Sorrow's Anthem

by Michael Koryta

  “Glad you made it, Perry,” he said. “You’re the other one I wanted to see tonight.”

  “You’re done, Cancerno,” I said, not bothering to twist my head so I could see him. “Padgett got shot, and the half of the police department that you don’t control is going to see Gajovich right now.”

  “No shit?” he said. “Well, then, I guess that makes this encounter all the more important. Because I’d hate to go to jail with unsettled scores.”

  Cancerno paced to the end of the bar where Ramone stood, then whirled back to Draper and me.

  “You guys like fires, right?”

  He reached up with the hand that wasn’t holding the gun and grabbed a bottle of vodka from the shelf above Draper. I started to get to my hands and knees when he did it, but Ramone stepped forward and pointed his gun at me.

  “I know Draper likes fires,” Cancerno said, smashing the top of the vodka bottle against the bar and shattering the glass. He turned it upside down and poured the alcohol out on top of us. It splattered the floor and my legs and Draper’s bloody face. Draper rose up higher on his toes, the handcuffs still binding him to the heavy oak shelves. It was a massive, one-piece unit filled with shelves for liquor, with mirrors set behind the shelves, and stood at least eight feet tall. Draper’s cuffs were looped around one of the solid crosspieces that separated the two sides of shelves. The wood was not going to break, no matter how hard he pulled.

  “Draper likes fires more than he likes his life,” Cancerno said, breaking another bottle and emptying it around us. “That seem like a good trade to you, Perry?” When I didn’t say anything, he said, “What about you, Ramone?”

  “Doesn’t sound like a good trade,” Ramone said.

  “I didn’t think so, either. But it appears this prick”—Cancerno threw a bottle that just missed Draper’s head before breaking on the shelves—“thought it was a good one.”

  Cancerno stopped picking up bottles and stared at me. “I own this neighborhood. But I was done with it. Bigger things in mind. So you bastards had real, real bad timing. Gradduk could have been the only one to die. I didn’t need to send his friends to join him.”

  “It’s done, Cancerno,” I said again.

  “Exactly.” He nodded. “It is done. But I’m going to be the one to finish it. Understand that, Perry? And Draper here just designed your own graves. Because with all the fires in this neighborhood last night, one more isn’t going to stand out.” He poured a bottle of Crown Royal in a circle on the floor at my feet.

  Ramone stood behind the bar, keeping the revolver pointed at us. Cancerno was still working his way down the length of the bar, grabbing bottle after bottle, breaking them, and then pouring the liquor on the floor.

  I’d kept moving, still trying to turn my body and prepare to get on my feet when the time came, and apparently I’d gotten too close to that for Ramone’s liking. He fired a round into the shelves just above my head, the bottles exploding, glass and liquor landing on the floor around me.

  I stopped moving, and Ramone smiled, showing his teeth.

  Ramone’s round was one more in addition to those Cancerno and I had fired earlier, but I wasn’t too hopeful that they would have attracted the attention of the neighbors. The Hideaway’s ancient, thick walls absorbed noise better than the most expensive soundproofing panels. Draper’s dad used to brag about how loud he could turn the jukebox up before you’d hear a bit of it on the sidewalk.

  Beside me, Draper shifted position again, sliding his heels across the floor until they actually rested against the bottom of the shelf unit. The chain on his handcuffs jingled softly as he pulled it tight on his wrists. I looked away from him, feeling pity. When Cancerno lit this place, Draper had nowhere to go. Not that I’d make it far—Ramone stood just ten feet away, and his gun was trained on me. At this distance, he’d kill me before I even came out of my crouch.

  Cancerno had assumed a position at the far end of the bar, his back to the hallway that led out to the back door. He’d finished spreading alcohol and stood with a bar rag in one hand and his revolver in the other. Watching him, Ramone set the revolver down on top of the bar and lifted his shotgun again, leveling it across the surface of the bar, the ugly muzzle pointed right at me. No need to worry about accuracy now; the shotgun would cut me in two if I tried to move.

  “You’re right, Perry,” Cancerno said. “It’s all done.” He shifted the bar rag so he held it in the same hand that was clenched around his revolver. He reached into his pocket with the other hand, and when he withdrew it, a steel Zippo was in his fingers. He flipped the top off the lighter and flicked the wheel with his thumb. A short flame appeared, and he touched it to the edge of the bar rag, which began to burn slowly.

  I shifted my weight forward, onto my toes, preparing for a rush that would end with a shotgun blast, and behind me I could hear Draper tensing, the handcuffs scraping against the wood that held him.

  “I don’t think so,” Ramone said, following my movement with the barrel of his gun. My fingers brushed against glass, and I squeezed them around the shattered neck of one of the bottles Cancerno had broken. My opportunity would come thanks to Cancerno, although he didn’t realize it yet. The fire wouldn’t kill me as fast as Ramone’s shotgun would, and the initial burst of flame might be more distracting to the shooter than to me. When Cancerno dropped that rag to the floor, I was going to be moving with the flames, right at Ramone’s throat, with that jagged glass in my hand.

  “I hope this hurts like hell,” Cancerno said, holding the now-burning rag high in the air, grasping it with just two fingers, and I tensed every muscle, ready to spring forward when that rag hit the floor. That was when I heard Draper let out a grunt that sounded like an explosion as he suddenly lurched forward.

  I am a strong man. I own a gym where many stronger men come regularly to hoist obscene amounts of weight. During my time on the narcotics beat, I saw men riding methamphetamine highs kick down doors and punch through walls as if they were not even there. Never, though, had I seen a display of raw strength comparable to the one Scott Draper offered in that moment at the Hideaway. With a single, swift-but-massive effort, he lunged forward and jerked with all his power at the handcuffs that held him to the shelves. Because Draper was so tall, they were fastened fairly high on the cabinet, well above the central point of balance. When Draper leaned into that savage jerk forward, the several hundred pounds of oak shelving and liquor bottles leaned with him, overbalanced, and fell forward.

  Ramone had time to shoot. He had time, but the shelving unit was at least eight feet tall, and it was coming down right at his skull. He’d been focused on me because I’d been the only one with freedom to move, and when Draper lunged forward Ramone had to pivot to his left to bring the gun around to this new threat. By that time the massive wooden cabinet was falling, and when Ramone pulled the trigger, he took a full step back, trying to avoid taking all that weight on the top of his head. The combined pivot and step backward were enough, and the slug he fired missed us both, splintering through the cabinet about a foot to the right of Draper’s head as it came crashing down.

  The bar saved us. The weight of the enormous cabinet would probably have killed us both, crushed us, if it had fallen directly onto our bodies. But because it was so tall, it landed against the bar, shedding glass and booze all over us, and held there, wedged at about a forty-five-degree angle.

  Ramone was hidden from my sight now, but Cancerno had screamed something and jumped backward as the cabinet fell, throwing the rag at the same time. It caught the edge of the new obstruction provided by the fallen shelves and dropped to the floor. There was some alcohol there, but it missed the large pool Cancerno had spread earlier, and the eruption of flame was smaller than it might have been.

  Staying on my hands and knees to avoid braining myself on the shelves that lay angled over my head, I scrambled for the end of the bar and Cancerno, bits of broken glass slicing into my flesh. I cleared the shelves as Cancerno b
rought his Beretta up, and I sprang forward, hitting him around the waist as he fired over me. The tackle drove us both down, and he landed on his back, his head snapping against the floor with a crack like a dropped cinder block. By the time I lifted myself off him he was already unconscious.

  Behind me the fire was spreading. I had turned back to the flames, searching for Draper, when there was motion in the hallway behind me and a shot was fired through the air over my head.

  I ducked and grabbed Cancerno’s Beretta as another shot was fired, this one blasting off part of the wall above me. Ramone must have found the revolver, because these shots were clearly rounds from a handgun and not slugs from his shotgun. I rolled onto my left shoulder and brought the Beretta up, looking for him. A shadow moved along the dark wall that separated the bar from the dining room, and I fired several shots in that direction. Then the shadow was gone, and I didn’t pursue. Draper was still pinned behind the bar, with the fire surging closer.

  Crawling back to him from the way I’d come out was impossible now; the flames had devoured that end of the bar, the heat so intense I could only look with a sidelong glance, holding my arm up to shield my face. I ran around the front of the bar, switching the gun from my right hand to my left, then put my right palm on the surface of the bar and leaped, swinging myself over it, and onto the floor.

  Draper was pulling furiously at his handcuffs, straining away from the fire that was now almost upon him. I ducked my head under the angled shelves and crawled to him. It was almost impossible to see anything now because I couldn’t keep my eyes open against the heat.

  Relying on touch instead of sight, I felt for the handcuffs. The metal was hot when my fingers finally found it. I slid my free hand away, pressed the barrel of Cancerno’s Beretta against the thin central portion of the chain, and squeezed the trigger. Shards of metal and wood flew away, and I tugged at Draper’s hands, expecting them to come free. The cuffs held.

  I put the muzzle of the gun back against the chain and fired again, and again. I was screaming until I choked on the acrid air. Unable to stand the heat anymore, I fell away, my hand still wrapped around Draper’s wrist. It took me a second to realize his wrist had come free with me.

  Then we were on our feet and running out of the bar as flames surged behind us. Draper’s knees buckled and he started to go down, but I caught him and lifted him and then he seemed to find his balance. Clutching on to one another, we staggered out of the bar and into the dining room, which was also beginning to fill with smoke. The heavy front door loomed in front of us, and I hit it with my shoulder, but couldn’t get it to open. Draper found the bolt with one of his bloody hands, turned it, and then we fell forward, out of the bar, and onto the cool concrete of the front steps.

  By now smoke was pouring out of the building, and windows ruptured with a soft popping noise that sounded harmless compared to the crackle of the flames. Draper and I scrambled out to the sidewalk on our hands and knees, gratefully gasping in breaths of fresh air. I tried to speak to him, but instead I fell onto my stomach, my chin bouncing off the concrete. I twisted onto my side on the cold, rough pavement of the sidewalk, watched the Hideaway burn, and waited for the sirens to begin.

  CHAPTER 30

  Joe and I saw the press conference on the television in his hospital room. Mike Gajovich had been relieved of duty pending a criminal investigation, his brother jerked from command of District Two along with him. The chief of police delivered the message with a firm voice, but he didn’t look at the camera. The mayor stood awkwardly next to him, trying to look grim and reassuring at the same time.

  Beside me, Joe’s breathing was shallow but steady. His face matched the white sheets on the bed, except for his eyes, which were red and rimmed with dark purple circles. A handful of tubes ran from his body, and monitors hummed behind the bed, keeping watch. He could talk, but it took a lot out of him, so we didn’t say much. He kept his head on the pillow, but his eyes followed the television closely. When the press conference had concluded, I stood up and turned the television off. Joe spoke while my back was to him.

  “No Richards.” The words came out in a rattling whisper, a hell of a lot of effort behind them, and I turned and nodded at him.

  “They wouldn’t let him speak at a press conference,” I said. “Too much risk he’d tell it like it is.”

  It was the first time I’d been alone with Joe since his condition had stabilized, and I still had trouble looking at him without feeling awash with guilt. The first thing he’d said when he saw me was “Thanks for the swim.”

  He didn’t remember much of it. I’d talked him through it, but there had been a dozen cops in the room for that, it seemed, spilling out into the hallway, all of them taking notes and whispering to one another. We’d talk about it again sometime when it was just the two of us. But not today.

  Jimmy Cancerno had died inside the Hideaway. Ramone Tavarez had been picked up four hours after the fire, and four hours after that he’d offered a confession to the murder of Anita Sentalar. Jack Padgett had handled the details of the setup, and recruited Jerome Huggins, but Ramone had fired the killing shot. He’d been paid fifty thousand dollars for the hit by Cancerno. Ramone said he was planning to buy an SUV with the cash. One with leather seats.

  Ramone would still be charged with first-degree homicide, but his confessions carried value. He offered Padgett up for the murder of Larry Rabold and said word of Rabold’s involvement with the corruption task force had spread to Mike Gajovich’s brother, the District Two commander. There was no telling exactly what the Gajovich brothers would be charged with by the time it was all done, but it was safe to say they’d run neither the city nor the police department.

  “If I’ve ever seen a more beat-up pair of guys, I can’t remember the boxing match.”

  Amy stepped into Joe’s room and regarded us with a frown and raised eyebrows. I would have raised my own in response, but they were gone. The fire had taken care of that and left mild burns across my face, neck, and arms. I’d spent an hour in the shower trying to lose the smell of smoke and still hadn’t succeeded.

  Amy took Joe’s hand and squeezed it, smiling at him as she studied the tubes leading from his body.

  “Great to have you back with us,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  You could tell he wanted to say more, but he was fading again, the medication and the trauma beating him back into sleep even as he tried to fight out of it. Amy kissed the back of his hand and placed it gently back on the bed, then stepped across the room to face me. She ran the tips of her fingers lightly over my burns.

  “Make me look rugged, don’t they?” I said. “Sexy.”

  “Keep on telling yourself that, soldier.”

  She dropped her hand, glanced at Joe, whose eyes were closed now, then spoke in a hard-edged whisper.

  “So you want to explain why the hell you needed to call me at five in the morning and make me drive out to see some lunatic living in an abandoned house?”

  “You told him what I asked you to?”

  She nodded. “That he should tell Cal Richards everything he told you, but leave Scott Draper out of it.”

  “And he seemed agreeable?”

  “Absolutely. I drove him to meet Richards. He said he didn’t want to see any other cops until he’d seen Richards.”

  “Good. That’s what I told him to do.” I dropped into one of the chairs at the foot of Joe’s bed, and Amy took the other. She leaned forward and rested her hand on my knee.

  “What happened last night, Lincoln? Three hours after I left the hospital, you’d found Corbett, killed Cancerno, and burned down a building. I’ve got to hear the story.”

  “Hear it, or write it?”

  “Hear it.”

  So I told it. I’d had some practice—Cal Richards alone had made me go through it a half dozen times, and he’d been the third detective to get to me.

  “And what, exactly, was with the message to Corbett?” she aske
d.

  I’d stolen a cop’s cell phone and called her from the bathroom as dawn broke over the city.

  “Cancerno was at the bar to kill Draper,” I said. “I was at the bar because I thought Draper was working with Cancerno. If he ever had been, the partnership no longer seemed to be amicable. I don’t want to drop the hammer on Draper for those fires until I hear why he did it.”

  “Do you know what he’s told Cal Richards?”

  “Draper?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t. But Cal was still asking me about the fires this morning.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Not much. Just pointed out that Cancerno was ready to burn the Hideaway last night. Let him take it from there.”

  “The story will be all over the front page tomorrow,” she said. “I only wrote some of it, but I did offer a headline suggestion for the sidebar: ‘Gradduk Not Guilty.’ ”

  “Got a hell of a good sound to it.”

  We sat quietly for a while and watched Joe. His chest rose and fell under the blankets, his heart thumping away, smooth and steady.

  “He’s going to be okay,” Amy said.

  “Yes. Dr. Crandall’s eight hours of surgery got it done.”

  She kept her hand on my leg. “So it’s over.”

  “Yes,” I said again. It was almost over.

  Sometime that afternoon, while I talked to police and doctors attended to my partner and Scott Draper, Ed Gradduk was buried without ceremony, at his mother’s request.

  It was late the next day before I saw Draper. He called me as soon as he was released from the hospital and asked me to meet him outside. I walked out of Joe’s room and down the steps, came out into a hot, bright day with a sky so blue it seemed artificial.

  Draper was standing at the corner. When I got closer, I saw his face was a ghastly collage of bruises and stitches. There was a cast on his nose and a bandage over his right eye. But the rest of him looked fine, strong and sturdy.