Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

listening hard. I heard nothing. It was darker inside the house than it was outside. I could barely see my hands. The windows were like shut-off televisions. There was the very pale glow of a digital clock somewhere in the kitchen.
    But I knew the house, and I could find my way around it well enough. I stood and started through the living room and down the hallway to the bedrooms and Augie’s office. I walked the fine line between the light and the dark and glanced into every room as I passed by. I could only see the shapes of things, when I could see anything at all. But there was nothing, no sign of Augie.
    I backtracked down the hall, through the living room and into the dining room. Nothing. Then I moved into the kitchen and saw by the faint bluish light that the back door was open. I started toward it and was just within reach of it when someone came rushing up behind me and I felt metal pressing sharply just behind my ear and I heard a voice order, “Move and you’re dead, got it?”
    It barely sounded like Augie’s. It was full of authority and menace, but it was him, it was his cop voice married with the voice of a man who had just seven months before been ambushed and almost beaten to death in this very same house. His free hand gripped my left arm powerfully, to keep me from turning suddenly around. I didn’t move, I didn’t breathe, I just stood there in his strong grip, the barrel of his .45 pressed against my skull and said, “Aug, it’s me.”
    “Jesus, Mac,” he said. “Jesus, what are you doing here?” He removed his .45 from my head and dropped his hand from my arm.
    I turned to look at him. The light was barely enough to make out the shape of his face. His right arm hung at his side, his gun aimed at the floor. “I thought you might need some help. I had a visitor, too.”
    He shook his head from side to side a few times. “They didn’t waste much time, did they?”
    I looked at his forehead and saw a small bump just under his hairline. A faint trickle of blood like a stray thread ran from it to his eyebrow.
    “What happened?” I said.
    “There were two of them. They jumped me at the front door and tried to push their way in. One hit me with a blackjack. I kicked the other one back into the front yard. He went for his gun. I went for mine. I plugged him. The other one, the one who sapped me, took off when I started shooting. I could have nailed him as he ran, but I wasn’t about to shoot an unarmed man in the back, so I let him go.”
    “You okay?”
    “It’s just a scrape.”
    He knew what I was about to say, that he should get it checked out anyway, considering all that he’d been through, but I didn’t see the point in wasting our time. Sooner or later the cops would come here and I had to go.
    “There’s a shit storm coming straight at me, Mac.”
    “Tell me what you want me to do.”
    “I’d be able to deal with it a hell of a lot easier if I knew Tina was safe and sound.”
    I didn’t say anything to that at first. Then I nodded and told him that I’d take care of it.
    “I owe you.”
    “You should call the cops.”
    “If somebody already hasn’t. Either way, you should get going. It’s cut-and-dried self-defense, that’s clear, but things are a little fucked now, so maybe they’re going to make it a little rough on me. I think for your sake I shouldn’t tell them that you were here tonight.”
    “I think for your sake, too.”
    “You look like you’ve got some blood on you from the guy on my front lawn. It’s probably on your boots, too. I’ll have to think of a way to explain all these size nine boot prints all over my house. Then again, fuck it, let them explain it. Just remember, no matter what, you weren’t here. We don’t change the story for any reason, no matter what happens. Understand?”
    I knew he was telling me to stay out of this, to not come forward on his behalf no matter how bad it got. I nodded, studying the side of his face.
    “I’ll call you as soon as I can. Don’t let Tina worry too much.”
    “You should call your lawyer, Aug. Just to be safe.”
    “I’ll see how it goes first. I’ll know pretty much right off what’s on their minds by how they treat me.”
    “There’s got to be an easier way to test the winds.”
    “We’ll take what we can get.” He patted my right shoulder with his left hand. “You’d better go, Mac. If you don’t get out before they get here, then our story’s pretty much worthless,