Meanwhile, Laura was on her knees, whacking with equal vigor at the concrete facing on the bottom vault with the pickax. Dust flew up, filling the air with a pale gritty cloud of small particles. There was something disturbing about the diligence with which they worked. All their conflicts and past quarrels had been set aside with the acceleration of the hunt. Discovery was imminent and greed had displaced their contentiousness.
Helen and I moved back against the wall, getting out of their way. Through the barred gate, looking toward the hillside, I could see the wind pushing at the tree branches. I craned my neck, looking up with uneasiness. The sky had clouded over completely, dark forms massing above us. The weather here was changeable, where in California it seemed fixed and monotonous. I couldn’t imagine where this situation was heading, and I was torn between dread and some dim hope that in the end everything would turn out all right. Ray and Gilbert would split the money, shake hands, and go about their business, freeing me to go about mine. Laura would leave Gilbert. Maybe she’d spend some time with her father and her grandmother before the three parted company. Ray would probably remain with his mother while she had her eye surgery, unless he was caught and sent back to prison first.
I checked my watch. It was only 10:15 in the morning. If I managed to catch an early afternoon flight, I might get home in time for dinner. I’d missed most of the prewedding festivities. Tomorrow night, Wednesday, the night before the wedding, William and “the boys” had elected to go bowling, while Nell, Klotilde, and I would probably have supper up at Rosie’s. She swore there was no need for a rehearsal dinner. “So what’s to rehearse? We’re going to stand side by side and repeat what the judge tells us.” Nell hadn’t had a chance to do the final adjustments on my bridesmaid’s muumuu, but how much fitting could it need?
The pounding in the mausoleum took on a repetitious rhythm. I could hear a groundsman using a leaf blower somewhere in the distance. No cars passed along the road that rimmed us. The next thing I knew, Ray, Gilbert, and Laura were dragging canvas bags out of the building and down the steps. Helen and I followed, standing by while Ray upended one of the sacks and toppled the contents out onto the asphalt. Ray was saying, “The guy’s a genius. Who the hell would have thought of this? I wish he were here. I wish he could have seen this. Look at that. Jesus, is that beautiful?”
What had tumbled onto the pavement was a hodgepodge of U.S. and foreign currency, jewelry, silver flatware and hollowware, stock certificates, coin silver, Confederate notes, bearer bonds, unidentified legal documents, coins, proof sets, stamps, and gold and silver dollars. The hillock of valuables was nearly as high as my knee, and six other canvas sacks were as crammed full as this had been. Even Helen, with her poor eyes, seemed to sense the enormity of the find. A rain spot appeared on the pavement nearby, followed by a second and a third, at wide intervals. Ray looked up with surprise, holding a hand out. “Let’s get going,” he said.
Laura refilled the one sack while Ray and Gilbert dragged the others to the trunk of the car and hoisted them in. When the last sack had been added, Ray slammed the trunk down. We were all in the process of getting into the car when I caught sight of Gilbert. For a moment, I thought he was pausing to tuck his shirt in, but I realized what he was reaching for was the gun. Ray saw my face and glanced back at Gilbert, who stood now, feet planted, the Colt in his hand. Laura gripped Helen’s arm, the two of them immobilized. I saw Laura lean down and murmur something to her grandmother, warning her what was happening since the old woman couldn’t see that well.
Gilbert was watching Ray with amusement, as if the rest of us weren’t present. “I hate to tell you this, Ray babe, but your pal Johnny was a stone killer.”
Ray stared at him. “Really.”
“He put out a contract on Darrell McDermid and had him offed.”
Ray seemed to frown. “I thought Darrell died in an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident. The kid was smoked. Johnny paid a guy big money to make sure Darrell went down.”
“Why? Because he ratted us out to the cops?”
“That’s what Johnny said.”
“So who did him?”
“Me. Kid was all tore up about his brother anyway, so I put him out of his misery.”
Ray thought about it briefly and then shrugged. “So? I can live with that. Served him right. The fuck deserved what he got.”
“Yeah, except Darrell wasn’t guilty. Darrell never did a thing. Someone told Johnny a big fat fib,” Gilbert said with mock regret. “It was me told the cops. I can’t believe you guys never figured that out.”
“You were the snitch?”
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “I mean, let’s face it. I’m a rat-fuck. I’m worthless. It’s like that old joke about the guy saves a snake and then gets bit to death. He’s all, ‘Hey, why’d you do that when I saved your life?’ And the snake goes, ‘Listen, buddy, you knew I was a viper the first time you picked me up.'”
“Gilbert, I gotta tell you. I never mistook you for a nice guy. Not once.” Casually Ray reached back, and when his hand came into view again, he was holding a Smith & Wesson .38 Special.
Gilbert laughed. “Fuck. A shoot-out. This should be fun.”
“More for me than for you,” Ray said. His eyes glittered with malice, but Gilbert only seemed amused, as if he didn’t consider Ray a threat he had to take seriously.
“Daddy, don’t,” Laura said.
I said, “Come on, guys. You don’t have to do this. There’s plenty of money….”
“This isn’t about the money,” Ray said. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking straight at Gilbert, the two of them standing no more than ten feet apart. “This is about a guy abusing my daughter, beating up my ex-wife. This is about Darrell and Farley, you asshole. Do we understand one another?”
“Absolutely,” Gilbert said.
I felt myself backing up a step, so intent on the two men, I didn’t see what Helen was doing. She brought up the baseball bat, flailing wildly in Gilbert’s general direction, bashing Ray’s arm on the back swing. She missed Gilbert altogether and nearly whacked me in the mouth. I could feel the wind against my lips as the bat whistled past. She hit the car on her follow-through, and the impact knocked the bat right out of her hand.
“Jesus, Ma! Get out of here. Get her outta here!”
Laura screamed and ducked. I hit the ground, looking up in time to see Gilbert take aim and fire at her. There was a click. He looked down at the Colt in astonishment. He recocked and pulled the trigger; the hammer clicked again. He pulled the slide back, ejecting a round, then let it slam forward again, popping another round into the chamber. He swung the gun around and aimed at Ray. He pulled the trigger. Click. He recocked and pulled the trigger again. Click. “What the fuck?” he said.
Ray smiled. “Well, shame on me. I forgot to mention I shortened the firing pin.”
Ray fired and Gilbert went down with an odd sound, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Ray moved forward easily until he was standing directly over Gilbert. He fired again.
Spellbound, I stared as he fired again.
Ray turned and looked in my direction. He said, “Don’t do that.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a blur of motion and then I heard the crack of the baseball bat coming down on my head. In the split second before the dark descended, I flashed on Helen with regret. Her erratic batting practice had come to an abrupt halt and she’d popped me a good one. The only problem was I could see her and her hands were empty. Laura was the one up at bat and I was gone, gone, gone.
I spent the night in a semiprivate room at a hospital called Baptist Hast with the worst headache I believe I’ve ever had in my life. Because of the concussion, the doctor wouldn’t give me any pain medication and my vital signs were checked every thirty minutes or so. Since I wasn’t permitted to sleep, I spent a tedious couple of hours being interrogated by two detectives from the Oldham County Sheriff’s Department. The guys were nice enough, but they were naturally skeptical of the story I told. Even mildly concussed, I was lying through my teeth, cleaning up my culpability in events as I sketched them out. Finally, a call was placed to the Courier-Journal and some poorly paid reporter checked through the back files to find an account of the bank robbery, including names of all the suspects and a lot of colorful speculation about the missing money. As it turned out, of course, the money was still missing, as were Ray Rawson, his aged mother, and his daughter, Laura, whose common-law husband was laid out in the morgue, his body perforated with bullet holes.