‘A gun.’
‘Yeah, a gun.
Your
fucking gun.’
My gun. Aimed at me again. This is starting to get repetitive.
‘We made a deal, Bartok.’
Ah, yes. The deal. Me getting my life back in return for handing Bartok the killer of his brother. Lucas sure got a shock tonight when I turned up at his door offering that one. Now where did I
get the idea he could ever be a man of his word?
‘You think I’m stupid, don’t you, Doyle? Think I don’t know shit. To you, Kurt was the brains and I was just the dumb sidekick. Ain’t that right, Doyle?’
‘No, actually your dastardly ruse never fooled me for a minute. I always suspected you were the criminal mastermind and Kurt was just your puppet.’
For his impudence, Doyle receives another smack in the mouth, rattling his teeth.
‘Oh, you are so pushing it, Doyle. You are so asking to die here.’
‘What’s the difference?’ Doyle asks, finding it harder to speak now. ‘You’re gonna kill me anyhow.’
The laugh from Bartok seems to fill the clearing. Doyle can picture the forest denizens deciding they want nothing to do with whatever insane creature is issuing that fearful noise.
When Bartok speaks next, his voice is just an inch from Doyle’s ear. Doyle can feel the man’s warm breath pushing through the cloth.
‘Kill you? I ain’t gonna kill you, you stupid fucking mick. I want you alive. And you know why? To show you that I’m smarter than you think. I’m gonna help you,
Doyle.’
‘I don’t need your help.’
‘Oh, yes, you do. Think about your situation. Think about your ex-boss lying in pieces behind that rock over there. Think about his missus with your bullet in her brain. She’s got
great tits, by the way – I copped a feel on the way out.’
Doyle tries to suppress his anger. His mind struggles to work out where Bartok’s going with this.
Something – probably his gun – taps against his skull.
‘This,’ says Bartok, ‘gives you a story. You say that the lieutenant tied you up and put the hood on your head. That he was going to shoot you and dump you in that hole over
there. And then somebody else came along. You have no idea who. You heard noises and that’s it. You got that, Doyle?’
Doyle doesn’t answer. He feels his coat being opened, a hand reaching into his inside pocket.
‘And this,’ Bartok continues, ‘gives you the rest of what you need to get out of the fix you’re in.’
‘I don’t want it. Whatever it is, I don’t want it.’
Bartok laughs again, but it’s more of a chuckle this time.
‘We
were
quits,’ Bartok says, ‘but now you owe me. You owe me big time.’
Doyle swallows down some blood. ‘I don’t owe you shit. Take your crap out of my pocket. I’ll take my chances.’
‘It stays, Doyle. And I think you’ll use it. But even if you don’t, you still owe me.’
‘Yeah? How d’you figure that?’
Another cruel laugh. ‘Because I got something else up my sleeve. Something you don’t want anybody to know about. Any ideas yet?’
Doyle’s mind races, but doesn’t seem to get off the starting line.
Bartok’s voice drops to a whisper. Although carried on lungfuls of air that feel almost burning against Doyle’s ear, the words themselves chill him to the bone.
The breathing moves away. When Bartok speaks again it sounds as though he’s standing up again.
‘Think about that, Doyle. Not so much the dumb brother now, huh? We’ll talk again soon. Oh, and one other thing before I go . . .’
Doyle waits for more words he doesn’t want to hear. What he gets is something hard smashing into the side of his skull, and then a feeling of sinking into the soil as though it’s
quicksand, swallowing him up and closing over him.
He thinks he’s dead.
When he opens his eyes he sees nothing, feels nothing. His brain sends out commands to the rest of his body, but nothing responds. It’s like he’s become some kind of disembodied
soul, floating in a featureless limbo.
Gradually, he realizes that his limbs are moving, but the cold has numbed them – turned them into unfeeling slabs of frozen meat. He manages to roll into a sitting position, then starts
pumping his legs along the ground to get the blood circulating again.
Next, he flexes his biceps, rubs his arms up and down his back, wrings his hands together until they start to thaw a little. When he has finally re-established the perimeter of his own body, he
goes to work on the cord binding his wrists. He frees his arms more quickly than expected, and when he pulls off the hood he sees why: the lack of sensation in his hands meant that he didn’t
notice he was sloughing off layers of skin as he pulled and twisted them against the rope.
He stands up. Shakily at first, he stamps his feet and slaps his arms across his body, trying to dispel the iciness that seems to have sunk right down into his bones. Each movement sends jolts
of pain coursing through his battered body.
He burrows his hands deep into his pockets, then scans the clearing. It’s so quiet, so peaceful here. It’s almost impossible to believe that this place was recently witness to such
extreme, sickening violence.
He knows he has to look, has to confirm what he already knows to be true. He’s a cop. He has seen numerous corpses, in various states of decay and putrefaction. But as he circles the rock
and glances at what lies behind, even he feels the bile rise in his throat.
He performs a quick search of the area. There’s no sign of either his gun or the lieutenant’s, but what he does find is Franklin’s flashlight. He switches it on, but just
before he aims for the woods he takes another look at the hole he started digging. The site that almost became his grave.
With no idea of the route, and nothing that looks familiar, it takes him a long time to get back to the house. When he finally arrives, he stamps across the back porch, enters through the
kitchen, then goes straight to the living room. He wonders why he finds it surprising that Nadine is still there in the armchair. Still half-naked, still staring sightlessly, still dead.
There’s one slight difference: Nadine’s skirt is pushed up around her waist, and Doyle’s Glock has been tucked under the waistband of her panties. A parting message from
Bartok.
‘Sonofabitch!’ Doyle mutters.
Gingerly, he retrieves his gun, then smoothes Nadine’s skirt back into a more respectable position. As if it makes any difference to her.
He looks long and hard at the face of Nadine, tries to see past the mask of blood she now wears. He pictures her laughing, smiling, teasing, flirting. He tries to comprehend how such a vision of
beauty can be the trigger for such a tidal wave of destruction. How she could possibly have acted as the inspiration for all that hate, all that evil. He wonders, too, whether she managed to
convince herself that it was none of her doing, or whether she suspected the real reasons for what was happening to Doyle and chose to say nothing.
He reaches into his inside pocket, takes out Bartok’s present.
A cassette tape. Presumably containing a record of everything said in this room since Franklin arrived home.
Doyle goes over to the tape recorder he left on the table. He slips the tape in, rewinds it a little, then hits the play button. He hears Franklin’s voice telling how he used a nanny cam
to confirm his wife’s infidelity, how he was convinced that Parlatti and Alvarez couldn’t be allowed to live after that. And then . . .
Nothing.
Just hiss. Nothing about Rocca or Bartok. Nothing about the dirty cop in the precinct.
When a voice cuts in again, it’s Doyle asking what happens next.
So, okay, Lucas, you’re not so stupid after all.
He ejects the tape, holds it in the air and looks at it questioningly. And what, he thinks, do I do with this? Destroy it? Consign it to the fire like the other one?
What the hell. Bartok was right. This tape is the only proof of what really happened. Much as Doyle hates to admit it, this tape saves him. Unless Bartok’s whispered message was a bluff,
destroying the tape gains him nothing and could lose him everything.
Sighing, he pockets the tape and reaches for his cellphone.
It’s one of the longest days of his life.
The Westchester County police get him first. They bring in a doctor to look him over. After listening to the parts of the medical assessment that suit their purpose, they pummel him with
questions until he feels he’s just gone ten rounds in the boxing ring.
The cops from the city get him next. To the obvious relief of the Westchester guys, who seem overjoyed not to have to deal with such a complicated case, his ass gets dragged down to One Police
Plaza, where he undergoes another grueling sequence of interviews. Despite the fact that he’s had no sleep, and that he keeps telling this to everyone he meets, the questioning continues
throughout the day. The Puzzle Palace, as the police headquarters is affectionately known, is like a hornet’s nest which has been hit by a big stick. All kinds of people, some wearing
polished brass, some just in neat blue suits, keep dropping in on him and asking him the same damn questions, again and again. It’s clear from the consternation that they are worried about
damage control. It was bad enough when cops were just victims; but when one of them – a lieutenant at that – turns out to be a serial murderer . . .
What’s also clear is that the tape of Franklin’s confession is making all the difference. Without it, Doyle suspects that there would be strenuous efforts to pin the blame on him
– or at least to cast doubts on his version of events. Even so, there is a lot of emphasis on certain unanswered questions. They want to know, for example, what Franklin is referring to when
he says on the tape that Doyle consorted with known criminals. Doyle’s answer is that he talked to a lot of known criminals in his efforts to unmask his persecutor; other than that, he has no
idea what the hell Franklin is babbling about.
So what, they ask him, about Franklin’s death? Who was responsible for his brutal murder, and why? On that one, Doyle pleads ignorance. Obviously, Franklin must have made himself some
vicious enemies in the course of his nefarious dealings. A stroke of luck that they caught up with him when they did, hmm?
Lucky also, they remark, that Franklin didn’t notice that the tape recorder was still running when you brought it into the house, him usually being so meticulous and all.
Yeah, says Doyle, I really got the luck of the Irish there, didn’t I? Except for that small malfunction in the middle, the wire seems to have picked up damn near everything.
When it becomes apparent that there are no more answers to be had – at least for today – they tell Doyle he can go. They also inform him that he remains suspended for the time being,
and that he needs to remain available for questioning in the next few days.
Doyle nods his consent to one and all. Anything to get out of there.
There’s only one place he wants to be right now.
He puts the key in as slowly and quietly as he can. Pushes the door gently open.
There’s nobody in the living room, but he can hear them in Amy’s bedroom – Rachel helping their daughter out with a tricky part on her Nintendo game.
He softly closes the door behind him. And waits.
When Rachel walks out and sees him, she jumps with the shock, her hands leaping to her mouth. That’s when he thinks maybe the surprise idea wasn’t such a good one, him looking like a
man who’s just walked out of a train wreck.
But he forgives himself when he hears her call his name and sees her fly across the room at him and feels her crushing his bruised, battered body until it feels like his organs are about to pop
out.
And when Amy pokes her head out to discover what all the commotion is, and sees her Daddy – the man who chases the burglars away for her – she too clings to him with arms too tiny to
go all the way around and yet powerful enough to squeeze every last teardrop out of him. Later he will tell her that he has something for her – a huge cuddly toy rabbit called Marshmallow
– but right now he doesn’t want her to let go.
He would skip and dance with his wife and daughter like he did all that time ago at the hospital, but he hasn’t an ounce of energy left, so instead he dances with them in his mind, and he
pictures himself dancing with them every day from now until at least Christmas, when he will give thanks for the presents that have come slightly earlier this year.
The man in the hospital bed flicks through the pages of his magazine before tossing it with disdain to the foot of the bed. He adopts a more quizzical expression as Doyle comes
over and plonks a brown paper bag onto his bed table.
‘You look worse than me,’ says Paulson. ‘I think maybe we should trade places.’
‘This is nothing,’ Doyle says. ‘You shoulda seen me in my boxing days. I was just one big bruise.’
Paulson aims a finger at the table. ‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Coffee and donuts. On me.’
‘I don’t know if I can drink coffee. I think it might come pouring outta the hole in my side.’
‘Saves going to the bathroom, I guess. Maybe you could plug it up with the donut.’
‘Yeah. I might try that. Thanks.’ He gestures at his magazine and frowns. ‘I don’t suppose you thought to bring me any porn?’
‘Hey, have you seen the nurses in this place? Who needs paper when you’ve got it all in 3D?’
‘True. Remind me to pass on your thoughts to the staff before you leave. Especially the hairy one with three eyes and a humor bypass.’
‘How’s the . . . the uhm . . .’
‘The massive injuries I sustained while heroically throwing myself in front of an assassin’s bullet meant for you? Bearable, I suppose, although I still get twinges when I do too
many back-flips.’
‘You seem pretty upbeat.’
‘Yeah, well, ’tis the season to be jolly, and so forth.’
‘They letting you out for Christmas?’
‘I hope so. I’m supposed to be moonlighting as Santa at Macy’s. Good thing it’s a sit-down gig.’
‘No, seriously. You coming out?’
Paulson nods, but Doyle detects a sadness there. Like maybe he hasn’t got much to look forward to when he gets out of here.