Mystic River

by Dennis Lehane

  Dave spit a few times and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stood, deciding he’d have to tell Val and Jimmy that he’d need to get something to eat before he had another drink. It didn’t have to be great food, just substantive. And when he turned around, they were standing by the black door, Val to the left of it, Jimmy to the right, the door shut tight, Dave thinking they looked kind of funny, like they were here to deliver furniture, couldn’t see where they were going to drop it in all those weeds.

  Dave said, “Hey, guys. Come to make sure I didn’t fall in?”

  Jimmy came off the wall and walked toward him, and the light that hung over the door snapped off. Jimmy, gone black in the dark, approached slowly, his white face picking up some light from the bridge and moving in and out of shadow.

  “Let me tell you about Ray Harris,” Jimmy said, talking so quietly that Dave had to lean forward. “Ray Harris was a buddy of mine, Dave. He used to come and visit me when I was in prison. He used to check up on Marita and Katie and my mother, see if they needed anything. He did these things so I’d think he was my friend, but the real reason was guilt. He felt guilty for getting his balls caught in a vise and ratting me out to the police. He felt real bad about it. But after he’d been coming by the prison for a few months, a weird thing happened.” Jimmy reached Dave, and he stopped, looked into Dave’s face with his head slightly cocked. “I discovered I liked Ray. I mean, I honestly enjoyed the guy’s company. We’d talk about sports, about God, about books, about our wives, our children, the politics of the day, what have you. Ray was the kinda guy, he could talk about anything. He had an interest in everything. That’s rare. Then my wife died. You know? She died and they sent some guard into my cell to say, ‘Sorry, convict, your wife passed last night at eight-fifteen. She’s gone.’ And the thing was? What killed me about my wife dying, Dave? It was that she had to go through it completely alone. I know what you’re thinking, we all die alone. True. That last stage when you’ve slipped away, yeah, you’re alone. But my wife had skin cancer. She spent the last six months dying slow. And I could have been there for that. I could have helped her with the dying. Not the death, but the dying. I wasn’t there, though. Ray, a guy I liked, robbed me and my wife of that.”

  Dave could see an ink-blue slice of river—lit by the bridge lights and shining—reflected in Jimmy’s pupils. He said, “Why you telling me this, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy pointed over Dave’s left shoulder. “I made Ray kneel down right over there and I shot him twice. Once in the chest, once in the throat.”

  Val came off the wall by the door and walked over to Dave’s left, taking his time, the weeds rising up behind him. Dave’s throat closed up and his insides went dry.

  Dave said, “Hey, Jimmy, I don’t know what—”

  Jimmy said, “Ray begged. He said we were friends. He said he had a son. He said he had a wife. He said his wife was pregnant. He said he’d move away. He said he’d never bother me again. He begged me to let him live so he could see his child being born. He said he knew me and he knew I was a good man and he knew I didn’t want to do this.” Jimmy looked up at the bridge. “I wanted to say something back to him. I wanted to say I loved my wife and she died and I hold you responsible and, besides, on general principle, you never rat out your friends if you want to live a long life. But I didn’t say anything, Dave. I was crying too hard. That’s how pathetic it was. He was blubbering, I was blubbering. I could barely see him.”

  “So why’d you kill him?” Dave said, and there was a desperate keen in his voice.

  “I just told you,” Jimmy said, like he was explaining himself to a four-year-old. “Principle. I was a twenty-two-year-old widower with a five-year-old daughter. I’d missed the last two years of my wife’s life. And fucking Ray, he damn well knew rule number one of our business—you don’t rat out your friends.”

  Dave said, “What is it you think I did, Jimmy? Tell me.”

  “When I killed Ray,” Jimmy said, “I felt, I dunno, I felt the complete lack of myself. I felt like God was staring down at me as I weighted him down and rolled him into that water. And God was just shaking his head. Not mad, really. He was just disgusted but not all that surprised, I guess, the way you’d get when a puppy shits on your rug. I stood right there behind where you’re standing now, and I watched Ray sink, you know? His head going under last, and I remember thinking how when I was a kid I used to think that if you swam to the bottom of any body of water, you’d push through the floor and your head would pop out into space. I mean, that’s how I pictured the globe, you know? So there I’d be, my head sticking out of the globe, and all that space and stars and black sky around me, and I’d just fall. I’d drop into space and float away, keep floating for a million years, out in all that cold. And when Ray went under, that’s what I thought of. That he’d just keep sinking till he popped out through a hole in the planet and sank through a million years of space.”

  Dave said, “I know you’re thinking something here, Jimmy, but you’re wrong. You think I killed Katie, don’t you? Is that it?”

  Jimmy said, “Don’t talk, Dave.”

  “No, no, no,” Dave said, noticing the gun in Val’s hand suddenly. “I didn’t have anything to do with Katie’s death.”

  They’re going to kill me, Dave realized. Oh, Jesus, no. This is something you have to be able to prepare for. You don’t just step outside a bar to throw up and turn around to realize it’s the end of your life. No. I’m supposed to go home. I’m supposed to make things right with Celeste. I’m supposed to eat that meal.

  Jimmy reached into his jacked and came back out with a knife in his hand. His hand was trembling a bit as he pulled the blade open. So was his upper lip and part of his chin, Dave realized. There was hope. Don’t let the brain freeze up. There’s hope.

  “You came home the night Katie died with blood all over your clothes, Dave. You told two different stories about how you fucked up your hand, and your car was seen outside the Last Drop around the time Katie left. You lied to the cops and you’ve been lying to everyone else.”

  “Look, Jimmy. Please look at me.”

  Jimmy kept his eyes on the ground.

  “Jimmy, I had blood on me, yeah. I beat someone, Jimmy. Beat him bad.”

  “Oh, is this the mugger story?” Jimmy said.

  “No. He was a child molester. He was having sex with a kid in his car. He was a vampire, Jim. He was poisoning that kid.”

  “So it wasn’t a mugger. It was some guy who, I get it, was molesting a kid. Of course, Dave. Sure. You killed this guy?”

  “Yeah. Well, me…me and the Boy.”

  Dave had no idea why he’d said that. He’d never spoken of the Boy. You didn’t do that. People didn’t understand. Maybe it was the fear. Maybe it was a need for Jimmy to see into his head, to understand that, yes, it was a mess in there, but see me, Jimmy. Realize I’m not the kind of man who’d kill an innocent.

  “So, you and the molested kid went and—”

  “No,” Dave said.

  “No what? You said that you and the boy—”

  “No, no. Forget that. My head gets fucked up sometimes. I say—”

  “No shit,” Jimmy said. “So you killed a child molester. You’re telling me this, but you don’t tell your wife? I would think she’d be the first person you’d tell. Particularly last night, when she told you she didn’t believe the mugger story. I mean, why not tell her? Most people don’t really mind when a child molester dies, Dave. Your wife was thinking you killed my daughter. And you’d have me believe that you’d have preferred she thought that than think you killed a pedophile. Explain that to me, Dave.”

  Dave wanted to say, I killed him because I was afraid I was turning into him. If I ate his heart I would subsume and submerge his spirit. But I can’t say that aloud. I can’t speak that truth. I know I swore today that there’d be no more secrets. But, come on, that secret has to stay one—no matter how many lies I have to tell to keep it buried.
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br />   “Come on, Dave. Just tell me why. Why couldn’t you tell your own wife the, ah, truth?”

  And the best Dave could come up with was “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. Okay, so in this fairy tale, you and the kid—what’s he supposed to be, you when you were a kid?—you and him go and—”

  “It was just me,” Dave said. “I killed the faceless creature.”

  “The fucking what?” Val said.

  “The guy. The molester. I killed him. Me. Just me. In the parking lot of the Last Drop.”

  Jimmy said, “I didn’t hear of any dead guys found near the Last Drop,” and looked over at Val.

  Val said, “Letting this bag of shit explain, Jim? What’re you kidding me?”

  “No, it’s the truth,” Dave said. “I swear on my son. I put the guy in the trunk of his car. I don’t know what happened to the car, but I did, I swear to God. I want to see my wife, Jimmy. I want to live my life.” Dave looked up at the dark underside of the bridge, heard the tires slapping away up there, the yellow lights streaming home. “Jimmy? Please, don’t take that from me.”

  Jimmy looked in Dave’s face and Dave saw his death there. It lived in Jimmy like the wolves. Dave wished so hard that he could face this. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t face dying. He stood here now—right now with his feet on this pavement, his heart pumping blood, his brain sending messages to his nerves and muscles and organs, his adrenal glands open wide—and any second, it could be the very next one, a blade would plunge through his chest. And within all that pain would come the certainty that this life—his life and his vision and his eating and lovemaking and laughing and touch and smell—would end. He couldn’t be brave to that. He’d beg. He would. He’d do anything they wanted if they just didn’t kill him.

  “I think you got in that car twenty-five years ago, Dave, and someone else came back in your place. I think your brain got fried or something,” Jimmy said. “She was nineteen. You know? Nineteen and she never did nothing to you. She actually liked you. And you fucking killed her? Why? Because your life sucks? Because beauty hurts you? Because I didn’t get in that car? Why? Just tell me that, Dave. Tell me that. Tell me that,” Jimmy said, “and I’ll let you live.”

  “Fuck no,” Val said. “Jimmy? No. Come on. You’re feeling pity for this fucking turd? Listen—”

  “Shut up, Val,” Jimmy said, pointing across the tar at him. “I handed you a fucking machine when I went in the joint and you ran it into the ground. Everything I gave you, and the best you can do is run muscle and sell fucking drugs? Don’t you give me advice, Val. Don’t you fucking think of doing that.”

  Val turned away, kicked at the weeds, talking fast to himself in a whisper.

  “Tell me, Dave. But don’t give me that child-molester bullshit because we’re not purchasing bullshit tonight. Okay? Tell me the truth. If you tell me the lie again, I’ll open you the fuck up.”

  Jimmy took a few breaths. He held the knife up in front of Dave’s face and then he lowered it and slid it between his belt and pants over his right hip. He held his empty hands wide. “Dave, I will give you your life. You just tell me why you killed her. You’ll go to jail. I ain’t bullshitting you there. But you’ll live. You’ll breathe.”

  Dave felt so grateful he wanted to thank God aloud. He wanted to embrace Jimmy. Thirty seconds ago, he’d been filled with the blackest despair. He’d been ready to fall to his knees and beg and say, I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I’m not ready to leave. I don’t know what’s out there beyond me. I don’t think it’s heaven. I don’t think it’s bright. I think it’s dark and cold and an endless tunnel of nothing. Like your hole in the planet, Jim. And I don’t want to be alone in nothing, years of nothing, centuries of cold, cold nothing and only my lonely heart floating through it, alone and alone and alone.

  Now he could live. If he lied. If he bit the bullet and told Jimmy what he wanted to hear. He would be reviled. He would probably be beaten. But he would live. He could see that in Jimmy’s eyes. Jimmy didn’t lie. The wolves had gone away and all that was left in front of him was a man with a knife who needed closure, a man who was sinking under the weight of all this not-knowing, grieving for a daughter he would never touch again.

  I will come home to you, Celeste. We will make that good life. We will. And then, I promise, no more lies. No more secrets. But I think I need to tell this one last lie, the worst lie of my lying life, because I can’t tell the worst truth of my life. I’d rather he think I killed his daughter than know why I killed that pedophile. This is a good lie, Celeste. It will buy us our lives back.

  “Tell me,” Jimmy said.

  Dave told as close to the truth as he could. “I saw her in McGills that night, and she reminded me of a dream I’ve had.”

  “About what?” Jimmy said, and his face crumbled, his voice cracked.

  “Youth,” Dave said.

  Jimmy hung his head.

  “I don’t remember having one,” Dave said. “And she was the dream of it, and I just snapped, I guess.”

  It killed him to say this to Jimmy, to tear him with this, but Dave just wanted to get home and get his head right and see his family, and if this was what it took, he was going to do it. He was going to make things right. And a year from now, when the real killer had been caught and convicted, Jimmy would understand his sacrifice.

  “Some part of me,” he said, “never got out of that car, Jim. Just like you said. Some other Dave came back to the neighborhood in Dave’s clothing, but he wasn’t Dave. Dave’s still in the basement. You know?”

  Jimmy nodded, and when he raised his head, Dave could see that his eyes were damp and shiny and filled with compassion, maybe even love.

  “It was the dream, then?” Jimmy whispered.

  “It was the dream, yeah,” Dave said, and felt the cold of his lie spread through his stomach and grow so cold that he thought it might have been hunger, having emptied his insides just minutes before into the Mystic Rive. It was a different cold, though, different than any he’d ever felt before. A freezing cold. So cold, it was almost hot. No, it was hot. It was on fire now and licking its way down through his groin and up through his chest, sucking the air out of him.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Val Savage jump in the air and shout, “Yes! That’s what I’m talking about!”

  He looked in Jimmy’s face. Jimmy, his lips moving too slowly and too quickly at the same time, said, “We bury our sins here, Dave. We wash them clean.”

  Dave sat down. He watched the blood leak out of him and onto his pants. It was pouring from him, and when he put his hand to his abdomen, his fingers touched a crevice that ran from one side to the other.

  He said, You lied.

  Jimmy bent down over him. “What?”

  You lied.

  “See his fucking lips moving?” Val said. “He’s moving his lips.”

  “I got eyes, Val.”

  Dave felt the knowledge sweep over him then, and it was the ugliest knowledge he’d ever faced. It was mean and indifferent. It was callous, and it was merely this: I am dying.

  I cannot come back from this. I cannot cheat or slide away from this. I cannot beg my way out or hide behind my secrets. I cannot expect a reprieve based on sympathy. Sympathy from who? No one cares. No one cares. Except me. I care. I care a lot. And this isn’t fair. I can’t handle that tunnel alone. Please don’t let me go there. Please wake me up. I want to wake up. I want to feel you, Celeste. I want to feel your arms. I’m not ready.

  He forced his eyes to focus as Val handed Jimmy something and Jimmy lowered it to Dave’s forehead. It was cool. It was a circle of cool, of kindness and relief from the burning in his body.

  Wait! No. No, Jimmy! I know what that is. I can see the trigger. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t. Look at me. See me. Don’t do this. Please. If you get me to a hospital I’ll be all right. They’ll fix me up. Oh God Jimmy don’t you do that with your finger don’t you do that I lied I lied pleas
e don’t take me away from this please don’t I can’t prepare for a bullet in my brain. No one can. No one. Please don’t.

  Jimmy lowered the gun.

  Thank you, Dave said. Thank you, thank you.

  Dave lay back and saw the shafts of light streaming across the bridge, cutting through the black of night, glowing. Thank you, Jimmy. I’m going to be a good man now. You’ve taught me something. You have. And I’ll tell you what that something is as soon as I’ve caught my breath. I’m going to be a good father. I’m going to be a good husband. I promise. I swear…

  Val said, “So, okay. It’s done.”

  Jimmy looked down at Dave’s body, the canyon he’d cut in his abdomen, the bullet hole he’d fired through his forehead. He kicked off his shoes and took off his jacket. Next, he removed the turtleneck and khakis he’d stained with Dave’s blood. He shed the nylon running suit he’d worn underneath and added it to the pile beside Dave’s body. He heard Val place the cinder blocks and length of chain in Huey’s boat, and then Val came back with a large green trash bag. Underneath the running suit, Jimmy wore a T-shirt and jeans, and Val pulled a pair of shoes from the trash bag and tossed them to him. Jimmy slid them on and checked the T-shirt and jeans for any blood that might have leaked through. But there was none. Even the jogging suit was barely stained.

  He knelt by Val and stuffed his clothes into the bag. Then he took the knife and the gun to the edge of the wharf and threw them one at a time out into the center of the Mystic River. He could have placed them in the bag with his clothes, tossed them off the boat later along with Dave’s body, but for some reason he needed to do it now, to experience the motion of his arm as it shot out into the air and the weapons spiraled, arced, plummeted, and sank with soft splashes.

  He knelt over the water. Dave’s vomit had long since floated away, and Jimmy plunged his hands into the river, oily and polluted as it was, and washed his hands of Dave’s blood. Sometimes, in his dreams, he was doing this very thing—washing himself in the Mystic—when Just Ray Harris’s head would pop back up, stare at him.