by Laird Barron
“Mr. Coleridge, according to witnesses, you recently had words with this individual at a certain gala . . .”
“I’m sorry, Officer. You’ll have to ask my attorney.”
“Let the record show the subject requested an attorney,” Rourke said.
“Begging to differ,” Collins said, removing her shoes and setting them aside. “What the subject said was, he wanted to do this the hard way.” She slipped on a set of brass knuckles. Lefty. She stared into the camera. “Do you concur?”
To my chagrin, the brass knuckles were mine.
A moment later, the door opened and in strolled Mr. FBI himself, Timothy Noonan. He leaned against the wall and sucked on a toothpick.
“Confirmed,” he said. “The man chose the hard way.”
“Hark, the other shoe has dropped,” I said.
“I stand corrected,” Rourke said. “Please, give Mr. Coleridge what he wants.”
Apparently, I wanted three hooks to the body, because that’s what Detective Collins delivered. It actually hurt, mainly due to the previous wounds and the fact that she put her back into it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d been here before with professionals.
I rested my face against the table.
“She has three mouthy teenagers,” Rourke said. “Lot of aggression to vent.”
“Didn’t we tell you to stay away from the Walker case?” Agent Noonan said. “Didn’t we, swear to Christ, tell you to mind your knitting?”
“There isn’t a Walker case.” I couldn’t quite catch my breath no matter how hard I tried.
Collins stood near my right flank. She hit me again. I resisted the urge to thrash or curl inward like a worm. My tormentors would’ve enjoyed it.
“Rourke, I’m disappointed in this turn of events,” I said when I could breathe again. “We had a nice arrangement. You steered me where I needed to go. Et tu, asshole?”
Detective Rourke kicked back with his hands clasped behind his head.
“Coleridge, buddy, this is sort of my fault. When we made our deal, I didn’t realize our friend Mr. FBI had waved you off. You shoulda apprised me. You really, really shoulda listened to Agent Noonan. His pockets are deeper than yours.”
“Ah, you’re the town pump.”
“Be nice, Coleridge.”
Collins slugged my kidney for emphasis.
I turned my head to meet her gaze and grinned.
“Don’t look at me, bitch!” She backhanded me across the chops. A love tap. The brass knuckles cut my cheek and bounced my skull off the tabletop. So much for honey, sugar, and darling. Soccer-mom façade peeled away to reveal the blackness.
My ears rang. I didn’t hear the exchange among the three of them. Noonan approached and studied the floor under my chair.
“What the hell is this? He’s bleeding all over the place.”
Collins tore open my shirt and discovered the sopped-through bandages.
“I told you boys—you won’t get anywhere beating on him.” Rourke raised his voice. “He won’t crack. I mean, my God. He’s been tortured. I haven’t seen scars like this since Iraq.”
“Er, I think you’ve killed the bastard,” Noonan said to Collins.
“He’ll be okay.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Becky, he’s busted wide,” Rourke said. “Guys, he get shot or what?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded panicky now. “Yeah, that’s a lot of blood.”
Nobody asked my opinion. My vision took on a fishbowl quality. The fluorescent lights pulsed in time with the blood oozing from my side. A nap would’ve been good.
Rourke pocketed the recorder. Even now, his flabby, hangdog expression more melancholy than upset.
“Pear-shaped. That’s the word for our situation. Isn’t quite what I had in mind, Noonan.”
“Deal with the facts,” Noonan said. “Officer Cupcake did a number on this creep.”
“We gotta move him. My lieutenant walks in here, we’re truly hosed.”
“God damn it,” Noonan said. “Put him in the car. We’ll take a ride.”
“Excuse me?” Rourke stuck a finger in his ear. “Let me clear the wax. What did you say?”
“Get him on his feet and put him in the car.”
“Hang on, Agent. We’ll say he resisted, there ensued a scuffle, yada yada.”
Noonan swiveled his head, raptor-like, and regarded Detective Rourke.
“He’s been stepping on dicks left, right, and center. Time to flush.”
“Whoa, boys,” Collins said. “This is escalating, like, I dunno.”
“Your mess,” Rourke said to Noonan.
“Think so, Detective? You must be forgetting that two-inch file on your sorry asses. It doesn’t even include the latest hits, such as you passing this fucker information vital to my investigation. I own you. Both of you.” Noonan removed his glasses and slipped them into his pocket. His eyes were steely. “Get him in your car. I’ll follow. Coleridge, you hear me? We’re going to get you help.”
Rourke bent to unlock my ankle shackle and exposed the nape of his neck near my elbow. Hard not to snap his spine then and there. Agent Noonan watched closely, hand on the butt of his automatic. I bided my time. Not the best plan I’d ever formulated.
* * *
—
I’D BEEN IN THIS KIND OF SPOT often enough to forego the woe-is-me-this-can’t-be-happening crap. We were in the underworld. Anything goes in the underworld.
Acknowledgment didn’t equal acceptance. It might’ve appeared that I was solely preoccupied with bleeding. On the contrary, my mind spun the hamster wheel until smoke trailed from the spindle. I still couldn’t dream up a way to extricate myself from the predicament of being severely wounded, cuffed, and locked in the back of a car with armed cops hustling me to an untimely demise.
Collins took the wheel. She cruised from the comforting climes of town, into the boondocks, and down a series of back roads. One thing I’ve learned is, in my line you don’t ever want to go for a ride in the country. The trail ended at a ravine. A bullet-riddled billboard said JENSON EXCAVATION. Except for a stripped and rusted tractor, all signs of habitation were long subsumed by encroaching wilderness. An excellent location to dump a corpse.
“Outta the car, longhair,” Rourke said jovially and helped me exit.
My legs wobbled. The world did a slow, ponderous spin until I leaned against the car and sucked deep breaths.
“Honey, hang in there.” Detective Collins wore her sad, motherly smile again.
“Got a personal question.” Agent Noonan proved a cautious sort. He stood well beyond the reach of my arms, shackled or not. “Why didn’t Talon put a bullet behind your ear?”
“I’m charming?” Well, that confirmed this wasn’t reprisal for my boorishness at Dr. Jefferson’s party. Noonan and Bellow were aware I’d been in contact with the Manitou. I wondered what it meant. Was Noonan in cahoots with Talon? Had he expected the Manitou to execute me on the spot? Had he asked? Preposterous, fanciful, insane. Except, anything goes in the underworld.
“I’ve got a personal question for you too. Why are you helping Talon?” It was a shot in the dark. Color me shocked that the bullet struck home.
His pained expression reflected the convergence of a thousand points of doubt.
“Asshole, there are games within games. Feeding a predator poisoned bait isn’t quite the same as helping it.”
“Yeah, right. Naturally, you turn over the kickbacks to accounting.”
“I wouldn’t expect a thug to appreciate the artistry of nuance or deception. Or the concept of the greater good.”
Ah, my oafish countenance had fooled an enemy for once.
“I do appreciate self-righteousness, Mr. Agent.”
“Admonishment from a hit man? Rich. Occasionally, I get to se
t the universe right. Adios, Coleridge.” Noonan nodded to Detective Rourke.
Most colors in the landscape had drained to grainy shades of gray. The situation became more surreal by the second. Cops disappeared plenty of people. What boggled my mind was the brazenness of their plot. Were they actually going to whack me after parading me in and out of the precinct station? On the face of it, the conclusion seemed preposterous. Government buildings are wired for sound. My arrival and departure had been recorded. They’d never get away with this. The devil on my shoulder snickered and reminded me that a gold badge, such as Rourke or Collins, could easily find a way to erase a little incriminating surveillance footage.
An ex–contract hitter disappears? An ex-hitter with this skin, this face? Nobody in white-bread USA would care. Reba could’ve schooled me in that regard.
Rourke took a cheap holdout pistol from his waistband and racked the slide. He gestured toward an overgrown path into darkness.
“Up yours,” I said.
He strode over, laid the barrel against my head, and cocked the hammer. A rookie blunder. Step inside my arm’s reach, you’ve had it. They’d cuffed my hands in front. One swift loop and a jerk, his neck would be sliced and snapped, neat as a chicken’s. His pals would open fire about two seconds later. That’s two eternities. Even money had me taking down Collins too before my heart pumped out the last of my blood. A pleasant thought. I’ve learned to take consolation where it lies.
“Good news, Detective,” I said to Rourke. “Today you retire.”
Gravel crunched and another nondescript sedan rolled around the corner. Agent Bellow climbed out. He took in the situation and lit a cigarette.
I laughed even though it hurt.
“Uh-oh, everybody. Act natural. Daddy’s home.”
“Stow the guns, gentlemen and lady,” Bellow said. “Agent Noonan, come over here for a second, please. Detective Rourke, I said put that gun away or we’re going to have a serious problem. Thank you.”
Detective Rourke eased the hammer down. He stepped back and made the piece disappear. His hangdog expression remained in place the way it might if his favorite show was preempted by breaking news. Spooky dude. I felt a brotherly bond developing between us.
“God damn it,” Noonan said.
THIRTY-FIVE
Are you dying?” Agent Bellow didn’t sound concerned one way or the other, although he drove way too fast. Coincidentally, I’d spent the past few minutes waiting to discover the answer to that very question.
My shirt had soaked black. Dying? This felt nowhere near dying. However, I did estimate my blood to be a quart or two low.
“Nah. Be fine after I get zipped up again. How’d you find the party?”
“GPS in Tim’s cell. Don’t tell him he’s bugged. Old dogs got to keep ahead of the pups by any means.”
There’d been a brief argument between Bellow and Noonan back at the would-be murder site. Apparently, Bellow won. We’d left the others behind. More houses appeared as we reversed our route back toward Kingston. Death to life—again.
Along the way, I confessed my visit to Donnie Talon and the sequence of events that followed. I omitted the homicide details.
“I’ve worked with Tim since he graduated Quantico,” Bellow said. “He’s thirty-one. A baby. My day, it took fifteen, twenty years for that institutional darkness to creep in. Guys like me? We all had skins on the wall and a retirement portfolio before we got so damned jaded. Now they come out of the academy like that. Evil old men peeking through the eyes of kids. Fucking terrifying.”
“Dramatic timing you’ve got.” I pressed the soggy bandages to be on the safe side.
He punched the dash lighter. When it popped, he lit another cigarette.
“Deus ex machina happens.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, granted. Or it could be you orchestrated the whole scenario. Maybe I was never in any danger of getting my head blown off. Maybe you need me to owe you one.”
He puffed his cigarette.
“Would it make you feel better to believe that?”
He drove to an emergency clinic in the industrial heart of old Kingston. A sullen doctor gave me the once-over with none-too-gentle pokes and prods. Another local anesthetic and more stitches while Vivaldi sang a lullaby. I napped on the table, basking in the white light of the operating lamp. The routine verged on old hat.
Eventually, Bellow woke me, gave me a shoulder to slump against as we sallied forth.
The doc accepted a handful of cash from the agent and sent us on our merry way sans paperwork or guff about bed rest. A Syndicate doc or simply a guy jaded beyond repair by all the gangbangers and homicidal blue-collar drunks he’d tended. He did, however, hand me a paper bag rattling with pain pills and antibiotics as a door prize.
“Got anything in there for a pain in the ass?” Agent Bellow said.
* * *
—
LIONEL MET US AT MY CABIN. I collapsed into the easy chair and nursed a glass of whiskey and caught him up to speed with the day’s events. After a bout of frantic barks and puppy cavorting, Minerva draped herself across my feet and snoozed.
“Cute pup,” Bellow said. “A recent addition to the Coleridge household?”
“She hates pigs,” Lionel said. He poured a glass and handed it over without meeting Bellow’s eye.
“A fellow traveler,” I said.
“You probably shouldn’t mix this shit.” Lionel squinted at my latest bottle of pills.
“I’ll risk courting death this once.”
“What a mess.” Bellow lit a cigarette. “My balls-up entirely. I should’ve sent Tim back to Virginia. Or I should’ve brought you in before you went on a one-man rampage through The Battery.”
“A three-man rampage,” Lionel said, well into another drunk. “Here’s the headline news, Agent. I didn’t risk my ass in Afghanistan for the American way of life to have jackbooted sonsofbitches stomp in here and abduct my friends and threaten to dump ’em in the woods. This ain’t a banana republic. This ain’t Mexico. Or Chile. I’ve half a mind to load for bear and go put down that fuckhead partner of yours.”
“Easy, killer,” I said.
“Fair enough,” Bellow said. “I didn’t sign up for this bullshit either. Nonetheless, it isn’t anything new. We’ve used questionable methods to achieve our aims since the Capone era, since Hoover and his rubber-hose brigade.”
“It’s a war,” I said. “No hard feelings.”
“You serious, dude?” Lionel rolled his eyes and poured another Johnnie Walker. He slapped the empty bottle across the room, ricocheted it off the far wall. Minerva growled and peed on my sock.
I lifted the pup into my lap and soothed her.
“Noonan was right, Lionel. This leopard’s spots aren’t going to change. I’m a bad guy. Been playing that role for twenty years.” I looked at Bellow. “What you’ve got to understand, what you’ve got to make your partner understand, is that this time I’m on the side of angels.”
“Ah, well. There’s more than one kind of angel, right? Bloodthirsty crowd, the seraphim.”
“I’m not going to stop unless you kill me.”
“Oh, we received that signal, loud and clear,” the agent said. “I apologize for what happened today. I’ll square it away with Tim and Kingston’s finest. There won’t be a repeat performance. My word.”
“We’re good,” I said. “Truly.”
“Thank you for your courtesy.” Bellow dragged a chair across from mine and sat. “Agent Noonan and I are liaising with the Gang Task Force Special Division. We’re investigating the White Manitou. The details aren’t important. Nearly three weeks ago, I lost contact with an undercover informant. He goes by Philippe Martinez. Last winter, my man observed Henry Stephens and Eddy Yellowknife murder a member of a rival gang. Stephens’s initiation ceremony. The order came
from the New York boss, Larry Modine.”
“I’m familiar with the name,” I said.
“Martinez also witnessed the Skype conversation between Modine and one of Talon’s lieutenants. Even better, he can place several other ranking Manitou officers at the meeting. That, in and of itself, is a nice piece of evidence, but there’s a lot more.”
“Skype?” Lionel said. “No shit?”
Bellow ignored him. He’d gotten plenty of practice with Agent Noonan.
“Martinez knows of a dozen murders, twice that many dope deals, and a metric fucking ton of heists and hijackings. As I said, we’ve built this case going on two years. Pure poison for Modine. Unfortunately, word leaked out to the head honchos that the Bureau is watching. They don’t know about Martinez, or so we hope. Chatter we’ve intercepted doesn’t indicate he’s been compromised—but they have suspicions regarding a mole. Those sonofabitches will root him out eventually. Meanwhile, in the absence of solid intelligence regarding our operation, the gang responded by ordering a whole slew of their crew to go underground.”
I nodded.
“Donnie Talon said as much. You’ll get a gold-plated commendations pinned to your chest if you take down this Modine character, eh?”
“Medals don’t interest me, Coleridge. I’m more concerned Manitou management may decide to cut its losses and ice these guys who are in hiding. See, the local chapter answers to a kind of tribal council. Powerful bastards you’d know if you read the business section or society page. Modine or one of the other elders snaps his fingers and heads roll. Lots of heads. Labor is cheap in the Manitou hierarchy. The chiefs don’t bat an eye to spend lives. By our count, there are nineteen bangers in limbo with the sword of Damocles hanging over them.”
“Nineteen. Huh. Be a real bloodbath.” The world would be a better place for the pruning. I didn’t say it aloud.
“Our saving grace lies in the fact that these guys don’t all work directly for Modine. Better still, Modine is at odds with a couple of other bosses. I figure that’s why he hasn’t dared to make a precipitous move. The clans take frequent potshots at each other.”
