Midnight Lullaby

by James D F Hannah

  We found him outside, standing next to a sign that proclaimed the hospital a "smoke-free zone." Woody handed him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Simms lit up and sucked in smoke. He jabbed in my direction with the burning cigarette.

  "Just to give you the heads up, in this moment, I hate you." He turned to Woody. "And I'm not sure what to make of you."

  "I'm the guy who gave you a cigarette," Woody said.

  I said, "Listen, Sheriff, I know—"

  "The fuck you know, Malone," Simms said. "My best friend's gutted open on a surgical table, and now there's two little girls and my ex-wife grabbed by a bunch of goddamn psychopaths. All this shit does is wind back to your narrow ass, so I'm not sure I care what you think know, 'cause the life of everyone you come into contact with goes to shit in seconds." He sucked down another drag. "Witnesses at the courthouse gave us an ID on the pickup, so the state police are starting a search."

  I lit a cigarette. "You know like I do where they are."

  Simms rubbed his hand across his face. "The state boys are talking about mobilizing the National Guard, and the FBI bringing in a tactical unit."

  "Jesus Christ but that's a shit-storm of bad ideas in just one sentence."

  "I told them the last thing they need is to bust into that compound. Not a soul in there would blink at killing a cop, and they'll all fight to the death if the Mayhews tell them to." Simms lit a fresh cigarette, took a deep inhale, blew out a stream of smoke. "Maybe I'll just get lucky and die of cancer before the night’s over."

  In the distance there was the cry of an ambulance, growing stronger as it drew closer. No one's life got better at either end of a siren, and once the sound had faded to memory, there would be loss to unpack, tears to be shed, pain to salve.

  At least Doria was safe. That's the definition of being a selfish asshole, was concern about the woman peripheral to your life while those around you struggled to cope with their hurt.

  Fuck.

  Doria.

  I called her number on my cell and waited, air caught in my throat. I walked off, away from Simms.

  The phone rang. I paced. One. Two. Three. Four. Tension twisted in my gut.

  On five, there was an answer.

  "Hello," she said. Her tone was even, practiced, almost unnatural. "Henry?"

  "Hey. I was checking—"

  "Henry," she said again. This time, there was a quiver in her voice.

  I swallowed. "Yes?"

  "Someone wants to speak to you."

  There was a pause, and another voice said, "Mr. Malone. I trust we have your attention."

  It was Monica Mayhew.

  "You do," I said.

  "Wonderful. Here are your instructions, and you'll follow them to the letter, or people die. You will get my money from whoever has it, and you'll deliver it in two hours. If not, I'll kill someone. After that, you'll have thirty minutes to get the money, at which point I'll kill someone else. Another thirty minutes, someone else dies. You can do the math here. And to make it more interesting for you, there won't be bodies to bury. Try to involve the police, everyone dies. None of this is negotiable."

  Somewhere inside me, there were words, but they weren’t going anywhere.

  "Mr. Malone," Monica Mayhew said. "Are you still with me?"

  "I’m here."

  “Are we clear then?”

  "Crystalline."

  "Wonderful. I'll be calling in ninety minutes with instructions."

  The line fell dead.

  Simms was leaning against the wall, still smoking. When he saw me, he said, “What’s up?”

  "We've got to get back to Walters' house."

  "I can't. The state police want to talk to me in twenty minutes about—"

  "Fuck the state police," I said "I just got off the phone with Monica Mayhew. She's holding onto everyone, and she's threatening to kill them starting in two hours if we don't deliver that money to her."

  Simms’ shoulders dropped like someone had tied anvils to them.

  "Goddammit."

  Woody took his truck to pick up Bobbi, and Simms and I drove back to Walters' house. Two deputies stood in the driveway. They seemed surprised when Simms charged from his car, pointing to the empty spot in the driveway where Teller's car had been.

  "Where'd the car go?" Simms said.

  A deputy, a skinny kid not old enough to shave, said, "State guys hauled it away."

  Simms ran toward the front door as the deputy yelled after him, "How's Carl?"

  Once I got inside, I heard the scream from upstairs, followed by smacks and another scream. I walked in as Simms kicked Walters in the gut and Walters tried to dance out of the way. He was still handcuffed to the pipe underneath the sink, and he spun and squirmed like a fish on a hook, knowing there wasn’t anywhere for him to go.

  I grabbed Simms and pulled him back. He kicked at empty space and tried to squirm away from me. His breathing was hard and strained, his face red.

  I held tight to Simms’ shoulder. “We need him for now. We get everyone back, I’ll help you beat the shit out of him.”

  Simms stopped and stood there breathing hard. He nodded and handed me a set of keys and walked out of the room.

  Walters’ eyes were four shades of bloodshot, his face lumpy as bad mashed potatoes and bruised purple as a sunset. There was fresh blood from a new cut along his left cheekbone. A chunk of Walters’ hurt was on me, and Simms batted clean up after it. Neither of us would lose sleep over that.

  I unlocked Walters' handcuff from the sink pipe, dragged him into the shower, and turned the cold on full-blast. Rivets of ass-kicking poured down on him. He screamed like a scalded cat. After a minute I pulled him out. With his hair soaked and blanketed into his eyes, he looked more pathetic than he had. His teeth chattered, then stopped, and he opened his mouth and a tooth dropped out and rolled around the inside of the tub, rattling against the porcelain like a roulette ball on the wheel.

  “You awake?” I said.

  He nodded and shivered.

  "Good, because you didn't have another fucking choice." I pulled him toward the bathroom door. "There's shit to do."

  37

  I made a pot of coffee and planted Walters in a chair in the kitchen and handed him a cup. He sipped and made a face.

  "Can I get sugar or something in this?" he said. The tooth he’d spit out was a canine, so he whistled a little when he spoke.

  Outside the kitchen doorway, Simms paced back and forth like an expectant father in the 1950s. He was on the phone with the state police, trying to talk them up while not saying anything, either. He stopped and looked in and glared at Walters. Walters shrunk up like a dog smacked with a newspaper and drank more coffee.

  I made myself a cup and drank some. It was terrible, but I didn't care. I wanted a drink of something else, but pushed the idea away and swallowed another gulp of coffee.

  I hated not doing anything. Not that there was much I could do. I realized I had one card to play, and I called Jackie Hall. He wasn't thrilled to hear from me.

  “You couldn’t call at a shittier time,” he said. There was the gentle roar of activity in his background, lots of voices, orders being given, vehicles moving, everything sounding busy and official.

  “Timing has always been my gift, Jackie.”

  “I suspect you're only calling because you need something, and I can guess what it's about. Dare I ask how deep into this shit storm you are?”

  I told him about the phone call from Monica Mayhew.

  “Goddammit, Henry." He sounded pained and mournful. "You need to get over here. The Feds find out about this, they will want to talk to you.”

  “I can't, Jackie. I need you to buy us some time.”

  “‘Us’? There’s an 'us?' Who the fuck is your 'us'? Whatever you're considering, Henry, I'm gonna beg you to not. This is big. You need to stand the fuck down and let professionals handle this.”

  “They'll kill them, Jackie. They'll murder those little girls.”r />
  Jackie sucked in a quantity of air that would have de-pressurized airplanes. “When this was nothing but drugs and rednecks, I told you it was bigger than you. That shit was microscopic compared to the scale of now. The Feds set up a command post, they’re bringing in negotiators and strategists and want to storm the compound. It’s a goddamn action movie here. You do not know what the fuck you’re doing or appreciate the gravity of what you’re dealing with.”

  “How long before the Feds do anything.”

  “I can’t say. A few hours, max.”

  “Thank you, Jackie.”

  “Henry—"

  I cut off the call.

  Simms came into the kitchen as I hung up my phone. “Who you jawing with?”

  “Jackie Hall.”

  “What’s that fat-ass got to say?”

  “He sends his love. The Feds won't go Michael Bay on shit before our clock runs out with Monica Mayhew.”

  "Perfect.” He turned to Walters. "Which gives you an excellent opportunity to tell us where the money is."

  Walters slurped down the last of his coffee. "I don't know, goddammit. Why the fuck would I keep lying to you about it if I did?"

  "Your lips are moving, Dickie, so I assume you're lying," Simms said. "It might be easier to believe you except our history together is a bit rough.”

  Walters tried to stand up, and realized too late that was a shitty idea, and collapsed into a pile on the floor. He pushed himself up and leaned back.

  "Christ, Sheriff. When are you just going to face up to the fact you were a shitball of a husband married to his job, and didn’t give her time, and I did, instead of keeping a hard-on over the fact I’m with her and you’re not."

  Simms dropped his head low and stared at Walters. "It's more to do with you being a lying sack of mule shit, Dickie. Plus, you fuck around on her like it's a full-time job and you were stupid enough to get neck-deep into a meth-and-gun operation, and there are people in danger who have done nothing to deserve this,” Simms said. “It's less about you being a philandering fuckwad and more to do with you being a general issue gob of dick snot. So again I ask, where is the money?"

  "And again, I say, I don't know," Walters said. The pain and shame of the beatdowns was wearing off, and he was trying to take back the vibe of the in-control lawyer. That was hard to do when you were missing teeth. Now he looked like a gap-toothed idiot in pricey silk slacks. "Fucking Bobbi took it right before she up and vanished. I haven't seen it since she left."

  I poured myself more coffee. "Back to you being dick snot for a minute. How’d jacking neo-Nazi drug money seem like a good idea, anyway?"

  Walters shrugged. "This system they’ve got set up, they run shit through West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, some states down south. They’re hooked up with biker gangs and these other white power groups, the real fucking deal, nasty-ass motherfuckers, and they couldn't make the shit fast enough to keep up with demand. The Brotherhood, they kept asking me to do more, and they weren't going to just let me walk away clean, and I needed an escape plan. They were funneling so much money to off-shore accounts and then buying shit and using me as the in-between, it wasn't hard to take a few bucks here and there."

  "Which came out to three hundred grand?" Simms said.

  “It could have been more than a few bucks here and there, then.”

  "Goddamn cocky for you to think they wouldn't notice your hands in their pockets," I said. "People notice when the cash drawer is light."

  "We're not talking about Mensa members here. They're all lowlife mouth-breathers. There’s not a forensic accountant in that bunch."

  “The mouth-breathers figured it out,” Simms said.

  "And Bobbi?" I said. "Was she part of your getaway plan?"

  Walters laughed. "Right. Because you take the garbage with you when you go on vacation. That cunt was disposable."

  Simms gave Walters a hard look. "And Rachel?"

  Walters looked away from Simms. It was as if someone had caught him with his dick in a vacuum cleaner. Shame wasn’t a thing he had much experience with.

  Simms nodded. "I'll give you the courtesy of not making you lie about that, then."

  "What about the money?" I said. "Where was it when it vanished?"

  "Upstairs, in a suitcase in the master bedroom. It was ready to go. Hundred-dollar bills, non-sequential. I ..." He shook his head. "I fucking had this. That’s why it’s got to be Bobbi. She had to have taken it.”

  That was when I had one of those “moments of clarity” we talk about in AA, where shit comes together and makes sense.

  I said, "Mayhew didn’t take them back to the compound."

  "What do you mean?" Simms said.

  "Mayhew's crazy, but she's not stupid. Hostages are an insurance policy. She's needs them safe, away from violence."

  Simms chewed on his lip. "What if she's counting on violence, though?"

  "She is, but from the government. She's expecting an attack the compound, and she knows that regardless of whatever training they have, they don't have the firepower to take on a full assault, but they won't back down, either. They'll fight to the last man because of her."

  "It'll be Ruby Ridge all over again, on a 24-hour news cycle, perfect to stir up the cause. Combine it with what you told me about the guns, and she's setting up a tidal wave of violence. So she had all of this planned."

  “Doubtful. Luck, synchronicity, and Walters being an idiot converged at the right moment, and she's working with the moments she's got. There may have been a master plan, but she's veered from that and she's winging it now.”

  "Which means she's willing to take bigger risks." Simms' body went slack, and he slumped against the wall. "We're fucked, aren't we?"

  "Right up the ass."

  38

  Simms and I were outside smoking when Woody's truck pulled up and he and Bobbi got out. Simms took a last drag off of his cigarette and crushed it underneath his foot.

  "For all the pictures I've seen of her, I somehow expected her to look different," he said.

  "How so?" I said.

  "I'm not sure. She's raised a certain amount of chaos. You want the eye of the storm to be something, I suppose."

  Woody nodded at us as they approached. Bobbi kept close to his side, hands twisted together. Tears had taken off most of her makeup, and half-hearted efforts to reapply it weren't successful. All you saw was pain, worry, and flushed cheeks.

  "Where’s Walters?" Woody said.

  "He’s handcuffed back inside," Simms said. He looked at Bobbi. "It's nice to finally meet you face to face, Ms. Fisher, though I wish you’d told us before now you weren't dead."

  Woody took a protective step in front of Bobbi. "Her girls are gone, Sheriff. Let’s get what matters out of the way first, then we’ll deal with the other shit."

  "Agreed."

  I finished my cigarette. “Come on, Bobbi. I’m sure Dickie will be thrilled to see you again.”

  Walters had balked at us handcuffing him back into the bathroom. Simms had worked around that by threatening to beat him senseless with the butt of his gun. Walters had acquiesced without much fuss.

  When Bobbi Fisher came into Walters' view, he went ape shit and tried to pull free and called Bobbi a lot of things that would have shamed his mother.

  Woody’s fists clinched and his eyes cool and steady. He was a snake, waiting to strike.

  Simms walked into the bathroom and slapped Walters. Walters froze and stared at Simms like a frightened animal.

  "I'll take those cuffs off," Simms said. "You do anything stupid, meaning anything you'd normally think is smart—" He pointed to Woody. "And I'll let him get a hold of you and do whatever he wants to do to you. So can you behave?"

  Walters didn’t move for a beat. His head moved slightly. A nod. "Yes."

  Simms unlocked the cuffs and Walters walked into the bedroom, rubbing his wrists, Simms a step behind him, his hand resting on top of his gun.

  Woody and Bobb
i sat on the edge of the bed. Bobbi cried quietly into her hands. Woody kept an arm around her shoulders.

  Walters said, "There any chance I can get a drink?"

  "No, there’s not," I said, and pointed to a chair on the far side of the room. "Sit your ass down now."

  Walters did as told. He had pushed whatever luck he had as far as it could go.

  Simms said, "I'm fresh out of brilliant ideas right now. They're expecting their money." He threw glances toward Walters, then Bobbi. "Neither of you want to admit you’ve got it, and you don’t seem to care that there are lives at risk here."

  Bobbi cried louder. She pulled her face up and wiped tears from her eyes.

  "Why don't we call the state police or the Feds and tell them what's happening?" she said.

  "Because Monica Mayhew has gone off the reservation on this one," I said. "She’s decided she’s got nothing to lose, and she won’t blink at killing people."

  My cell phone rang. It was Doria's number.

  I felt everyone staring at me. I stared at the phone as it continued to ring.

  Simms said, “Answer it. I'm sure the crazy bitch has plenty to say.”

  I swallowed hard and answered. “Hello.”

  "Mr. Malone," Monica Mayhew said. "You have my money?"

  I had no clue what to do in that moment. We didn’t have a plan, or even options. All we had was the hope she wouldn't start people we cared about. So I gave her the only answer I could.

  "I do," I said.

  "Wonderful. Here’s what I need you—"

  "But I want to speak to Doria."

  She laughed. "Don't you have the big balls, making demands."

  "I want to know she's okay."

  "Do you think you have some kind of power or authority, Mr. Malone?"

  "I think I've got your three hundred grand, which should buy me two minutes on the phone." I softened my voice. "Let me know she's alive, everyone else is fine. Throw me that fucking bone, Mayhew."

  There was a pause. Maybe it was only a second or two, but it felt like a goddamn eternity. Things got quiet, there were deadened voices in the background, then Doria said, "Henry?"