Ascension Day

It had taken Jac a moment to focus and realize just how wild and misjudged Gerry’s punches were in his surging anger. He found the next two easy to dodge, and the one following no trouble to block and swing beneath it a solid punch to Gerry’s stomach. Gerry buckled, and Jac got in another good one, this time square to Gerry’s face, knocking him back against the wall by the door.

Jac seized the advantage, bringing his left hand tight to Gerry’s throat, pinning him back against the wall, his right fist cocked only inches from Gerry’s face. He felt Gerry’s body move, saw one arm rising up again, and pressed harder against his throat, tensing his cocked arm — but Gerry just wiped the bit of blood from beneath his nose with the back of one hand.

‘It ain’t the end of this, my friend… by a long fucking way.’

‘It is for now,’ Jac said flatly, pushing Gerry back through the door. ‘And if you come round here again bothering Alaysha, I’ll — ’ Jac broke off, noticing for the first time Mrs Orwin looking through the gap in her door, eyes wide as she watched Jac, hand gripped around Gerry’s throat, frogmarch him into the corridor. She hastily closed her door as Jac looked her way.

‘You’ll what, Mr — get a restraining order so I can fuck the girlfriend — McElroy?’ Gerry taunted, smiling. ‘You’ll what?’

Jac glared back long and hard. Finally, ‘You’re not worth it!’ And, with one hard push against Gerry’s throat — Gerry falling back a step and almost stumbling over — Jac turned and slammed the door behind him.

A moment’s breathless pause with his back against the door, taking stock, letting the adrenalin rush settle, with Alaysha’ eyes on him somewhere between relief, apology and surprised admiration that he’d actually been able to see Gerry off — then a bang against the door, a punch or kick, and Gerry’s voice again:

‘Your new girlfriend… I’ll bet you one thing. I’ll bet you she hasn’t told you what we did together. Our dirty, sordid little secret. Because… well, because, clean-collar lawyer like you — you’re just too goody-two-shoes to know that kinda shit.’

Another punch or kick of frustration against the door, then silence.

Jac kept his gaze steadily, expectantly on Alaysha, and Alaysha held the look back, both of them knowing in that moment that as soon as they were sure Gerry had gone, the question would come. And Alaysha, perversely, for the first time wishing that Gerry wouldn’t go, so that she wouldn’t have to answer.

But at that moment came another voice on the corridor, muffled, indistinct, with a brief, surprised exclamation from Gerry halfway through — then a gunshot.

Nel-M had finger-tapped against his steering-wheel while waiting on Gerry Strelloff. After a while the sound felt stark, uncomfortable in the silence, so he started pushing buttons on the radio to find some music. Classic soul, jazz and Latin samba were his favourites, and he finally settled on Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’ on an easy listening jazz channel. Two songs later, though, it was playing Louis Armstrong’s ‘Wonderful World’, less conducive to finger-tapping or his mood at that moment, so he stabbed some buttons again, after a moment finding Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’.

As Gerry Strelloff swung his car in, Nel-M checked his watch: nineteen minutes. Not bad. He watched Gerry run into the building, then exit again only twenty seconds later, looking up and down the street as if he’d forgotten something. His eyes settled on a young black boy thirty yards along, and Nel-M watched as he talked for a minute with the boy, the boy nodding finally as Gerry handed over a piece of paper and ten-dollar bill from his wallet. The boy went into the building, Gerry waiting anxiously for thirty seconds or so, pacing up and down, before heading in after him.

Nel-M, too, was starting to get anxious; he didn’t like sudden changes, and if the boy stayed in there, it was going to kill his entire plan. As Stevie Wonder wailed about thirteen-month-old babies, broken looking glasses and seven years of bad luck, Nel-M’s finger-tapping stopped, his hand gripping tight to the steering wheel.

It felt like a lifetime that the boy was in the building, but was probably less than a minute. Nel-M eased out his breath in relief as he saw the boy run out. He slipped on his latex gloves and got out of the car. The gun was already in his pocket, and he gave it a reassuring pat halfway towards the building entrance.

The boy had by then disappeared into the first turning forty yards away, but still Nel-M gave a quick each-way glance to make sure nobody was paying him too much attention as he went into the building.

Everything was in full swing by the time he got to the top of the stairs. He held back out of sight, a foot from the corner where the corridor turned towards the girl’s door thirty feet along. Faint scuffling, raised voices, footsteps now… a door closing, but he didn’t think it was the girl’s; he could hear Gerry Strelloff’s voice, taunting:

‘…Mr — get a restraining order so I can fuck the girlfriend — Mc Elroy. You’ll what?’

Silence, so heavy that in that second Nel-M held his breath, fearing that if he even swallowed, they might hear him.

‘You’re not worth it!’

More scuffling, and then a door slamming hard. This time it probably was the girl’s.

Second’s pause, then a thud, followed by Gerry’s voice again. Some dirty secret McElroy apparently didn’t know about — perhaps her and Gerry were into bondage — then, with a half-grunt, half-frustrated-sigh, another kick against the door from Gerry.

Nel-M tensed, putting his right hand into his gun pocket. This was his cue. And, as he heard Gerry’s first steps away from the door, he emerged from around the corner, a smile rising in greeting.

‘Hey, man… that’s not the way you do it.’ Voice low, hushed, as if he was sharing a confidence with Gerry that he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

‘What?… Who the hell?-’

‘Don’t you recognize the voice, Gerry… your friend? And, like I say, that’s not the way you do it…’ His voice little more than a whisper now as he walked past a bemused Gerry Strelloff, until he was between him and the door. Then he turned, taking the gun out in the same motion. ‘This is the way you — ’

He fired only inches from Gerry’s face, dropped the gun instantly, and ran for the corner and the stairs, leaping them three and four steps at a time.

28

As Jac opened the door, he heard the last couple of frantic steps on the stairs and the entrance door slamming. He ran a couple of steps past Gerry’s body, then halted: Gerry might still be alive, surely he should be tending to him first, seeing what could be done? And with the moment’s indecision, he knew that the assailant was by then long gone. He moved a step closer to Gerry’s body, inspecting. A lot of blood, but any sign of breathing? He knelt down, feeling for a pulse among the blood; and if the full horror hadn’t hit him then, he’d have known by Alaysha’s gasps and screams.

‘Oh God… oh God… No!’ She brought one hand up to her mouth, as if to stop hyper-ventilating.

No pulse that Jac could feel, though he was no expert, but then he noticed the portions of skull amongst the blood, one section almost three inches round, seeing then too the glistening brain matter — and he straightened up quickly, taking a deep breath as he felt his stomach turn, the bile starting to rise.

He looked up sharply, like a cat caught in headlamps, as Mrs Orwin’s door opened across the hallway. Her eyes darted rapidly, going over the scene a couple of times — the body on the floor, Jac, the blood all around — as if the first time she didn’t believe what she saw. Then she started shouting.

‘You’ve shot him! You’ve shot him!’

‘No… No!’ Jac implored, reaching a bloodied hand towards her. ‘It was another man who came by on the corridor… Shot him and ran off.’

‘You’ve… I… I…’ Mrs Orwin started shaking heavily, and as Jac moved a step towards her, still with the same hand held out imploringly, she hastily closed her door.

Jac shook his head in disbelief, but as he looked back at Alaysha, her eyes were transfixed on the gun. ‘What is it?’