by Marcus Sakey
“Both Witkowski and Richards have extensive criminal records, and are considered prime suspects in what has become known as the Shooting Star robbery. That incident, which took place on April 24, left two men dead. While rumors abounded that a large sum of money was also stolen, police have released no information on that, and no money has been recovered-”
Malachi leaned forward and shut the radio off. Always interesting, hearing what was reported versus what actually happened. The media had spun Tom and Anna Reed as civilian heroes who helped bring down a pair of cop killers, but the police weren’t sharing many details as to exactly what that meant. Malachi had friends on the force, and from what he’d heard, there were plenty of people who wanted to hang the Reeds, but the thing had turned political. A decision to close the books had come from on high. With no fresh information, the news reports were already getting shorter. Soon something else would happen, and the story would be forgotten. The world was a play of shadows.
“That’s it,” Andre said, nodding toward a blocky building with a big orange sign.
Malachi nodded, said nothing. He wasn’t sure what this was, the game at work here, and over the years he’d found that when he didn’t know what was going on, it was better to think than to speak. Andre parked the Mercedes half a block away. Outside, blue sky burned from horizon to horizon. A short white girl walked three dogs trying to go three different directions.
Strange situation. A lot to weigh, and not enough information to do it. Just a cryptic telephone call and his instincts. Still. Risk nothing, get nothing.
Malachi leaned forward, slid off his jacket, then slipped out of the shoulder holster and passed the Sig to Andre. “Put that in the case in the trunk. Yours too.”
The big man got out. Malachi waited till the trunk was closed before he stepped out himself. The police needed probable cause to search a vehicle, and permission or a warrant to open a locked case found in the trunk. He didn’t see that as the play, but always best to be safe.
The front desk was manned by a bored brother with a scraggly mustache. Malachi nodded as he approached, said, “Think you’re holding a key for me?” The dude passed him a small manila envelope.
“Elevator?”
“Back and to your right.”
They rode to the fifth floor in silence, then exited into a bare hall lit by fluorescents. Malachi passed the key, and Andre bent down to fit it into the lock and haul the door up. “Moth-er-fucker.”
On the floor in the center of the small locker was a pile of bundled hundreds. An envelope sat atop. Malachi stepped inside and shut the door, then eyeballed the pile, figured it about three. Andre looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“Grab me that envelope. Don’t touch nothing else.”
It was a standard number ten, unsealed. Malachi opened it, took out the folded paper, shook it open.
No more choosing sides.
This is poison.
We don’t want it.
That was it, just three lines, typed on plain white paper and unsigned. Malachi read it twice, then folded the letter and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Huh.” The fluorescents buzzed overhead.
“What you want to do?”
Malachi looked over at his man, shook his head. “You kidding? Pack that shit up.”
Poison he knew.
JULY 2007
22
THE SMELL OF FADING LILACS mingled with the faint salt tang of the sea. Tom sat on the wooden bench. He’d read somewhere that lilac was good for headaches, but it never helped his. Dr. Carney said the migraines were something he’d have to live with. “What,” she’d said and shrugged, “broken nose, fractured cheekbone, teeth knocked out, concussion, you expect your body to throw a party?”
It didn’t matter. He leaned back, pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, ignored the wobbly necked feeling of needles in his eyeballs. When he thought about that night, a year gone now, two thoughts warred. The first was the memory of Anna shouting his name, and how, in that moment, he came back to life, resurrected by her. He liked that part.
The other was the memory of pointing the gun at Jack Witkowski and pulling the trigger. That he didn’t like. Not because he regretted it; on the contrary, he hoped there was a hell so Jack could burn in it. But Tom was afraid that that moment would be the one that would define his life, would outweigh every precious thing. That on the day he died, what he would remember was not Anna’s eyes or Julian’s smile, but Jack Witkowski, still leering as half his head was torn away.
The sky was fading orange to purple, the moment of dusk that seemed darker than night. He liked the quiet here, in the garden behind their little house near the shore. It was a good place to think. For a while the world he’d believed in had turned to smoke, and it took effort to rebuild.
The poor police, he’d almost felt sorry for them. Between the Shooting Star and Century Mall, they had had two major incidents in less than a month, both in upscale, politically connected areas. Dead cops and dead citizens and an orphaned child. Two dangerous bad guys who had escaped, only to be killed by two completely normal people – completely normal people they suspected had stolen a lot of money. A mess.
At first he and Anna had started to tell the whole truth. The detective had stopped them, left them in the interview room for a long time. When the door opened again, a different kind of cop came through. He still wore a star on his hip, but the suit that covered it cost a lot more, and he talked like a lawyer.
It took twenty minutes of his careful leading before Tom realized that the police wanted nothing to do with the whole truth. Not on this case. Because with Jack and Marshall dead, all they could hope to do was recover the money for a millionaire who wouldn’t admit it had been stolen, who would happily pay the same amount again to keep things quiet. In trade, they’d convict two civilians who had avenged the death of several of their own, and land a one-year-old in foster care. All of which was secondary to their real concern, of course – that the whole affair would play out on the front pages and the five o’clock news.
So solid ground had turned to smoke, and suddenly he and Anna were free to go, taking with them an unsubtle suggestion to keep their mouths shut. The truth was that sometimes the truth wasn’t enough.
Afterward, things had gotten worse. There was Sara’s funeral, the agony of coming face-to-face with what they’d done. Anna, shaking and pale as milk, staring at her sister’s waxy, too-pink face against the casket pillow. Reporters waiting at the cemetery. Pictures in the paper, people recognizing them on the streets, staring with vampire eyes. The discovery of what Jack had done to their home, burning the last connection to the people they used to be. And worst of all, the lonely midnight hours when the demons whispered that they weren’t done paying. That there was more to come.
But there were also the quiet spaces when they held each other, talking and crying and making love. And there was Julian. He was a joy, and he was a duty, and he was maybe all that kept them going. The demons whispered most about him, about what would happen, someday, when they – It didn’t matter. If there was one thing he and Anna could promise, even in this world, it was that Julian would be loved intensely. That was all that mattered.
Overhead, the stars were coming out. A backward way to think, of course. They’d been there all the time. He just hadn’t been able to see them.
JULIAN SAID, “Momma, gobba la,” and smiled.
“That’s right,” Anna said. “Mommy gobba la.” She buttoned his onesie, bright green with an orange monkey, and pulled the cotton blanket up to his belly. Sometimes when he cried there was nothing she could do to console him, no matter that she held him and whispered and swayed, and in those moments, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was crying for his real mother. If there was some smell or sense of safety that she would never be able to duplicate, not quite. Tonight, though, he was happy.
Anna flipped on his night-light and turned off the lamp, then got his favorite stuffed animal, a on
e-eyed, tentacled thing worn and spotted with drool. He reached as soon as he saw it, little hands opening and closing. She touched his cheek, felt the smoothness of it. Every day he seemed more perfect than the one before. Softly she began to sing, going with the last thing she’d been listening to, Kevin Tihista, sweet and sad, “Do-o-n’t worry baby, I’ll keep an eye on you, till you know what to do.” Julian stared, eyes sparkling and then, slowly, closing.
She sat by the crib and listened to him, and to the sounds of a South Carolina night drifting in the open window. After a while she heard the screen door creak and bang, and she tiptoed out of the bedroom. She found Tom in the kitchen, one cabinet open, shaking Advil into his palm. “Headache?”
“It’s nothing.”
She pressed herself to his back, arms around his chest, rising and falling with his breath. He leaned into her, put a hand up to cover hers. For a moment they stood silent, just the buzz of the fridge and their thoughts.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head against his shoulders.
“What is it?” He turned to face her.
“I was giving Julian his bath. He was slapping the water with both hands, and he started smiling, this huge thing that stretched to about his knees. It…” She trailed off, glanced away.
“What?”
“He looked just like – it was the way she used to smile.”
Tom stared for a moment, then pulled her into his arms. He stroked her hair and pressed her to him, and she took the comfort he offered. It was a thing they passed back and forth, that stock of comfort, each sharing it when the other needed it, nurturing and tending it and helping it slowly grow. She let the warmth flow through her, let it ease the pressure of memory.
Then he said, “I finished.”
“YOU DID?” Anna let go, stepped back. Her T-shirt was damp from the bath. The crow’s-feet he’d first spotted last year had deepened to lines. Tom gave a half smile, put a hand to her face. “Yeah,” he said.
“Can I see?”
He nodded, led her through the house to his office. The lamp on the desk spilled golden light. He opened a drawer and took out a thick sheaf of paper, maybe three hundred pages, then gestured to a chair and sat in the one opposite. “It’s rough.”
“Did you tell the truth?”
“I tried.”
She held out her hand. He passed her the manuscript, leaned back to watch her read the first page, the letter. Her face ran a gamut, first a smile, then a tightening of the lips, then a wetness to the eyes. Finally she finished, set the page down on top of the others.
“It’s perfect,” she said.
“Are you going to read the rest?”
“Not yet.”
He nodded. There was so much between them now, they hardly needed to speak sometimes. He could see her wrestling the same things he fought, trying to find her way to a happiness that didn’t forget the cost. A joy that was built on sadness.
“We’re going to be all right, aren’t we? Someday?”
Tom rubbed at his cheek. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about this being like an old fairy tale?”
She nodded.
“The thing is, stories end, but life keeps going. All we can do is try to take what we learned and do better.” He hesitated. “We just have to find our way through the part that comes after the story.”
Anna looked at him with an expression no one had named. She said, “I love you.”
“Come here.” He leaned back in the chair.
She set down the thick bundle of pages, the book he’d always said he’d write, then crawled into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. Took one last look at the manuscript, and then closed his eyes and concentrated on the moment.
It was what they had. It was enough.
Dear Julian,
As I write this, you’re a baby; when you read it, you’ll be a young man. I don’t know how to prepare you for what you’ll find here. When you’re done, you won’t think of us the same way. You might even hate us.
That scares us more than anything in the world. Your mother and I considered keeping this a secret, and some part of me wants to. I want to tell myself that so long as we raise you to be better than us, it will make amends for what we’ve done. But that’s a lie. We won’t have paid in full until you know the truth.
That’s what these pages are, the truth, as best as we can tell it. It’s the story of how we became who we are now, and of how you became our son. There were parts I had to guess at, things we couldn’t know. But I tried to tell you everything – even the things that might drive you away.
As you read, remember that we were greedy, yes, but only when it came to love.
Your mother and I had a conversation once about what the point was. About what there was to believe in if the world can change so quickly, if there aren’t any absolute guidelines, or anything you can trust completely. And she said that maybe it was just this: Live a good life. Be nice to people.
Have a family, and love them well.
We love you, son. Always.
Chapter One
The smile was famous. Jack Witkowski wasn’t particularly a fan, but he’d seen those teeth plenty of times…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book wouldn’t exist without a whole passel of other people. My sincerest thanks to:
My friend and exceptional agent Scott Miller, who always gets it done; his assistant, the ever-cheerful Stephanie Sun; and Sarah Self, who rocks Hollywood. When people ask if I have any advice regarding agents, it comes down to this – get mine.
My editor Ben Sevier, a man on his way to living-legend status. It’s amazing how much improved a book is once he’s done with it.
All the other folks at Dutton, especially Brian Tart, Trena Keating, Lisa Johnson, Rachel Ekstrom, Rich Hasselberger, Carrie Swetonic, Aline Akelis, Erika Imranyi, and Susan Schwartz.
Over coffee and beer, during panic breakfasts and late-night brainstorms, Sean Chercover, Joe Konrath, and Michael Cook repeatedly saved my butt.
Thanks to my early readers: Brad Boivin, Peter Boivin, Jenny Carney, Darwyn Jones, and Dana Litoff. A special thanks to Blake Crouch for a particularly thorough and accomplished read.
The crime fiction community in general, especially Jon and Ruth Jordan, Judy Bobalik, Ken Bruen, Lee Child, Ali Karim, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, David Morrell, T. Jefferson Parker, Patricia Pinianski, Sarah Weinman, and all the folks in Killer Year and The Outfit Collective. Thanks also to Brett and Kiri Carlson, artists extraordinaire.
The booksellers and librarians – without you, we got nothing.
All the friends who keep me sane, and the ones who undo their work.
My brother Matt and my parents, Sally and Anthony Sakey, whose support never blinks, much less wavers.
And finally, my wife g.g., who has all the good parts of Anna and none of the bad. I love you, babe.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcus Sakey is the acclaimed author of The Blade Itself and At the City’s Edge. His books have been translated into numerous languages, and the film rights have been sold to major studios. Born in Flint, Michigan, he now lives in Chicago with his wife.
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