Embrace the Wolf
Page 17
I got to my feet, but my legs were dead. No movement. Bubba was on me like a wave. I was up in the air. He had me in a bear hug, crushing my ribs. I couldn’t breathe. I flailed like a beetle on its back. Head. Head. Kill the head. I butted him. Nothing. Too close to punch. Eyes. Eyes. Blind him. Bubba butted me back and buried his head on my chest. Sparks erupted. I was cut loose. Floating. Shrinking to a point. Period. The end. Too much dog. Too much dog. Sorry.
Bubba screamed. I fell away like dirty laundry. Each breath a gasp, I fought up to my knees. Bubba was roaring, clawing the air. He started to stagger, then to moan. He turned away from me. Wendy was draped limply across his back, both hands locked around the handle of the biggest knife in the house, sunk into him like a harpoon. Bubba crashed to the floor. I couldn’t stand upright, but I went to Wendy and pried her hands off the handle and pulled the blade free. Her eyes were riveted shut. I pulled her to her feet and, arms around each other, we staggered out to the street.
“Listen. You did it. You did it. Goddamn. You did it. Oh, God. I thought I was dead.” I hugged her to me, so tight it hurt. Right then I loved her. I loved being alive. I held on to her for dear life. I could feel her return the pressure, her fingers clutching the fabric of my shirt. I tried to take my first deep breath and inhaled her scent. Sweet life. I squeezed her once again and whispered in her ear, “Listen, go across the street to find a phone and get Hungerford over here, understand? Tell him what happened and that Saunders went down to the house at the end of the block. That’s where I’m going. Got it?”
She nodded against my chest. I looked into that face and my impeccably reasoned restraint vanished. I could care less about recapturing my past. It was my present and its descendants I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to kiss her with enough passion to taste it still on my deathbed. We gave it our best shot.
I let go of her and we went our separate ways.
Chapter 26
I walked as briskly as my ribs would let me back to the house. The front door was open. I started up the stairs, but stopped when I saw the open car trunk. I went back down the stairs to the car sick from thinking about what would be there. A boy was folded up in it. He’d been spindled and mutilated too. I went back up the stairs. It felt like I was slogging through quicksand. From the start, I’d been too late and I was getting farther behind by the minute.
The priest was lying facedown on the floor. I knelt next to him, got my hands under his arms, and turned him over. He was dead too. Judging from the wounds, he’d grabbed the gun and pressed it against himself. The bullet had torn through his right hand and then blasted away his chest. I got up and went through the silent house. My mind spun like an emergency flasher with instants of red rage, blue despair, and yellow caution. I hoped and feared that I’d find more bodies. A quick but careful search of the house found nothing.
I went out on the deck and looked up and down the beach and over at the nearby docks. Where the hell would Saunders go? Randolph would have gone in his car if he could. No. Saunders had him. Otherwise the trunk would have been closed. He’d want to be alone with him as he’d said, free from intrusions. A room somewhere? Not his motel room. A place he could go to any time he wanted. He couldn’t tell when he’d find Randolph. Any time he wanted. Just call me first. The bandy-legged waterman. A boat. I ran for the dock.
Down the street and through the gate I sprinted, feeling each and every step. At the far end a boat was making ready to depart. Saunders was bent over, tossing off the lines. I ran down the dock. Randolph was nowhere in sight. The boat was pulling away. Oh shit. I jumped for it. Made it. The boat pitched and gave way. I lurched across the deck and grabbed the rigging to one of the booms to keep from going over. Turning I yelled to Saunders, “Don’t do this …” I got the rest I so badly needed from the butt of a gaffing hook. The deck was moving and I couldn’t catch up with it. I tried. I fought to a slump and rested against the railing.
When I came to, Saunders had his back to me. He was stooped over, working at something with his hands. He stepped back and I saw his handiwork: Justin Randolph on his knees and naked, his hands tied behind his back, with a hawser under his armpits. Saunders was moving around him checking the knots like he was going to get a merit badge for all this. Then he got up and disappeared below deck. When he returned, he had his black bag, an ice chest, and a large metal bucket. Saunders sat down on the deck hatch, reached in and pulled a large serrated knife from his bag. Randolph was on his knees facing him. Saunders pulled a fish from the ice chest by the tail and slammed its head on the hatch cover, stunning it. He cut off its head with a slow sawing motion. Then he turned it belly up, rammed the blade into it, and slit it from gills to tail. Peeling back the meat, he pulled the guts out with his hand.
Saunders stood up, walked up over to Randolph, and smeared the blood and guts all over his chest. I felt like I was watching an Aztec sacrifice, only this wasn’t PBS. Saunders repeated the process with enough fish to fill the metal bucket. After gutting them, he chopped them into chunks. Some he smeared on Randolph, some he didn’t. He rubbed the blood into Randolph’s hair, arms, and back and finally pressed his bloodstained hands on Randolph’s face. I knew what he was doing, but asked anyway, hoping that I was wrong.
He got up and sat in one of the fighting chairs, pulled out a cigarette, cupped his hands around the flame, and looked at me. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Haggerty. That depends on our friend here, Mr. Randolph. Right now you could say I’m preparing a stew. Mr. Randolph is the main ingredient. Call it shark fin soup, perhaps. Whether dinner is served and who eats whom is up to our guest.”
“But why? It’s pretty clear he killed your kids. The search is over. Let the law have him. Go home to Maggie.”
“It’s not that simple, Haggerty. I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I need to sort that out. I’ve spent four years waiting for this moment: when I find out where my girls are and what happened to them. There’d be a cleansing in that knowledge. I’d know finally one way or another. I’d force it out of him. Instead, it seems to have just washed over me: what you said DeVito told you, what he said to the priest. I feel like I know. They’re dead, and I got no satisfaction out of tearing that secret out of him. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
With that, he got up, went into the cabin, and returned with a large ladle. He sat on the stern and spooned the chum behind the boat. I looked at the sky. It was overcast, and in the distance dark storm clouds were gathering. The wind was coming up. This was not the time to be calling all sharks.
Randolph followed Saunders with his eyes. “Perhaps they’re not dead. I might have let them live. They were very beautiful. Twins. I remember them well.”
Saunders whirled. “Shut up, you scumbag. Don’t you talk about my girls. Yes, they were beautiful. They were innocent and kind and loving. And you destroyed that. And for that you’ll pay, you son of a bitch.”
Randolph went on anyway. His voice was thin with desperation. “Can you really afford not to believe me? No one knows what really happened but me. Return me to shore, and I’ll tell you if they’re alive or not and where they are.”
“Never. No deals. You’ll talk or die.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We need only trade. Give me what I want and I’ll give you what you want.”
I broke in. “Saunders, don’t buy into this shit. DeVito searched his house. There was a code book with entries for everything. When they crack it, they’ll know what happened to your girls.” I snuck a glance at Randolph. His wide-eyed stare convinced me the answers were in that book. “Look at him, It’s true. Look at him.”
Saunders turned back and was convinced by what he saw. He backhanded Randolph in the face, knocking him over on his side. I was afraid Randolph’s lifespan was down to minutes.
“Turn him over to DeVito. Let the law have him.”
“What will they do to him? Huh? He’ll plead insanity, childhood trauma, get some lawyer who thinks that ‘due process’ is
holy, fuck the outcome. I was just doing my duty—providing the best defense.’ Hell, we laughed at that at Nuremberg. No way. He’ll wind up getting sent to some hospital where he’ll snow the fools there and be on the streets before we are.”
“I am not insane. That would demean me. I am not a failure, the product of some familial defect. I am a free man. Free of the petty restraints of you sheep. I am different, better …” Randolph was struggling to right himself.
Saunders went over and pulled Randolph’s face up to his by the hair. Their eyes locked. They were close enough to breathe the same air. “Damn right you’re not insane. Not in my book, motherfucker. I don’t give a damn what happened to you growing up or what made you what you are. Somewhere along the way you knew you were doing wrong because you kept it a secret. And you went on and on. Over and over you did wrong, and you did nothing to stop yourself. Let the others pay the price, not you. Well, I’m here to collect. You’re way past due, motherfucker.”
We were starting to get a fair chop to the waves, which was keeping me slightly nauseated. I wasn’t about to risk jumping Saunders until my head stopped spinning and my legs firmed up. Instead, I hoped to halt him with words, give him enough decisions to make, enough outcomes to balance to freeze his brain.
“Saunders, don’t do this. Can’t you see you’re giving him just what he wants?”
“He wants to die?” Saunders arched his eyebrows quizzically.
“No. But he wants the stink of his handiwork to live after him. That’s why he used that priest. Think about it. Each death is just the beginning. He wants the rage and guilt to persist and to poison the lives of everyone else. Look at you: four years consumed by this obsession. He got you. It worked. Free yourself. Set it aside. Even if you kill him, your girls won’t come back. Your grief won’t end. But the rest of his control of you will. Without the survivors carrying his curse, the memory of him inside, he dies. He’s nothing, nothing. Remember your girls, not him.”
Randolph was becoming more agitated as I spoke. Finally he shrieked at us. “Can you forget me? No, you can’t escape me. I’ll haunt you forever. Your life is mine. Can you close your eyes and not imagine what I did to them? Those soft little bodies. Try to forget this: On the first day I—”
Saunders was on him in a fury. His hands were around his throat. “Shut up, you animal. Shut up.” Randolph’s face mottled. He gasped for air. Suddenly Saunders hoisted him overhead and in one titanic heave, threw him overboard. “Die, you son of a bitch, die.”
I’d missed my chance. I lifted myself up the rigging. “Think, man. Bring him in. We’ll gag him. Shut him up. Don’t you think the rest of his life in a prison would punish him enough? Who would he hurt there or control? He’ll be a victim the rest of his life.”
“But he’d still have the sun and cool breezes. The special decency of a Christmas dinner. Television. Books to read. He’d have a life. Not much, but a life. My girls have none, so neither will he. Now sit down, Haggerty. I have a job to finish.” With that he pulled Randolph’s pistol from under his shirt.
I watched him ladle the chum over the side of the boat. He cut some of the chunks into smaller pieces. When he was done he tossed the knife back into his bag. He looked up at the sky, “Good. There’s a storm coming. The turbulence will bring them up from the bottom. Out here we’ll get the big ones, the ocean cruisers.”
Randolph was bug-eyed, looking all around him, pedaling a liquid bicycle, gulping and spitting water. Saunders yelled to him, “Good. Thrash. You’re a dinner bell. They’re coming for you, Randolph. They’re down there. You’re food, Randolph. Dinner’s served.” Saunders braced himself on the edge of the railing, looking for the first fins.
“What are you going to do with me, Saunders? Kill me too? Then there’s no one out here to tell what happened. A fishing accident, perhaps. You’ll go home and lie down next to Maggie. What will you tell her about the detective she hired to find you? Is it getting that easy to kill, Herb?”
“Shut up, damn you. I’ve done all my killing. I don’t care who you tell. It’s over.”
“Is it? You’ll go to jail, Herb. Maggie’ll have nothing, nothing. Think about that. Think hard because you’re running out of time.” The first fin had broken the water.
Randolph shrieked, “Something’s here. It touched me. Bring me in. God, bring me in. I’m begging you.”
“Maggie needs you. She told me so. Without someone to care for she’d have died. Killed herself she said. Think about it. Up there alone, she collapsed. She needs you. She loves you. I hear she carried you, man, for years. So you’re going to throw that away for this piece of shit. She really must have wasted her fucking time, taking care of you. For what? Did you ever love her? Can you remember her? Think about her—that’s what you’re throwing away, that woman and all she did for you, for this.”
I searched the sea for Randolph. He was gone. Then he appeared. The crest of the waves was blocking him from view. He was gone again. I heard a shrill yipping sound. “A-y-a-y-ee! It’s here. Oh God. Bring me in!”
Saunders looked at me. All his energy was gone. He was unplugged, almost inert. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
I patted his back and hobbled to the railing. Hand over hand I began to reel Randolph in. Saunders had cleated the line and was moving to the wheel to bring the boat around.
An enormous crack, like a shot, seemed to fill the world. We were inside a sound. The boat rocked, then tilted. I grabbed the rigging. For a second, I thought we’d keel over. Saunders had been flung across the cabin. The galleyway hatch had hit him in the forehead and like a marionette he folded up and sat down. The boat leveled out.
I went back to the railing to look for Randolph. First I saw the gray shape that had smacked us with its tail. He was sixteen feet if he was an inch and probably weighed close to a ton. It was sliding alongside us between the boat and Randolph. The chum had attracted it and, confused by the turbulence of the propellers, it thought we were a giant wounded seal. It gave us a whack to be sure we were dead and was now waiting to see what we’d do.
I uncleated the line to Randolph, ran it around the stern to the other side of the boat and reaffixed it. Saunders I hauled down to a bunk, grabbed a line, and tied him into it. He was still out cold. In this chop and with our current companions I didn’t want Saunders coming to and lurching groggily across the deck into the sea. I took the wheel and spun it hard trying to keep the boat between Randolph and the shark. I looped a line over the wheel and tied it in place. The chum bucket was still half full. I reached in for the biggest chunks and threw them into the water as far from the boat and Randolph as I could. The fin had disappeared. I took the whole bucket and threw it in that direction. I crossed the deck and looked for Randolph as I began to pull in the line. I saw him. “Randolph, listen to me. If anything bumps you, kick it hard. Sharks want easy prey. If you fight back, you aren’t worth the trouble.” I kept pulling him in, eyeing the water for dark shapes moving under the surface. I kept pulling: one, two, one, two. Randolph was getting closer. I didn’t know how I’d hoist him up. I kept pulling. He was about six feet away off the port side.
“Hurry, please. Help me.” He was pleading.
I bent down, looking for a gaffing hook to pull him in with. Randolph’s shriek cleaved me in two. I snapped upright. Randolph was right next to me rising out of the water, up to his waist in a shark’s mouth. It was tail-walking away from the boat, gulping him down. Randolph’s arms were pinned behind him, hooked over the shark’s snout. I was petrified. Our eyes met once. His were past terror, sending a momentary plea that I answered with a useless reflex extension of my hand. Then, they simply recorded his last sights as he slid silently below the surface.
I stood there stunned. A terrific blow snapped across my back pitching me forward, pinning me to the rail. The rope. The rope to Randolph. The shark was dragging him out to sea and pinning me to the side. My left leg jerked up. I was on my back. What the hell—? A loop. I was ho
oked in the rope. I tried to kick free. Another snap rammed me against the hull. I couldn’t move the leg. It was going numb. If I didn’t go over, it would be cut off right here.
Another tug. I was running out of rope. One more and I’d be hoisted right over. Oh, Jesus. I was upside down. I slid into something. Saunders’ bag. I pulled it over onto it’s side. The knife clattered out. I reached for it, grabbed the blade and finger walked along it back to the handle. Gripping it I bent forward and began to saw at the lines. Oh God, give me a fuckin’ break. I sawed, I slashed. My teeth were gritted. I squinted. The inexorable tempo of breath, in and out, was suspended in one last effort: interlude or eternity. I awaited one last tug. Through. I rolled away. The line danced up like a cobra, slapped a good-bye against the rigging, and was gone.
I lay on the deck, gasping, slowly coming back to life. My fingers were clenched around the knife. I unlocked them, took a deep breath, then another. Breathe and wince. Breathe and wince. I massaged my leg, wiggled my foot, slowly felt all my joints. Moved myself in pieces, tuning up before the first symphonic movement: standing up. That done, I creaked across the deck to the cockpit and picked up the radio mike. I flipped the On switch. “Hello, hello. Anybody out there? This is the …” What the fuck. I didn’t know the boat’s name. I looked around. It was block lettered on the captain’s log. “Tommy’s Pride ’n Joy. We’re lost. Hello, hello. Can anybody hear me?” I twisted the dial trying to get anyone else’s messages. Nothing. I craned my neck out of the cabin. In the distance the storm clouds were purple over gray. Lightning dove at the ground. There was now plenty of static. I doubted anyone could hear us. “Hello, hello. Mayday. We’re lost. Anybody out there? Mayday, mayday. Help. We’re lost. We’re lost. Anybody there? Anybody at all. Can you hear me?”