The 500: A Novel

by Matthew Quirk

  But I didn’t have a chance to fret for very long. The long coil spring creaked as the screen door opened and slammed shut. Malcolm Haskins walked in, wearing loose-fitting jeans and a Yale Law sweatshirt. I watched his reflection in the glass doors of the refrigerators as he did his shopping: a box of shotgun shells, some trash bags, and a folding saw, the kind you use to prune trees. He could have just been provisioning for a good old country weekend—spring turkeys were in season—but his shopping list sure didn’t set my mind at ease.

  As he reached for his wallet to pay, his sweatshirt drew against his waist. I could make out the outlines of an inside-the-waistband holster, sized for a hefty pistol, maybe a .40.

  Bad news.

  It was easy enough to follow him. There were few lights near the town, and the streets were mostly empty. I parked on a fire road hidden from the highway about four hundred yards from his house. There was no sign of Irin or her Porsche. Haskins’s cottage sat in a meadow at the foot of the hills.

  I walked through sparse woods behind his house, parallel to the main road. Hiding between two trees, I could see glimpses of the interior. It seemed the appropriately stealthy thing to do, at least until I saw a white Porsche pull up in front of the house. If I had been on the road, maybe I could have spooked her somehow, or just tipped my hand and, damn the consequences, warned her.

  I started toward the house, but I was too late. Irin disappeared through the front door.

  Storming in and announcing that the whole thing was a setup seemed, well, rash. I’d just calmly explain to Haskins that I’d been stalking him, but only because my dear colleagues were trying to shake him down, corrupt the highest court in America, and maybe kill him. I was doing him a favor, really. That’d go over like gangbusters. And then I’d only have to deal with the consequences of having betrayed my bosses and thrown myself in front of whatever they had had planned for Haskins. Piece of cake.

  No. I was not going to put my ass on the line. There had to be another way. If I could just break up the party before my bosses had a chance to find out what was going on. They’d said they’d be keeping their eyes on Irin. I couldn’t spot anyone else around, but I suspected Marcus must be close.

  I figured if Irin was playing out her seduction act, both she and Haskins would be pretty jumpy and easy to scare off. So I picked up a handful of gravel and threw a piece at the house. It bounced off the shingles of the little two-story cabin. The next plinked off a window. I waited for a sign, but no lights came on downstairs, no exterior floods lit up.

  Well, I’d done my part. I’d tried, at least. I could tell myself that. No sense in missing dinner. It wasn’t like I was responsible for what might happen. What else could I do? Just waltz in and announce my bit part in Henry’s conspiracy? No. The only option was to walk away and let what would happen happen.

  We all make compromises to get what we want. Would I give up my happy little life—veal Shenandoah, heated bathroom floors, the girlfriend who looked like I’d mail-ordered her straight from J. Crew—to fuck myself trying to do the right thing?

  Not a chance. I wasn’t some martyr; I was just taking care of myself and…

  Wait. What was this? I didn’t even remembering making the decision. In fact, I thought I’d decided not to go up to the house. But there I was, heading in. I just sort of smacked my forehead mentally—Fuck me—as I noticed my feet moving and the branches thwapping against my legs as I neared the house.

  Either I was a more decent guy than I’d thought or I wanted to ride in like the fucking sheriff because I knew my soul was half in hock to Davies. Either way, my better angels were going to get me killed, and I was none too happy about it.

  But all wasn’t lost, not yet. I knocked on the back door, three times, and then three times again, harder. We called it ding-dong-ditch growing up. You rang the bell and booked it out of there.

  No response.

  I stepped off the porch, then heard Haskins barking something at Irin. I caught a glimpse of him peering nervously out an upstairs window, shotgun in hand. He didn’t see me. My worst fears from Marcus and Henry’s conversation about the danger Irin had stumbled into were confirmed.

  There weren’t many windows in the back of the house, but there were enough to get in. The problem, burglary-wise, is that while it’s tempting to take the glass to gain entry, you inevitably end up slicing open your arm or leg while you rush around nervous as hell.

  I saw a handle sticking out from behind a stack of firewood. It was a maul for splitting wood. That’d do. The easiest way to get inside a house isn’t battering away at the door—that usually takes at least five minutes or so unless you have the right pry bar. It’s pulling the lock.

  I tried to let all these little technical details of B and E fill up my mind to get away from the basic lunacy of what I was doing: the fallout that would come from breaking into the house, from inevitably exposing myself.

  I set the tip of the maul behind the face of the door lock and gave it two taps with my palm to seat it. I twisted the handle hard with both fists, and popped the cylinder neatly into the dirt beside the porch. Then it was just a matter of reaching in and pulling the bolt back.

  I’d been quick, maybe ten seconds from the first tap until I was through the door. I thought I’d have a chance to surprise him, maybe talk some sense into him. No such luck. He was waiting with an over/under shotgun pointed directly at my face.

  Irin sat on the couch, eyes red from crying and her face half hidden by her hands, as Haskins stood on the plank floors aiming the gun at my head with a very competent-looking stance.

  He put the barrel of the gun under my jaw and frisked me for weapons.

  “I came to help you,” I said. “Don’t do this. She’s not part of the setup. They know everything. They’re coming. They’ll use it against you.”

  “What do you think you know?”

  He backed up. The two barrels kept staring me down.

  “She’s not working for Henry Davies. She’s just a dumb kid trying to help her father. If you hurt her, they’ll own you. You’ll play right into their hands. They’re probably on their way right now. Don’t do this. They’ll blackmail you with it.”

  “Who are you?” he asked. I saw his knuckles go white, his grip tighten on the stock of the shotgun.

  “I found out what was happening. That they were trying to set you up. I came here to help.”

  “You work for Davies.”

  “They didn’t send me here. I’m just trying to stop them from getting anyone hurt.”

  I was trying to sweet-talk a Supreme Court justice into putting down his Beretta. The only thing keeping me going was that the whole situation was so surreal I couldn’t fully believe it was happening. Otherwise I probably would have frozen up.

  “So that’s a yes,” he said. Then he started chuckling halfheartedly and shaking his head. “It’s too late,” he said. “There’s not enough time.”

  He sat down on the couch, the gun still leveled at me. I had a feeling the guy had lost it.

  “Have a seat,” he said, and gestured with the gun toward a rocking chair.

  I sat. For someone supposedly so paranoid, the justice seemed pretty calm.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Michael Ford.”

  “You really came here to head off this mess?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s not too late.”

  He laughed again. It didn’t sound crazy. It sounded like he’d just been let in on a great joke.

  “Well, that’s all very noble, Galahad. But you’ve just thrust yourself headfirst into an extremely fraught situation for no reason. I don’t think this is going to end well for any of us.”

  Maybe he was so calm because he’d already resolved to take us out.

  “Don’t do this.”

  “For the love of God,” he said. “Stop saying that. You really have no idea what’s going on, do you?”

  He had a point there.

  “I
don’t think he’ll believe it coming from me,” he said to Irin. “Would you tell him?”

  “You don’t have to stop him, Mike,” she said, staring at the ground. “He wasn’t going to hurt me.”

  I looked from her back to Haskins.

  “I could never. I have a daughter,” he said. “What did you hear from Davies? That I was some psychopath willing to protect my dirty secret by any means? That I’d kill this girl if she got too close?

  “No,” he said, and shook his head. “They’re coming for me tonight, aren’t they?”

  “They’ve been watching the girl,” I said. “They said if she got too close to you, to the evidence, then they were going to take you.”

  “And now I know for a fact they’re after me. It’s not dirt on me they want, Michael. It’s dirt on Henry. They want it back. They want to make it disappear once and for all. I have it. They’re not going to blackmail me. They’ve tried every enticement, every bit of leverage against me already, and failed. They’re going to kill me. The girl knows too much now, so I imagine they’ll kill her too.”

  “You’re not going to hurt her?” I asked.

  Haskins sighed with frustration. “As I said before, no.”

  “So you were just trying to protect yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I was just trying to do the right thing.”

  “In your completely misguided way, maybe. If you really had come here on Davies’s orders, you wouldn’t be chatting with me unarmed, you’d have come in ready to kill.”

  “Then I don’t understand. Why don’t we all just walk away from this? Why does it have to end badly?”

  “Because we’re too late,” Haskins said, and looked out the window at the shadows outside.

  He moved closer to me and lowered his voice. “How long have you known Henry Davies?”

  “About a year,” I said.

  “I’ve known him for more than three decades, since college. We were roommates freshman year. I imagine you’ve heard him give his talk about how any man can be corrupted?”

  “Yes,” I said. I’d heard a slightly different version, of course, that any man can be controlled if you find his levers. But I could no longer pretend there was a distinction between control and corruption.

  “He’s built his entire world on that belief,” Haskins said. “All the money, all the power. And the tragedy is that he’s right. I’ve watched him for years. Slowly but surely he’s picked them all up: senators, congressmen; he’s even had presidents in his pocket. He’s a collector, of sorts. One by one he’s proved that he can buy or manipulate every powerful person in the capital. He nearly had them all.”

  “Except you, right? He never got to you. You proved him wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Every man has his price. Every man can be corrupted. Those are the rules in Henry Davies’s world. An incorruptible man doesn’t exist, so if one shows up, well, you have to take him out of the picture.”

  Haskins stood and turned the lights out. It was pitch-black for a moment, then gradually I began to make out the gray contours of the room.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  He lifted the shotgun again and stared out the window.

  “I made the mistake of trying to stop him with the law,” he said. “The institution to which I’ve dedicated my life. The honest way. It wasn’t enough, and now it’s too late. He never loses. Has he told you that one?”

  “Yes. But he lost tonight. We’re fine. Let’s just go.”

  “No. They’d been hoping I would lead them to the evidence. I haven’t. And I know too much. That leaves him only one option. If I can’t be corrupted, I’ll be killed. Davies’s rules.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. But now the rustling was unmistakable: someone, maybe several someones, was outside, and getting closer.

  “I once would have thought so too. This is beyond the usual full-contact Washington give-and-take, Michael. It’s beyond entrapment and blackmail. It’s murder. And this isn’t the first time.”

  “Henry has killed people?”

  “Yes. And ordered their deaths. He prefers to make it look like the usual quiet salaryman exits: a stroke, a heart attack. Nothing too suspicious.”

  Haskins sidestepped me to peer out another window, and he eased the rack on his pistol back a half an inch to double-check he had a round chambered. “I won’t go so quietly. I’m going to make this thing as hard for him to cover up as I can.”

  I looked at my phone but I had no reception. “Do you have a landline? Can we call the police?”

  “The line’s out, probably cut. I told you. It’s too late. I don’t have time.”

  “Too late for what? What are you talking about?”

  “Henry’s after me for more than just the Supreme Court. I’ve watched him for years, and I’ve always suspected him. I’ve been piecing together the details of his empire, the way he’s gone after the Five Hundred. I believed I could do it through the law. But as you probably know, he owns the law. I should have passed on the evidence.”

  He leaned over to glance through the window again. “I thought I had more time. But now we all know too much. This is a goddamned mess. And Henry hates a mess.”

  Footsteps creaked along the front porch. Haskins led us to the back door.

  “What evidence?” I asked.

  “No one learns without making mistakes. And as far as I know, Henry made only one, a long time ago. He started out as a political operative, in the sixties, dirty tricks and rat-fucking. He made Watergate look like a summer-camp prank. An investigative reporter, a man named Hal Pearson, was looking into Henry. Henry killed him. I know that the evidence that would prove Henry did it still exists. I should have told someone where to look, as insurance. But now it’s too late.”

  “Why are you telling me?”

  “They know that she and I are in the house. Not you. Here,” he said. He took a legal pad from a side table, wrote something down, tore the page off, and handed it to me. “This is how to find it.”

  For a moment, there was only the sound of our quickening breath and the men on the porch. I saw a figure move through the backyard. Henry’s men. Thank God I’d hid my Jeep on that fire road.

  Haskins looked me over. “You’re thinking of making a deal?” he said.

  The thought had crossed my mind. If everything he said was true, Haskins had handed me a very powerful bargaining chip with that piece of paper. If Henry’s men trapped me, and they really were bent on killing, I could trade the evidence Haskins had just handed over to save my own ass.

  “No,” I said. “But why trust me with this?”

  “Think it through,” Haskins said as he moved to the stairs. “This is the one thing in the world Henry Davies is afraid of. The evidence of his one mistake. He’ll stop at nothing to get it. So yes, it’s valuable. But do you really think he’ll let anyone who knows about it walk away? Live a long and happy life?”

  Haskins laughed.

  I didn’t know. This was all too much.

  “You’ll see. I haven’t helped you, Michael. Knowing what I told you is a death sentence. It’s the only lever on Henry Davies, and that man won’t let himself be controlled. He’ll never let anyone who knows it survive. That’s why I’ve never shared it. Believe me or not, it doesn’t matter. You’ll see soon enough.”

  “So, what? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Hide. Survive. Your only choice if you make it out of this is to find the evidence and take Henry Davies down. Because if he sees that you have it—and somehow, God help me, he sees everything—it’ll be simple: either you or he will have to fall.”

  He was laying on the Lord of the Rings shit a little thick, but as black silhouettes surrounded the house, I couldn’t really argue with him.

  He told Irin and me to hide. I refused. If they were really coming for us, I wanted to help fight back.

  “No chance,” Haskins said. “They don’t know you’re here. That�
�s our one hope. You have to stay hidden and get away. Get upstairs, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

  He directed Irin, who seemed to be in shock, to an upstairs bedroom. She glanced back over her shoulder just before the door shut.

  “I’m scared, Mike,” she said.

  “You’ll be fine. Just keep your head down.”

  I looked for a way out from the second floor. Every time I put my face near a window, a shaft of white light would flash on me from the backyard. I was trapped. I guess they were covering the back and sweeping up from the front. Very tidy.

  So what happened? Fuck if I know. As they closed in on the house, I did what the guy with the shotgun told me to (always a good bet) and hid in an upstairs bedroom, sweating my ass off and trying to figure out how to get out of there. I heard someone force the front door a lot less gently than I had the back. Then someone was barking orders. It was hard to tell for sure, but the voice sounded a lot like Marcus’s. Then a shotgun blast boomed through the house, and there were screams.

  Someone was banging around down there. It was quiet for a minute, and then I heard the sound that chilled me most: two loud cracks from a handgun or rifle half a second apart, and then a third shot. It’s a standard military drill: body-body-then-head, the distinctive pattern of a good marksman making a kill.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs, and the squeal of a door opening at the far end of the hallway. The house was old and creaky and kept no secrets. They were searching for others. I lifted my head and peeked through the window, then pulled back just in time to avoid the scanning flashlight beam.

  The last thing I wanted to do was just sit there, but if the searchers didn’t know I was in the house, there was a chance I could hide until it blew over.

  I heard another door open, and footsteps drawing closer. I could barely keep it together. I guess Irin couldn’t. Someone started running, crashing into things upstairs. I figured she’d freaked out and made a run for it.

  Then I heard it again, gunshots: crack-crack…crack.