"In Cold Blood" Pt. 03

Roland nodded. Suwala continued, "It's supposed to be a bachelor party. Don't ask me how we know. They're all pretty young, mostly upwardly mobile types, maybe seven or eight of them, nobody dangerous. The last thing they'll be looking for is trouble. There are four women; Susan's the oldest, and there's only one man with the women. He's a doper, got a record, and," eying Roland's arms, "not much of a specimen. They've been there a couple hours so expect...well you know. The women will probably be high on something. I suggest you go in quick. Scare the shit out of the partiers, and get your girl out as fast as you can."

Roland nodded.

Mr. Suwala added, "Oh, one other thing, the man with the women. Like I said, not much; what happens to him nobody will probably care, just don't kill him."

Roland nodded again. Mr. Suwala got in his Prius and pulled away. Roland looked at me, "Ready?"

I said, "I guess so."

"Have your pistol out and ready. Be loud and nasty but don't fire it unless you feel threatened, and whatever you do, don't hit anybody. Sounds like some of our partiers might be young lawyers and such. We don't want to hurt some judge's son. Got it?"

I laid my .45 in my lap, "Yeah I got it."

Roland drove quickly, and right up to the house. He parked on the back lawn and we got out. He looked at me, "This is it."

I nodded.

Roland charged the back door and with one powerful thrust of his left foot kicked the back door in. He ran straight in. I was right behind.

Roland ran through the kitchen. There were two young men there with some woman. He was amazing. Using the butt of his pistol he put one man on the floor, and kicked the other so hard in the groin he collapsed like a sack of Quick-Crete. Then he rushed through a small dining room shouting, "This is the police!"

Some asshole turned toward him and started to say something. I never quite got what he said. Roland flattened him. Two of the women started screaming. Someone opened the front door, and the scuffle of fleeing bodies was almost deafening. By the time I got through the dining room cars were already pulling away.

Roland saw the whoremaster before I did. He didn't waste a second. Roland kicked him in the knee. I never heard such an awful crunch. The man, if man is what you'd call him, had been reaching for something in his pocket. I thought it was a pistol, but it turned out to be a cell phone. Roland kicked that away, and before I had a chance to do anything he had him in a bedroom. The door slammed shut. That's when I turned and saw Susan.

At first I didn't quite recognize her. The makeup was so thick and she looked so tired. She looked 'high'. I ran toward her, "Susan!"

She didn't recognize me. She fell to the floor and curled into a ball. I thought, 'Oh shit, oh no; what have they done to her?' The other girls, there were three were huddled in a corner behind the dining room table. There were bottles of expensive booze all over the place. None of the women was dressed; all were in varying types of cheap negligees, Frederick's of Hollywood stuff.

There were sounds coming from the bedroom; what I heard was sickening. I recalled Roland had been in the military, and he'd been to Iraq. As I stood there and listened to what had to be the heavy thudding sounds of boots on flesh, there were horrid squishing noises of a man's body being systematically dismantled, even for a man like that, I felt bad, real bad. It was about ten minutes before Roland came back out. His face was grey, lifeless.

He looked at me; pointing at Susan he said, "Take her out to the van, start it up and drive down the block. I'll only be a minute."

As I lifted Susan to her feet I watched as Roland took one of the women into the bedroom. Hurrying out the back door I heard Roland, "There see. He can't hurt you anymore. No one can..."

I missed the rest. I got Susan in the van and did what Roland told me to do. As I started the truck I realized I hadn't done anything. I'd never even pulled out my pistol. With Susan in the back I pulled down the street and waited. I didn't have to wait long, and Roland was there. He climbed in, "Time to go."

"Home," I asked?

He said, 'There's a side street before we get to the bridge. There's a McDonald's. Pull off there."

While I drove back down Rte. 50 Roland climbed in the back with Susan. I couldn't hear much. I heard some soft weeping I recognized as Susan's. I couldn't make out what Roland was saying, but his voice sounded so soft and comforting, he sounded nothing like the man I'd watched just moments before.

It took about two hours to get to the side street Roland had indicated. We pulled off, got out of 'our' van and walked to another vehicle, a late model Honda, a nice one.

As we walked away from the van. Roland had Susan wrapped in a blanket. She looked so small. I asked, "What do we do with the van?"

Roland chuckled, he actually chuckled, "It belongs to a guy I know. He'll pick it up later this morning," then he turned and smiled, "Not to worry Larry. Nothing's been stolen, nothing can get back to us. If the police decide to get cute they might find some traces of my DNA, but I doubt if they'll look too hard. Don't forget I'm a veteran. I could've been there as a guest for all they might know."

I asked, "What about the guy?"

Roland went zombie, "He's not dead. I showed him to the other women. There was money, a lot of it. I left it for them. If any hang around they won't say much."

I wasn't satisfied, "That guy; you beat him up."

Roland whispered, "Don't ask me about that."

After that I drove all the way back home. Susan was asleep on the back seat. Neither I nor Roland said anything. Once we got home Roland let me out. He got out too. To my surprise he hugged me, "You did good tonight Larry," then pointing to my front door, actually Mrs. Kemmerick's back door he said, Go in there, take care of that girl, and get on with your life."

I wasn't ready yet, "What about you? What about Susan?"

Wonder of wonders; he had a kind of teary look in his eyes, "We've got a long way to go. Just remember you don't know anything. Maybe someday I'll call you."

I felt funny, like crying myself. Like something incredibly important had happened, a real game changer. I wiped some moisture from my eyes and said, "Good bye Roland,." but he was already back in the Honda. Susan was beside him. He waved as he pulled away. I heard him say something. I thought I heard him mutter, "Hi ho Silver..." and they were gone.

So I went inside. I was back home. Funny word - home. All of a sudden it meant a whole lot more. Lisa was lying on the sofa waiting for me; she'd been crying. I was so happy I started to cry. Thing about that; Lisa angrily crawled off the bed. She started to feebly flail at me with her fists, "You promised to call. I've been so scared."

I pulled her in my arms, "It's all right. I'm home now."

My last thought on the matter? 'I really finally was home, and we were going to be all right.'

The end

A brief epilogue:

The days, weeks and months passed. We never heard from Roland or Susan again. I sure hoped things worked out. For a while I kept getting advertisements from some tattoo parlor/artist in Dover, Delaware. Someone had bought a tattoo removal kit, they'd left my address and for some stupid reason the owner kept sending me brochures. I supposed somebody got some runes and a bar code removed.

I often thought about Roland. We'd both been in the military. I felt confident in what I'd learned. What had they taught Roland? He was a decorated combat veteran, a man with incredible skills. Mel Gibson had made a bunch of movies titled "Lethal Weapon"; the movies hardly defined the phrase. Roland was "lethal"! I know because I'd heard what he'd done, and Roland was just one of thousands who'd come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. They were all on the streets. They were all around us. Some of them alone and wounded like Roland. That troubled me. How many of them, like Roland, weren't getting any help?

Once Roland had said he was glad his high school sweetheart had ditched him. He said he might have really hurt her. Would he ever hurt Susan? I didn't think so; I believed Susan was going to be all right. I hope they'll be happy.

And me and Lisa?

That's a whole nuther story. Lisa never asked me about what happened that night, and I never volunteered. We bought a house not far from her parents. One day not long ago we were walking out of her mom and dad's breakfast nook. Poor Lisa-Ann, clumsy as usual, tripped and almost fell down. I was there to catch her. Clay, my one time best friend was across the street. He laughed and hollered over, "Lisa I see you still can't walk and chew gum at the same time."

Lisa got mad but didn't say anything. She was trying to control her temper, but not doing a very good job. She really wanted to holler at the guy.

We had our kids with us. I was holding our three year old boy in one arm, while pushing our two year old daughter in our stroller. Lisa was pregnant with our third. Pointing at Lisa's swollen tummy I laughed, and hollered back, "Not to worry, I finally found something she's really good at!"

Even Lisa laughed at that. She hugged me.

Life's been good; maybe we'll hear from Roland and Susan...someday.