Gone 'Til November

EIGHTEEN

When the man with the dreadlocks came into the garage, Morgan put the muzzle of the Beretta to the back of his head.

“One in the chamber,” he said. “You know what that means, right?”

The man froze. Morgan pushed him toward the Navigator.

“Hands on the hood.”

He did as he was told. He was bare chested in jeans, his dreads loose, a blue bandana tied around his neck. He smelled of reefer.

Morgan used his left hand to pat the man’s pockets, took out a wallet. He put it in the windbreaker.

“Anyone else in the house?” Morgan said.

He shook his head.

“Answer me.”

“No, no one.” A faint accent.

“If there is,” Morgan said, “I’ll shoot you first.” He took the gun away. “Turn around. Go back in.”

The man took his hands off the hood, turned to look at Morgan, the gun. His face was slack with fear. “I don’t know what you want, brah, but there’s nothing here.”

“Go on,” Morgan said.

He went up the steps into an empty kitchen. Morgan followed, pulled the connecting door shut. On the counter were a cell phone and a big automatic, a Desert Eagle.44. The back door was locked and chained. Morgan opened another door, saw steps that led into a basement, listened, heard nothing. The man watched him.

“Living room,” Morgan said.

They went in. The sliding glass door was closed, the vertical blinds drawn. A tall straight-backed chair was against one wall.

“What is this place?” Morgan said.

“How you mean?”

“Who lives here?”

“No one yet. A friend of mine, he sells these places. He’s letting me stay here.”

“Face the couch.”

When he did, Morgan hit him hard on the side of the head with the Beretta. He cried out, fell to his knees. The floor lamp threw his shadow large on the wall.

“Stay there,” Morgan said and backed away. He put the Beretta in his belt, took out the wallet. Inside was a hundred dollars in cash, credit cards in three different names. A Florida driver’s license with a picture, in the name of Jean-Pierre Delva, a Riviera Beach address. He tossed the wallet on the couch.

Delva had a hand to his head, blood coming through his fingers. “There’s nothing here for you, man. That’s all the money I got.”

In the kitchen, the cell began to play music, a tune Morgan didn’t know. Delva looked up.

“Who is that?” Morgan said.

“I don’t know.”

Morgan could sense his nervousness.

“Your girlfriend?”

“Who?”

“The white girl. The one that was here last night.”

The tune played for a few seconds, stopped.

“Her boyfriend know about you two?”

“What boyfriend?”

“Flynn. The deputy.”

“I’ve got lots of women, man. Maybe he know, maybe he don’t. Why you ask me?”

“Get up,” Morgan said. “Sit down over there.”

He rose unsteadily, settled into the wooden chair, looked at his bloody hand, all the fight gone from him.

“Where’s the money?” Morgan said.

“What money, brah?”

The cell phone rang again. They both looked toward the kitchen. The tune stopped.

Morgan took the Beretta back out.

“I’ve come a long way,” he said. “You think I’m just going to walk out of here?”

Delva looked at him. “You from up north, right? You work for that fat man.”

“I don’t work for anybody.”

“I can’t help you, man. I don’t have it.”

“But you know who does.”

“Talk to the woman. She knows. They told me nothing.”

“But you helped set it up, right? So you’ve got a share coming.”

“I passed along some things I’d heard. That’s all.”

“And now they’re holding out on you? Making you wait?”

Delva looked at the floor.

“Who put it together? You, the girl, Flynn. Who else?”

“What do you mean?”

“The other deputy, the woman. Was she part of it?”

“I don’t know who that is, who you’re talking about.”

From outside, the sound of a car engine, low. Morgan looked into the front room. Big windows there, with blinds. No headlights outside. The engine sound faded.

“We have to get out of here,” Delva said.

“Why?”

“They’ve been looking for me. These boys down here don’t play. They coming to talk.”

“About the money? Why they never got it?”

Delva didn’t answer.

Morgan went into the front room, looked out the window. There was a single streetlight down the block, mist hanging around it. The street was empty.

“They’ll come back,” Delva said.

Morgan looked at his watch. Ten minutes after midnight.

“Get up,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

The phone chimed again. Morgan backed into the kitchen and picked it up, still watching Delva. He opened the phone, lifted it to his ear.

“Yo, papi why you not answering?” A thick island accent. “We outside, boy. Let us up in there. We need to talk, konprann?”

Morgan looked at the sliding glass door, at the dining room window. A shadow passed by it. He’d waited too long. He wondered how many of them were outside.

“You there, gason? Don’t fuck around.”

He closed the phone, dropped it on the counter.

“What are you doing?” Delva said.

Two bangs at the back door, someone rattling the knob.

“Louvri la pot!”

Footsteps on the deck.

Morgan started toward the front door. It would be his best chance. If he ran, he could lose them in the night, make it back to where he’d parked the Toyota. They’d be too busy with Delva to chase him.

The sliding door exploded. Glass showered inward, a cinder block skidding across the wood floor. A figure pushed the blinds aside to come through, and Morgan fired twice, sent it reeling back onto the deck. He put another shot into the darkness beyond, then swiveled and aimed at the dining room window, the shadow that had reappeared there. He fired, blew glass out.

There was silence then. Delva was on the floor, using the couch for cover. Shards of glass fell from the frame of the sliding door, broke on the floor. He could hear them out there, getting ready to try again. Time to move.

He went to the front door, fired through it in case someone was on the other side. He worked the locks, kicked the screen door open, went out fast and low. He heard shouting to his left, fired in the direction of it, and then his foot hit wet grass and slid out from under him and he went down onto his side.

He grunted with the impact, heard shots popping behind him, gunfire from inside the house. He got to his feet, half sprinted, half slid down the slope of lawn to the street. Shouts behind him, more shots. He twisted, saw two men in the doorway, blue bandanas around their necks, guns pointing at him. One of them called out, “Andre! Andre! Get him! Vit!”

Morgan fired at them, blew off a piece of door frame. They ducked back inside.

He started to run, away from the streetlight, then saw the dark shape of the car parked ahead. A man was coming around it fast, an automatic in his hand. Ten feet between them, no cover. They raised their guns at the same time, and Morgan saw the blocky shape of the Russian pistol, heard the click. Then another.

The man lowered the gun, pulled on the slide. Jammed. Morgan shot him twice in the chest.

More shouts from the house. Morgan ran past the car, across the street. A shot whined off the pavement to his left. He kept running, saw the empty lot a block away, the construction equipment.

When he reached the bulldozer, he swung behind it and sat down in the dirt, his back against the treads. He was breathing hard, tightness spreading across his chest, a solid ball of pain in his right side.

Muffled shouts. A car starting. He pressed back against cold metal, the damp ground soaking through his pants.

Headlights, engine noise. Beams lit up the empty ground to his left. They’d have the windows down, weapons out, looking for movement.

The car passed, the ground going dark again. His breathing was starting to slow, the pressure in his stomach and sides easing.

After a few minutes, the car came back from the other direction. Headlights played across the bulldozer blade. He gripped the Beretta, wondering if they had the courage to get out of the car, look for him on foot.

The car rolled by. The shadows around him turned back into darkness.

How long he sat there, he didn’t know. After a while, he heard the car again, coming from the direction of the house. It went past the bulldozer without slowing, engine noise fading in the night.

He looked at his watch. One forty. He tried to stand, his legs stiff, had to sit again. It was easier the second time, one hand braced against the muddy tread. He heard his knees pop.

He set the Beretta on the bulldozer seat, looked back toward the house. Light in the windows still. No car out front.

He rubbed his legs until feeling returned. The next time he checked his watch, it was two.

He started back, the Beretta at his side. His knees and hips ached, but the stomach pain had subsided. He crossed through backyards and empty lots until he was opposite the house. No sound or movement from inside.

No body in the street, just a glistening on the pavement where it had been. He went across fast, then along the side of the garage. The Navigator was still there.

He went around back and onto the deck, listened for a moment, and then stepped through the shattered door and twisted blinds. The living room was empty. He checked the other rooms quickly. No one.

The gun and cell were gone from the kitchen counter. The cellar door was closed. He’d left it open when he’d checked it earlier.

He raised the Beretta, twisted the doorknob, pushed. He pointed the gun down the steps into blackness. No sound below, no movement.

He felt for the light switch, tripped it, illuminated wooden steps, a concrete floor. Went down slowly, gun up, the steps creaking.

Delva was in the center of the basement. They’d brought the chair down, tied him to it, clothesline knotted around his chest. He was slumped forward, naked, dreadlocks hanging over his knees. His jeans lay on the floor a few feet away. Below the chair, a pool of dark and drying blood. Morgan could smell the copper tang of it.

He pointed the Beretta at him, moved closer, knew what he’d find. There was an entry wound behind his left ear, the dreads there matted with blood.

Near the chair, a set of bloody pruning shears. Delva’s left arm dangled almost to the floor, but the pinkie and ring fingers were stumped, blood spatter on the concrete beneath them. The blue bandana was tied tight around his wrist, a makeshift tourniquet to keep him from bleeding out while they worked on him.

Morgan put a gloved finger on his forehead, gently pushed. The mouth sagged open and something fell out, bounced from a naked thigh to clatter on the floor. A black domino with six white circles.

Morgan went back up the steps, turned the light off, closed the door.

He’d parked the Toyota in a stand of scrub pine three blocks away, hidden from the street. The night was quiet around him. As he neared the car, he raised the Beretta, in case they’d found it, were waiting for him. No one.

He got in, touched wires to restart the engine. Then he reversed out of the trees, cut the wheel hard, started back.

He was shirtless in front of the mirror, wiping sweat with a towel, when the cramp hit him.

It bent him, a stabbing pain followed by a burning surge through his bowels. He tore at his belt, got the pants down and made it onto the toilet just in time. The waste exploded out of him, hot and fluid and painful, spasm following spasm. He put his elbows on his knees, rested his head in his hands. He felt dizzy, flush.

After a while, the pain lessened. He sat there until the nausea subsided, then cleaned himself off and turned on the shower. He stood in the lukewarm spray, holding on to the showerhead for balance.

When he was done, he dried off as best he could, drank a glass of cool water from the sink, splashed more on his face. He got a full Vicodin down, then checked the door locks and lay across the bed, feeling the room start to spin around him. It was five minutes before he had the energy to crawl under the sheet.

The last thing he did was take the Beretta from the nightstand and set it on the bed beside him, the grip cool in his sweating hand. Then he closed his eyes.