Michael Lister - Soldier 02 - The Big Beyond (2 page)

Chapter 3

S
he went at me hard—never changing her expression, no matter how painful for me or distasteful for her the tortuous task was.

The electrical current she continually administered to my genitalia and other parts of my body was not only extremely painful, but gave me the most unnatural sensation, which was nearly as bad as the burns and jolts.

As if the pain and distress weren’t enough, the procedure caused me to lose control of both bladder and bowels, leaving me to writhe in my own waste.

I was glad she wasn’t trying to break me, that I didn’t have some important secret she was attempting to extract, for I would have long since told her anything she wanted to know.

When she had done her best, which was plenty, she left and the big man from the sanatorium came in.

“Whatta you think of her, soldier?”

“That’s a waste of a woman,” I said.

“Brother, you don’t know the half of it.”

“I know plenty. I promise you that.”

“So I guess it’s my turn,” he said. “You ready?”

“Not really. No.”

“What’d you do?”

“When?”

“What could you have possibly done to deserve all this,” he said.

“Nobody deserves all this.”

“What’d you do?”

“To who?”

“Really? You don’t know? How many enemies capable of
this
you got?”

“Before tonight would’ve said none. Always thought I was beloved by all.”

W
hen I woke up, the big man was saying something.

“What?” I asked, my hoarse wisp of a voice not recognizable to me.

“How’d you lose the limb?”

“Found myself in a fight without a weapon,” I said.

He nodded.

“So I chewed it off and clubbed the guy to death with it.”

He laughed heartily at that.

“Thinking I’ll do the same to you with the other one.”

“You’re all right, pal,” he said. “You’re all right.”

“Yeah, I’m swell,” I said. “Beloved by all.”

“Tell you what, I’m gonna give you something. Knock you out so you won’t be awake for the next round.”

Before I could respond, he was administering an injection and I was slipping away.

T
he quality and quantity of light in the room changed and suddenly Lauren was standing beside my bed. She was luminous, a soft warm light tinged with the color of tupelo honey emanating from her. Her big brown eyes were clear and concerned and brimming with empathy, her thick brown hair shiny as satin.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Sssssh,” she whispered, touching her lips with her finger.

“Please forgive me.”

“For what?”

“Not saving you.”

“You saved me in every way a person can be saved. You know that, soldier.”

“I miss you so much.”

“I miss you.”

The tears in her eyes crested and began to wind down her cheeks, and as she reached up to wipe them, I could see that her burns were gone.

“How could I have wasted so much time?” I said. “Why was I so—”

“We did the best we could. And we did okay.”

“
Okay
? I got you killed. I wasted the little time we had.”

“We did okay.”

“I’m glad they’re going to kill me. I don’t want to live without you. I can’t.”

“Don’t say that. You have to fight. Please. I need you to. You can’t let them get away with this.”

“What’s it like where you are? Will we be together again?”

I
woke up to see the big man looking down at me.

“Who were you talking to?” he said.

“An angel.”

He nodded, as if he understood. “Won’t be long now.”

“You gots no idea how right you are,” Clip said, walking up behind the man and shooting him in the side of his enormous head.

As the now dead man slowly slid off his stool onto the floor, Clip smiled down at me, his brilliant white teeth blinding in contrast to his black skin.

Clipper Jones was a young one-eyed Negro who had been part of the 99th Fighter Squadron, 1st Tactical Unit before suffering the loss of his left eye. He picked up the nickname Clipper while training at Dale Mabry Field because of the way he would so fearlessly dive down toward the Gulf, fly in low and “clip” the tops of the North Florida pines.

He had helped me on a number of cases and saved my ass on a number of occasions, and though I always paid him and he always took it, I knew everything he did was an attempt to repay me for a debt I never thought he owed.

“Big bastard was psychic.
Won’t be long now
. Sure as shit wasn’t, either.
Shee-it.
The hell they been doin’ to you in here?”

“All they could.”

“I reckon so. Gotdam, man.”

“How’d you find me?”

“I didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“He didn’t.
I
did,” Ruth Ann Johnson said, shuffling into view at the end of my bed, just at the edge of the circle of light.

I was surprised to see her.

A Salvation Army nurse who had served in the war helping wounded soldiers in the South Pacific before getting wounded herself, she and I had never been much more than drinking buddies brought together by our wounds—even though we never really discussed my missing arm or her missing leg. Mine was a source of embarrassment, but hers … I wasn’t sure why she was so reticent to talk about her brave act of sacrifice and heroism.

She had thick blond hair worn above her shoulders and flipped out on the ends, and big blue eyes that looked interested even when they weren’t. Small and bright and sweet, Ruth Ann looked like nothing so much as somebody’s cute kid sister.

I knew why Clip was here, but why her?

“How’d—”

“I had a nurse friend looking out for you at Johnston’s Sanatorium in Tallahassee. She let me know the moment you went missing, and I started playing Jimmy Riley boy detective. It’s fun. I see why you do it.”

“Did it,” I said. “I’m done. Where’s Christa?”

“Who?”

“The blonde bitch who likes to play with electricity.”

“This fat bastard and his dead twin out there the only bitches here,” Clip said. “I could hang ’round and see who show up.”

“I need your help getting Jimmy tucked in at my place,” Ruth Ann said. “You wanna make with layin’ in wait, you can come back later on your own dime.”

“Think maybe I will,” he said. “Think I just might will.”

Chapter 4

M
ore days spent in a haze of hallucination and humiliation.

Crazed. Confused.

A delirium of drug-induced dreams. Lauren dying over and over again. A Japanese Hitler with a woman’s body in a nurses uniform prodding and shocking me over and over again while reading newsreel stories in his best James Cagney. Then Clip walks up behind him and shoots him in the head, but as the gun goes off it’s Lauren, and I watch her die, her frail frame crumpling as she collapses onto the floor beside my hospital bed.

After what seemed like years, I finally managed to force my eyes open and keep them that way for a few seconds at a time.

I looked around the dim room.

Small and simple, the modest room was filled with a walnut waterfall-style bedroom set that I could barely make out beneath the pale, narrow beam of the Wabash blackout bulb.

I knew I was at Ruth Ann’s because she had been the angel hovering over me with meals, medications, and ministrations in the moments when the fog lifted enough for me to make her out, but until now I hadn’t realized I was in her bedroom.

Perfumes and powders, jewelry and makeup lined the mirrored dressing table, the mauve covered stool of which was well worn and faded. A lavender nightgown and matching housecoat hung on the doors of the armoire. I could see myself in the circular mirror on either side of them—an experience as unfortunate as it was unpleasant that confirmed I looked as good as I felt.

Like the footboard of the double bed I was on, the walnut wood of the other furniture I could see was scuffed and scarred.

Ruth Ann’s leg was propped in the corner between the dressing table and the armoire.

Far better than the only one I’d ever seen her wear, the prosthetic propped in the corner made the one she regularly used resemble a couple of sticks and an old leather strap. Certain there was a story behind it, I made a mental note to mention it to her sometime. Maybe I’d finally get the real report on who stole the limb in the first place.

The opportunity to ask presented itself almost immediately as the door opened and she sidled in on her crutches.

“Well hiya, soldier,” she said, her voice morning fresh and filled with sunshine. “Welcome back. We missed you.”

I tried to say something but nothing came out.

She was wearing a blue-and-white-striped cotton playsuit with large white buttons running the length of it and a dress-up bow tied at the waist, a To Hell with Hitler button on her lapel.

“Here,” she said, propping herself and her crutches on the side of the bed and retrieving a glass of water from the bedside table. “Wet your whistle.”

I did.

“Thanks for all you’ve done,” I said.

Even in my diminished state I knew the food and medication and treatment she had given me had cost her plenty. The only way she could’ve managed it with all the rationing going on, all the shortages taking place, was to both break the rules and sacrifice her own needs. The thought of either bothered me but good. And I didn’t know which one did worse—her not taking care of herself or stealing meds from wounded servicemen who really needed them.

She shook her head, her blond hair whipping about, and gave me an expression like it was nothing.

“And you shouldn’t’a put me in your room.”

“Sure, soldier, I should put you on the sofa and let you take your chances.”

“Well, I’m better now,” I said, “so I’ll swap ya.”

“Tell you what—I’ll arm wrestle you for it.”

I laughed. “How long I been out?”

“Let’s see. Long enough for the war to end, Hitler to take office, and everyone to learn German.”

“Glad I haven’t missed much.”

We were quiet a moment and I could tell she was trying to work her way into saying something. I knew the dark fabric covering the windows was required for the blackout at night, but I wondered if she kept them on during the day to hide the fact that I was here. And was she a single woman hiding me from nosy neighbors, a guardian angel hiding me from whoever’s trying to rub me out, or both?

“Let’s have it,” I said.

“What?”

“Whatever it is.”

“When you’re better,” she said, “we need to talk.”

“It’s as bad as all that?”

“Worse.”

“Do your best.”

“Another time. When you’re stronger.”

“Now.”

“Why so anxious to get your heart hammered on, soldier?”

“You really think you can top Lauren being dead?”

“Oh. I didn’t know you knew.”

“Well I do. What else you got?”

“You’re wanted for murder.”

“Oh yeah? Just one?”

“It’s serious, soldier.”

“I know it is, but doesn’t mean it matters to me.”

“Harry Lewis is now mayor.”

“And I’m the reason,” I said.

“You helped Lauren’s husband become mayor?”

“It was his consolation prize.”

“Yeah?”

“Lauren and I left together. We just didn’t arrive at the same place. ’Sides, he really was the best candidate. Howell’s bent but bad.”

“That’s the other thing,” she said. “Howell took a powder. They’re looking for him same as you, but he vanished.”

“What about Walt? Rainer? Ann Everett?”

“No mention of them in the paper.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. I’ve read every word of every issue since you got yourself shot again.”

“I’ve got to speak to Pete,” I said. “I gave him all the evidence he needed to put the big squeeze on ’em. Wonder who got to him. Guess he’s bent as the rest.”

Chapter 5

C
lip and I were in a car he had somehow secured for us, not far from police headquarters watching for my old partner Pete Mitchell.

The car, an English pea-green 1940 LaSalle, obviously belonged to a patriot. A red, white, and blue tag on the front bore a soaring eagle, its talons clutching an American flag shield, and read Buy U.S. Defense Bonds, while a yellow bumper sticker on the back said REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR, Dec. 7, 1941. In the backseat, various war publications with covers—like the one depicting a white American woman being assaulted at the end of bayonets by Jap soldiers in uniform and read JAP BEAST AND HIS PLOT TO RAPE THE WORLD—were mixed in with packets of matches showing falling bombs that read Tokens for Tokyo and buttons that said To HELL with HIROHITO.

I was reclined as best I could be in the passenger seat. Clip was hunched behind the wheel, failing at not looking suspicious.

We were smoking black market cigarettes. “Paper Doll” by the Mills Brothers was on the radio.

“Every cop in town looking for you,” he said, “so where our asses go?”

“Bold, huh?”

“I’d say that German bitch done fried your brain but good … but you did shit like this before she got holt to you.”

“Ever find her?”

“No suh, she done gone wit da wind,” he said, a big smile on his face. “Bitch be as crazy as you say she be, she might be staking out police headquarters too.”

I smiled, and we fell silent a few moments.

The darkish day was wet and cold, but I didn’t mind. It was nice just to be out in it—out of the house, out of bed, out of my head for a while.

The papers on the seat between us let me know how much I had missed while I was out of commission—at home and in the war—but nothing was more disturbing than the article about the four young women who had been murdered in the area over the past few weeks.

Eventually, I shifted in the seat and winced, trying not to show just how bad the slightest movement hurt.

“Anything go down,” he said, “you be no help at all, will you?”

“I don’t know …” I said. “You could always use me as a body shield.”

W
e sat for hours—something truly challenging for guys as impatient as the two of us.

It seemed as though every cop in town came and went a number of times, but no Pete.

“Maybe he off today,” Clip said.

“I’d say so too, but Butch is working.”

Butch was Pete’s new partner, a hard case and a headcase from Chicago who I’d had more than a few tussles with. He’d actually tried to pin a few murders on me not so long ago and kidnapped Ray, the former Pinkerton and PI I worked for at the time.

“Maybe he and Pete ain’t partnered up no more.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“What now?” he asked.

W
e drove to Pete’s place, a small clapboard house he rented on East Avenue in Millville.

Along the way, we passed house after house with blue star flags in the windows, signifying a family member, most likely a husband or son, was serving in the war. It was astounding how many members of our community were missing from among us, fighting, in part at least, for the homes the flags were displayed in. Other windows in other houses held gold stars, which unlike those the Nazi’s made the Jews wear, were a symbol of pride and honor, a recognition that the person serving and the family he left behind had made the ultimate sacrifice.

A car I didn’t recognize, a big black Packard, was parked on the side of Pete’s in the yard, and I wondered if the confirmed bachelor finally got himself a girl.

It took me a while to walk the short distance from the car to the small front porch. When I finally arrived at the screen door after easing up the stairs, I kicked it a couple of times on the wood frame at the bottom, something I found easier and less painful than lifting my arm to knock.

“Hey fella, how about not kicking my door down,” a middle-aged man in gray grime-smeared coveralls said. “Oh,” he added, when he saw I was missing an arm, “sorry, soldier. What can I do for you?”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“
Who am I
? You serious? I’m the guy whose porch you’re standing on. Who are
you
?”

Everything about him said grease. He smelled strongly of it, and it could be seen both on his clothes and under his nails. His dark-complected skin had an unwashed, greasy quality to it, and his slicked-back hair, which was as black as his work boots, was wet with it.

“I’m the guy looking for Pete Mitchell.”

“Who?”

“The guy renting this porch and the house it’s attached to.”

“That’s me,” he said.

“What’s you?”

“I’m not what’s his name … Pete, but I
am
the poor sap renting this shack.”

“Since when?”

“Since the check cleared, pal. What’s this about?”

“You know anything about the man that was here before you?”

“Yeah, soldier, I know stuff. He’s clean, tidy, and generous.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Place was clean and tidy.”

“No, the generous part.”

“Because,” he said, “he left me most of his stuff, mister. Whatta you call it?”