So Long Lady Grey

So Long Lady Grey

By

Donald Harry Roberts

The call came in at three am. Most of the city was already asleep or close. I would have been except sometimes when you want to find someone and you are in a hurry you have to wait it out, round the clock until they show up.

I answered the call, the voice, a soft purring thing said, “I’ve been watching you. You smoke a lot and you are out of coffee. Why are you stalking me?”

I said, “I am not. You jumped bail. I here to take you back.”

She argued, “Would it matter to you if I said I am not guilty. I didn’t kill my husband. It was an assassination and he was a gangster and someone set me up.”

I groaned intolerantly, “Not my monkey. Not my circus. The courts will sort it all out. My job is to bring you in.”

She hissed like a snake, “You’re a lousy bounty hunter.”

I laughed and said, “Sometimes, but sometimes I’m something else. It depended on how broke I am. I’m usually pretty broke to take on a job like this.”

“How much am I worth to you?” she asked coyly.

“You killed someone big. Your bail was big. I get ten percent.”

Silence.

Then.

She drolled out, “So I’m worth two hundred grand if you get me back in jail.”

I had her cornered. She couldn’t get away unless she jumped out a two-story window. If you’ve ever done that you know the results aren’t usually pretty.

I said, “Come out and we’ll talk.”

“And you’ll drive me to the police station in the meantime.”

I offered, “I’ll drive around a few blocks so you can tell me your story. Maybe you can convince me to help you out. I turn you in, get my fee, you get my other services free. If you really are innocent I’ll find the loophole in the prosecutor's case to get you off. I’ll even try to find the real killer.”

I didn’t think she would go for it but, jeez, I got a heart sometimes and I kind of half believed her. Herman Yawk was a dirty as a two-day-old’s diaper with diarrhea. He was a mob plant in the political arena with a lot of pull and a half dozen peers.

“Would you really help me? I have heard of you. You seem to be real.”

“Come out and we’ll discuss it.”

“Ok. I’ll trust you. I haven’t got anywhere to run or hide.”

It was raining hard. She opened an umbrella and as she came out the door and started toward my car. Her name was Lynnette Bridge. She was all dressed in grey, and when she came nearer I saw that her eyes were grey and her hair was silver. My mind flipped it all over and I called her Lady Grey. But she was young and beautiful.

I got out of the car to meet her halfway before she could change her mind and bolt.

The gunshot cracked. I knew the sound well. It was forty-five. Lady Grey dropped like a rock. Then I heard the second shot. I heard it and fell as the bullet shattered my hip. I hit the ground and didn’t move.

I didn’t hear the second shot. I was told about it when I woke up in a hospital bed. I guess the shooter assumed the second shot finished me.

I asked about the woman. The answer jarred me. “What woman?”

I grinned and said, “Never mind. I was had.”

The second bullet had hit me in the head. Damn think missed my brain but there was an entrance and exit hole in the skin. It went in my forehead and back out just above my right ear. Technically it didn’t penetrate. It just cut grooved out of the skull. The impact had knocked me out and there was a lot of blood. It gave me a concussion as well so they told me.

The next day a Sergeant Merran came to question me. His interrogation wasn’t about who shot me. It was about Lynnette Bridge. I was the bounty hunter on record. He wanted to know what happened to her. I told him the whole story.

After I finished Merran was quiet for a few minutes staring out my room window at something he could see but I couldn’t.

Finally, without looking at me he said, “There was nobody and no blood. No cartridges were found. What I did find was something pretty odd. Three fake fingernails painted grey. You don’t find them anywhere, especially you were found. So I believe part of your story, but I don’t think she is dead and if she is I doubt we’ll find her body. All I know is Lynnette Bridge is long gone.”

“Sorry I can’t help you Sarg.”

“Ok, but if you see or hear from her let me know. I got her cold, but it doesn’t matter if she can’t be found. But there are a lot of people pretty happy it’ll never come to trial. A lot of bad news would have gotten out if it had. She was going to talk.”

“Maybe she set this whole disappearing act up,” I suggested.

Merran said back, “You must mean she probably set it up and used you to make it work and left just enough clues to back up your story.”

I nodded. A minute later I was alone with my thoughts, some traffic noise, and the beep…beep…beep of my heart monitor. I stayed alone until the doctor came the next morning and cut me loose, with a bit of news, “Someone paid your bill.”

I thought about that for a minute then said, “I don’t suppose you know who.”

“Nope, but you can check to account. They might.” The doctor replied and stepped out quickly.

There weren’t any stitches to come out. Apparently, it was more like the bullet burned its way through so all I had was a patch covering the entrance and exit holes. The one thing I did have still was a nasty headache and some dizziness if I moved too suddenly. That was apparently normal and would stop sooner or later. If it had stopped sooner maybe the rest of this story never would have happened but didn’t and it did.

I was taking those painkillers that reduced inflammation and subdued the pain. The long-lasting ones last twelve hours so I was taking two a day and washing them down with coffee laced with a little bourbon. It was probably not a smart thing to do and may have had a lot to do with what happened a few days after I was released from the hospital.

I went back to where I had been shot and where I could have sworn Lady grey went down dead cold. I don’t know why I went at three am but I guess going back to the scene of a crime at the time it happened seemed to make sense.

I guess no one connected what I found to the scene. The umbrella. The umbrella had a pocket in it and inside the pocket was a clutch bag.

My first thought was, to be honest, and take the items straight to Merran. But since he overlooked it I figured it was game. I took both backs to my office. It was four-thirty when I dropped into my swivel chair, took another pill, and washed it down with a spiked coffee. Then I opened the clutch bag.

Sometimes there just isn’t a reasonable explanation when something really weird happens and what you believe is the absolute truth has a dozen holes in it when you try and tell someone about it.

The clutch bag had a thumb drive in it. There was a piece of tan-colored painter's tape stuck to it. Printed on the tape was a name. Herman Yawk.

My office door opened just as I shoved the thumb drive into the slot on my laptop.

A mist came through the door. Just behind the mist was another kind of mist, the kind that looked human, a female human that looked a lot like Lynnette Bridge and just as grey as ever, now even her skin was grey, ghostly grey.

I never believed in ghosts and I still don’t but I know the mind, especially one that has been injured, can play some pretty realistic tricks on you. Combine injury with pain killers and booze and things like ghosts can pop up anywhere, anytime.

I shook my head. The apparition disappeared. I shook my head again, drank down a heavy coffee then activated the thumb drive.

The thumb drive said it all. Lady Grey was innocent. She was disappeared because someone found out about the drive and I sent the damn thing to Merran, a special courier, hoping he would just take it to the DA. But it didn’t happen that way. He came for a visit.

I answered all his questions but I left out a big chunk of what really happened a chunk that a cop wouldn’t have been able to use in court or even believe. But maybe you will.

My phone rang. How it got to be three am again beats me, but it did. I answered lazily, half asleep in my swivel chair and half a cup of heavy coffee still sitting on the desk, the last of four … or five. I lost count. It happens when the bourbon and coffee share the cup half and half.

She said, “I’ve been watching you. You drink too much and you smoke too much. But you did find the flash drive.”

“Jeez. Where the hell are you? I thought they killed you.”

“Look out your window.”

I did.

Lady Grey was standing there in the rain.

I went out. She was dressed exactly the same way she had been the night I saw her gunned down, except her skin was a misty grey.

I crossed the street. She took me in her arms. It was a cold damp embrace but I could feel a warmth in her heart.

“Are you real?” I asked as I pulled away.

“I am. I came to plead with you. Stop looking for me. Stop even thinking about me. If you don’t sooner or later you will slip and tell someone you know I am still alive.”

“I can do that. Your flash drive is kind of like a death bed confession. It’ll hold up in court without you being there. At least I think it will.”

“That’s good. I plan to really disappear now. Forever.”

Lynnette Bridge walked away fading into the rain like an apparition and maybe she was.

 Two days later Sergeant Merran called me. “We found her. They dumped her body in the park.”

I looked out the window. I wondered if it was ever going to stop raining. For a second she was standing there, an umbrella over her shoulder and leaning against a lamp post. Slowly she faded away. I whispered, “So Long Lady Grey.