by Reed Arvin
Rabbit turned to Briah, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. But in that awful moment between father and son, Pope had loosened his grip. Michele wrenched free and lunged in front of Briah, taking the bullet full in her own chest. The bullet exploded through her, knocking her backward and collapsing her against the filthy wall. She slammed hard against the brick, her breath forced outward in a great sigh. She looked straight ahead in a frightened, surprised stare, and slid downward toward the pavement. Briah, in shock to have met and lost her mother in a terrible handful of moments, stumbled and fell to the concrete, trembling and sighing in a heap.
Rabbit stared at Michele and Briah, then dropped the gun. He turned woodenly back to his father, his expression blank. He had shut down, his conscience and mind seared into silence. Pope didn’t hesitate. He made a lightning-quick move toward the gun. The world turned horrible again, when defending myself meant killing a man in front of his own son. And in spite of the chaos unfolding that night, I knew that inside the fourteen-year-old, budding sociopath called Rabbit, there was still a living, breathing, confused child who desperately wanted to live something like an ordinary life. The question that I had milliseconds to decide was whether or not I was willing to die for that vision.
There was a tremble in my soul, a crack of sound, and my bullet sent Jamal Pope to hell.
The sirens were coming. Rabbit was long gone, and I had no ability to follow. My leg was bleeding profusely, and I couldn’t walk anymore. I made my way to Michele, pulling her halfway into my lap. I held her, stroking her hair. Her eyes fluttered open and settled on me. She smiled, reached up, and touched my face. I took her hand, kissed it, and replaced it by her side. I had finally made peace with loving her, and I was losing her the same day. It was unbearable.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said, pressing her fingers inside mine. “You’re going to be fine.”
“My baby? I saw...”
“She’s all right,” I said. “Nothing happened to her.”
She squeezed my hand. “Can she see me? Jack, darling, I don’t want her to see me like this.”
I looked across the dark alley to where Briah lay unconscious about fifteen yards away. “No. She’s ... she can’t see us. She’s fine.”
Michele closed her eyes. Her breathing became labored, her chest rising and falling with the effort. She grimaced as pain shot through her body, then let her go. Her eyes opened again, more slowly this time. “I’m back in the Glen, Jack,” she said. Her voice was getting whispery now, thinning out as her life ebbed. “Back where I started. It’s like nothing happened. I did nothing with my life.”
I reached down and held her face in my hand. The pain in my leg was like a hot iron. “You made the most beautiful sound in the world,” I said. “You made music for the angels.” She smiled then, and my own resolve to be strong crumbled. I began to weep. “I wanted to protect you,” I said. “I wanted to protect you so much.”
She squeezed my hand weakly and said, “It’s all right, darling. It’s all right.” The sirens had come closer, and a crowd had tentatively begun to gather. With the police arriving, even Pope’s threats wouldn’t keep people away. I held Michele closer, shielding her from view. She whispered something I couldn’t quite make out. I leaned down, and she breathed into my ear, “You’ll take care of her, won’t you, Jack? You’ll take care of my baby?”
“Yes, sweetheart. I promise.” With those words, another woman entered my life.
Michele’s hand relaxed. She coughed, her body convulsing gently with the exhalation. A thin line of blood appeared at her mouth. I reached down and dabbed it away with my shirt. I couldn’t bear the sight of her life draining away. It was like a wound on my own body, a rent across my own soul. I heard car tires screech; it would all be over soon, just a few more seconds. A harsh light flooded the scene, forcing me to squint. In the glare, I saw that Michele’s blood had moved beyond her soaked clothing, gathering in an awful pool beside her body. She spoke again, her voice barely audible. “The bullet was Briah’s,” she said. “It was for Briah.”
I kissed her forehead. “That’s right, sweetheart. You saved her life. She’s going to be fine.”
“I was a good mother then, wasn’t I, Jack? A good mother?”
I pulled her closer. “Yes, sweetheart. You were a very good mother.”
A flashlight forced my hand up to shield my eyes. “Police,” a hard, masculine voice said from behind the light. “Let her go and lay down on your stomach.”
“It’s time to go,” Michele said. “Time to let go.”
I ignored the police, rocking her gently. “That day, at my apartment. You told me you loved me.”
“I remember.”
“You said not to say it back. You said it was easier.”
“Yes.” Her voice was a whisper.
“I do. I want you to know. I do, more than anything.” She looked into my eyes, and I knew she understood. “You’re going to be fine, sweetheart,” I said. “The ambulance is on the way.”
I held her gently, my heart breaking into pieces. I wanted to go back in time, to our day in Virginia Highlands, the day when we were perfectly happy and nothing else existed but the sweet exhilaration of each other’s presence. I wanted to change everything that happened from that point on, to walk together out of Atlanta and vanish into some quiet, safe world where we could love each other. But it was too late for that. I gently moved the hair from Michele’s face, and she looked up at me, her eyes dimming. I watched the light in her go out, the muscles relaxing, her head gently falling back against my chest. Her breathing slowed, and then, with a great sigh, she let go. I reached out and gently closed her eyes, still rocking her in my arms. I felt the cop’s hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t rough; he realized he had stepped into something finally, ultimately, personal. I could hear the second siren, the ambulance that would be far too late.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered to her. “I’m sorry.” There was some confusion, the shock of unknown people pushing near us. The police were in force now, four or five officers rapidly cordoning off the area. The cop knelt down beside me. “You’re hit. The ambulance is on the way. Two minutes.” I nodded. “The lady,” the cop said. “Who is it?”
I looked up at the cop, who was asking a question it would take a book to answer. Michele had spent twenty-eight years trying to answer it, remaking herself into a magnificent woman. Now she had come home, one more victim of the world she had risked everything to leave behind. She’s the Queen, I thought. The Queen of McDaniel Glen. But in the end, I gave the answer that would protect her memory the longest. “Fields,” I answered. “T’aniqua Fields.” There was another shooting pain through my leg, and darkness overtook me. The cop caught Michele in his hands, and I fell unconscious onto the pavement.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A DIM GLOW became brighter, its light beginning on the outside of my vision, gently penetrating and illuminating inward, growing, until I could feel the brightness through closed eyelids. I fluttered my eyes open, squinting in the harsh, fluorescent lights of a hospital emergency room. Billy Little, his face concerned, was staring into my face. He peered at me a moment, then said, “Yeah, he’s coming around. Come take a look.” A young, Arab-looking man, no more than twenty-five, appeared over Billy’s shoulder. “That’s fine, then,” he said, in a thick British accent. “The wound drew a lot of blood, but it wasn’t that deep. Another half unit, and he’ll be fine.”
I looked at the doctor, trying to figure out how I had got there. I felt a throbbing in my leg, and the pain brought everything back to me; there was the grapple with Pope, the awful, frozen moment when Rabbit fired his gun. And above all, there was the crushing memory of Michele in my arms, her life ebbing out of her in an unstoppable stream.
Billy took the doctor’s place in my field of vision. He touched my shoulder. “You haven’t been acting very sensibly lately, Counselor,” he said. “I don’t expect to be making hospital visits to lawyer
s.”
“Sorry.” The word came out in a slur. “What are you doing here?”
“When the doctor says you’re able, we’re going to have a long talk about why I’m not going to charge you with murdering Jamal Pope,” he said. “Not that I mind him being dead.”
“It was self-defense,” I said, a little clearer.
“Of that, I have no doubt. Get some rest.” The doctor told Billy that was enough, and I slipped back into sleep. It was dark, and full of angry dreams. When I awoke, there was early-morning sunlight coming in my room; apparently, I had slept through the night. A new doctor came in shortly after I awoke to check on me. He examined me briefly, and told a nurse to unhook my IV. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Hammond,” he said, looking at my chart. “The bullet passed through your lower left thigh, leaving two nice clean holes. We’ve repaired the vein and replaced your plasma. You’re going to be fine.”
“When can I leave?”
“In a few hours. Although I’d say your marathon days are over for a while.”
I nodded, and he left. My head was clearing, as evidenced by the throbbing in my leg. I didn’t ask for any painkillers; I was willing to trade the discomfort for awareness. A few minutes after the doctor finished, Robinson’s face appeared. He looked pale and anxious.
“My God, Jack,” he said. “What happened to you?”
“You first,” I said. “How are you?”
“Me? Between throwing up and running tests, it was one hell of a night. But I’m okay.”
“And?”
Robinson smiled with the innocent pleasure of a child. “We got the results from NIH an hour ago. It’s just like I said. Those patients were screened, and Ralston and Stephens are going down.”
I closed my eyes, letting myself relax into the hospital bed pillow. They’re going down. I let that news settle on my wounds, both external and internal. It would be enough to ease the pain in my leg. It would fall far short of erasing the ache in my soul. Suddenly, I opened my eyes. “Where’s Michael?”
Robinson put his hand on my shoulder. “I know about the calendar,” he said quietly. “He confessed, about halfway through the night.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“He was scared, and I couldn’t have done what had to be done without him. Yeah. We’re okay.”
Nightmare appeared from behind Robinson, the frazzled look of an all-nighter on him. “Hey,” he said. “You look even worse than usual, dude. And that’s saying a lot.”
“You didn’t sell us out, Michael. I’m grateful.”
Michael flushed, his pale skin reddening. “Maybe I’ll go straight for a while,” he said. “See how I like it.” He smiled. “But don’t get used to it, dude. The dark side is strong.”
I sat up cautiously, relieved that all my parts moved as ordered. “What time is it?”
“About seven in the morning,” Robinson said. “They’ll probably want to keep you a few more hours, just to be safe.”
“Get my stuff, because we’re leaving now.”
Robinson looked surprised. “Not likely,” he said. “You don’t want to end up back here with your leg bleeding again.”
“Then tell them to get in here and wrap it.” I said. “We’ve got two hours to get to Nicole Frost’s office at Shearson Lehman. All of us do.” I looked at Michael. “Did you get the money together, like I told you?”
Michael nodded. “Thirty-eight hundred bucks. It’s all I could get.”
“It’ll have to do.” I turned to Robinson. “Did Michael tell you?”
“Yeah. What’s this all about?”
“Did you get it?”
“I don’t have any real money, Jack. I’ve mostly been getting paid in Grayton stock. It seemed like a good idea at the time, when it was selling at about thirty.”
“What’s it at now?”
“About five.”
“How many shares do you have?”
Robinson shrugged. “There was the signing bonus, and everything since then . . . about a hundred and sixty-eight thousand shares, all together.”
I was too tired to do the math, but I knew it would be enough. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll have to explain while we travel.”
“It’s all I have,” Robinson said. “It’s my retirement.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do. But if you can trust me, you’re going to be glad you did.”
Robinson watched me thoughtfully a moment, then nodded. “When I met you I was finished. The only thing left was the funeral. Thanks to you, I’ve got my life back. So yeah, I can trust you.”
“Good. Get me wrapped up, and get Detective Little over here. In exchange for us delivering him on a silver platter the case that makes him a lieutenant, he’s going to do us a little favor. And that favor is going to pay you both back for helping me.”
The next few hours were lived in spite of a broken heart. There would be time for grief, I knew that. And it would take the shape and form that it took. But for a few hours, I had no choice but to cordon off a seared part of my heart and stay focused. Because I was going to play one final card, and the timing had to be exactly right.
At nine o’clock, Nightmare, Robinson, and I—leg tightly wrapped, and helped by a cane—stood in the lobby of Atlanta’s Shearson Lehman offices, looking like hell. We had arrived with not a minute to spare, so no one had cleaned up from the night before. My leg was in a tight bandage, throbbing like crazy; Robinson, managing under the effects of sleep deprivation and a powerful antiviral drug, looked like walking death; Nightmare, meanwhile, was disturbing the ambience of one of Atlanta’s most conservative business environments with his previous day’s choice of army fatigue pants and a sleeveless, orange-and-black T-shirt for the band System of a Down. Predictably, he was nervous as hell. “Explain this to me again,” he said, vibrating slightly.
“I’ve gone over it the whole way over here,” I said.
“I know. But there was something about how we might get crushed.”
“Or go to jail,” Robinson said. “He said that, too.”
I turned and faced them both. “You don’t have to do this. We can walk back out the door. I just wanted to pay you back for what you did. If this doesn’t work for you, I understand. It’s all I’ve got.” After a moment Robinson nodded, and eventually Nightmare did the same. “Okay,” I said. “Horizn is going public today. We’re going to buy it as high as we can, and sell it short. We’re betting the stock will go down.”
“And we’re buying it on margin, which lets us control way more stock than we can actually afford,” Nightmare said slowly.
I nodded. “We buy at a set price, and for every dollar it goes down after that, we win.”
“And if it doesn’t go down?” Nightmare asked.
“We’re crushed,” I said, wincing. My leg was hurting like hell. “They don’t play nice around here.”
“And it’s not going to be insider trading.” Robinson said, doubtfully.
“That’s right.”
“Because of the timing.”
“Correct.”
Robinson looked dubious. “Are you sure they won’t cancel the IPO after everything that’s happened?”
I shook my head. “You don’t stop an IPO a few hours before it’s scheduled. Anyway, as far as Stephens knows, everything went as planned. He may have tried to reach Pope, but he isn’t going to pull the plug based on not getting a phone call returned. He’s millions into investment banker fees, and pulling the plug would put a light on them that there’s no way they could survive. Trust me. This IPO is going off, without a doubt.”
The large doors behind us opened, and Nicole walked in with her usual cheery impeccability. She saw us and stopped cold. “Jack?” She looked at the bandage. “Oh, my God. What happened to you?”
There wasn’t time for a long explanation, so I skipped it. “We want to open a margin account.” Nicole laughed nervously, as though she’d decided I had lost my mind. “We’re serious,” I
said. “And we’re in kind of a hurry.”
The laughter stopped. “Have you looked at yourselves?”
“For the sum of two million, five hundred and thirty-one thousand, four hundred dollars, please.”
There was a hushed silence, then she grabbed my arm and whispered, “Are you crazy, Jack? I know things have been bad, but playing the market on margin isn’t the answer.” She pointed to Nightmare and Robinson. “Who are these people, and what are they doing here?”
“There’s collateral,” I said. “One hundred and sixty-eight thousand shares of Grayton Pharmaceutical. It’s trading at about five.” Nicole’s mouth, then in the process of reloading, snapped shut. “We also have a cashier’s check for thirty-eight hundred dollars, courtesy of my business associate, Mr. Michael Harrod. Michael, shake hands with your new broker.”
Michael stuck out his hand like a Rockefeller. Nicole regarded it warily, shook it, and looked like she wanted a washrag. The doors behind us opened again, and several impeccably dressed executives spilled out into the lobby. “You’d better come upstairs, Jack,” she said. “You and your friends aren’t doing my image any good.”
Nicole bundled us onto the elevator, which we rode up to the second floor. The doors opened, and we walked into the catwalk overlooking the Atlanta trading room at Shearson Lehman, a place that makes NASA look old-fashioned. It’s a spotless world in which row after row of gleaming plasma screens monitor the continuous transfer of the world’s wealth from one set of hands to another, mostly in an upward direction. The executive offices, including Nicole’s, look down on the traders’ area like Romans on gladiators. And as at the Coliseum, at the end of every trading day there would be the dead, the wounded, and the privileged winners. It was Nicole’s job to make sure her clients stayed firmly in the latter group.
