The Wolf in Winter

by Connolly, John

  But Harry knew that they wouldn’t be around in three days, or, if they were, it would probably be the end of them. They were ready to run. Had Bryan Joblin not told them of what had occurred, then left them for a time to their own devices, they might have waited another day, just to be sure that everything was in place for their escape. Now they took his news as a sign: it was time. They watched him drive away, his words still ringing in their ears.

  “We hit the detective,” Joblin told them. “It’s all over the news. That fucker is gone. Gone!”

  And, within twenty minutes of Joblin’s departure, the Dixons had left Prosperous.

  HARRY MADE THE CALL on the way to Medway. The auto dealership closed most evenings at six, but Harry had the dealer’s cell phone number and knew that he lived only a couple of blocks from the lot. He’d told the guy that, if it came down to the wire, he might have to leave the state at short notice. He had spun the man a line about a sick mother, knowing that the dealer couldn’t have given a rat’s ass if Harry’s mother was Typhoid Mary, as long as he paid cash alongside the trade-in. So it was that, thirty minutes after leaving Prosperous, the Dixons drove out of the lot in a GMC Savana Passenger Van with 100,000 miles on the clock, stopping only at the outskirts of Medway to call Magnus and Dianne and let them know that they were on their way. The van was ugly as a mud slide, but they could sleep in it if they had to, and who knew how long they might be on the road, or how far they might have to travel? They couldn’t stay with Harry’s in-laws for long. Even one night would be risky. In fact, the closer Harry got to the house in Medway, the more he started to feel that perhaps he and Erin shouldn’t stay with them at all. It might be wiser just to pick up their stuff, arrange some way of remaining in contact, and then find a motel for the night. The more distance they put between themselves and Prosperous, the better. He expressed his concerns to Erin, and he was surprised when she concurred without argument. Her only regret, as far as he could tell, was that they hadn’t managed to kill Bryan Joblin before they left Prosperous. She might have been joking, but somehow Harry doubted it.

  They pulled up in the driveway of the house. The lights were on inside, and Harry could see Magnus watching TV in the living room, the drapes open. He saw his brother-in-law stand as he heard the sound of the engine. He waved at them from the window. They were still getting out of the van when Magnus opened the front door.

  “Come in,” he said. “We’ve been worrying ever since we got your call.”

  “Where’s Dianne?” said Erin.

  “She’s in the bathroom. She’ll be right down.”

  Magnus stood aside to let Harry and Erin enter.

  “Let me take your coats,” said Magnus.

  “We’re not staying,” said Harry.

  “That’s not what you told us.”

  “I know what I told you, but I think it’s better if we just keep driving. They’re going to come looking for us once they find that we’ve gone, and it won’t take them long to make the connection to you and Dianne. We need to put ground between Prosperous and us. I can’t tell you why. We just have to leave the town far behind.”

  Magnus closed the front door. Harry could still feel a draft on his face, though. It was coming from the kitchen. A gust of wind passed through the house. It blew open the dining room door to their left. Inside, they saw Dianne seated in the dark by the table.

  “I thought you were—” said Erin, but she got no further.

  Bryan Joblin sat across from Dianne. He held a gun in his right hand, pointing loosely at her chest. Behind him was Calder Ayton. He too held a gun, but his was aimed at the head of Dianne’s daughter, Kayley.

  Harry’s hand slid slowly toward the gun in his jacket pocket, just as Chief Morland appeared from the living room. He laid a hand on Harry’s arm.

  “Don’t,” said Morland, and his voice was almost kindly.

  Harry’s hand faltered, then fell to his side. Morland reached into Harry’s pocket and removed the Smith & Wesson.

  “You have a license for this?” said Morland.

  Harry didn’t reply.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Morland.

  He raised the gun and touched it to the back of Erin’s head. He pulled the trigger, and the cream walls of the hallway blushed crimson. While Harry was still trying to take in the sight of his wife’s body collapsing to the floor, Morland shot Magnus in the chest, then advanced three steps and killed Dianne with a single bullet that entered her face just below the bridge of her nose.

  It was Kayley’s screams that brought Harry back, but by then it was all too late. Morland swept Harry’s feet from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor beside his dead wife. He stared at her. Her eyes were closed, her face contorted in a final grimace of shock. Harry wondered if she’d felt a lot of pain. He hoped not. He’d loved her. He’d loved her so very much.

  Morland’s weight was on his back now. Harry smelled the muzzle of the gun as it brushed his face.

  “Do it,” said Harry. “Just do it.”

  But instead the gun disappeared, and Harry’s hands were cuffed loosely behind his back. Kayley had stopped screaming and was now sobbing. It sounded as if there might have been a hand across her mouth, though, for the sobs were muffled.

  “Why?” said Harry.

  “Because we can’t have a multiple killing without a killer,” said Morland.

  He lifted Harry to his feet. Harry stared at him, his eyes glazed. Morland’s features formed a mask of pure desolation.

  Calder Ayton and Bryan Joblin emerged from the second entrance to the living room, carrying Kayley between them. They walked through the kitchen to the back door. Shortly after that, Harry heard the trunk of a car closing, and then the vehicle drove away.

  “What’s going to happen to her?” he asked.

  “I think you already know,” said Morland. “You were told to find us a girl. It looks like you did your duty after all.”

  Bryan Joblin reappeared in the kitchen. He smiled at Harry as he approached him.

  “What now?” said Harry.

  “You and Bryan are going to take a ride. I’ll join you both as soon as I can.”

  Morland turned to leave, then paused.

  “Tell me, Harry. Did the girl really escape, or did you let her go?”

  What did it matter, thought Harry. The girl had still died, and soon he would join her.

  “We let her go.”

  The use of the word “we” made him look down at Erin, and in doing so he missed the look that passed across Morland’s face. It contained a hint of admiration.

  Harry felt as though he should cry, but no tears would come. It was too late for tears, anyway, and they would serve no purpose.

  “I’m sorry it’s come down to this,” said Morland.

  “Go to hell, Lucas,” said Harry.

  “Yes,” said Morland. “I think that I probably will.”

  CHAPTER

  XLI

  A day passed. Night fell. All was changed, yet unchanged. The dead remained dead, and waited for the dying to join their number.

  On the outskirts of Prosperous, a massive 4WD pulled up by the side of the road, disgorging one of its occupants before quickly turning back east. Ronald Straydeer hoisted a pack onto his back and headed for the woods, making his way toward the ruins of the church.

  CHAPTER

  XLII

  The two-story redbrick premises advertised itself as BLACKTHORN, APOTHECARY, although it had been many years since the store sold anything, and old Blackthorn himself was now long dead. It had, for much of its history, been the only business on Hunts Lane, a Brooklyn mews originally designed to stable the horses of the wealthy on nearby Remsen and Joralemon Streets.

  The exterior wood surround was black, the lettering on and above the window gold, and its front door was permanently closed.
The upstairs windows were shuttered, while the main window on the first floor was protected by a dense wire grille. The jumbled display behind it was a historical artifact, a collection of boxes and bottles bearing the names, where legible at all, of companies that no longer existed, and products with more than a hint of snake oil about them: Dalley’s Magical Pain Extractor, Dr. Ham’s Aromatic Invigorator, Dr. Miles’s Nervine.

  Perhaps, at some point in the past, an ancestor of the last Blackthorn had seen fit to offer such elixirs to his customers, along with remedies stranger still. A glass case inside the door contained packets of Potter’s Asthma Smoking Mixture (“may be smoked in a pipe either with or without ordinary tobacco”) and Potter’s Asthma Care Cigarettes from the nineteenth century, along with Espic and Legras powders, the latter beloved of the French writer Marcel Proust, who used it to tackle his asthma and his hay fever. In addition to stramonium, a derivative of the common thorn apple, Datura stramonium, which was regarded as an effective remedy for respiratory problems, such products contained, variously, potash and arsenic. Now, long fallen from favor, they were memorialized in the gloom of Blackthorn, Apothecary, alongside malt beverages for nursing mothers, empty bottles of cocaine-based coca wine and heroin hydrochloride, and assorted preparations of morphine and opium for coughs, colds, and children’s teething difficulties.

  By the time the final Blackthorn was entering his twilight years—in a store that, most aptly, eschewed sunlight through the judicious use of heavy drapes and a sparing attitude toward electricity—the business that bore his family name sold only herbal medicines, and the musty interior still contained the evidence of Blackthorn’s faith in the efficacy of natural solutions. The mahogany shelves were lined with glass jars containing moldering and desiccated herbs, although the various oils appeared to have survived the years with little change. A series of ornate lettered boards between the shelves detailed a litany of ailments and the herbs available to counteract their symptoms, from bad breath (parsley) and gas (fennel and dill) to cankers (goldenseal), cancer (bilberry, maitake mushroom, pomegranate, raspberry) and congestive heart failure (hawthorn). All was dust and dead insects, except on the floor, where regular footfalls had cleared a narrow path through the detritus of decades. This led from a side entrance beside the main door, through a hallway adorned with photographs of the dead, and amateur landscapes that bespoke a morbid fascination with the work of the more depressive German Romantics, and into the store itself by way of a door with panels decorated by graphically rendered scenes from the Passion of Christ. The path’s final destination was obscured by a pair of black velvet drapes that closed off what had once been old Blackthorn’s back room, in which the apothecary had created his tinctures and powders.

  Now, as a chill rain fell on the streets, specks of light showed through the moth holes in the drapes, and they glittered like stars as unseen figures moved in the room behind. Evening had descended, and Hunts Lane was empty, apart from the two men who stood beneath the awning of an old stable, watching the storefront on the other side of the alley, and the vague signs of life from within.

  Two days had passed since the shooting.

  “He gives me the creeps,” said Angel.

  “Man gives everyone the creeps,” said Louis. “There’s dead folk would move out if they found themselves buried next to him.”

  “Why here?”

  “Why not?”

  “I guess. How long has he been holed up in that place?”

  “Couple of weeks, if what I hear is true.”

  The location had cost Louis a considerable amount of money, along with one favor that he could never call in again. He didn’t mind. This was personal.

  “It’s homely,” said Angel. “In a Dickensian way—it’s kind of appropriate. Any idea where he’s been all these years?”

  “No. He did have a habit of moving around.”

  “Not much choice. Probably doesn’t make many friends in his line of work.”

  “Probably not.”

  “After all, you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Except me.”

  “Yeah. About that . . .”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “That would be the other option.”

  Angel stared at the building, and the building seemed to stare back.

  “Strange that he should turn up now.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what he was doing while he was gone?”

  “What he’s always been doing—causing pain.”

  “Maybe he thinks it’ll take away some of his own.”

  Louis glanced at his partner.

  “You know, you get real philosophical at unexpected moments.”

  “I was born philosophical. I just don’t always care to share my thoughts with others, that’s all. I think I might be a Stoic, if I understood what that meant. Either way, I like the sound of it.”

  “On your earlier point, he enjoyed inflicting pain, and watching others inflict it, even when he wasn’t suffering himself.”

  “If you believed in a god, you might say it was divine retribution.”

  “Karma.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  The rain continued to fall.

  “You know,” said Angel, “there’s a hole in this awning.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s, like, a metaphor or something.”

  “Or just a hole.”

  “You got no poetry in your heart.”

  “No.”

  “You think he knows we’re out here?”

  “He knows.”

  “So?”

  “You want to knock, be my guest.”

  “What’ll happen?”

  “You’ll be dead.”

  “I figured it would be something like that. So we wait.”

  “Yes.”

  “Until?”

  “Until he opens the door.”

  “And?”

  “If he tries to kill us, we know he’s involved.”

  “And if he doesn’t try to kill us, then he’s not involved?”

  “No, then maybe he’s just smarter than I thought.”

  “You said he was as smart as any man you’d ever known.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Doesn’t bode well for us.”

  “No.”

  There was a noise from across the alley: the sound of a key turning in a lock, and a bolt being pulled. Angel moved to the right, his gun already in his hand. Louis went left, and was absorbed by the darkness. A light bloomed slowly in the hallway, visible through the hemisphere of cracked glass above the smaller of the two doors. The door opened slowly, revealing a huge man. He remained very still, his hands slightly held out from his sides. Had Angel and Louis wanted to kill him, this would have been the perfect opportunity. But the ­message seemed clear: the one they had come to see wanted to talk. There would be no killing.

  Not yet.

  There was no further movement for a time. Angel’s gaze alternated between the shuttered windows on the second floor of the apothecary and the entrance to Hunts Lane from Henry Street. Hunts Lane was a dead end. If this was a trap, there would be no escape. He had questioned Louis about their approach, wondering aloud if it might not be better for one of them to remain on the street while the other entered the alley, but Louis had demurred.

  “He knows that we’re coming. He’s the last one.”

  “Which means?”

  “That if it’s a trap he’d spring it long before the alley. We’d be dead as soon as we set foot in Brooklyn. We just wouldn’t know it until the blade fell.”

  None of this did Angel find reassuring. He had met this man only once before, when he sought to recruit Louis—and, by extension, Angel—for his own ends. The memory of that meeting had never faded. An
gel had felt poisoned by it afterward, as though by breathing the same air as the man he had forever tainted his system.

  Louis appeared again. He had his gun raised, aimed directly at the figure in the doorway. The giant stepped forward, and a motion-activated light went on above his head. He was truly enormous, his head like a grave monument on his shoulders, his chest and arms impossibly massive. Angel didn’t recognize the face, and he would surely have remembered if he had seen such a monster before. His skull was bald, his scalp crisscrossed with scars, and his eyes were very clear and round, like boiled eggs pressed into his face. He was extraordinarily unhandsome, as though God had created the ugliest human being possible and then punched him in the face.

  Most striking of all was the yellow suit that he wore. It gave him a strange air of feigned jollity, the product, perhaps, of an erroneous belief that he might somehow appear less threatening if he just wore brighter colors. He watched Louis approach, and it struck Angel that he hadn’t yet seen the sentinel in the doorway blink once. His eyes were so huge that any blinks would have been obvious, like the flapping of wings.

  Louis lowered his gun, and simultaneously the man at the door raised his right hand. He showed Louis the small plastic bottle that he held and then, without waiting for Louis to respond, tilted his head back and added drops to his eyes. When he was done, he stepped into the rain and silently indicated that Angel and Louis should enter the apothecary’s store, his right hand now extended like that of the greeter at the world’s worst nightclub.

  Reluctantly, Angel came forward. He followed Louis into the darkness of the hallway, but he entered backward, keeping his eyes, and his gun, on the unblinking giant at the door. But the giant didn’t follow them inside. Instead, he remained standing in the rain, his face raised to the heavens, and the water flowed down his cheeks like tears.