Shelly Reuben

Chapter 8 of 8. See previous chapters beginning on Friday, April 12. Or check link to author archive…https://www.evesun.com/authors/31

FICTION

For years, Samuel Upton dreamed about the terrible day when he had watched his father being humiliated by Clarence Liverpool. For even more years, he fantasized about killing the son of a bitch. But over time – five years, ten years, 20 years – anger faded, and he forgot about the incident that had broken his father’s spirit and broken his sixteen-year-old heart.

Until, that is, a sadistic former realtor, now an über-famous attorney, decided to participate in a library project, and became a Human Book. It was then, seeing him sitting a table away, that Chief Upton remembered who Clarence Liverpool was and why he hated the man.

Unconsciously, Sam’s hand inched into his jacket pocket. Unconsciously, his fingers closed around the grip of a weapon surrendered to him minutes before by a girl betrayed by a man who had murdered an innocent child.

Sam’s hand tightened around the grip.

He heard a woman’s voice.

His eyes fluttered open. He shook his head as if emerging from a deep and disturbing dream, and he blinked against the sudden infusion of light.

Where the hell have I been?

Maddie Upton – assistant librarian, beloved sister, and all-around pain-in-the-neck – was standing next to him, buttoning her jacket, and smiling.

“Thank God that’s over, Sam,” she said. “We’re done. Everyone has gone home.”

He looked across the aisle at Clarence Liverpool’s table.

Empty.

He searched the room for the silver-haired lady who angrily had been waving papers in Liverpool’s face.

Gone.

He felt his hand still clutching the grip of the .38 revolver in his pocket. Slowly. Slowly. He unclenched his fingers. Slowly. Slowly, he pulled his hand out of his pocket. He stood up.

Maddie said, “I’ve got to put some books in the car, but that’ll just take a minute. I’m treating you to dinner tonight. You go on ahead, and I’ll meet you at The Grill.”

The police chief nodded.

He passed through the lobby and stopped just outside the library’s front door to look up at the sky. Full moon. He glanced at his watch. 9:17 p.m. Long day, he thought as he trudged wearily toward the road. Long, long day.

Sam turned right onto Main Street, and he had already walked half a block toward the restaurant before he heard a patter of paws on the sidewalk and felt the brush of fur against his legs. He looked down. There was Anita Butler’s terrier, Rex, dancing up and down on the curb and looking as if he was about to dash into the street. Sam leaned down and scooped Rex up.

Anita rushed forward.

“Oh, Chief. Thank God, it’s you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

Sam thrust the dog into her arms. “Lucky catch,” he said.

The piano teacher took a deep breath. She hugged Rex, and opened her mouth to say something else, but before she got a word out, a figure striding up the sidewalk bumped hard into the Madison Heights Chief of Police.

Deliberately? Maliciously?

Sam lurched forward.

Anita stumbled, and Rex leaped out of her arms. Sam regained his balance, reached out, and again caught a handful of fur. He thrust the dog at Anita. Then he turned and glared at the man who had almost knocked him down.

“Excuse me,” Clarence Liverpool snorted contemptuously, and without looking where he was going, he stepped jauntily into the street.

To … a screech of brakes. A scream of terror.

Chief Upton jerked his head around just in time to see a black sedan accelerating up the street. He noted, unsurprised, that the car’s driver, hunched in a death grip over the steering wheel, was elderly, silver-haired woman wearing a stylish bright green dress.

Sam dropped his eyes to the street.

Clarence Liverpool was lying in the gutter.

“Poetic justice,” the police chief mused cheerfully.

The litigation attorney shook an angry fist at the disappearing car. “That crazy bitch deliberately ran me down! She tried to kill me. She actually…”

Samuel Upton turned to Anita Butler, who was glaring at the fallen lawyer. “Blah. Blah. Blah,” she mimicked dryly. Then she lowered Rex to the sidewalk, untangled his leash, winked at the police chief, and strode away.

Clarence Liverpool’s tirade, meanwhile, was escalating. Now, he was shouting at the street. The car. The sky. Humanity. Life. He was also shouting at the Madison Heights police chief who … Yes? No? Maybe? … he recognized from a job interview with a fragile old man all those years ago.

“Go after her, God damn you,” Liverpool screamed to the man who had once been a sixteen-year-old boy. “Chase her. Confront her. Arrest the bitch!”

Sam’s mind drifted nostalgically to images of his father. Not as Abe had been when sick and dying, but as he was when helping his son to start a fire during a Boy Scout outing, or patching a bicycle tire, or baking bread, or reciting a passage from his favorite poem, “Horatius at the Bridge.”

Maddie Upton ambled up to her brother, looped an arm around his elbow, and kissed him on the cheek. Then she jutted her chin toward the man -- still screaming profanities – crumpled at their feet. Exhibiting a halfhearted effort at curiosity, she asked, “Is he anyone important?”

Sam shook his head.

“Nope.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing.”

She tugged his arm. “Then let’s go and eat.”

Sam didn’t budge. Almost a full minute of silence went by before he turned to his sister and said, “Maddie. I have a special request.”

“Name it.”

He pointed at the library and said, “The Human Book Project.”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Let’s never do that again.”

Maddie laughed, made a fist, gently punched her brother on the arm, and said, “You got it.”

And, as the two of them strolled away, a very bitter man with very ugly ears, surrounded by an aura of vindictiveness and hate, raged at an indifferent universe from the middle of a very quiet street.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2024. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com