The Darkness Inside: Writer's Cut

by John Rickards

  Another minute’s battering at the main entrance was eventually rewarded. One door opened a crack and a bald guy with a face like a grizzly with a sore ass said, “Yeah? What?”

  “I’m looking for Gabriel Heller.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He used to own this place. Maybe still does.”

  The door opened further so the guy could loom properly. He had a body to match his face. Punching him would probably have been like hitting a sack full of lead. “Dorian Robertson’s the manager here,” he said. “He runs this club. Who the fuck are you?”

  He didn’t look like the sort of guy to follow the news. “Brian Tucker,” I said. “Mr Heller and I have a matter we need to urgently discuss.”

  “Told you, I never heard of him.”

  “Maybe you could ask your manager if he has a number I could call Mr Heller on. I’m sure he’ll have heard of him.”

  “Maybe you could get lost.”

  “Maybe Mr Heller would appreciate it if you’d be more helpful. I’m sure he wouldn’t want our business together delayed.”

  The guy glared at me for a second, then vanished back inside, letting the door thump closed behind him. I stood on the street corner in the cold. There was some passing traffic at the next intersection along, but this dead block might as well have been something out of a Western, emptied before the gunfight at High Noon.

  “What can I do for you, Mr Tucker?”

  A blonde guy in a good suit, no tie, was in the doorway. About my age, an inch or two taller, wiry. Eyes like chipped marbles, sizing me up. I figured this was the grizzly’s handler. If he recognized Tucker’s name, he didn’t show it.

  “Mr Robertson?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I need to speak to Gabriel Heller.”

  “So Jerry tells me.”

  “I was hoping you could help me.”

  He shifted his balance, moved the weight onto his back foot. “Mr Heller no longer runs this establishment.”

  “But he used to. Maybe you have a phone number for him, or the name of one of the places he still runs.”

  “What’s your business with him?”

  “He wants to talk to me. We have some urgent things to discuss.”

  Dorian shrugged. “If he wants to talk to you, why hasn’t he contacted you?”

  “He tried a couple of days ago. But his messengers left before they could tell me where to reach him.”

  “How careless.”

  I smiled. “Quite.”

  “Well, Mr Tucker, I’m busy right now, but I’ll have a look see if I can find some contact details for him later today. Where can I reach you when I have them?”

  “I’m a busy man too, Mr Robertson. How about I give you a call later, see if you have anything for me.”

  He nodded, handed me a card. “Of course. If I find anything I can’t give you over the phone, maybe you could drop by again and pick it up.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” I stopped smiling. “Speak to you later, Mr Robertson.”

  I heard the door close behind me as I walked away.

  38.

  “Police have released details of a man they wish to question in connection with a murder in Worcester two days ago. Brian Tucker, fifty-two, was killed at his home late on Monday night. Police want to speak to Alex Rourke, a former FBI agent, in connection with the murder.”

  Cut to the same footage of me and Downes walking into MCI-Ashworth on that first blustery morning. The anchorwoman continued speaking in voiceover as it replayed twice and froze on my face. “Rourke was in the news recently when the FBI brought him in to speak to convicted killer Cody Williams in jail at the request of the families of his suspected victims. Rourke’s efforts – controversial in some quarters,” she said as the picture cut to shots of the protesters outside the jail, “failed, however. Detective Perigo from Worcester Police Department said that Rourke may still be in the Boston metropolitan area or elsewhere in eastern New England.”

  Cut to a still photo. Tucker. The picture looked a few years out of date. Professional job, probably one he’d used for the office, something like that. “Brian Tucker was a successful and respected property developer who had lived in Worcester for over twenty years. Police do not yet know why he was murdered.”

  She turned to her fellow anchor with a broad smile. “Mike,” she said.

  I stopped paying attention. Lay back on the bed with my stomach a cold, hollow pit. Nothing made you feel more like a wanted man than being plastered all over the news. And knowing that anyone or everyone you met might have seen it as well. A city full of hungry eyes. Remembering, reporting.

  And somewhere out there was Goddard. Had he put Heller on to me? Have they been following me? How did the two of them tie together? Knowing that Goddard had paid such direct attention to me, and to removing me from his path, I felt like I should be able to touch him. But I couldn’t picture the guy at all. He was formless, intangible. A ghost. A creature of smoke. An illusion.

  Two days of being on the run. Two days of keeping to the hotel except to talk to lowlifes in shitholes or on the phone. The rest of the time spent gnawing on my nerves and jumping whenever I heard a police siren in the streets nearby. No wonder most crooks on the run got caught when they did something stupid, let their guard slip to go out drinking or take in a movie, some other normal social activity, and someone recognized them. Just because they’d wanted to feel like part of the human race again.

  Cabin fever set in quickly. All you heard at night was the sound of your own thoughts scratching at the inside of your skull and your own heart pounding with fear. You were utterly alone, and there was no one that you could trust not to turn on you. No support. No one to turn to. No one to care what happened to you, and the entire world against you. And everything I did, everyone I spoke to on Heller’s trail, only ratcheted the risk of discovery up another notch.

  I tried to shake off that feeling before it set in hard. I had time to kill anyway before I called Robertson. He should have had a chance to speak to Heller; with the way he’d acted there was no way they weren’t connected. So I went for a walk in the rough direction of the city centre and the harbor beyond, to find a payphone, make arrangements.

  I used to love this city at night.

  The curious mix of old and new as you near the financial district and the Common. The winding streets of the old core of Boston. Weathered brickwork, iron railings. That feeling of age, solidity, continuity. Like returning to the house you’d grown up in, it had a sense of permanence and comfort, even when you were bitching about its faults or cursing your fellow inhabitants.

  Now it smelled of cold water and empty air, and felt so delicate and fragile that I could have sent the whole thing crashing down with one wrong glance. As if the cracks in the paving and between each brick of each building were widening like fault lines, slowly tearing themselves to pieces before my eyes. And behind them was just rust and rot and blood.

  Four women spilled out of a bar on Chambers Street, mid-joke, faces raised in laughter. The air momentarily flushed warm and carried the scent of beer casks from inside and perfume from the quartet. The girl at the back, quieter than her companions, glanced at me as we passed, her eyes still smiling from the joke. That brief meeting of gazes, the same primal judging and measuring trick our animal ancestors were pulling millions of years before. That tiny fraction of time between one footstep and the next, enough to meet, fall in love, fade, and part before we vanished from each other forever.

  I cut myself off from more of those moments. Lowered my gaze, not making contact with anyone. Imagining the dark glittering of dozens of eyes on me everywhere I go. Picturing every passer-by stopping behind me, thinking, “Don’t I know him from somewhere? Didn’t I see him on TV earlier?”

  Waiting for someone to shout my name.

  Waiting for the sounds of pursuit.

  This feeling grew far worse on the couple of occasions a police cruiser rolled past.
I knew I was just another night-time pedestrian and they weren’t even looking at me, but I still felt the urge to dive into the shadows. At one intersection I saw two beat cops standing on the street corner. I crossed over rather than walk past them.

  By the waterfront, within spitting distance of the Long Wharf and the ugly upturned hull-like shape of the Marriott that protruded from its centre, I found myself walking through sparse crowds at a miniature fairground set up on the wet paving stones. Lights from the half dozen or so rides cast long, shimmering lines of color on the harbor water and the city’s regular noise was drowned out by piped music, rattling machinery and the voices children somewhere within the neon whirl.

  I found a payphone by the harbor railings and made the call.

  “Mr Robertson.”

  “Mr Tucker.”

  “Have you found that information I was looking for yet?”

  “Maybe, maybe,” he said. “I’ve got a package that might help you. Come down to the club and you can have it.”

  Where Heller’s guys could wait for me in comfort, I figured. I said, “That’s quite a walk and I don’t have a car.”

  “The city has many fine taxi companies.”

  “I’ve only got the change for one ride and I have to get home again.”

  “I pity you, facing such a dilemma.”

  “I have a better idea,” I said. “Have someone drop it with me. I’ll be near the entrance to the Long Wharf Marriott. Don’t take too long, either — it’s almost my bedtime and I’ll have to go home.”

  After I hung up, I figured I had at least fifteen, twenty minutes before anyone showed up looking for me. I bought a couple of hot dogs and found a spot where I could see the Marriott to eat them, looking out over the water.

  I pictured myself diving in, letting my lungs fill. Washing away all the problems. The ultimate solution.

  What a fucking mess I’ve made of all this, I heard myself thinking. Everything. Holly gone, maybe already dead, Goddard free, Cody laughing at me. And when they catch me, everything’ll come out. The whole lot will come crashing down.

  If the water had any advice for me, it kept it to itself.

  Stood there a while after I finished my dinner, mind empty. I checked my watch and saw that it was time to get into place, although I couldn’t see anyone hovering near the hotel doors just yet. I turned away, back towards the bright lights of the fairground.

  I was weaving through the rides when the cop saw me.

  39.

  He was ambling past the stalls with a beat officer’s gait. A few yards behind him, hurrying to catch up, was his partner carrying two newly-bought cups of coffee. For a brief moment he looked my way and I lowered my eyes, tried to look inconspicuous, as I turned away from him and kept walking.

  Past a half dozen people waiting by the side of a spinning teacup ride. All quiet behind me, and maybe he hadn’t recognized me after all.

  I heard the “Hey!” as I was approaching a cotton candy stand.

  Don’t flinch, don’t speed up. Don’t run. Crowds always looked at a running man. Instead, with thin lines of raw adrenaline pounding through my arteries, I made a right, between the teacups and the cotton candy. I jogged across the road through a narrow gap between passing vehicles.

  “Hey! Stop! Police!” from behind me as I dodged between a bus and an oncoming Chevy. Kept walking, briskly, without looking back. The traffic noise didn’t let up until I was almost at the corner of the restaurant opposite the fairground. Then I heard horns blare, cars stopping. I pictured the two cops holding them up, hands outstretched, as they crossed in my wake.

  I dived into the alley that ran next to the restaurant and, safely out of the way of the general public, ran like hell.

  I sprinted down the canyon between buildings, cut left where the alleyway turned, and skidded to a walk about a yard from where it spilled out onto the street beyond. I heard the echoing rap rap rap of running feet behind me as I strode briskly away and hailed a passing cab.

  The two cops emerged, out of breath and staring hungrily around, as I closed the door and the taxi pulled away in the direction of North Station. There was plenty of civilian traffic, but no squad cars o my trail. From the station, a second cab took me to a spot four blocks from my hotel.

  The night had grown colder, and this part of town was far quieter than the centre. The adrenaline rush from the waterfront had turned sour, and although my ears jumped at every little noise around me, what I felt most was tiredness.

  The taxi had just vanished from sight when a black BMW cruised past me at speed and skidded to a halt on the sidewalk a few yards ahead. Three big guys in suits jumped out, two of them carrying guns and all of them looking at me.

  40.

  For a moment we stared at each other. Six eyes boring into mine. Hard as steel. Unflinching. Then I vaulted over the chain-link fence next to me and pounded across the parking lot beyond. One of them shouted, “Fuck!” and I heard the fence screaming in protest as they climbed after me. No one shot.

  Skidded round the side of a darkened convenience store, hoping for a back way off the lot. Running footsteps echoing in the night air. A car engine, probably the BMW, near the other end of the building. Past a couple of dumpsters, and I heard a woman’s voice suddenly cry out in anger or protest. The deep rumble of a man replying, tone heavy with threat.

  Between the back wall of the store and a sedan of some kind was a girl I figured for a hooker arguing with a big guy in a sports jacket. He had one fist raised beside his head.

  “Victor, you fuck, I paid you everything I owed. You give the rest…”

  Her voice died suddenly as she saw me running towards them and the back entrance of the parking lot. Victor was about to say something pertinent, probably about minding my own business, when the BMW rounded the far corner and screeched to a halt, lights blazing. He shut his mouth again. A fourth guy in a suit popped up from the driver’s side of the car with a gun in his hand. I heard the other three behind me, saw the hooker’s shocked eyes flicker past me to the pursuing pack.

  The math said I either surrendered or got shot. Or first one, then the other. That I wasn't going to make it off this lot without dealing with the suits.

  The math said if I tried to charge the guy by the Beamer, him or his friends would start firing.

  But instinct said they hadn’t shot me yet, so they wanted me alive. An edge, maybe.

  Victor was obviously slower on the uptake than everyone else. He stared at the suits, then rounded on the girl and yelled, “You call the cops? You fucking bitch!” She doubled up and collapsed to the ground as Victor slammed his fist into her stomach. “Fucking set me up!”

  The BMW driver’s eyes slipped in his direction, and by the time his attention was back on me and the gun, I was crashing full tilt into the car door with all my weight. The door rammed him back against the frame with an ear-grating crunch and his gun went skittering into the darkness.

  I’d been planning to follow up with a kick to the head, but as he dropped he was making horrible roaring, rasping noises with each labored breath like a lung had gone or his throat was crushed and I didn’t bother.

  Then someone punched me in the kidney like a kick from a horse and I bit gravel. A couple more blows, one to the base of my spine, one to the thigh. They hurt like hell, although the pulsing agony from the first one still came through strongest. Someone huffing and swearing above me. My arms balled behind my head and my still-bruised neck. Somewhere upstairs, someone was saying, “Hey, easy there.”

  Kick. “Fuck easy. Look what he did to Jack.” Kick.

  “One piece, remember, the boss said.”

  “He’ll live.” Kick. I tried to twist round, get into a position where I could catch the guy’s foot, haul him off balance, maybe fight back.

  “Mr Heller wants to have a word with you,” the third suit said. “He’s not—”

  There was a pock like someone banging two bricks together and the voice cut out.
A wet gurgle and the taste of copper on the air, and he collapsed to the floor next to me with a hole in his throat.

  Past the slumped form of the driver I saw a figure moving. A man’s silhouette picked out for a second as he stepped through the thin pool of light cast by one of the dim security bulbs at the back of the store. Coat flapping behind him as he ran. His movements were smooth, practiced. He swung his outstretched hand up and round like he was casting a rose into an invisible audience. There were another two pocks from the gun in his fist and something wet hit the asphalt behind me.

  The third suit, the one who’d been kicking me, finally freed his weapon from his jacket and whipped it up at the approaching figure. I took the opportunity to punch him in the balls. He dropped, and the look of surprise was frozen on his face forever as another two bullets slapped home.

  I rose to my feet, wincing at the pain in my back. I was amazed to see, over by the wall, that the pimp, Victor, was oblivious to what was happening around him. He was standing over the girl with his fist raised again, face twisted with rage. Locked inside his own anger.

  He never got the chance to do anything more because I kicked out the back of his knee. Followed up with a punch to the side of the head as he fell backwards and crunched to the asphalt with a grunt of pain. Almost immediately he lunged upwards, reaching for something in his jacket pocket, but I drove my knee into his nose with a snap of cartilage and he dropped again, out for the count, blood already pouring down his face.

  Behind me, the man in the trench coat said, “We’ve got to be making tracks, Alex.”

  I looked past him, at the carnage. “Who the hell are you? What the hell is going on?”

  “Save it for later. At the moment, I’m your friend. We need to get this cleaned up. Then we can talk.”