The crows nest, p.23
The Crow's Nest, page 23
“What.”
Samuel chuckled. He turned and with a wave and a fist against his chest, he followed Liz.
Donato slapped his hand against his forehead.
“Fuck me. Jack is going to shit himself when he realizes she’s taken off on the White Pearl.”
Chapter Fifteen
Alessandra heard the roar of the Harley before it came around the corner.
“That’s fucking impossible.”
“What?” Melinda looked in the direction she was pointing and her stomach heaved as she recognized Jack’s big white bike turning into the parking lot.
Alessandra cursed again and started running toward the Range Rover.
“No. Sandra. Stop. No more killing.”
She ignored the warning and ran faster, noticing from her peripheral vision that the Harley was approaching at a high speed. Ten feet, only ten feet.
Got you, bitch. Liz snapped the throttle open, slamming all eight-hundred pounds of steel and chrome sideways into Alessandra’s scantily clad frame, crushing her against the Range Rover.
“Warm enough for ya, you bitch?” Liz squeezed the front handbrake shut and blasted the hot engine and pipes against Alessandra’s bare legs. Layers of melted flesh pulled off and stuck to the hot metal. Liz watched as Alessandra’s screaming face disappeared into a haze of burning rubber and skin.
The bike surged forward on its own and skidded across the parking lot.
“Look out!”
Melinda’s warning registered too late. The steel tipped motorcycle boot caught Alessandra’s gaping mouth full on, splintering her front teeth into bloody shards. The next kick crushed her nose against her face.
“Lookin’ good, bitch.”
The lightning flash of the stiletto came out of nowhere and disappeared into Liz’s midriff, dropping her to the pavement. She clenched her jaw and rolled to her feet as Alessandra slashed wildly for another shot.
“You’re fucked, bitch. I’m gonna cut your fucking heart out.”
“You made a big mistake following Jack here, Basile. Thought your dead, fuckwit little brother was gonna whack him, you dumb Guinea Wop?”
“Oho, hear-hear. Are you listening, Mel? Little bitch is fired up because lover boy got shot. I don’t fucking care! My brother is dead! He’s dead! Capito?”
“Sometimes fate is kind.”
“You fucking―I’ll kill you.” Alessandra screamed and charged full throttle at Liz.
Liz dropped and swung a leg out, clipping Alessandra’s feet and sending her crashing to the pavement knocking the air out of her.
“You little pussy. You never learn. You’ll never keep Jack Cavallaro. You’ll never be enough for him.”
She charged in low and the two women went down. A fist smashed into Liz’s left eye and rocked her back.
“I’ve had enough. Fuck this.”
Liz lifted her legs and hooked them around Alessandra’s neck and squeezed off her air. The glint of cold steel turned red. She felt nothing as the knife tore through her side. Through waves of pain she watched as Alessandra staggered to the Rover.
“No. Alessandra, I won’t let you do that. She’s down. Just let it be.”
“No,” her voice was soft and calm. Jack will live with this for the rest of his fucking miserable life.”
She couldn’t move. Her mind went into auditory exclusion as she began to bleed out. A flash of silver metal arcked in the sodium vapor lights.
Alessandra lifted the pistol and took aim.
“This is for Frankie.”
She closed her eyes and saw him in her mind’s eye. My Jack. The one man, the only man she had ever truly loved in her life. His gentle smile as he woke her in the morning that could turn into a lascivious grin in a wink of an eye. Tears pressed through her tightly closed lids. A whispered vow carried on the wind.
“I love you, Jack.”
The report exploded, sending panicked birds scattering into the night sky.
Her heart continued to pump out a pool of blood that bathed the pavement in shimmered crimson. The White Pearl lay wedged under a car with her engine ticking down the last minutes.
An eerie silence descended into the void of deafening quietude on Blackpoint Beach. The distant hiss of its ebb tide fell mute. A colony of pinnipeds slept in their sabulous hollows, unaware of the finale of night’s fateful play―its last act notated by the desperate, ragged breaths of life.
Then ... nothing.
“Oh, hell no. Talk about waking up to a nightmare,” Jack grumbled as he closed his eyes with the hope that when he opened them again, his beloved South African Jewel would be next to his bed, not his asshat friend lying in a bed next to him.
He tried to sit up, crying out as pain exploded in his brain from his hip and side.
“What the fuck?”
“Ease up, Rocco. You got hit pretty bad. Your pelvis was fractured. You were bleeding internally and a few of your internal organs got a bit messed up, but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
“Always the fucking wise guy, Donato,” Jack blurted out in pain. “Anyone see her?”
“Well, my buddy-buddy. No more boom-boom for you, I’m afraid. A pity, that. I wouldn’t mind taking that little spitfire off your hands.”
“Listen, fuckhead, I’m in a mood to rip your pecker out by the roots if you don’t shut the fuck up.”
“I don’t think you’ll be doing any such thing, ‘cause you’re stuck in that fucking bed, genius,” Donato said contemptuously.
“We’re a bunch of idiots showing up for a gunfight with only our cocks in our hand. Now look at us. Yeah, Jack. I’m talkin’ to you. I came up to apologize for this mess and ended up getting shot because you wanted to show your balls off. We’d be swiss cheese if it wasn’t for Samuel. Fuck. Look at us. Shoulda brought my fuckin’ twelve gauge. How, my brilliant friend, did we not know that that fuckin’ tweaker would show up with a small arsenal? Especially after you nearly killed him twenty years ago. Huh? Are you listening, Jack? Fuck you, Jack. Goddammit, I need a nurse. Nurse!”
“Where is she? Ugh ... fuck, I hate feeling this helpless.”
Jack’s heart missed a beat as he realized that Donato had gone quiet but was squirming in his bed. He clenched his jaw against the pain as he pushed himself upright. He glowered at his friend, who made no effort to hide the fact that he was avoiding eye contact.
Fuck. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fool him. Not where Liz is concerned.
Jack’s voice was deadly in the stillness of the room.
“Where. Is. She?”
“The doctor sent her home. She was dead on her feet.”
“Bullshit. She wouldn’t leave me.”
“Jesus, you’ve got target fixation when it comes to that woman, don’t you?”
“I know Liz. She wouldn’t have left my side, not unless ...” Jack glowered at Donato, now sure he was lying. “You’d better fucking start talking, Rocco. Where the fuck is she?” Jack felt a shard of fear slice through his stomach and loosen his bowels.
“She said she wanted to take the Harley for a spin.” Donato began to curse his bad luck at yet again finding himself on the business end of Jack’s temper.
“SHE WHAT?” Jack’s heart stopped. The fear now pushed burning liquid against his sphincter. “And you didn’t wake me, you fuck?”
“Fuck you, Jack! Stop! You were out cold and I’m stuck in this bed. What the fuck did you want me to do? She has a fucking mind of her own―as if you didn’t know that, you fucking dick. You can’t―Jesus. Nurse. NURSE!” Donato screamed and pressed the red button above his bed.
Within seconds, an emergency response team of doctors and nurses flooded into the room.
“Get off of me, goddamn it! I need to find her. She’s in danger. Get the fuck off of me! I can’t breathe! FUCK OFF!”
Four security personnel pinned him to the bed as Jack ranted, flinging personal invectives at them, thrashing and throwing one after another off until someone sat on his hips and stabbed him with an injection of Morphine Sulphate. The excruciating jolt of pain sent Jack screaming over the edge into unconsciousness.
When he awoke, his mind was groggy. He found himself restrained to the bed. He turned his head and found Samuel slumped in a chair next to him with his head in his hands. Donato stared straight ahead with a gray face, gnashing his teeth in pain and yelling for a nurse. He’d run out of demerol in his PCA pump from pushing it too often.
“Who do I have to fuck around here to get a drink? Nurse. I hate pain. Can I get a fucking shot, PALEEZH?
“Rocco?” Jack said, as he struggled to turn his head to look at his friend. “Donato? I’m sorry, buddy. I was upset. Please. Where is Liz? Can you tell me, please?”
“Jack, listen to me. Jack?” Samuel stood with a doleful expression on his face. His shoulders were hunched forward with fatigue.
“Hang on a second, Gunny. Rocco, Donato? Gunny, I just want to ask ... Bro, those straps are tight enough. Why are you making them tighter? What the fuck is going on? Gunny, they’re too tight now. C’mon, man, that hurts.”
“Shut up, Jack,” Donato said as tears began to navigate in jigs through the dense stubble of his beard.
Jack looked back and forth between the two of them and started to dry heave. His mouth opened into a Munchian gape that pulled his lips taut against his teeth. Nothing came out at first as the horror slowly clawed and ripped itself into the scraped hollows of his consciousness. “Liz. Oh, God. NO!”
“Jack. Look at me.” Samuel grabbed onto his ears and pulled his face in line with his eyes. “Jack.”
A precursory spray of vomit belched out of Jack’s mouth in speckled clumps that clung to the coarse flannel of Samuel’s shirt immediately followed by a large broadside of foul-smelling gastric matter that was blasted into his face. Samuel watched as Jack’s eyes rolled up into their sockets.
“I need a nurse in here now,” Samuel barked as he wiped the thick puke from his eyes.
“Oh Christ. Jack. Nurse! Oh Jesus. I need help in here now!”
Jack couldn’t clear his windpipe and began to aspirate his own vomit. He had stopped breathing. Liz’s face swam in his mind as he felt his life force drain away. His sweet, beautiful, South African Jewel.
Liz.
Donato was screaming and cursing as he watched his best friend begin to die in the bed next to him. He tore open his stitches as he scrambled to help Samuel unstrap Jack but slipped on the wet floor and went face down onto his forehead―knocked out cold.
Samuel’s voice penetrated the blackness that closed around him. He began to slip away.
“She’s alive, Jack. For the love of God. Jack, can you hear me? Jack? Liz is alive.”
The blurry faces were back-lighted in halos. They had wings. Yes. I’m home. Voices echoed in the seamless white.
“He’s not completely under yet. Mr. Cosentino? I’m Doctor Hernandez. Squeeze my hand once for yes and twice for no, ok? Good. We’re going to operate on you to close the wound to your skull. Your right eyebrow. I can repair it and reconfigure it to where it should be. Yes or no?”
I was right on the Porsche’s six. I could see a hand waving at me. There were gold bangles on the arm. He was a she.
“No? You don’t want it fixed? No? Right. I understand. Ok, let’s get him closed up.”
“Gunny said I shouldn’t worry, that you wouldn’t be angry, but I don’t know, honey. She’s pretty banged up.”
Jack floated between the conscious and unconscious world, imagining Liz’s sweet voice awakening his hunger to feel her soft touch. The nascent dream was aroused with the fluttered kiss of a butterfly’s wing against his lips. He squinted, struggling to find the light in the murky darkness that stole the beautiful angel away from him.
They lied to me. She isn’t here.
Despair flooded his mind as he sank beneath the aqueous gloom that closed over him.
“Baby? Please Jack, come back to me, honey.”
The soft aural antidote penetrated through the morphine haze.
“I love you, honey. Please wake up.”
His eyes flickered open and found comfort in the depths of her emerald green eyes.
“There you are.” Jack sighed, as he brushed the tears from her cheek.
“Hi, honey,” she said with a tremulous voice. She smiled and kissed him again.
Tears formed in his eyes as he took her hand. She looked so pale and gaunt―the swollen purple eye gave her a harlequin face.
“Someone’s been complaining about two friends that went missing?” The nurse said as she wheeled another body into the crowded room.
“You seem to fit his description. Mr. Consentino? Are these your missing friends?”
“Yeah. That’s them. Unmistakable. The beauty and the beast. You’re an ugly bastard, Jack. Did I ever tell you that?” A shit-eating grin emerged from underneath the heavily bandaged face.
“Oh, Christ. What the fuck are you doing in here? By the way, Rocco, you’re hardly a candidate for an oil painting. You look more like Dorian Grey every time I look at your fat mug.”
“There she is. The little hellion on wheels,” Donato snorted at Jack as he smiled and blew Liz a kiss.
“You saved me, Rocco,” Liz said as she cupped his face in her hands.
“No. I can’t take credit for that, Liz. That was Samuel. He saved all of us. Speak of the devil. Jesus, it’s true what they say about the Marines. First in the fight. Gunny, you are one badass animal mother.”
“Hmm, talking about hellion on wheels, sweetness. Did I hear something about her being pretty banged up?”
“Well, now, see here. The little lady did a stellar job of controlling that monster, so don’t be too hard on her,” Samuel said, intervening on Liz’s behalf. A rosy hue flushed her cheeks as she suddenly looked everywhere but at Jack.
“Honey? I’m not angry. I’m gob-smacked. For the love of God, how did you manage to drive the Pearl? Your feet would barely touch the ground.” Jack beamed a grin at her. “That bike weighs eight-hundred-pounds. How, I mean, what can’t you do? Wanna tell me about it?” Jack looked amused as Liz edged herself behind Samuel.
“Tsk, just because I’m short, doesn’t mean I’m weak. It isn’t rocket science, Jack. One down, four up. How hard is that? The rest is balance ... pfft. Easy peasy.”
The thought of a Liz muscling an eight-hundred-pound Harley Davidson down Moonraker onto Route 1 and then running down Alessandra in a parking lot caused the room to erupt into laughter.
“La piccola motociclista. Incredibile.” Donato was beside himself.
Liz giggled, delighted in the roar of approval. She nodded and took a bow. She finally felt like she belonged. Their history was now officially recognized, woven into the fabric of shared experiences.
“Ahem. I sorta lost it when I saw her running toward her car. I knew she was going for a gun, so I rammed into her and lost control.” She looked at him from behind her lashes. “It’s only the one side, baby. Samuel said it only needs a little nip and tuck and she will be as good as new. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have―”
“The White Pearl will heal, my love. I’m just so happy that you’re here. A little colorful,” he chuckled at her expression, “but alive and as beautiful as ever.”
“Well, I think this little reunion deserves a toast,” said Samuel as he pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels from his cammies. A snort all around. “Ladies first. Liz? The bottle stands by you.”
“Far be it from me to spoil such a meaningful toast, but we are all on medication. We really shouldn’t be―”
“Fuck it, sweetie. We’ve all been through hell these past few days. We deserve a toast, or two. Have at it, Gunny,” Jack instructed Samuel, squeezing Liz gently and placing a tender kiss on her brow as she carefully settled beside him on his bed.
“Ahem, Tessora mia. About me falling on top of you in the bar to protect you,” Donato boasted with a snort at Jack. “You can pay me later when I’m feeling up to the task,” he teased.
“Oh, brother,” Jack droned under his breath.
“I’ll get back to you on that, Donato. In the meantime, my man and I have some catching up to do. It’s good to be alive, right, Jack?” She winked at Donato and Samuel.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why don’t you two get a room together.”
Epilogue
Far out into the Pacific, divisions of white horses galloped south under a flocculent band of fog that hung indolently above the blue horizon.
In the late morning, the sun would clear the Mendocino Cordillera and illuminate vast congregations of tufted bunchgrass and sage scrub that would rock and swoon to a stirring gospel zephyr, sweeping southward across the bluffs and prairie meadows of The Sea Ranch.
In the eternal march of time, the natural cycle of life and death played out in an arrayed landscape under the indifferent but predictable behavior of giant puffs of severed cumulus that continually traveled inland in covered aerial convoys, yoked and pulled along by the easterly winds aloft.
Winging north, following the meandering coast highway on their way to forage for hermit crabs on Pescadero Beach, a large migration of Whimbrels swept down out of the sky over the southbound track of a grey Range Rover.
Unlike the mundane existence of a trophic predator whose existence is bound by its place in the genetic hierarchy of all living creatures, the fate of the two occupants in the southbound car had been decided and irrevocably altered forever by the actions of their own free will. They had become victims not of the natural order of things but by the chaos of their own creations.
Two weeks later, three friends sat together in a hot tub somewhere up on the Northern Coast of California, sharing stories under a canopy of stars. It was the shank of the evening―the meaty part of the night, when all things nocturnal obeyed the recurrent order and rhythm of life as it was and always had been.
One hundred yards to the south, a copse of Sugar pines on a lonely hillock began to resonate with plaintive howls as the Perseids showered the heavens with meteors.
