Free Broken Angels by Richard Montanari Page B

freshly dug grave, a hole perhaps four feet deep, three feet wide, six feet long. His hands were tied behind his back with strong twine. Despite the chill, his clothes were soaked with sweat.
    “Do you know who I am, Mr. Spencer?” Roland asked.
    Spencer looked up, around, clearly wary of his own answer. The truth was, he didn’t know precisely who Roland was—he had never laid eyes on him until the blindfold had come off half an hour earlier. In the end Spencer said, “No.”
    “I am the other shadow,” Roland replied. His voice bore the slightest trace of his mother’s Kentucky idiom, although he had long ago surrendered her accent to the streets of North Philadelphia.
    “The...the what ?” Spencer asked.
“I am the spot on the other man’s X-ray, Mr. Spencer. I am the car that runs the red light just after you pass through the intersection. I am the rudder that fails on the earlier flight. You have never seen my face because, until today, I have been that which happens to everyone else.”
“You don’t under stand, ” Spencer said.
“Enlighten me,” Roland replied, wondering what elaborate story would be coming his way this time. He glanced at his watch. “You have one minute.”
“She was eighteen,” Spencer said.
“She is not yet thir teen.”
“That’s crazy! Have you seen her?”
“I have.”
“She was willing. I didn’t force her to do anything.”
“This is not what I have heard. I heard you took her to the crawlspace in your house. I heard you kept her in the dark, fed her drugs. Was it amyl nitrite? Poppers, as you call them?”
“You can’t do this,” Spencer said. “You don’t know who I am.”
“I know precisely who you are. What is more important is where you are. Look around. You are in the middle of a field, your hands are tied behind your back, you are begging for your life. Do you feel the choices you have made in this life have served you well?”
No answer. None was expected.
“Tell me about Fairmount Park,” Roland said. “April 1995. The two girls.”
“What?”
“Admit what you did, Mr. Spencer. Confess to what you did back then and you may survive this day.”
Spencer looked from Roland, to Charles, back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Roland nodded at Charles. Charles picked up the shovel. Basil Spencer began to cry.
“What are you going to do with me?” Spencer asked.
Without a word, Roland kicked Basil Spencer in the chest, knocking the man back into the grave. As Roland stepped forward he could smell the feces. Basil Spencer had soiled himself. They all did.
“Here’s what I will do for you,” Roland said. “I will speak to the girl. If indeed she was a willing participant, I’ll come back and get you, and you will take with you from this experience the greatest lesson of your life. If not, well, perhaps you can work your way out. Perhaps not.”
Roland reached into his gym bag, held forth a long hose made of PVC. The plastic tube was corrugated, of the gooseneck variety, one inch in diameter and four feet in length. On one end was a fitted mouthpiece like those used for pulmonary testing. Roland held the tube over Basil Spencer’s face. “Grip it between your teeth.”
Spencer turned his head, the reality of the moment too great to bear.
“Suit yourself,” Roland said. He took the hose away.
“No!” Spencer screamed. “I want it!”
Roland hesitated, then dangled the hose over Spencer’s face again. This time Spencer gripped the mouthpiece tightly between his teeth.
Roland nodded at Charles, who placed the lavender gloves on the man’s chest, then began to shovel the dirt into the hole. When he was finished, the conduit was sticking out of the ground about five or six inches. Roland could hear the frantic, wet inhale and exhale of air through the narrow pipe, the sound not unlike that of a suction tube at a dentist’s office. Charles tamped the dirt. He and Roland walked over to the van.
A few minutes later, Roland backed