Bronx Requiem

by John Clarkson

  Austen stopped to look behind him. Beck pulled his other foot under him and exploded forward. His head and shoulder hit full force into the back of Austen’s legs, which crumpled under the impact. He let go of Beck and tried to get his arms in front of him to break his fall, but he landed hard, face first. Beck instantly scrambled up onto the big man’s back. Austen rolled over and shoved Beck off him.

  Like a cat, Beck twisted onto his knees. Austen, still on his back, tried to sit up. Beck reared back and snapped his forehead into Austen’s face. Beck heard as much as he felt the satisfying crunch of bone and cartilage shattering.

  Austen fell back flat on the ground. Beck scuttled forward on his knees, reared back and using the only body part he could hit with, slammed his forehead into the Austen’s face again, and again, and again. Beck didn’t care if he split his own head open. He didn’t care if he knocked himself out. All he wanted to do was to hit and hit and hit.

  The big man tried to block Beck’s head, but he was no match for Beck’s strength and rage. Blood covered Austen’s face. He couldn’t see. Beck hit him again, and broke Austen’s right eye socket, and when he turned away, Beck’s slammed his forehead down and fractured Austen’s jaw, cracking two of his rear molars as they sheared against each other.

  Finally, out of total desperation, the brute managed to blindly block Beck’s head and knock him off his knees so he couldn’t hit him again. But Beck would not be stopped. He quickly got to his feet, struggling to get his balance with his hands cuffed behind him. Beck heard shouts. He sensed the others running toward him.

  Austen, semiconscious, tried to push himself upright with his left hand, but Beck kicked the arm out from under him, and when Austen fell back, Beck stomped his elbow, fracturing the humerus with a dull crack, tearing cartilage and ligaments, fracturing the ulna out of the socket. Austen screamed, his huge arm useless.

  Beck heard shouts and footsteps pounding, closing in.

  The big man, still on his back, roared out in pain and frustration.

  Beck aimed carefully, pivoted, and stomped his left foot into Austen’s exposed throat, crushing the larynx nearly flat, putting all his two hundred pounds on the man’s throat, pressing his weight against the violent flailing of a dying man as something smashed into the side of his head, sending him into oblivion.

  49

  A ringing sensation from a deep black void pulled at Beck while his brain remained unresponsive to the hand slapping his face. And then suddenly consciousness crashed onto him as he felt himself choking. He tried to raise an arm to block the water splashing into his nose and mouth, but couldn’t, so he turned away from the water, spitting and choking. The pouring stopped.

  A voice yelled, “Stand up. Get up, goddammit!”

  Beck didn’t recognize the voice. He didn’t remember where he was. And then everything came flooding back. He realized why he couldn’t block the water. He was lying in a field outdoors, in the black of night, handcuffed.

  “Get up before I shoot you right now, you son of a bitch.”

  Now he recognized the voice. Oswald Remsen.

  Beck struggled into a sitting position, blinking away the wet until he could make out the three of them standing about five feet away. Remsen and his two sons. William, the larger one, held the Coleman lantern. Oswald aimed a .45 semiautomatic at him. Joe, standing next to his father, pointed his .38 service revolver at Beck.

  Beck struggled to his feet, still trying to blink away what he realized was not just water, but also blood dripping into his eyes.

  Oswald yelled at him.

  “You animal piece of shit. You killed him. You goddam killed him.”

  Beck didn’t answer.

  “You had to turn animal, like every fucking piece of shit convict always does. So now we’re going to skin you and gut you like the animal you are. I just hope you don’t die too soon.” Oswald pointed to his left and yelled, “Walk.”

  Beck turned and saw nothing but darkness until William Remsen stepped in front of him holding the lantern.

  The other two fell in behind Beck, both of their guns pointed at his back.

  Beck had to walk fast to keep up with William and the circle of lantern light. He stumbled for the first few yards, but walking revived him somewhat. The blood dripping from his forehead channeled down the side of his nose and mostly out of his eyes.

  Remsen hadn’t shot him after he’d killed Austen, so he still wanted answers. Maybe he could use that to find out why Packy Johnson had been killed. Then he might at least go to his grave knowing the truth of it.

  After about a minute walking, the light from the lantern revealed a wooden lean-to about ten yards ahead of them. Beck caught an odor of rotten meat.

  “Stop.”

  William continued toward the structure, which was about ten yards wide, eight feet deep. The open side facing them stood eight feet high. The roof angled down to about five feet at the back where it met a plywood wall. Three sturdy fence poles, each about twelve inches in diameter, supported the two-by-four framing and a roof covered in asphalt shingles.

  William raised the Coleman lantern and hung it from an eyehook screwed into the two-by-four supporting the roof. The white light revealed the source of the stench. Drying deer skins hung stretched across the back wall. Various size butcher knives and hacksaws hung from the poles supporting the roof. There was a set of rope and tackle attached to a crossbeam. The dirt under the lean-to appeared discolored and crusted in spots where they’d bled out the animals.

  Fifty-pound bags of lime were stacked at one end of the lean-to for covering the guts and organs they buried after dressing deer. About a cord of split wood had been loosely thrown into a pile at the other end of the lean-to.

  It didn’t take a huge leap of imagination for Beck to picture himself suspended by the rope and tackle. He wondered which of the Remsens would slice him until he told them what they wanted to know. He wondered how far into the forest they would haul the pieces of his body for burial.

  He contemplated the possibility of getting his hands in front of him. If he could, he’d try to grab Oswald Remsen’s throat and not let go until they killed him. Hopefully, he’d have time to crush Remsen’s larynx before that happened.

  Oswald pointed his gun at a small tree stump standing on its end outside the lean-to and told Beck, “Sit.”

  The log was about a thirty inches high, barely wide enough to sit on. Beck straddled the stump and sat on it, spreading his feet to keep his balance with his hands cuffed behind him, his back facing the lean-to. Remsen and his sons stood in a semicircle in front of him, just within the light cast by the Coleman lantern hanging in the lean-to behind Beck. Between them was a pile of ashes and charred wood, the remains of many campfires.

  Oswald Remsen said, “We both know you’re going to die here tonight, it’s up to you how. Answer my questions fast, no bullshit, and we’ll finish you with a bullet to the head. You don’t, we’ll gut you and rip off strips of your skin until we get our answers.”

  “That simple, huh?”

  “That simple, convict.”

  “How do I know you’re not going to torture me anyhow?”

  “You don’t.”

  Beck nodded. “How about this—you want to find out what I know. I want to go to my grave knowing a few things. How about you ask me a question, I’ll answer it. Then I ask you a question, and you answer it. Get it all out fast and easy.”

  “You’re an idiot. Last chance, a bullet, or knives and pliers?”

  “Try the knife if you want, but I fucking guarantee you it’ll be hours before you find out anything. If ever.”

  “Fine by me. We got all night.”

  “Really.” Beck pointed with his head toward the body somewhere in the dark field off to the left. “You going to have enough time for me, and for burying your buddy?”

  “Best you don’t remind me of that.”

  “Let’s cut the bullshit. You could have killed me back in the parking l
ot. You could have killed me after I took out your man who likes hitting people with baseball bats. You want information, I’m making a reasonable offer.”

  “I got half a mind to start slicing you up right now. See how tough you are.”

  “Up to you,” said Beck. “They say people who are tortured will say anything. You never know what’s true.”

  Oswald stared at Beck. Beck returned his gaze. Oswald couldn’t see any fear in James Beck’s eyes.

  “All right, tough guy. We’ll play it your way for a couple of minutes. One way or another, I’m gettin’ my answers. First question: Why are you up here poking your nose around?”

  Beck answered quickly. “Because you’re the one responsible for murdering Paco Johnson.”

  “Who?”

  “Paco Johnson. He was released from Eastern on Tuesday.”

  “Where the hell did you come up with me being responsible for the murder of some worthless convict?”

  “Hey, I get a question now.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “It’s an easy question.”

  “I’m not playing games.”

  “Neither am I. Did you, or did you not, arrange the murder of Paco Johnson?”

  Oswald Remsen hesitated, then answered. “What the hell, you’re not going to be alive to do anything about it. First of all, I couldn’t give a shit about that asshole. A goddam pain in the ass. Some new fish transferred in and told him some shit about his daughter getting whored out. So what? That’s got nothing to do with me. I didn’t arrange for anybody to kill him and trust me, I’ve paid my dues, boy. I got enough connections to have a piece of shit like him taken out in two seconds if I want to.

  “All I did was give some people a heads-up cuz I knew the guy was a troublemaker. What’d he do? Go and piss somebody off? If they killed him, it ain’t my fault.”

  “What people?”

  “Not your turn, convict.”

  “Okay.”

  Beck cleared his throat and spat into the ground, buying time, carefully clocking the position of each man. The elder Remsen stood in front of him, five feet away. Joe, still holding his revolver, stood about four feet to the right of his father. William stood about ten feet to the left of Oswald, a few steps closer to the lean-to.

  “Who told you to come looking for me?”

  “Nobody. A man gets out of prison after seventeen years, he’s not going to get killed for something he did a few hours after he got home. It had to be connected to something that happened at Eastern.”

  “You’re lying. There’s a whole lot of people in that prison, convicts and staff, but you came looking for me. I want to know who put you onto me. And I’m warning you, convict, the next thing comes out of your mouth better be the truth, or I’m stringing you up and cutting it out of you.”

  Beck had no intention of telling Remsen the truth. It would mean implicating Walter Ferguson and Rita. He shifted his weight on the narrow stump, pictured the possibility of diving to his left to get out of the circle of light, and trying to get his cuffed hands under his legs and in front of him.

  He gently pulled the cuffs wide, gauging how many links were in the chain, trying to figure if he could pull his hands far enough apart to get them past his hips and legs. It felt like the cuffs weren’t spreading apart much at all. Maybe the links were kinked. He ran his right thumb back and forth along the chain joining the cuffs, and suddenly felt something. Was it true? He ran his thumb over the handcuff housing. He couldn’t believe what he felt.

  Carefully, he brushed his thumb over the lock housing. It was true. He could feel the shim, still stuck in the slot between the cuff and the lock housing. The top of the shim had been bent over from Austen dragging him, but the rest was in the slot, jammed in with dirt and grass.

  He needed time to try to clear away the dirt and straighten out the shim.

  “All right. There’s more to it.”

  “What?”

  “Like I said, I figured Johnson’s murder had to have something to do with prison. So I made a few calls. I still know guys serving time at Eastern. I talked to an old-timer in there who told me Packy didn’t have any beefs going on in the population. Cons respected him. Nobody wanted to do anything to jam him up before he was about to be released.”

  “I’ll want to know who you talked to, but go on.”

  “So if it wasn’t the convicts, I figured it had to be something between him and the guard staff.”

  “Why?”

  “Process of elimination. Had to be one or the other.”

  While he talked, Beck cleared away the dirt and bent back the shim. He shifted on the stump, trying to give the impression that sitting on it was uncomfortable, but really so he could maneuver his hands into position.

  “You’re trying my patience, Beck. Why me? Of all the guards at Eastern, why me?”

  “The truth? I had no real idea you had anything to do with it. I just wanted to talk to some guards, see what I could find out. I’ve been in town all day. Didn’t take long to find the COs watering hole. I went into that bar to see if I could get some information. And then I see you sitting there, fat and happy, collecting payoffs.”

  “This answer is startin’ to sound like total bullshit.”

  “Why? I went to find Eastern guards and there you were, taking envelopes under the table from guys coming in and out. I asked myself what the hell is Remsen up to? Is he selling drugs? Nah. Too risky. He doesn’t have the guts. What else is there? Where’s the money coming from? I put that together with Packy getting shot trying to save his daughter who was being prostituted. I figure you’re running whores, Remsen. I’m figuring the same guys prostituting Packy Johnson’s daughter, Derrick and Jerome Watkins, are supplying women to you. I haven’t quite figured out who your customers are. You can’t be running hookers through the prison. Where’s the business coming from?”

  “You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Mostly dumb-ass horny truckers, asshole. We’ve got whores working truck stops, bars, motels, and dives everywhere between Westchester and Albany. Only thing holding us back is getting more whores from the mud people.”

  Beck gave Remsen an admiring nod, shifting again on his stump to position his fingers so he could gently squeeze the cuff on his left wrist tighter while pushing the shim in with his forefinger.

  “Was Packy’s kid going to be one of your whores? Is that why he went after her as soon as he got back to the city?”

  “That’s two questions, convict.”

  “Take your pick.”

  “It was a little more complicated than that, but close enough. But you still ain’t telling me the truth. I don’t believe you just walked into my bar. How’d you know to come looking at me? Who ratted me out?”

  Beck ignored the question. He had to keep Remsen talking, because if he got the damned handcuff off, there would be no more questions and answers. Just blood and chaos until either they were dead, or he was.

  Beck said, “And you still haven’t answered mine, asshole. Who did you give the heads-up to about Packy Johnson?”

  Remsen yelled at Beck, taking a step toward him. “That’s it. Enough of this bullshit, you lying piece of shit. William, set up the block and tackle.”

  Time was up. Beck abandoned all caution. He squeezed the cuff firmly, pushing it all the way closed, hopefully the shim with it. He reared up on the stump and shouted, “Fuck you!” as he twisted his wrist and pulled upward to see if the cuff would slide open. It did, surprising Beck so much that for a moment, he sat motionless.

  Oswald had worked himself into a fury, yelling at Beck, “You’re going to tell me everything goddam thing I want to know before the night is out.” He turned and said, “Joe, get him on his feet.”

  As Joe Remsen moved, Beck stood up, brought his suddenly freed hands in front of him, bent down, and grabbed the log he’d been sitting on. He underhanded the stump straight at Remsen’s face, putting everyt
hing he had into it.

  Forty pounds of hardwood flew at Remsen, bottom rising upward. Remsen stood immobile, stunned. He didn’t even have time to flinch as the bottom of the log shattered his jaw and the top smashed into his forehead. He fell backward, unconscious before he hit the ground.

  As soon as the log left Beck’s hands, he was already moving toward the falling Remsen. Neither of the sons reacted, too stunned and confused to move.

  Beck made it almost halfway to the father before Joe turned to point his gun at him. By the time Joe Remsen pulled the trigger on his revolver, Beck was diving toward Oswald, reaching for the gun in his hand.

  William Remsen turned, drawing another service revolver.

  Beck slid past Remsen, but at the last second grabbed the barrel of Remsen’s gun, pulled the semiautomatic out of Oswald’s hand with his left hand, turned it, and grabbed the handle with his right. Joe Remsen opened fire. Beck rolled behind Oswald and fired two fast, focused shots at Joe Remsen. William fired a shot. Beck pointed behind him and fired blindly at William, who flinched, ducked, and ran for cover in the lean-to.

  Beck’s shots blew Joe Remsen off his feet. William made it to the lean-to and hunkered down near the woodpile at the back corner of the lean-to, behind the lantern light. Beck scrambled away from the circle of light, got to his feet, and stepped back deeper into the darkness.

  Beck stood unseen, trying not to make any noise, pulling himself together.

  In eight seconds, it had gone from three to one, to one on one.

  Beck stood still, positive the light from the lantern shining in front of William prevented him from seeing anything in the darkness. But he couldn’t see William, either.

  Beck stayed back out of the light and slowly, silently walked counterclockwise toward the lean-to.

  William shaded his eyes, trying to see where Beck had gone. He thought he saw movement and fired off two shots, one of which came close enough to make Beck drop to the ground and stop moving.

  Beck pointed Oswald Remsen’s gun at the lean-to, watching for movement. He was familiar with the weapon, a 9-mm Beretta 92FS that could be loaded with either a high-capacity magazine that held fifteen bullets, or a regular magazine that held ten. With the regular magazine he had seven rounds left, but there was no way to know which magazine was in the gun, or even if it had been fully loaded. Checking the magazine would give away his position.