Night Terrors

by Dennis Palumbo

  Polk nodded, uninterested, and motioned Beck a few feet back, so that we were all three standing between the rear doors of the truck and the dock. Our breaths formed frosted puffs that co-mingled in the tight confines.

  Beck gestured at me. “Who’s this? Your partner?”

  “Christ, no. This is…uh…his name’s Rinaldi, and he consults with the department.”

  “Dan Rinaldi.” I shook Beck’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Vincent. Sorry you’re mixed up in all this.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.” Never taking his eyes off Polk.

  The detective returned the favor. “Look, Vincent, I gotta be honest about somethin’. Ya sure waited a long time before comin’ forward about the Cranshaw murder.”

  “I know. It’s just…I mean, I was so scared. But then I told Father Healey about it in confession, and he said I hadda go to the police. Tell ’em what I knew. Then he gave me ten ‘Our Father’s’ and ten ‘Hail, Mary’s.’ Ten each.” An aggrieved sigh. “He don’t play, that Father Healey.”

  “Sounds like a real hardass, all right.” Polk cleared his throat. “Anyway, Vincent, I read your statement about the day of the shooting. It was about eight in the morning, and you were making a delivery at a house three doors down from Earl Cranshaw’s place. Right?”

  “That’s right. My first delivery of the day. Huge order, the lady was plannin’ a party or somethin’. I been up since six loading the truck.”

  “Fascinatin’, but I’m mostly interested in what happened to Cranshaw. You told the Steubenville cops you noticed him comin’ outta his house, in his bathrobe with a coat over it.”

  “Yeah. And big boots, with the laces loose. He musta just thrown stuff on to go out on the front porch and get the morning paper.”

  “Did he see you?” I found myself asking.

  Polk shot me a warning look, but Beck answered anyway.

  “If Cranshaw saw me, he didn’t let on. Didn’t wave or nothin’. Just bent down, got the paper—they had it wrapped in plastic, ’cause o’ the snow—and headed back inside.”

  Beck shivered, but not from the cold. “He never made it.”

  Harry edged closer.

  “Now what happened then? Exactly. I know it’s hard, Vincent, but try to remember everything.”

  Polk’s voice was unusually solitictous. Sympathetic. Must’ve been that “finesse” he’d talked about.

  But all it did was make Beck more anxious. He ducked his head, jaw disappearing beneath the collar of his heavy coat. Gloved hands rubbing the sides of his jeans.

  “Easy now, Vincent.” Polk kept the impatience out of his tone. “Just give it to us, step by step.”

  “Well…” The young man glanced quickly to his left and right. “All of a sudden, I hear a car engine rev up. And before I knew it, I seen this Chevy sedan come roarin’ down the street. Musta been parked down the block, ’cause it only took a few seconds and it was barrelin’ up to the Cranshaw place. I know Cranshaw heard it, too, ’cause he stopped at his front door and turned around. He was lookin’ right at the car as it pulled to the curb. And then the driver stuck out his hand…and I saw the gun—”

  Polk stopped him by raising a forefinger.

  “Tell me about the driver. The guy with the gun.”

  Beck shook his head slowly. “It all happened so fast. The guy sticks his gun out the driver’s side window and fires. Twice, I think. I couldn’t even believe what I was seein’. Like it couldn’t be real, ya know? I hear the shots, see the little puffs of smoke or whatever. And then I see Cranshaw, stumblin’ back against his own front door. Grabbin’ his chest…there was blood…”

  He almost choked, as though the words were piling up in his throat. Constricting his breath. Strangling him.

  I reached out and touched Beck’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Vincent. You’re doing fine.”

  “Yeah.” Polk forced a smile. “Real good, Vincent. Now what happened after you saw Cranshaw get hit?”

  Beck recovered himself somewhat, taking a gulp of freezing air deep into his lungs.

  “He…Cranshaw…he kinda crumpled to the porch. I remember seein’ his leg twitch. Plus I could see his whole chest was covered in blood. I…I know I shoulda run over there, see if I could help…”

  I found his eyes with my own.

  “He was probably beyond help, Vincent. I doubt if there was anything you could’ve done.”

  “Maybe, but…” Letting his words die out.

  Polk spoke up. “What about the shooter? In the Chevy?”

  “I guess I was still lookin’ at Cranshaw when I heard the car rev again, ’cause when I turned back he’d already taken off down the street. Like a bat outta hell.”

  “But can you tell us anything more about him? Did you get a good look at him? The gun? Did you notice the car’s license plate?”

  Another slow head shake. “No, I didn’t notice the license. Like I said, it all happened so fast, and I was so wigged out by the whole thing…”

  “What about the guy himself? Was he wearing a mask, or a scarf or anything? Could you see his face?”

  Beck abruptly fell silent, eyes averted. Jaw working anxiously behind his coat collar.

  “Vincent…?” I leaned in again, seeking his face.

  His response was barely audible.

  “What was that, Vincent?” Polk asked sharply.

  “I said, I don’t wanna talk no more. I don’t got nothin’ else to say.”

  Harry’s face reddened, grew hard. He took a step closer to the younger man.

  “Listen, Beck, if there’s anything more you know about this guy. Anything you can tell us—”

  “I said I can’t!” Voice thick, threaded with fear. Despite the cold, he pulled off his cap. Ran his other gloved hand through sweat-matted hair. “I told ya all I saw. I told ya I just—”

  Those were Vincent Beck’s last words on this earth.

  Suddenly, a sound like a branch snapping in two sliced through the icy air. It took me a second, maybe less, to register it. Give it meaning.

  Gunshot.

  Beck heard it, too. I saw it in his stricken eyes.

  Before the top of his head exploded, spewing blood and brain matter on Harry Polk and me.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Beck wheeled into my arms, dying even as I clutched him to me. We fell as one to the hard, frozen ground.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Polk reach for his service weapon. At the same time scanning the warehouse roof, just above us and to the right.

  Before his gun cleared his holster, another shot boomed. Polk cried out, and grabbed for his shoulder.

  “Harry!” I called.

  The gun spiraled to the ground, and I saw his knees buckle beneath him. He fell with a thud and rolled, gasping, under the truck carriage. My arms still clinging to Beck’s lifeless body, I used my legs to scrabble underneath as well, between the huge rear wheels.

  Only then did I hear the shouts of the other workers, coming from within the warehouse. Panicked cries. Footsteps pounding, men leaping from the loading dock, stumbling, scrambling for cover.

  As another shot took a divot out of a curve of fender not inches from my head. The loud, metallic ping echoed.

  I ducked down low. “You okay, Harry?” Polk lifted his hand from his wound, fingers painted with blood.

  “I’ll live. You?”

  “Fine. But Beck’s gone.”

  He nodded. No surprise, since a bloodied, crescent-shaped shard of Beck’s skull lay not a dozen feet away. Vivid as a scar on the snow-frosted ground. Just beyond, as though marking his grave, the forlorn Bengals cap.

  Unwilling to look at Beck’s face, I opened my arms and gently rolled him off me. Looked down at my hands, spackled with his blood. Bits of bone, brains. I rubbed them roughly against the
sides of my coat, all the while fighting the urge to retch.

  “Fucker must be on the roof.” Polk shifted where he lay, favoring his shoulder. “Couldn’t spot him, though.”

  Wincing from the pain, he reached across his body with his good hand and retrieved his cell. It was crushed.

  “Musta fell on it. Piece o’ shit. Gimme yours.”

  I handed him my phone, then hunkered down lower as he called the Steubenville PD for backup. There hadn’t been another shot for over a minute.

  “Guy might be gone,” I said, after he’d hung up.

  “And might not.” Polk’s breathing was labored. His wound was worse than he’d let on. His fading grip on it couldn’t slow the blood seeping through his fingers.

  “Here.” I reached over and undid his bulky scarf, then wrapped it around the wound. Knotted it tightly.

  “Press down on this. Oughtta help.”

  Polk didn’t answer, but did what I asked.

  After another minute, I said, “I think he’s gone.”

  I had to know.

  Steeling myself, I slid a few inches out from under the truck fender and leaned up. Just enough for me to see out. Scan the roof edge.

  Nothing.

  But that had to be where he’d fired from. Given the angle of the shots. They’d come from somewhere above us.

  So maybe he was gone—

  Then I saw him. Not on the roof. Inside the warehouse. Far back from the loading dock, perched atop a ladder braced against one of the high shelves.

  Face concealed under a hat. Wearing a coat, muffler, and gloves. Like any of the other workmen.

  And aiming down the barrel of a hunting rifle.

  At me.

  I froze. Dead meat.

  He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

  The gun had jammed.

  Before I could react, he’d thrown the rifle aside and quickly started down the ladder. Half-sliding, feet slipping on the rungs.

  I’d instinctively followed the rifle’s arc as it fell to the warehouse floor and skittered noisily to a stop. Rousing myself, I looked up again and saw the shooter running into the shadows of the building.

  Then I did something stupid. I went after him.

  Bolting from my hiding place under the truck, I hoisted myself up onto the loading dock.

  Polk’s pain-shredded voice followed me.

  “Rinaldi! What the fuck ya doin’?”

  I ignored him and headed into the sprawling warehouse, the darkness within serrated by pockets of harsh light from the fluorescents overhead.

  The building’s massive interior was a maze of high shelves, intersecting at severe, irregular angles. Stacks of boxes, placed unevenly on the floor, reached to my shoulders. Emptied of workers, of the sound of human labor, the heart of the warehouse was a cold, bewildering array of shadowed corners, dead ends, and looming towers.

  He was in here, somewhere.

  Adrenaline pumping, fists clenching and unclenching, I went slowly forward. Eyes straining to see. Ears pricked for any telltale sound.

  With every other step, I was either bathed in that stark light, or plunged into an opaque darkness. Through the spaces between rows of high shelves—stacked to the roof with canned goods, paper products and plastic bottles—I caught sight of the building’s undraped windows. Huge, black-paned squares set high in the walls, reflecting the unyielding darkness beyond. And, like the walls themselves, offering no shelter from the bone-chilling cold of deepening night. A cold that permeated everything in the vast immensity of the place.

  Shivering now—either from the chill or my own growing dread—I neared the end of an aisle formed by two high shelves and turned the corner.

  Nothing. Boxes piled against the walls. The flickering of a fluorescent directly above me, its light dying.

  I went on. Peering down the next aisle.

  Again, nothing. I tried to remember to breathe.

  Another dozen paces in, and then—

  A sound. Loud, rumbling. An old engine sputtering to life, revving.

  I whirled, straining to see down a corridor formed by two facing ceiling-high shelves. A narrow aisle whose utter darkness was bisected by an angled column of light.

  The engine’s roar grew louder, and then I saw it. Emerging out of the shadows, its great twin tines—like two silver spears, pointed and waist-high—flashing in the bright light.

  A huge forklift, smoke belching from its engine, was hurtling down the corridor. Toward me.

  Nearly as wide as the space between the two towering shelves, the forklift offered no escape on either side. No way for me to avoid its remorseless advance.

  I sensed rather than saw the wall behind me. Knew there was nowhere to run. That within seconds I’d be crushed against its exposed bricks, caught between the metallic pincers of a rattling, two-ton behemoth.

  Without thinking, I turned and leapt to the broad base of one of the shelves. Started climbing, fast as I could, using the shelves and struts as a ladder. Pushing aside boxes, grabbing for hand-holds. Scrambling upward.

  Hanging tightly to the quivering aluminum tower, hoping my weight didn’t pull it over, I glanced down in time to see the forklift rumble by barely beneath my feet.

  With an ear-splitting whine, it crashed into the wall, burying its tines into the rough bricks. Engine chugging impotently, wheels spinning on concrete, the machine rocked on its chassis as though a live thing. Thwarted. Enraged.

  And empty. No one in the driver’s seat.

  I released my grip on the shelf and dropped down into the forklift’s open cab, behind the steering wheel. A man’s belt had been used to secure the wheel in place, making sure the machine stayed on course.

  I found the key in the ignition, turned it off. The engine choked a few times, sputtered, and went silent.

  A deafening, echoing silence.

  Taking what felt like my first breath in the past two minutes, I climbed from the cab. Peered down the aisle in the direction from which the forklift had come.

  Nothing. No one.

  I moved cautiously down the aisle, hands lightly grazing the shelves as I walked, as though for some kind of mental support. When I finally reached the open area at the other end, I paused, my gaze sweeping from left to right.

  Nothing. No one.

  Was the killer gone? Had he bought enough time by sending the forklift down at me to make his escape?

  I kept moving. Going slowly down a line of shelves, past more stacks of boxes, another forklift half-hidden in shadow. A few handcarts. A row of vending machines along the near wall.

  I’d just decided for certain that the killer was gone when I heard—

  Soft, muffled. The rustle of clothing. The scrape of a shoe on concrete.

  I stood, unmoving. Listening so hard my face hurt.

  Finally, I risked turning my head. Squinted in the half-light down the mouth of another aisle formed by two shelving units.

  There, at the far end. Where a shaft of light fell from overhead. The tip of a workman’s boot.

  Him. Hiding behind a six-foot-high pile of broad wooden crates.

  Afraid even to swallow, I crept down between the shelves. Carefully placing my feet on the concrete, one slow, measured step at a time.

  Making my way toward where he stood, shielded by the tower of heavy crates. Never taking my eyes off that workman’s boot. The tip gleaming in the light.

  Until I was standing not two feet away. My back to the stacked crates behind which he hid.

  Hearing his frantic, labored breathing.

  Which caught me off guard. Suddenly he came rushing out from behind his hiding place, yelling. Voice a garbled, viscous cry of panic.

  He was holding something. A thick crowbar. In both hands, like a baseball bat.

  As he s
tumbled forward, raising it high—

  Without a thought, I ducked as he swung the crowbar at my head, missing me by a wide margin.

  Then my old instincts took over. The feints and parries, learned at great cost in the ring. When I was just a kid in a man’s sport, an amateur whose father bellowed caustic, belittling instructions from the corner.

  Words that must’ve stuck. I used my forearm to block the next pass of the crowbar. Then, pulling my head down into my shoulders, I charged forward, grappling my assailant around the waist. Bringing us both down hard.

  The crowbar flew from his grasp, clattering somewhere behind us on the concrete. Using my full weight, I pinned him beneath me. Fists clutching his coat collar, I stared down at his wide, frightened eyes.

  He was wearing a heavy coat, gloves, and muffler.

  Like the other delivery men. Like the shooter.

  Like every other goddam person on earth, seemed like.

  Rage boiling up in my throat, I pulled the muffler from around the lower half of his face.

  He was a kid, younger even than Vincent Beck. With a kid’s face. Unformed. Acne-scarred.

  And utterly terrified.

  “Please, mister! Please don’t kill me!”

  I was still gasping for breath, my fists at his collar, pressing hard against his sternum. My own face inches from his.

  “Please, mister!” A thin line of spittle trailed from his lips.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, mind reeling. I didn’t know who this kid was, or what the hell he was doing here, but my gut told me one thing for sure.

  He wasn’t the killer.

  At almost the same moment I had that thought, I heard the rising wail of sirens. Outside the building. The backup Polk had called for. The local cops, moving in.

  I looked down at the shivering kid beneath me.

  “Listen, that’s the cops, and—”

  My voice caught, as I heard another sound.

  Sharp. Distinct. And nearby.

  The staccato rap of footsteps, behind me. Receding.

  I reared up, struggling to separate the sound from that of the approaching sirens.