For Everything a Reason (2 page)

Chapter
Two

Silence engulfed Joseph Ruebins. He lay
motionless, arms draped across his chest, in a funeral pose. The right side of
his face hung slack, a symptom of the debilitating stroke he’d suffered. In
contrast to his right side, his left cheek had swelled into a dark ball of
agony, and the eye was almost sealed shut, now just a tight slit. A white shaft
of sunlight cut through the room, dousing Joseph’s misshapen face in a harsh
glow.

“You should
get some rest,” a grizzled old voice advised.

Marianna looked
up, her face tired and drawn. “I’ll stay,” she said. Her attention returned to
Joseph. Her dark fingers continued to run across the smooth skin of his
brow.   

Eugene Profit
shuffled uneasily. “What about the boy?”

Marianna’s
gaze shifted to the small boy, curled up alongside the still form of her
husband. Jake snored softly. The events of the previous evening had worn him
out, and now he slept peacefully in the close comfort of his father.

“We should let
him sleep,” she said.

Profit glanced
from the boy to the face of the silent giant and sighed. What the hell had
happened last night?

The promise of
victory had quickly turned to defeat. Profit had been on his feet, both hands
gripped tightly onto the ropes of the boxing ring, when Joseph collapsed.

“Knock his
block off!” he cried.

Joseph pulled
his arm back, ready to deliver the finishing blow. Then he paused, blinking
uncontrollably, before falling onto one knee.
The Warrior from Queens
had seized his chance, landing a vicious hook on his opponent’s head. And, as
Joseph slammed to the canvas in a twitching heap, the crowd had launched itself
into a triumphant rage. Two minutes later, however, they’d been stunned into
silence.

“Hurry!”
Profit called, as the ringside doctor finally made his way into the ring.

Marianna was
kneeling beside the old coach, Joseph’s head cradled gently in her lap. Jake
stayed just inside the ring, one of the other trainers holding the boy back.

It had taken
almost twenty agonising minutes for the paramedics to arrive and a further ten
to securely tether Joseph to a stretcher. The once-hostile crowd had now become
a mass of concerned faces, but offered nothing but hindrance as they gathered
in front of the small group, who were eager to rush Joseph to the nearest
hospital. With a single bark of annoyance, Marianna had sent them scattering
for the four exits, clearing a path for the gurney.

Now Marianna
continued to caress her husband’s face, the nightmare of last night a jumbled
mess of confused thoughts.

“Maybe I
should see what’s keeping that doctor,” Profit said.

She nodded.
“Okay.” In truth, she wasn’t too sure if she wanted to hear what the
neurosurgeon had to say. Uncertainty had begun to gnaw away at hope, little by
little, leaving only fear and frustration. The old coach backed quietly out of
the room in search of the doctor.

Marianna’s
attention returned to her husband’s face. His eyes twitched slightly under
their lids, and she felt her hope swell, restored by this tiny indication of
life. If his thoughts still ran, even in darkness, then at least that in itself
was an indication of brain activity. She’d had many nightmares over the years
involving Joseph receiving a cerebral injury, and now that fear was real.

***

The darkness before Joseph’s eyes had
become impenetrable, so much so that he thought for a moment his soul had been
launched into space, forced to roam for all eternity, lonely and lost. He felt
as if he’d been trapped in this bleak universe for what seemed like an aeon,
and had now started to wonder if he’d actually entered the Great Beyond, only
to find it lifeless and empty. 

***

Struggling to breathe, Marianna stood and moved towards
the window. She parted the drapes further, which allowed a magnificent burst of
sunlight to fill the room. She looked down at the passers-by and wondered how
many of them were at the mercy of their own burden of grief. She slid the
window open as far as the track allowed. Cold air billowed in, turning her dark
hair into a living black scarf. The coolness helped to dispel some of the
unwanted tension.

***

Something brushed past Joseph’s face:
A breath. He inhaled deeply, surprised and excited by the unexpected sensation.
How could it be? Trapped in this dark void, another equally surprising
sensation stirred his consciousness.

The sounds
of music.

***

Marianna turned away from the window,
the faintest hint of song drifting in from some workman’s distant radio. She
returned to her husband’s side and found him motionless. Not even his eyes
moved. Now a solid ebony statue, only the rise and fall of his chest gave any
indication he was still alive.      

***

Joseph focused his attention on the
noise. It came from far away, barely discernable in the rushing cacophony of
silence. The darkness that surrounded him split, tearing open in front and
behind. Two blinding lights exploded, one on each side of him. Multiple white
lines, running in parallel to each other, appeared from one of these lights,
snaking towards the other. The music increased, now clear and distinct, and
Joseph recognised the clash of guitars and bass. A chain of shapes broke
through the farthest tear, seemingly linked together, rushing in the same
direction as the white lines. At first they posed a mystery, strange symbols
and complicated swirls, but then Joseph realised they were the components of
written music. Making up one continuous chain, treble and bass clefs, quavers
and semi-quavers, rests and crotchets, careered towards Joseph, riding the
lines of the stave like a never-ending freight train. As the combination of
notes and signs drew closer, the once melodic sound became a rushing boom of
thunder.

The lines
snaked towards Joseph, and for one terrible second he thought they were about
to rip into him. But no, they twisted away and continued towards the second
open rift. Joseph became aware of his own substance. On impulse, he reached out
towards the musical notes, and felt unexpectedly pulled towards them. A double
quaver raced past him, sending a pulse of energy through his spirit-like body.
More signs and notes rushed by in a dizzying blur. With startling clarity, he
knew this magical ride had been sent to collect him. He reached out again, this
time snagging a semi-quaver, and felt himself pulled along.

The note he
rode turned brittle. It began to crumble, pieces breaking away, disappearing
into darkness. Joseph began to panic. At this speed, he knew that if he lost
his grip, he would be sent spinning into oblivion. He chanced a look behind and
spotted the twists and turns of a treble clef. Leaping away from the
disintegrating note, he landed awkwardly on the hurtling sign. He slipped and
almost fell clear, but with grim determination held on. Soon, though, the clef
too began to fragment. 

***

Marianna looked up from her husband’s
face. The noise outside had changed in pitch and amplitude. A grating noise,
rasping like the lungs of an asthmatic, drowned out the music and shook the
open window. Marianna stood up, intent on shutting out the dreadful noise.

***

Now hanging from the top of a double
quaver, Joseph leaped across the void and landed on a vibrating crotchet.
Without warning, the notes and signs had become an explosion of movement, not
only travelling forwards at breakneck speed, but also vibrating up and down
violently, as if the lines they rode had been plucked like the strings of a
guitar. Joseph chanced a look ahead. What he saw made him whimper like a
terrified child. The rift had begun to shrink. Notes struck the sides,
shattering instantly in a shower of gleaming white ceramic. Joseph knew now
that if he didn’t make it to the opening, he would become trapped in this abyss
forever.

***

The window opened out an inch, just
enough to allow the clatter of music to filter through. The door swung shut,
turning Marianna’s thoughts away from the troublesome noise outside. A young,
pretty nurse had entered, carrying a clipboard and chart underneath her arm.

***

Someone had pressed fast-forward. The
notes raced around him in a blur, individually unrecognisable, and had now merged
into a single streak. Joseph hung onto the note or sign, whatever it once was,
now little more than a jagged white rock, and watched in horrified wonder as
the rift dwindled to the size of a manhole. He hunched his shoulders, gripping
tightly onto the hurtling meteorite, offering silent prayers, watching as the
tear drew closer. The lines flapped crazily, some disappearing through the
hole, taking the notes and signs with them, while others continued into
darkness, and there they faded quickly out of existence. 

***

The nurse stepped back from the foot of
the bed, her initial job completed. She frowned slightly, something clearly
beginning to bother her. “What’s that god-awful racket?” she asked, her
attention drawn to the window. She stepped past Marianna and reached out,
intent on shutting out the annoying sound.

“Wait!”
Marianna said, stopping the nurse’s arm short.

“What is it?”
she asked, concern written across her face.

Marianna
stepped closer to the hospital bed. “I-I thought I saw something.”

“What?” the
nurse asked eagerly.

Marianna bent
over her husband. A faint exhalation of air was the only real sign of life.
Then, just as it had happened moments earlier, Joseph’s eyebrow ticked upwards.
“There!” she said, pointing towards his face. The nurse joined her at the
bedside, and the noise outside was momentarily forgotten.

“I don’t see
anything.”

“Wait,”
Marianna said.

Together they
stood silently. For the third time Joseph’s eyebrow jumped, causing the smooth
skin of his forehead to crease.

“Did you see
it?”

“Yes,” the
nurse replied. “But it may not mean anything, just a reaction, possibly from a
dream or something else.”

“Something
else?” Marianna parroted.

“Okay, I’ll
inform the doctor,” she said on her retreat to the door.

***

The light was so close now that
Joseph could actually feel heat radiating from it. The sign he held onto had
disintegrated to little more than a fist-sized rock. With only feet remaining,
he watched as the three central lines pulled together, contracting sharply to
fit through the tiny gap. He threw away the white rock and gripped the two
outer lines. Laying his head tightly against the line in the middle, he closed
his eyes and then held his breath. His clenched hands were pulled together,
until barely inches apart. One final look upwards revealed that the light had
dwindled to the size of a mailbox. Joseph had one terrifying moment to think
he’d never fit through, especially his ample gut, before fire burnt at his
knuckles.

“OOOhhhh
shit..!” he cried, as the rest of his body caught fire.

In the next
instant he was through.

***

And once again, silence.

Pain stabbed
at his eyes. He squinted, surprised by the sensation, the light source harsher
than the one he’d just witnessed. Something shifted above him, a dark
silhouette, and unexpectedly, he was confronted by his wife’s beautiful face.
She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes. Two clear rivers of tears sprang
from them, which ran down the fine contours of her face, before coming together
at the tip of her elegant chin.

She watched as
his mouth opened slightly, just the left side under his control, and a thick
stream of saliva pooled out onto his shoulder. He grinned sheepishly. With his
swollen left side and his slack right, he could have put Quasimodo to shame.
Yet, as Marianna looked down at his battered and distorted face, she thought it
was by far the most beautiful she had ever seen.

Chapter
Three

Ice-cold wind bit into exposed flesh
with the same conviction as cruel fangs. This, the coldest day of the month,
had sprouted vicious teeth and nails, which would have given any beast from the
Jurassic Age a run for its money. Winter held on with unsympathetic
malevolence. The branches of the trees that lined the streets and avenues were
burdened with frost – stark white limbs reaching desperately towards the
washed-out February sun. In some places, patches of grey snow lingered on
colourless swathes of frozen land, out of reach of the sun and children alike.

The remnants
of snowmen lurked along sidewalks; obese sentinels watching the hub of
New York City
go about its business. Like
a superhuman heart,
Manhattan
Island
pumped people into its core –
millions of corpuscles, each charged with enthusiasm – held them there
momentarily, and then sent them home, worn-out and defused. Wrapped in long
scarves, thick overcoats and insulated boots, the city’s inhabitants rushed
home in the early-evening twilight, eager to take refuge from the biting wind. 

In stark
contrast to the freezing horrors of outside, indoors was a warm haven, which
offered sanctuary to both saints and sinners, irrespective of whether their
hearts were filled with innocence or murderous intent.

The aroma of
the bowl of stew beneath Thomas Carter’s nose barely registered. Small, unidentifiable
pieces of god-knows-what floated on the surface and seemed to avoid Carter’s
spoon, no matter how hard he tried to scoop them up. A crusty bread roll lay
untouched beside the bowl. Carter eyed it with uncertainty. The roll looked
stale enough to have come from some recently unearthed Egyptian tomb. Dark
crumbs dotted the bread intermittently, reminding him of sand. He’d read
somewhere that ancient Egyptians had mixed fine sand with dough in an attempt
to make supplies of flour go further, before offering it to unsuspecting
slaves.

“Are you gonna
eat that?” someone at his side asked.

A dreadful
stench wafted towards Carter. He turned to his right and found a wrinkled old
face looking at him expectantly. The old man’s head bobbed towards the crust,
his hooked nose almost close enough to peck at it.

“Gonna eat it,
or what?” the man asked. Blackened gums barely retained one or two yellowed
teeth, and the choking stench of rotten breath assaulted Carter’s nose.

“Take it,”
Carter said.

Fingers that
hadn’t seen soap or water in a long time scooped up the roll and then began to
tear it into more manageable pieces.

Sandwiched
between two ragged tramps, Carter turned back to the bowl of stew in front of
him. He continued to trawl for the few lumpy bits on the surface
half-heartedly, his belly still full from the meal he’d eaten in the comfort of
his uptown apartment. Consciously aware that he had not started eating, he
raised a spoonful of the watery stew to his lips.

Fire erupted
inside his mouth. Tongue, gums and throat screamed with the unexpected bite of
the clear liquid. It was then he realised that the dish before him was
basically hydrated pepper. He looked around the table, expecting others to be
fanning open mouths or grabbing for the jugs of cloudy water dotted around the
table. Everyone else was spooning mouthful after mouthful of this fiery broth
into gaping mouths without complaint. Carter shook his head, understanding why.
Most of the people in the room had the desperate look of chronic alcoholics. Bright
red bulbous noses, eyes that seemed incapable of focusing, no matter how hard
they tried, and that slight nervous tic that accompanied most hardened
drinkers, reminded him that his fellow diners were the unwanted, unseen
community of
New York City
’s homeless.
People who lived day-by-day on a diet of small handouts, neat whisky and
narcotics.

A feeling of
pity washed over him. Not a condescending demonstration of fake compassion, but
the honest sincerity of someone who was witness to the lowest depravations of
man.

“Not hungry?”
the tramp at Carter’s right asked. The guy’s bowl had been licked clean, and
all that was left of the bread roll were the few crumbs sticking in his tangled
beard.

Carter looked
down at his bowl. He had barely touched his stew. For a second, he battled
between an uneasy feeling of looking out of place and a sense of guilt.

The tramp’s
clothes looked about ready to split at the seams, just dirt and grime holding
them together, and his eyes were deep and hollow. Those eyes contained a
desperate yearning that would not be satisfied by the offer of a thousand bowls
of stew.  

Unwilling to
give the tramp his meal, Carter grumbled a warning then hunched over his bowl.
He cringed slightly, expecting the guy to launch into an uncontrollable rage.
Ten seconds passed; nothing happened. An eagerness to get out of this desperate
place drew Carter’s thoughts away from the bowl before him, and his eyes
towards the door marked
EXIT
. His gaze settled on a small doorway leading to the only washroom.
As if he was suddenly in danger of fouling himself, he offered a surprised look
of agony, stood clutching at the seat of his pants, and then quickly tottered
towards the doorway.   

He’d barely
taken three steps before the homeless guy reached over to take the bowl of
stew. A black man opposite him chuckled, revealing a mouthful of pink gums. He
muttered, “Crazy asshole,” then returned to the half-empty bowl in front of
him.

In the
washroom, Carter breathed a long sigh of relief. Now was not the time for
mistakes. He’d only get one shot at this. And he needed to be sure his target
stayed oblivious to his presence. 

Presley
Perkins had been a hard man to find – not at all surprising, considering the
amount of shit he’d gotten himself into. A two-bit loser, with barely the sense
that God had given him, Perkins had somehow managed to remain out of sight for
almost three months now. He’d seemed to have left town, leaving behind him the
aftermath of a despicable act of violence.

Carter knew
better. Perkins was still here in the city, somewhere.

The guy didn’t
have the smarts to leave. Stupid to the nth degree, Presley Perkins should have
been born with the word
‘Loser’
tattooed on his forehead. Son of a
slumlord, the sad fuck had never travelled farther than the Eastside Express
could take him. While the real estate boom of the 1980s had given the family a
somewhat classier cachet — bad habits die hard. Old Man Perkins, called Don
‘Dolly’
Perkins, had a taste for greasy food, good booze, dumb cheap hookers and
strippers with big chests and gold-digging ambitions, and, most of all, high
stakes gambling. The moniker ‘Dolly’ was added to his name by his gangster
buddies because he went through women like he did cocktail napkins. He also
paid protection money to established Italian crime bosses to keep himself out
of trouble. Black and Latino gangs and certain Eastern Bloc syndicates were
constantly trying to expand their borders into Dolly’s turf. Despite his
substantial real estate earnings, his string of easy women and his big player
lifestyle, running with the mob always tapped Dolly’s cash-flow.

Presley
Perkins possessed the additional bad luck of being named after his father’s
favourite musician and getting his mother’s less than room temperature IQ.
Dolly learned early on that Presley needed to be kept away from any of the
Perkins money if there was going to be anything left at all.

That all
changed the night Dolly moved on to the next world. His considerably high
cholesterol count finally pushed his heart too far. He died in spectacular
fashion, in the embrace of one of his paramours. Presley inherited his late
father’s wealth, and within just eighteen months had lost all of it. Slave to
the roulette wheel, he’d gambled Dolly’s fortune away, and had also found
himself in debt to a Russian mafia boss to the tune of twenty-five grand. Now
in serious trouble, he’d taken the only option left available to him.

These were the
events that led to Presley standing at the counter of a convenience store, arm
outstretched and pistol in hand. Head clad in a ski-mask, he was in the process
of demanding a register full of cash, when, in a terrible stroke of bad luck,
the door opened and a uniformed cop walked in. Cop and robber froze, both
rooted to the spot, the unexpected presence of the other freezing each of them
solid. Then, instinct taking over, the cop reached for his sidearm. Already at
an advantage with his gun drawn, Presley squeezed off a shot first. The bullet
caught the cop across his throat, nicking the carotid artery and sending a
bright red spray of blood across the aisle.

It was the
first time Presley had ever fired a gun.

He fled the
scene empty-handed, with the stench of blood thick in his nostrils. Taking to
the back alleyways, he stopped abruptly, the magnitude of what had just
happened overwhelmingly apparent, and dropped the contents of his bowels, along
with the firearm, which he hid unimaginatively in a half-filled dumpster. In
simplest terms, Presley Perkins had sealed his fate by leaving behind him a big
pile of steaming
DNA
for all to
see.       

Now, three
months after the shooting, Thomas Carter lay in waiting, the moment of
Presley’s reckoning fast approaching. In an attempt to disappear, Presley had
done the most obvious thing – hidden amongst the homeless. Not a bad plan in
itself, but somewhat compromised by Perkins’s occasional use of ATM machines.
Six weeks after the shooting, small amounts had been withdrawn from Perkins’
small savings account. Just enough for someone who was living on the streets to
survive with the tiniest measure of comfort. It had been a simple case of
triangulating the cash withdrawals and locating the nearest soup kitchen. What
had been harder for Carter were the weeks trawling the underbelly of society in
the hope of catching his quarry.

He took a deep
breath, the stench in this windowless room almost overpowering. He moved
towards the single cracked basin and drew water from the one remaining tap.
Cold water snapped at his fingers with an icy bite. He cupped his hand and then
ran the water over his forehead.

“Almost time,”
he said, taking another long breath, using the ice-cold water to help focus his
thoughts.

Raising his
head, he caught his reflection in the dirty mirror, which hung crookedly before
him. His heavy jowls had a peppering of brown and white whiskers, a symptom of
not having shaved for the last three days, and his naturally curly hair looked
grey and unruly. His eyes were red-rimmed and tired – and if they were to be
considered the windows to his soul, then Thomas Carter was a haunted man. He
looked ten years older than his actual forty-four, and his air of wild
desperation made him seem anything but out of place among the bedraggled mob
eating outside.

He stepped
away from the mirror and cracked open the door. The chaotic noise from the room
beyond flooded in, a clamour of scraping bowls and unsatisfied stomachs. Carter
scanned the crowd. Amid the hollowed-out and desperate faces, one stood out.
Presley Perkins sat less than twelve feet away, his newly grown beard dripping
with soup, his once manicured fingernails now blackened and chipped.

Thomas Carter
drew his weapon, a small Smith & Wesson snub nose revolver. He opened the
cylindrical loader to count the brass shells. Without actually looking, he knew
that five remained. He’d counted them many times over these last three months.
He snapped the loader home, then flicked the safety off with his thumb. The gun
felt familiar to him, even though it had been found abandoned only months
earlier. Tonight there would be no peaceful arrest or reading of rights, just a
brutal finale to Presley Perkins’s life. For tonight, Thomas Carter wasn’t here
on police business. No, tonight he had come as a grieving father, here to
avenge the death of his son: a rookie police cadet who’d been shot and left
bleeding to death.

Detective
Thomas Carter pulled open the door and stepped back into the pandemonium of
noise and clatter. Raising his arm, he took aim. Then, just as he was about to
pull the trigger, all hell broke loose.