GRAVE PROMISE
by David R. Lewis
copyright 2012
copyright 2012
CHAPTER ONE
Middle of the movie
It had been
an early recording session at Audio Post. Crockett drove home in a light spring
rain and schlepped into the living room, thoroughly uninspired by the dampness
and chill. He made a peach smoothie, ignored the faint whiff of over-extended
kitty litter, and crashed on the couch, a dog-eared McMurtry in hand. Augustus
McRae had just whacked a surly bartender when Ruby walked out of his closet.
She laid a shifty cartoon grin on him and batted her baby browns.
“We leave
in two hours,” she said.
Playing
catch-up as always, Crockett peered at her.
“Huh?”
“Ivy
called. Wants us to spend a few days at her place. She says it’s just for a
visit, but I suspect additional motive.”
“What?”
“So,” Ruby
continued, “I am going to take a steamy shower, make myself lovely, and we will
leave a little after noon. Scrape off the sludge, throw some things in a bag,
and make ready, Crockett.”
“Ivy
called?”
Ruby rolled
her eyes. “I’m going too fast for you, aren’t I?” she said.
“Perpetually.”
“Ivy phoned
while you were out and requested our presence for the weekend. Tomorrow is
Friday. I have shifted my appointments. We are going to Chicago. We leave in
about two hours. You and me. Together.”
Crockett’s
stomach rolled over.
“Flying?”
“Nope,”
Ruby said. “I’ll drive.”
“A
difference that makes no difference, is no difference.”
Grinning,
she walked over to the couch, leaned down, and planted a tiny kiss on the end
of his nose.
“It’s a road trip, Crockett. Aren’t
you excited?”
“Just
queasy.”
Chuckling,
Ruby sauntered back across the room.
“Two
hours,” she said, and disappeared into his closet.
The closet
in question was actually a hallway. It started out being a walk-in closet in an
apartment that backed up against the rear of another walk-in closet in the
adjoining apartment. Ruby and Crockett bought the six-unit, three story
building, and converted the top four apartments into side by side, two-story
townhouses. Their homes were connected by a door in the rear wall of the
walk-in closets. Crockett always knocked. Ruby never did. Also connecting their
two living rooms was an oversized kitty door to allow the passage of
Nudge, Crockett’s oversized kitty. Crockett hadn’t seen much of Nudge after he
and Ruby installed the cat-door. With the exception of eating, using the
litter, or when he heard Crockett foaming cream, Nudge spent most of his time
on Ruby’s side.
The first
floor of the eighty-year-old brownstone had been converted into Ruby’s
psychology office and waiting room. The basement, which was only half
underground, was slated to be a wood shop-recreation area for Crockett and
storage for her. It was full of leftover building materials and cobwebs. They
had a tiny front yard bisected by a cement walk, paved and covered parking for
a dozen cars in the rear, a plethora of pigeons, an abundance of squirrels, and
at least one ‘possum that wandered around the parking lot at night. Home sweet
home.
Crockett
had known Ruby for nearly two decades. When he was at his very worst, after
gunshot disability from the police department, he came to her in her
professional capacity and she straightened him out. She still did tune-up work
from time to time.
For a number of years, Crockett and
Ruby had known that they loved each other. Sometime after their original
encounter with Ivy, they realized they were in love with each other. Unwilling
to live together and unable to live apart, they found the old apartment
building near the art museum and bought the thing. An unusual situation
surrounding an unusual relationship.
Ruby LaCost was gay.
Theirs was
a condition that was often difficult for Crockett, but he accepted his
half-loaf with minimal complaint. Needs are needs, of course. Ruby had friends over
from time to time, and Crockett infrequently did too, but they both remained
well aware of the love that kept them together. Ivolee Minerva Cabot had
realized their interdependence even before they had, and now, for the first
time in over a year, they were going to see Ivy.
Ivolee
Minerva Cabot was a true Grande Dame. In her mid 70’s and worth more than
Portugal, she was responsible for a yearly income gifted to Crockett that was
three times what he earned voicing commercials, and four times what he received
from his disability pension. The same amount also went to Ruby.
The last time Crockett had seen Ivy
he had just lived for over six months as a guest in her home. Half of that time
he was in a coma. The rest was spent in recuperation from losing his left leg.
At the end of that time, Crockett engineered the deaths of Ivy’s
ex-brother-in-law and his sister, and set in motion events that crushed a child
slavery and abuse ring that had tendrils in North, Central and South America.
Once again, Ruby and Crockett had
been summoned.
CHAPTER TWO
Ruby on the road
Crockett
tossed some toiletries and underwear in a satchel, stuck a couple of shirts,
jeans, and his only good suit in a hanging bag, cleaned the litter, emptied the
dishwasher, sat in the shower, shaved, put on an oversized cotton pullover and
some floppy peasant’s pants, and was hanging his cargo in the rear of Ruby’s
car when she came out her back door and hustled over through the mist. She
shook out her hair and peered at the drizzle dripping off the roof of the
carport.
“Yuk.”
“It brings
May’s flowers,” Crockett said.
“It’s still
March. Put that stuff in the trunk, will ya? Just lay it in flat.”
Crockett
opened the trunk. Four suitcases lay in the bottom. Across them were spread three
clothing bags.
“Going
somewhere?” he asked.
“Yeah, but
I’m traveling light.”
“I don’t
think there’s room. I’ll leave my clothes in the backseat.”
“Just ease
‘em in with mine and try not to wrinkle anything. I will not allow you to trash
this fine automobile by draping its rear windows with your substandard
wardrobe. I like my lines clean and uncluttered.”
Ruby slowly advanced on him, her
five-inch heels clicking on the damp cement, her grin manifesting itself with
languid purpose. She placed a forearm on each of his shoulders.
“Isn’t that
how you like my lines, Crockett?” Clean and uncluttered?”
Light thunder rumbled in the
distance. Crockett kept to the high road.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said,
“I’ll just put my stuff in the trunk and we can get on with the attempted
suicide that you laughingly refer to as driving.”
Ruby’s
sultry grin detuned to a lopsided smile and she kissed him on the cheek.
“I love
you, Crockett,” she murmured.
“Smart
girl,” he said.
They left
Kansas City on I-70, heading for St. Louis. When traveling with Ruby, Crockett
tried never to look at the speedometer. The resulting adrenalin shock made him
nauseous. Still, like viewing an impending train wreck, it was almost
impossible not to peek. Ruby’s Jaguar was deceptive. Extreme rapidity didn’t
necessarily feel fast. After Independence whizzed by in a damp blur, Crockett
couldn’t resist checking their speed.
“Christ,
LaCost!”
“What?”
“Slow the
hell down, will ya? This is one of the worst stretches of road on the planet,
it’s raining, and we’re in triple digits. Well into triple digits.”
“Relax.
You’re in a Jag. It’s built for this.”
“It’s a
Ford. And I ain’t built for this!”
“You could
suggest an alternative velocity, I suppose?”
“How ‘bout
eighty?”
“Right.
Like that’ll happen.”
“At least
meet me halfway, for chrissakes!”
With an
exaggerated sigh Ruby backed off the gas, allowed the car to slow to a little
over a hundred miles an hour, and sneered at him.
“That
unbunch your panties, Mary?” she said.
“Leave my
underwear out of this. I just don’t wanna be a smudge on the highway.”
Ruby
snorted. “C’mon, let’s talk about your panties.”
“Nothing
but a common floosie,” Crockett said. “Are you gonna be like this all the way
to Chicago?”
“Probably.”
“I love
you, too,” he said.
“Smart
boy,” she replied.
They
stopped in Columbia so Ruby could get some lunch and Crockett could get some
Dramamine. He took two. Consequently, he didn’t wake up until Ruby visited a
rest area about twenty miles south of Chicago. She grabbed a bag from the trunk
while he leaned against the car and tried to regain consciousness.
“I’m gonna freshen up,” she said.
“Wake up, munch something, and drain the duck.”
“The duck” was a term of contempt
and endearment that Ruby once applied to a certain portion of Crockett’s nether
regions as he spoke on the phone with her while soaking in his bathtub. The
nickname stuck.
He used the john, ate a stale
Almond Joy, drank some diluted orange juice, and stomped around trying to shake
off his drug induced nap and get the kinks out of his leg and back. The kinks
weren’t nearly as bad as they used to be. When Crockett was about ready to
organize a search party, Ruby breezed out of the ladies room freshly changed
and made-up. Strolling in his direction, she delivered her patented slow grin
and arched a perfectly penciled eyebrow.
“Well?” she said. “Worth the wait?”
At five-ten and around a hundred
and forty pounds, Ruby was blessed with velvety clear olive skin, thick, nearly
black hair, a magnificent Italian nose, a mouth like Sophia Loren, a
deliciously ample figure, and an attitude that would have made her irresistible
if she looked like Harpo Marx. She was wearing a chocolate brown
double-breasted pantsuit in a silk and wool blend over a beige camisole and
five-inch brown suede heels with an ankle strap. Her lipstick and nails were a
muted deep red, her immense brown eyes lightly made up to compliment her suit,
and her hair was loose and tousled to her shoulders.
“Oh, my,”
Crockett replied.
Ruby
stopped when their noses touched and kissed him lightly on the lips. Her breath
teased his face.
“Ah,” she said. “You approve.”
Crockett grinned.
“Quack,” he
said.
Ivy’s home
appeared out of the darkness like something from a Victorian novel. With
three-and-a-half stories of weathered fieldstone under the green patina of a
copper roof, it loomed above them as Ruby pulled into the cobbled courtyard,
peering down at the Jaguar through heavy leaded-glass eyes, its carefully
spotlighted façade towering above the car and the immaculately manicured
grounds. Ruby studied it through her open door.
“God. I
always expect to see Dracula pacing a parapet.”
“Only
slightly less square footage than Valparaiso, Indiana,” Crockett said.
She popped
the trunk release and he walked to the rear of the car.
Ruby closed the driver’s door.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Getting
the bags.”
“Don’t
trouble yourself, Darling,” she drawled, affecting a broad English accent. “The staff will collect them. Station is
everything, you know.”
“You are
such a snob.”
“And you,
my Dear, are such a bore,” Ruby replied.
She took Crockett’s arm and piloted
him toward the house.
They
climbed a short series of steps to the covered flagstone walkway and strolled
between heavy columns to the entrance. The iron-banded oak door was at least
six by ten feet and flanked by massive weathered sconces, their gas-fired
flames flickering through beveled glass conjured up images of liveried footmen
and polished carriages. As they approached it, the ponderous door eased open on
silent hinges and there, wearing blue jeans, boots, a chambray shirt and a
Smith and Wesson .40, with a shock of light brown hair dangling over his left
eye and a grin that threatened to displace his ears, stood Cletus Marshal.
“Hot damn,”
he said. “The best lookin’ woman on the planet and a one-legged nasty bastard.
I was scared the hogs had got ya’ll.”
Ruby
released Crockett and took Clete’s hands in hers.
“Where’s your spurs, Cowboy?” she
said.
“There a
chance I might need ‘em?”
Ruby pulled
Clete into a solid hug and purred in his ear.
“More of a chance with you than any
other man on the planet,” she said.
Cletus kissed Ruby on the cheek and
offered his hand to Crockett.
“Good to
see ya,” he said. “C’mon in, you two. We’ll knock back some twenty-year-old
single malt while they get your stuff stowed away, catch up a little, and ya’ll
can go to your rooms for the night.”
“What’s
going on, Clete?” Crockett said. “Why the summons?”
“Ivy’ll
tell ya’ll about it in the mornin’, I guess,” Clete said.
“Gimme a
hint.”
Cletus
looked at Crockett for a moment, then nodded.
“All right, Crockett,” he said.
“Bad dreams. Really bad dreams.”
THREE
Rerun
Cletus
Marshal was Ivy Cabot’s support system. Ex Secret Service, he’d left his post
with The federal government some years before and entered her employ. Fiercely
loyal, Clete was entrusted with the daunting task of keeping Ivy’s life running
as smoothly as possible. He loved her, admired her, and put her welfare above
all else. In his mid-forties, Clete was slightly taller than Crockett and
rawhide thin, with sun-slitted blue eyes, a slim nose, and the quick attention
of a hawk. Clete was predator turned protector and Crockett trusted him with
his life.
At around
eleven Cletus finished his whisky and stood up.
“Ya’ll have
a good night,” he drawled. “I’m goin’ to the bunkhouse. See ya in the mornin’.”
Ruby rose for a hug.
“Are Crocket and I in the same
rooms as usual?” she said.
“Less you
wanna walk me home, Darlin’,” Clete grinned.
Ruby
smiled. “Almost,” she said.
“My loss,”
he said. “Yeah. Ya’ll are in the same rooms.”
“The Men’s
Club and the Whorehouse,” Ruby quipped.
Walking
toward the door, Cletus fired a parting shot.
“The question is, which one of ya
sleeps where?”
Ruby and
Crockett went upstairs and said goodnight. Crockett walked into his bedroom and
stepped back in time. Nothing had changed. The same lofty, wood-paneled
ceiling, the same head-high wainscoting, the same heavy paintings of serious
faces peering at him, the same dense carpet, the same sense of ponderous
security, the same feeling that the walls extended downward to the center of
the earth.
His clothes were hanging neatly in
the corner of the walk-in closet, his cane lay on the bed. It was as if he had
never left, that the past year and more had been removed from his life and
Crockett had entered a time machine whose function was not to escape the
clutches of the flowing days, but to prolong them, encourage them, and not
allow the passage of hours and minutes.
The tall oak connecting door opened
and Ruby stepped in. He could see the peach colored walls of the whorehouse
behind her.
“Jesus,”
she said. “Did we ever really leave here?”
“I’m not
sure,” Crockett said, a little unsteady on his feet and resting his butt on the
edge of a chair.
Ruby
furrowed her brow. “You okay?”
“Yeah.
Yeah, I’m alright.”
“Weird,
huh?” she yawned.
“Witness if
you will,” Crockett said in his best Rod Serling. “Two people, lost in time.”
“That’s not
exactly untrue,” Ruby said. “I think that when you become involved in a highly
emotional and formative situation such as we went through here at Ivy’s, it can
create an emotional aneurysm, an unnatural area of expansion just off the
normal flow of time that waits for the correct stimulus and then pulls us in.
Like a fistula. A short cut between now and then that allows emotional
bleed-through.”
“Here we
go,” Crockett muttered.
Ruby
grinned. “I’m serious, Asshole,” she said.
“So am I.”
“Shut up and pay
attention, Crockett. Hypothetical situation. You’re five years old. Your mother
and father load you and your dog Fido in the car–”
“Fido?”
“Okay, not
Fido. Rover. You, Rover, and your parents all drive nine hours to go see your
great Aunt Bessie way the hell out in Bumfuck, Kansas someplace. When you
finally arrive, and keep in mind how long a nine-hour road trip is for a five
year old, you feel like shit. You’ve been cooped up forever. Aunt Mary–”
“Bessie.”
“Sorry.
Aunt Bessie grabs you and gives you a big hug. She’s old, she smells funny, her
fingernails hurt your ribs, but you put up with it. She’s one of the big
people. For the next three days, a very long time in the life of a
five-year-old, you deal with a house that makes strange noises, food cooked
differently than what you’re used to, no air-conditioning, nobody to play with,
a musty odor that surrounds you every time you go inside, a feather bed that
engulfs you and makes you feel trapped, and a clock on the mantle that ticks so
loudly it keeps you awake at night and that you can hear all around you anytime
you step inside the house. You are a stranger in a strange land and all you can
do about it is wait.”
“Sounds
wonderful.”
“On the third day of this miserable
experience, as your family is getting ready to leave, Rover wanders out into
the road and gets hit by a car.”
“Jesus,
Ruby!”
“Dead as a
hammer. Your Dad buries him out by Bessie’s garden and all of you set out on
another nine hour drive, leaving your best friend behind at a place you hate.
You parents both try to comfort you, but there is no comfort for the child. It
has been an endless little kid hell. But kids bounce back, right? Kids are
tough, time heals wounds. By your seventh birthday, the incident is so far in
your distant past, you know it happened, but you barely remember it. When you
turn ten, you have no clear recollection of the dog, the Aunt, or the place in
Bumfuck, Kansas. At fifteen the slate is clean. You are two full five-year-old
lifetimes away from the event. You don’t even recall that there is something
you don’t recall.”
Ruby began
to walk slowly as she spoke, warming to her subject.
“Now,
you’re sixteen. Testosterone drips from the musk glands behind your ears.
Nothing on the planet is more important to you than an undone bra strap. You’ve
been sniffing around a young lovely, Miss Cheerleader Hotbody, for weeks. She
consents to accompany you on an evening out next Friday night. All week long
visions of sugarplums dance in your head. Your reptile brain is in full mode.
Tits and ass scroll on the inside of your eyelids for days. The big night
comes. You drive to her house. Her mother answers the door and smiles. She’s
friendly! Graciously, she invites you into the living room to wait for Hotbody
to finishing dressing and waft trippingly down the stairs. Mom tells you to
have a good time and bring daughter home by midnight, then walks out and leaves
you to your own devices. Pretty good setup, huh?”
“Sure,” Crockett said. “Sounds
perfect.”
“Almost,” Ruby said. “You’re by
yourself in a strange house. In the living room is a fireplace. On top of that
fireplace is an old-fashioned mantle clock. It ticks. It ticks so loudly that
the noise surrounds you as you sit, a stranger in a strange land, with nothing
to do but wait.”
She faced Crockett and rested her
hands on the back of a gray damask chair.
“Ten
minutes later, when the object of your lust-ridden fantasies actually does come
down, you’re angry, nervous, claustrophobic, sad, and thoroughly upset. She
looks at you and asks what’s the matter. You tell her ‘nothing’, and hustle her
out of the house as quickly as possible, but it’s not nothing. It’s something,
and you have no idea what. Your mood has completely reversed itself in the
space of ten minutes and you don’t have the faintest idea why. You just feel
miserable.”
Ruby began
to pace.
“After an
hour or so you’re your old self again, Miss Hotbody has decided that you’re not
just a brooding shithead and has actually become friendly. By eleven-thirty
she’s got her hand on your leg as you drive, she’s laughing at all your
witticisms, and dreams are beginning to show some promise of coming true. At
her door, you kiss her goodnight. In the embrace that follows, she actually
nibbles your earlobe and asks if you want to come in. Come in? My God! There’s
a couch in there! The lights are off. Mom has gone to bed. Bliss beckons. But
unless they have a TV room in the basement where you can get away from the
ticking of that clock, Great Aunt Bessie will never let you stay. The portal,
the aneurysm, the fistula between now and then waits on the other side of that
front door. It is just as real and sweaty as it was all those lifetimes ago
when the smell covered you, the bed smothered you, and Rover gasped his life
away on that cruel road out in lonely Kansas, while five-year-old you screamed
with the most devastating pain you would ever know.”
“Christ,
Ruby. You’re about as cheerful as an impacted wisdom tooth!”
“Just
making a point, Crockett,” she said. “Emotions are not bound by time.
Emotionally, everything that has happened to us in our lives, just happened.
That includes Rachael’s murder, your attempted murder, coma, and recovery.
Hell, all the things surrounding Ivy and this house of hers. When events like
that line up to create a bleed through, time is affected. That’s why it seems
like we never really left here. It’s not a negative thing. It’s not necessarily
even a sad thing. Like hearing a casual remark from an older person about how
the smell of the cotton candy booth at the mall takes them back. Another person
might smell that same booth and just feel happier for a while, never
understanding why. Emotional memory knows no time.”
“Yeah, well
I do,” Crockett said. “It’s almost midnight. You gotta be beat.”
“I am. To
bed I go.”
She slipped
her arms around his neck and kissed him tenderly on the lips.
“Nice.”
“Very,”
Ruby murmured, nuzzling his cheek. “Sleep well, my Crockett. Sweet happy
dreams.”
He watched
her walk back to the whorehouse. She left one of the massive connecting doors
ajar.
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