Deathgrip

by Brian Hodge

  Yet somehow his fingers closed on the handle of the passenger door, and it opened, so inviting. Pulling with both arms, pushing with his good leg, three limbs in frenzied spasms, he flopped into the Nova. Could have wept for joy when he saw her keys still in the ignition, of course, who was going to steal her car back here?

  Mike had regained just enough wind to scream himself into place behind the wheel when he heard the front door of Dawson’s house burst open. He wrenched the key home, not even daring to check how close Gabriel Matthews was, he did not need this in his life at the moment, well, okay, just a peek—

  Oh shit!

  A truly frightful apparition with wild eyes, either righteously holy or blankly malevolent, Gabe was reaching for the door handle when the engine caught. Mike slammed the Nova’s transmission into D and stomped the gas pedal to the floor and heard fingernails raking metal as the car lurched into motion.

  Sixty feet up the drive, Mike glanced into the mirror, fearing the worst — Gabriel Matthews perched on the trunk like a vulture, ready to eat through glass and metal and then the driver. But no, all he was doing was standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Little boy lost, who had just missed the bus.

  Mike laughed, the most hysterical sound he’d ever heard.

  He dug the digital card out of the glove compartment for the exit, and by the time he hit South Squire Road, he was crying. And sweating great drops of blood from his forehead. He checked the mirror, discovered that his plunge through the window had opened up a sizeable gash leading into the hairline.

  Car weaving, bring it under control, better, better, and he slumped against the door. One puréed blend of aches and pains and gross miscalculations and sudden grief, and he poured every ounce of available concentration into keeping the car under control.

  And so he drove, and he wept, and he bled, and he swore…

  Pragmatic enough to know the ordeal was just beginning.

  Chapter 20

  Paul never used to understand it, workers on vacation dropping by their place of employment. Didn’t they get their fill the other fifty weeks of the year? But with age came wisdom, and now he knew. Love the job or hate it, a huge chunk of your identity became anchored with it. Pull away for too long, and purpose can get fuzzy. Witness the multitudes of once-vital souls who withered into husks after retirement.

  But just in case anyone asked, he was covered. Had a good excuse.

  It was the afternoon following his head-spinning meeting with Donny Dawson, and as soon as he stepped off the elevator into KGRM’s lobby, Sherry did a double-take behind the reception desk.

  “You! You’re not supposed to be here.” What a sight she was for eyes that had seen too much lately. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to enjoy seeing her around ten-thirty every morning. “You should be lying in the sun and trying new drinks and watching too much TV. That’s how people on vacation behave.”

  “I can only take so much of that.” He looked around, outer office, inner offices, yup, same old place. Then he fessed up, he had to retrieve his Walkman from the booth, and she said that was acceptable.

  Paul had been taking a lot of walks the past days, a benign form of social contact. Seclude himself from humanity for too long, and his head would melt, it really would. It was bad enough that his career largely entailed sitting alone in a room, but to spend an entire vacation that way was unthinkable. Hence his daily walks, and he immensely looked forward to them — actual face-to-face encounters with people! — and if he thought about it too much, the whole situation was going to strike him as pathetic. Some year he was going to make a poor excuse for an old man.

  He would stroll about and visit record stores, or Forest Park, or pit-stop at Tappers for a round or two. Sometimes he would find himself walking past churches, their sanctuaries quiet and reposed, and if they were unlocked he would wander in to pray for his soul and those of whomever he came in contact with. Denomination didn’t matter. He bowed to the spiritual credo of the Japanese: All paths lead to the peak of Mount Fuji.

  Therapeutic, these walks, yet mildly incomplete. He missed his portable music.

  “Has the new GM started yet?” he asked.

  “David says tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for us.”

  Paul twined right index and middle fingers, held them up, went on his way. In the booth, Lorraine was newly into her shift, and for a moment he watched through the window. Omniscient, a secret, and the ache remained. Watching her go about daily life, no idea he was there, until finally it began to seem voyeuristic. He made sure the mike was shut down before rapping on the window and entering.

  “Hey stranger,” she smiled at him.

  The booth speakers were alive with a bittersweet tapestry. Solo David Gilmour, apart from Pink Floyd, something called “Short and Sweet.” Had she, on some fundamental level, known he was on his way, and cued up this poignant soundtrack? Women’s intuition, here’s some more salt for those wounds.

  “I’m disappointed,” he said, trying for levity. “The place hasn’t fallen apart without me.”

  She shook her head, Lorraine in the midst of deejay ballet, scribbling in the commercial log and loading three carts. “We’re getting by, but it’s not the same. The old Hargrove-Handler-Savage triple threat really suffers the loss.”

  Captain Quaalude had been filling the midday shift with one of the more promising part-timers. A genuine talent, but he needed more seasoning, more self-assurance. But hey, who didn’t?

  Paul leaned against the wall across from her, glanced over his shoulder to see a travesty. Someone had replaced a Sisters of Mercy promo poster with one of Erasure. At last, indisputable evidence, six days gone and all was not well. Upon his return he would retaliate with Jane’s Addiction — take that, you swine.

  “You didn’t see Craig downstairs anywhere, did you?”

  That name, such an annoyance. “No. Was I supposed to?”

  “Stupid me, know what I did?” Lorraine tossed hands up in helpless surrender. “I was doing some production last night, for these spots starting later today. I was running late and I felt brain dead and I was supposed to meet Craig downstairs for a late dinner. So I thought I’d take them home to type up the labels. And I left the stupid carts in his car, can you believe that?”

  “What, he’s running them by?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. They should already be here by now. Look at my hand, I’m getting nervous.” Steady as a rock. “This is your fault, you know. You’ve thrown us all out of whack.”

  Paul laughed, took the blame stoically, but inside the bile churned. Dinner and favors and no harsh words about her husband — didn’t it all sound like the picture of domestic bliss now?

  Knock it off, the knee-jerk response to his self-pity. If they were happy again, more power to them. He wondered if they were still trying to get her pregnant, as she’d confided after that drunken night of splendor. Maybe they would manage to pull it through the fire after all. And wouldn’t it be the height of irony if Paul’s sole night with her had been the one thing to cause her to reevaluate the marriage, renew her commitment? Was I that bad in bed? Oh knock it off already. Were that the case, he supposed he’d done some good in her life, in a roundabout way. Paul Handler, emotional tampon. Plug those temporary leaks, then cast him aside. And cut this self-pity shit right now!

  “So are you … doing okay, and all?” Clearly unconvinced she should have asked, and what was she referring to, anyway? So many interpretations.

  “Good days and bad ones.” Which sounded good, yet divulged little.

  She wasn’t asking to be polite, he could see that in those green eyes, the deep-seated ache. An ache that deepened his own, for he longed to know what caused hers — Was it me? — yet he dared not ask. Too many calluses layered over the night they’d shared to risk touching her in the same way ever again, or allowing her to touch him. Replay the day-after devastation? Never.

  Irony, he appreciated irony? Here it was: Out there lived a
world of billions he was increasingly apprehensive about touching, for fear of the consequences. And in here, the one person he at one time might have felt like confiding this in was equally off-limits. The emotional counterpart.

  Live with it. Just start building the walls inside and quit when the hurt is no longer visible. But keep bricks and mortar handy, you never know when you’ll need to build anew.

  “Paul? I know you haven’t told anyone what’s going on with you. I mean, I’ve never seen David so frustrated over anything, but he respects you enough not to push it. But…” She rolled her eyes. “I’m screwing this all up.” She took a deep breath, her fingers twitching; he knew she wanted a cigarette. “I guess what I want you to know is, if you need to talk, I’m still here. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

  To talk with her, the therapeutic value of a month of walks. Miles, marathons. His mouth ticked into a wry, one-sided smile.

  “Paul, I don’t like things this way any more than you do.” Close to tears, the most she had shown of herself in weeks. “I don’t like being shut out, not by one of my best friends in the world.”

  I can’t stay here, trying to smile while going for the booth shelves and his Walkman. Lorraine watched with moist eyes, and if he let them, they would soak right through those walls. Mortar and trowels to their battle stations, just in case.

  “We really screwed it up, didn’t we?” she whispered.

  He nodded.

  “But don’t you tell me I’m not your friend anymore, don’t you fucking dare, if you told me that, I’d…” She trailed away, wiping a hand across her forehead. Deflating in her chair.

  “We’ll always be friends,” he said, “no matter what,” and it sounded so final, but maybe that was proper. “Just remember that, and we’ll be okay.”

  She said she would, and he said he was glad, and then came a supremely painful moment when he felt compelled to hug her, and knew she felt the same. But they didn’t. Leave those arms at our sides, it’s safer this way, it’s sterile. Perhaps what he’d said a moment earlier had sounded so final because it truly was, and deep inside he was leaning toward accepting Donny Dawson’s offer. More than a job, it meant a complete change of scenery and environment. An overwhelming idea at first, not because of moving — for a deejay, moving became a way of life, eased by the familiarity of the booth — but because of the total change in life itself. Look at current realities, though, and the idea had definite merit.

  I can’t stay here — it applied to so much more than just the moment. He could finally admit that.

  KGRM. This place had quickly become a museum of painful memories. Popeye’s office, the shower stall, Lorraine in the flesh, the request line. All staring him in the face, singularly, sometimes in teams.

  Paul let them filter in and out of memory, testing their strengths, while backtracking through the offices and waiting for the elevator. Goodbye to Sherry, then a downturned red arrow winked on with the ping of a bell. The doors slid open, and he rode the cab five floors down to the lobby. The doors opened—

  And Paul found himself staring at someone who looked as if he had just stepped off the cover of GQ. University of Hitler Youth haircut and Pepsodent smile and all that went with them, Craig Sheppard, yes, he knew the guy was coming, but this was still the last person on earth he needed to see at the moment.

  “Well hello there. It’s been a while,” said this picture-perfect trendoid.

  Paul stumbled out similar pleasantries, not even aware of half of what he was saying — deejays could do that with ease — and he watched Craig brush a forelock of hair into place. One flip of a practiced hand, so smooth, How could I ever compete with this guy? He even smells perfect. Bastard.

  Craig held up a fistful of cartridges. “Lorraine’s getting stressed, I think.” With a wink. “She never used to forget anything like this before.”

  Paul looked him over, the lightweight gray suit and watch fob looping from a vest pocket — probably wasn’t even attached to a fucking watch — and the even tan across his face. How completely, annoyingly healthy this man looked. Such a precarious state of balance these days, health. You could be whole one minute, ravaged by disease the next. It happened.

  These guys with their Vic Tanny memberships and designer sweats and salads for lunch with Perrier, twist of lemon please, they really took their own immortality for granted. And wouldn’t it be a blast to smack that smug complacency off the face of one of them, just one?

  Paul could feel it uncoiling inside, the steepening of his blood pressure, the quickening of his pulse. The adrenaline charge as he remembered how hate was the purest emotion. His fingers itching, itching. And was the thought of Craig Sheppard and Lorraine Savage in conjugal ecstasy upsetting, especially when played over and over for a calculated effect? Wasn’t it distressing? Why, it virtually drove spikes into the soul.

  “She told me she was expecting those any minute,” Paul said. Personable, nice guy, Mister Congeniality all the way…

  So Craig would never know what hit him.

  Nobody would ever suspect, nobody. The best forensics team in the world could not trace a massive coronary or a cerebral hemorrhage back as a murder weapon. The idea would never even cross their minds. And no telling what kind of exotic damage he could cook up if he really set his mind to it.

  “Thanks for holding the elevator.” Craig, so dismissive. “Good seeing you again.”

  How many people got this chance, to right a cosmic wrong, so that the proper sequence of events could then take place?

  Craig reached forward to shake like the professional gentleman he was, and Paul reached out to meet him halfway, smiling the whole time, No one will ever have to know, their hands scant inches apart and closing—

  WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING, I’M NOT GOD!

  His head cleared, and there it was, rationalizations aside, the ugly truth: murder. Whether premeditated or a crime of passion, he would be just as guilty. And Craig just as dead. Had he actually been naive enough to believe that Lorraine would rejoice? Assuming for the moment she did, and fled into Paul’s arms, and they embarked on that happy road to forever, what of the first time they argued? Could he hold it back? Or would he let it go ripping through her just so he could get his way?

  Such a turnaround from the guy who’d walked the halls of St. Francis Medical Center a few weeks ago. How the mighty had fallen.

  His fingers brushed Craig’s before he could jerk his hand back. Craig hissed a quick breath, lost his composure for the moment, something very wrong here that didn’t fit within his narrow frame of reference. As Paul beat a hasty retreat across the lobby, sneakers slapping the floor, Craig stood stupidly in the elevator doorway and sucked on a dark burst of watery blisters that had suddenly sprouted on his fingers. An uncomprehending gaze, Paul to hand to Paul again, and the elevator doors slid closed and staggered him, then rebounded.

  Paul sprinted across the lobby, heedless of the building’s midafternoon comers and goers, not remotely caring what they thought of him, because all he wanted was to make it to the bathroom so he could blow nervous chow in private.

  Too many ugly things to deal with as of late, the ugliest of all lurking somewhere just beyond the mirror. It was a confusing new world whose only certainty was whose itinerary he would be looking up as soon as he could make it home. And the number he would be calling.

  Chapter 21

  Mike Lancer had thought he understood pain before.

  What arrogance, he’d had no idea, no idea.

  He killed her. He fucking killed her. Walked right in and killed her. I don’t believe this. He killed her.

  The thought was repetitive, all-consuming. Motel room mantra, spoken over whiskey and throbbing bones. Murky by now, but earlier, thoughts had come through with screaming clarity. Once he’d gotten safely distant from the Dawson compound and begun to assimilate what had happened right in front of him, the pain in his leg had honed every thought to a razor’s edge. And helped him decide how to ha
ndle a situation that had blown up in his face.

  Fact: Gabriel Matthews was a very dangerous man, give the reporter bonus points for darkly humorous understatement. Yet despite his actions, Mike didn’t think him a madman, at least not in any traditional sense. Self-mutilation aside, Gabe’s actions had been brutally efficient, and there had to be a good reason for that. Granted, Amanda Dawson’s exposure would be a tremendous embarrassment, but not the end of the world. Donny was a slick guy; forewarned, there would be time to concoct a cover story before the news broke. And the reasonable initial approach to take would be to offer money for pictures and silence. In all likelihood, Dawson Ministries — or at least Gabriel Matthews — had something else going on with considerably higher stakes than the routine shearing of the flock.

  Fact: Regardless of his methods and self-ordained status, Donny Dawson was a minister, in fairly high standing within the Oklahoma City community. Mike was simply a third-rate reporter, out of town at that, from a sleazy newspaper. No doubt a brutally efficient guy like Matthews would have Edie’s body stashed and the mess cleaned up with ample haste. By the time Mike could file a report with the police, the evidence would be gone, and then whose word would carry more weight? Surely not the scandal-monger’s. Or if Matthews was really clever and equally bold, he might even figure out some way to hang Edie’s murder on Mike.

  Suspected fact: Getting his leg treated in Oklahoma City might be the riskiest thing he could do. Emergency rooms kept records. Name, address, Social Security number; indelible footprints leading to Florida. As it stood, Gabe Matthews had no way of knowing who he was, where he had come from. Should an emergency room enter the picture, it could be his death warrant. It was safe to say that Matthews and Dawson had ties to the medical community; they’d gotten Amanda her necessary short-term care and kept it quiet. No doubt they could easily manage some discreet checking into who might have shown up on Wednesday, September eleventh, with a broken leg or similar injuries that could have been sustained during a three-story fall.