Tim Green - Exact Revenge

“Lester!” I shout, lifting him.

I see now, even in the shadows, that the last bullet struck the back of his head. Blood and matter spill from his skull. I retch and drop his body. Frantically, I search around me. On the upstream side of the rail bridge, someone has dumped a bag of garbage and it lies wedged between two great stones. I strip the shirt from my back without unbuttoning it and jam the black bag of garbage inside.

I tie the sleeve of my shirt to Lester’s wrist, then I wade toward the deep flow. When I’m close to the middle, I shove Lester’s body and the floating bag into the stiffest part of the current. They swirl and shoot downstream. They are pushed out of the shadows and into the beam of the spotlights. The lights stay with Lester and my shirt. There is more shouting. Bullets rain down, breaking the water’s surface, striking Lester’s dead body and the garbage as they rise and fall in the current, spinning madly down along the wall. I return to the bank and move with stealth up under the road bridge.

Shots and yells echo up the riverbed. I leave the cover of the bridge and find myself in a thick tangle of vegetation. Above me is Curley’s Restaurant, and I can hear the people spilling out onto the bridge to see what has happened. I keep sloshing upstream. Vertical concrete embankments replace the undergrowth where the river bends through the middle of downtown. I stay close to the shadow of the wall where the water is below my knees.

Up to the left is a stately old brick building with a white cupola. Black-and-white police cars are lined up along the rail that overlooks the river. The police station. The dark shapes of men are jogging out. Red and blue lights spin and tires squeal as they back out and head for the prison. I am almost to the next bridge when I see one figure approach the rail with a flashlight.

A wide drainpipe opens in the wall and I throw myself inside. A moment later, a beam of light sweeps past the mouth of the pipe. I can feel the hammer of my heart between my ears. I wait another minute, then creep toward the edge. The figure is gone and so is the light. I slip out and wade as quietly as I can upstream. When I reach the darkness of the next bridge, I start to run.

I pass under two more bridges and under the shadow of a stainless steel diner with a red neon sign, then the shambles of some tenement apartments before the concrete wall ends and the shadowy overgrowth of bushes and trees crowds the riverbed. The river widens and the going is easy for a time. Stars wink from above and they give the rippled water a pale glow. As I step carefully between the rocks, my ears are filled with a hissing that soon grows into a roar.

I round a bend and see the misty white sheet of water spilling over a dam. There are darkened brick buildings above harnessing the water flow and turning it into electricity. I leave the water for a rocky service road that climbs the right side of the bank up to the top of the dam. Two streetlights give off a blue glow. The pool above the dam is still and black and I stare around, breathing hard. There are a handful of houses with amber light spilling from random crooked windows. A string of laundry hangs in the backyard of the one closest to me and a small dock juts out into the still pool. Moored to it is a small aluminum skiff with an outboard motor.

Destiny.

I case the house as I wade through the bushes and creep across the grass. I can just make out the sound of a radio above the roar of the dam, but see no signs of life. I strip a man’s white dress shirt and a worn-out pair of khaki shorts from the line, tuck them under my arm, and hurry toward the boat. After unmooring the skiff, I use the oars and row quietly up past the houses. When I am completely surrounded again by trees, I pull the starter cord and race off.

The skiff finally runs aground and I hop out. I can see the next dam, not nearly as dramatic as the first, but when I get to the other side, I see what I’ve been looking for. The inlet. A marina. Dozens of boats, covered and waiting for their owners to take them out on the lake for a day of fun. Across the inlet from the marina, cottages stand clustered together under the trees. I hear the sounds of laughter and smell the campfires of people on vacation. I strip out of my prison pants and T-shirt in the shadows, then change into my new clothes and roll up the sleeves of the shirt before walking through the yard of the marina like I belong there.

I find a boat similar to the one I used to own, an open-bow Four Winns, and uncover it in plain sight of the people on the other side of the narrow inlet. Hotwiring this boat is easier than with my dad’s heavy equipment when I was a kid. Two wires clearly exposed beneath the dash. I flip on the running lights, back the boat out of its slip, and wave to the revelers as I ease up the inlet toward the open lake.

The water’s surface is smooth, and I am zipping along like a ghost, skimming the surface, flying through the night. The hillsides are dark except for a sprinkling of lights from the homes on the water. I pull up for a few minutes in the middle to strip and wash the scum from my body. The wind soon whips me dry and I stop again to put the clothes back on. Owasco is fourteen miles long, so in less than half an hour I am idling in toward a lively restaurant and bar tucked into the lake’s last cove.

This is no coincidence. Lester learned from an electrician about the place called Cascade Grill on the end of the lake. Our plan all along was for me to get us transportation this way. To be obvious and invisible. I was going to drop Lester at a bus station in Binghamton. Lester, my friend.

There is a long dock sticking out into the water. More than a dozen other boats are moored along its edge, bumping gently up against the car tires looped down over its metal support poles. The stillness of the air gives way to the steady hum of people talking and laughing and the vibrations and thumping of a band called the Works. I know because a huge banner stretches across the back of the one-story pale blue building: CASCADE GRILL WELCOMES THE WORKS.

The narrow dock leads right up a ramp and onto Cascade’s deck. Bugs swirl in the halos of the small lanterns nailed to a tall fence that blocks out the neighboring cottages. The orange wood of the deck is new and topped with dark green plastic tables and chairs with matching square canvas umbrellas. It’s wall-to-wall people. I ease through the crowd with my head bobbing gently to the beat like everyone else, and slip inside and up to the bar.

From my pocket, I remove Lester’s baggie of money and the map and I strip off a twenty from 1973. The bartender is a big teddy bear of a man with a walrus mustache and baggy pale green eyes. Even in the smoke of the bar, I can smell stale cigars on his clothes from behind the taps.

“Got any wheat beer?” I ask.

He scowls and shakes his head as if he doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.

“Löwenbräu?” I say.

He gives me a funny smile and says, “And you want to borrow my Foreigner eight-track too, right? Come on, buddy, I’ve got customers.”

I see a Bud tap handle and ask for a bottle of that. He reaches down into the cooler, keys off the top, and sets it down in front of me. I point to the twenty and leave the change on the bar like everyone else. With the bottle tipped up to my mouth, I look around. On my left are two muscle-heads in tank tops with crew cuts and big tattoos. To my right is a couple in their fifties wearing leather chaps and vests. The man has long gray hair pulled into a ponytail and his chick’s poorly bleached cut is windblown.

In front of them is a pile of small bills and change, two bottles of a brew I’ve never heard of, and a heavy chain with a set of keys. It takes me only a minute to see that they’re fall-down drunk.