Tom Piccirilli - Headstone City

Dane shut it off and turned to look through the passenger window, knowing what he would see.

The warden-Robinson Howards III-naked in the hot-burning light high above his doorstep, coming straight for the car. Skin glistening pale and mottled pink. His gait awkward, like he couldn't get his arms and legs moving together, head lolling. He got in the backseat, reached to close the door but it was already shut. Dane snapped on the interior light and leaned over so the warden could see his face.

“John Danetello,” Howards said, accepting the situation without question. Then his features contorted, the confusion setting in. “What are you doing here? How did you find my home?”

“Everybody knows where you live, warden.”

“What?”

It was true. The leader of the Aryan Brotherhood had hired a sleazy private eye a year or so ago to track Howards and a few of the guards. Insinuating that the brotherhood was going to knock off a few bulls and the warden himself in a cutthroat show of power. It didn't matter, because the Nazi Lowriders punked out and never did make a move. They spread the home addresses around, hoping the Mexican Mafia or the Black Guerrilla Family would do the deed and they could still take credit for it.

Dane knew the area pretty well. Some of the Monti associates lived nearby. Years ago, Vinny used to take him out there for big family parties. Vinny would go off to a cabana and screw around with some mob accountant's daughter while Dane sat poolside, wearing sunglasses, maids bringing him pink drinks with lots of fruit in them. He'd watch a hundred people he didn't know swimming, playing croquet in the four-acre backyards, and talking tax shelters.

Afterward, Vinny would come out with the girl looking a little rattled, and he'd give Dane a wink and grab the foofy drink out of his hand and go, “The fuck is this? Melon balls with tequila? Hey, you're gonna get burned without any sunscreen on, man. You want her to rub you down?” The girl smiling but a touch scared, Vinny's glass-eyed gaze pinning her to a lawn chair. Her sweaty, mussed hair sticking to the side of her face.

Howards looked down at himself in the back of the Buick, noticing his shriveled pecker but not feeling the cold. “Why am I here?” he asked.

“I wanted to talk with you,” Dane said, and pulled away from the curb. He drove slowly along the roads closest to the water.

“Make an appointment. Have I been hypnotized?”

“No.”

“Drugged?”

“No, warden. We're on a night ride together.”

“What does that mean?”

“Relax and find out.”

Dane couldn't get into it too quickly because the warden never allowed anybody else to speak. He'd have to blather on for a while and, after he wore down a little, he'd act like he'd been giving the other guy a chance to talk the whole time, and say, “Well?”

Stroking his slight trace of beard stubble, Howards stared out at the fog undulating across the Sound, swarming around the car. “It's dark. And I find myself sitting in the back of a GM with you. And I'm most certainly naked. This is quite literally the stuff of nightmares.” It struck him as funny and he let go with a confused smile. “I'm occasionally plagued by dreams of being gang-raped by prisoners.”

“Put your mind at rest about that,” Dane said.

“Are you going to kill me, Mr. Danetello?”

“No.”

It was the “Mister” that always got to Dane. The guy saying it more like he was a high school principal trying to shake up a kid caught in the hall without a pass. Dane hated and enjoyed it at the same time, in about equal parts, but he wasn't sure why.

“You're not really here, warden.”

“I'm not?”

“No. You're still at home in your bed.”

“How ridiculous. Your psychiatric examination results showed you were a borderline schizophrenic, but I never saw any evidence of that until now.”

It actually annoyed Dane, hearing that sort of shit about the psych tests. The cons who talked to the doctors usually fooled them into an early parole, saying how they were cured, they just wanted to give something positive back to society. Then on the morning of their release they went and took out a whole family with a meat cleaver. They go right back into the can and the doctors start flipping through their files trying to figure out where they went wrong.

“Do you remember getting into the car?” Dane asked.

“Yes.”

“How'd you do it?”

“What a foolish question.”

“Then answer it.”

“I-” Howards said, and fear reared up in his eyes. The warden did a good job at keeping control and not losing his cool. Dane had found him hard but fair. A bit too stuffy for his own good but not often judgmental. He was a little street ignorant and so he was more honest than other men in similar positions of power. Because he didn't have quite so much on the ball, he was somehow easier to deal with.

“How?” Dane repeated.

“I never opened the door, did I? I simply… entered.” Still reasoning his way through it, voice calm but lifeless. “I feel rather disconnected, which is not an altogether unpleasant experience.”

If he didn't feel that way, he'd be screaming his ass off, halfway out of his head, knowing his soul was separated from his sleeping body. “Glad you're enjoying yourself.”

“I didn't say that. Is this what the New Age metaphysicians would call my astral self?”

“Call it what you like,” Dane told him.

“What do you call it?”

“I don't put a name to it.”

“You often avoid questions put directly to you. The prison psychiatrists noted that in your files as well.”

Dane tried not to sigh and failed.

Sort of funny, the way the warden started staring at his hand, like he thought it might become transparent. Bringing it up to his eye, looking at the palm and inspecting the other side, touching his fingers together. What would those fuckin' doctors tell him now?

Howards bent forward and said, “How odd and unique, to be born with this gift.”

“It's not unique and I wasn't born with it. At least I don't think I was.” He still wasn't sure. Maybe the burden was always there, like with his grandmother, and the crash just made it heavier, stronger. Who knew, maybe Vinny was right, and they'd both been dead since the accident.

“Someone else has it?”

Dane found himself measuring his words. “Similar anyway.”

“Who?”

“Vinny Monticelli.”

“Ah, I see. I've heard strange stories about him. How he believes he has visions and the gift of prophecy. So it's true, then? My God, how awful that'd be.”

“He doesn't seem to mind.”

“And you?”

“I get along,” Dane said.

“How did you both acquire such facilities?”

“We went through a windshield together,” Dane told him.

Looping over to the parkway, heading down to the beach. When he was a kid his parents used to take him out there to go swimming, the waters a lot cleaner than the sludge over at Coney. They'd build sand castles and his father would make sounds like the seagulls, his voice echoing among the dunes.

Almost nervous now, thinking about it all a little more, the warden asked, “What happens if I wake up?”

“I don't know.”

“Might I die?”

“I suppose it's a possibility.”

“Oh, this is terrible. You don't understand what Edna's snoring is like. I must wake up twenty times a night. I suggest you get me back soon.”

“In a minute. I need answers first. What have you heard about the Monticellis' action lately?”

“What makes you think I'll tell you the truth?”

“You don't have any choice.”

“Oh my.”

Howards thought about it and appeared to consider his options at the moment. Deciding whether he should say anything more to an ex-con released only this very morning. Sitting in the backseat of a Buick trying to stare through his hand. Scared that his wife's nasal drip might inadvertently kill him. But Dane meant what he said. Nobody on the night ride could lie to him.