The Blade Itself

by Marcus Sakey

  Danny stood alone in the darkness, his body jittery with adrenaline. On the roof, he’d realized that he didn’t expect to make it out alive. He’d sworn a silent promise that if saving the others meant sacrificing himself, it was a deal he could accept.

  Time to settle that marker. For Patrick. For Debbie.

  For himself.

  He took a breath and started back up the stairs.

  47

  A Line of Blood

  A strange calm had descended. His heart still pounded, but now he felt a mastery over it, a lightness. He moved upward as silently as speed would allow, taking the steps in long strides, his eyes fixed on the open doorway. Sean had been hit, that much he knew. But how badly?

  Reaching the landing, he pressed his back against the wall. He wanted to wait, to figure out exactly where they were, but knew that could be fatal for Nolan.

  Breathing softly, he peered around the edge of the door.

  The detective wasn’t by the woodpile, and it took a moment to spot him. When Danny did, he found himself torn between standing rigid in fear and running out like a fool.

  Nolan knelt at the building’s edge, some fifty feet away. Blood stained the upper part of his torso black. Evan stood in front of him, pistol pressed against Sean’s forehead. The duffel bag lay on the floor a half dozen paces away.

  Without pausing to consider, Danny stepped out, keeping low but moving fast, sure at any moment he would see a plume of orange, watch Nolan’s lifeless body fly backward.

  Fifteen feet took him to the lumber. Good cover, but not much else. The once neat stack had toppled and spilled sideways. The shorter pieces were hopelessly entangled with the larger, and there was no way to extract one without making noise. Danny still had the knife on his key chain, but it was a laughable match for Evan’s pistol. Which tool would he use, the can opener or the folding scissors? Besides, sneaking that close to Evan seemed impossible. The space was too open.

  On the building’s edge Sean knelt with his head bowed, apparently paying no attention to whatever Evan was asking. The stain on his chest continued to grow, and a small pool of blood had formed under his knees. Staring helplessly, Danny noticed a trail of black running from the pool. Evan must have dragged the detective to the lip. Enjoying the theater. Unconsciously, Danny’s eyes followed the trail. There was a silver shape lying where it began, some twenty feet away.

  A gun. Nolan must have dropped it when he got hit.

  Danny snuck another look at Evan. He still couldn’t make out any words, but something told him the shot was coming soon.

  Retrieving the gun meant leaving cover, crossing into an open area. If Evan heard him, it was over for both of them.

  Moving lightly, he crept out from behind the lumber. His heart sounded in his ears, thum-thUMP, thum-thUMP. He kept his weight on the balls of his feet as he walked the long tightrope across the room. His body tingled all over, the soreness of his muscles forgotten. The night air felt cool but very distant. Ten more steps. He tried to bring to mind everything he knew about guns. Beyond undoing the safety, it wasn’t much. He lifted a foot, leaned in, set it down gently. Every move precise. Careful. Not once giving in to the voice that yelled inside him. The whole weight of his life, and of Nolan’s, depended on doing this perfectly. Five more steps. Evan’s voice drifted through the air. The words sounded slow motion, dragged out like a tape loop. Weird, alien murmurs. He wondered if the others were away, if they’d made it to safety. He could feel each nerve in his feet, each current of air on his skin.

  And then he was bending to scoop up the gun. It felt heavy in his hand, heavier than he’d expected. Hot and vaguely oily. He fought a mad urge to come up blasting away like in some seventies cop show. He had to get closer.

  He walked on tiptoe, his arm rigid ahead of him. Locked on Evan like a compass pointing north. Each terrible step brought him nearer. He became aware of his breathing, how shallowly he was drawing air into his lungs. The weight of the gun kept his muscle tensed. How much time had passed? Probably only seconds. Felt longer. Felt like eternities had flowed beneath his feet. He thought of Debbie, eternally reaching for grace. The veins in his throat throbbed. He could taste sweat on his upper lip. Every careful step brought him closer. He wanted to cock the gun, but was afraid the noise would give him away. He thought it would fire anyway. Wasn’t cocking just to make it faster, smoother? He thought of Patrick, his laughter silenced with a bullet, body dumped in the river like trash. Danny ached from the beatings of the last days. The agonizing pace made him feel every movement. On the edge of the drop, Nolan said something, his voice dismissive. Evan laughed, a deep, cold laugh. The sound of a man who knew he’d won. Then he popped his head to either side and leaned forward, the pistol touching Nolan’s forehead.

  A dozen feet away, Danny stared down the length of his arm, his childhood friend square in the sights. He closed one eye and pointed the pistol at Evan’s chest, dead center of his beating heart. Concentrated so hard that everything lost focus. So that Karen and Tommy and Debbie and Patrick all disappeared. So that Evan became only a pattern of colors. Then he squeezed the trigger.

  The click echoed loud in the open space.

  Evan whirled, instinct driving him back from the detective, bringing his arm over, aiming without hesitation. Danny stood frozen, impotent in the face of death, and waited for the impact. Some part of him wondered if you heard the shot before you felt it.

  Then Evan laughed. “All those times you told me not to play with guns, you should have been learning how they worked.”

  On TV, the cops slid the top part of the gun back before firing. He tried it. But when he pulled the trigger again, another click rang out.

  “It’s empty.” Evan smiled, his pistol never leaving Danny’s chest. “Dirty Harry over here didn’t see me sneak around. All I had to do was wait till I heard him pop the clip to reload.”

  Danny let his arm drop, the gun falling loose to clatter on the ground beside the duffel bag. He was too far from Evan to charge, and there was no cover for forty feet in any direction.

  He was out of moves.

  “Funny.” Evan smiled. “We got ourselves a reunion tonight. All the boys from the neighborhood.”

  “Except Patrick.” His voice came out weary, too tired for rage.

  “Can’t make an omelet, you know?” Evan shrugged. “But it’s still quite a picture. We got the whole range. The criminal. The cop. And whatever it is you are, Danny.”

  “I’m…” He paused like he was hesitating, then took a step forward. “I’m just a regular guy.” If he could get close enough, he might be able to make a lunge.

  Evan smiled again. “You’re starting to piss me off. Stop trying to win. Don’t you get it? You scored last time. Now it’s my turn.”

  Danny froze, his arms out. “Easy.”

  “Easy my ass.” With his left hand, Evan dug in an inner pocket, came out with cigarettes. Shook the pack until one popped up, took it in his lips, lit it with his silver Zippo. His gun hand never wavered. “You know what? Since we’re here, let’s settle something. Which are you, Danny-boy?”

  “Which am I?”

  “I know you like to believe you’re an innocent civilian, but it’s getting a little thin, don’t you think? Fighting, breaking-and-entering, jacking a car, kidnapping, plus you just tried to shoot a man in the back. That’s a hell of a week. Tell the truth.” He blew a puff of smoke. “Felt good, didn’t it?”

  No point in lying. “Yes.”

  Evan smiled, took a step back, and turned to Nolan. “You hear that, Sean? Got your cuffs handy?”

  Nolan’s voice was calm, almost clipped. “Shut it, convict.”

  Evan’s smile twisted into a snarl. His fist lashed out, pistol-whipping the detective across the face. Nolan’s head snapped sideways, but he didn’t make a sound. A line of blood cut across his cheek.

  “A little respect, motherfucker.”

  Danny’s mind felt sluggish, tired. An overdose of ad
renaline had turned his limbs to concrete. He considered his options, dealing them out in front of him. Not a winning hand in the bunch.

  “Hey,” Evan said, his voice suddenly light as he turned back to Danny. “Wanted to ask you. How’d you get up to the roof, man?”

  “I climbed.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Now that sounds like fun. I bet you felt more alive than you had the last ten years.”

  Danny shrugged, looked down. An idea occurred to him. A slim chance, but the only one he saw.

  “Come on, admit it, man. It’s just like the game. You remember? Pisser?” Evan smiled, an old comradely grin.

  “I remember.”

  “You miss it, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes.” Danny spoke slowly, cocking his left hip out. Putting all the weight on it. Last call. “Sometimes I do. But you know what, Evan? Mostly, I’m tired of it. I don’t want to play anymore.”

  Evan stared at him like he was reading something in his soul, the smile slowly fading. He was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice came out soft. “Don’t you get it? The game never ends.”

  And despite everything, for an instant, Danny saw through the man in front of him, the hardened killer, the engineer of his undoing. In his place stood a twelve-year-old boy with freckles and curly hair and a taunting smile that seemed to float in the air. Floated above the thousand humiliations of poverty, above the bruises from his father, above the whole stinking unbalanced system that would lead him here. A smile that floated because it had to.

  And then Evan shook his head. “Ah well. Time to go.” He raised the pistol to point at Danny’s head. “It’ll be quick, amigo. For old times’ sake.”

  The slapping of his heart seemed to bend the ribs of his chest. Danny’s mouth went dry, his tongue a slab of meat. The round eye of the gun stared at him, eager to offer that fatal wink.

  “Wait.” He stared past the pistol, to Evan. His fingers tingled. “One last favor?”

  Evan cocked his head. “Your credit isn’t much good here, Danny-boy.”

  “For old times’ sake.”

  “What?”

  “Do him first.” Danny gestured at Nolan with his head, careful to keep his hands out.

  Evan narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  Danny stared back, blinked. “Because… it’s like the game. It’ll be easier once I see it done.”

  Evan looked at him for a long moment. His eyes grew colder, and darker. “Never would have believed it.” His voice dripped contempt. “You’re a coward.”

  Danny looked away, looked back.

  Evan stared at him, then slowly shrugged. “All right. For old times’ sake.” He took two steps toward the snapping plastic, and turned to Nolan. “Good night, Sean.” He raised the gun like a piece of clockwork, bringing it to Nolan’s forehead.

  Danny jerked downward, his right hand finding the strap of the duffel bag and hoisting it up. Keeping his momentum going, he hurled himself forward, his left leg planted as a pivot, arm flinging out and up from the weight, putting every last cell of screaming muscle into it.

  The thirty-pound duffel bag took Evan dead in the chest. He staggered backward, arms flailing, fire blasting from the gun. His back hit the sheeting, and for one terrible moment it held.

  Then his weight ripped it from the ceiling and Evan McGann fell out into the city night.

  The silence that followed was broken only by the wind-whipped crack of the loose tarp and the sound of Danny’s beating heart. His legs went rubbery, and he dropped to his knees. After all of the pain and exhaustion, he wanted more than anything to collapse and sleep.

  More than almost anything.

  With trembling arms, he crawled over to the open ledge and looked down.

  Evan lay splayed across a stack of metal girders three stories below. The top and bottom half of him seemed somehow wrong, like an action figure twisted too far. One arm curled around the duffel bag. The seam had split on impact, and a handful of bills spilled out to swirl in the October wind, the money blowing like dreams, tangling in the dirty weeds and sullen mud. Beside him, he heard Nolan speaking into his radio, calling for backup. Sirens sounded immediately, beat cars only blocks away.

  Danny rocked back to his knees, shut his eyes, and let the darkness come.

  48

  The Final Tally

  “You don’t have to do this.” Karen’s voice was flat.

  Danny looked over at her, rigid behind the steering wheel. Her face was strained, but at least it wasn’t slack. Sometimes he’d find her staring out the window or standing in the kitchen folding and refolding a dish towel, her eyes a thousand miles away. Gone so deep that even speaking wouldn’t break the trance. Those times he would slide an arm around her waist to remind her she was safe, and watch her come back slowly, blinking like she was swimming up from the bottom of some enormous sea.

  Her wounds would heal in time, he knew. But he also knew they’d leave scars. Wounds always did.

  “I do have to. I…” Danny almost said “owe it to him,” caught himself. “I need to finish it. What’s that word you like,” he asked, “the Men-Are-from-Wherever word?”

  She smiled. “Closure.”

  “Closure. That’s what I need.”

  She didn’t nod, but she didn’t disagree, either. Just flipped on the blinker and eased into the turn lane. Threadbare snowflakes drifted halfheartedly past the windshield. A voice on the radio said they should expect a couple of inches. Warned them Valentine’s Day was only a week away, and told them nothing said love like Russell Stover chocolates. He snapped it off.

  Was he doing this for closure? Seemed like part of the equation, certainly. The opportunity to put everything to bed, to face the last of the consequences. Clear the slate and focus on the future. But it felt like there was more to it.

  He stared out the window and wondered what he would say. The tangled web of brotherhood and betrayal was too complicated to be undone, or even encapsulated, by mere words. Words weren’t big enough.

  The Blue Line El rattled past, filled with everyday people, and he wondered if their histories seemed as complicated to them; wondered how many saw their past as a confluence of uncontrollable events shaping their present. Did any of them?

  Did they all?

  He reached over and put a hand on Karen’s belly, feeling the warmth and life beneath her thin sweater. She put a hand over his, smiling with the newfound bloom, the one she’d had since Christmas, when three separate tests turned blue.

  The new Cook County Hospital squatted a mile west of the Loop. Though possessed of all the poetry of an office park, it had shouldered its predecessor’s 150-year legacy of offering medical care to even the poorest of patients. Karen waited for traffic to ease, and then turned into the driveway, the Explorer’s tires humming softly on the blacktop. She parked just short of the covered walkway and turned to face him. In the way she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear he recognized a prepared speech.

  “I can’t come with you.” The words tumbled out. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  He shook his head. “I know. I’ll handle this part alone.”

  She glanced out the window, and then back again. Danny wanted to scoop her up and carry her back to their apartment, to wrap her in quilts and love and tell her she would never have to face another monster. Instead he kissed her, breathed her in, reveling in her. Every time they touched he felt blessed. Different, better, than before. No more living on borrowed time.

  He stepped out, pulling his jacket around him. A family walked into the hospital, the automatic entrance swishing open. To the east, he could see the skyline against gray clouds. He reached for the car door, started to slam it.

  “Danny!”

  He turned. “What?”

  “Promise me…” She hesitated, like she wasn’t sure what to say. “Promise you’ll come back to me.”

  He stared at her, feeling like his heart might soar out
of his chest. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll never leave again.” He reached across the empty seat, and she seized his hand.

  “You better not.” Her eyes had the old playful sparkle in them. “Or I’ll find a hunky Lamaze teacher to run away with.”

  He laughed, and leaned in to kiss her again, and again.

  He got directions at the information desk. The comfortable lobby quickly gave way to antiseptic corridors. Fluorescents shone bright and hollow off linoleum floors. He took the elevator up. A uniformed cop lounged in a chair outside the door.

  “I’m Danny Carter. Detective Nolan cleared me to visit today.”

  The cop matched his driver’s license to a list on a clipboard, and asked him to sign in. “You want me to come in with you?”

  Danny shook his head. “Thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” The cop gestured to the door, then flopped back into his chair.

  The room looked like any of a million other hospital rooms, clean, sterile, and cold. A whiff of ammonia lingered in the air. The television was tuned to a Hispanic network, soccer players racing up and down some warm field. A wheelchair sat in one corner.

  Evan looked up from the bed as he walked in. His stare grew hard. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I’m not sure.” Danny closed the door behind him.

  In the months since Halloween, Evan had aged ten years. His bulk looked out of place in the adjustable bed, but forced rest had cost him that coiled edge of fitness. Several days of stubble darkened his chin.

  “Sure you are. You want to gloat.” Evan flipped off the TV, planted his hands on either side, and dragged himself to a sitting position. He pulled the sheet aside and pointed at his useless legs. “Take a look. This what you came to see?”

  Danny shook his head, spun a chair around, and sat down beside Evan. “Nope.”

  “What, you want to play cards?” His voice rang with bitterness. “You candy-striping now?”

  “Maybe I thought I owed something to you.” Danny kept his eyes level on Evan’s, forcing himself not to reveal the storm of emotions within him. Half of him saw a broken monster, a predator ironically rendered prey. The other half saw a tough little bastard of a kid with a floating smile.