John Verdon - Shut Your Eyes Tight

Gurney purposely kept his eyes on Scott Ashton’s gun. He wondered how much of what was happening, if anything, the father understood. What, if anything, did he intend to do? What accounted for the stealth of his approach? What knowledge or suspicion accounted for the caution with which he’d climbed the stairs and concealed himself on the landing? More urgently, could he see his son’s gun from where he stood? Would he even understand what it meant? How delusional was he? And perhaps most urgently, if the old man were to create, purposely or inadvertently, some momentary distraction, would it afford an opportunity for Gurney to launch himself across the room and get to the gun before Ashton could use it on him?

These desperate musings were interrupted by a sudden outburst.

“Shit! The chapel is on fire!” shouted Hardwick.

Gurney looked at the screen while staying peripherally aware of the positions of Scott Ashton and his father. On the screen, the video transmission clearly showed smoke coming from the sconce lamps on the chapel walls. The girls had either exited their seating areas or were in a hasty scramble to do so, congregating in the center aisle and on the raised platform nearest the camera position.

Gurney rose reflexively to his feet, followed by Hardwick.

“Careful, Detective,” said Ashton, switching the pistol to his right hand and pointing it at Gurney’s chest.

“Unlock the doors,” commanded Gurney.

“Not right now.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

From the monitor came an eruption of screams. Gurney glanced back at it just in time to see one of the girls operating a fire extinguisher that had turned into a flame thrower, laying a stream of burning liquid along the length of one of the wooden pews. Another girl came running to the spot with another extinguisher-with the same result, a stream of liquid that ignited the moment it touched the existing fire. It was clear that the extinguishers had been tampered with to reverse their effect. It reminded Gurney of an arson murder in the Bronx twenty years earlier, where it was discovered later that one of the fire extinguishers in a small hardware store had been emptied and recharged with jellied gasoline-homemade napalm.

The chapel was now in a state of panic.

“Unlock those fucking doors, you fucking asshole!” Hardwick shouted at Ashton.

Ashton’s father reached into the pocket of his sweater and withdrew something with a shiny end. As he unfolded a small blade from its handle, Gurney realized what it was-a simple pocketknife, the kind a Boy Scout might whittle a stick with. He held it at his side and stood, expressionlessly, his eyes on the high back of his son’s chair.

Scott Ashton’s gaze was fixed on Gurney. “This is not the finale I would have preferred, but it’s the one your brilliant interference requires. It’s the second-best solution.”

“God, let them out of that room, you fucking maniac!” shouted Hardwick.

“I did my best,” said Ashton calmly. “I had hopes. Each year a few were helped, but after a time I had to admit that most were not. Most left here as poisonous as the day they arrived, left us to go out into the world, poisoning and destroying others.”

“There was nothing you could do about that,” said Gurney.

“I didn’t think so, either… until I was given my Mission and my Method. If someone chose to lead a poisonous life, then at least I could limit her exposure, limit the period of her toxicity to others.”

The shouts and shrieks from the monitor speakers were growing more chaotic. Hardwick started moving toward Ashton with a black look on his face. Gurney put out his hand to hold him back, as Ashton raised his gun calmly, centering his aim on Hardwick’s chest.

“For Christ’s sake, Jack,” said Gurney, “let’s not provoke the bullet solution when we don’t have any.”

Hardwick stopped, his jaw muscles bulging.

Gurney offered Ashton an admiring smile. “Hence the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’?”

“Ah. Mr. Ballston has been talking.”

“About Karnala, yes. I’d like to know more.”

“You already know so much.”

“Tell me the rest.”

“It’s a simple story, Detective. I came from a dysfunctional family. ” He grinned hideously, managing to convey the nightmares buried in that most overused of all pop-psych terms. Tics moved through his lips like insects under the skin. “I was finally extricated, adopted, given an education. I was drawn to a certain kind of work. Mostly I failed. My patients continued to rape children. I didn’t know what to do-until it occurred to me that my family connections provided a way to funnel the worst girls in the world to the worst men in the world.” He grinned again. “Condign reparation. A perfect solution.” The grin faded. “Clever young woman that she was, Jillian found out just a hair more than she should have, overheard a few words of a phone conversation she shouldn’t have, pursued her unfortunate curiosity, became a possible threat to the entire process. Of course, she never grasped the whole picture. But she imagined she could leverage her morsel of knowledge into some personal advantage. Marriage was her first demand. I knew it wouldn’t be her last. I addressed the situation in a way that I found particularly satisfying. Condignly satisfying. For a time all was well. Then you came along.” He aimed the pistol at Gurney’s face.

On the screen, two pews were in flames, flames were rising from half the lamps, some of the drapes were smoldering. Most of the girls were on the floor, some covering their faces, some trying to breathe through torn pieces of their clothing, some crying, some coughing, a few vomiting.

Hardwick appeared to be on the verge of an explosion.

“Then you came along,” Ashton repeated. “Clever, clever David Gurney. And this is the result.” He waved his gun at the screen. “Why didn’t your cleverness tell you that this is the way it would end? How else could it end? Did you really think I’d let them go? Is clever, clever David Gurney really that stupid?”

Hobart Ashton took a few short steps to the back of his son’s chair.

Hardwick screamed, “This is your solution, Ashton? This is it, you crazy fucker? Burn a hundred and twenty teenage girls to death? This is your fucking solution? ”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, it is! You really thought when I was finally trapped, I’d let them go?” Ashton’s voice was rising now, out of control, hurtling at Gurney and Hardwick like a wild thing with a life of its own. “You thought I’d turn a nest of snakes loose on all the little babies of the world? These toxic things, these slimy, venomous things! Demented, rotten, sucking, slimy things! These slither-”

It happened so quickly that Gurney almost thought he hadn’t seen it. The sudden flash of an arm around from the back of the chair, a quick curving movement, and that was all-Ashton’s rant cut off in the middle of a word. Then the old man stepping quickly, athletically to the side of the chair, grasping the barrel of Ashton’s gun, pulling it away with a twisting yank and the disturbingly sharp crack of a finger bone. Ashton’s head lolled forward on his chest, and his body began to tilt forward, curling downward, toppling onto the floor, collapsing sideways into a fetal position. It was then that the actual method of killing was made obvious by all the blood that began to pool around his throat.

Hardwick’s jaw muscles bulged.

The little man in the brown cardigan wiped his pocketknife on the back cushion of the chair in which Ashton had been sitting, folded it deftly with one hand, and replaced it in his pocket.

Then he looked down at Ashton and, as if in benediction to his son’s passing soul, said softly, “You’re a piece of shit.”