Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

and brought my knees to my chest and swung my legs out. I could feel my ribs giving too easily, as if they were about to fold. I ducked and leaned forward so my head was outside the window and I was sitting on the sill with my legs dangling. I reached behind me and grabbed the sill with both hands. I took a breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and then slid off the sill and let my body fall.
    I snapped to a stop like a man dropped from the gallows. I felt tearing in my stitches. I gasped at the pain in my ribs. I almost laughed in disbelief. It took all I had to hang on. I stayed there till I could breathe again, then looked down. The ground really wasn’t all that far away, but in my condition it may as well have been four stories instead of one.
    I looked up at my hands. My knuckles were white. The sill was digging into my palms. With my arms up like they were my rib cage expanded against the tape Gale had wound around them to keep them from moving. I felt like I was being crucified, suffocating under my own weight. I closed my eyes and took a few breaths. I had no choice but to let go. I winced in anticipation and opened my hands. It took every bit of will I had.
    I dropped fast and hit the ground within what seemed less than a second. I let my knees buckle to slow my fall. But it did little. When my body hit the ground it was as if I had set off dozens of tiny white-hot fires inside me.
    I lay there on my side for a moment. The cold ground felt good on my face. For a sweet few minutes I didn’t know from anything. Then I thought of Gale, of her sleeping beside me, her body tangled with mine, and the feel of her face so near to mine. I knew then what I had to do. If I would kill a man just to survive, how much farther would I go to finally really live?
    Just one man stood between me and Gale and the only life I have ever wanted. He left me no room to move, nowhere to go but through him. He had attacked me at Townsend’s cottage—after first sending me there. He had charged at me like the football player he’d said he had been in his youth. And I live in the shadows because of him.
    There was no choice to make but the wrong one. Wrong was all there was now.
    I grabbed the roll of tape and pulled myself up to my feet and lumbered around the side of the Hansom House to the front. I peeked around the corner. Eddie was still in his cab, waiting. Every once in a while he’d glance up at my windows. I looked for George’s Bug. It was parked at the end of Elm Street, outside the Mexican restaurant where I used to work, maybe four or five car lengths behind Eddie’s cab.
    There was no route I could take to it that would hide me from Eddie. So I just stood up as straight as I could and started walking to it. I looked at Eddie as I went out of the corner of my eye. He was looking at the Hansom House, sometimes at the front entrance, others at my windows above. I kept my eye on him till my path turned and I could no longer look at him without turning my head. Then I just looked ahead and walked toward George’s Bug. When I reached it I opened the door and slipped in. I was looking forward then. I could see Eddie’s cab through the windshield. I could see him still waiting and looking.
    I slid in the key and cranked the ignition. The motor was still as loud as a Harley. I flipped on the headlights, shifted into gear, then made a U-turn. I stopped at the end of Elm and looked into the rear view mirror. I saw Eddie climb out of his cab and pause, looking up at my windows. He leaned into his cab and killed the motor and the lights, then started up the path to the entrance.
    I looked ahead then and made a left turn on Railroad Plaza. I passed the train station, lit up but abandoned, then made a left turn onto North Street, heading under the row of bare trees toward the heart of the village.
    His house was a modest Victorian on Moses Lane, north of Hill Street. It was somehow smaller than I expected. Only the second-floor lights were on, the windows glowing yellow behind curtains. The rest of the house and the property around it stood in blackness. That suited me fine. I parked the Volkswagen several houses down, killed the motor and the lights, grabbed the tape, and got out and opened the trunk. I removed George’s crowbar and then backtracked to the house and made my way down the driveway, past a black Crown Victoria, so shiny in the dark it looked almost liquid.
    I reached the rear of the house but didn’t bother