Джо Горес: Come Morning

“What are you telling me?” she exclaimed. “Goddamn you, what are you saying to me?”

“That he killed me,” said Runyan’s voice. “With this shotgun.”

They whirled toward him. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, cradling the cocked and ready sawed-off shotgun in the crook of his left arm.

Art, ashen-faced, began backing away, hands raised to shoulder-height. He tried a sickly smile.

“Hey, Runyan, look, I can explain...”

Louise felt dead, frozen inside. Now Runyan knew it all: about her and Art. That it was his brother who had schemed to take the diamonds from him. She had let Moyers drive her away for nothing. She should have stayed, let him do his worst. Now it was too late. Now there was too much that was bitter between them to ever...

But she didn’t understand, either, what Runyan had said. That Art was the shotgunner who had tried to murder him?

“Twice,” said Runyan. “The first time was straight economics — he thought I was dumb enough to be running around with the diamonds on me. He called you off so you wouldn’t know. But he missed, so he had to send you back in.” He turned to Art with a sardonic smile. “The second time you shot the wrong guy.”

Art had backed slowly away across the room until he touched the credenza against the far wall.

“He... he knew the Bush Street address,” said Louise haltingly. “That’s where he sent me the second time...”

“He sent me money there.” He turned back to Art. “But why the second time, Art?” He asked it as if he really wanted to know. “Why, when you thought I’d already recovered the diamonds and they were out of your reach anyway? Was it just simple frustration? Doesn’t seem much of a reason to kill someone.”

“He needed the money to stay out of jail,” said Louise.

Even as she spoke, she knew there was more to it than that. So did Runyan. He advanced on Art as if stirred to anger by his own recital of the facts.

“Or was it because of Louise?”

In his own way, she knew, Art had loved her. To lose her to his younger brother after a lifetime of...

Runyan slightly raised the cocked shotgun, then the tension seemed to go out of him. He set it down on the dining table without even bothering to uncock it.

“To hell with it.” To Louise, he said, “I just came back hoping to find you here anyway. And maybe to say goodbye to the old place. I’ve said it. So let’s go.”

The final weight of guilt lifted from her spirit. They knew everything about each other now — and neither of them cared. It was just what he had said: The world had started turning when the two of them had come together.

He put his arm around her shoulder and turned her toward the front door. Behind them, ignored, Art started to inch toward the forgotten shotgun.

“I want to go to Vegas and be an exotic dancer,” Runyan said. “Ostrich feathers and mesh stockings and bare boobs...”

They both started to laugh, almost to the front door. Behind them, Art leaped forward and snatched up the already cocked shotgun. Runyan turned, half-laughing.

“You aren’t going to do anything with that, Art. It’s over. We’ve all lost out on the diamonds. It’s all over.”

But Art panted disjointedly, “You broke in... shot her... I struggled with you... got the gun away... shot you...”

“Don’t be a fool, Art,” he said. “You saved my life when you shot Moyers. You didn’t mean to, but you did. So you go your way, we’ll go ours—”

Louise thrust herself forward. “Art, for God’s sake—”

“In the back, through the window shade, that’s your style,” said Runyan. “You don’t have the balls for this, Art.”

For answer, Art jerked both triggers of the shotgun at pointblank range. As Louise cringed back with a shriek, eyes squeezed tight shut, the hammers fell on empty chambers. She opened her eyes, stunned. Runyan was standing there just looking at Art almost sadly.

“I didn’t think you really would do it, Art,” he said. “Not face-to-face like this. For no reason at all.” He turned away. “But just in case, I didn’t put any shells in it.”

Runyan slid in behind the wheel of the Toyota. Louise was rummaging in her purse for the keys, her actions almost frenzied.

“You don’t understand,” she exclaimed, “he hates you, he’s always hated you.”

She handed him the keys. Runyan inserted one into the ignition with maddening deliberation. “He just used up all his hate. Even if they do indict him, his lawyers’ll—”

“You still don’t understand. He’s capable of anything. This isn’t just for the diamonds, or the indictment that somehow he blames you for, or even the fact that you have me and he doesn’t. You played a dirty trick on him when he was just three years old, and he’s never forgiven you.”

Runyan shrugged as he started the engine. When Art was three? What difference could it make now? He took off the handbrake and put it in drive. Above and behind them, one of the bedroom windows burst outward as Art rammed the stock of a 30.06 deer rifle through the glass. He reversed the weapon, threw it to his shoulder, fired just as Runyan started around the far end of the traffic circle. A starred hole appeared in the rear window at the same instant they heard the thud of the rifle.

“Holy shit!” yelled Runyan. “He does hate me!”

He goosed it, the car fishtailing out of the turn-around as a second slug creased the hood. Then they were into cover as the road went down through the sheltering hardwoods. Runyan wiped his face with his hand, but tried to be casual when he spoke.

“He always was a lousy shot.” It came out tense and excited. All of a sudden he wanted desperately to know.

“What trick?” he asked Louise.

“What?” She was emerging from under the seat slowly, like a turtle unfolding from its shell when the danger has passed.

“When he was three years old. What trick did I play—”

“Oh. You were born.”

For a moment Runyan stared at her blankly, then he started to laugh. They were running out across the flat at the foot of the hill. By looking back, Louise would be able to get a last glimpse of the house. She started to turn, but Runyan put a hand up against the side of her face like a horse’s blinder, blocking her view. He gently turned her face forward again.

“You want to be turned to a pillar of salt?” he asked.

She stared at him hard for a moment, suddenly solemn, then nodded slowly in agreement. As he turned into the main road, she sighed.

“I never did get my stories.”

Runyan, with a flourish, pulled her folded stories from the inner pocket of his jacket and handed them to her. She grabbed them with a little exclamation; but then she just sat there with them clutched almost absently in her hands as he drove them away from there.

Sat there and wondered if she was going to cry and wondered if she felt this way out of sadness or out of joy. Then she thought, Maybe this is the way it always is with endings. And with beginnings.