It's Only Death Read online

  Maybe I was delusional in thinking those things. But I knew that if they had harmed a hair on her head, every last one of them would die.

  * * *

  An ambulance passed me on my way back to Harley’s. I pulled off to the side of the road but hadn’t come to a complete stop and had my foot on the accelerator as soon as it had passed. I needed a different car, or at least to patch the broken window with a piece of cardboard or plastic sheeting. The cops would pull me over thinking I was driving a stolen vehicle otherwise and I didn’t have the patience for one of them to stop me, and I avoided cops in general, not because I was worried they could subdue me, but because I feared that they’d approach and I’d see my father there before me and I’d have to kill him all over again to escape…

  A police cruiser followed me into the trailer park. His horn blatted and I pulled over to let him get around me. I followed him to my sister’s house. The ambulance was parked in front of her driveway, its lights going but siren off. Two paramedics were out, one of them kneeling over the fat, unmoving biker with the head injury, the other working as a makeshift crutch for Shane. The kid kept his head down and winced every time they took a step and his broken leg wiggled with the movement. I didn’t see Lincoln or any other bikers. I wondered if they had been smart enough to leave. Probably. They wouldn’t want to be caught there with my sister’s corpse, or her even beaten to a pulp, inside the trailer. I wondered how that made Shane feel, if he could even focus on anything outside the pain gnawing through him. I hope he was charged with assault, certain he had taken part, a gleeful, manic child learning to squash bugs from his older brothers…

  The police officer approached the trailer with his hand on his pistol. He was hunched over, gaze trailing back and forth between the windows and front door. Kendall wasn’t a massive town, nothing like Miami. I’m sure he knew who he was dealing with, that if Shane and Head Case was there, then Lincoln and a few others were more than likely close by as well.

  He yelled, identifying himself and ordering anyone inside to vacate the premises with their hands on top of their heads. He waited a few beats, drew his pistol, and repeated himself. His face was drawn tight and sheened in sweat. He glanced at the nearest paramedic and asked if either of them had been inside. The paramedic shook his head.

  The officer moved toward the door with his gun held out before him to banish the boogeyman. I held my breath. I wanted Lincoln and the others to be gone so that I could find them the way that Don Gray wanted to find me. I thought about him out there, possibly on his way to the trailer park at that very moment if he knew where my sister lived and heard the dispatcher make the place. If he was on his way, then I needed to be on mine. But I couldn’t leave, not until I saw them bring Harley out on a stretcher.

  I thought, She’s going to be okay if they don’t have her face covered with a sheet…

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and saw an unmarked car pull up alongside me. Don Gray stared at me for a second and then hiked his thumb, telling me it was time to get a move on. I stared back at him, wanting to lift the pistol in my lap above the edge of the window and fire three quick shots into his chest. He’d catch up with me later otherwise. It was why he was offering me a chance to flee, it wasn’t because he cared about Harley. I turned the car around and got on the road. I really needed a different car. The radio played quietly and my hands were tight on the wheel.

  I drove back toward the Electric Lady. To my surprise there were a few vehicles in the parking lot. I parked and climbed out and tried the door. It was locked. I slammed my fist against the steel. It took someone a second to answer, some scrawny brunette with stringy hair and burned-out eyes. She said, “Come back in four hours.”

  “Is Robert here? I need to talk to him.”

  “He’s not here.” She looked me up and down. Then she saw the pistol tucked in my waistband. Her eyes grew wide. Her mouth opened in a perfect circle.

  “Where is he?” I said. “It’s important you tell me.”

  “I shouldn’t,” she said, gaze rising from my waistband to my face. “You were on the news a long time ago.”

  “Where is Robert?”

  “He’s at Lou’s house probably. He drives him into work, Mr. Bigshot.”

  “If he stops in here while I’m on my way over there, tell him where I’m at, okay?”

  “If I remember.”

  “Do you want me to come back?”

  She shook her head violently, held her hands up, her hip propped against the door. She said, “I’ll tell him. But you’ll probably catch him at Lou’s crib. Okay? You satisfied?”

  I said, “Where does Lou live?”

  She told me. She, all of the sudden trying to be real helpful said, “You need someone to tag along? I could just show you, it’d be easier.”

  “I know where you’re talking about.”

  “You’re Harley’s brother,” she said.

  “Thanks for the help.” I spun around, jumped back in the car and drove to Lou’s house. It was one of those small, private subdivisions where each home looked like a mansion. There was a gate coming in off the road, gates around the houses inside, massive lawns that probably took more in maintenance costs every month than your average person paid for their house payment. The guy at the gatehouse was big and pale, and he said without looking at me, “Who are you visiting?”

  “Robert Stevens,” I said.

  He said, “There is no Robert Stevens in residence here, sir.”

  “He’s Fat Lou’s bodyguard.”

  The trace of a smile played on his putty face. “Yeah, Rob is good guy. Give me a second to call the house. What’s your name?”

  “James.”

  “Last name?”

  “He’ll know who I am. Tell him it’s important too. I’m in a hurry and he’s the only person who can help my sister. You got all of that?”

  “I’m not a message service, sir. I just tell them your name and they tell me whether to open the gate or not.”

  “Sounds like a job that takes a lot of brains,” I said, tapping my palm against my leg. “Thank you.”

  “Just a second,” he said. He called the house. It was almost a full minute before he came back out of the booth, lumbering in a lethargic way that only heavy men who never get exercise seem to. The gate began to swing open, an engine winding quietly. He said, “It’s the second house on the right, lots of beautiful teal trim on the gate columns that match the house.” He offered a curt wave, and added, “Thank you for your patience.”

  “Sure thing,” I said. I crept forward; the gate was opening too slowly. I told myself to calm down. Whatever damage was done to Harley wasn’t going to be any better or any worse by the time I got on the other side. When it was wide enough for me to squeak through, I throttled the Impala. All of these gates made me uneasy and I couldn’t place it at first, but then it came to me, and my skin crawled. The gate opened as I approached it. I saw someone standing on the wide concrete steps. The house looked Mexican, and I wondered if Lou DiMaggio’s wife was of that descent, but I didn’t really give a shit, and sped up the long drive, parked near the steps and jumped out.

  Robert came down to me. He said, “Is it Harley?”

  “You’re good at this,” I said.

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I explained how I’d stopped by her trailer that morning and had possibly killed one biker, and hopefully crippled Shane for life, and that Lincoln and a couple others were probably around looking for me.

  Robert said, “And you think she was inside?”

  “I don’t know if she was there or not.”

  He looked out over the lawn. He said, “I’ll call all the hospitals and see if she’s been admitted at any of them.”

  “You really are good at this.”

  “You’re good at being an asshole,” he said. “After you trashed their bikes, they probably took it out on your sister. You didn’t think about that?”
/>   “All I was thinking was that I wanted them to come out and catch me doing it.”

  “You have a death wish.”

  “I’m not very lucky then,” I said.

  He turned his back on me and started up the steps and said, “One of these days your luck is going to run out.” I followed him to the door. For a moment he looked as if he were wrestling with a monumental decision.

  I said, “Will Lou yell at you if you let a friend in the house without permission?”

  “You’re not my friend. Just be quiet, okay?”

  We went inside. The interior was a fuck-ton more expensive than the exterior. I tried not to stare at all the wood and tile and glasswork, or all the furnishings and paintings and polished bookshelves, or the throw rugs that trailed off down two wide halls. I said, “How many rooms does this place have?”

  “Twelve bedrooms,” Robert said. “We’ll use the phone off the garage. There’s a little workstation I use there and it will offer more privacy.” He walked, I followed again. When we went into the room, I wanted to tell him that his office was a laundry room only lacking the appliances, but I bit my tongue, because he was helping me and he loved my sister, and I still thought he was a hell of a stand-up guy to be there and not be corrupted by the parties that probably took place on the premises, or fall into deals with people who saw a docile lamb.

  He wasn’t nearly as physically imposing as his brother Derrick, but I’d seen him whoop the hell out several grown men when he was still a kid. Some people have that inner toughness and they fight strategically and to seriously fuck you up. Robert was one of those people, a sleeper. He pointed at a plastic lawn chair for me to sit in while he placed his bulk in an equally cheap chair in front of an old desk. He called the hospitals. Each time he shook his head, and each time he looked more wrung out.

  After he ended the final call, he said, “She’s dead, isn’t she?” And there were tears in his eyes. He studied my face for a second and then looked away. He said, “I hate this place and what it does to people.”

  “It’s like this all over,” I said. “Trust me.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “I don’t know, Robert. I’ll find out though.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  He said, “You have a pistol under your shirt. You can’t have that in here.”

  “I’m about to split anyway. I’m not sure how to ask you this though…”

  “What?”

  “Do you have a vehicle I can drive for a couple of days? The cops are going to nail me in that one Harley rented and then I won’t be able to hold my mom’s hand when she goes, or beat the hell out of Lincoln and his motley crew, kill them if I have to, which kind of appeals to me more than anything. So another car, that’s what I need. I really don’t want to boost anything.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just have my personal vehicle.”

  “Doesn’t Fat Lou have any extra vehicles you could drive? It will only be for a couple of days.”

  “You going to bust it up like you did that Impala?”

  “That’s a rental. And even if I do, you have insurance, right? Hell, I can park it somewhere when I’m done and you can call it in as stolen then if you want. I just need it to find these guys and see if they have Harley with them. That’s all.”

  “I’ll drive you,” Robert said.

  “Drive me where? I don’t know where I’m going yet.”

  “I know where those assholes all hang out when they’re not out riding or at the Lady. They have a shitty little clubhouse that used to be a bar before part of it burned down in Opa-Locka. But I’m not going to tell you where it is, I’m going with you.”

  “I already know the place,” I said. “The part that burned did so on the same week I got the hell out of here when I was still a kid.”

  He looked sober, although still pale. He said, “Probably be better with two of us anyway, even up the odds some. Maybe one of us could cause a distraction to get them outside so the other one can sneak in the back and see if Harley is in there.” He had hope in his eyes. I didn’t want to kill that hope. I knew that we weren’t ever going to see my sister alive again. But I nodded and smiled as if he was the creator of the best plans ever. Shit, it was better than what I would have come up with on my own.

  I said, “I’ll get them to come out. You worry about going inside and seeing if she’s in there. Do you know the layout?”

  “Like, have I been inside? No. But it’s like a crackerjack box. Between the size of a garage and a pole barn. Used to be a bar, right, so it has two restrooms, a shitty kitchen, a storage room, and then nothing but a lot of open space with some pool tables and places for people to sit, maybe a jukebox in the main part.” His brow scrunched up. He said, “I never did any shit like this, you know that?”

  “You’ll be fine,” I said. “You’re doing it out of love. What’s greater than that?”

  “Don’t tell her that.”

  “I won’t,” I said, meaning it. “Do you have a gun?”

  “Are you kidding? I have a shitload of them. I’ll just take my Remington 870. It’s sawed off on both ends, stock and barrel, fits under my coat almost. And it’ll plaster two of those guys at a time with buckshot. I’m not all that good a shot with anything else anyway.”

  “It’s all right to be nervous,” I said.

  “I’m not nervous. I’m just worried that they really fucked her up. You know, after you pulled that shit with their bikes, they threw a major shit fit in front of everybody. Lou had to come out of the back to handle it, and he doesn’t do that unless he thinks someone could get killed. And I’d thought that night, hell, that moment they came back in, that I needed to tell Harley to stay with me. I just didn’t have the balls.” He shook his head, embarrassed. “Isn’t that some shit? I help out your mom, I’m a grown man, single, make decent money, yet I couldn’t offer her a place to stay until things blew over because I was a coward. I wasn’t afraid of those goons, either, it was just stupid old rejection. I thought she’d say no. That’s all. I could have done something…”

  “Don’t sweat it. Go get your shotgun, Robert.”

  “It’s in Mr. DiMaggio’s car. I keep it under the passenger seat.”

  “Go get it, grab some extra shells too.”

  “How many?”

  “As many as we’ll need.”

  “I’m not that good at counting,” he said.

  I laughed. He looked at me, confused, and then laughed along, no idea what the hell he was going on about. Why the hell my sister didn’t give that poor sonofabitch a chance, I don’t know. We were about to leave the room when someone opened the door. Robert jumped a little. I looked at Fat Lou, his expression blank, his wide, fat face, unlined like so many other men his age, men who had lived hard lives, done hard things, carried their sins with what appeared to others to be such ease. His voice was deep and resonated in his chest and had a musical quality. He said, “Mr. Jackson? Mr. Stevens didn’t tell me you were a guest here.”

  Robert said, “He’s not a guest, Mr. DiMaggio, he just needs a hand with something and I’m the only person he could come to.”

  Lou laughed, one hand on his belly, his head back. He said, “You two are very funny men. Why don’t you come to Lou? I can help with all kinds of things.” He looked at me with open curiosity, and said, “What is your trouble, Mr. Jackson?”

  “I think you already know my trouble, sir.”

  “Ah, perhaps I do. It would involve men who ride steel ponies, men who laugh at the world and think they are kings, am I right? Men who you damaged so readily, so efficiently, whereas other people would have taken cautious measures.”

  I nodded. “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret that I didn’t like them.”

  “But you made trouble for me at my place.”

  “I get impatient,” I said. “It’s hard to restrain myself.”

  He smiled widely and he stroked the door casing as if
it were something he was about to seduce. He confused me and made me a little bit nervous. I waited for him to say something. I looked at Robert. He had his head down, waiting for some type of explosion from his boss. Fat Lou’s hand fell to his side. He faced me fully, his large stomach jiggling beneath his silk shirt as he did a little dance, and cried out in a gleeful voice, “We all dance in hell tonight!”

  Gooseflesh riddled my arms and crossed over my back. I said, “What does that mean?”

  “You have many enemies,” Lou said. “Many, many enemies.”

  “Are you one of them?”

  “Me?” he said. “I am only a voice of reason, a mere businessman. And I offer you a way out.”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “You work for me.”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “Only fools answer quickly, Mr. Jackson,” he said. “Take more time. Take a day. If I know you, you’ll be eager for my offer tomorrow. You have a way of burrowing into the shit, right? You don’t love it, you don’t even like it, if anything I think you just don’t want to be bored.”

  “I’m kind of bored right now,” I said. “I have a lot to do today while I think about your offer.”

  “You’re a fearless man,” he said, “I’ll give you that. But guts aren’t everything, Mr. Jackson. In fact, they are hardly anything at all. What do you really want? What can Fat Lou help you get that you can’t get on your own?”

  “I don’t want anything,” I said.

  He said, “Do you know what Mr. Stevens wants? Why he works for me?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s told you?”

  I nodded again.

  Lou looked perplexed for a second. He chewed on his lower lip. Then his eyes lit up, his expression once again the all-knowing, all-providing king of the underworld. It was hard to believe he dealt so deftly with the lowlifes he made his living off of. It was hard to believe he was probably the lowest of the low if you counted all the deals that he made happen between different tribes, between officials, between women and men, and I didn’t doubt that he put smack into the hands of kids. Looking at him you would have thought him incompetent. I thought about what Derrick Stevens had said: Fat Lou had a million bucks in a safe in this house.