The Evil That Men Do (14 page)

Joe Tenant didn’t even bother to fight this time. Didn’t stick around to hear the rest of what the Irishman had to say. He ran to his car only to find Mikey Sops right beside him.

When Joe started the car, he turned to tell Sops to leave him alone.

Sops just put a hand on Tenant’s shoulder.

“Let’s go get her,” Sops said.

They pulled onto the skyway ten minutes later, Tenant hoping it wasn’t too late. Cars were traveling slowly. The headlights moving in their direction kept blinking. But Joe didn’t see any ambulances and traffic wasn’t stopped.

The skyway was a long metal bridge that towered over Jersey City and Newark, with barely a shoulder. It had opened five or six years before, and Tenant thanked God that they had kept the promise of arresting any truck driver who took the skyway.

When it was windy, like it was tonight, the cars on the skyway rattled back and forth, and even at the slow crawl of traffic, he felt his clunker shimmy.

After five minutes of crawling forward, his stomach couldn’t take it anymore. He stopped the car, jumped out, Sops yelling after him. Horns blared and he heard people swearing at him.

To hell with them.

His legs pumped hard up the hill, staying in between traffic, on the white-dotted lines. He could hear the sound of train wheels clanking against the metal tracks, their whistles cutting through the night air, and water sloshing. Off in the distance a foghorn blew. Tenant didn’t like noticing these things. He wanted to ignore everything but getting to the top of the bridge.

Ignore the fact that his legs ached.

Ignore his lungs begging for more air.

Focus on the process of running, like when he used to box. He could do six miles up hills.

Focus on Isabelle. He pleaded with God to keep her alive.

The hill crested and he could see ahead. The right lane was clear. It was clouded in shadow, the sun rising behind him reflecting off the iron girders. He couldn’t see Isabelle.

He kept pumping his legs. After each step his thighs tightened a little more. They felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds each. He struggled to lift them.

She wasn’t there. He was closer and he couldn’t see her.

Tenant’s mind flashed to four years ago. Isabelle had fallen. She was playing in the backyard while he washed the car. Every few minutes, he’d look up and give her a reassuring smile. She’d wave back at him. At one point, between rinses, she started balancing on the wall between their house and the Simpsons. She lost her balance, fell, and cried as if the sky was falling. Tenant dropped the hose and rushed toward her. When he got to her, he kissed her knee, reminded her how the bear reacted when he scraped his knee in the book they’d read together the day before. She nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes. She would be okay, she said.

Now she could be gone. Dead. His own daughter.

No! He wouldn’t give up that quickly. Still he ran, everything getting closer, everything more in focus. His body pleaded to stop, the muscles in his legs almost too tight to go on. His calves cramped and loosened each time his feet pounded the pavement.

And then he saw her outline. A small girl clinging to the barrier overlooking the city. The body was motionless.

Another ten feet and he’d be there.

“Isabelle!” he screamed.

The head of the body looked up, peeling itself away from the barrier. She was alive!

He covered the last few feet in seconds.

Isabelle recognized him and yelled, “Daddy!”

Wrapping her up in his arms, he peeled her away from the girder. He hugged her. His baby was alive.

“Oh, Daddy,” the girl said. “I’m so scared.”

“It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.”

He lifted her off the ground and began to carry her back to the car. He’d promised himself, that day she was born, he’d be there for her. That he’d be her hero, never be weak in front of her.

But he couldn’t fight it. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Daddy?”

“It’s okay, baby. We’re going home now.”

“They told me to tell you something.”

Horns honked. People applauded. He was her hero.

“What did they say?”

“They said to tell you ‘Connor O’Neill says hello.’”

SEVENTEEN HOURS

Franklin Carter was barely conscious. And with the lights off in the basement, he wasn’t even sure if his eyes were open. He could smell his own piss. He had to let it out about an hour ago, felt the warmth run down his leg. And now he sat in it, soaking in his own waste.

Christ, he hoped he didn’t have to shit.

The funny thing was, as miserable as this all was — the piss, the pain his face was in, being unable to move in the chair — it meant he was alive. And if he was alive, there was still a chance he could talk Hackett into letting him go.

“Hackett!” he yelled, and not for the first time since his last beating. “Hackett!”

But there wasn’t an answer. Nothing. No sounds except for some ambient noises in the basement. He listened to water trickle. He was pretty sure he heard something scurry across the ground.

At one point — his mind wasn’t working well with chronology — at one point he had struggled against his bindings, only to feel the ropes dig into his wrists. Blood from that wound now congealed on his fingertips.

Franklin could talk Hackett out of this shit. He knew it. Just like he knew this all could have been avoided years ago. But now he was going to have to rely on his ability to negotiate. He had to rely on Hackett being logical. Franklin knew logic would work. He’d seen it work before.

If only the man would come back downstairs and talk.

“Hackett!”

Nothing.

He started rubbing his arms up and down, trying to get some friction from the chair against his binds. Skin seemed to peel away from his wrists as he did. Blood dripped down along his fingertips, crusting at his nails. He gritted his teeth and kept going. The ropes were getting looser. He was sure of it.

Carter kept scraping. No one else was in the building. If there was a time to get out, this was it.

Things were going to break his way. He knew it.

The John Mayer songs were finally out of his head.

The first ropes gave way on his left side. Franklin pulled his arm away from the chair and flexed the muscles to loosen them. His eyes had long adjusted to the dark, and he could see the scratches and cuts along his wrists. Blood still dripped from them. And his wrist hurt like hell.

But that was okay. He was almost free now.

He rubbed his right arm up and down with even more force now. Just a matter of time.

Franklin Carter was going to get the hell out of here.

Donne pulled up to his sister’s house and saw Iapicca’s car parked in the driveway. When he got out of the car, he felt his neck and back crack simultaneously, the muscles straining against his skin.

Inside, he smelled coffee brewing and heard Susan talking to herself in the kitchen. It brought back memories. Whenever Susan had a difficult exam ahead in high school, she’d lock herself in her room. Mom and he would always hear her talking to herself. The thought that his mother couldn’t remember those moments anymore slowed his step.

Iapicca stood in the living room holding a mug. He caught Donne’s eye and crooked his neck toward the glass sliding door that led to the backyard. Donne followed him silently.

When Donne shut the door, Iapicca said, “Get anything from your mother?”

“She was talking about headlights. I have no idea what she meant. Who’s Connor O’Neill?”

Iapicca shrugged. “Sounds familiar. Why?”

“My mother said he was arrested because of my grandfather.”

Iapicca nodded and was quiet for a moment.

“Your sister and I talked too,” he said.

Somewhere a cricket chirped in the huge backyard. Donne leaned against the deck railing, smelling the freshly cut grass and feeling a bit of condensation on his skin, as if the humidity was becoming liquid as they spoke.

“What did she tell you?” he asked.

“Not too much. She said whoever called her to tell her about Franklin’s ransom had a very familiar voice. She was certain she’d heard it before, but she couldn’t place it. She said it sounded like the voice was missing something, like an accent.”

Something tickled at the back of Donne’s brain too when Iapicca said that. Some lost memory trying to fight its way back to the surface. Again he wondered if this was how Mom felt anytime someone visited. That feeling like something was on the tip of her tongue, that she
should
know it but couldn’t place it.

“She didn’t want me to tell you,” Iapicca said.

“Why not?”

“Because she thinks she’s grasping at straws, some kind of hope that isn’t there. She’s about to give up, Jackson. She doesn’t want any false hope.”

“I don’t think she’s grasping at straws.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, déjà vu? Something about the accent struck a chord with me. I can’t put my finger on it. Connor O’Neill too.”

Iapicca nodded. “It’ll come.”

“I know. We don’t have time to wait for it, though.”

Iapicca looked at his watch. “Less than seventeen.”

“Shit.”

“I’m calling in the cops, the feds, whoever. You need help on this.”

“No.”

“It’s the right thing to do. They’re professionals. They’ll help. They’ll bring Franklin home.”

“Whoever this is finds out there’s a cop involved and Franklin’s dead.”

“You ever work a kidnapping when you were a cop? No, you were Narcotics. Franklin stays alive. Without Franklin, this guy has no collateral.”

“He’ll kill him.”

“Jackson, I could lose my job. I have to do this.”

“Eight hours. Just give me eight hours.”

“You trying to make up for something?”

Donne didn’t say anything. He’d abandoned his family. Just like his father had.

Iapicca nodded. “Eight hours. Because I like your sister. Then I call it in. Things get too heavy before that, I call it in.”

Behind them the door slid open. Donne turned as Susan stepped through the doorway. She handed him a cup of coffee. Cream and sugar. She remembered. Not that it was hard to remember, but somehow it meant something. Like she’d thought of him. The feeling surprised him, and he wondered why he suddenly cared.

Perhaps he was making too much of things.

“Did Mom say anything?” Susan asked.

“She talked about headlights.”

“How was she?”

He thought about lying to her. Just tell Susan everything was okay, relieve her conscience. But he didn’t.

“She was scared, Sue. Terrified.” Donne took a sip of coffee to let his words sink in. Then he swung low. “She was screaming. They gave her a sedative. You scared the hell out of her.”

Susan’s face flushed just for a second. Her lips quivered and she squinted hard, and he expected her to cry. Composing herself, she walked back into the house.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Iapicca said. “She’s been through a lot.”

“So, what do we do now?” Donne asked.

He looked up at the stars. There weren’t many; the lights from New York, just ten miles away, blurred most of them out. But you could still see the North Star and part of the Big Dipper.

“We get her husband back,” Iapicca said. “Eight hours. I stay with you the whole time.”

Donne nodded. Like it was that easy.

Iapicca reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. Apparently, it was vibrating. He didn’t say much, just a few yeses and uh-huhs. He snapped the phone shut without saying good-bye.

He held out his phone. “That was Krewer. The kid who brought the gun in? Carlos? They just found him shot dead in Clifton.”

BRYAN HACKETT CONSIDERED HIMSELF A TRAIN GUY
when it came to the city. He hated to drive the grid, and preferred to park in Hoboken, catch the PATH, and then hop the subway cars until he got to where he wanted to be. Hell, the other night driving the Ryder truck in was the first time he’d driven in the city in ten years. And even then he had to take the bridge in, where security was the lightest.

Tonight he parked in Hoboken, caught the path to Fourteenth Street, and then the 6 train to Lexington and Seventy-seventh. When he ascended the stairs to the street, he realized the night felt exactly the same as a few nights earlier. The warm air, the shine of the streetlights off the railing, there was a cleanliness to the Upper East Side. The rush of adrenaline he’d gotten driving the Ryder truck flowed back to him. The streets were empty, save for one woman walking her dog. A few of the bars were open, but most places were closed even though it was only midnight. He assumed the closed businesses were because of all the police activity around the area.

The city that never sleeps. Unless shit blows up.

The local bar owners didn’t know the cops as well as they probably thought they did. Nothing a cop wants more than to drown his sorrows after working a long shift of digging through building rubble.

As he came around the corner, he found the former location of Carter’s. It was a hole in the wall, literally. Most of the debris looked like it had been swept up, and all that was left was police tape and crumbled walls.

He could see the remains of the restaurant through the broken walls. The entire bar was gone, and mirrors were cracked and charred against the far — still standing — wall. Wires hung from the walls, but the electricity must have been shut down, so there were no sparks.

Jason Marshall, a tall guy with close-cropped black hair and a neat dark suit on, caught Hackett’s eye. Hackett felt underdressed in his polo shirt, shorts, and sandals. But he was supposed to be coming directly from the beach, they’d understand.