A Cold Day in Paradise (Alex McKnight Mysteries)

by Steve Hamilton

“Are you two about done here?” he said.

  “No, I’m afraid not, Mr. Rose,” I said. “You see, we need to tell you something very important. And you need to listen to us. All right? You need to stop going to that hospital. Okay? You can’t go there anymore.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he said.

  “Why is that not possible?”

  “I’m doing important work there,” he said. “I can’t stop now. Do you play billiards?”

  “Mr. Rose …”

  “You know what the eight ball does, don’t you? It divides the rest of the balls into the high and the low. The high frequency and the low frequency. The eight ball is black. Black for division and separation and death. The absence of light.”

  “Mr. Rose …”

  “The cue ball is white. All light, all colors, it’s all part of white. White is life and movement. None of the other balls can move until the cue ball moves.”

  “Mr. Rose,” I said, “do you think maybe you should be talking to somebody? Is there a doctor taking care of you? Is there any medication you should be taking?”

  “This is a trick, isn’t it?” he said. “You’re in disguise.”

  “Mr. Rose …”

  “Very clever,” he said. “I have to hand it to you. You’re getting smarter all the time. You bring a big one to distract me.” He shot a glance at Franklin and then locked his eyes back on me. “And you just sup right in here like you’re one of us. You even sound like one of us. Very convincing.”

  Franklin and I looked at each other and nodded. This one was taking a little ride to the station, then maybe later to a nice padded cell somewhere.

  “It’s not going to work,” he said. “You picked the wrong man this time.”

  The gun came out before either of us could react, before we could even think of reacting. He moved with such insect quickness, I swear he was pointing it at us before we even heard the tape tearing underneath the table.

  It was an Uzi. In a few years, Uzis would become a cliché, but in 1984, they were still a novelty. Every coke soldier wanted one. They showed us an Uzi at roll call once. The gun was made in Israel. It shot 950 rounds per minute, little nine-millimeter pistol bullets, with full metal jackets. And it didn’t sound any louder than a sewing machine.

  “Mr. Rose,” I said slowly, “put the weapon down.” Both of my hands were on the table. Franklins arms were still folded. I didn’t know which one of us could reach his holster first. Or if we’d even have the chance.

  “Tell me who sent you,” he said.

  We both looked at the Uzi. I’m sure Franklin was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Although he had even more to lose than I did. He had two daughters, three and five years old. You want to see your family again. You don’t want to die in a crazy man’s apartment just because he thinks you’re his secret enemy.

  “Mr. Rose,” I said. I tried to breathe. “We’ll tell you whatever you want. I promise you. Just put the weapon down, please.”

  “I found this, you know,” he said.

  He looked down at the gun for a split second. A cold shiver ran up my back. It wasn’t enough time to go for my gun. I needed him to look away for just an instant longer. Just give me a chance. If you’re really crazy, do something crazy. Go into a trance or something.

  “I found this in an alley,” he said. “After one of your friends killed somebody. He didn’t see me there, but I was watching. He threw it into a Dumpster. Very sloppy.”

  “Mr. Rose,” Franklin said. His voice was almost a whisper. “Please …”

  “Don’t talk to me,” he said. He pointed the gun at Franklin’s chest. “I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

  Franklin swallowed.

  “Now you,” he said, looking back at me. “Tell me how you did it. How did you turn white?”

  “I’ll tell you after you put the gun down,” I said. “Just put it right there on the table.” Right hand down, unsnap the revolver, bring it back up. How long will it take? Should I just do it?

  He shook his head. “Well, this is quite a situation,” he said. “Now I won’t know what color you are. I was afraid this might happen.”

  Hand down, unsnap, raise and fire. Reach, rip, boom. I rehearsed the motion in my mind, hoping maybe I could shave off a fraction of a second. Hand down, unsnap, raise, and fire. Reach, rip, boom.

  “You know, I’ve learned a lot at the hospital, doing my undercover work. At first, I didn’t want the assignment, but I was told that the chosen one needed me to be there on the front lines. I was told that the chosen one needed to know how the enemy killed people. What the latest techniques were. So we could develop the right defense.”

  Franklin sat motionless beside me. I can’t do this. If I move, he’ll shoot me. I won’t even get close to my gun. He has to look away. Please look away, just for a second.

  “You know what really gets to me?” he said. “You’re trying so hard to find the best way to kill people, you’re even killing each other. Is that just for practice?”

  Silence. I looked into his eyes. It was like looking down a mine shaft and seeing all the way down to hell.

  “You have no respect for life, do you?” he said. “The chosen one says that if something has no respect for life, then killing that something is not really killing. Especially if you use the same technique that they use. That’s the key.”

  Silence. How could I have taken one look at those eyes and not known? I should have cuffed him the minute I walked in.

  “So I’m not really going to kill you.”

  “Mr. Rose …” I said.

  “I’m going to remove you. That’s what the chosen one calls it. He calls it removing.”

  “Mr. Rose …”

  He moved the Uzi a few inches closer to us. “And do you know what the latest technique is?” he said.

  Go for his gun? Knock it sideways? I looked at his hand. Is it tensed? Will he shoot if I make a move for it?

  “Of course you know,” he said. “You all do. It happens almost every day. I’ve seen it in the hospital. I heard the doctors talk about it.”

  You’re going to have to make a move. You’re going to have to risk it.

  “‘Here comes another zip,’ they say. ‘How many zip’s is that this week? Five already?’”

  “Mr. Rose …” I said. One more try to talk him out of it. Then I move.

  “It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” he said. “Zip!”

  I knew what a zip was. Franklin did, too. We had seen a lot of them that summer. The coke dealers would zip a guy if he moved in on his turf, or if he didn’t pay him soon enough, or if he just looked at him the wrong way. You take an Uzi and you give the guy a quick burst right down the middle of his body. Twenty, maybe thirty rounds from his head right down to his pecker. That’s a zip.

  Move. Move now. Go for his gun. Now. Now!

  I didn’t move.

  He shot Franklin. Right down the front of him. The Uzi spat out the bullets with a sound like a cat purring. I went for my revolver. I felt the bullets hit me in the right shoulder. I didn’t know how many. I felt them all at once, like when a rising fastball glances off your mitt and catches you in the shoulder. I heard the sound of my gun going off, the man named Rose screaming.

  I was on the floor, next to Franklin. He was still alive. Just for a moment. I saw his eyes looking at me and then he wasn’t there anymore. I tried to reach for my radio. There was blood on my hands, on my face, in my eyes. Blood everywhere.

  I said something into the radio. I don’t remember what. I lay there on the floor and looked at the ceiling. There was a hole there. I didn’t get him. When the bullets hit me I shot straight up into the ceiling. Why did he scream? Did the sound scare him? Did he run away? How many times did he shoot me? How long until I die?

  And why didn’t he put aluminum foil on the ceiling? All four walls, but not the ceiling? I looked over at Franklin again. I kept looking at him until everything went black
.

  “GODDAMN IT, MCKNIGHT,“ Maven said. “Why didn’t you go for your weapon when he first drew on you?” He had been listening to me in silence as I told him the story. He was driving the squad car. I was sitting in the passenger seat. My voice had been the only sound in the car, all the way from Paradise to the Soo. We were almost at the police station. The sun had just started to turn the eastern sky from black to ruddy gray.

  I went through a whole list of things to say to him. Places he could stick it. Things he could do to himself. Finally, I just said, “I don’t know why.”

  He shook his head. We passed by an old warehouse building. Half of the windows were broken. Under the cheap light of a street lamp a cat sat licking its paws, oblivious to our passing. “So you’re telling me,” he said, “this guy has found you how many years later?”

  “Fourteen years,” I said.

  “All the cops you got in Detroit, you never caught the guy?”

  “Well, Chief,” I said. “You see, that’s the part I haven’t told you yet.”

  “What part?”

  “We did catch the guy. About six months later.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They caught him hanging around another hospital across town. I had just left the force, but I came back in to identify him. I testified at his trial.”

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Not guilty by reason of insanity.”

  “No,” I said. “His defender gave that a good try, but it didn’t wash. Not for a cop-killer. Rose got life for Franklin, plus twelve years tacked on for me. No parole.”

  “So you’re telling me that this Rose guy …”

  “Is in prison,” I said. I looked out the window. “Or at least, I thought he was.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE SUN WAS finally up when we got to the police station, the dawn coming later and later as winter approached. When was the last time I had actually slept through these cold raw hours? And now here I was at the police station again. My stomach felt like it had been turned inside out.

  Maven led me into his office and sat me down in the hard guest chair again. “All right,” he said. He took out a pad of paper and a pen. He scratched on the pad a few times and then threw the pen into the corner of the room. He got out another one. “Goddamned pens, don’t last a week. All right, McKnight, what’s the guy’s name again?”

  “Rose.”

  “Did you ever find out his first name?”

  “Maximilian,” I said. “It came out at the trial.”

  “Maximilian? No wonder he didn’t tell you.” He started writing. “When was he convicted?”

  “December 1984.”

  “You know where they sent him?”

  “Jackson,” I said.

  He stopped writing. “They sent him to Jackson?”

  “Maximum security,” I said. ‘They said he was, what did they say, ‘mentally deranged but functional.’ Not crazy enough for a hospital bed, but crazy enough to keep an eye on.”

  “You’re telling me they sent this guy away to Jackson max, with no parole ever? Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “McKnight,” he said. “Then the guy is still there. He has to be.”

  “So you would think.”

  “What, do you think he escaped? When’s the last time someone escaped from Jackson? Has anyone ever escaped from there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “All I know is what I read on that note.”

  He ran his fingers through what was left of his hair. “I guess I should give them a call just to check it out. What time is it? Just after six?”

  “I’m sure somebody will be there,” I said.

  “You’re probably right, McKnight. Last I heard, they weren’t sending the inmates home at night.” He looked through the papers on his desk. “I suppose I should go through the state office. Where’s that number? I’ve got a woman who comes in around seven. She can always find things like that. No wait, here it is.” He picked up the phone and dialed. I just sat there watching him.

  “Good morning,” he finally said. “This is Chief Maven at the Soo station. I need to contact the state prison in Jackson. Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, I’ll call your commander later and fill him in. Yes. All right, that would be good. Hey, is there any way you can contact them and patch me through? You know, give them the secret state password or whatever you do. So they know I’m not just some asshole off the streets calling them for kicks. Yes, I’d appreciate that, thank you. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  While he was waiting he looked up at me. “You evei deal with the state troopers when you were a cop?”

  “Not much,” I said.

  “They’re damned good,” he said. “Problem is, they know it. But as long as you give them a little stroke when you talk to them, they usually cooperate. I suppose you Detroit cops were the same way.” He sat there tapping his pen on the desk for another long moment. “Ah, good morning. My name is Roy Maven. I’m chief of police in Sault Ste. Marie. We have an unusual question for you this morning. You have an inmate named Maximilian Rose. He checked in late 1984, into maximum security. Uh, I guess there’s only one way to ask this. Would you happen to know if Mr. Rose is still on the premises?”

  Maven held the phone away from his ear. I could hear the guy myself from across the room.

  “Goddamn it,” Maven said. “I’m just asking you a question, all right? You don’t have to get hostile. If you say he’s there, he’s there. That’s all I wanted to know.”

  “Ask him to check,” I said.

  Maven put his hand over the phone and looked at me. “Excuse me?”

  “Ask him to go check on Rose,” I said.

  “The man says there’s never been an escape from maximum security.”

  “Maybe they let him go,” I said. “Maybe they got their orders mixed up. Just ask him.”

  Maven rolled his eyes. “Excuse me, sir,” he said into the phone. “We were wondering if perhaps you could take a moment and go check on him, just to make sure. Yes, that’s what we’re asking. Yes, you heard it correctly. Your ears are working just fine, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Look, here’s what you do, okay? I’ll walk you through it. First, you put the doughnut down. It’s not polite to talk on the telephone with your mouth full. Next, you look up Maximilian Rose in your little book there, see what cell he’s in. Then you call one of your guards to go look into that cell. Or, you can go look yourself. I’ll leave that up to you. Then you come back on the phone and you tell me if he’s there. And I say thank you for the help, and you say, no problem, that’s why I’m here. And then you go back to eating your doughnut. All right? Do you think you can handle that? Oh, by the way, here’s a little tip for you. When you go to check on him, make sure you actually see his face. Sometimes a prisoner will pile up his clothes under his blanket to make it look like he’s in the bed. In fact, maybe this Rose guy has been escaped for months and you haven’t even noticed yet…. Yeah, same to you, buddy. It’s not my fault you’re sitting in a little room watching a prison ward at six o’clock in the fucking morning. You obviously made a bad career choice somewhere along the way. Now just go shine your fucking flashlight in Rose’s face before I have to talk to your superior.”

  Maven held the receiver in his lap and shook his head. “This is why I love my job,” he said. “I get to deal with so many wonderful people.” He looked at me like it was all my fault and then he went back to tapping his pen on the desk while he waited.

  “Yes, hello again,” he finally said. “I was beginning to worry about you.… You did. He was. You’re sure about that. You’re absolutely sure. Okay, fine. Yes, fine. You’ve been so helpful. Thank you very much. Have a nice day at the prison. Don’t let anyone stick a knife in your back.” He dropped the receiver on the hook.

  “I take it he was there,” I said.

  “So they say.”

  “So who left that note?”

  “You tell me,” he said.

 
; I raised my hands. “I have no idea.”

  He looked on another piece of paper on his desk. “You sure you never heard of Vince Dorney,” he said. “Big Vince, they called him. Far as I can tell, Big Vince was into some other things besides running a little book now and then. He did some county time on a drug charge.”

  “I never heard of him,” I said.

  “He was shot up pretty good. He was lying there behind that restaurant in the garbage. Must have been some sight when the cook found him.”

  Maven looked at me for a long time. I met his eyes and did not look away.

  “So what do we have here, McKnight?”

  “Sounds like we’ve got two murders,” I said.

  “They sure train them right down in Detroit, don’t they.”

  “What else do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to tell me who you think is leaving you love notes,” he said. “Besides a man who’s been in prison for the last fourteen years.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “This is going to look really nice in the papers, isn’t it,” he said. “Two murders in three days. My good friend the mayor is going to be so happy.”

  “You don’t sound too broken up about two dead men,” I said.

  Maven thought about that one for a moment and then he pulled his wallet out. “Here,” he said. “You see these pictures?” He held the wallet open so I could see the photographs of the two young girls.

  “Your daughters?”

  “This one is my daughter,” he said, pointing to the picture on the left. “The picture’s kind of old. She was seven years old when it was taken. This other one was my daughter’s best friend, Emily. She was seven years old, too. She was murdered. I had to tell her family myself.” He folded up his wallet and put it back in his pocket. “I still carry her picture. I know a lot of people say you shouldn’t do that. They say you should try to keep the job at a distance. Don’t let it get inside you. But I carry the picture because it reminds me why I’m here. Now these two guys, what have you got? Tony Bing was a bookmaker. He got picked up three times, paid his fine, and went right back to business, taking people’s money. Yeah, I know, it’s not like he put a gun to somebody’s head, but he took people’s money, just the same. Last year, I found out he was receiving food stamps! He’s got no official income, so he goes out and gets food stamps, for God’s sake. That’s the kind of guy he was. And this other guy, Big Vince Dorney, he was just downright evil. Bookmaking was just a hobby to him. It was just another way to get his hooks into you. He’d loan you money, he’d sell you drugs, whatever it took to get some leverage. Then he’d really hurt you. We’ve been trying to trip him up for two years. So you think I’m going to lose any sleep because he finally got whacked? And you think I’m going to sit here and take that kind of crap from you? A guy who couldn’t even get his gun out of his holster?”