Hard Aground

by Brendan DuBois

  Then she licked the dollar bill, rubbed her nostrils, and sat down on her haunches. Her eyes were watery and red-rimmed, and she looked up at her husband with devotion and appreciation.

  “Oh, honey, I love you so much,” she said.

  “Me, too,” Dave said. Marjorie closed her eyes and rocked back on her heels, as the chemical pleasure rippled through her brain.

  Dave looked at me. “A few months ago she fell off the steps. Compound ankle fracture. Her doctor put her on a heavy-duty painkiller, and when the prescription ran out and nothing else would work …”

  “Did you try—”

  “I swear to God, if you’re going to tell me if I tried rehab for my wife, I’ll shoot you right here and now.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “Of course I did, you idiot,” he said. “Rehab. There are no available beds, and when one miraculously pops up, you ever try dealing with an insurance company?”

  “All the time,” I said. “All the time.”

  “Yeah, well, you know how it is.”

  “David,” Marjorie said. “I’m doing okay. Honest. I’m doing okay.” She went over to the fireplace, retrieved the shotgun, went back to Paula. “I’m doing much better.”

  “Good girl,” he said. He turned to me and said, “Go ahead, Lewis. Show us what you’ve found.”

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Dave smiled. “Good try. You know how this whole goddamn adventure started? Really? I did a report back in high school, one of those greatest generation pieces, interviewed my idiot uncle. He had a diary of what he did back during the Korean War, when he got called up. Most of it was about him boozing and partying and the horses. Loved showing the girls the horses. Talked about Susan and Joyce and Delilah, how he showed them the fun of horses.”

  “Horse being heroin.”

  “Aren’t you the smart son of a bitch. And he wrote about having to hide everything when the petty officer came by. He got busted a couple of days later. Thus endeth the naval history of my idiot uncle.”

  He paused. “But not the history of what he did. Now. You. Move.”

  I moved.

  I opened the cellar door, started descending, Dave behind me, occasionally poking me in the back with his revolver, making me wince from the tugging of my drain tubes. “What the hell do you plan to do after you leave?” I asked.

  “You ever live with an addict? You get through the next ten minutes without a crisis, without a fight, without blood spilling, then that’s a good time. All you can do is hope and pray for the best. Take it one hour, one day at time.”

  On the dirt floor now, I took my time, moving slowly, but Dave was having none of it. “Move it, Lewis. What, you think the cavalry is coming to save you? Not anytime soon.”

  Over to the opening in the sill. Dave said, “Flashlight?”

  “Hold on.”

  The flashlight was on the ground, where I had left it; I grunted, leaned over, and picked it up, the cane still heavy in my grasp. “Nice cane you got there.”

  “It’s from a friend.”

  “Bulky piece of shit.”

  “It does its job,” I said. I handed the flashlight over to him. He flicked it on, glanced in, and gave a low whistle. “Uncle Bert, you were a drunk and a bastard, but at least you got this right.”

  He worked for a few minutes, pulling out one and then two and ultimately six bright yellow boxes containing scores and scores of morphine syrettes.

  “Those are decades old,” I pointed out. “How do you know if they’re even potent anymore?”

  “Doesn’t matter if I know or you know or if a chemist knows. All that counts is that certain folks think that what’s here is good stuff, enough to trade for the real deal. Enough to keep Marjorie maintained for months to come. This way we don’t have to go out on the street and deal with the sketchiest bastards you’ve ever come across, don’t have to worry about getting arrested or knifed or shot.”

  “That shoot-out up on my parking lot?”

  “Yeah, I had a quick business meeting with those Lowell jerks that didn’t go well. I told them what was going on, what I had planned. Half of ’em wanted to stick with the plan, but the other half wanted to come down here, guns blazing, and splatter you all over these nice old wooden walls.”

  Dave stood up on his toes, flashed the light once again into the tiny cavern. “There. Clear.”

  “Dave.”

  “Still looking to apologize, ask for forgiveness? Way, way too late.”

  “Then just grab the stuff, get out.”

  Dave released a big sigh, knelt down, put the flashlight on the dirt, the revolver next to it, and took a large white plastic bag out of a coat pocket. He started stuffing the soggy cardboard boxes into the bag.

  “What, and just go on like nothing happened? Well, shit happened. My wife got so hopped up that she blew off the head of that old lady, and now we’re breaking and entering, and threating you and your girlfriend.”

  He looked up at me, hand in the bag. “We’ve been in this so-called drug war for decades, Lewis. Lots of casualties, lots of innocents dead. That’s the way it is.”

  His hands were busy with stuffing the bag with the syrettes. The flashlight was on the ground, near me. The revolver was at his side.

  Now.

  Dave looked on, stunned, as I took the cane Felix leant me in both hands, grabbed the ornate, heavy top and the lower section, and tugged hard.

  Revealing the cane’s secret, that it was a sword cane, concealing at least two feet of fine Italian steel, with a needle point that could go through a person like a barbecue spit going through a hunk of beef. It was good for close-quarter combat, to terrorize or impress an opponent—for who would expect such a weapon to appear?—and I was eager to use it.

  About a foot of the shiny steel came out, and—

  Stopped.

  Stuck.

  I tugged again.

  Still stuck.

  Dave laughed.

  I swung the cane by its lower shaft, catching him in the chin, and he yelped and fell back. I scooped up the flashlight, switched it off, and with another swing of the cane, I smashed the overhead dangling light bulb.

  The cellar flashed into darkness.

  I stumbled and ran as best as I could up the stairs, hearing Dave groan behind me, and at the top of the stairs, where the main fuse box was located, and I slapped the door open and tossed the main circuit breaker, at the same time yelling, “Paula! Get down!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The house was plunged into darkness. From the other side of the first floor, Marjorie yelled, “Hey! Hey! What’s going on?”

  I moved forward in the blackness of the kitchen, hand out, and found one of the backed stools I use to sit at the counter. I dragged the stool back to the cellar door and shoved it hard up against the doorknob, blocking Dave’s escape.

  Good job.

  But the scraping noise of me putting the stool into place identified where I was, and that was a bad job indeed.

  A hollow sounding boom! tore through the living room as I fell back against the floor. Glassware shattered and broke, and I think Paula screamed. I yelled out, “Paula! Quiet as you can, get safe!”

  I crawled on the floor, my fairly useless sword cane behind me, hoping to scurry across to the left, to the living room and the shelves and where the phone was. I moved as quickly as I could, my ears ringing from the shotgun blast, the room smelling strongly of gunpowder.

  “Cole!” Marjorie yelled. “Stop it, stop it right now.”

  Closer.

  Okay. Close enough to reach the phone now. An old-fashioned landline but I was an old-fashioned landline kind of guy. My fingers found the power cord and the phone line that snaked up the side of the counter.

  But what?

  Another shot, another flare of light, and I spotted Marjorie standing in front of the closed and locked door.

  Another scream from Paula.


  “Cole!” Marjorie shouted out. “I was co-captain of my high school skeet team, I know how to use this. Lights or no lights, I’ll just start shooting from one side of the room to the other, spraying everything out there with double-oh buckshot. Got that?”

  I ran my fingers up the phone line and power cord, tried to keep my voice even and clear.

  “I got that,” I said. “What do we have to do to calm everything down?”

  Wood creaking out there in the night. Was Paula crawling away, or was Marjorie stepping closer to where she thought I was?”

  “Where’s David?”

  “In the cellar.”

  “David!” she yelled. “You okay?”

  There was no answer, and she yelled louder, “David!”

  Again, relative quiet. More wood creaking.

  “You—what did you do to my David?”

  “Sorry,” I said. My fingers were on the base of the phone. I managed to pick up the receiver and hold it tight in my shaking hand. “I bopped him in the head with my cane.”

  “Did you hurt my David?”

  “I guess I did,” I said. “But he started it.”

  More wood creaking and something metallic being clicked. Marjorie putting more shells into her shotgun magazine?

  “You … you hurt my David? That sweet man, he’s kept me alive, he’s kept me going. To hell with you. I’m going to kill all of you.”

  I lowered myself down to the ground, got the phone—

  Dropped it on the floor.

  Well, damn.

  I fumbled around, my hand moving frantically, and there was that bone-marrow chilling sound of snick-snack, of a fresh shotgun shell being chambered. I found the phone, I found the phone, and God bless whoever came up with numerals that glow in the dark; I punched in 9–1–1 and tossed the phone in the direction of Marjorie, just as she fired off another blast.

  Somewhere on the other side of the room, Paula screamed.

  I scuttled like a bug across the floor, trying to get to where I thought Paula was.

  Another snick-snack, and Marjorie’s taunting voice. “Sometimes high-priced shotguns are known as street sweepers. This ain’t a street sweeper, but it’s close enough.”

  A metallic sound again, and—

  I bumped into Paula, trembling and shaking.

  I wanted to whisper to her, tell her to hold on, but I didn’t want to make a sound.

  Instead I crawled around so I was over her, holding her, shielding her, as I waited for what was coming next—which was not what I was expecting.

  Light came in from somewhere, a woman’s voice said, “Hey!” A heavy thump, followed by a heavier thump, and the lights came on.

  My eyes hurt. I blinked. Blood was on my hand. I stayed where I was, protecting Paula.

  I looked to the door.

  Mia Harrison, the waitress from across the way, was standing there, eyes wide, face pale.

  “I think I hurt her,” she said. In her right hand she held a chunk of my boulder-strewn front yard, with blood on it. Marjorie Hudson was on the floor.

  “I think that’s just fine,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said, voice light. “I’m going to drop this on the floor. Okay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She dropped the boulder, denting my wooden floor—like I cared—and then came the sound of the sirens.

  Chaos arrived, and then sorted itself out into something nearing controlled chaos. I stayed with Paula, who was bleeding from her forehead—I couldn’t tell if it was from a stray shotgun pellet or from falling on the floor—and I held her and kissed her on the cheek and told her she would be all right, and she didn’t say anything, even when the Tyler Fire Department EMTs bandaged and bundled her up and took her out.

  I said what I could to the arriving officers, pointing out first that Marjorie Hudson, on the floor, moaning and holding the back of her head, was the probable killer of Maggie Tyler Branch, and that her husband was in my cellar. I warned them that Dave was armed and dangerous, and two brave officers tugged my stool away and opened the door partway. They shouted with Dave, negotiating from the kitchen to the cellar, until an arriving Tyler police sergeant threatened to toss a tear gas canister down there.

  The thought of my house being shrouded in tear gas almost made me volunteer to go down and get him myself, but the threat got Dave’s attention, and at the direction of the Tyler police, he crawled up the stairs on his hands and knees. He emerged slowly into my very crowded kitchen, whereupon he was thrown on his face and handcuffed.

  By now, the two Tyler Fire Department ambulances were engaged, one transporting Paula, the other transporting Marjorie Hudson, so the officers had to wait for a North Tyler Fire Department crew to take away Dave Hudson.

  Still bleeding from his cheek and nose, Dave turned to me before leaving. “Fool,” he said. “If you had that sword cane working, what would you have done?”

  “I would have stabbed you in the heart.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the throat’s a harder target.”

  More cops arrived after he was bundled off, including Detective Sergeant Diane Woods. I was about to give her a statement when the two state police detectives arrived and took over the scene. I talked to them for several minutes, with a promise to talk more later. My house was now under assault—measuring tapes, the flashes from cameras, and then the real heavy stuff: television news crews from Boston and Manchester setting up shop on my front lawn.

  My front door was still open, with forensics technicians at work dusting for prints, and then the whole place lit up like a UFO mothership had landed out there, but it was just Assistant Attorney General Camden Martin, giving a press conference. He was slim, with thick blond hair and round wire-rimmed glasses, and Diane stood next to me as he started talking quickly, hands gesticulating.

  I asked Diane, “Is he taking credit for … for whatever this mess is?”

  “Nope,” she said. “He’s just saying what happened here was a testimonial to police cooperation including Tyler, the New Hampshire State Police, and the Massachusetts State Police. He’s also saying that he hopes this … matter will lead to the arrest and conviction of a heroin-dealing gang that was operating here in the state.”

  “A testimonial,” I said, now oh so tired. “I hope that doesn’t mean they’ll be issuing a plaque anytime soon.”

  “Only if Mr. Martin becomes governor one of these days.”

  “Sure,” I said. “One of these days.”

  I sat on my couch and watched another state police detective come up from my cellar, holding aloft a clear plastic bag with the old morphine syrettes contained. Somebody asked, “What’s that?” and I was going to say something about the stuff that dreams are made of, but I didn’t have the energy.

  But what I did have was the energy to wave at young Mia Harrison, who came over and sat down next to me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said back at me. Her face was pale and her hands were trembling.

  “You saved us,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “I … well, it was the right thing to do.”

  I squeezed her hand, then let it go.

  “Ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  I made sure she was looking right at me. “I’m curious, how long have you been coming in and spending the night here?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Just over a month.”

  “When you saw no one was home,” I said. “When I was in the hospital, and afterwards. How did you get in?”

  “My dad …”

  “Construction. Was part of the crew that worked on revamping my house after the arson. Probably had a key to the place to let himself in when he had to.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “And I never stole anything. Not ever.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But you were coming here … why?”

  “I was tired, that’s all. Working all these shifts, trying to stay awake go
ing back to my place in Porter, where my moron roommates might be having a party. I asked the Lafayette House if they could help me out, and you’d think I was asking to set up a tent in the lobby.”

  Tears started rolling down her cheeks. “I heard you … calling out. And I knew I was taking advantage of you, and I’m sorry. But I started coming in here while you were away, and I knew you couldn’t move fast, or move much, since you got home from the hospital.”

  “But there was one time,” I recalled. “I was pretty sure I heard you. And the door was locked, and I looked. I even fell while I was in the cellar.”

  She nodded. “I was so scared.”

  “Where were you then?”

  “In your downstairs coat closet, curled up in a ball. Scared out of my wits. Like … right now.”

  I squeezed her hand again. “No need to be scared. You did okay.”

  “That’s the first time I hurt anyone.”

  “She deserved it.”

  “But—”

  “You did something brave,” I said. “You saw the flashes from the shotgun blasts, you knew there was a shooter in here, and you still came in and knocked her on the head.”

  “I missed,” she said. “I just wanted to hit her shoulder.”

  “That’ll be our secret,” I said.

  After some hours the place slowly emptied out, until I was alone with Diane Woods, who plopped herself down on my couch and said, “Wild evening.”

  “One for the books, that’s for sure,” I said.

  “You okay?”

  “At some point, I guess I will be,” I said. “How about you?”

  She leaned into me and yawned. “There’s been a number of nights when you’ve let me sleep on your couch because of late work or other things. You might be able to convince me again.”

  “Want to spend the night on the couch?”

  “No.”

  “All right, you want to spend the night in my bed upstairs?”

  “No again, silly boy,” she said, sighing. “I was just playing with you. Nope, this old broad has a sweet woman waiting for her when she gets home, and that’s worth it all.”