Phoebe sat there thinking about it longer than he’d hoped she would. In the end, though, she heaved herself up like her soul weighed a thousand pounds. Went to a scratch pad attached to the refrigerator door by a magnet shaped like a rainbow. Scribbled an address down on it. Came and gave it to him. Jenna was over on California, just east of Hyde.
“Don’t … don’t make her feel worse, Mark,” she said as she handed it to him. Then pursed her lips, regretted saying it. The words stung, but what could he say? To her, he was a walking disaster zone. Barely kept together by the very thing that was tearing him apart.
“I’m really sorry for what happened,” he told her quietly, his face hot with the effect her words had on him. “I wish there were … answers … for what happened to him.”
She was about to reply when she stopped. Like she’d just remembered something.
“What is it?” he asked. It was like the old cop motor had suddenly kicked on. Rusty and broken, needing oil, but the damn thing still fucking ran.
“It’s just something he said to me the day before … it happened. I wondered about it at the time, because it was so out of character for him.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me that people really did have a personal devil. One that followed you until it killed you.”
That didn’t sound at all like the cop who would storm into any building, no matter how dark and dangerous. “Any idea what he meant by that? Maybe he meant his addiction. Did he explain it at all?”
“Never had the opportunity. Hal came into the room then and said he needed help with something down in the garage. I’d forgotten about it until now, actually.” She gave him a wan smile then. Glanced around the kitchen, as if looking for something she’d lost. “You know,” she said, “it feels like we won’t be able to live here anymore. We were going to leave this house to him. Now it will always make me think of him.”
Mallen didn’t know how to answer that. After a moment, she showed him down the hall to the front door. Then she left him there to find his own way back out into the world. He watched her for a moment as she retreated down the hallway, back toward the kitchen. A dim, lonely figure, vanishing into the gloom.
Four
Mallen came in, locked his door. The bus ride home had taken way too long. It was all he could do to not scream at everyone and leap out the window. He’d never been like other junkies. Never carried his rig with him. Shooting was for home, not in some fucking alley somewhere. Maybe that was why he never went out much the last four years or so. It was safer at home. Going outside was like navigating a minefield. Fuck that.
He went quickly to the north corner of his room. Moved aside the stained leather chair. Grabbed at the bottom trim, right where the walls met. There was a barely perceptible vertical line in the trim there, about eight inches out from the corner. Dug his dirty fingernails behind the slim piece of painted wood and it came away. Behind it was a small, rectangular compartment. His little safe deposit box. Inside was his life savings: $345 in a tight roll, banded with a few red and green rubber bands. No matter how hard it got, or how bad The Need was, that roll was never touched. The aim was to one day give this tiny nest egg to Anna. He tried, as much as he could, to add a little bit to it each month. Sometimes he was even successful. The fact it existed made him just a little more hopeful, like maybe it would somehow make everything okay.
He stashed two of the vials inside the compartment, keeping back the last one. The trim was returned to its original place. He rubbed over the line a little to make sure it didn’t stick out. It was this very trick, the hidden compartment, that blew the Geddes case for him. At least he’d learned something from that.
The rig was retrieved from the can under the sink. He set the shot, the junk turning to that all too familiar mercurial liquid as the fire made contact with the spoon. The air filled with a smell he now long associated with the cookies his mother had baked for him on Sunday afternoons. Back before he knew of a world that contained the words junkie, felon, or failure. He tied off. The needle went in with the ease of a high-gloss kiss.
In the back of his mind, like one of those noisy, crazy assholes sitting at the back of the bus, was a voice very much like the voice of someone who no longer tries to be heard, but will be heard. It kept screaming at him to stop, stop, stop. A friend was dead. Someone that had mattered to him. And there was a reason he was dead. Murdered. It made no sense, but Eric had been murdered. And then the man that was attached to the arm that was now attached to the needle realized that he needed to fucking do something about it. Had to. But then the golden horse hit his veins, galloping in and acting like the transit police, effectively kicking that voice off the bus.
And then the dreams took hold again. Surfed him up into a sky of his own making while he ran below, holding the slim string that connected them together. They ran in lockstep for what seemed like hours, him and the kite. Then he floated in a golden pond. He sighed as he curled up, back in the womb. It was safe. No more blown life, no more worry, no more failed marriage … no more anything. There was only the warmth, and the floating.
A knock sounded in the deeps. Someone banging on the outside of a submarine. A huge bell. Maybe it would go away and leave him alone? No, there it was again, getting louder. Insistent. Made his head hurt. He curled up tighter, put his hands over his ears. The knocking turned into a pounding and someone, a man, called out his name. He drifted away … but it called again. Eric’s voice. Then there was a prowler car radio. It couldn’t be, but it was. Buzzing at them, telling them of crimes committed. He was sure he could smell cooking heroin. The hammer of a gun was cocked back, sharp and loud. The gun fired, and the back of his head exploded in numbing pain, his neck snapped from the velocity of the bullet and he was falling and—
He woke up bathed in sweat. It was night now. Dead night. Someone had their radio turned up full blast. Some Spanish rap song. Other than that, the noises outside seemed muffled. A spasm of coughs wracked his frame. Lungs hurt, and he wondered if pneumonia was setting in. Some of the other junkies he knew had gotten it recently. The wet weather, the constant low vitamins. Enough to make anyone sick.
He sighed as he sat up, rubbing at his face. It still tingled, like a hand does when blood starts circulating again after you’ve fallen asleep on it. Looked over at the coffee table. The needle rested on the twisted spoon handle, circled by the rubber tube. Some sort of strange, abstract art installation.
And the needle ran away with the spoon … and his life. He put his head back on the couch. Why did it feel like everything that was his life had suddenly gotten even worse? A tension began to grow inside him. It grew deep down inside, deeper than muscle or even bone. Cut easily through the junk, working and working to build that tightness there, brick by brick. At first he didn’t recognize what it was, because it had been years since he’d last felt it. It pushed and tugged and kept working on him, the pressure increasing until he felt he had to scream.
It was the sense that he had to do something.
He had to find out what happened to his friend. Why would Eric have turned to drugs in the first place? And once he’d gotten his head out, why would he go back? Eric just wasn’t a quitter. Why the fuck did he have his name and address shoved in his pants pocket? Was it some sort of message? Was Eric going to come to him for some sort of help? His friend must’ve been pretty fucking desperate to come to an ex-cop junkie for aid. What did it all mean?
Whatever it was, there was no doubt about one inescapable fact: it wasn’t going to let him go until he found out.
But … but then there was his present state of imprisonment.
His weakened, starved soul.
A growl of impatience erupted from deep inside. He wanted to jump up off the couch, right then and there, but it was as if the cushions were magnets, holding him in place. An angry shout echoed in through the window from outside. A
horn honked. Out there was a world in need of help, but he was in here, in this shitty room, unable anymore to even get up.
That thought sickened him worse than any of the bouts of withdrawal he’d caved to over the years.
He needed to get up.
Five
“Get out of the car, hands where I can see them!” Mallen yelled at the black Ford Crown Victoria stopped approximately seven yards away. The rear and rear-side windows had been tinted dark to almost midnight-black. Mallen had his sidearm in his left hand, right hand supporting. Just like they’d taught him. His arms instructor had tried to get him to use his sidearm right handed, just like they’d tried to make him use a pencil right handed back in kindergarten, but he just couldn’t work it. Just like back in school. He’d had to get a specially made “lefty” firearm, the safety on the right side.
Mallen stood behind the open driver’s side door of his prowler, body angled to provide as little a target as possible. Again, just like they’d instructed him. Sweat ran down his back, under his body armor vest. He hated being weighed down with so much crap, but this was part of the job. The belt alone—holding his taser, his .40 caliber, cuffs, pepper spray, radio—felt like it weighed over ten pounds. Would he ever, ever get used to carrying all this junk?
The driver’s side door of the black vehicle opened. A man slowly came out of the car, hands up and in front of him. Big guy. Must be six three, at least. Mallen’s mind, now trained for situations like this, registered all the facial features that would be necessary if he had to describe the man: Hair: short and black. No beard, moustache trimmed just above the lip line. Weight: about two-ten. Dressed in black hoodie and black, military-style pants. Heavy work boots also black. All of this was registered in only a few seconds, but Mallen had been born with a photographic memory, compliments of his policeman father, Ol’ Monster Mallen.
“Turn and place your hands on the roof of the car!” he barked, using the low-timbered call they’d taught him about. A deep voice was an authoritative voice. Keep it low, keep it loud, they’d told him. The man hesitated, and Mallen could swear the bastard smirked. Like he didn’t believe that Mallen would do anything other than just sit there and wait.
Mallen came out from behind door of his cruiser, repeating his command. “Turn and place your hands on the roof of the car, NOW!” For effect, he moved his crosshairs from the man’s chest, to his face. Not regulation, but fuck it: he needed to prove a point here. That HE was in command of the situation, not the suspect. Take control immediately, they’d taught him, or else with each passing second control moves more and more into the hands of the suspect and or suspects.
The man did as he was told, turning and putting his hands on the roof of the car. Mallen moved forward, and as he approached, he shifted his sidearm to his right hand, reaching around for his cuffs. He’d been instructed to circle around and come at a suspect from directly behind, but it was a lot of ground to cover and he wanted this guy in cuffs quickly. Time was of the essence.
Mallen was just parallel with the left rear side window when he heard the sharp click of a shotgun hammer coming down on an empty chamber, followed by a woman’s voice that said, “BANG! You’re dead, Cadet.”
The suspect, Lt. Fred James, shook his head at Mallen as the other instructor, who’d been hiding flat on the rear seat of the car, exited the vehicle. She was Cpl. Lisa Adams. “Where was your blind spot, Cadet?” she asked.
“On my right, back seat of the suspect’s vehicle, Ma’am.”
“And why was it a blind spot?”
“Due to the smoked windows, Ma’am.”
“And you didn’t check that because?”
“I forgot to.”
“And that’s why the city would be paying for your funeral.” She turned to the assembled group of cadets who had been watching the exercise. “Never forget to check your goddamn blind spots! Everything this cadet did was fine, if he’d had a death wish! Next!”
Mallen could feel his face burning red. Tried not to look at the other cadets as he moved his way to the back of the crowd, all of whom would soon face the same scenario, but with a slight twist to keep them off balance. Maybe there would be no second person. Maybe there would be two other people in the car beside the driver. Maybe the driver would exit the passenger side door. Maybe he wouldn’t come out right away, or at all.
He found himself standing next to a cadet he’d seen before a couple times but had never spoken to. It’d never been that easy to speak to other people anyway, and since he’d signed up to join the SFPD, he’d found this trait magnified. Everyone had families. He had no siblings. His mother had been dead a long time, his father lay dying of Alzheimer’s in a “care facility” up in Redding, where it was more affordable. Where the police benefits went further for a retired cop.
The cadet looked over at him. Smiled as he nodded. Mallen couldn’t remember the guy’s name. He was a few inches shorter than Mallen, maybe ten pounds lighter. Blonde crew cut. Didn’t strike him as police material any more than he felt at the moment, but he’d seen men and women who he hadn’t thought of being police material kick some serious ass on the obstacle course and in HTH combat drills.
The guy looked at him then. Grinned. “I would’ve made the same mistake. I was watching you, and the suspect’s size would’ve made me hone in on getting him under restraints as soon as fucking possible.”
“So,” Mallen smiled back, “you’d be dead, too?”
“Deader than road kill.” They both laughed then, and Mallen held out his hand. “Mallen. Mark Mallen.”
“Nice to meet you, Mallen. I’m Russ. Eric Russ.”
Mallen turned with the defense pad held high, knowing that Eric always went for the head. Sure enough Eric, baton in hand, went to town on the pad, laying in some good blows that would’ve busted a perp’s body in half. Mallen had begun to think that maybe Eric had some pent-up anger he needed to let go of. The drill sergeant called time thirty seconds later and everyone relaxed, Mallen pulling off his headgear, wiping sweat from his eyes.
“Switch!” the sergeant called suddenly. There were a couple groans from the crowd, quickly silenced. No one really wanted to be singled out. Mallen tossed the pad to Eric and pulled his baton from his belt. Even though he hated carrying the belt at all times, especially in HTH training, it did get you used to the weight, he had to admit. He laughed about it to Chris once, saying he felt like Batman, wearing his utility belt. Not highly original.
He laid into the heavy padding covered in thick, fake leather. As he went through the drill, Mallen wondered what he’d feel if he ever had to beat on someone in this manner. He usually tried to keep those thoughts away. He wanted to help, not hurt, people. Would he really be able to?
A strap on the pad Eric held up suddenly snapped. Just worn equipment. The pad drooped at the worse possible moment as Mallen swung down. He ended up catching Eric in the headgear, headgear very much like what boxers wore when they trained. His blow sent Eric staggering backward. A whistle blew and everything stopped.
To his surprise, Eric began to laugh as he pulled off his headgear. The gear had done it’s job, but there was a little bit of shock in Eric’s eyes, in spite of the laughter. There might be a slight bruising, too, just above the right eyebrow.
“Eric, sorry man,” Mallen said.
“Lame,” Eric replied with a grin. “You have no arm strength, man.” Then he laughed again.
Six
Oberon stood in the dank underground parking garage, the air bitter, cold, and damp, smelling of motor oil and urine. It was a quarter after two in the morning. Red and blue lights bounced and ricocheted off the dull concrete walls. Made the place look like a poor man’s disco or some sort of sad rave. He sighed, knowing it would be many long hours before he saw a bed.
The reason for that thought lay at his feet. The body of a man, early thirties. Brown eyes that sta
red sightlessly at the ceiling. Military cut dark hair. The body had landed on its side from the force of the bullets shot into it. Two entry wounds, circular and ragged. Smallish caliber. Both into the back, left side, just behind the heart. The muzzle burns on the back of the man’s shirt seemed a black exclamation point to the entire scene.
He looked over at forensics tech Veronica DeJesus, busy working the body, too involved to even glance up at him as he squatted down next to her, his knees castigating him as he did so. “How are your children doing, Ronnie?” he said. “Matt ever figure out how to snow-
board?”
“Unfortunately,” she said, “he did. Already broke his ankle.”
“Ah, to be young again.” He looked closer at the entry wounds. No, not a big gun, but used by an effective shooter. Execution style, too. One would’ve been enough, but two? Either it was the twitch of the trigger finger, or a pleasure shot. “Has a wallet been found?”
Veronica nodded. Indicated the victim’s hands. “Still got his wedding band. Not very high end. Pinky ring has a good stone in it, though. Maybe the shooter got scared.”
“No other marks on him?”
“Just the two holes.”
This building rose twenty-five stories above them. He’d seen the registry—some of the floors carried at least seven businesses. He sighed as he stood, knees again yelling at him. “I’ll get some uniforms to canvass the building. This gentleman will probably turn up an employee.”
Veronica got in closer to one of the entry wounds. Studied it for a moment. “I can have make and model of the weapon tomorrow.”
“So soon? My, I had no idea that forensics was so well funded. Your department is a veritable bank vault, it would appear.”
“Funny. I just don’t want to be home.”
“With a son nursing a broken ankle? For shame, Mother DeJesus.”
Untold Damage Page 3
