The Blade Itself

by Marcus Sakey

  Blackness swam at the edges of his vision, and his chest felt tight. He scrambled to his feet and stormed out of the bathroom, habit carrying him toward the front door before he realized he had nowhere to go. He wanted to smash something. To smash everything. He spun in the living room and kicked one of her moving boxes, sending a pile of loose photos flying, each image spinning in flashes of color and memory as it fluttered to the floor.

  Patrick was dead.

  Because of him.

  “It’s not your fault,” Karen said from behind him, her words so eerily aligned with his thoughts that he wondered if he’d spoken aloud. “It’s not. If you want to blame someone-”

  “I do,” he said. “I do want to blame someone. I want to blame Evan.” He looked at the mess of photos around him, then sighed and dropped on the couch. “But it’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because none of this would have happened if I’d just…” He trailed off. If you’d just what? Not told Patrick? Not walked out seven years ago? Not swiped that first Playboy in ’81? How far back do you want to go with this? Because your catalog of errors is many things, but short ain’t one of them.

  “I fucked everything up, baby.” He felt bone weary. The world had hollowed him out. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She sat beside him and stroked his hair. Her voice was soft and unhesitating. “We’ll find a way.”

  He wanted a quiet, dark place to cry. To mourn his brother.

  But more than that he wanted to find Evan, pin him to the ground, and beat him to death. Punch and kick until his legs failed and his knuckles broke.

  Hold on to that. Anger is a gift.

  One deep breath, and then another. There would be time to mourn Patrick later. The question was how many other regrets he’d be carrying at that point. Painful as it was, he couldn’t think about Patrick right now.

  Instead, he had to think about the man who killed him.

  “Evan is still out there.” He could feel her muscles clench at the mention of his name. It didn’t matter. “I’ve got to go after him.”

  “You?” She jerked away. “No. We’ll call the police.”

  “They can’t help us.”

  “If we tell them about Patrick-”

  He shook his head. “It’s past that.”

  “Is this some macho thing?” She stared at him. “I don’t want to lose you over something from the movies.”

  “It’s not that. It’s Tommy. Richard’s son. Evan will kill him at the first siren.”

  “So why does that mean you have to stop him? Why don’t we just get out of here, get away?”

  “You’d do that?”

  She hesitated, looked around their living room, and then nodded slowly.

  He leaned in and kissed her soft lips, let himself dream it for a moment. Just hop in the car and go, take what money they had and start over. Somewhere without winter winds and bleak history. Somewhere they could be different people.

  It was a beautiful dream, but that was all it was.

  “Evan would kill the boy just to spite me. And maybe Richard, too. And even if he wouldn’t,” he paused, “I think I’ve done enough running in the last seven years.”

  “Then what?” She stared at him. “Pretend you’re John Wayne?”

  He sighed, closed his eyes. “I don’t know.” Unbidden, an image of Patrick rose up in front of him. That day at the pub, not a month earlier, when he’d watched in the mirror as Patrick came in, flirted with the girls in the corner booth. How he’d thrown his head back and howled with laughter when Danny shot him in the mirror. Danny rubbed at his eyes, wanting to smear the image. “‘Running just breeds faster problems.’” He opened his eyes. “Dad used to say that.”

  She was silent. He knew her mind was working, trying to find them a way out, an option where they walked away unscathed. A smart play.

  “Did I ever tell you how my dad died?”

  She softened. “Of course. In a car accident.”

  He nodded. “His brakes went out. He drove an old Ford pickup with big tool chests in the back.” He smiled. “My friend Seamus and I used to take the tools out of the compartments and climb inside, pretend we were smuggling ourselves in the Millennium Falcon. We’d fight over who got to be Han and who had to be Luke. That was twenty years ago, and Dad was still driving it when he died. The money was never there for a new one, so he just rode it into the ground, even as the salt ate holes in the underbelly and the rust crept up the doors.” He sighed. “You know the last time I saw him, I was in prison?”

  She nodded, her face creased.

  “He came to see me. He looked so out of place. He’d worked his ass off since he was a teenager. Work was part of being a man to him. Criminals, people who would steal instead of earn, they were beneath his contempt. He hated that I was there, hated what I’d become. But I was his son, so he came to see me.” He shook his head. “We talked about baseball.”

  “I’m sure he knew that you loved him.”

  He blew air through his mouth, stared at the ceiling. “That was December. A couple weeks later he was driving that ancient piece of junk down the Eisenhower. It was snowing, and the roads were very slippery. Sunday morning, but he was on his way to a job anyway. His brakes failed.”

  Karen moved behind him, put her arms around his neck, her chest warm against his back. “Baby, you’ve told me all this. You don’t have to relive it now.”

  He shook his head. “What I didn’t tell you was that the cop who’d responded to the accident call came to the funeral. That really touched me.” Danny remembered him perfectly. A football player’s build, cop mustache, and bone-cracking handshake, but a voice that was almost a whisper. “I went over to thank him, and he told me something that I’ve never been able to forget.”

  Karen tightened her grip on him, but it felt like he’d gone numb.

  “He was a beat cop, and he’d seen a lot of accidents. After a while, he said, you learned to read them. A story written in skid marks and broken glass and points of impact. They were mostly the same, he said. People asleep at the wheel, or drunk, or careless. But Dad’s had been different.”

  “How?” Karen said, her cheek against his.

  “It was the tire marks, the cop said, that gave it away.” Danny sighed, remembering the “of course” feeling. The way the scene had flashed in his imagination, clear in every detail. Dad at the wheel, talk radio playing low, a cigarette in his mouth. The patched seats radiating cold. Suddenly, the sense that something wasn’t quite right. His father pumping the brakes, feeling them go soft. Staring out at the snowy morning, at the lines of cars crowding him.

  “Dad swerved into the concrete barrier on purpose.”

  “Suicide?” Her voice was incredulous.

  Danny shook his head. “His brakes were gone. The roads were icy, and there were a lot of cars. He could have tried to move to the right, off the road, hoped that everyone would get out of his way. But if it didn’t work, he might have crashed into another car. Maybe a family.”

  He turned to look at her. “So instead of risking other people, he jerked the wheel to the left. They were widening the road, and there was a concrete construction barrier on that side. The cop said he was going fifty or sixty miles an hour. Dad didn’t have a chance, and he knew it.”

  Karen held his gaze, but her eyes were wet.

  “I’ve been living with that for years. I had to be escorted to my father’s funeral by marshals. I thought that was bad enough. But worse was that three months later, when they let me out of prison, I went right back to my old life. Oh, I pretended to go straight. I got a new apartment, a job tending bar, but I knew I was bullshitting myself. It wasn’t two months before Evan and I ripped off the manager as he deposited the night’s take, and then it was back to old habits. It wasn’t until the pawnshop that I even started trying to do what I should have done all along. What my dad did without hesitation.”

  The memory burned. For a
guy who thought he brought intelligence to the table, he’d made a mess of a lot of things. When Evan had come back into his life, they’d sat in a hot dog joint and argued about the reasons, Evan claiming that it was economics, that the system put the gun in his hand. That they were in a fight to the death with the odds stacked against them. In a world where men like his father worked seven days a week just to survive while men like Richard had everything handed to them, he couldn’t deny that there was some truth to the argument. But it was too simple to be complete. Because the fact was that there had been moments when two choices had opened up before him, and he’d made the wrong one. Made it knowing it for what it was.

  “No more.” As he said the words, looking into Karen’s eyes, he realized that he meant it. No more fear of consequences. No more convenient wrong choices.

  No more smart plays.

  And suddenly he knew what to do.

  36

  That Old Tightrope Feeling

  Through the broad front windows, menacing clouds mottled a chill blue sky. The morning sunlight was pewter, stark and lacking warmth. Halloween had always seemed like the first day of winter to Danny, and this year that felt particularly true.

  “I’m at the coffee shop.” He heard a faint echo half a heartbeat behind each word. They kept making cell phones smaller instead of making them work. “I’m going to wait a few minutes to be sure. Then I’ll head over.”

  “Let me come. I can make the call from anywhere,” Karen said.

  “No.”

  “Danny-”

  “We’ve been over this.” He said it gently.

  “I could help. We’re in this together.” She sounded frustrated.

  “I know.” He leaned on his elbows to glance out the front window. Traffic seemed normal in both directions, no signs of heightened police presence. He didn’t expect any, but they’d agreed there was no point taking chances. “But if you’re with me, Debbie might spook. This has to go perfectly. Please.”

  She sighed. “All right.” He could hear stress beneath her calm.

  “We’re going to get through. It’ll be fine.”

  “Just be careful, okay?”

  “I promise. You have the number?”

  She read Nolan’s cell phone number back to him.

  “Good. Stay by the phone. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. And listen-” He paused. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this.”

  “Just come home to me.” She hung up.

  He took a sip from his coffee and glanced around, more from nerves than necessity. Oversize canvasses painted like comic books hung on the brick walls, and the counter guy had piercings in his eyebrows and those weird metal rings stretching his ears into hoops. The coffeehouse was in the vanguard of gentrification, one of a handful of new businesses trying to capitalize on the building boom in the area. It was a little premature. Ukrainian grandmothers and Latino day laborers still dramatically outnumbered hipsters willing to drop five bucks on a cappuccino. But it fit Danny’s needs perfectly – quiet and empty, with big glass windows opening onto the street. If he craned his neck to the right, he could see the Pike Street construction yard where Debbie watched over Tommy.

  The idea had come to him last night. It was a dangerous move, sure, but at least it was a move. Proactive instead of reactive. The idea had popped into his head, and he’d straightened suddenly and said, “Tommy.”

  “The boy?” Karen had looked confused.

  “He’s the key to all of this. If we take him away, then Evan has nothing.”

  She’d stared at him. “He still has a gun.”

  “That’s true.” He’d met her gaze. “But at least it’s not pointed at anybody innocent.”

  They’d turned the plan over between the two of them, trying to plug holes. After a while they’d gone to bed and made love for the first time in weeks. It had started soft and sweet, but pretty soon they were going at it with a rawness that hadn’t been part of their sex for a long time. Afterward, she’d left her thigh flung across his body and fallen asleep with him still inside her. He lay there like that and stared at the ceiling, turning the plan over in his head.

  It was simple enough. Snatch Tommy when Evan wasn’t around. Talk Debbie into hiding out for a little while. Once the boy was safe, Karen would call Nolan from a pay phone and tell him enough about the murder in the diner parking lot to get his attention. Then she’d tell him that the man who committed it would be coming to the Pike Street site later that day. If all went well, Nolan would stake it out and pick Evan up. The guy would have parole violations and probably a weapons charge, more than enough to hold him while the murder charges got sorted out.

  What would happen then was a little dicier. But at least Evan wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone again.

  He stood up, lacing his fingers and stretching them above his head, feeling his body pop and crack. The counter guy didn’t look up from his novel as Danny stepped outside. Rush hour was largely over, and traffic moved fluidly, battered vans and downscale cars, the occasional cab. He unlocked his truck and hopped in, feeling the chill of the seat through his light jacket.

  After turning onto Pike Street, he drove past the construction site, scanning for danger. The slats in the fence made it difficult to see inside, but everything looked normal. He went up a block, came back, and circled again. A couple of cars were parked on the other side of the street, a few pickups, a hot-rod Camaro with tinted windows, but there was no sign of Evan’s Mustang. Perfect. The worst would soon be over.

  He pulled up to the gate and stepped out. The wind tugged at his clothes, cold and with a hint of chocolate from the candy factory a mile away. He kept his motions calm and even, inconspicuous. Everything looked right – the trailer was shuttered and dark, the door closed. Debbie’s Tempo sat beside it. Thank God. Evan had called her back in to babysit Tommy and not stayed himself. Danny felt sure that once he explained the plan, she’d come over to his side. She was scared, and would likely jump at any opportunity to get out.

  The chain clanked as he unlocked it and let it dangle against the fence. He pushed the gate open, adrenaline pounding. He got in the truck, pulled into the yard, and made a quick three-point turn to back the Explorer up to the trailer door.

  If luck was really with them, Evan wouldn’t mention the kidnapping once he was in custody – after all, it was a federal charge and would add time to his sentence. Danny suspected the guy wouldn’t care. Evan would tell the cops everything just to lash out at him. But by then Tommy would be safely back with his dad, and Danny would know the name and location of the only eyewitness to the murder in the parking lot. That would give him some leverage – the state’s attorney might be willing to drop weak charges against him in trade for an assured case against Evan. Provided that the boy was safe and Debbie cooperated.

  And if not?

  Then he was going to jail.

  Danny took a deep breath and popped the rear door release. Showtime. Leaving the engine running, he hopped out and started for the trailer, expecting the door to open at any moment. Debbie must have heard him drive up, but he saw no sign of her – the blinds didn’t part, the door didn’t move. Was she still panicky from yesterday?

  He took the cinder-block steps in a stride, opened the door, and stepped in. The lights were off and the windows were shuttered. After the bright morning sun, the trailer was dim as a cave. A thick smell of burned coffee and rotting garbage filled the air. If Debbie was there, she was sitting in the dark.

  He almost called her name, stopped himself. She clearly wasn’t there; no point in Tommy overhearing anything now. Where could she be? The plan relied on her help. Did he dare wait? Time was precious – Evan could show up at any moment.

  Suddenly, he realized that Tommy hadn’t made a sound. Not when he’d thrown the door open, and not since.

  He remembered the little moan Tommy had given as the pistol pressed his forehead, the way Evan had smiled and winked. His imagination furnished a terrible vision
of Tommy silent and still, duct tape binding his arms and legs, dark brown blood surrounding a hole like a third eye in his forehead. Danny lunged toward the couch, but his eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness, and he slammed his knee into the cabinet. Stars lit up his vision. Cursing, he leaned forward, his fingers fumbling in the shadows.

  He felt fabric, cushions. His hands patted the sofa wildly, covering it in broad sweeps. Nothing.

  Panic seizing him, he scrambled to his feet and reached for the light switch. The glare spilled across the tacky sofa. The fabric looked garish, stained and sunken. Scraps of duct tape dangled from the arms and legs of the couch, their ends ragged. The torn cover from a box of microwave quesadillas lay precisely in the center of the couch.

  With shaking fingers, Danny reached for it. On the flip side, a note had been scrawled in black ink: Partner – Change of plans. Sorry.

  He blinked, stared at the note, back at the sofa.

  Tommy was gone.

  Danny backed away, bumped into the cabinet, knocking the note free. It flipped as it fell to the floor, the bright colors of the package design giving way to the dark of the cardboard, bright, dark, bright, dark.

  He had to get out of there. Regroup, figure something out.

  What? What can you possibly do now?

  Evan had somehow anticipated him. It seemed like every time he made the slightest progress, something conspired to take it back. He felt that old tightrope feeling, like a lean in any direction could be fatal. Without Debbie, without Tommy, Danny had nothing.

  He shook his head, ordered himself to move. Time had been tight before. Now it was absolutely desperate. Somehow, he had to think of a way to turn things around before Evan got in touch with Richard. Every second counted. He bent, took the note, folded it, and tossed it in the trash. Pulled the duct tape off the couch and threw it in as well. The trailer needed a thorough cleaning and wipe-down, but he couldn’t afford to do it now. He turned off the light, reached for the door handle, and stepped out into the glaring sunlight.