It was past midnight on Green Street, across from Biloxi Avenue. Down here the bars and mamas and papas's shops were still open, spewing out the nightshift customers. It wasn't the sort of friendly neighbourhood cops enjoyed patrolling. Thaddeus parked the car a block from the red brick apartment building where he'd found the actual John Elwood he soughed. Earlier in the day he'd arrived here pretending to be a city councilman and had pressed the neighbours about Elwood and found out as little he could about him. Though what he did before his world connected him with the Loftus, he would never know.
Thaddeus had Hilda's gun in his jacket pocket as he and Constance approached the building; he'd left Blondie's behind in the car. Constance was a bit nervous and her eyes kept darting around the neighbourhood as if afraid someone dangerous might accost them. No one did. Few people passed them on the street; hardly anyone looked at them as odd.
They entered the building and Thaddeus pointed at the mail box slot that belonged to John Elwood which as well bore his apartment number. They went up the stairs to the third floor and stopped at his door. Constance stood behind as Thad knocked on the door. His other hand was in his jacket pocket cradling the gun. No answer came. He knocked again and still nothing. His hand tried the door handle and it came open for him. The interior of the room was dark as he and Constance stepped inside and went into the living room.
Suddenly a lamp light came on. There was the body of a man lying face down on the floor. There came a whimpered sound. Thaddeus and Constance froze as there heard a gun click, their heads turned towards the direction of the sound. Both of them looked with surprise and disbelief at who was in the room with them.
Nigel Mavers, Emmet Loftus's eminent butler, dressed in black, sat on a sofa beside Johnny whose arms and legs were tied in front of him and a gag wrapped around his mouth from which he made grunting sounds. Nigel looked at them with bitterness in his eyes. In his hand was a gun that was aimed at them.
"I've been expecting you all evening," he said to Thad. "I'm glad we can finally put everything to an end now."
Thaddeus stood there in the living room not moving an inch. Constance couldn't believe her eyes.
"Nigel? But why?"
Nigel glared at Constance with cold malice. "Why? You dare to ask why? The way you flaunted yourself with this black man," he indicated at the unconscious form that was Johnny. "You think all those months I never knew what was going on in that house. You running out in the evening playing slut while Emmet, your late beloved husband, my former boss, played cuckold to your whims. How you rubbished his household, turned it from what it once was and perpetuated its walls with your atrocious filth. Pathetic and disgusting. Then you went and had the nerve to get pregnant, bearing him someone else's child yet masking it to be his. I've waited all these years to tell you just how I feel about you and your worthlessness, and that's why I made all this happen. Except I couldn't do it, not with my boss still alive. The last thing I wanted to do was soil his name. So I waited and bided my time, saw his illness progress and knew it wouldn't be long. I got to talking with your sister. Apparently she too had a bone to pick with you, and that was how it went."
"It was you who talked my son into running away?"
The butler stood up. "Johnny and I had gotten close over the years, closer than you ever could think. He too knew things weren't straight between you and Emmet. I merely guided him into knowing who his real father was. He was going to run away without my help, except I help him down. I told him to wait for the right moment, that I'll connect him with someone who'll take him to meet with his real dad. That's where your sister and that incompetent boyfriend of hers fucked up and then the kid ran away. A good thing though I already knew where Elwood here lived. I didn't want to come down right away. I needed you and your detective preoccupied elsewhere. That's why I tipped the cops about your kid missing. I was going to dispatch him before anyone knew what was going on. Too bad I couldn't count on your sister either to hold you down."
"Always knew something was fishy about you, Nigel," admitted Thad. "What I want to know is why. It's not for money, is it?"
Nigel hissed. "Don't dare stand there and insult me. If it's money, I've got more than enough salted away. No, it was never about money. It was about making things right. Keeping the scum in their place and never having them mingle with the clean. My former boss was a good man who deserved better than being married to this thrash whore. And you, detective, for budding into what never concerned you. Her sister's boyfriend should have gotten rid of you when he had the chance. I was pretty furious when he let you get the better of him."
"I'd be careful how you point that thing, Nigel," Thad indicated at his gun. "You don't have a silencer to that. It's going to make a loud noise in here if you pull the trigger."
Nigel grinned and picked up a couch pillow. "I've got an even better idea. Both of you start walking behind you towards the bedroom. We'll settle everything in there."
"You're never going to get away with it."
"We'll see," Nigel said grimly. "And even if I won't, least I'll be happy you won't be around to see it. Now move."
Thaddeus positioned Constance in front of him and they began shuffling down the corridor towards the open door that was the bedroom ahead of them with Nigel a few steps behind. Thad felt the gun pressing against his pocket; he hadn't forgotten about it. As they stepped through the open door of the bedroom, Thaddeus, without clear thought, pushed Constance hard to the right side of the room away from Nigel's clear path while he dove to the left. Constance gave a sudden shout and nearly collided her head on the floor. A gun shot rang out and hit the far wall. Thaddeus dove his hand into his pocket for the gun almost the same time he fell on the floor and half turned to face the doorway. Nigel appeared there seconds later and trained his gun at him. Thaddeus felt an explosion seconds before he realised he had fired his gun from inside his pocket. There was smoke curling out the end of his jacket pocket and it was then he noticed the shocked, dismayed look on Nigel's face. He was leaning against the doorway, clutching his chest; the couch pillow dropped from his hand. He tried to say something but coughed out a mouthful of blood. Constance held her head in her hands and she was screaming out loud as his gun fell from his hand and then he fell forward into the room.
Thaddeus approached him and turned him over. There was a puncture wound a little above his chest where he had shot it and blood was oozing out of it. He left the butler and went to Constance's aid. He pulled her into his arms and fought to calm her down; he turned her face away from the sight of her dead servant.
"It's okay, Constance, it's okay." She was shaking in his arms. He whispered words into her ear and didn't let go of her. He kept on patting her back gently even as she gradually began to calm down. "It's all right. He's not going to hurt us. Not anymore."
He helped her up and together they walked past Nigel's body and returned to the living room. Thad helped Johnny out of his bounds and stood back as he reunited with his mother, both of them crying in each other's arms.
The sound of the gun shots had already awakened the folks in the apartment and neighbourhood. Someone had placed a call to the police. Even as Thaddeus stood over the unconscious form of John Elwood, he could hear the sirens wailing in the distance.
------
More than an hour later and the scene outside the apartment building still hadn't calmed down. Ambulances arrived to cart away the corpse. John Elwood was soon revived. He had a pronounced bump on his forehead and a deep cut on his arm due to some struggle he'd had with the dead butler; he rode with the ambulance too, but not before he hugged Constance and shook hands with Thad for arriving at the nick of time. A night crew press van arrived at the scene less than a half hour after the cops had and coupled with the growing crowd of onlookers out on the street, it turned the neighbourhood into a bedlam of noise and movement. Thaddeus came and rescued Constance and Johnny from the influx of surrounding cameras and pressmen sticking mikes at their faces. He led them towards a cop's car and pleaded with the lead detective to escort her home.
"I'll see you tomorrow," he said to her. She held onto his arm as he was about turning away.
"Will there be much trouble for you?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so. The cops are going to grill me pretty hard over everything, which means I won't be getting much sleep between today and tomorrow. They're going to want to talk to you, though I've already told the lead cops to let you go for now. Go get yourself some sleep."
"Goodbye, mister," her son Johnny waved at him as the car began to move.
