Event Horizon

By Rick Hartford

A dense fog carried the sound of the church bells that signaled the passing of Rudy Strickland.

In the graveyard, Harrison Grey held his Zippo lighter between his thumb and two fingers. He snapped hard and the lighter sprang open. He snapped the same fingers against the striking wheel.

A flame.

The smell of burning tobacco.

Grey inhaled.

He blew a perfect smoke ring.

Everything he looked at seemed to be in black and white, as if all color had been sucked out of the universe into a black hole.

He watched the smoke ring dissipate in the early winter sky. The air was raw.

He stood apart from the mourners who were moving away from the grave to their cars. Some of the strikingly beautiful women in attendance were still weeping.

That’s Rudy, Grey thought. He’s probably kicking himself for not being here.

The casket had been lowered into the grave.Two grave diggers, gnarled old men with arthritic hands and faces like a couple of old pugs picked up their shovels and put another man under 5000 pounds of dirt for eternity.

Grey was the man who was assigned to keep the dead man alive and he had failed. He was Rudy’s bodyguard. The only people who knew that fact were Rudy Strickland’s wife, Sophia, and the twins from Rudy’s first marriage, Venus and Hercules, both 18.

As Sophia reached for the door of the black limo which would take her back to the funeral home, she looked at Grey through the black veil covering her face. It did nothing to hide the hatred in her eyes. Grey almost turned away, but he didn’t, letting the hate wash over him. “Lay it on thick, lady,” he said to himself. “I deserve it.“

Just behind Sophia, Grey saw Hercules wink and smile at Venus. She smiled back. They slapped hands.

Nobody else noticed, including Sophia.

Grey stood there until he was the only person left in the cemetery. It was snowing hard now. His black fedora was completely white.

He thought about what he had seen. It was normal for people to laugh and smile at a funeral. It’s human nature to keep the grief at an arms length, at least for a while. But this was different, he could feel it. Grey was a good judge of people. His life depended on it.

Something was going on.

Grey was not only Rudy’s bodyguard. He was Rudy’s confidant. He was Uncle Harry to Rudy’s two teens. He was a bartender and back yard grill chef. Rudy’s family embraced him.

Rudy was sort of in finance, whereas he made lots of money doing things most men would face prison for. But he was real good at what he did. And they never ran into problems, until that night late in the fall when they were crossing the Island Bridge.

The Island Bridge was a drawbridge. Grey was behind the wheel of Rudy’s Black Bentley Continental GT W12. Rudy was in the passenger seat next to him, nursing a cocktail. As they approached the bridge it was starting to open.They were going to have to stop.

But as Grey began to slow the Bentley he noticed out of the corner of his eye black figures who were climbing out of the dark trenches on each side of the road. They were carrying what looked like grease guns: 45 calibre machine guns that now let out ugly grunts as at least six men sprayed the side of the car. Grey could hear the rounds as they thudded into the Bentley’s armor. The car would protect them for the moment, but Grey had no illusions that the machine guns were all the bad guys would bring to the party.

“We’re going for a little flight, Rudy!” Grey yelled, accelerating. The Rolls Royce engine protested at first until the supercharger kicked in.

The two halves of the bridge were separated now and climbing fast. Another couple of seconds and all Grey could expect was a trip into the ocean and certain death.

The Bentley left the ground, the engine screaming. Grey saw the edge of the bridge before him and then there was a terrible crunching noise from the underbody of the car as the two front tires gripped the concrete and pulled the rest of the car along.

Grey lost control of the car, which skidded and flipped. He saw stars as the Bentley slammed into a cement piling.

Grey found himself hanging upside down in the car. He managed to release his seat belt and climb through the driver’s side window. He looked back into the car. No Rudy!

And then it happened.

He felt a wicked blow to the back of his head. When he came to he had no idea of how much time had passed. He got up to his feet, staggering. Then he saw something about 25 yards away. It was Rudy, hanging over the edge! The bridge had stoped rising. Grey started climbing desperately. He glimpsed a barge that slowly traversed the space under the bridge.

“Rudy, hold on!”

Grey was going hand over hand on the side rail. It seemed an eternity when he finally came to Rudy.

“I’m not going to make it!” Rudy shouted.

“Hold on!.”

He reached out with his right to grasp Rudy’s wrist when the other man let go. Their eyes locked and then Rudy disappeared into the blackness as the barge slipped through the bridge opening 90 feet below.

After the incident at the bridge the police brought him down to the station. Detective Seamus O’Reilly obviously thought that Grey was involved with bumping off his own client. There was no love lost between the two. O’Reilly hated Grey. He had his reasons. Grey couldn’t blame him. After all he went to bed with O’Reilly’s wife. It suited her to tell her husband about the affair. It hadn’t suited Grey so well. O’Reilly sent Grey a hollow-point 9 mm bullet in the mail.

'Thinking of you,” was what the card said inside. There was a picture of a sunset on the cover.

Now Grey looked O’Reilly in the eyes. Grey suggested that O”Reilly had a conflict of interest.

“Oh no,” O’Reilly said. “No conflict at all. What I want is you dead.”

“Take a ticket,” Grey said.

“If it wasn’t you, who had Rudy scrubbed? As if I really care to hear your malarkey.”

It was a valid question, Grey only knew he didn’t do it. He didn’t have the slightest who had. Sophia didn’t have a motive. Why kill the man who gave you everything, a man who adored you? Grey, of all people, would be aware of any threats to Rudy. Everybody loved him. Even the people who he swindled. He was that kind of guy. He bought people’s affection. Everybody got a gift in the hand as Rudy was lifting their wallets. It was sound investment. But Grey doubted Rudy thought of it that way. He loved people. And he was a crook.

Rudy made it work.

What kept coming back to Grey was the two kids. Sure, lots of people smile and even laugh at funerals. That’s how people cope. But there was something different about this. It was conspiratorial. They were both “In” on something.

But what?

Grey left the station and started home. Wait a minute. There was no home. He had returned to the house earlier in the day to find all his belongings outside the guest house which had been his home for five years. He loaded everything he could into the 55 Thunderbird that Rudy had given him and left the rest behind. That included a framed photo of Harrison and Rudy back when Grey thought that together they were the Masters of the Universe.The universe that the black hole had just swallowed.

The event horizon. Thats the place where you stand just outside the danger zone. Any closer, well, that’s when it gets you.

You’ve crossed the line and there is nothing that can save you.

Rudy crossed that line.

Grey had no family. Of course there was the X. She was a spunky stand up comedian who was certainly right now using their pathetic relationship as a gag line.

He had no relatives in the area, No old buddies from the old days. “Oh, wait, there was one. Gloria, the high priestess. You call her. You say you need her. She takes you into her arms and she listens to your confession. You stay the night. She has your credit card information. In the morning you kiss her on the cheek as she goes to shower you off of her.

Grey decided to check up on the two kids. He figured to start with Venus. He rented a Jeep Cherokee and swung by the old homestead where, as luck would have it, he found her leaving the driveway in her Boxster. It growled sweetly as it passed him at the end of the street. He waited half a minute and started in behind her.

Going two blocks. Turning left, then right, then to the expressway and taking the first turn back into the suburbs. She had made him and was either drawing him into a trap or just trying to impress him with how smart she was.

He soon found out. Venus turned onto the Boulevard and then Thomson and parked in front of a

gray stucco mansion. She stayed behind the wheel as Grey pulled in behind her. He walked up to her window. “I guess I lost my touch,” he said. “

“Hey Harrison,” she said, almost sadly. Grey just stared at her stunning green eyes and got lost in them for a moment. She had become a beautiful woman and the damn thing about it was that she knew it. Don’t they all.

The next thing he knew when he came out of his haze was that there were three beach boys standing next to the car.

He had missed them in his adoration.

“Hey, granddad, shouldn’t you be home looking at porn or something besides bothering my lady?”

That was the head Beach Boy.

The other two laughed. It was a great joke. Venus wasn’t laughing though.

“Just go, Grey,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“Just go, Grey,” the head Beach boy said sotto voce, mocking her. Before Grey could move the other two beefcakes held him from behind.

“This isn’t helping me go,” Grey said.

Head Beach Boy's first punch was to the solar plexus.

Grey’s head went down and the Beach Boy’s knee came up. He’d had some practice, obviously. Probably on his mother.

“You guys really want to play,” Grey said, blood flowing down his chin, his brains feeling like shards of glass in a broken kaleidoscope.

Head Beach Boy then performed the knee in the groin maneuver, which, although Grey couldn’t say was flawless, it still made him want to roll up into a big ball and die. Grey hit the fender of the Boxster and slipped the tailing device under the chrome.

There had to be better ways of being clever.

They left Grey in the gutter, his breathing rapid and his head spinning. He concentrated on not throwing up. A worthy goal. The boys slapped backs and went back to the house. Grey took note of which one before he passed out. He really did want to play.

Just not today.

Grey wasn’t in any shape to rent a motel room. A body bag, maybe, but where to you find one of those when you need them? So he went back to Gloria’s. She led him to the shower, helped him undress and cleaned him up as good as she could. She brought out a bottle of bourbon and they sat at her kitchen table, drinking. ”Ever think of quitting the business, Grey?”

“No. You?”

They drank some more and ordered a pizza and fell asleep on the couch covered by a comforter with Die Hard playing on the television.

“Shots reported at Nakatomi Plaza.”

Thats the thing that bothered Grey. Shots fired. Those were real rounds that hit the Bentley. So how was this a setup?

But it had to be.

In the morning he left Gloria sleeping. He fished around in the Bird’s trunk for his Zeiss Conquest 10x42 binoculars and turned on the tracking device.

Again, shit luck. The foundation of the trade. Grey traced Venus to the riverfront park on the banks of the Connecticut River. Her Porsche was at the far end of the parking lot, near the breakwater on the river where Rudy’s bloated body got snagged.

Rudy’s bloated body wasn’t there. That was some witless volunteer in a casket 30 miles away. Grey called him Rudy’s stunt double. The Real Rudy was standing outside the car with Venus and Hercules and he looked great. Always the big smile. Good Old Double-Crossing Rudy.

It was a sweet moment, this family reunion. Grey should have been moved to tears. Instead he hopped into the Baby Bird and drove slowly over to where they were standing.

Rudy turned to look at Grey. He put on a scowl, and then switched on the charm. His teeth were gleaming white.

“Uncle Harry!” He called out, opening his arms for a big hug.

The two kids just stood there, looking glum. That’s what happens with spoiled brats when their cake melts in the rain.

Rudy gave me an apologetic smile. Sorry to have had your noggin creased, Uncle Harry. I decided to take an exit, stage left, and put together this little acting company to help me disappear. You helped immensely, as usual, Harrison, witnessing my drop to my death. Actually there was a safety net on the barge. I landed safe and sound, and my “corpse” then took a swim.”

Grey looked up as a 1971 white Corvette convertible pulled in. Gloria got out of the car looking as pretty as a picture, yet somehow unapproachable with a Colt Python in her right hand. Rudy’s smile was as bright as airplane landing lights now as he looked at Gloria.

“You two know each other?” Grey asked.

“You might call him my pimp,” Gloria said. “Keeps me in white powder while catching freebees. He’s a real piece of work, Grey. You outta know, sucker that you are. He stages his death and hangs the whole shebang on your neck.”

Gloria suddenly pointed the Python and gave Rudy a gut shot. Rudy immediately sat down on his keister. He looked down at the widening stain which was ruining his white button down shirt. His mouth was just one big question mark, now.

“What the hell did you do that for!” Grey said.

Gloria gestured to the twins with her Python. They held onto each other and looked at Gloria’s gun with fear in their eyes.

“These two wonderful kids wanted mommy out of the picture, inheritance-wise. So they cooked up a new will, awarding them everything, and hired me to snuff little old Rudy here, this time for real. Its called tying up loose ends. I was more than happy to accommodate them. I get a third of the take.”

“Wait a minute,” Grey said. This is the second die-in for Rudy. What was the matter with the first one?”

“The kids wanted the whole enchilada,” Gloria said.

“They probably have somebody up there on the berm filming the whole thing,” Grey said. “I do, that’s for sure. You remember Seamus O’Reilly, don’t you, Gloria? Sure you do. He had me for this and I cut him a deal. I’m even wearing a wire.” Grey pulled it out of his back pocket and patted it like it was his pet iguana.

Gloria laughed. “O”Reilly is in MY back pocket, loser.” She shook out her thick blonde hair out of its ponytail and got into her Corvette and drove off, throwing the bird as she accelerated,

Venus and Hercules looked as her car disappeared over the hill.

“Are they going to arrest her? Venus asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Grey said. “Gloria and O’Reilly have a good working relationship.”

“And you two, you might just get away with it, that is, if you’ve got a couple of shovels and you don’t mind digging in the desert at night.”

In the distance, church bells rang for the last time as a soul was carried away by the fog.