Tom Piccirilli - Sorrow's crown

A woman, staring emptily at me.

I gasped when I spotted her, and the world grew insanely white and too wide. A male nurse frowned and his patient blinked as the new tires on Katie's car squealed. I suddenly spun the wheel tightly and roared off toward a pine tree overhanging a splintering wooden bench. One of the guards stood his ground and put his hand on his firearm. I jammed the brake, jumped out, and started yelling, "Help! He's in my back seat trying to escape! Somebody stop him!" I waved my hands about my face because they did it in the movies.

The guard drew his weapon and came over while I hopped around some more. The nurse and the patient he'd been standing with both stirred; the woman appeared to be self-assured, giddy, and frightened at the same time.

The guard said, "Who's in there? What happened?"

I stopped hopping, turned, and swung at him as hard as I could, connecting with his chin in such a beautiful display of action and reaction that I gave a grunt of pleasure, watching him fly over the hood of the car the way Harnes had done five decades ago when my grandmother had nearly run him over. His gun went off and the woman almost smiled.

I grabbed her hand and pushed her into the passenger seat while several nurses came running after us. I slammed my foot down and drove through the semaphore arm while the guard at the gate popped his head out of the little cubicle. I'd been wrong. He didn't want to pull his gun, he just wanted to be left alone to finish reading the socially and politically absorbing articles in Gozangas . The woman stared at me and suddenly giggled.

She was the lady Teddy had sketched-and because of her, for some reason, I knew, he'd been murdered.

Dipping over a clawing tree line, the bloated moon wobbled through the clouds, looking ready to keel over backward and roll out of sight. The woman smiled as we drove along the empty back roads toward Harnes' estate. She took my hand briefly, let it go, and then grasped hold again. Her teeth glowed in the flow of moonlight. Shadows twisted and filled her face. I spoke to her, trying to explain the situation, but she clearly didn't understand a word I said. Her small, strange smile remained firmly affixed.

Teddy was at once a better and worse artist than I would've believed; he managed to capture so much of her likeness, but not quite enough so that I could've pieced it all together days ago in his own bedroom, when I'd searched through the books he'd bought from me. Irony settled heavily on my shoulders. If only he'd been a slightly better artist.

I called Lowell and listened to phantom echoes of his voice, the phone battery so low and the static so awful that we had to scream at each other to be heard. He yelled, "You know what you've done? That's kidnapping. The feds will be involved now. What the hell are you doing? You finally lost your bird?"

I shouted, but in a few seconds the green power light dimmed and the phone went dead in my hand. I tossed it in the back seat and jammed the accelerator, pressing seventy along the snaking road and waiting for FBI helicopters to start swooping in low. The woman clapped and giggled some more.

When we passed the two rearing stone lions at the entrance to Harnes' private road, she nearly jumped out of her seat and started wailing and slapping me in the arm. I pulled over, unsure of what to do. If I let her out and anybody else found her in the state she was in, dressed like a hospital patient, I suspected they'd only toss her back in. Besides, showing up with her might be the trick I needed to pull. She scrabbled at the door like a dog scratching to be let out. I spoke plainly and calmly, and though my words meant nothing to her, I hoped my tone would get through.

She kept hitting me in the arm and keening loudly.

I took firm hold of her shoulders and said, "You have to trust me. I need your help. I don't work for Harnes the way those doctors do. I'm your friend, and we're going to get away from him." I took my hands away, hoping she wouldn't leap for the woods. "But he has my grandmother, and only you can help me get her away from him. From him and Jocelyn."

She quieted and looked straight ahead. I waited. Her face drew in on itself and became composed, revealing almost nothing. The corners of her eyes were filled with cracks from years of squinting in fury. She gestured for me to proceed, and despite the skittering shadows, she now appeared almost anxious to see him. She let loose with a string of sounds and folded her hands in her lap. I drove on.

The stately electric gate stood shut, and that arcing iron name HARNES above seemed an extension of the man, looming over me. The stone wall surrounding the mansion was too high to climb, even if I managed to belly the car through the dense trees and climb onto the roof. I got out and could hear the buzzing of the amperage in the intricate ironwork. The metal wasn't that thick, more stylish than practical. I hoped. I gazed at the computerized connecting lock and the stone post in which it had been set.

He had my grandmother.

I got in the car and backed it up to the mouth of the private road. I'd heard you couldn't get electrocuted in your car because the tires would ground you. It was the kind of Americana I didn't trust, but it would have to do in a clinch. I continued in reverse down the road for a couple hundred yards more. I revved the engine and enjoyed the brusque howl and shriek coming from it.

"Can you say ‘fuck it'?" I asked.

She continued to simply stare ahead. Sweat trickled down my neck and my bruises and lumps burned. I reached over and put her seat belt on her.

Finally she got hold of my meaning and said, with a tentative but laughing lilt, " Fuckit ."

"I'm glad you agree."

I floored the gas.

Trees streamed by in a rushing black wash as we hurtled forward. I threw on the high beams and they punctured the night like twin glittering blades. After crashing through the lightweight semaphore arm I felt used to smashing things. Even at this speed the car glided. Duke had done a good job the second time around. The gate loomed and we accelerated straight for it. Katie wasn't going to be thrilled with me. I gripped the steering wheel hard, and then the woman covered her face and let out a tiny but fierce scream. Or maybe it was me.

When we hit, the headlights exploded, the grille wrenched wildly, and steam burst from the engine, but despite the gate's screeching lightning hum and burst of red sparks, we didn't fry. The gate tipped on top of us and crumpled part of the roof. She screamed but began clapping again, that giggle such a peculiar underscoring to the sound of tearing metal. The safety-glass windshield cracked and crimped inwards at the driver's corner but didn't shatter.

The car sputtered feebly as the mansion emerged in the moist moonlight. Hundreds of panes of glass like menacing eyes marked my-our-return. The woman said something in a hushed mixture of awe, fear, and anger. I looked at her and she repeated it, and again and once more. I nodded. Whatever she was saying, I felt exactly the same way. We pulled up to the house behind the limousine, and I motioned for her to stay in the car. She tucked her chin to her chest and gazed at the front door. I hoped to Christ that Lowell had understood me through the static. I took off my watch and noted the second hand, and showed her that I wanted her to come inside in ten minutes. She looked at me as if I were insane.

The dying chauffeur sat in the limo, slumped back in his seat, coughing into a bloody, phlegm-flecked handkerchief. He didn't even have the strength to go to his room. His heavy, wet wheeze made it sound like he was slowly being crushed under a board with rocks on top of it, and he only followed me with his eyes because he couldn't turn his head anymore. I wondered if Harnes had actually been poisoning him with a mixture of household products, too.