Nine Minutes (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

You always
hear about people who think they are dying and how their life flashes in front
of them.
You secretly wonder, how can that be?
A whole life in a matter of seconds?
You might hear about
someone who witnessed an accident say everything happened in slow motion and
they recount every detail.

     
I never believed
those kinds of stories until that day.

     
That day, I heard
a name I hadn’t heard in almost a year.

     
I read the look
on
Grizz’s
face immediately. In that instant, I knew
he thought he’d lost me. And I also knew I was correct in thinking something had
been different about him since the executions.

     
Grizz
knew there would be no going back from what I’d
witnessed that day in the pit. He’d worried I might want to leave him, and now
he was faced with that possibility. The threat to hurt Delia and Vince would no
longer hold water. I wouldn’t be trying to escape if someone recognized me. All
I had to do was turn around to the person talking to
me and
say,
“Yes, it’s me,” and it would be done. There would have been plenty
of witnesses in that waiting room.

     
Grizz
would have two choices: grab me and drag me out to
the car, or take off by himself and hightail it out of there. One choice meant he
risked losing me; the other way meant he risked not being able to come back for
Damien.

     
That’s when time
stood still. That’s when, not my whole life, but the past year, flashed before
my eyes. I met
Grizz’s
glance and knew instinctively
what I was going to do.

     
Standing in the
doorway I turned to see who was talking to me. I recognized her immediately:
Diane Berger. She wasn’t a close friend, but we’d shared a couple of classes.
She was a nice girl. Kind of like me. Not real popular, but not an outcast
either.

     
With an extremely
convincing British accent, I answered her, “Me, luv? Are you talking to me?”

     
That surprised
her.

     
“Uh, yeah. You
look like a girl I went to school with. She’s been missing. It’ll be a year
next month, I think. You could be her twin.”

     
“My name is
Amelia. I’m visiting my cousin,” I lied with my phony British accent.

     
“I’m so sorry. I
just can’t believe you’re not
Ginny
. The similarities
are unbelievable!”

     
“No, luv, it’s me
that’s sorry. I wish I
was
your friend. I hope you
find her some day.”

     
Grizz
grabbed me by the hand and walked me to the car. He
didn’t say anything. We headed back to the motel and I spoke first.

     
“Do you think she
believed me?” My voice was quiet.

     
“Actually, I do.
Hell, I think I believed you,” he said, incredulous. “Where did you learn how
to do an accent like that?”

     
“Oh, you know how
much I love Masterpiece Theater.”

     
“I wasn’t sure
what you were going to do,” he said, giving me a sidelong glance as he drove.

     
I didn’t say
anything.

     
“You know I
wouldn’t have let you go, don’t you? I would have hauled you out to the car and
kept driving. I would’ve taken you somewhere else. No one would have found us.”

     
This surprised
me. “What about the motel? Your car, your bikes, your money, your dogs?”

     
“Doesn’t matter.
I have a way to get all my stuff back eventually, if I needed to.”

     
“You’re telling
me that if for some reason I was recognized and there was a chance of me being
rescued or found, you wouldn’t give me up?”

     
“Never, Kit.
Never.”

     
We drove the rest
of the way back to the motel in silence. When we arrived, he asked if I wanted
someone to take me to church in the morning. He was going back to the vet to
see Damien, but he didn’t think I should go with him.

     
“No, I can miss
church tomorrow. I want to be here for you.”

     
I know this made
him happy. I put together a quick dinner, and he went out to the pit for a
little while. When he came back I was already in bed. He climbed in beside me
and pulled me into his arms.

     
“You awake?” he whispered.

     
“Am now.”

     
“Good,” he
replied, nuzzling my neck.

     
“What do you have
in mind?”

     
“I want you to
talk dirty to me.”

     
This was new, and
I laughed. “Oh, you do? And what exactly do you want me to say to you?”

     
“Ah, I don’t
care. Use your imagination.”

     
“I don’t have any
dirty talk experience, but I’ll try,” I teased, my cheeks hot in the darkness.

     
“Can you do me a
small favor?”

     
“Sure.”

     
“Can you talk
dirty to me with that British accent?”

____________

Damien’s
recovery was quicker than expected and uneventful. Before the snake, I’d never
considered the dangers that lurked in the swamp. Other than keeping an eye out
for the occasional alligator, I never gave a second thought to other harmful
creatures. I did now.

     
We fell back into
a routine, and I stayed busy with my correspondence course. Before I knew it,
it was 1977 and Ann Marie Morgan O’Connell was the proud owner of a high school
diploma. Ginny Lemon wouldn’t have graduated for another year. I was a good
driver and was getting to go to most places I set my sights on, but I still had
to follow
Grizz’s
driving rules. That would change in
a couple of months.

     
Still, it wasn’t
enough. I needed more. I was bored. I needed a mental challenge. And I found it
quite by accident.

     
I’d been living
at the motel for almost two years. One day, I was sitting on the couch painting
my toenails.
Grizz
was doing paperwork at his desk. I’d
never concerned myself with the type of paperwork he did. I figured it had to
do with his criminal activity, and like he’d told me more than once, the less I
knew the better. I’d just finished my nails and was twisting the lid back on
the bottle of nail polish when
Grizz
slammed his fist
down hard on the desk. I jumped.

     
“Damn it!” he
yelled.

     
“What? What’s the
problem?” I was glad I’d finished my toes. His outburst was so loud I might
have messed up my paint job.

     
“Just trying to
get these damn numbers to work, is all. Numbers aren’t my area of expertise.”

     
“Well, what
exactly are you doing with numbers?”

     
“Balancing this
fucking bank statement. Hasn’t balanced for three months, and I can’t figure
out why.”

     
I immediately
perked up. “Bank statement? Why don’t you let me look at it? I can help you. I
love working with numbers.”

     
“Nah. I’ll figure
it out eventually.”

     
“Seriously,
Grizz
. I’d love to help. I bet I can figure out the
problem.”

     
He turned around
then and looked at me. I could tell he was weighing his options. He was just
frustrated enough to let me help, but he had also been very careful to keep me
away from his business.

     
“I could be like
a secretary or bookkeeper. I don’t have to know any details or where these
numbers come from. Believe me, I’m just interested in the numbers,
Grizz
. I’d like the challenge.”

     
I knew I’d won
when he didn’t say anything right away. I jumped up and walked over to him
while balancing on my heels, trying not to mess up my pedicure.

     
“Okay, Kit,” he
said at last. “All yours. No questions, though. You just balance the checkbook.
Old statements are right here.” He pulled open a drawer.

     
I sat down and
got to work. I figured out the problem very quickly. An old entry had been calculated
as a minus instead of a plus. In addition to about $21.65 in other combined
entry errors, I could see why he was having trouble finding the problem. He
could have found it easily enough if he’d had more patience.

     
That’s how I
started taking care of
Grizz’s
finances. I soon came
to learn he had more than one alias. Each one had a substantial balance in
their account.

     
I started diving
in a little deeper and casually asked him one afternoon, “Why do you just let
all this money sit there and not earn a decent return? Why don’t you invest it?”

     
Within the year,
Grizz
and his many aliases had a decent stock portfolio. I
was earning him a good amount of money. I secretly hoped if I could help him
earn money another way, he would cease his criminal activity.

     
Another naïve assumption on my part.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

One day
rolled into another, and before I knew it, I’d been living at the motel for
almost three years. Not that those years were uneventful. I remembered one day
the previous summer. It was a couple of months after I’d started balancing
Grizz’s
bank statements. Sarah Jo and I had planned a day
at the beach. I drove to her house, and we were going to take her car from
there.
Grizz
had business at Eddie’s, so he followed
me until he got there. I went the rest of the way by myself. It wasn’t far at
all. But I still considered it a small victory, and that day was the beginning
of the end of
Grizz’s
driving rules.

     
Sarah Jo lived in
a really nice neighborhood on the ocean side of Federal Highway. The homes were
older, but well maintained. I pulled up about eleven o’clock that morning and
parked my car in her driveway next to hers. She had the garage door up. I got
out and put my beach things in her unlocked car. I approached the front door
and knocked. This particular day was a weekday and her little brothers were at
camp. Fess was teaching a summer class at the college. She was home alone.

     
“You ready?” I
asked as soon as she opened the door.

     
“Yep. I just need
to get the beach chairs out of the garage.”

     
I told her I
needed to use her bathroom, and she told me she would start loading up her car.
It was a little car. A Pinto, I think. It was perfect for her. When I came out
she was standing in front of her car with the hood up and two guys I didn’t
recognize were talking to her.

     
“What’s up?” I
asked as I approached them.

     
“Won’t start,”
she answered, staring at the engine. “Sam thinks he might be able to help me.”

     
“Want me to call
and see if maybe just this once we can take my car?”

     
Before she could
answer one of them spoke.

     
“I think I can
fix it,” the younger of the two commented. This was Sam, her neighbor. I
recognized him now. He was a nice guy. A little older than Jo, and I remembered
he’d gotten into some trouble recently. He had graduated high school and fallen
in with a bad crowd. I think Jo told me he’d been picked up for vandalism,
drugs,
the
usual. His single mother, Vanessa, had asked
Fess for some help getting him out of jail. Jo was certain Vanessa knew about the
motorcycle gang and Fess’s possible participation, but she was an okay lady.
She minded her business, kept to herself, but without being standoffish. She had
been very kind to Jo’s family when her mother passed away years earlier, and
they’d continued a comfortable and amicable relationship since then. It seemed
only natural she would go to Fess for some help.

     
Fess got Sam out
of jail and helped him enroll in a trade school. I hadn’t heard anything since
and thought he was doing well. Still living at home, but hopefully staying out
of trouble. I didn’t recognize the guy he was with.

     
“Kit, you
remember Sam from across the street.”

     
I smiled and
said, “Hi, Sam. How’ve things been going? Everything good, I hope.” He looked
up from what he was doing and gave me a wide smile. Whoa. I didn’t remember him
being that cute. Then again, I didn’t remember taking notice of many other men
during that time in my life.

     
“Kit.” His smile
grew warmer. “Nice to see you. Yeah, things are good. How about you?”

     
“I’m really good.
I’ll be even better if you can fix whatever’s wrong with Jo’s car.”

     
“Aren’t you
gonna
introduce me?”

     
I hadn’t been
paying attention to the other guy and now looked over at him. I didn’t like
what I saw. For starters, he was leaning on my car and drinking a beer. He was
probably in his thirties, a little old to be hanging out with Sam, and sleazy-looking.
I didn’t say hello, just nodded and went back to looking under the hood with
Sam and Jo.

     
“That’s Neal,”
Sam said without looking up.

     
“So you ladies
don’t look like you belong to a motorcycle gang,” Neal said in an exaggerated,
phony southern drawl.

     
Before we could
answer, Sam said, “Shut up, Neal.”

     
“Well, c’mon now,
Sam, you was the one bragging in jail that some bikers were getting you out.
That you had connections.” Neal sneered toward Jo’s house and said, “Looks like
nothing but an old man and some kids. Your daddy ever ride that thing?” he
asked Sarah Jo as he nodded toward Fess’s bike in the open garage.

     
Without waiting
for her to answer, Neal started walking toward the garage. Sam by this time was
totally mortified and kept apologizing to Sarah Jo while pleading with Neal to
shut up and just leave.

     
This now made
sense. Neal must have met Sam during his short stay in jail a couple of months
ago. I couldn’t figure out the current connection, though. I thought Sam had
cleaned up his act and was doing well for
himself
. I
wondered how Neal fit into this picture.

     
I whispered to
Jo, “Call
Grizz
at Eddie’s.”

     
Sam heard me and
I saw an expression on his face I couldn’t read. Was it fear? Relief? Jo made a
beeline for her front door. Neal sat on Fess’s bike making motorcycle sounds.
In between he was yelling at Jo as she walked up to her front door, “Oh, you
gonna
call your old man, the big bad gang member? Well, you
go ahead and do that, little girl. I bet I can get him to let me take this baby
for a ride. You know what? Let’s not wait for you to ask him. Get me the key.”

     
Sarah Jo ignored
him and went inside her house. I was praying
Grizz
was still at Eddie’s.
Please let him be there. Please let him be there.
This
was long before cell phones. In the meantime I was mentally trying to devise a
back-up plan in case he wasn’t there.

     
I turned to Sam. “What’s
with this guy?”

     
“I haven’t been
able to shake him, Kit,” Sam said quietly. “And I never told him anything about
the gang. I swear. He must’ve heard stuff through the jail. He showed up acting
like my best friend five days after I got out. I don’t know what he wants with
me, and honestly, I don’t know how to get rid of him. He hasn’t said anything
directly, but he’s hinted at hurting my mom. I’ve been giving him money just to
get rid of him and then he pops back up unexpectedly and uninvited, like this
morning. I don’t want
no
trouble.”

     
“It’ll be okay.
Don’t worry, Sam.”

     
“Kit, I don’t
want
no
trouble with the gang.”

     
“I said not to
worry.”

     
Just then, Sarah
Jo opened her front door and nodded at me. I knew then that help was on the
way.

     
I turned to Sam. “You
need to go home now. You need to go inside and not come back out. Okay?”

     
“I can’t leave
you and Jo with this maniac,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right.”

     
We stood there a
few more minutes listening to Neal ranting from the garage. I signaled to let
Jo know I was okay and she should shut and lock the front door. She knew I
would be fine and so she did it without hesitation.

     
Neal picked this
time to start yelling at Sarah Jo. There was a door in the garage that went
into the kitchen, and even though it was closed, he knew she could hear him.

     
“Bring me the key,
little bitch, and I’ll get out of here and nothing bad will happen,” Neal called
out in a singsong. “Motorcycle gang, my ass.”

     
I heard a
motorcycle.
Finally
. It took less
than ten minutes, but felt like an hour.
        

     
“Go now, Sam,” I
told him, my voice low and urgent. “Now. Shut your door and don’t come out. Go.
Please. We’re okay. You know
who’s
coming, right?”

     
He just nodded
and whispered, “I’m sorry, Kit.”

     
Then he walked
directly across the street and into his house, shutting the door behind him.

     
I had been
leaning up against the back of Sarah Jo’s car.
Grizz
rolled up to the curb like he didn’t have a care in the world. Neal must have
heard him because the garage got quiet all of a sudden.
Grizz
turned off his bike and got off. He walked up the driveway.

     
When he got to me,
I asked, “Did you bring back-up? Do you want to wait for help?”

     
He just rolled
his eyes and said, “Wait here, sweetheart.”

     
I was confident
Grizz
could handle Neal, but I was worried maybe Neal had a
weapon I hadn’t noticed. He could take a gun out at any time and just shoot
Grizz
.

     
Then again,
Grizz
always had a weapon on him. I probably didn’t have to
worry.

     
I didn’t follow
Grizz
all the way into the garage. I just stood in front of
Jo’s car with my arms across my chest. Her hood was still up, and my car was
parked next to hers blocking the view of what was going on inside. I was
relieved. I didn’t want a nosy neighbor calling the police. I still didn’t know
how
Grizz
was going to handle Neal. I didn’t have to
wait long.

     
During the time
it took for
Grizz
to walk up Jo’s driveway, Neal had
gotten himself off Fess’s bike. I could see him shaking as
Grizz
made his way into the garage.

     
“Aw, fuck, man. I’m
sorry, man. I didn’t know it was you, I swear,” Neal said, his voice quavering.
“I was just giving the kids a hard time.”

     
He knew who
Grizz
was. Interesting.

     
Grizz
just stood there with his arms relaxed at his sides
and let Neal ramble.

     
“I heard some punks
in jail talking about how the kid had friends in a gang. I didn’t know it was
your gang, man. I swear. They never said a name. I’ll just be on my way like
nothing ever happened.”

     
I looked past
Neal and saw Jo’s face peeking out the door that connected the garage to the
house. She had the widest grin I’d ever seen. I smiled back at her.

     
“Get on your
knees.”

     
“What? What
ya
gonna
do to me, man? Man, please don’t kill me.’
     
“Get on
your knees now, motherfucker.”

     
Sobbing loudly,
Neal lowered himself to his knees. He was shaking more than before.
Grizz
had his back to me. He walked slowly toward Neal and
I heard him undo his zipper.

     
What? Why was he undoing his zipper?

     
Neal started
whining again, “Aw, man, I
ain’t
no
fag.
What are you doing, man?”

     
Yeah,
what are you doing?

     
“Open your mouth,”
Grizz
growled.

     
“Aw, man, don’t
make me do this, please.”

     
Sarah Jo and I
made eye contact. Her eyes were as big as saucers.

     
“Open your
fucking mouth now!”
Grizz
yelled.

     
Neal did as he
was told, but
Grizz
didn’t step closer to him. Before
I realized what was happening, Neal started gagging. Then I understood what
Grizz
was doing. He was urinating in Neal’s mouth.

     
Just then, Neal
threw up.
Grizz
stepped back and zipped up. Neal was
on all fours and vomiting all over Jo’s garage floor. When he’d finished, he’d
sat back on his haunches and closed his eyes.

     
“Sarah Jo, honey,
be a sweetheart and get me a spoon, would
ya
?”

     
“Sure,
Grizz
.”

     
Jo returned with
a spoon and walked around Neal and his vomit to hand it to
Grizz
.
Grizz
handed Neal the spoon and said, “Eat it. All of
it.”