Double Prey

Chapter Thirty-two

Francis Guzman slipped through the bathroom door just as Estelle punched off the water. When the roar ceased, she could hear the loud, incoherent shouting from the front of the house.

“George Romero is out on the front lawn trying to raise the dead,” her husband said. “He’s drunk as a skunk. Bill’s talking with him.”

“My radio’s on the kitchen counter. Make sure Bill has it.”

“He took it out with him.”

“I’ll be a just a minute, then, Oso. Keep him out of the house.”

“That already happened. Padrino intercepted him on the front step.”

Estelle toweled herself off quickly, her clothing soaking up the wet spots as she did a fireman’s dress. As she came out of the bathroom, she saw Carlos standing in the dining room, looking toward the front door, his hands curled under his chin in that characteristic pose of delight or concern, depending. Irma had her hand on Francisco’s shoulder, and Estelle motioned for them to relax and stay where they were.

When he’d gone outside, Doctor Guzman had closed the front door behind him, but even so Estelle could hear George Romero’s alcohol-fueled harangue. She paused, hand on the knob, and listened. Bill Gastner’s gruff voice offered up an assuaging stream of mellow commiseration, but George Romero was accepting none of it. His incoherence was fueled by alcohol, but she could hear the full measure of grief that had finally broken loose. Her name was thrown into the mix, but Estelle could not follow the context. If she appeared in the doorway, her very presence could fuel further eruption. But as Romero’s voice choked in a tone that grew wilder, she saw no choice.

A second consideration presented itself, and she turned, heading for the back door. “Stay put,” she said to the trio now gathered in the dining room. She tucked her Tazer into her belt and then slipped out the back door. With the massive open pit mine that Carlos was excavating, the swing set, the garden shed, the bicycles and trikes, the backyard was a burglar trap. She negotiated around them carefully in the dark, finding her way to the side gate.

The passage between the house and the side fence was five feet wide, illuminated by the street light in front of the neighbors. She could hear Romero clearly now.

“Look, I talked to her, see?” the man bleated, his voice high-pitched and cracking with emotion. “I talked to Carla and she oughta know. She saw the whole thing. She told me she saw the whole thing.”

“That’s a long way across that field, George,” Gastner said, his tone gentle and conversational. “I’m not saying…”

“She wrestled the boy down, Bill. That’s what Carla saw her do. When she shoulda been taking care of him, she tackles him. I mean, Jesus, what for? Couldn’t Estelle see that my boy was hurting? Carla said…”

“Now look,” Gastner said, “what she said she saw, and what really happened? You know, those can be two different things, George. She’s what, two hundred yards away? Lookin’ into the sun? And hell, she’s an old lady. Probably got vision about like mine. Couldn’t see a house at that distance.”

“She coulda took him to the emergency room straight off. She coulda. But no, she wrestles with him, and makes him wait forever until the ambulance gets there.” He blubbered something that Estelle couldn’t understand. “And now he’s blind.” Romero balled his fists and took two steps away, head tilted back. “You tell her,” he shouted, turning on Gastner, “that I want some answers, by God.” By now he was openly crying. “I want some answers, by God.”

Gastner reached out a hand as if to touch the man on the shoulder, but Romero apparently misinterpreted the motion. He swung a lumbering, clumsy blow at the older man, more of a fend-off than a punch, a swing that Gastner had no trouble in ducking.

“It’s her fault.” Romero staggered backward a step. Gastner saw Estelle advancing across the lawn, and held up a hand. “If she’d just taken care of the boy…I got to talk to her. Got to find out why…” He lunged as if to pass Gastner, and Francis Guzman stepped forward, blocking the sidewalk. But Gastner was faster. He reached out a hand, triggering another wild swing from Romero. So fast that even Estelle didn’t see it coming, Gastner clamped Romero’s right wrist, twisted, and spun the man around, his left hand hard on Romero’s left shoulder, the man’s right arm behind his back.

“You need to go home, George,” he said. “It’s a bad time, and you’re drunk and upset. You don’t know what you’re saying. Keep this up and it’s only going to cause you more grief.”

Romero blubbered something incoherent, and twisted wildly in Gastner’s grip. “My boys!” he wailed.

“Yeah, I know,” Gastner said. “Let me walk you home, Georgie. Is your wife home?”

“No,” Romero whimpered. “She’s up in the city. She doesn’t know…”

“Doesn’t know what?”

“Carla said she saw the whole thing,” Romero cried. “She saw it.” He struggled and Estelle could see that this confrontation wasn’t going anywhere constructive. And as soon as George Romero turned and saw her, he would erupt again. Coming to the same conclusion, Gastner’s foot shot out and deftly jerked the man’s legs out from under him, and in a moment Romero was flat on his face in the grass. With a smooth transfer of his grip, Gastner held the man down while his right hand swept his sweater to one side, darting to the handcuffs that draped over his belt.

“You can’t…” Romero cried.

“I can until you behave yourself,” Gastner said conversationally. He put a hand through Romero’s right elbow and helped him up. The man swayed uncertainly. “Now, you can see how this is going to go,” the former sheriff continued. “You’re going to calm down, or are you going to have to spend the night in jail?”

“No,” Romero moaned. “You can’t. My wife is going to call me.”

“And you want to be home and sober for that, my friend.”

“She’s with Butch. She was going to call…”

“Well, you can’t talk to her like this,” Gastner said. “Look, let me take you home.”

“You got me all handcuffed,” Romero said. “You aren’t even sheriff any more.”

“That’s true, thank God,” Gastner chuckled. “Look, here’s what we’re going to do. Estelle and I are going to walk you home, all right?” Romero turned enough and finally saw that Estelle Guzman was standing a couple paces away. “And if you want to talk with her, maybe when you’re sober, we can arrange that. But right now you’re stinking fall-down drunk, and that doesn’t do anyone any good.”

“You…” Romero said to Estelle, and then seemed to loose track of his jumbled thoughts. He swayed, eyes closed. “I can’t sleep. I just lie there…”

“Maybe the doc can give you something,” Gastner suggested, and Francis looked briefly heavenward.

“Not with what he’s got in his system,” he said. “He just needs to lie down for a bit and let the alcohol work.”

“You hear that, Georgie?” Gastner said. “Just lie down for a little while. If Tata calls, I’ll let you know. And then in the morning, we’ll sort all this out.” It didn’t matter what he said, what promises he made. Estelle knew that George Romero wouldn’t remember a bit of the conversation in the morning. “Come on,” Gastner urged. “Let me walk you home.”

Still mumbling, George Romero allowed himself to be led across the lawn, Bill Gastner’s path a straight one, Romero’s a meander. As they reached the sidewalk, a state police cruiser swung into Twelfth Street, its tires chirping on the pavement. It slid to an abrupt halt by the curb, and Officer Rick Black stepped out of the car, hesitating by the front fender.

“We’re okay, Rick,” Gastner said. “George here is just walking home to sleep it off.” Black saw the handcuffs and then looked at Estelle questioningly.

“They’ll be all right,” she said.

“You want him charged? Public intox, anything like that?”

“No, no, no charges. That’s the last thing he needs just now,” Estelle said. “You might give Bill a hand getting Mr. Romero back inside.” She pointed at the Romero residence. “Just over there.”

The state trooper stepped to the sidewalk and slipped a hand through Romero’s left elbow. “You going to be okay with us now, sir?” he said, voice kindly and helpful. “Too nice an evening for a ruckus, don’t you think?”

Romero managed a string of unconnected syllables, and his knees wobbled.

“Just hang in there, sir,” Black coaxed as he and Gastner weaved Romero down the sidewalk to his own front door.

“Keep my lasagna warm,” Gastner said over his shoulder. “I’ll be back just as soon as Georgie passes out.”

Francis and Estelle stood on the grass, watching the odd trio-the uniformed Rick Black, nearly six feet-three and as slender as a track star, Bill Gastner a head shorter, burly, plodding, big buzz-cut head leaning close to George Romero’s right ear, whispering encouraging instructions, and George Romero in the middle, now not much more than a sack of inebriation.

“Well, that was entertaining,” Francis observed. “Padrino has done that sort of thing a time or two.”

“Half a million or so,” Estelle replied. “The world is full of drunks.” She shook her head. “Oso, it’s so sad, what’s happened to that family.” The physician put his arm around her shoulders, at the same time bending forward and looking at the Tazer in her belt.

“You were going to zap him?”

“If I had to. There’s always room for a lot of talk first. Padrino knows that. But just in case.”

“Who called the trooper?”

“I don’t know. Padrino maybe. He has my handheld. He’s very careful about not being a heroic victim himself.”

“I don’t have a clue what George was trying to say.”

“Maybe when he’s sober. Right now, in his alcoholic fog, nothing makes sense to him. He seems to think that I was wrestling his son just for the fun of it, when I should have been transporting.” She shook her head wearily. “If I was in his shoes, and I thought that…I don’t know what I’d do. Poor guy.” She slipped her arm through her husband’s. Down the street, lights came on in the Romero home, and a door slammed. “I’m glad the lasagna wasn’t finished a half hour earlier,” she added. “I can’t imagine Francisco walking over to deliver it and stepping into the middle of that.”

Back inside, Teresa stood in the foyer, braced upright with her aluminum walker.

“That’s a sad, sad man,” she said.

“Yes, he is, mamá. Maybe he’ll have a long night’s sleep. That’s what he needs.”

“He doesn’t need to add to it by being stupid.”

“I’m sure that deep in his heart he knows that,” Estelle said.

“Se me encogió el corazón, what that family’s been through,” Teresa said.

Estelle escorted her mother to the dining room. “Maybe things will get back to normal now,” she said. Both little boys watched her, their eyes big.

“I can take the lasagna over,” Francisco said.

“Not tonight, hijo. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe we’ll freeze it and take it some other time. When Butchie comes home from the hospital, maybe.”

“His dad was ticked. ”

Estelle laughed. “He was that, hijo. ”

“He thinks you hurt Butch?”

Ah, the ears of the young, Estelle thought. “I hope he doesn’t think that, querido. We both would have liked to have seen help get there about ten minutes earlier, though.”

“He wasn’t hurt ten minutes earlier,” the boy said.

“Exactly, hijo. ” She hugged him, and directed him to his chair at the table. “And you did everything that you could for him. And I did what I could. So that’s what we all have to live with…Mr. Romero included.”

“Is P adrino coming back?”

“Yes. Just as soon as he’s sure Mr. Romero is going to be all right.”

“Are you going over, too?”

“Not just now, hijo. Mr. Romero and I will come to terms with all this when he’s sober.”

“Can we wait for Padrino, then?” Francisco asked.

“Yes. He won’t be long.”

“I want him to see what the top looks like before it gets all messed up,” the boy said. They didn’t have long to wait. In ten minutes, the state police cruiser pulled away from the curb, and Bill Gastner returned, frowning so hard his bushy eyebrows almost touched in the middle.

“Do you hoodlums have any idea,” he said, glaring at first Francisco and then his little brother, “how good this all smells comin’ in from outside? You guys split one between you, and I’ll eat the other one.”

“That’s for our neighbors!” Francisco screeched in delight, fending the old man away from the lasagna. Gastner spun the boy around and gave him a knuckle sandpaper on the top of his skull before letting him go.

“He’ll be all right,” Gastner said to Estelle. “Out like a light. I corked up the booze and put it away. Rick’s going to pass the word to Kenderman, and they’ll do a close patrol for the rest of the night.” He set the radio on the counter and grinned at Estelle. “That thing still fits the hand pretty good.”