wince slightly from the pain, but his biggest problem was caused each time he took a breath. Getting his coat and shirt off hurt like hell, but he was glad to learn the arm had a minor nick; probably a fragment from the slug had ricocheted off his ribs. The rib cage was something else. Blood was oozing from the open wound which ran along the edge of the rib cage at what his probing finger determined to be the fourth rib from the bottom. Slipping his gloves back on, he rummaged through cabinet drawers until he found kitchen towels. Two of them would fit under the shirt and coat, and with pressure from his arm against the ribs, would slow the flow of blood.

  Dick Horstman lay on the floor by the wood kitchen table with blood oozing from his neck and his forehead, just above the right eye. Two more blood spots had formed on his chest. Under the circumstances, he knew his second shot hitting just under the chin, while he was falling to his left, was extremely lucky. Two bullets had gone wild and were embedded somewhere in the walls.

  On a coffee table in the living room lay the .45 automatic beside the note from Irene. Clay laid Dick’s revolver on the table beside the other pistol. Picking the .45 up he smelled the barrel; Dick hadn’t cleaned it yet.

  Moving down the hall way he opened a closed bedroom door and saw Irene laying on the blood soaked bedding. The smell of blood and excrement reached his nose and made him want to turn away. She had been a pretty girl, a bit heavy, dark brown hair like her father, but with facial features different from his. A picture on her dresser of a mature woman showed who she had taken her good looks from. Going back to the living room, Clay took time to look at pictures of Dick in an Army uniform, flanked on each side by first place citations for pistol marksmanship. Passing through the kitchen he stepped over Dick’s body and headed to the basement.

  In the damp basement he flipped on the lights and found the copper gas line to the water heater. After turning the gas valve off he bent the thin corrugated tubing back and forth until it cracked. Using a pair of pliers he pinched the end of the tubing down to a small opening and then cracked the gas valve to a partly open position. A flaming cigarette lighter was enough to ignite the gas, before he opened the shut off valve fully. Clay grasped the flaming torch and pushed the tubing up into the floor joist, right below where Dick’s body was crumpled on the kitchen floor.

  At the top of the stairs he picked up the tool box and opened the door to leave. The key was removed from the door and used to set the lock from the outside, and then it was tossed out into the snow in the yard. He walked away quickly, feeling pain with each breath.

  After setting the toolbox alongside the deserted building where he knew it would be stolen, he headed toward the home and office of Dr. Russell Joutras. Doc and his wife were in their seventies and had treated Tony and his men when they had been injured seriously, but would not require hospitalization. “Judi” as everyone called her had been Doc’s nurse and office manager before he went into semi retirement. Now they treated mostly older neighborhood people and a few injuries like his, where notification of law enforcement was to be avoided. Doc charged a premium for his silence and everyone he treated was happy to pay it. Tony had introduced Clay to Doc and Judi shortly after his decision to be a professional killer. Tony had predicted his fate, “Sooner or later, you’ll need to visit Doc.”

  Clay parked the stolen truck two blocks from his destination and used the rearview mirror to see while he removed his stage makeup. His ribcage was throbbing and his sweating belied the cold temperature inside the truck.

  Russell Joutras responded to the knocking and opened the kitchen door of the apartment. Clay had barely managed the wooded steps to reach the second story porch and was leaning on his left shoulder against the brick wall, still holding his right arm tight against his ribcage.

  “I can see from the way you’re standing and the blood soaking through your jacket where your injury is located. What happened?”

  Clay stepped into the kitchen and replied, “I got myself shot.”

  “Was this related to Tony Giliano’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  Doc called to his wife Karen, “Judi, we have a patient. Let’s get you downstairs where we can get your clothes off and have a look at what you’ve brought me.”

  Both of them helped Clay down the inside stairway to the surgery, where Judi began cutting his coat and shirt off.

  Doc raised Clay’s right arm and removed the bloody towels from the wound. After probing the long slice along the rib and moving a light to view it better, he turned to Clay. “You need to go to a hospital, the rib is shattered and needs more care than I can provide here.”

  “No can do Doc. Do the best job you can and I’ll have to live with it or die with it. You know how it is, I can't go anywhere else.”

  “I’ll do the best I can, but you’re going to be laid up for some time.”

  “No
Doc. Tony’s funeral is going to be in the next few days and I’ll be there. There’s no way anything is going to prevent me from saying goodbye to my best friend.”

  “We’ll see. If you get up and go wandering around in three or four days after I sew you up, you’re a better man than most.”

  “I will, and I am. What’s your fee for this?”

  “Five thousand, in cash. Small bills preferably, tens and twenties are the best.”

  “I’ll get it to you within three or four days.”

  “No problem. A week or two will be fine. Tony vouched for you, so your credits good. Now let’s stop talking and get started before you bleed to death.”

  Doc and Judi helped Clay lie backward, and then rolled him over onto his left side, raising his right arm up to give clear access to the chest wound. “I’ll use a local anesthetic and you’ll be awake through the procedure. Are you ready to start?”

  “Do it.” He was about to learn getting patched up is much more painful than getting shot.

  He spent the night on a bed in the surgery and woke up the following morning when he heard footsteps on the wooden staircase. Doc entered the room carrying two cups of coffee.

  “I didn’t know if you drink coffee or not, so I brought one just in case.”

  The local anesthetic had worn off hours earlier and Clay had spent a painful night drifting in and out of sleep. Doc gave him a hand, and he rose to a sitting position. While moving he had grimaced in pain, and then had constant pain while sitting up. His mouth was dry and he felt like hell, but the coffee was strong and good and helped him focus his mind.