by David Martin
Growler muttered something.
“Still alive,” Camel said with a sense of wonder.
Annie put her arms around Camel. “That man, McCleany, he beat him so bad.”
“McCleany didn’t do all the damage, I shot Growler and so did Jake Kempis.”
“And I drove a nail through his foot, broke his arm …”
Growler managed a strangled laugh.
Camel stood. “Is that Jake Kempis’s?”
“Yes.” Annie ran a hand along the jacket’s sleeve. “McCleany said he killed a black man …”
“It was Jake, he’s downstairs. Annie, was Parker Gray in any of those pictures?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Gray told me he was in love with her, I bet she never took any photographs of him … the poor bastard was blackmailed into helping McCleany for no good reason.” Camel grasped Annie gently by the shoulders. “Do you know where the pictures are?”
She looked at him with wild eyes. “Teddy not you too, if I knew—”
“Okay, all right … I had to ask because we could’ve used them to trade with McCleany, he’s going to burn this place to the ground, finish what Parker Gray intended to do and we need—”
Growler grunted, managed to raise a hand and motion for Camel. Growler’s right eye was out of its socket, unseeing, but his left eye fixed on Camel who bent close and listened, couldn’t understand him at first, listened again, then a third time, finally got it.
Annie asked, “What’s he saying?”
“Where the photographs are.”
“Where?”
Camel moved Growler aside and lifted one of the couch’s big leather cushions … revealing the eleven snapshots.
“They were there all the time,” she said in amazement. “Why didn’t he just say so?”
“Growler, where’s the elephant?”
He shook his head.
“If we had the elephant and the pictures,” Camel said, “we might be able to bargain our way out of here.”
After a moment’s hesitation Annie hurried to the tool shelves, moved the circular saw, brought the elephant to Teddy. “This is why Paul killed himself.”
It was bigger than Camel had imagined.
She asked him, “Can you make it work, McCleany gets the elephant and pictures, he lets us walk out of here?”
“If he’s greedy enough he might go for the bait.”
“Bait?” Annie asked.
“Yeah I got an idea.” Camel went to the shelves and grabbed two extension cords while Annie hesitantly approached the couch, leaning down cautiously to ask Growler, “Why didn’t you just tell him where the pictures were, he would’ve stopped hitting you.” Growler didn’t answer. Flies had found his face and although Annie waved them away they were eager to return, Growler somehow managing to look pleased with himself … Lord of the Flies.
Camel was over at the big brick chimney, moving the fire screen which was in three sections and could be laid flat, when Annie asked him what he was doing.
“McCleany went to get the gasoline, he’s going to be pouring five gallons of gas under that door there and then setting us all on fire … I saw a woman get burned to death tonight, believe me you don’t want to die like that.”
“How can I help?”
“Run these cords along the wall then take the fire screen over to the door.” Camel made Growler sit up. “Listen to me.” Growler’s good left eye had closed. Camel didn’t dare shake him, he was too fragile. “Donald, can you hear me?” The left eye came open, his head tilted forward.
Camel noticed the huge blue tattoo on his lower belly but couldn’t make out what that tattoo was supposed to be, too much blood.
“Donald … I know why you ended up like this, people lied about you, lied about what you did to your cousin, lied about where you were that day, lied all through your trial.”
He was nodding as Camel spoke, thank God someone finally believes me.
“Nobody hates a lie worse than I do, but even I can’t imagine how you must’ve felt, a whole big goddamn world of lies and you were forced to carry it seven bad years.”
For Growler hearing this was like receiving grace, he kept leaning forward until his bloody face pressed Camel’s shoulder.
“Most of the people who lied about you were forced or tricked into it by McCleany, he’s the one who killed Hope.”
Growler nodded.
“And now he’s going to get away with it, you killed all the wrong people and McCleany’s home free.”
Growler brought his head away from Camel. “No.”
“Unless you help me.”
“Pictures …”
“Yeah the pictures will link McCleany to the victim but those pictures are about to get burned up along with everything else in this room including us. I might be able to bargain with him, but he’s going to want me and Annie where he can keep an eye on us … that leaves you to do it.”
Growler fell back on the couch.
“Come on, sit up, I need you over there by that wall.” Waiting for Growler to respond, Camel watched Annie position the fire screen on the floor near the door to the hallway. “Put the elephant and pictures on it,” he told her before turning back to Growler. “Goddamn it sit up.”
He tried but couldn’t.
“Help him,” Annie said.
“He’s got to do it on his own.” But Growler couldn’t move. Camel came close, talking right into his grotesque face. “You son-of-a-bitch, strong enough to kill old people, angry enough to kill your best friend and set a woman on fire … but you’re not strong enough or angry enough to nail the man who’s responsible for everything that’s happened to you, you’re going to let him get off scot-free because you can’t even sit up you candyass—”
“Teddy—”
“Shut up Annie.” He turned back to Growler. “She doesn’t understand about lies, not the way you and I do, now sit up and get mad all over again you fucking pansy.”
Growler began making low sounds deep in his chest, animal sounds, warning growls, the rumbling of anger and determination like a weight lifter talking himself into lifting more than he ever has in his life … Growler coming off the couch, stumbling but staying upright, a clumsy Frankenstein raging at the world for having created him, mad all over again just like Camel said.
Camel led him to the far wall, sitting him there, explaining twice what had to be done. “It’s simple enough but you have to do it at exactly the right time so don’t fucking fade on me.”
He indicated he wouldn’t.
Camel took out his pocketknife and began stripping insulation from an extension cord, telling Annie how everything was going to work … if it worked.
She heard something out in the hallway. “He’s coming.”
Camel kept cutting. “Go over there to the door and tell him you found the elephant, Growler you stay there on the floor and act like you’re dead.” Growler managed another strangled laugh and Camel squinted a smile too … yeah, he thought, won’t be much of an acting job. But if Growler couldn’t stay alive for another few minutes then they were all dead.
55
By the time McCleany hauled that five-gallon can of gas up the stairs and to the door he was heaving for breath … goddamn, he thought, wouldn’t it be a pisser if after all this I keeled over from a heart attack right now. But then as he gave the prospect some serious consideration he felt a tug of conscience because if he really was about to die from a coronary, maybe he shouldn’t kill those people in this room after all. McCleany stood there with a queer expression on his face wondering where this sudden fucking wave of humanity came from.
When he got his breath back he felt better, more like his old self as he began pouring gasoline under the door and into the room.
“Can you hear me?” Annie shouted from inside.
“Yeah I hear you, red.” McCleany kept pouring.
“I found the elephant! It’s here in the room.”
He put
the gas can on the floor.
“It’s worth three million dollars,” she continued. “Solid gold with diamonds and rubies and … it’s beautiful, you can have it if you let us go.”
McCleany remembered Camel and Paul Milton both having made references to an elephant. He hefted the gas can and began pouring again … it’s the chess piece J. L. Penner owned, the one J.L. had said was worth more than everything else in his collection put together. Did they really have it there in the room with them?
Camel was at the door now, telling McCleany, “Growler gave me the photographs before he died. I’ll turn them over to you, those pictures are the only hard evidence against you, everything else you can deny, your word against ours. When we were in my office that’s the deal you wanted, you get the pictures and leave us alone. You can have this elephant too, just let us walk out of here.”
McCleany finished emptying the can without answering. Stepping well away from the gasoline he thumbnailed a kitchen match to relight his cigar. “Camel you must take me for a complete idiot.”
“You’re an idiot if you leave this elephant to burn in the fire, yeah. Everything’s right here on the floor in front of the door, just open up and—”
“You got another side arm on you … I know you’re up to something.”
“I’m up to saving my ass is what I’m up to McCleany. I don’t have a weapon. Open the door and take a look, see if I’m not playing this straight with you.” He continued talking, urging McCleany to be reasonable … Camel was good at this, nudging people toward the reasonable, and McCleany listened carefully while puffing on the cigar.
“If you know my reputation,” Camel told him, “you know I don’t lie … I’m playing this straight with you.”
He removed the cigar from his mouth. “If I open this door I want to see all three of you standing in the middle of the room with your hands on top of your heads, if I don’t, if those pictures and that elephant aren’t all right there on the floor I swear to God I’ll start shooting and then torch you all to hell.”
“Annie and I are in the middle of the room right now! Can you hear me?”
“Where’s Growler?”
“I told you he’s dead, laying over there against the wall. Everything’s just the way you want it Gerald, we got a deal?”
McCleany unlocked the padlock, lifted it out, doing all this with his left hand, the .38 in his right, using it to push open the door while he kept himself to the side in case Camel did have another weapon.
With the door open McCleany knelt down and quickly peeked around the jamb ready to shoot … but Camel and Annie were out in the middle of the room as promised, hands on their heads, Growler lying over against a wall.
On the floor right there by the doorway where it got soaked with gasoline was a fire screen and on it were eleven snapshots and an elephant eight inches long and about the same height, solid gold, foot and trunk raised in triumph, studded with jewels. “I’ll be damned,” McCleany muttered.
“You take the elephant,” Camel was telling him, “and you take the pictures, then let us go … after that I don’t care if you burn this place, fly to South America or what. We have a deal?”
“Yeah sure,” McCleany said as he stepped onto the fire screen, keeping the revolver pointed at Annie and Camel, kneeling down to look at one of the photographs. “She was a sweet piece of ass.”
“That elephant’s the real McCoy,” Camel said. “Gold.”
McCleany stuffed the photographs in a pocket.
“Solid gold,” Camel said.
When McCleany put his hand on the elephant to lift it, Camel shouted, “Liar!” … and McCleany died instantly.
56
Lightning was the reason Camel’s father gave for never pursuing the game of golf. He’d been at the 1975 Western Open in Chicago when Lee Trevino and Jerry Heard were struck by lightning. “Cleats,” Camel’s father would always say whenever he told the story. “Lightning hits anywhere nearby and your goddamn cleats ground you.”
Except for one disastrous consequence Camel had not foreseen, the gig came off pretty much as he had planned it.
Getting McCleany to open the door was the toughest part, he could’ve torched the room and destroyed the photographs without ever putting himself at risk but Camel counted on the elephant being an irresistible incentive. Who could be presented with a chunk of gold like that and not want to touch it?
Camel had cut off the receptacle end of an extension cord and had split the black hot wire from the white neutral wire, wrapping bare copper from the hot wire around one back leg of the elephant. The fireplace screen had been laid flat on the floor and Camel attached the extension cord’s neutral wire to it. After that was done, hot wire connected to the elephant and neutral wire to the screen, the other end of the cord was plugged into a second extension cord that was hidden along the wall and run around to an electrical outlet where Growler was sprawled feigning death. At the agreed upon signal, Camel shouting liar, Growler plugged in the extension cord, electricity then seeking to complete its circuit from hot to neutral, from the copper wire through an even better conductor of electricity: the gold elephant. McCleany, standing on the fire screen in his golf cleats and holding the elephant in his greed-wet hand made the connection … and got zapped by 20 amps flowing at 120 volts. The shock might only have disabled a healthy man … it was McCleany’s heart giving out that killed him.
Lying on the floor next to the receptacle Growler had willed himself to stay alive. Hearing the signal from Camel and finding the strength to push that plug into the receptacle, knowing it was going to zap McCleany, that’s when Growler even with all his wounds, the insupportable pain, realizing his own death was minutes away … it was at that moment Growler’s seven-year burden lifted and he felt blessedly free.
The disastrous consequence Camel had failed to foresee in devising and executing this booby trap was McCleany’s cigar. When he got juiced, leaping up still holding the elephant, McCleany had that cigar firmly clenched between his teeth … and when he fell flat and hard on his broad red face, the cigar splintered into a shower of glowing coals that ignited the gasoline.
With all that gas burning right there in the doorway, illuminating the room, in less than a minute the fire would be too high, too hot for anyone to escape … Camel working quickly, first telling Annie to get the hell out of there and then gathering the photographs from McCleany’s pocket and checking his pulse … dead. He searched him for weapons, finding all three: McCleany’s own .38, Gray’s 9mm, and Eddie’s .45. Camel went to Growler and pulled out the plug before checking his pulse … bastard still alive, unfuckingbelieveable. He debated leaving him there to burn but then hefted Growler onto his shoulder … when Camel turned around and saw Annie still in the room he shouted at her, “Get the hell out of here!”
She was kneeling at the elephant. “Is it safe to touch it?”
“We don’t have time—”
“Is it safe!”
“Yes.”
She unwound the wire from the elephant’s back leg and wrestled it from McCleany’s dead grasp.
“Annie, throw the cushions from the couch in the doorway, we’ll use them to step through the fire.”
She did that, then tucked the sculpture close to her body like a fullback with a football … using her other hand to hold the jacket closed, Annie running nimbly from one cushion to the next, escaping injury completely.
Camel didn’t fare as well. Carrying Growler made him clumsy, he slipped off one cushion and tripped, the fire scorching his clothes. But he quickly righted himself and hauled Growler down the hallway-balcony to where Annie waited. They looked back at the doorway, the fire having become so intense that no one could’ve made it through there now.
On their way out of Cul-De-Sac, Camel was forced repeatedly to stop and rest. Annie asked him if he wanted to put Growler down, he said if he did that he’d never get him back up again.
“What’d you do to your nose?”
Camel carrying Growler, Annie leading, they went through the big double doors at the front of Cul-De-Sac, across the wide porch, down the steps, and were well away from the building before Camel lowered Growler to the ground.
“What’re we going to do?” Annie asked.
“Sit right here on the grass and watch the goddamn place burn to the ground I hope.”
She looked back at Cul-De-Sac, no outward sign of the fire yet but the way it had been burning, with that big atrium functioning as a chimney to draw the fire upward, flames would be showing out the roof within minutes.
Camel checked Growler’s pulse again, thready but still ticking. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I couldn’t save Elizabeth Rockwell—or Jake Kempis or Parker Gray for that matter—but this bastard I manage to bring out alive.”
“I almost feel sorry for him,” Annie said.
“I don’t.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
Growler coughed and beckoned Camel close. “McCleany?”
“Dead as dead.”
“Innocent,” Growler whispered, referring to himself.
“You were innocent, now you’re on your way to hell.”
“Teddy!” Annie said, shocked by the harshness of telling that to a dying man.
But Growler indicated his own agreement with Camel … and then died without comment, ceremony, or grace.
“Is he gone?” Annie asked.
“Yeah.”
Sitting on the grass next to Camel, watching for signs of Cul-De-Sac’s destruction, Annie cradled the gold elephant in her lap as if it were a child she had saved from that burning building.
Camel meanwhile was plotting, running the possibilities, totaling body counts … ten dead. Growler had killed five: the Raineys, Kenny Norton, Elizabeth Rockwell, and Murray. There would be little doubt about those homicides. Paul Milton’s death would be ruled a suicide. Whoever was ultimately responsible for Growler’s death, no one would much care … he’d be labeled a mad-dog killer and good riddance. McCleany killed Jake Kempis, probably with a knife that would be found on whatever was left of McCleany’s body. Which left two final victims, McCleany himself and Parker Gray, both of whom Camel had killed. McCleany would be easy enough, Camel was forced to electrocute him in self-defense and Annie could testify to what had happened up in that room … she could tell the truth. Parker Gray was another matter entirely.
