“We talk about island on the drive. I take you home now.”
“Sure,” she says. “It’s been a long day.”
“It’ll be over soon.” All warmth has left his voice.
“Let me just run to the little girls’ room.” She starts moving, breaks into a jog, is nearly pulled off her feet. He has a hand around her messenger bag. She slides out of the strap and runs. She hears him pick up speed.
She makes it to the bathroom and slams the door closed. Gladsky rams himself into the door. She puts all her strength into keeping him out, uses her low center of gravity and powerful legs to shove the door. He wedges an arm and shoulder through, starts to force his muzzle in the widening gap. She knows he will overpower her, tackle her, and choke the life out of her.
Those dead girls feel less abstract now. She’s standing among them. They felt this desperate, this loss of control. They were overpowered, despite their best efforts. They had no recourse. Helpless. No. Fight. Do something. Try something. Her feet slip on the cement. She turns her back to the door, pushes with all her weight, all her strength. Her no-slip soles grip.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in.” His mouth is near her ear. He edges his body deeper into the gap. He reaches a hand around and caresses her hip. She wants to pull away but can’t. The skin on her arms goes to goose flesh. She finds the dull half-pencil she’d shoved in her front pocket. She clutches it, folds her thumb over the eraser end, draws it back and drives it as hard as she can into the meat of Gladsky’s shoulder.
* * *
Whistler races his Civic across the gravel and skids to a stop near the van parked in the mouth of the open garage. Moe’s bike is in the back, her helmet off to one side. No sign of her.
He steps out, draws his gun. “Moe!”
He listens. Nothing.
He moves forward, crosses yards of cement, keeping his eyes peeled, gun up. “Moe,” he calls. His voice echoes around the hard space. He sees Moe’s bag on the floor, walks to it. “Moe?” he yells again.
“Whistler.” He zeros in on Moe’s voice. It’s coming from a closed door.
“I’m here.”
When he’s nearly to the door, Gladsky walks around the corner with a hammer in one hand and his other arm bloody at the shoulder. Whistler trains his gun at the center of Gladsky’s chest, blurts the Pacino line, “Freeze, you fuckface.” Gladsky freezes. “I’m here, Moe,” Whistler says. “Drop the hammer.” He gestures with the pistol, closing the gap between him and the killer. Gladsky looks at the hammer he holds, seems to be considering his options. “Don’t think about it. I’ll shoot you dead. Drop the fucking hammer and get your hands up.”
Gladsky drops the hammer. It strikes the floor with a crack. Gladsky puts his uninjured arm straight up and the injured one as high as he’s able. He winces. “You got me, Detective.” He smiles a sharp smile.
Whistler is forming a sentence. Before he can utter his next command he’s struck in the back of the head. He hits the ground hard, eyes unable to focus, gun out of his hand. He sees the legs of a woman straddling him. She sets a fire extinguisher next to his head, starts scolding Gladsky in Polish. Whistler doesn’t need to understand the words to know Svetlana is not happy. Whistler looks up at her body, her round abdomen directly above him. Her belly button is distended against her tight shirt.
He thinks of Moe, how he has let her down. His eyes close.
He inhales sweet lavender and something sharp and chemical. The scent is a harsh shock, like a paper cut to his sinuses. I know that smell. But it doesn’t feel important anymore.
A Final Tender Act
Calvert moves around the far side of the hospital bed. He knows the nurses will disapprove if they find him. The plastic bag with the framed photo bumps against his knee. The chairs have been arranged near the windows. He places one silently closer to Rosa’s bed, hidden from the door. He wedges the photo in the seat by his hip for safekeeping.
He checks his watch. The detective should arrive soon. He wonders if Detective Diaz told his partner to expect Calvert. He imagines the detective walking in, finding him next to Rosa. “It’s okay. Detective Diaz sent me. Official police business.” He practices what he might say. His voice is soft. When he was teaching, he knew how to get students to listen. He was comfortable in front of students, in his own skin. His heart aches to belong somewhere. He misses having students, misses his kids.
“One of my kids dropped by my office to ask if I’d recommend her for—” Calvert remembers starting to say once.
“Why do you do that?” Mere interrupted.
“Do what?”
“Call them ‘my kids.’ They aren’t yours and they aren’t kids. You are a professor. They are your students.”
He realized, not for the first time, she harbored jealousy over his academic family: sixty surrogate children each semester. She was angry, not only with him but at the world, life, God, and the universe of chance occurrences that led to their inability to have a child of their own. She was bitter in ways he’d never imagined her capable of. He replied, “I’m sorry. You’re right. They aren’t my kids.”
“What were you saying? Something about a student?” she asked, to make amends.
That was when he’d first realized he enjoyed his time with his students more than he liked time spent with his wife. On campus he was admired. At home… “Never mind,” he had said. “It’s not important.”
The chair is comfortable. Calvert feels wrung out. Again he checks his watch.
“It’s okay,” he says again, trying to put on a smile, “official police business.” The smile makes his tone more easygoing. The smile turns into a chuckle. He barks a full-on laugh. He covers his mouth and rises to see if he disturbed Rosa. Her chest lifts as it fills with air, and settles as the air leaves. He sits, still smiling. I’m happy. His happiness is remarkable. I haven’t felt happy since …. right before I died. He thinks of Kati, the pain he’d caused, the lives he’d ruined, and his smile evaporates. I’m a monster. I’d nearly forgotten.
He doesn’t know how other men feel when they’re unfaithful. Do they consider the people they’re betraying? Are they tortured with guilt? Do they justify their actions in various ways? I deserve happiness. I need to be loved. If my wife would only smile, act excited, touch me. If only Mere would have sex with me, hold me, hold my hand. So often he’s overheard women talk about the fragile male ego. “Men are little boys,” they say. “It’s like having another child to raise.”
His reverie is invaded by an unwelcome image of Allen’s bare ass, clenched and dimpled as he humps the woman at the hotel. He’s still mad at Allen. But what about this woman? Why would Allen’s wife marry a man in prison? Did she expect him to be a good man? Was she faithful? He knows his anger at Allen is at its root self-loathing. All the death that followed his affair with Kati is due to his capitulation to basic human longings. Can I be blamed? Yes. But is it forgivable? He doesn’t know.
To Rosa he whispers, “I can’t be trusted. Not because I would hurt you. That’s the last thing I want. But this feeling I have, this love, it’s a new love. Young love, if an old man can feel such a thing. It won’t last. Life will wear it away. All I know is if you give me the chance I’ll try not to fail you like I failed Mere. Like I failed myself. If you will have me, it would make me as happy as I can be. I could be some kind of father to Thomas. A good kind of father. I’d like to have the chance.” He’s too scared of the disappointment that accompanies such hope to say more, even to a sleeping woman.
He watches Rosa for some indication. She gives none. If Rosa has feelings for him, if they have any chance of building a life, he’ll have to repeat the same monologue when she’s awake. The sinking feeling this gives him is buoyed by the thought of the future conversation taking place over tasty cortados. The two of them, warm cups cradled in their fingers, face-to-face over a café table. He sees it coming into view, like the line of the shore after a long evening swim.
He hears voices from t
he nurses’ station. For the third time he checks his watch. The detective will be here any moment.
The chair eases his tired bones. If this is how it feels to live, I’m not sure it’s for me. He listens to Rosa’s breathing. He closes his eyes to rest them. Only for a moment.
What You Wish For
Some subtle change brings Calvert’s slumbering mind back to life. What he immediately perceives: the hospital bed, Rosa sleeping, and an undefined thing that woke him.
His pupils spread to draw light. The night is cloudy, the stars and moon dulled, gray slashes of subdued light passing through the slatted blinds stripe the room in two-tone gunmetal. Instinctively he stays still, hidden behind the hospital bed. He tries to work out what woke him. The creak of the door?
He remembers the line he practiced, “Official police business.” He finds no humor in it now. If his ears were capable, they would cup to gather more sound. He senses someone. A nurse? Not likely. In his experience, nurses are not concerned with being considerate of sleeping patients. It could be Detective Diaz’s partner. Of course it’s the detective. Calvert doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he might have dreamed the whole thing; the sound and the suffocating presence are an emotional hangover from another guilty dream. The thought relaxes him. The tension in his bunched muscles wicks away. He hadn’t been aware how tightly he was squeezing his ass, but he sinks an inch as his rump unclenches. His hip moves away from the sharp frame in the plastic bag, making him aware of a sore spot from pressing against the hard edge for too long.
Rosa’s profile looks serene, her mouth hanging loose in complete surrender. Her chest seems still. He has a split second of alarm that she stopped breathing. Tightness coils in his legs to push his body into action. Before he can move, the blanket across her chest rises, holds at the apex, and settles back, followed by a ragged snore. That was it. Her snoring startled me.
He breathes in as he watches Rosa’s next inhalation. A scent fills his head, floral and softly sweet. His sense of smell firing fully after a long absence grabs his attention. His eyes fill with tears. I’m back from the dead.
He’d been so certain he was dead. There was no question. Not only does he now know he’s alive, but he’s happy about it. He’s excited to breathe in unison with Rosa, to watch her sleep and hear her snore. Thrilled by the smell of her perfume. He lets the scent fill his head again. It’s oversweet. Too brash for Rosa—oily and industrial. It’s a wrong smell.
A dark figure looms over Rosa.
Calvert moves, clutching the thin plastic bag. In the time it takes to stand, his intention evolves. Initially, he wanted to explain his presence. By the time he’s on his feet, he knows it’s a killer standing over Rosa, death personified.
Kaz Gladsky’s pale hair gives off its own light. He isn’t startled when Calvert appears across the bed. Kaz puts a finger to his lips and makes a calming, shushing sound. He smiles down at Rosa, leans toward her as if to kiss her forehead, and wraps both his gloved hands around her throat. He squeezes firmly. Rosa’s eyes go wide; her mouth opens, and her hands claw at Kaz’s grip, gouge at his face.
For a brief second, Calvert is hypnotized by the slow speed of Kaz’s action. But when Rosa starts thrashing, Calvert’s body heats up, his face goes red, and he lets out an anguished “Noooo!” He swings the plastic bag, smashing the frame and glass into the side of Kaz’s skull. Kaz recoils.
The moon breaks through the clouds. Light cuts into the scene. Shattered glass tumbles, flashing brightly as the bag rips and debris falls onto the hospital bed, onto Rosa’s body. She curls against the headboard, as far from Kaz as she can get.
Calvert rushes around the bed, takes two steps and jumps before Kaz can recover. Even filled with adrenaline and momentum, it’s clear as soon as his small body collides with the larger man that his strategy was a bad one.
Kaz catches Calvert and twists as they fall. Calvert lands hard underneath the larger man’s mass. The wind is smashed from Calvert’s lungs, his back flattened to the floor. He sucks air. He tussles around. Calvert can’t get Kaz off him, no matter how he bucks. Gloved fingers constrict Calvert’s throat. Kaz’s left thumb probes Calvert’s Adam’s apple and pushes. There’s a pop as the ring of cartilage flexes.
Calvert is a crazed beast. He tries to pry his attacker’s fingers back, punch his face, bend his powerful arms, tries to knee him, and scratch his eyes. He cuts a red line in Kaz’s angular cheek. Kaz applies more pressure and leans his face away, his expression easy. He rides the fight from Calvert, knows it’s only a matter of time. Calvert quits struggling. Lyla’s photo slips off the bed and drifts like a leaf to settle on the floor. Calvert watches Kaz gaze at it, sees his eyes register the proof that could convict him. Kaz’s smile shows the sharp tips of his canines.
Calvert’s eyes bulge and roll back in his skull, fluttering at the infinite void of his mind.
He sees beautiful Kati crushed as his skull strikes her.
Mere is a crumpled mass of meat and blood lying on the hood of her car.
At the end of his life, he doesn’t watch a highlight reel, but is faced with a few unresolved regrets tied tight around his neck and allowed to drag him into a cold, deep pit. He knows now how cruel God is, how he was tricked back to life, only to be killed again. It’s what I deserve. To die badly. To die and to die again.
He brought Kaz a gift: Lyla’s photo. Without the photo as evidence, Kaz will go free, once he chokes Calvert and kills Rosa.
Rosa.
The pressure in Calvert’s body stops. Air rushes in. His throat pops into shape. Kaz’s deadweight falls across him. Calvert’s eyes slip into their sockets and roll down so he can see.
Rosa.
Rosa stands over Calvert. The heavy chair he’d been sleeping in clutched in her hands. Knuckles white. The back legs of the chair are missing, broken across the shoulders of their assailant. Her gossamer hospital gown comes loose at the back and slips down one shoulder. Her hair is a frantic halo aglow in a circle of pure moonlight.
The lights come on.
Calvert closes his eyes, too tired to hold them open. People are filling the room.
In that moment, he could have died happy.
Good for the Soul
Sitting in the back of an ambulance, Whistler takes his stitches like a man. Which means he tries not to shriek as the curved needle pokes through his scalp. Despite the attempt to numb the site, he feels the pop of his epidermis as it’s punctured, the surgical thread grabbing at nerve endings not used to stimulation, and the pressure as the two sides of the wound are drawn together and knotted in place.
Moe grins at his discomfort, tosses his car keys in the air and catches them.
His hair is crispy with dried blood; it crackles when the EMT tips his laceration into the light. “Almost done,” she says.
He wants to shower and change.
“That about does it,” the EMT finally says. She moves into his line of vision, which he enjoys. “I’m obligated to inform you untreated concussions are a cause of dementia in old age. If you refuse to go to the hospital for a CT, you increase the risk of issues in your retirement years.” She punctuates the warning with a breathtaking smile.
“At this rate, I’ll be lucky to reach retirement.” He feels steady enough to get on his feet.
“You really ought to have it checked. You could have a mild concussion.”
“This is my case. I’m going to see it over the finish line.”
“Wow,” Moe pipes up. “You must be very sporty to use that metaphor.” She’s anxious to go.
“Stop it,” he says.
“At least take some ibuprofen. It will help with pain and swelling. You’re going to have one hell of a headache.”
“This man will not be sidelined,” Moe declares. “He’s no benchwarmer! He’s a vital part of a winning team, I tell you!”
“Please stop,” Whistler says. “Thanks again,” he calls to the EMT as she packs to go.
The cou
sins walk to his car and have a half-hearted debate about who should drive.
He drops her at Text Block. “Call me,” she says.
“I said I’d call you.” He guns it before she gets another word in. He drives to the station as fast as he can. Inside, Wendell gives him a nod. Whistler takes the elevator, not wanting to jostle his tender head on the stairs.
After swallowing some pills with lukewarm coffee from his “Crafty Ass Bitch” mug, he settles heavily in the audiovisual closet to watch the monitor.
Ruther stops in. “You feeling better?”
“I’m good.”
Ruther hands Whistler a water bottle. “That’s not for you. I’ll be back for it in ten minutes. Keep it safe. Watch and learn, young Padawan. Hit ‘Record’ on that camera.”
A minute later, Whistler watches Ruther on the monitor in front of him. “Mrs. Gladsky. Sorry to keep you waiting. Are you comfortable?”
“I’m fine. There has been a misunderstanding.”
“I think you’re right. Detective Suzuki can get a little overzealous. You know. But still. It’s good that you’re here. Your husband’s in a lot of trouble. I was hoping you could help us out. Answer some questions. You know. Then we can get you on your way.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“No. Of course not. The wife never knows in cases like this. What’s that saying?” He looks up and to the left, pretending he’s trying to remember something. He gives a quick wink to the camera. He snaps his fingers, his mustache flairs as if to say Eureka! “‘Love is blind’. That’s it. It’s a cliché for a reason. Trust me. I see it all the time.” Ruther slips out his comb and fixes his mustache, smooths it with his fingers. He manages to look sheepish, as if preening for the much younger and very attractive woman. He sets a chair next to Svetlana’s. She visibly relaxes. Smart, Whistler thinks. Making her think she’s in control, and that they’re on the same side.
Ruther places a folder in front of her. Before opening it, he says, “Oh. I should get the legal formalities out of the way. Detective Suzuki read you your rights?”
Half Dead Page 29
