Issue #178 : Comes To This
He looked up as the clock struck midnight, shivering as the sound carried across the park to where he stood.
It was too late.
No more room for begging off, getting delays, finding extensions. He would be expected to come up with the dollars or else…
He didn’t want to think about the “or else”.
He had just played out his last option for actually coming up with the money in time, and it had proved worthless.
No other choice now but what lay in front of him.
Peter walked to the pay phone by the old gazebo, the only one left in town that was still operational. He picked up the receiver and plugged in his loose change, hearing them plunk down into the phone and absently wishing that he could follow.
“Yeah?” The voice on the other end wasn’t the one to whom he owed the money but he was pretty close.
“It’s me,” he said, staring across at the empty shell of the fountain, already cleared out for the oncoming winter storm.
“You have something for us?”
“I’m on my way over. Tell him I’m on my way.”
“We’ll see you soon.”
The phone clicked on the other end and Peter shook his head. He had no idea what he had to offer but he had maybe an hour before his former benefactor decided to send out a small army to chase him down.
Peter had to be the one doing the chasing. It wasn’t a path that he had wanted to take but things had gotten to the point where it was too late to matter. He had to take the path that was in front of him. Caesar was not the kind of person he could trust to stay away from anyone else, once he had put Peter in the ground. The man had always seemed like the type that thrived on the misery he caused and the blood he had shed. Peter’s wife would just be more to add to the pile.
The town was dead at that time of night. The college was on break so even some of the taverns had shut down early because of a lack of patronage. The moon glared brightly at him through a break in the clouds and he took in the sight, wondering if this would prove to be the last time he looked up at it. There would be close to a dozen men waiting in that house and the only thing he had going for him at this point was the fact that not a single one of them likely perceived him as any kind of a threat. He would have to use that as best he could.
Caesar’s house stood at the top of Ridgeway Lane. All the houses up here were over-sized and expensive but Caesar’s house was the biggest, the most elaborate and extensively designed of all of them. It looked down over an already privileged neighborhood, like a guard for the rich and powerful, shielding them and warding off any of the evils of the world. No matter. Peter would see that house burn. It was the only way, the only route out from underneath this avalanche of disaster he had brought down on himself and anyone close to him.
He sneaked around to the backside of the house, hoping that no one had noticed him crossing over from the street. This would have to happen quickly, before any of them had the opportunity to do anything to stop him. He was surprised to not see anyone outside. Once he was inside, there would be no room for error and no room for doing anything but charging forward. The only thing keeping him on his feet was the image of his wife, reminding himself that this was the only path that led to her safety.
Against all his expectations, the back door was unlocked. He felt like he was walking into a museum, after hours. The rooms he passed through weren’t completely dark but there was minimal lighting, small LED lights mounted over paintings and various sculptures. A part of him had to struggle against the urge to stop and browse the work that Caesar has selected, as it would likely be some expensive pieces. He was here for other reasons and there was no time.
At the base of the stairs, he thought he heard the sound of someone talking up on the second floor. Moving up our and onto the landing, he spotted a thin strip of light coming from under a doorway at the end of the hall. He crept along, sure that at any moment, one of Caesar’s goons would leap out from a closet or bathroom. Still, he was unchallenged as he made it to the door, took hold of the knob and let himself in.
Caesar was seated at the desk, talking to someone on the phone. He waved Peter in as he swiveled his chair away from him. Standing there, Peter listened for the minute or two it took for the conversation to end and the phone to be placed onto the desktop.
“I think you’ll be needing what’s on the table there,” Caesar said, turning back to face him. Peter looked down, confused and nearly stepped back at the sight of the pistol.
“It’s real,” Caesar said. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to fool you. Go ahead, pick it up. This won’t work very well without it.”
“I don’t—”
“Oh, just pick it up. This will go much faster. Trust me.”
Peter reached down, hand trembling as he slipped his fingers around the grip. He was surprised at how light it felt, somehow expecting it to feel like a boulder in his hand.
“Now point it at me. Doesn’t do much good if you don’t point it at me, does it?”
The mocking sarcasm was almost enough for him to add pulling the trigger to the list of demands, but he sufficed with raising the barrel, aiming it tenuously at Caesar as he sat stolidly behind his desk.
“So,” Caesar said as he templed his fingers in front of him. “I’m going to assume that you don’t have my money. Generally people who are coming to make good on their debts don’t come creeping in through the back door. Am I correct? And please don’t lie to me, you are after all, pointing a gun at me in my own home.”
Peter shrugged. “Okay, so what if it is true?”
Caesar nodded. “It seems to me that at this point you have two options. You can pull that trigger and do what you thought you were planning from the start. Or, you can choose to put the gun down and accept whatever might follow.”
He barely understood what the man was saying to him. Hefting the gun and getting a better grip through the sweat oozing from his palm, he spoke. “Are you crazy? What makes you think I won’t just kill you and put myself out of this debt?”
“It’s simple. Because now I have no misapprehensions over what I should do to you. You clearly have no intention of paying me my money so why would I do anything except the obvious choice at this point? You’ve made my decision simple.”
“So you’re telling me that you’re going to kill me, why would I let you walk away, now? You think you’re going to scare me from doing it?”
Caesar smiled. “Not at all. But I do believe your action will be stayed by the knowledge that the bullet you fire from that gun will not stop inside of me.”
Peter felt the gun dip slightly, confused for a moment.
Caesar gestured towards the phone on the desk. “Let’s say I confirmed just now that colleagues of mine are waiting to hear from me. If they do not, then in the next five minutes they will enter the house they happen to be in front of and kill whoever might happen to be there.”
A thrill of anger ran through Peter and he nearly unloaded it until he felt the cool press of steel to the back of his head. Caesar raised his hands as if to show the grand finale to a magic trick.
“You see? It ends the same for you, no matter what. The only ones who pick up that gun are the desperate ones, the ones who have nothing to lose because they also have nothing to give. Except that they almost always have more to lose than they think. So…” He stood from the chair and straightened his jacket. “The gun you’re holding is loaded with blanks. It’s a mundane exercise but I’m afraid it is necessary.” He nodded at the person standing behind Peter as he moved towards the rear door of the office.
“Wait!” Peter blurted out. Caesar paused and turned back. “There’s one more option”
Caesar was clearly amused as he turned back. “And that would be?”
Peter let himself fall back into the arms of his would be assailant. The man couldn’t suppress his instinctual response to put his arms out to catch Peter and as that happened, he grabbed the gun and twisted. He rolled as they fell together, placing the barrel under the man’s chin and pulled the trigger. The sound of the report was like a bomb going off in the room. Not allowing himself a beat to pause, Peter rolled off of the man and rose up in time to draw a bead on Caesar as he charged, firing and taking him in the throat.
As he stepped over Caesar’s prone form, Peter couldn’t help but laugh. “My wife isn’t even at home, you know. I sent her to a hotel for the night.”
The sound from Caesar as he struggled for breath sounded at first like a hacking wheeze but after a moment, Peter realized with a sinking stomach that the man was actually laughing. Blood splattered from his mouth as he sat up and uttered one sentence before collapsing back down for good.
“That’s where I sent them.”
