Third Rail

by Rory Flynn

  One the goons flips open his cell phone and shoves it toward Harkness. A man with a bullet blast over one eye is folded in a fifty-gallon drum half filled with cement. In the foreground, someone holds a matte-black Glock so close to the camera that Harkness can see the scratch on the grip.

  “While we had your gun, we put it to good use,” Mach says. “This is Mr. Rick Ridell, who failed to pay me the five thousand dollars he borrowed for gambling. Here he is on his way to Georges Bank to do some deep-sea fishing. Very deep.”

  The goon swipes to the next photo, showing a beautiful young girl with caramel skin, her eyes wide-open, narrow chest a red wash of blood dotted with darker rips where the bullets entered. Again, a hand dangles his Glock in the foreground. Harkness shuts his eyes.

  “This girl ran away after we welcomed her here from Thailand and gave her a job and a place to live. Ingrateful!”

  “Why are you showing me these?”

  “Wait, there are more!” Mach waves at the goon with the phone.

  “That’s enough.”

  “Okay. But know this—your gun means nothing,” Mach says. “What you do with it is what’s important. Like your heart and mind. When you are back in Boston you must be thankful, Harkness, in your deeds if not your words,” Mach says. “Otherwise, we show them what your gun did when it was on vacation. And you’ll have a lot to explain.”

  Harkness says nothing.

  Mach crushes his cigarette on the windowsill and steps away, brushing dust from his blue pinstriped suit. “When we track down Thalia in New York, I’ll tell her that you send your love. Because, really, what do we have, Harkness? It’s not drugs and sex. And it’s not guns or money or power. Those things are temporary. It’s the love of our friends and family, Detective Harkness. That is what keeps us alive.”

  Mach strides through the debris, his men following. Their footsteps echo in the worn, dusty stairwell.

  Harkness gets up from the floor and looks down at the street. A green Mercedes sedan idles at the curb, the car a respected businessman might drive—powerful but not flashy. As his driver pulls out, Mach looks up at the window and gives Harkness a crisp salute.

  ***

  The afternoon fades over the South End. Harkness walks around the loft, stepping over splintered furniture and torn canvases, smashed bottles and piles of clothes. His ribs ache and his head throbs. He picks up a cardboard box and gathers up a couple of his shirts.

  He wonders where Thalia is now, realizes that he has no idea. The lover you shouldn’t love, the golden drug that can kill you, the money you shouldn’t touch—there’s no explanation for misplaced desire. And no antidote but time.

  He finds a small canvas, untrampled by the goons. Thalia called the painting Night Swimmer, though there isn’t any swimmer, just a red and brown river that reminds Harkness of the sickly canal behind the loft. The river is thick with clumps of green and black, some crossed out, others left alone. Thalia called them the murk—plans that never happen, songs you hate but can’t forget, memories you can’t leave behind, habits you can’t shake, lost things that never get found.

  He turns it over and sees To Eddy written along the bottom edge. He puts the painting in the cardboard box and moves on, knowing that their paths will cross again, like wires after a storm.

  ***

  Harkness finds a hammer among the scattered debris. He counts seven floorboards from the wall, kneels on the loft floor, shoves the claw between two wide boards, and pulls up a floorboard with the metallic shriek of nails giving up.

  In the narrow hollow below wait a dozen mailing envelopes, each stamped and addressed, old-style, to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, the Massachusetts Attorney General, and others who might find the hidden past of mayoral front-runner John Fitzgerald newsworthy.

  In each envelope waits a thumb drive identical to the one Mach’s goons managed to find in the medicine cabinet, the most obvious hide ever. And on each thumb drive wait the high-res files of Jeet’s photos, too incendiary to be explained away by press conferences and spin.

  Mach may be a good businessman and a rich man, but he should know that no one buys just one thumb drive. They buy them by the dozen. Memory gets cheaper by the day.

  Harkness scoops up the envelopes and puts them in his cardboard box. He was going to wait until closer to Election Day to drop these envelopes in the mail, but now seems like a better time.

  He leaves the door open behind him. Thalia’s loft is over, like a stage set when the show closes and the actors move on.

  28

  HARKNESS WALKS FROM meter to meter, rolling the coin transfer unit down the sidewalk past fairies carried by their mothers and ghosts in strollers. It’s early afternoon but the youngest kids are already getting ready for Halloween night. After Salem, Nagog is known as the best place to be on Halloween—a creepy history, great costumes, and rich people who give away lots of candy.

  His safe hometown seems fraught with new danger. When a green Mercedes pulls to the curb, Harkness is sure it holds Mr. Mach’s crew. Instead, it lets off a gang of jabbering teenagers dressed like slutty witches. When he passes the Nagog Bakery, every scruffy young stranger who walks out is Dex, Mouse, or one of their friends. The weight of his gun in its holster does little to reassure Harkness.

  His cell phone rings when he gets to the end of Main.

  It’s Nora. “George says you’re a mess.”

  “That’s his opinion.”

  “So you’re okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m still emptying meters.”

  “Maybe you just need to take a break from Nagog for a while.”

  “Sounds good. And unlikely.” He looks at the redbrick storefronts of Main Street, explored with Nora and George until they knew every alley and trail, the secret cut-throughs and hideouts. He’s across the street from where Colonial CDs used to be, during a time that seems impossibly long ago.

  “You’ll be back in Boston soon.”

  “Maybe.” Harkness wonders if he’ll ever escape Nagog.

  “You got your gun back, right?”

  “Yes, but . . .” He moves his right hand to touch his gun like a scrap of bone in a reliquary.

  “But what?”

  “Got some serious loose ends floating around.”

  “Then tie them up.” His sister’s matter-of-fact tone sounds like their mother before she drifted away.

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Coming over tonight? There’ll be plenty of trick-or-treaters if the storm holds off. And I’m making dinner.”

  “What’re you cooking?”

  “Gnocchi with marinara sauce. Thought it would look kind of bloody and scary.”

  “Save me a plate,” Harkness says. “There’s something I need to check out tonight.”

  “Crime scene?”

  “Hope not.”

  ***

  Sergeant Dabilis, Debbie the dispatcher, and Harkness are on night duty at headquarters. The wind is picking up but not the rain, so the Halloween crowds are out in force. The usual calls come in—roving bands of teenagers causing predictable mayhem, smashed pumpkins, a couple of porch fires. When the nor’easter hits later tonight, there’ll be power lines down, cars skidding on wet leaves, and worse. But that’s for the next shift.

  “Doing your homework, Harkness?”

  “Finishing up some reports.” Harkness doesn’t look up. He’s sitting as far as he can get from Sergeant Dabilis’s office as he finalizes his meter tallies, the kind of paperwork that makes cops hate being cops.

  “Well, make sure you’re paying attention,” Sergeant Dabilis says. “We need to know exactly how many quarters you collected today. You should be able to get it right. Just check the math a couple of times.”

  Harkness says nothing.

  Debbie shoots him an apologetic look.

  Since the captain’s death, Sergeant Dabilis has escalated from annoying to amoral.
He’s been lording his provisional power over every other cop, dispatcher, detective, and administrative aide in Nagog. Three cops have already quit after showdowns with the Sweathog. Tonight, Harkness is tempted to become the fourth.

  Sergeant Dabilis walks into the captain’s once-elegant office, which now looks like a Red Sox gear shop on Yawkey Way. Tonight he’ll be typing doctored crime stats into an enormous spreadsheet and watching his favorite plays from the ESPN archives.

  His shift over, Harkness is about to leave the station. He sets aside his reports and checks on Dex’s big party. From what he can tell online, the party is happening now and it’s awesome and outrageous but hardly life changing. It’s good news that this loose end isn’t unraveling.

  A few minutes later, Harkness gets a text from Candace.

  GET HR NOW DEXS FRKNG. HAS MAY.

  Harkness pulls on his jacket and walks toward the door.

  Debbie looks up. “Heading home?”

  “Checking on a disturbance.”

  “Where?”

  “Edge of town, Forest Road.”

  “Call in if you need anything,” she says.

  “Yeah, call in if you need help shutting up a barking dog or something,” Sergeant Dabilis shouts from his office without even looking up.

  ***

  The squad car hits ninety on the straight stretch of road to the Nagog Woods. Light rain flares in his headlights and the Buzzcocks blare from the speakers. Harkness drives ahead until the road clogs with parked cars—a clever way to keep the party inaccessible to anyone but insiders.

  He backs out and drives to a narrow trail that shadows Forest Road, then speeds down it, squad car bouncing off rocks and ruts. When he sees something moving on the trail ahead, Harkness slows. Dozens of deer run toward him. They crowd past the squad car, hooves and antlers clicking against the metal. Eyes wild, frantic, they leap past his window and trample the underbrush as they flee.

  Once the deer have passed, Harkness drives down the trail until it narrows and the squad car gets stuck on a low ridge of rock, hemmed in on all sides by trees. Harkness presses the gas but the wheels just spin. He leaves the lights on, grabs his flashlight from the back seat, and abandons the squad car, pushing the driver’s side door open as far as he can and slipping out into the woods.

  He runs down the trail, pressed into the forest floor by the bare feet of Micmacs and Wampanoags, marched by minutemen and redcoats, and now wandered by dog walkers, lovers, and weed smokers. He takes the path to the left toward what was once the Old Nagog Tavern, now the site of Headless at Freedom Farm, Dex’s epic party, already under way.

  A low orange glow filters through the bare trees and whoops and laughter echo from deep in the woods. The path finally opens up on the field behind Dex’s house. Harkness walks out across the field, trying to be as invisible as a cop in uniform can be. Ahead, a bonfire sends flames and smoke high into the night sky. A band’s playing on the stage and beyond it a white tent glows with strings of orange lights. From across the field, the voices sound like a buzzing human hive.

  As he gets closer, Candace runs toward him, bracelets and leather jacket jangling.

  “We have to find May.” Candace’s face is flushed, eyes bleary from crying. Her voice cracks and she bends over like someone punched her.

  “What happened?”

  She’s shaking and pale, her black hair hanging in dark tendrils. “Dex is all fucked up and he won’t tell me where he hid May.”

  “Hid her?”

  “Didn’t want to have a baby at his cool party,” Candace says. “Might make him seem too normal. You have to help me find her, Eddy. You have to find her.”

  Harkness holds her by the shoulders and looks into her red-rimmed eyes. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I know right where she is.”

  29

  HARKNESS FEELS ALONG the wall for a light switch. Candace walks to the center of the dark barn and pulls a string to turn on a bare bulb high in the rafters. She looks around at the pile of lumber, the tools and trash. “Eddy, she’s not here. What’re we doing here? Where is she?”

  Harkness unlocks the trash barrel and pushes it aside. When he opens the trapdoor, Candace peers down into the gloom.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I never come out here. Not since Dex and his stupid friends made it their man cave.”

  “It’s more than that.” Harkness leads her down the stairs and up into the lab. He turns on the light to reveal the wall of glass tubing gleaming with amber drops.

  “What the hell?”

  “Drug lab,” Harkness says. “Third Rail.”

  “I know they take that shit. But I didn’t know they made it.”

  Harkness walks past the lab table and toward the desk with the binders. He bends down to look under the desk. He pulls out May’s empty car seat.

  “Where is she!” Candace runs around the lab, kicking cartons and walls with her heavy boots.

  Harkness walks to the other side of the lab, where cardboard boxes are stacked along the dusty floor. He holds up his hand. “Quiet for a minute.”

  Candace stops, and they stand still in the bright lab. They hear nothing. Harkness walks to where footsteps mark the dust and kneels down to push aside the boxes. Someone cut a rectangle out of the drywall, poked sloppy air holes in it with a knife, then taped the piece back with duct tape.

  “May can’t be in there,” Candace says. “Dex wouldn’t do that.”

  “I’ll check it out.” As Harkness peels away the duct tape he’s back on Queensbury Street about to reveal Little Dorothy’s dissolving body.

  “She’d be crying,” Candace shouts. “There’s no crying!”

  “It’ll be okay.” Harkness pulls away the last piece of duct tape and tries to pull out the piece of drywall with his fingernails. It’s stuck.

  “There’s not any crying, Eddy. Don’t look. Please. She’s not in there. Can’t be in there.”

  Harkness pries out the drywall with his knife, one corner giving way, then another. His flashlight reveals a dark space about as big as a microwave.

  May sits shaking a few feet back on a dirty blanket, her face shining with tears. She’s clutching an empty bottle and a filthy stuffed rabbit.

  She screams when Harkness’s flashlight shines in her eyes.

  Candace reaches in. “Come ’ere, May,” she says. “It’s okay.” The screaming gets louder. She puts her hands under May’s arms and gently slides her out, then holds her tightly to her chest, feels her breathing in gasps.

  In a few minutes, Candace pulls down the neck of her T-shirt and offers a breast to May, who takes her nipple with desperate eagerness.

  “What kind of father . . . ,” Candace just closes her eyes and shakes her head.

  One who knows it may be the only safe place on the farm tonight. But Harkness doesn’t say this. “She okay?”

  “I think so.”

  Harkness reaches into the back of the space where May was hidden. There’s stack after stack of hundreds carefully wrapped in plastic. He pulls a few out and shows them to Candace.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “Pile of drug money?”

  “Dex always told me we didn’t have enough money to finish the house,” she says. “That’s why we’re living like squatters.” Candace moves May to her shoulder and pats her back. She looks around the drug lab. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot.”

  “Love may make you blind,” Harkness says, “but it doesn’t have to make you stupid.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A Laotian drug lord.”

  “He’s right.” Candace lifts May and hands her to Harkness. “Take May for a second?”

  “Sure.” Harkness cradles May gently on his shoulder.

  Candace kneels down to pull out the stacks of cash. She holds a bundle of cash toward Harkness.

  “No,” he says, “all yours.”

  Candace throws one
stack of money after another toward the delicate wall of glass tubing, knocking pieces from it. Then she picks up a broom and smashes the rest of the tubing, which sprays down on the lab like an ice storm. She smashes a tall glass flask with the broom handle and Third Rail seeps over the table.

  May rears back and starts to cry.

  “Candace?”

  “Cleaning house.” She swings the broom at more of the lab, until nothing’s left but glass shards, puddles of drugs, and hissing gas.

  “So much for technology.” She tosses the broom on the floor. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Harkness considers finding the gas and shutting it off, but doesn’t bother. He’s late for a party.

  “Walk down that path and you’ll hit the main road.” Harkness hands Candace his flashlight. “At the end of all the parked cars, you’ll find my friend Officer Watt waiting in a squad car. He’ll take you and May to the station or wherever you want to go.”

  Candace nods. “What about you?”

  “Got to talk to Dex about a few things.”

  “Good luck with that.” Candace walks toward the woods, then turns. “Be careful, Eddy. Be really careful. They’re all superhigh.”

  The wind has picked up, whipping the long brown grass around Harkness in waves as he walks toward the bonfire. The rain is just beginning, the cool air so laden with water that his face is dripping, leather jacket, too. The band is gone now, stage empty, party retreated under the white tent. As Harkness gets closer, he sees someone walking from the party toward him, backlit by the fire.

  The wind raises a wall of sparks as he walks closer. The figure throws a handful of shiny disks toward him and the air whistles.

  A whirring noise passes above Harkness and leaves a small silver star with five sharp spikes sticking in the arm of his leather jacket, another on his shoulder. Harkness plucks them and tosses them aside.

  “Dabilis said you were coming.” Mouse wears a gray hoodie. “Welcome to Headless at Freedom Farm.”

  Throwing stars—retro, esoteric, and nasty. Weapon of choice for fake ninjas and anime fans. Of course Mouse would be into them.