Chapter 7 - Blood Against Concrete
David’s face was almost unrecognizable under the glare of the bare work lamp hanging from the ceiling conduit.
A dark cut ran from his temple down across his left cheekbone, crusted with dried blood and smeared with engine grease.
His flannel work shirt had been ripped down the front seam, and his head hung limp against his chest like a broken marionette.
The water in the basement chamber was already three inches deep, swirling with dead leaves, motor oil, and rusted metal flakes.
Mark stood directly in front of him, pacing the narrow concrete walkway that skirted the pump pit.
Mark’s work jacket was soaked through, his knuckles wrapped in dirty gray duct tape, and in his right hand he swung a three-foot length of galvanized pipe.
“Arthur called me five minutes ago from the expressway,” Mark screamed, kicking the water toward David’s boots.
“He said Evelyn lost her nerve and gave up the location because the old bastard threatened to tear her head off.”
“The whole filing is blown, Dave!”
“The title company won't clear the escrow without the original trust certificate that was locked inside Martha’s desk!”
David lifted his head with agonizing slowness, spitting a mouthful of dark water and saliva onto the concrete.
“Frank has the box, Mark,” David rasped, his voice barely a rattle in his throat.
“Frank worked twenty-five years for the city registry.”
“He knows what you and Vance are doing, and he’ll bury both of you under a mountain of state fraud indictments before sunrise.”
Mark’s face twisted into an ugly, animal grimace.
He raised the galvanized pipe with both hands and brought it down against the iron pillar, two inches above David’s ear.
The impact rang out through the concrete chamber like a church bell, the vibration causing David to flinch and shut his eyes against the pain.
“The old man is eighty years old and he can barely walk across a flat floor without limping,” Mark snarled.
“He’s not burying anybody.”
“When this canal crests at two in the morning, the relief valves open automatically.”
“Four feet of river runoff washes through this basement and flushes everything out into the main channel.”
“Nobody looks for a runaway father in a flooded pump pit until the spring thaw.”
Mark turned his back on David, walking toward a rusty electrical control box mounted against the rear wall to engage the hydraulic gate.
I didn't wait for him to reach the lever.
I lunged through the broken frame of the ground-floor entry, cleared the three rusted iron steps in a single stride, and drove the heavy head of the tire iron straight into Mark’s right shoulder blade.
The impact sounded like a heavy club hitting a sack of grain.
Mark roared in pain, dropping the galvanized pipe as his knees buckled beneath him on the slick concrete.
He spun around in the dirty water, his arm hanging limp at his side, his eyes wide and bloodshot with rage.
“You,” Mark hissed, lunging at me with his good arm, fingers clawing for my throat.
I stepped inside his reach, ducking the clumsy haymaker, and smashed the butt of my heavy steel flashlight across his mouth.
The blow split his upper lip and cracked two front teeth, sending a spray of red into the swirling pool between our boots.
Mark staggered backward, crashing into the iron rail that guarded the turbine pit.
“You should have stayed out of it, Frank!” Mark screamed, wiping blood across his jaw with his forearm.
“David owed three hundred thousand dollars to Vance’s collection outfit!”
“They were going to take my house, my truck, and my kids’ college money if I didn't help deliver Clara’s parcel!”
“You sold out your own brother for an illegal debt,” I said, stepping forward with the tire iron raised at my chest.
“You put your hands on my granddaughter’s skin and tied her wrist until her fingers turned purple.”
“You’re not a brother, Mark.”
“You’re a parasite feeding on the bones of your own family.”
Mark lunged forward one last time, pulling a rusty hunting knife from the sheath inside his work boot.
He swung the blade in an upward arc, aiming straight for my ribs.
I caught his wrist with my left hand, the impact wrenching my already injured shoulder, and twisted the joint downward until the tendon snapped with a wet pop.
The knife splashed uselessly into the five-inch pool of dirty water.
I drove my right boot straight into his sternum, sending him sprawling into the corner against the closed floodgate.
Mark hit the concrete wall and slumped sideways into the water, clutching his broken shoulder, sobbing in agony and exhaustion.
I stood over him for three seconds, watching his chest heave, making sure his fingers were empty.
Then I turned toward the column where David hung by his bound wrists.
I pulled my pocketknife from my jacket, sliced through the nylon cords around David’s arms, and caught him as his legs gave out entirely.
“Frank,” David whispered, his head resting against my soaked shoulder as he tried to find his footing in the cold, rising current.
“Clara... is Clara safe?”
“Clara is at the county clinic with her mother,” I told him, throwing his arm over my neck and taking his full weight against my hip.
“The fever broke, the nurses are documenting every bruise, and Arthur Vance is waiting in a hotel room for the state troopers to knock down his door.”
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“Now stand up on your own feet, Dave.”
“Because we have twenty miles of washed-out mud road to cover before the county clerk opens her office at dawn.”
