Cul-de-Sac (33 page)

Except for one disastrous consequence Camel had not foreseen, the gig came off pretty much as he had planned it.

Getting McCleany to open the door was the toughest part, he could’ve torched the room and destroyed the photographs without ever putting himself at risk but Camel counted on the elephant being an irresistible incentive. Who could be presented with a chunk of gold like that and not want to touch it?

Camel had cut off the receptacle end of an extension cord and had split the black hot wire from the white neutral wire, wrapping bare copper from the hot wire around one back leg of the elephant.
The fireplace screen had been laid flat on the floor and Camel attached the extension cord’s neutral wire to it. After that was done, hot wire connected to the elephant and neutral wire to the screen, the other end of the cord was plugged into a second extension cord that was hidden along the wall and run around to an electrical outlet where Growler was sprawled feigning death. At the agreed upon signal, Camel shouting
liar
, Growler plugged in the extension cord, electricity then seeking to complete its circuit from hot to neutral, from the copper wire through an even better conductor of electricity: the gold elephant. McCleany, standing on the fire screen in his golf cleats and holding the elephant in his greed-wet hand made the connection … and got zapped by 20 amps flowing at 120 volts. The shock might only have disabled a healthy man … it was McCleany’s heart giving out that killed him.

Lying on the floor next to the receptacle Growler had willed himself to stay alive. Hearing the signal from Camel and finding the strength to push that plug into the receptacle, knowing it was going to zap McCleany, that’s when Growler even with all his wounds, the insupportable pain, realizing his own death was minutes away … it was at that moment Growler’s seven-year burden lifted and he felt blessedly free.

The disastrous consequence Camel had failed to foresee in devising and executing this booby trap was McCleany’s cigar. When he got juiced, leaping up still holding the elephant, McCleany had that cigar firmly clenched between his teeth … and when he fell flat and hard on his broad red face, the cigar splintered into a shower of glowing coals that ignited the gasoline.

With all that gas burning right there in the doorway, illuminating the room, in less than a minute the fire would be too high, too hot for anyone to escape … Camel working quickly, first telling Annie to get the hell out of there and then gathering the photographs from McCleany’s pocket and checking his pulse … dead. He searched him for weapons, finding all three: McCleany’s own
.38, Gray’s 9mm, and Eddie’s .45. Camel went to Growler and pulled out the plug before checking
his
pulse … bastard still alive, unfuckingbelieveable. He debated leaving him there to burn but then hefted Growler onto his shoulder … when Camel turned around and saw Annie still in the room he shouted at her, “Get the hell out of here!”

She was kneeling at the elephant. “Is it safe to touch it?”

“We don’t have time—”

“Is it safe!”

“Yes.”

She unwound the wire from the elephant’s back leg and wrestled it from McCleany’s dead grasp.

“Annie, throw the cushions from the couch in the doorway, we’ll use them to step through the fire.”

She did that, then tucked the sculpture close to her body like a fullback with a football … using her other hand to hold the jacket closed, Annie running nimbly from one cushion to the next, escaping injury completely.

Camel didn’t fare as well. Carrying Growler made him clumsy, he slipped off one cushion and tripped, the fire scorching his clothes. But he quickly righted himself and hauled Growler down the hallway-balcony to where Annie waited. They looked back at the doorway, the fire having become so intense that no one could’ve made it through there now.

On their way out of Cul-De-Sac, Camel was forced repeatedly to stop and rest. Annie asked him if he wanted to put Growler down, he said if he did that he’d never get him back up again.

“What’d you do to your nose?”

“I’ll tell you all about it outside, come on I can make it the rest of the way now.”

Camel carrying Growler, Annie leading, they went through the big double doors at the front of Cul-De-Sac, across the wide porch, down the steps, and were well away from the building before Camel lowered Growler to the ground.

“What’re we going to do?” Annie asked.

“Sit right here on the grass and watch the goddamn place burn to the ground I hope.”

She looked back at Cul-De-Sac, no outward sign of the fire yet but the way it had been burning, with that big atrium functioning as a chimney to draw the fire upward, flames would be showing out the roof within minutes.

Camel checked Growler’s pulse again, thready but still ticking. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I couldn’t save Elizabeth Rockwell—or Jake Kempis or Parker Gray for that matter—but this bastard I manage to bring out alive.”

“I almost feel sorry for him,” Annie said.

“I don’t.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

Growler coughed and beckoned Camel close. “McCleany?”

“Dead as dead.”

“Innocent,” Growler whispered, referring to himself.

“You
were
innocent, now you’re on your way to hell.”

“Teddy!” Annie said, shocked by the harshness of telling that to a dying man.

But Growler indicated his own agreement with Camel … and then died without comment, ceremony, or grace.

“Is he gone?” Annie asked.

“Yeah.”

Sitting on the grass next to Camel, watching for signs of Cul-De-Sac’s destruction, Annie cradled the gold elephant in her lap as if it were a child she had saved from that burning building.

Camel meanwhile was plotting, running the possibilities, totaling body counts … ten dead. Growler had killed five: the Raineys, Kenny Norton, Elizabeth Rockwell, and Murray. There would be little doubt about those homicides. Paul Milton’s death would be ruled a suicide. Whoever was ultimately responsible for Growler’s death, no one would much care … he’d be labeled a mad-dog killer and good riddance. McCleany killed Jake Kempis, probably with a knife that would be found on whatever was left of McCleany’s body. Which left two final victims, McCleany himself
and Parker Gray, both of whom Camel had killed. McCleany would be easy enough, Camel was forced to electrocute him in self-defense and Annie could testify to what had happened up in that room … she could tell the truth. Parker Gray was another matter entirely.

“I intend to keep this elephant,” she said.

Camel didn’t comment.

“Growler claimed it was worth three million dollars.”

“Yeah, that’s what Elizabeth Rockwell said too.”

“It’s mine now.”

“Actually it’s not.”

She knew it was futile to argue a point of ethics with him but Annie stubbornly said, “I’m keeping it just the same.”

Camel was back to thinking about Parker Gray, whom he’d shot with McCleany’s .38 …

I’ll say McCleany did it. I’ll say the reason I slipped away from that trooper at the hospital is because I didn’t trust anyone with the state police, not after I discovered Parker Gray and Gerald McCleany had framed Growler for a murder that McCleany committed. The former partners must’ve had a falling out because McCleany killed Gray, that’s what I’ll say. If necessary I might even claim I saw him do it. I’ll say that after murdering Gray, McCleany used his own .38 and Gray’s 9mm to put two rounds in Growler. Jake Kempis isn’t around to contradict me, I’ll lie my way out of this.

Camel hadn’t looked at the eleven snapshots in his pocket yet but from what Elizabeth Rockwell indicated they probably included some prominent men who seven years ago were screwing a seventeen-year-old girl who then became a murder victim … this whole affair will be like something the cat coughed onto the carpet in polite company, everyone’s going to want it cleaned up and cleared away with a minimum of comment.

All I have to do is tell the lies people want to hear.

When Annie leaned against him he put an arm around her shoulder.

“I feel so guilty that Paul got himself involved in this for me,” she said. “I don’t understand why, I never nagged him about money, I always tried …” She wept.

“Don’t put yourself on the line for any of this,” Camel told her. “Paul did what he did, he’s responsible.”

She wiped at her eyes. “I wish I could be so sure of everything the way you are.”

He didn’t feel sure of anything.

“Always so hard,” Annie continued. “Telling that dying man he was going to hell … that was a hard thing to say.”

But Camel didn’t feel hard, he felt soft and weak. “What do you think you’ll do now?” he asked.

She said she didn’t know. “I’ve always wanted to travel.”

“Travel’s good.”

They watched as flames showed themselves in a whole bank of Cul-De-Sac’s windows.

Annie asked him what he intended to tell the police when they got here.

Lies, he thought, lots of them.

“Teddy?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean about this elephant. I know better than to ask you to lie for me.”

Go ahead, he thought … I will. Ask me to travel around the world with you, I’ll do that too.

“But I
am
asking you not to mention it one way or the other, give me a shot at keeping this elephant for myself … or do you consider that the same as lying?”

He thought it probably
was
the same as lying but he didn’t tell that to Annie.

She rested her head on his chest. They were both watching when the building’s windows shattered from the intense heat sending glass like hard sharp tears down the front of Cul-De-Sac, freeing smoky yellow flames to leap from those windows as if they’d been dying for air.

She asked him if he would ever lie about
anything.

He said he never would.

“Then tell me this, do you love me?”

Before answering, he gently turned her head so she could see his face.

Tethered

The Crying Heart Tattoo

Final Harbor

The Beginning of Sorrows

Lie to Me

Bring Me Children

Tap, Tap