Chapter 30 - It's the Small Things That Can Kill You - Aw Poop!

                                                 Chapter 30 – Aw Poop!

Joey rubbed his eyes. He was starting to feel worn down. A glance around the room told him that the others in his little group were feeling the same. He looked over at Jaxon.

Joey reasoned, Jax had been openly lugging Joey’s .38 around ever since Joey handed it to him. The initial idea was that Jax might need it to protect Clara and company while he checked in with Frank. Jax didn’t seem comfortable with weapons, however. He had left the shotgun Sal had given him outside on the lawn and was currently using the handgun to scratch the back of his neck. At best, sooner or later the kid was going to misplace his weapon just like he abandoned the shotgun. At worst, the gun served as an aggressive cue for some of the residents. It made them nervous, and rightly so.

“Jax, I need my hardware back.” Joey said in a tired voice.

“Huh?” I replied. The gun felt heavy and unnatural in my hand.

“My gat, my piece, my iron…” Joey slowly mumbled.

“What?” I squinted and tried to make the wheels of my brain spin faster, but I was tired.

“My rod, my roscoe… you know…bang, bang? Joey said in disbelief.

“Oh, sure. You mean pistol. Here.” I inadvertently pointed the gun at him. His eyes widened a bit but otherwise his face didn’t betray the fact that he now knew giving me a gun of any type was a very bad idea. He snatched in from my hand, checked the cylinder and then placed the pistol back into his shoulder holster.

As an afterthought he said. “Are you carrying anything else that might be considered contraband, just in case we run into the cops tonight?” I awkwardly reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a switchblade knife. I held it out proudly as if it were a prize that I had won at the county fair.

Joey massaged his temples with his fingers. He felt a headache coming on. “Oh, just keep it. If we encounter the police, wipe it down to get rid of your fingerprints and ditch it. The blade is too long to be considered legal.”

“Wow! I feel like I’m in a Raymond Chandler novel.” I said in a state of excitement.

Joey blew out his breath slowly. “Yeah, about that. I feel like I’ve been playing a little loose and reckless lately with your and Clara’s welfare. This isn’t a novel or a movie, Jax. So, here’s the plan from now on. We are going to move Frank into the back of that hearse. Quietly. I fear we have already stirred up enough excitement and probably drawn down undue attention to our presence here at Happy Meadows.”

“Do you think that guy, ‘Cutter’ is laying in wait for us…or is he just after you and Frank?”

Joey had a concerned look on his face. “I’ve never heard of an enforcer that goes by the handle of ‘Cutter’. We have been all over town and even if he is lurking out there somewhere, I don’t see how he could locate us. I don’t think he was working with Billy Touche or this Zach guy or his partner Artie, that we have locked in the broom closet. At this point, I question the source of information about this new assassin. However, we will keep our wits about us and not take unnecessary chances. I’m thinking of sending you and the others home. Sal and I can move Frank to be evaluated by…”

“Milton. Milton Freedman. He runs a bookstore across town. He was a paramedic in the Viet Nam war. You will need either Rico, Fenton, or me to go with you. He doesn’t know who you or Frank are. It’s late at night and the store is closed.”

Joey sighed. “Okay, I’ll take one of you with me.”

I looked out of the side window of Happy Meadows. You could occasionally catch the glow of ball lightning out of the corner of your eye. Otherwise, it was dark. Pitch black.

Joey placed his hand on the back of my shoulder.  “The streets were dark with something more than night.”

“I beg your pardon.” I said in disbelief. “Was that a Chandler quote?”

“What? You think hit men don’t read Raymond Chandler?” Joey grinned like a fox in the shadows approaching a farmhouse, and somehow, I felt reassured about seeing the sunrise again.

“What are our chances of getting across town without running into the F.B.I., cops, or this ‘Cutter’ guy?”

“You know what Chandler said about his characters?” Joey asked with a sly smile.

"No what?" I replied.

“The characters that last until the end of his novels are just ordinary guys with some extraordinary qualities.” Joey winked. “That’s us buddy.”  

                                                                    *      *      *

Phyllis Altmire had been watching the ball lightning and periodic manifestations of the dead with a growing amount of impatience. She wondered why Carmen hadn’t phoned the police. Those phantoms obviously weren’t supposed to be at Happy Meadows. Worse yet, the static outside was starting to interfere with the Carol Burnett Show. The television reception in the lounge was becoming spotty.

Phyllis had decided to take things into her own hands. She marched over to a pay phone and dialed the number of the Kildeer Police Department. She was a frequent caller and as such, she had the number committed to memory. Phyllis reported intruders at Happy Meadows, indicating that they had tampered with powerlines and that the place was experiencing intermittent electrical flashes. The dispatcher took her words to mean that there was a power cable that was both live and down near the entrance of Happy Meadows. She was reassured Phyllis that emergency services were on the way. When asked to identify herself she hung up the phone.

People unfamiliar with the everyday mores of life in an assisted living complex probably wouldn’t grasp the fact that many of the elderly have sticky fingers. This is connected to residents having little in the way of personal property and the habit of frequently loaning personal items to each other. Eventually this creates the feeling that anything left lying around is communal property. With this in mind, please do not judge Phyllis too harshly when I mention her kleptomaniacal behavior.

When I went to wipe the switchblade knife down, as per suggested by Joey Flowers, I absent mindedly left it on a counter in the main lobby. Phyllis spied it and slipped it into the pocket of her housecoat. Then Phyllis, intent to go outdoors and give the spirits of the dead a piece of her mind and announce that she had already reported them to the local police, noticed Joey’s red hoodie left unattended.

It was a chilly evening, and the hoodie was just the right weight for her jaunt outdoors. She slipped it on. Walking down the stairs she lit up a cigarette and eyed the spectral disturbance that had interrupted her television viewing. She also noticed another thing. The sawed-off 12 gauge shotgun that I had abandoned after Rico had nearly slapped it out of my hand.

Phyllis picked it up. She had been a farm wife before entering Happy Meadows. Phyllis knew her way around shotguns. She liked the feel of the gun in her hands. She also noticed something else laying on the ground nearby. A plastic device connected to wires. This device was connected to a series of divots and mounds in the parking lot. It had been constructed at Joey Flowers’ request by his driver Sal. Unbeknownst to Phyllis, someone was watching her with great interest.

A figure in the shadows armed with a bayonet and icepick crept behind a nearby tree. Cutter had been hiding underneath Jerry Gonzales’ hearse when he noticed a commotion and then a slap fight between Jerry himself and another man named Rico. Several other people were involved in the altercation including a known associate of Joey Flowers who was armed and fired a round from his sidearm which ended the fight.

Cutter had never seen Joey Flowers in person but had a description of the man provided by Bobby Moretti’s people. The car Flowers had rented was in the parking lot. Joey was a small man that frequently wore a red hoodie. Cutter silently crept closer to Phyllis. The ball lightning and spectral displays had almost made Cutter abandon his hunt for the evening. But now he was so close to eliminating Flowers that his body was virtually twitching with surges of adrenaline. He raised his weapons.

Suddenly a huge sphere of ball lightning burst illuminating the front lawn. Phyllis turned to see Cutter nearly upon her. She screamed, whirled the shotgun in his direction and pulled the trigger. Her shot missed Cutter by two feet. The recoil of the gun caused her to stagger backwards. “You’re not supposed to be here!” she screamed and jacked another shell into the chamber of the twelve gauge.

Cutter recognized from her voice that he had almost cut the throat of an elderly woman. He was temporarily blinded by the static flash of the lightning. He staggered into the mounds and divots that were buried packets of C-4. All of them connected and carefully wired to a detonator. The detonator was laying on the ground when it was enveloped by another huge ball of static. There was a huge explosion.

Sal’s charges were supposed to incapacitate a car or truck that was trying to ram the entrance of Happy Meadows. A blitz frontal assault, similar to what we thought Jerry Gozalez and his hearse was about to do hours before this.

Instead, the charges of C-4 reduced Cutter’s body to pieces the size of raw chicken livers, which now rained down on Phyllis along with gravel and large clods of earth, as she stoically pitched the gun aside and straightened up.

“Aw poop! I lost my cigarette.” Phyllis said and marched back inside Happy Meadows flicking pieces of Bobby Moretti's hit man off her new red hoodie.

Chapter 29 - It's the Small Things That Can Kill You! - The Eyes and Ears of the Dead are Everywhere

Chapter 29 – The Eyes and Ears of the Dead are Everywhere

Rico, Jerry, Fenton, Sal, and I had backed about as far away from the spectacle of the dead as we could without being forced back into the main building of Happy Meadows. The night air practically vibrated with the presence of spirits from one of our local graveyards. I had begun to ascend the stairway leading to the front door, when that very door opened. Joey and Clara stepped out.

“What on earth is going on out here?” Clara stared wide-eyed at periodic zaps of static that serpentined from one metal object in the parking lot to another. Static zapped some of the parked vehicles residents kept for transportation into towns. Ball lightning danced on the metal railings that bordered the property as well as the metal swinging sign that welcomed all to the site of solace and good fellowship.

“It’s kind of a long story.” I said under my breath.

“No, it’s not.” Rico blurted out. He was bleeding slightly from a scrape on his forehead, sustained in the scuffle he had with his uncle Jerry. “My stupid uncle Jerry got drunk tonight, performed a ritual to raise the dead and then lead the spirits across town while he was looking for me.” He shot a glare of annoyance at Jerry, who was still beating the parking lot dust off himself. “Got anything to add to that Jerry?” Rico looked at him as if he was a Quick Trip store manager about to fire an employee.

“Not really.” Jerry said sheepishly. “Except I thought you were in trouble. We argued before you left and I sensed you were having some difficulties across town. So, I did the ceremony and drove over to find you. The dead came with me because they are bound to me by the ritual. Come sunup they will have to return to their graves.”

At that moment an enormous sphere of ball lightning burst and, in doing so, illuminated the entire group of spirits that had followed Jerry across town. Clara gasped in amazement. The invisible dead spirits were framed brightly for a moment in sharp contrast to the surrounding darkness.

Joey yelled at Sal, who was closer to the spectacle. “I made out the ghost of James Cody but I also think that I saw Billy Touche in the crowd. Sal, did you spot him?”

“Yeah, that was Billy.” Sal replied. “This situation is out of control Joey. Any thoughts?”

“I have more questions than thoughts right now.” Joey answered. “We need to have a conference. Let’s move this inside.”

Another tightly compressed ball of static burst near Fenton.

“Forty-nine.” Fenton yelled. “There were only forty-two of them before! How can there be more of them?”

                                                             *      *      *

We slowly walked into the front door of Happy Meadows, frequently looking back over our shoulders. Upon requesting a meeting room, Carmen led us into the game room and television lounge off the lobby area.  Several residents were still up watching a rerun of the Carol Burnett Show. Others were watching the light show out in the parking lot, as if the large game room window was a second television set.

Joey cleared his throat. “Okay Mouseketeer’s, I have questions and then some news that may be alarming. Questions first. Once again, why are the spooks in the parking lot in the first place?”

We were standing around a ping pong table. There were five or six folding chairs located close to us.

Jerry plopped down in one of the chairs “I’m an ordained priest of a small Brazilian American community in town. I have certain psychic abilities and some influence over the dead. Tonight, I had a fight with my nephew Rico, got wasted, and performed a ceremony that allowed the dead to walk the earth. I sensed Rico was in trouble and came looking for him. He left a note saying that he was here at Happy Meadows. When I came over here, the dead were compelled to follow me.”

“You said that you were able to sense that your nephew was in trouble over here. You knew he was in harm’s way before you ever even read his note?” Joey looked intrigued.

“It’s true.” Rico volunteered. “Also, Jerry wouldn’t have even needed the note to find me. If he had that many dead spirits together, exchanging information, looking for a person, he wouldn’t need a bloodhound.  I left the note to mostly let him know that I was pissed at him.

I guess I should be touched that he is concerned about me. Growing up when I was a kid, it really sucked. I couldn’t get into trouble without my Uncle Jerry knowing about it. The dead lie a lot when they talk to other people, but Jerry can compel them to tell the truth…and there are a lot of graveyards around Kildeer. The eyes and ears of the dead are everywhere.”

“There are now fifty of them. Why are there more now?” Fenton said as he peered out the window next to Phyllis, who had gotten bored with Carol Burnett and was now also window peeping. Fenton was an enigma. He was able to accurately count the dead outside in a split second and yet frequently would overdraw his checking account. Go figure.

Jerry explained to the group. “That’s probably going to happen for the rest of the night. The dead are like refrigerator magnets after this ritual until dawn.”

“Huh?” I said. Once again, I felt like the weakest link in the chain.

Jerry saw the confusion on my face. “Maybe that isn’t the best analogy. What I meant was that they have a psychic affinity with each other. ‘Birds of a feather’, that sort of thing. The original forty or so that came across town are attracting other spirits. The newly dead are very strongly attracted because they are disoriented and those that have been assimilated into the world of the dead to provide a type of structure. That structure calms them.”

“How many dead are we expecting to have before sunup?” I asked.

“A ballpark guesstimate for around here?  A lot. As the night wears on, the ritual will even call to the ancient dead. Old native American spirits…ghosts of early settlers.” Jerry remarked. “A couple of thousand spirits before the sun rises. The static electricity will become intense at times.”

“Okay. Do you see those people over there, Mr. Gonzales?” Clara pointed to more residents pressing their noses to windows catching glimpses of the spirits outside. The situation you have created is potentially a social train wreck.”

“My head is starting to clear a bit now and I can see what you mean. I didn’t think this through.” Jerry put his hand over his face.

Joey spoke in a low tone. “What we don’t want here is a panic. But if one of those elderly residents sees their mother, father, brother, best friend, that they buried, and they recognize them, we could have trouble. You said they are bound to you. What does that mean?”

“If I move back to my house or anyplace else, they must follow. All of them do. Even the ones not buried locally…the newly dead.” Jerry replied.

“Why aren’t they just following us through the front door? Clara asked. “They seem to be keeping a respectful distance.

“Oh, because of this.” Jerry pulled a necklace of bones that dangled around his neck, obscured previously by his loose linen shirt.

“Damn Jerry, you found your mojo.” Rico held his nose.

“Yep, I looked everywhere. Then it turned up. It’s been in a vinegar bottle for about a year.” Jerry shook it, apparently oblivious to the odor. “Part of the ritual. It protects me and others around me. The dead keep their distance from it.   

At that moment Phyllis turned away from the window and shouted, “They aren’t supposed to be here!”

“We are working on it right now Phyllis.” Joey said in a smooth voice, turning up the charm.

“I have some disturbing news gang. My contacts in Reno tell me that there is one more of Bobby Moretti’s hired guns in town. No one on our side knows what this guy looks like. No one even knows his name. All I know is he is foreign and referred to only as ‘Cutter’.  His target is Frank and the big guy isn’t doing well. Frank probably knows him, but Frank is having trouble talking right now. We need to move him. He needs medical assistance. Do you know anyone in town that could check Frank out this late at night and keep their mouth closed for a price? I think he has had a stroke. That may be why he has been sleeping so much.”

“There’s a friend of ours that runs he comic bookstore downtown.” Rico suggested.

“But how are we going to get him over there? We could use my mom’s car, but people would recognize it and might report it if they saw a stranger riding with me. Also, the cops have the town under a curfew that starts at midnight.” Fenton said scratching his curly red mop of hair.

“Welcome to Kildeer. If the dead don’t rat you out, your neighbor surely will.” Clara snarked.

Joey ran his fingers through his hair. “Say, did I see one of you driving a hearse earlier tonight?” he said with a smile. 

Chapter 28 - It's the Small Things That Can Kill You! - No More Weekend T.V. Wrestling

          Chapter 28 – No More Weekend T.V. Wrestling!

As unsettling as the invisible presence was, I would also add that it was both disturbing and exhilarating. It danced on my skin. It was then that I beheld a strange sight that I had only seen one other time. Clusters of faint glowing lights. Small pea-sized spheres moved around the damaged drainpipe and along the rain cutters of the Happy Meadows main building. They danced like playful electric bumble bees moving from one metal object to another. They swarmed Mrs. Cox’s car, much to Fenton’s dismay.

“Rico.” I shoved him in the shoulder hard. My friend was frozen with fear. He crossed himself.

“Jax, I need to wake up my uncle Jerry. This is bad! So bad!” He lumbered towards the hearse were Jerry Gonzales lay in a drunken stupor. Rico’s feet were sluggish. He was in some sort of psychological shock. It was obvious that he could see something that I could not and his eyes betrayed the spot where the presence was the strongest.

What I believed that I was seeing was a rare natural phenomenon my father had called “ball lightning”. Several years ago, my dad and I were on a ferry traveling up the coast of Lake Michigan. There was a storm on the horizon. The same lights had swarmed the upper part of the ferry and some of the parked cars the craft was transporting.

My dad had said this was a rare manifestation of static electricity that happens near bodies of water. The ball lightning lingered for several seconds and then disappeared, only to reappear in a different spot. He allowed me to watch for a minute or so before he took me down to a lower deck and we sat in the safety of our car. Dad had told me that the display was called “Saint Elmo’s Fire” by some sailors and many people were superstitious about the very appearance of it. Many believed that such luminous objects are omens or even the very souls of the dead.

I ran over to Rico. He was opening the door at the rear of the hearse. There was no casket at the back, as this wasn’t a funeral. The door was one solid structure that, when opened, allowed maximum clearance for a coffin-sized object. In this case, the only object in the back was a groggy Jerry Gonzales.

As I approached the hearse that Jerry was sleeping in, I shouted. “Is he awake?”

I looked through the large window of what was essentially a large, black stretch limo with a modified interior, I saw Jerry in the back wrapped in a blanket. Rico was shaking him, trying to arouse him. But it seemed to no avail. Then Rico became desperate.

He slapped Jerry in the face lightly. “Wake up…Oye, despierta…you stupid, drunken…”  Then suddenly Jerry’s eyes suddenly opened very wide. They nearly bulged out of his skull. He leaned up and slapped Rico back so hard I thought his head was going to smack the side of the hearse.

“Cut it out Jerry. I’m a lot bigger than you. Don’t make me mad.” Rico screamed while holding the side of his numb jaw.

“You slapped me! I’m gonna’ mop up the floor with your head.” Jerry yelled as he jumped on Rico. A ridiculous slap fight ensued in the confined area of the hearse.

“Good luck trying to clean in the corners, dumbass.” Rico said through clenched teeth as he shoved Jerry out of the hearse, leaping after him.   

Fenton, ignoring the odd “ball lightning” that had now intensified, had come over to stare through the window of he now rocking vehicle.

I heard Jerry alternately laughing and swearing first in English and then in Portuguese and Spanish. Rico slammed Jerry so hard against the interior of the hearse that it almost broke Fenton’s nose that was pressed against one of the rear viewing windows of the hearse. I screamed for assistance from anyone inside Happy Meadows. No one seemed to be listening.

Rico’s leaped from the back of the hearse and missed Jerry by several feet. Instead of landing on his uncle, Rico did a barrel roll in the dirt and gravel in front of Happy Meadows. Jerry stood up, staggering a great deal. Then he screamed “Atomic knee drop”. Before he could execute the professional wrestling move, which doubtless would have resulted in a trip to the ER for at least one of them, Sal came by. Noticing Rico was now laying on his back, Sal calmly walked over with his semiautomatic drawn and put his foot on Rico’s throat. He then fired a round between Jerry’s legs.

Both men gave up, stopped fighting and stared at Sal. He put his gun away and helped Rico off the ground.

Rico was a mess. His hair was disheveled. His jeans were covered in dirt. Jerry walked over breathing hard. He was filthy and smelled like tequila.

Sal looked at me and then at Fenton. He pointed at Jerry and Rico. “Never pick a fight with an ugly person. They’ve got nothing to lose.” He warned. He then put his weapon back into his shoulder holster.

“We’ve got company.” Sal said as he gestured towards the glowing orbs.

“Jerry, I’m sorry I slapped you, but I was just trying to wake you up. Mira…Look!” Rico pointed at the ball lightning.

The static electricity popped and swirled near the zone where we first sensed the presence of what Rico believed were dead spirits of residents that usually occupied a local graveyard adjacent to Jerry’s home and property. Jerry dusted himself off and glanced at the scene.

The “ball lightning” had grown now. The orbs were about two feet in diameter. One of them burst. The flash revealed dozens of the local dead. They stood in various forms of decomposition, all completely naked as the day they were born. The flash lasted for only a second, yet I was able to make out the figure of James Cody standing at the head of the crowd. A fresh bullet hole in his forehead.

Rico, who described himself as a “lapsed Catholic”, crossed himself again and turned to Jerry. “Why did you feel the need to bring them with you?” Rico whispered.

“I don’t remember doing it. I fell asleep watching wrestling on television, woke up and read your note. I must have done the ritual to raise the dead and then blacked out. I guess I thought you might be in trouble and they could be useful.” Jerry whispered back.  

“No more weekend T.V. wrestling. Next Saturday night we are going to the movies.” Rico declared.

“It’s a deal.” Jerry studied the now numerous swirling orbs.”

“What has got them all wound up?” Rico asked.

“Local acts of violence always make the pot boil like this.” Jerry answered. “Usually not this bad. But it is close to October and the veil between the living and the dead grows thinner during this time of year.”

“It’s bugging me a lot. Can’t you put them back in the ground?” Rico complained.

“I’m afraid I’m in no shape to do that right now. They will return to where they belong at dawn. Right now, we just have to tolerate them.”

Chapter 27 - It's the Small Things That Can Kill You - It Virtually Has a Thousand Uses

Chapter 27 – It Virtually Has a Thousand Uses

It had been hours since Happy Meadows had been invaded by two hit men from a rival criminal element which Joey only referred to as Bobby Moretti’s boys. Joey, a bit of an escape artist himself, had taken the disarmed Artie Best and placed him in a chair.  He searched Artie for more weapons and found a switch blade knife with a six-inch blade. I wandered in from outside during the search process.

Clara came back after checking on Frank and noticed the weapon. Her eyebrows shot up a bit. I picked up the weapon.

“Um Jax, I don’t think…” Clara began.

But I pressed the button. In the movies, switchblade knives seemed like they were relatively weightless and usually made a cool sound when they sprang open like cinema magic. The sound didn’t seem much louder than the clicking of a ball point pen. This knife, however, seemed larger and had more heft to it than the ones on the big screen.

When I pressed the silver button, which was nearly as large as the knuckle of my index finger, an enormous blade jumped and locked into an open position with a rather loud mechanical clack. In doing so, it leapt from my hand and fell point down. The tip penetrated the linoleum of the lobby floor. I was startled, then held my breath for several seconds.

Carmen, who was present in the lobby to direct elderly residents back into their rooms, simply rolled her eyes at me and shook her head. Clara reached down and pulled the knife from the floor. After a brief inspection of the weapon, she gracefully closed it and handed it back to me.

“I think perhaps this is an outdoors toy.” She said with a smirk. I silently nodded in agreement.

“Jax!” Said Joey. “If you are through ruining the décor of this fine establishment, I could use some help here with…excuse me, I didn’t catch your name as you were trying to kill me?” He looked at Artie, now wrapped in nylon rope, and sitting in one of the lobby chairs.

Artie remained silent. “Come now, I must call you something.” Joey implored the bound assassin.

“My name is Artie.” He said reluctantly, as if he was a third-grade offender in a grammar school  principal’s office.

“Okay Artie. Now, your hands are behind you. I want you to open them and leave them both open for a minute.”

Artie complied. Joey reached into his pocket and produced a tube of a relatively new product, called super glue. He applied it to both of Artie Best’s palms.

“Now close your palms and don’t open them until I tell you to.” Joey directed.

Clara came over to me as I was still holding the switchblade. “Now why didn’t I think of that.” She eyed my hands. I took a half step away from her and she snorted with laughter twice and then came closer and shoulder bumped me.

“You are having way too much fun with this entire situation.” I complained as I feigned a serious tone.

Artie strained to open his hands. “Hey, I can’t open them.”

“Don’t worry, it probably wears off.” Joey theatrically showed Artie the tubes directions momentarily and then squinted at them himself. “Although it doesn’t say when it might anywhere on the tube.”

Joey continued as if he were in a lecture hall. “The reason he is relatively helpless right now isn’t entirely due to the glue. You see, most human beings have highly developed finger muscles for squeezing things, but the opposite set of muscles are quite weak.”

“I noticed that you used that stuff to glue the newspaper to his partner’s fingers. Do you always travel with so much of it?” Clara asked with clinical interest.

Artie continued to struggle to get his hands to open. His head was turning beet red.

“Yes.” Joey replied. “It virtually has a thousand uses. For instance, I used it to plug the hole in his partner’s forehead. It turned an hour-long cleanup into a simple five-minute job.”

“Neat!” Clara winked at Artie. Artie quit struggling and momentarily reflected on what Joey had just said.

“Now, if you and Clara would graciously watch Artie while his glue sets, I need to check on Frank once again.” Joey said. He produced a set of handcuffs and cuffed Artie’s right hand to the chair he was setting in.

“Here Jax.” Joey gave me his pistol. Then he turned to Artie and stated. “Okay. Cooperate and you probably will live through this.”

“Tell him to be careful and not drop that gun.” Artie yelled.

He turned to Carmen who was now chatting with Phyllis. “Carmen. I would like to put Artie in the same closet that we put you in. I think maybe Zach would fit in there too if we folded him up a bit. What are your thoughts?”

“He’s not supposed to be here!” Phyllis said quite emphatically.

“We are aware of that Phyllis. We will probably put them in the utility closet.” Phyllis gave the thumbs up sign to that suggestion.

Carmen also replied. “Yes, the closet. It would be helpful. There are a few residents that say they can’t sleep. They want to stay up a bit and play cards. I think they just want to watch you work, or maybe gossip with you all.” She replied.

“Tell them that we are about done here. I need to make another phone call, but I’ll pay you for it and settle with you before we move on.”

“Okie doke.” She chirped.

Joey turned to Clara. “I need to talk to Tony again to see how far out his guys are. Then I need to interrogate Artie before he goes into the closet with Zach. I think we might have one more dog on our trail. He might know who it is.”

“How many will keep coming at us?” Clara looked over at me, and I could see now that her brave face was starting to slip.

“I don’t think Artie was the other killer that I mentioned earlier.  He obviously was just a driver or backup. Billie Touche was a sniper and always worked alone. My instincts tell me that there might be someone else. But let me worry about that. What I really need to tell you is that, after tonight, I am getting out of the business.”

“I thought that nobody could leave the organization.” She said in astonishment.

“Oh, that part is true. Nobody leaves the Accardo organization. But I’m family. I’m just going to request a lateral transfer. Tony did it himself when he was my age. He has been looking for someone to head up security for a couple of his casinos in Chicago. I’ll float the idea on the phone to him. I would be closer to both you and Frank that way.”

“What about…” Clara looked around at Artie and pointed at him and then the deceased Zach.

“We will cover our tracks when the cavalry gets here. They will disappear the bodies. Our lawyers will get involved if necessary. I’ve already bought off Carmen if we need a witness for what happened here tonight.”

Joey grinned at her. “Tomorrow after I talk to Tony, I go legit and keep my promise to you. This way, you and I can both be available to care for Frank. I can visit on the weekends, and I’ll just be forty miles away in Windy City if either of you need me.

“Don’t play me Joey.” Clara’s steely gaze softened.

“I need something better than this. So do you.” Then she hugged him.

Suddenly there was a scream from the parking lot. It was Rico.

Disregarding my duties as Artie Best’s babysitter, I went blasting out of the front door, pistol in hand.

Rico was backing up away from…what? There was a presence out in the darkness. Fenton had gone back over to the entrance. Sal had retreated to his side. They both could sense it. I could somehow feel it too.

“Rico, what the hell?” I shook him.

“Jax, he brought them with him.” Rico pointed to the hearse and the place Jerry Gonzales was sleeping off a Saturday night drunk.

“What are you talking about?” I looked about but could see nothing out of the ordinary. However, I still felt a presence. Like icy pins momentarily touching my limbs and face.

“The dead. They're here. He brought them with him!” Rico was trembling.