Ken Douglas - Ragged Man

“ What are we gonna do?”

“ Sit tight for a second,” she said.

For the longest minute in her life, Ann sat, J.P. by her side, listening to the scratching and scraping at the door. Then whatever was out there growled a low rattling, rasping whisper, barely heard by the duo inside. “Smell-your-fear.” A hideous phlegm-filled gurgle.

“ That’s the Ragged Man,” Ann whispered.

J.P. shuddered.

Ann’s adrenaline was flowing before her feet hit the carpet, her racing mind taking her back to the night with the dingoes in Australia. She was afraid then and she was now, afraid that fear meant death and she wasn’t ready.

“ Are you okay, Annie?”

She couldn’t answer, because she wasn’t okay, her hands were trembling, her skin was clammy with sweat and a searing pain was ripping through her chest.

She knew the end was near. She wished she could see Rick and his beautiful smile one last time, but instead all she saw was the glint of the summer sun reflected into her eyes from the silver, shiny blade of the Jim Bowie knife the Ragged Man was holding up for her to see, just outside the window.

J.P. picked up the phone. “Annie, the phone doesn’t work,” he whispered and she heard the fear in his voice. “Someone cut the line.” He looked Ann in the eyes and she saw the boy fight the fear away. “I’m going for help.” He dashed to the door, slid the bolt and screamed when he saw the Bowie knife sitting on the front porch. Then he jumped over it and ran.

Jaspinder Singh watched as Sheriff Sturgees cradled the phone, then turned to Rick Gordon and Judy Donovan. The phone call had done something to him. The straight shoulders now sagged. The hard set of his jaw was gone. His glaring eyes were now dim. In thirty seconds the call had transformed him from a steaming battleship to a lumbering barge. He started to say something, then stopped. He turned away from Judy as he fished out some bills from a shirt pocket and faced Jaspinder Singh behind the counter.

“ Can I have a pack of Camels?” he asked, handing over the money.

“ It’s that bad?” Singh knew the sheriff only smoked when he was severely upset.

“ It can’t get any worse, Mr. Singh,” the sheriff said. It was plain for them all to see that the Sheriff was suffering some kind of mental anguish. He was fighting hard to control the tremor running through his hands and it took him a few seconds to get the pack open, and a few more to get a cigarette from the pack to his mouth, and still a few more to get it lit.

“ They’re here,” he said, exhaling a cloud of blue-gray smoke as an ambulance was parking out front.

“ Isn’t it a little late for that?” Rick said.

“ We don’t have an undertaker, don’t even have a morgue. They’ll transport both bodies to old Doc Willets in Palma. Doc will do the autopsies and sign the death certificates.”

They watched as the two attendants rolled Gundry’s body onto a stretcher with no more concern for his earthly remains than they’d have for a dog in the gutter.

After they were gone and it was just the four of them again, the Sheriff again looked like he’d swallowed something bad, then Jaspinder Singh thought he’d cry and he fought the tears as he listened to the Sheriff tell Judy Donovan that her brother-in-law, his wife and daughter had been found dead in the Wetlands.

As soon as he’d finished the horrible telling, the phone rang again. This time it was the boy, J.P. Donovan. He was out of breath, wanted to talk to the Sheriff and Jaspinder Singh knew, as he handed the phone over, that it was more bad news, so he wasn’t surprised when the Sheriff said, “It’s J.P. He’s calling from your house, Mr. Gordon. He had to break a window to get in. Seems like there’s trouble up there.”

Rick jumped from the police car and ran into the house. Ann was stretched out on the sofa, looking ashen. “I’m here, Annie,” he said, brushing the damp hair from her face.

“ Judy,” Ann whispered. She was fading fast and she knew it.

“ I’m here,” Judy said.

Ann struggled, held out her hand.

Judy took it and gave her a gentle squeeze.

“ Thank you.” Ann sighed as she took her hand back. Everything was going to be all right now.

“ Annie, what’s wrong?” Rick said.

“ Come closer, Flash.” She reached out, rubbed her husband’s cheek. “Give me your scar,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear. He bent his head low, offering the scar under his ear and she ran her tongue along it. “Smile for me one last time.”

He did and she died.

Six hours till Sherry. Evan was lost in the thought of her. The creamy brown eyes and full lipped smile hung in the haze of his memory as he rolled the hundred dollar bill.

Smiling with anticipation, he bent over the table, put the rolled bill to his nose, and inhaled. Then he sat back and felt the calm course through his body. The first line was always the best. He listened to the sounds of the Stones playing low in the background. For a few seconds he was one with the music. He was completely aware.

He opened his eyes and bent to inhale the second line, when he heard the bell. He inhaled quickly, annoyed that the anticipated rush was being interrupted.

“ Who is it?” he called downstairs.

“ Rick.”

“ Come on up.” He heard the door open and footsteps on the stairs. He covered the residue on the table with a magazine and stuffed the rolled hundred into his shirt pocket.

“ I thought you would be jogging,” he said, as his friend came into the living room.

“ Not today,” Rick Gordon said, “I’m going back to California.”

“ You know you can stay as long as you like.”

“ Hey, New York’s great, but I belong somewhere on the Coast. Besides, I’ve been abusing your hospitality for almost six months. It’s about time I got on with my life.”

“ You’ve been paying rent on the apartment. If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be renting the downstairs to starving students. You know the kind, always late on the rent. Parties, girls, noise.”

“ I gotta go, Evan.”

“ When are you leaving?”

“ Tonight, I’m going to stop in L.A. for a few days and see Christina, then it’s back to Tampico. I was hoping you’d give me a ride to the airport.”

“ I can’t, I got a date with Sherry. I’ll get my father to do it.”

“ You sure?”

“ I think he likes you better than me. He’ll be glad to do it.”

Evan Hatch walked across the room to the phone and tapped the buttons.

Rick dropped on the divan, closed his eyes and listened to Mick Jagger’s voice coming out of his friend’s speakers.

“ You can’t always get what you want,” repeated the chorus, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”

Very true, he thought, before Ann’s death, he’d managed to get anything he’d ever wanted out of life. And he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he’d earned what he’d wanted. He was no stranger to hard work. He’d taken risks and they’d paid off. But since Ann’s death, the only thing he wanted was her back, and the only thing he needed was food and water and a place to sleep.

“ What time you wanna be picked up?” Evan’s voice snapped him out of his reverie.

“ Two, my plane leaves at 5:00, that should be plenty of time.”

“ Can you be here by 2:00?” Rick heard him say, then he watched him hang the phone up.

“ Thanks,” Rick said.

“ You sure you’re ready?”

“ I’ve got to go back. I have to put the house on the market, deal with her things and sell the Jeep.”