Victor Gischler - Gun Monkeys

They say your life flashes in front of you when you’re about to die, but I thought maybe I was seeing ahead, not back. Everything happened in eerie slow motion as I floated upward. The pictures in my head were of Danny and Amber and Ma in Michigan, and of Marcie. Nothing about the monkey cage, my old life, Stan. It was as if I’d shed them into the wet darkness with the pea coat.

My lungs burned, eyes stung, limbs felt lifeless, leaden and slack. I stroked hard.

Please.

I broke the surface, swallowed air with loud, coarse gulps, spit water, coughed. I pulled Amber up next to me. Put an arm around her, swam. She wasn’t breathing.

I swam to the dock, reached, my fingertips finding a hold on the rough planks. No way. I didn’t have the strength to pull myself up. I paddled for shore. I was about to give it up when I felt the bottom with my feet. I heaved Amber up with both arms, kept putting one foot in front of the other until the lake was behind me.

Amber slipped out of my arms to the snow-covered shore. I knelt next to her, pinched her nose, tilted the head back. Her T-shirt clung to her skin, nipples thrusting against the fabric. I covered her mouth with mine. Blew. Where had I learned this? It didn’t matter. I kept at it.

She coughed water. I turned her on her side and let her finish. She sucked breath, sobbed. We shivered together on the shore, teeth chattering. She let me help her up. We walked with an unsteady sway back to the cabin.

I’d found a stack of cut wood at the side of the cabin under a tarp. I carried in an armload and built up the fire. I turned my back as Amber removed her wet clothes. She sat in front of the fire, wrapped herself in the blanket from the cot. I found a pair of sweatpants a size too small for me, but I put them on and hung my wet clothes next to Amber’s on the makeshift clothesline I’d fashioned from a ball of twine.

I rifled the shelf above the little stove and was elated to find a coffee can, but my hopes were dashed when I found it empty. There were tea bags. I boiled water, found cups. I filled the cups, offered one to Amber.

“Tea.”

She took it, nodding, staring out the window.

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes didn’t waver from the window. “I’m okay now. I’m glad to see you.” She cleared her throat. “Is Danny…?”

“He’s in the hospital, but he’s alive. He’ll be okay.”

That seemed to be enough. She sipped the tea.

I drank mine. A surprisingly soothing warmth started in my belly and spread outward. I felt the wet clothes. It would be a while. I put another log on the fire.

“I’m sorry I ran. I didn’t know where I was or who you were.”

“It’s okay.”

She was still rattled, almost catatonic, but she was getting better. She’d been through a lot. Too much. But she was getting better.

She drank tea, her eyes still on the window. “Someone’s coming.”

I went to the window.

A black luxury car, a Lincoln, parked across the lake. It stayed for a moment, then started the slow circle around the shore. I watched like Tina must’ve watched, felt maybe like she’d felt. The certainty of approaching dread.

“Who is it?” asked Amber.

“I don’t know.” Please don’t be Mercury.

The car passed the frame of the first cabin, kept coming.

How could it be Mercury? I must’ve been suffering from the worst kind of paranoia. How could he have tracked me down to Tennessee? My mind whirled.

Jeffers.

Certainly that was it. Mercury could make someone like Jeffers talk easy. He’d say how I’d been there looking for Tina. Mercury could follow the same trail.

The car passed the second cabin.

It didn’t matter. Trouble was on the way. How it happened was now irrelevant.

The car stopped well behind my truck, and the driver stepped out.

Lloyd Mercury.

He wore a black suit with a fat, white tie, gleaming wingtips, black overcoat. He held a flashing nickel automatic. It looked like a.357 Magnum Desert Eagle, enough gun to kill me three or four times.

I turned to Amber, put my finger against my lips. She nodded.

My guns were at the bottom of the lake.

I grabbed the bowie knife and the fireplace poker. I scurried up the ladder and found the loft. I kept to one side of the window, watched Mercury carefully. I couldn’t open the window without drawing a faceful of bullets, so I watched and waited. Mercury stripped off his topcoat and threw it across the hood of his car, began circling the house to the left.

I already knew the front door was the only way in or out. The two windows in back were small, and he’d have to make a racket of broken glass to get through. He’d see Amber in the blanket by the fire. That didn’t matter. He knew somebody was here anyway. He’d seen the chimney smoke, same as I had.

If it came down to speed and strength, I’d lose. But I had experience and patience.

I’d rather have had speed and strength.

Mercury came around the other side of the cabin. He’d finished his survey, and I knew a guy like him wouldn’t lay siege. He’d want it done, and he’d come in the cabin right through the front.

I went to the edge of the loft to wait, fireplace poker in my hand, knife sheath stuck in the back of the sweatpants.

He kicked in the front door. Amber didn’t even flinch.

“Where is he?” asked Mercury.

I couldn’t see him, but Amber turned her head slightly to his voice. I used that to judge his position. Amber didn’t say anything, just pulled the blanket tighter around her.

I reached as far to the right as I could with the fireplace poker and tapped the floor of the loft.

The cabin shook with the thunder of Mercury’s automatic. Three slugs tore through the wood where I’d tapped the poker. By the third shot I’d already jumped.

I landed in front of him. The pistol was still aimed at the loft, so I swung the poker, caught him on the wrist, and the pistol clattered across the cabin’s wooden floor. Mercury took the blow from the backswing on the side of his neck, staggered back. I brought it back for a killer blow, swung down for his head. He blocked it with a forearm, but I knew he would. When his forearm came up for the block, I leapt, kicked him in the ribs. He flew backwards through the window. Glass rained.

A mistake.

He wouldn’t just have one gun. I couldn’t let him reach inside his jacket or down to his ankle. If he got a pistol out, I was all done.

I leapt through the window after him. Landed on his chest, brought the poker down for a quick blow. He caught my wrist with both hands, twisted, jabbed a thumb into a pressure point just below my palm, and I had to give up the poker.

But I squeezed my injured hand into a painful fist. Punched three times, once across the jaw and twice in the eye.

Mercury twisted, rolled over and bucked me off, kicked out backwards and caught me in the gut. I scrambled to my feet but he was already up.

We faced each other three feet apart. I’d lost the surprise, but I grabbed the knife from behind, drew it, threw the sheath away. I had to stay close, so I could go for him if he went into his jacket for a gun.

But he smiled. A little blood down his mouth, right eye just starting to swell.

I stood cold in the snow, barefoot, wondering what to do next.

“How’s it going, Lloyd?”

“Good,” he said. “Beggar sends his regards.”

“How did you find me? Jeffers?”

“Of course. He said Tina was from Tennessee, and that you were probably headed there too. The phone book had two listings for Tina. This cabin and the house back down the mountain. I went to the house first. You left quite a mess.”

“Lloyd, I’m not going back to Orlando. I’m done. I know that. There’s no reason to do this. All I want to do is help the girl. She’s had it rough. You don’t need to bother with me. I’ll even tell you where the books are.”