Halfway to Hell

Halfwat to Hell Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

If it wasn’t for the sirens, I would probably still be there. Rocking to and fro, stroking her face and wishing it wasn’t true. When I heard the sirens they were still way off, but getting closer. Some instinct, call it self-preservation, kicked in. Gently, I laid Didi down on the ground. I grabbed a pillow from a lounger and placed it under her head, then I grabbed a towel and covered her up with it. Pointless I know. She was past caring, but the thought of her being discovered like that, naked and lifeless, by a posse of ham fisted cops, gave me the creeps. They’d have their way with her soon enough, but for now, she deserved some decency.

            I stumbled, half blind with...what? Grief? I hadn’t even met Didi DiMarco. Relief then. And guilt. Because I thought it was Delores and I was glad that it wasn’t. What was it about that dame? I’d met her twice and I’d been prepared to take a beating, maybe more, to keep her safe and I was blubbing like an idiot because I thought I’d lost her.

            I wiped away tears and blood from my eyes and limped down the side of the house to the driveway. The battered yellow cab still stood where I’d parked it. I had the door half open when it dawned on me. I looked back over my shoulder. The house that stared back at me was pristine. No faded paintwork. No missing tiles. No cracked brickwork. The lawns leading up to the house were manicured and luxurious. And yet, this was the same house that had seemed like a desolate ruin not more than a couple of hours ago.

            I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head to clear out the cobwebs. When I opened them, nothing had changed. It still looked like the cover of a House Beautiful magazine. The sirens stopped me from thinking too hard or too long on what might be possible and what might not. I hopped in the cab and found the keys still in the ignition.Thank God for small mercies. In my current state I doubt whether I could remember how to hot wire the jalopy. I slammed the stick into drive and roared off in a cloud of dust.

            I took the bends on two wheels. I needed to get some distance between me and the house before the cops turned up. When the sirens sounded like they were too close for comfort, I made a sharp right and bumped down a dirt track that led into the woods. A couple of hundred yard in, I turned off the road and ran the cab into some low bushes and cut the engine. I waited and listened. The sirens got closer and closer until they felt like they were breathing down my neck. Then, slowly, they got quieter, fading away. Finally, they stopped. I figured they’d reached the house. I needed to be gone before they started nosing around the neighbourhood. I started up the cab and eased out of the bushes, back to the road. I headed back towards town. I didn’t know where I was headed or what I’d left behind me, but at that point, movement seemed my best option.

            A plan, of sorts, began to form as I drove. I stopped at the first gas station I saw. Pulled up behind the building and used the pay phone on the outside wall. I dialled Steve Babbidge’s number. He picked up on the first ring.

            ‘Jesus Christ, Mac, what the Hell have you gotten yourself into?’ was what he said when I told him who was calling.

            ‘I wish I knew,’ I said.

            ‘The cops have an all points out for you on some murder rap.’

            I guess I should have expected that, but it still gave me a jolt to hear it out loud. ‘How do you know so much about cop business?’ I asked.

            ‘I listen to the police band.’

            ‘That’s illegal, you know.’