Canary

by Duane Swierczynski

  At their wedding, some asshole Russian disc jockey did this stupid thing where he forced Rem to sit in a chair while Kaz lifted his arm. Ladies and gentlemen, take a good look, because this is the last time Rembrandt here will have the upper hand, har har har, all her fucking Russian mob family laughing their asses off. Well, who has the upper hand now, my bride?

  “Now, here’s how we’re going to proceed.”

  As it turns out, Kaz has her own ideas about how to proceed. She pulls her gun and aims it at her ex-husband.

  I break into Wildey’s home shortly after 5:00 a.m. The block looks abandoned at this hour.

  If I’m going to have any prayer of staying alive and keeping Dad and Marty safe, I need proof. The proof has to be somewhere inside this house. Maybe it’s stacks of cash, maybe it’s another burner phone, maybe it’s a bunch of files. I don’t really have a plan other than gathering up whatever it is, carrying it down to the El, and taking it right to the D.A.’s office in the Widener Building. On my way here, stomping around in my too-tight boots and thin hoodie, I briefly considered going straight to the D.A., camping out in the doorway if I had to. But without proof, did I really have a prayer at untangling a massive police conspiracy?

  Hence the need to break into Wildey’s house.

  It’s the nicest one on the block, but that’s not saying much. Like the one good tooth in a meth addict’s smile. Most of them have been demolished, leaving muddy, weedy lots in their place. Others are still standing but with little more than old paint, grime, and a prayer keeping them up. On the sides of those surviving houses, you can see the phantom images of their former neighbors. Pink paint where a bathroom used to be. Pale green where a kitchen once stood. Then I notice an odd feature on the freestanding houses. Something that would be fine if this were a full block.

  Wildey’s car isn’t out front or anywhere on the block. No doubt he’s out there somewhere looking for me, making sure I’m really dead.

  Still, I probably don’t have much time.

  The house has a neighbor on each side, but both of those buildings are obviously abandoned. I choose the one on the left and make my way through the empty living room, heading upstairs to the back bedroom, where I find a closet. I open the door, and a horrible smell punches me in the nose; something died here a long long time ago. But I hold my breath, step over the carcass (pigeon? squirrel?), and feel the back of the closet. Drywall. At some point these houses were connected by doors; instead of bricking them over, construction crews just put up a sheet of drywall.

  Which I now kick through, using my would-be killer’s boots.

  The room on the other side—in Wildey’s house now—is jammed with filing cabinets and plastic crates full of albums. Jesus, what a hoarder. This is going to make the search for proof a little tricky. And I have no idea how much time I have left when I hear a voice to my right:

  —Jesus Christ!

  Wildey is in the door, slightly crouched, pointing a gun at me.

  I scream and dive back toward the closet, pushing through old clothes in a frenzy, but I can’t move fast enough. Rough hands grab me, pull me back out.

  Wildey yells it over and over again, I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m not gonna hurt you!, hoping that it will sink in before some neighbor calls the police. Finally the words sink in and she stops fighting him. They move back into the back bedroom, which is where he keeps all of his dad’s old shit. Wildey eases back onto a stack of crates while Sarie sits on the one open space on the floor, hugging her knees, staring at nothing in particular.

  “I didn’t think you’d be home. Didn’t see your car.”

  “I use a lot of different cars. How the hell did you get in here?”

  But she ignores the question.

  “You said you’d be listening,” she says quietly. “Where were you?”

  “We were both set up. My lieutenant … she’s crooked. She’s going to pay for what she’s done. You can help me do that.”

  “No.”

  “I know you’ve been through a living hell, Sarie, but listen to me, you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. Lieutenant Mahoney is not the one leaking the information. Her ex-husband was spying on her. Had her apartment bugged. He knew about all of your CIs. Gave their names to the mafia who are muscling into the drug market.”

  Wildey feels the onset of a crushing sensation in his chest.

  “Ex-husband? You’re telling me Captain Rem Mahoney, of Internal fucking Affairs, is behind this?”

  “He’s the one calling the shots, Peter D’Argenio was his second-in-command. D’Argenio’s dead. You can find his body and the missing confidential informants down at Pier Sixty-three, under the abandoned tracks.”

  That crushing feeling only intensifies, like a fucking heart attack, but Wildey knows it’s something else. “Fuck me,” he says, standing up. “Don’t move. Promise me you won’t move until I get back!”

  Sarie doesn’t reply; she rests her head on her knees.

  The moment the door slams shut, I start crying again.

  For me, for Wildey, for Dad and Marty, for you, for this whole fucked-up situation.

  But mostly I cry for Drew—his name was Drew Pike, and I think you would have liked him, Mom. We thought we could save each other, but we underestimated this city and its cruelty.

  Wildey didn’t set me up, but that’s no real comfort. Because the danger’s still out there.

  There’s only one play left, and it makes me sob even harder just thinking about it.

  Wildey kicks in the back door—the wood around the knob splinters. He goes in, gun first. But there’s no real need, because his lieutenant is already dead and her killer, Captain Rembrandt Mahoney, is hopelessly drunk and sobbing and mumbling, I only wanted to see what she’d do, I just wanted to see what she’d do, just wanted to see her … They’re sitting together on the couch, Kaz with her head tilted to one side, Mahoney pressed up against her, like they’d just been watching TV. There are two bullet wounds in the lieutenant’s chest and one in Mahoney’s right arm.

  Wildey calls it in and places Mahoney under arrest.

  By the time Wildey returns home later that morning, he finds two notes. One, slid into his mail slot, is from Kevin Holland:

  Officer Wildey, please contact me immediately. Phone number below. This is in regards to my daughter. If you do not contact me I will be forced to be in contact with your supervisor.

  Sincerely,

  Kevin Holland

  The other is a note placed where Sarie had been sitting, held in place with the corner of an album crate.

  Wildey,

  I had to leave. You’ll understand why soon enough. PLEASE:

  Do not tell anyone I am alive

  Keep the burner with the number I know

  Destroy this note after you read it

  I will explain later. Sorry I doubted you. Also, I took one of your burner phones and some clothes. It’s cold out there.

  #137

  TRY ANOTHER WORLD

  NORTH PHILADELPHIA

  CHRISTMAS EVE

  The memorial service is bullshit.

  Not that it isn’t nice or that the university hasn’t put real effort into it (even the student choir showed up to the tiny chapel in the basement of College Hall). But Kevin Holland knows it is bullshit because a) his daughter is not dead, he just knows it, and no, this is not another case of The Fiction, and b) his daughter is not a criminal, even though this is how she’s being presented.

  The “official” story from the Philadelphia Police Department is that Serafina Holland was busted while transporting drugs for her boyfriend, Andrew Pike, and agreed to work as a confidential informant to avoid prosecution. Holland also embezzled $2,000 from the bursar’s office to help Pike pay off a drug debt. However, Pike’s dealer, real estate agent Charles Chaykin, became aware of Holland’s status as a CI, and is believed to have ordered the murder of Andrew Pike, whose body was found in a
stash house in Pennsport on Friday, December 13. Holland is missing and presumed dead. Chaykin is the prime suspect and is actively being sought by authorities.

  Kevin knows this story is bullshit because of Sarie’s journals.

  So his daughter’s memorial service, while touching, is simply part of one big Fiction.

  Kevin scans the interior of the chapel. Wildey is here, bowing his head as the choir sings “Ave Maria.” All of Sarie’s professors are present, with the exception of Professor Chaykin, of course, who promptly resigned (and last Kevin heard was assaulted by persons unknown and is currently under police protection). To Kevin’s left is Marty, whose strength and clear thinking through all of this still have him stunned. To his right is Tammy, who’s been spending a lot of time at the Holland house lately. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe she misses her friend; either way, Kevin is happy to have her around.

  After the service, they walk back to guest parking. Wildey approaches.

  “Hey.”

  “Any word?” Kevin asks.

  “Nothing yet.”

  The day it all happened (Friday the thirteenth, no less) Wildey finally showed up at Kevin’s house in person. Kevin grappled with the urge to pummel the shit out of the motherfucker, demand to know what he did with Sarie, why the fuck didn’t he encourage her to come clean, to ask for help instead of taking this on by herself … but he kept his cool. Wildey, though apologetic, walked in armed with the “official” Philly PD story. Though instead of the “presumed dead” part, he insisted that Sarie was alive and would be located. He’d devote his days to finding her.

  “Bullshit,” Kevin said.

  “Mr. Holland, I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now, but listen to me. Your daughter is the smartest, toughest, and most resourceful person I know and—”

  “Yeah, I know. Which is why I’m calling you on your bullshit.”

  And then he showed him the stack of blue exam book journals.

  “What’s that?” Wildey asked quietly.

  “Pretty much everything,” Kevin replied.

  After a moment of stunned silence, Wildey started grilling Kevin on how much of his investigation was in those blue exam books. Kevin gave Wildey enough to make him drop the official line.

  “What I’m about to tell you has to stay between us,” Wildey said.

  Kevin told him, “We’ll see about that.”

  Wildey shook his head. “No. Really. You’re going to want it that way.”

  By the end of the conversation, Kevin felt like he’d been whacked upside the head with a sledgehammer. Sarie was gone because Sarie knew she had to stay gone. After all, you can’t prosecute someone for murder when they’re missing and presumed dead.

  “This is insane … this is fucking insane!”

  Wildey told him they both had their fingers on the trigger. Nobody, from the D.A. on up, wanted the truth about Captain Rem Mahoney’s ties to organized crime—it would be a fatal blow to a city already reeling from dozens of police scandals. This, though, would be the nuke that could bring a department down. And Kevin sure as shit didn’t want his daughter tried for murder—even though it was arguably self-defense, her prints were on that Glock, and her victim had no weapons.

  “So where is she now? What is she going to do?”

  “She told me she wants to make up for her sins,” Wildey said, “and that she’d be in touch.”

  “Jesus …”

  “Like I said, Mr. Holland, your daughter is the smartest, toughest, and most resourceful person I know.”

  That was eleven days ago. And now Wildey is saying there’s still no word. Laura, our daughter is somewhere out there, alone, this huge weight on her shoulders, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it.

  “Happy holidays to you, Officer Wildey.”

  “You too, man.”

  FORT LAUDERDALE, SLIP F-18

  Yo ho ho ho!

  Now this is where Ringo should have landed after his long stint in Buttfuck, Kansas. Look at that sun sparkling off those pristine white cruisers! Look at all that money bobbing up and down on the clear blue water! Sure, fucking off to Florida is a cliché, but man, sometimes the clichés are that way for a reason. Florida, man, the Sunshine State, the Land of Good Living, also happens to be a fairly convenient way to flee the country, too. Especially if you have your own boat like this motherfucker here, this Charles Chaykin.

  Everybody’s looking for you, Chuck. But listen up: Your secret’s safe. Because even with a couple of slugs in me, I had enough left in the tank to go have a little talk with your dorky brother. He didn’t give you up right away. Only after a couple of minutes (and teeth). Oh, and don’t worry about him talking to the police. I whispered in his ear a little and told him how that would be a seriously bad idea.

  Ringo and Charles, aka Chuckie Morphine, need some quality time together.

  Ringo won’t kill him right away. That would be foolish. First of all, he needs somebody to teach him how to drive a boat this size. (Or do you pilot a boat? Steer a boat? Ringo reminds himself to ask.) And it’ll be smarter to heave his tortured, broken corpse as far out into the ocean as possible. Forget the Lobster Trap; the Atlantic can’t be beat when it comes to chump dumping.

  Ringo boards the ship, which Chuckie has named KEEPIN’ IT REAL (ESTATE). Fuck—this dude seriously needs to die for that alone.

  Anyway, Merry Christmas, Serafina Holland.

  “Yo ho ho ho!” Ringo calls out, as a courtesy.

  FOX CHASE

  A mutant canary knocks on the front door of the MI6 building.

  Canaries? Marty didn’t add any canaries to this level. He debates sending some of his mutant sheep up there to take care of his avian problem but then realizes something. Holy shit. No way …

  His avatar makes it to the front door just in time to watch the canary fly away. But the bird has buried something in the front lawn. Marty’s av marches over and digs it up.

  There’s a password-protected message: five digits. Marty ponders that one for a while before realizing there can only be one possibility. He thumbs: C-I-1-3-7.

  HI MARTY. LOVE YOU. MERRY CHRISTMAS

  Marty wants to scream with joy, but he’s afraid he’ll wake Dad and Tammy up. They’d both turned in, leaving Marty to leave out the cookies and milk (even though he totally knows the deal with that) and play a little Diggit before going to sleep.

  On second thought, to hell with that. Marty runs to tell his father the news. He swears, no more secrets between them ever again.

  DECEMBER 25

  Dear Mom,

  I wish I’d asked you more about Mexico when you were alive. It’s truly beautiful here.

  I won’t be writing to you anymore; I hope you understand. But words on a page are very risky where I am now. (Going to burn this the moment I finish it, along with the rest of the pages, but I thought you wouldn’t be able to hear this if I didn’t write down the words. It’s kind of our thing.) So much has happened over the last few weeks, and I can’t possibly tell you everything except the highlights:

  I am safe and gainfully employed and well fed and warm. Most importantly, I know that Dad and Marty will be safe from now on.

  The guy who I referred to as Partyman before is looking after me. After I reached out to him on that horrible day, he got me out of Philly and found me this job. He says he’s very impressed with how quickly I’ve adjusted. (I finally know his real name but don’t want to risk writing it down, even once.) No, he’s not an undercover cop or anything. He actually works for the cartels, traveling around, looking for new business opportunities. The cartel that employs him—well, us—is VERY interested in Philadelphia. Somehow he knew about my past, about you, and it turns out that you were involved with a cartel, so he sees me as a kind of good omen. But mostly, he says he likes how my brain works, and I’m sort of his protégé. In exchange, Partyman will see to it that Dad and Marty are kept safe. Nobody will touch them, so don’t worry.

  I learned more in
the past two weeks than I have during thirteen and a half years of school. Does this say something about me, or about school? Maybe both? Do I take after you, or Dad? I guess that remains to be seen.

  Did I mention I was warm? I never want to be cold again. I don’t think my blood was meant for Philadelphia. I have more of you in me than I thought.

  (I always wanted to go to California. Baja California counts, right?)

  I am at peace with what I’ve done, what I must do, and who I am.

  If you see Drew, tell him I’m sorry. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, and I will love him forever for trying to save me.

  No matter what you hear about me, no matter what I may do, know that I am trying to do the right thing, just like you and Dad taught me.

  I love you,

  Serafina

  THE BADLANDS

  CHRISTMAS

  Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Wildey tours the desperate streets of the Badlands. Busy, even on this oh-so-holy night. There will always be people looking to get their high on. Not that he’s concerned with that right now. He’s headed to pick up his Auntie M. for Christmas dinner. He thought about making something at home, but the hell with that. He’s going to take her to a nice restaurant. There are a few open for people like them, people without big families. As much as possible, Wildey wants to enjoy the yuletide calm before the storm.