by Matt Rogers
He wiped tears from his eyes before he went on.
He said, ‘So you spoke to me that first day at the gym for no reason. Or, like, I guess there was a reason, but you didn’t benefit from it. And I just didn’t understand that. And now you’re here and you’re alive and all the shitty people aren’t. So I guess that made me think, maybe I shouldn’t lie anymore. Maybe I shouldn’t pretend to be someone I’m not just to save my own skin.’
King stared at him.
Danny said, ‘So, yeah. I killed Jack Sundström.’
‘How?’
‘I told you I put gloves on…’
‘How?’
‘I beat him to death.’
‘Did he feel it? Or was he unconscious from the first blow?’
Danny was hesitant to answer. The canal became ghostly quiet. Then, ‘He felt some of it. He would’ve known what was happening, before he…’
King slowly reached down and pulled the Glock out of its holster at his waist.
Danny went pale. ‘No.’
King let the gun hover there, his palm around the stock, the barrel pointed at the creek floor.
A finger touching the trigger guard.
He could see Danny questioning everything, regretting every word that had left his mouth. Then a shift happened. The young man wiped the fear and the trepidation and the uncertainty out of his face and found something resembling stoicism.
He cleared his throat. His voice still shook, but the bravery was noticeable. ‘Listen, I told you all that because I wanted to do the right thing. Not the comfortable thing. So if that’s what you gotta do…’
He closed his eyes and lowered his head.
He didn’t want to see it coming.
King said, ‘Danny, look at me.’
Danny opened his eyes.
King held the gun up in his palm, barrel toward the sky.
‘This is precautionary,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to shoot you.’
Danny had tried to play the stoic, tried to accept his fate with little emotion, but he couldn’t hold back the relief that flooded him, made his hands tremble and his knees go weak.
Then he furrowed his brow. ‘Precautionary for what?’
King said, ‘You’re coming with me. We’re going for a drive.’
75
If someone told King, as he pulled up out front of the SFPD Tenderloin district station, that right now this car was the worst place to be in the world, he wasn’t sure if he’d argue otherwise.
You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.
Life isn’t the movies. Certain acts are irredeemable, unable to be swept under the rug, and then there’s just no chance of a happy ending. You can’t gift-wrap life, tie it up with a neat bow, find the perfect resolution to every situation. Sometimes the right choice, the right way forward, feels the absolute worst. He’d genuinely hoped for Danny. He’d stayed cautiously optimistic even after catching the young man within Frankie’s inner circle for the Choi job.
Danny had been coerced, manipulated, brainwashed, torn in different directions by a megalomaniac mentor, but there was no skirting around the fact that he’d beaten an old man to death.
You can’t put that aside.
At least, King couldn’t.
Danny sat hunched in the passenger seat with his eyes closed. His hands were shaking. His breathing was erratic. He didn’t look up when they stopped. He knew where they were. He didn’t want to face reality.
He’d have to eventually.
King said, ‘You have the photo of Jack’s body on your phone?’
After a beat, Danny nodded.
Eyes still shut.
King said, ‘You know where the body’s buried?’
Another beat of consideration, then another nod.
Each time figuring whether he should try to lie, then realising it was futile.
‘You turn yourself in and you plead guilty,’ King said. ‘You comply with everything they ask. You throw Frankie under the bus. You tell them every little thing he said to you, everything he did. Don’t leave a word out. You do that and you won’t get the max sentence. Not even close. You’ll have a life after prison, if you do it right.’
When Danny took a breath he nearly choked on it, but he seemed determined to compose himself. Still, when he spoke, his voice shook. ‘There’s no life after that. Not starting fresh at forty, fifty, whenever I get out.’
‘Says who?’ King said. ‘You get your mind right in there — and trust me, you’ll have time for that — then you’ll be starting from a far better place than a decent chunk of forty-year-olds. We’re all lost, really, all trying to sort ourselves out, no matter how old we are. Doesn’t matter if you begin today or twenty years from now. It really only matters that you begin.’
Silence.
King said, ‘My life didn’t truly begin until I was out of black operations.’
It took Danny’s mind off the situation, if only for a moment. ‘Black operations?’
‘I was the guy they make movies about. The lone wolf. But there won’t ever be a movie about me, because no one will know what I did. I gave up nearly fifteen years of my life to serve a government that used me like a wrecking ball. I don’t regret a second of it. But when I got out I started fresh, just like you’ll be doing.’
Danny finally opened his eyes.
Turned to look at King, then swivelled his head around and stared at the police station.
Reality sunk in. He went ghost-white.
He said, ‘I’m scared. I’m so scared.’
King didn’t respond. He thought, Of course.
Danny said, ‘You’d do this to me?’
‘I’m showing you mercy. I’m turning you over to the justice system.’
‘I thought you weren’t a fan of the justice system.’
‘Sometimes it’s the only choice. And it’s a whole lot better than what I used to do.’
‘Which was?’
‘Black ops, Danny. No laws. Someone does the wrong thing, the last thing they see is a bullet.’
Danny swallowed air. Tried not to cry. ‘I got a little sister. Back in the trailer park. I promised I’d go home to see her when I made it.’
King had to bring his walls up, kill his emotions with steeliness. It was brutally tough work. Harder than killing people.
‘Jack Sundström had a family,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you read the paper? A wife. A son. Two daughters. Grandkids. I’m sure they were expecting him home.’
Danny let out something resembling a moan.
King said, ‘Get in there. And if you don’t do exactly what I said, if I find out you withheld what you were supposed to confess…it won’t be good for you, Danny.’
The survival instinct kicked in.
Danny twisted in his seat and threw a punch, fast as a whip, utilising the strength of a rock-solid abdomen from all that striking and conditioning work in Hunters Point. He hoped to catch King on the jaw, stun him for long enough to spill out of the car, make a run for it, maybe get back to his sister and his father. He’d fled the trailer park for valid reasons, but going back would be preferable to a cell.
King understood, and didn’t blame the young man.
He caught the scything punch with an open palm, wrapped his hand around Danny’s fist like enclosing it in a paw. All Danny’s stopping power — which was considerable — was distributed into King’s arm, rattling the bones, but King was made of tougher stuff than a guy in his early twenties, and nothing broke or dislocated. Muscle and bone held strong. It hurt like hell to stop the hook in its tracks, but there wasn’t a chance King would let it show.
Danny broke down.
He’d probably never experienced that before. Someone treating all his martial arts training like it was nothing, swatting his offence away like scolding a toddler. King let go of the fist, and Danny brought both hands to his face and sobbed into them.
He didn’t try to run.
He suddenly understood there w
ere different breeds of warriors.
Levels to this game.
He had all the adrenaline that came with the fight-or-flight response, but King didn’t.
In a low, level tone, King said, ‘We’re going to pretend that didn’t happen.’
Danny nodded wordlessly.
Still sobbing, he opened the car door and trudged into the police station, head bowed the whole way.
King watched him go in, then turned and smashed his open palm against the top of the steering wheel three consecutive times. His furious power rattled the whole car, battered the top of the wheel out of shape, creating a U-shaped divot.
He allowed himself that much of a release, then cut his emotions off, threw the car into gear, and drove away.
White knuckles on the mangled wheel.
Life wasn’t fair, but he was doing the best he could.
That’s what he had to tell himself to maintain his sanity.
76
Slater knew something was wrong.
He’d finally gotten through to King, who first asked about his condition. When it was understood that Slater’s injuries were recuperable, King mumbled a few words about the job being done and told him to call Alexis instead.
Then he hung up.
So, Slater thought. Danny must be dead.
He dialled Alexis again upon King’s instructions and she finally answered. They went back and forth for a few minutes about the extent of each other’s injuries, then Slater asked about King.
There was no response.
Slater said, ‘Alexis?’
‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘I’ll come get you.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘I’ll tell you in person. Please.’
‘Is Danny dead?’
‘Just tell me where you are.’
He did.
Thirty minutes later, as the clock ebbed closer to midnight, she arrived. She pulled up in a large black SUV with tinted windows. He didn’t ask about that. He detached himself from the shadows and appeared by her passenger door, so sudden she leapt with fright in her seat. He peered in through the window, able to see her under the yellow interior light, and grimaced. She was in bad shape. Face swelling, one eye purple and closed shut, scratches all over. She cradled one hand in her lap, and at first glance he couldn’t tell why. Maybe a couple of fingers were broken. He opened the door and fell into the seat, groaning as he dragged his bad leg into the footwell.
She grimaced right back as she saw his condition, but it didn’t seem clear to her what specifically was injured. ‘Which leg? Same one as Mexico?’
He shook his head. ‘The other ankle. Which is good, maybe. I’m distributing the trauma evenly.’
She smiled at that, despite it all.
He said, ‘What the hell happened to you?’
‘Fell down a hill.’
Slater recalled falling off a speeding ATV in the mountains above Xalisco, tumbling dozens of feet down a severe slope. ‘Now you’re just copying me.’
She kept smiling, which is about all he could ask for in this mad world. Then her expression bled back to normal. Perhaps a little worse than normal. She was clearly uncomfortable. ‘This’ll be a media firestorm.’
‘How’s the scene look? For when the cops show up.’
‘Heidi and Frankie side by side, bullets in their heads. Then there’ll be remnants of Frankie and Petr’s crews discovered all around San Francisco. It’ll look like a CEO got greedy and found herself swimming in shark-infested waters, which is almost exactly what happened.’
Slater digested the update. ‘Just Heidi and Frankie in the creek. So you moved Danny’s body?’
‘He’s not dead.’
‘Then what—?’
She sighed, bowed her head, reached over and squeezed his thigh for the strength to speak. ‘Danny was lying, Will. About his innocence. He killed an old man for Frankie already. Pummelled him to death.’
Slater closed his eyes. It made sense now.
Corruption and betrayal were a whole lot worse for King to deal with than if Danny simply got killed in the line of fire.
Better to die a noble death than to allow yourself to be poisoned by evil.
Slater said, ‘Where are they?’
‘King’s taking him to the SFPD.’
Slater stared vacantly out the windshield. ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah.’
‘No mercy, huh?’
‘You think he deserves mercy?’
‘No. Was just an observation.’
She didn’t answer.
Slater turned to her. ‘So.’
‘So?’
‘How’d you like venturing out on your own?’
She shook her head. ‘In future, I’m sticking with you. Fuck this solo business.’
Slater nodded. ‘I needed you to realise that for yourself. If I tried to convince you beforehand, you wouldn’t get it.’
She cocked her head. ‘You did it for more than a decade.’
‘Because that’s what I was told to do. It took until I started working with King to realise how much better it is when someone has your back. It kills the doubt. Well, most of it, at least…’
She breathed out. ‘Let’s go home.’
Slater met her eyes. ‘To our son.’
She paused, then her head slowly lowered into a single nod. ‘Yeah. To our son.’
77
The next day, at sunrise, Violetta jolted upright on the sofa as a knock sounded at the door.
She’d been awake most of the night, anticipating King’s return since the early hours of the morning. She ran to the door and threw it open, eager for a first look. He’d only told her he was coming home. Nothing about his physical condition or the success of the mission, which was uncharacteristic. On the phone he’d sounded dejected, disconnected from reality. It had sounded like he was half-asleep, which somehow concerned her more than if he’d told her he was grievously wounded.
She got her first look at him, backlit by the orange dawn sky.
He looked awful.
Physically untouched, but in the eyes there was something worse. Loss. Sorrow. Pain. His face was gaunt, drawn, and there were deep bags under his eyes from stress and sleeplessness.
Violetta remained frozen for a moment, then her hands flew to her face. She gasped in a way she didn’t think she ever had. ‘Is Will…?’
King’s face registered surprise, then he quickly shook his head. ‘No. God, Violetta, no. Slater’s fine. So is Alexis. I’m sorry, I should’ve explained more…’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, unable to hold back her sigh. ‘If you’re all fine, then it’s okay. Whatever it is.’
She reached out and pulled him over the threshold and hugged him. He held her tighter than he had in a long time, finding strength in her touch. Then he walked past her, making straight for the hallway that led to, among other rooms, Junior’s. She watched him move, so strong and purposeful, the way he beelined for his son.
She wondered what he’d seen over there.
She gave him some time. Recognised that he hadn’t asked her to come with him. He’d got what he needed from her hug, and now his priority was laying eyes on his boy. She didn’t blame him. She loitered in the entranceway for a couple of minutes after she closed the front door, then followed in his footsteps down to the nursery.
She found him standing over the crib, hands on the railing, watching Junior with an unblinking stare.
Tears in his eyes.
That was far from normal.
She went to his side, put an arm around his torso. ‘What happened?’
He took a breath. ‘Christ, it’s been a day.’
She checked her watch. ‘Today? As in, on the flight?’
He pinched his eyes shut, shook his head. ‘The last twenty-four hours. Sorry. Haven’t slept.’
‘What happened?’ she said again.
‘I tried to help a young man,’ King said. ‘His name was Danny. Turned out
he was beyond helping. He’d done something…unforgivable.’
She grimaced. ‘So you did what you had to?’
‘I made him turn himself in.’
‘That was the right thing to do.’
‘Yeah,’ King said. ‘But far from easy.’
‘Did he mean to do whatever he did? Or was it an accident?’
She could see him thinking, and just in that she caught the gist of what had happened. Someone else had made Danny do something. A figure of authority. King was probably thinking about coercion, and intimidation, and mental slavery.
King said, ‘I have no idea.’
A long period of quiet in which King watched his son.
Then, ‘I can’t even figure out whether he was a bad person or not.’
‘It’s never black and white.’
‘I know. That’s what I always say. But this…was a new level.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t good and he wasn’t bad,’ Violetta said. ‘Maybe he spent so long surrounded by real monsters that he lost whoever he was in the first place. And sometimes that’s impossible to get back. Just the way of the world.’
King sighed. ‘Well, the real monsters are dead. All of them.’
Violetta swallowed.
In a pained tone King said, ‘If I hadn’t waited for Slater to recover from Mexico…if I’d got there earlier…I could have got to him before he did the things he did. I could have put him on the right path. He would’ve had his whole life ahead of him.’
‘You can’t be everywhere. You can’t do everything.’
‘He was some kid from a trailer park. He didn’t know who to listen to. He listened to the wrong person and he paid with what’s going to be the next fifteen, twenty years of his life.’
