‘We sure?’
‘It’s an also-known-as, could be someone who really is named Leopold Jones, but the check-in date is right.’
‘Okay.’ The older detective gets to his feet.
Fingers looks up at him and says, ‘He’s not there.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I know where he is.’
The older detective looks to his partner. ‘You go.’
‘You sure?’
He nods.
‘Okay.’
The younger detective heads out the door.
‘You better start talking.’
9
At a little past noon a heavy-set man in a gray suit with a red silk tie wrapped around his neck and a matching handkerchief poking from his breast pocket steps from the elevator at the Fairmont Hotel and, trailed by three men, heads through the lobby toward the bright midday sunshine, and then into it, breathing in the fresh Pacific air. He pauses a moment and puts his face toward the sun before continuing toward a black rental car parked on the street. First he needs to pick up a few weapons, then he’ll head to an important appointment — at which he fully intends to kill a motherfucker.
10
Fingers watches the reels spin as he speaks, watches the magnetic tape transfer from one to the other. There’s something hypnotic about it. The tape rolls while he thinks of nothing at all, and the words come easily, as if the tape were simply pulling them from his mouth. If he were to look at the detective instead he might start wondering whether the man could see his lies; he’d stumble mid-sentence, forget what he was saying, and contradict himself. It’s best to simply watch the reels spin. So that’s what he does.
He watches them spin and tells the detective he got a call from Louis Lynch last week, during which he was asked several questions about Eugene Dahl. He thought it odd, Eugene isn’t part of that world, but he answered the questions all the same. Lou was asking for the Man and when the Man wants to know something you tell him. It’s just that simple. Or it was until he learned he’d inadvertently helped to frame his friend for the murder of Theodore Stuart. It made him sick. He doesn’t get involved in that ugly sort of business even when it means sinking a stranger. It fucks with his sleep, and he’s a man who likes his sleep. To mitigate his guilt he tried to help Eugene. He gave him a gun, offered him money. He didn’t want to put himself at risk, but he wanted to do something.
Unfortunately, he believes he made it worse for Eugene rather than better. He believes he might even have sent him to his death.
That is, unless someone stops it, and he doesn’t even know if that’s possible at this point. The situation’s a mess.
In addition to everything else that’s happening, maybe even because of everything else that’s happening — there’s no better time than in the midst of confusion to attempt such a thing — Louis Lynch is planning to eliminate the Man and take over his organization. He believes so, anyway.
Up until six years ago everybody with an opinion on the matter believed Lou would end up running it anyway, but when Evelyn Manning turned twenty-one she began working for her father, learning how things operated, preparing to take over herself once her father retired. That didn’t sit well with Lou. He wasn’t going to take orders from a woman. He wasn’t going to take orders from anybody. He’d worked for the Man for twenty years, helped to build an underground empire, and he was its rightful inheritor. For six years he’s been growing increasingly unhappy, and now it looks like he’s using this time on the West Coast to seize the organization and bury anyone who might stand in his way.
Two days ago Lou came to him and asked if he had access to a warehouse. He needed an isolated place where loud noises wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. He said he knew about a place in Vernon that a real-estate investor used as a tax loss. He said he could have the keys in Lou’s hand within an hour. Lou said that sounded fine, so he took care of it.
Next thing he knows Evelyn Manning’s been kidnapped, and rumor has it the Man has flown to the West Coast to get her back. He thinks Lou is trying to lure his boss to the warehouse in order to kill him. He thinks Evelyn Manning might already be dead. He thinks it’s all happening today.
And he thinks Eugene is walking into the middle of it.
He met with Eugene yesterday morning, just before getting picked up by the cops, tried once more to give him money and talk him into leaving the country, but he refused. He said he had to find evidence that would prove his innocence. He said he couldn’t live the rest of his life on the lam. The last couple days had been the worst days of his life and he couldn’t live this way for years. He’d rather died than live this way.
The desperation in Eugene’s voice got to him. He told his friend about the warehouse. He told him he might find evidence there. He also told him not to go, told him it was far too dangerous. But first he told him where it was.
And he’s afraid he sent him to his death.
He shakes his head and looks down at his hands. He hopes he’s done the right thing, but is almost certain he hasn’t.
The detective leans forward and asks him, where’s this warehouse at?
Fingers tells him.
11
The police search Louis Lynch’s hotel room.
12
Eugene takes one last swig from his bottle of whiskey, wipes it down with a rag, sets it on a stack of pallets. He slips his hands into a pair of gloves and picks up Evelyn’s Berretta, wiping his prints from that as well before gripping it for use in his gloved fist. He looks at the trailer parked at dock number three.
He works himself up, breathing heavily, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He can do this. He can do this. He has to do this, so he can.
He tries to envision the scene the police must come upon. He plays it out in his mind. He nods. There are holes. It isn’t perfect. But it’s all he’s got, so it’ll have to do. If the police don’t buy it immediately, he’s finished. If they do buy it, he might be okay. They can’t look too close, that’s all.
It’s the small details that kill an illusion.
Don’t worry about that. It’s too late to worry about that. It’s time to get on with it. The time for thinking is finished, the time for doing has arrived. Time to get on with it.
He walks to the trailer and grabs the handle.
13
Lou stands in the trailer with his hands raised. He faces the open doors, looking to the milkman on the other side. The milkman stands with a gun in his hand, stands as if rooted to the ground. The gun is aimed at Lou’s face and his eyes are alive with terror and determination. He means to kill Lou. Whether he’ll be able to do it is an open question, but it’s clear from his eyes that he means to do it and no maybes.
He tells Lou to step from the trailer. His voice is shaky with emotion.
Lou walks slowly toward him, thinking about the Colt Vest Pocket in its custom holster. Nothing up my sleeve but six doses of death. He thinks about punching a hole in the milkman’s forehead. He steps from the forgiving wood-paneled floor of the trailer, which bows with each step, to the hard concrete floor of the warehouse. He swallows.
‘Turn around.’
He turns around. He looks at Evelyn, who stands at the other end of the trailer with her hands raised. He smiles at her and winks; don’t worry, I’ll get us out of this.
‘Shut the trailer. Lock the doors.’
This is his opportunity, probably his only opportunity, so he’d better use it wisely. He’d better be fast and sure and do what needs to be done.
He reaches left and right, grabbing the trailer doors. He brings them together, closing Evelyn inside. He reaches up and swings the handle down, locking the doors. Then with his right hand he grabs for his left wrist, feels cool metal against his palm, thumbs away the holster’s snap.
A quick turn and he should have a shot. Hopefully he can get it off before the milkman even realizes he has a gun in his hand.
He pivots left.
<
br /> 14
Eugene watches Louis Lynch close the trailer doors and thinks about putting a bullet in his head. He needs it to look like Evelyn pulled the trigger. For this to work, it must look like Evelyn shot him from the trailer, where she was being held. Which means Eugene must shoot him from that direction. Which means he and Louis Lynch must trade positions.
He can’t believe he has to do this, can’t believe he’s been put in this position. When he finds spiders in his apartment he carries them outside rather than kill them, but he’s going to kill a man, and not in self-defense. He’s simply going to aim and pull his trigger. He’s going to shoot an unarmed man in the head. First he’ll shoot him in the leg, then he’ll shoot him in the head.
It has to look right.
Louis Lynch reaches up and grabs the handle and pulls it down, locking the trailer doors into place. Then he pauses and pivots left, turning quickly with something in his right hand. Light reflects off it. He has a gun in his hand. Eugene doesn’t know where it came from, but he has a gun in his hand.
Eugene drops to the concrete and pulls his trigger.
Then Louis Lynch’s gun fires.
Eugene doesn’t know if he’s been hit, he doesn’t feel any pain, but he knows Louis Lynch has been. Blood spreads on his shirt.
Eugene fires again, aiming for the face. A black dot appears above the right eyebrow and a door opens in the back-left side of his head, a flap of skin and hair hinging the bone as it dangles there, and the contents of his head splatter the white trailer doors behind him. He falls to his knees, then onto his side, and slowly rolls supine, his right arm flopping out. Then he stops moving and is completely still.
Eugene gets to his feet and examines himself. He’s not been shot.
He looks to the corpse on the concrete floor across from him. He killed a man. Louis Lynch did him a favor and made it self-defense but still he wants to be sick. He tells himself he can’t be sick, can’t vomit, because he doesn’t have time to clean it up, and it can’t be here when the police arrive. He leans down and rests his hands on his knees and stares at his feet. He tells himself he cannot be sick, goddamn it, get your shit together, Eugene.
The nausea passes.
He stands up and again looks to the corpse and feels a second wave of nausea, not because he’s killed a man but because the scene he wanted the police to stumble upon has been ruined. Louis Lynch was not supposed to die there, and Eugene can’t move the body. He knows he can’t. The police would easily be able to see it had been moved, and that would ruin the illusion. He needs to work with what’s happened. He can do that.
Jesus Christ, he killed a man.
A wave of dizziness envelopes him and all at once he sits down on the concrete. He sits down hard. He thinks of nothing for a long time. His face feels numb.
He looks at his watch.
He needs to figure out what he’s going to do. He doesn’t have much time.
15
Carl drives south with his gas-foot heavy on the pedal and the pedal pushed to the floorboard. If there’s an itch at the back of his brain he isn’t aware of it. All he’s thinking of as he drives is the situation at hand. He spoke with Captain Ellis who spoke with someone else, and now the Newton Division is providing half a dozen six- and eight-dollar shooters for the warehouse raid. If what Darryl Castor told him is true, it’s going to get ugly in there. James Manning won’t walk into such a situation alone, and chances are Louis Lynch knows that, which means he probably isn’t working on his own either. There could be eight or ten armed men in there, not counting cops. Add to that situation a kidnapped woman and a milkman in the wrong place at the wrong time (based on what Friedman found in Louis Lynch’s hotel room — a switchblade knife like the one used to murder the police officer, a shirt with blood on it, a locket containing a picture of James Manning and his daughter, a typewriter that may have been used to type up a blackmail note — that’s all Eugene Dahl is: one unlucky son of a bitch), and you’ve got yourself a recipe for chaos.
He leans into the steering wheel, telling the car to go faster, you piece of shit.
But it doesn’t go faster.
He hopes he isn’t too late. He’s afraid he is.
16
Evelyn sits in darkness. She heard three gunshots several minutes ago and has heard nothing since. One of them is dead, she’s certain of it, and she thinks it must be Lou or he would have let her out of here by now.
The doors swing open, letting light in.
She squints, unable at first to see who’s on the other side. Then her eyes adjust, slowly and by degrees. Eugene stands at the opposite end of the trailer with a pistol — with what looks like Lou’s Colt Vest Pocket — hanging from his fist. Behind him she can see one of Lou’s arms stretched across the concrete. The fingers are curled around nothing.
‘Stand up.’
Evelyn gets to her feet.
‘You don’t have to do this, Gene.’
‘I wish that were true.’
‘It is true. You don’t have to do this.’
‘Come on out of the trailer, Evelyn.’
For a moment she doesn’t move. She can stay in here. If she doesn’t leave the trailer, she can stop time. Time will stop right here and nothing more will happen. She should have hit him harder when she had the chance. She should have bashed his fucking brains out. Why does she still feel love for him — or something like it? Maybe he won’t do it. He didn’t do it in the motel room. He had every reason to shoot her then, and he had the opportunity, but he didn’t do it, so maybe he won’t do it now.
‘Evelyn.’
She nods. ‘Okay.’
She walks toward the light. Her feet are bare and the cool wood feels good against them — rough and organic and good. A breeze blows through the warehouse and into the trailer. It cools the sticky sweat on her skin. These could be her last moments. She tells herself that’s impossible, it’s impossible for her to die, she’s only twenty-seven, but she knows it is possible. Maybe she even has it coming. In the last six years she’s brought death to others, and she’s done it without remorse, so maybe she has it coming.
Eugene can’t kill her. She knows he can’t. She can see in his eyes as she walks toward him that he still has feelings for her, and you don’t kill something you love.
She steps from the trailer.
17
Eugene looks at Evelyn. Her red hair’s a tangled mess. She has mascara smeared around her eyes and running down her cheeks. The skin around her mouth is red and raw from the duct tape which covered it. There’s a bruise on her left shoulder, purple in the middle but fading to yellow-green around the edges. Her blue eyes are bloodshot. She swallows and frowns and looks at him pleadingly. Once more he feels the urge to take her in his arms and tell her he’s sorry. He’s sorry for everything. The urge is great, but he knows he can’t do it. Her eyes can’t be trusted. She’s a serpent; she’ll only tempt him with doom disguised as something lovely.
He motions with the pistol in his hand.
‘Over there.’
‘I can get you money.’
‘Move, Evelyn.’
‘I can-’
‘Move.’
She walks slowly.
He watches her, following her with the gun.
‘Stop.’
She stops, stands there, looks at him. Her arms hang limp at her sides. Her shoulders are slumped. She looks sad and defeated. He tells himself it’s an act. He tells himself she’s trying to get him to drop his guard so she can attack. He tells himself she’d kill him if she had the chance, if she had even the slightest opportunity. He even believes most of those things. But he looks at her and he wants to be near her. There was a time when he believed they could have a life together, a quiet life in the suburbs somewhere, and he wants that still. Looking at her he wants that more than he’s ever wanted anything.
But he’s awake now, and there’s no time for dreaming.
He takes several steps back towa
rd the trailer and raises the gun in his hand. He looks across the sights to Evelyn’s sad face and tells himself he has to do this. He doesn’t have a choice. He simply doesn’t have a choice. He’ll never be safe until they’re dead. These people eat people like him for lunch; they’re cannibals. Evelyn would kill him without hesitation and her father would kill him quicker still. If he’s to get his life back he has to end theirs. That’s all there is to it. Otherwise the threat will always be there. Every time he turns a corner he’ll know death might be waiting on the other side. He couldn’t live like that. There’s simply no way he-
‘Gene.’
‘No.’
He pulls the trigger. The gun explodes in his hand, kicking his arm back.
A moment later, Evelyn collapses to the floor.
18
At one twenty-five a black car pulls to a stop across the street from a dilapidated warehouse which once, long ago, was occupied by a construction-supply company. A heavy-set man in a gray suit with a red silk tie wrapped around his neck and a matching handkerchief poking from his breast pocket sits in the back of the car with a black briefcase resting on his knees. Two men sit in the back seat with him while another occupies the spot behind the steering wheel. The heavy-set man looks through a tinted window to the warehouse in which his daughter’s being held.
‘Whatever else happens, Evelyn’s kidnapper dies in there. That warehouse is his fucking coffin, right? So ready yourselves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And if you hear any gunfire while I’m inside, don’t wait. Something’s gone wrong. I intend to get Evelyn out of there quietly.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What time is it?’
‘One twenty-eight.’
The heavy-set man nods to himself, then pushes out of the car.
19
Eugene walks to Evelyn and looks down at her. She lies on her back with her legs folded under her body, her right arm bent over her chest, her left arm extended across the smooth concrete, as if she’d been reaching for something. Her eyes stare blank at the tin-roof sky.
The Last Tomorrow Page 34
