A Killing Night mf-4

by Jonathon King

  "You just happened to have it in the exact amount?"

  "I anticipated."

  "Pretty damned sure of yourself, Counselor."

  He paused a second.

  "It was n-not as unpleasant as I thought it might be, M-Max."

  This time I paused, letting Billy consider what he was saying about his lifelong fear that his stutter was an intolerable flaw that society would forever hold against him.

  "So if this goes to trial, you'll represent him?"

  He stopped at the corner.

  "They don't t-take aggravated assault to trial, M-Max. They deal them down and plead them out."

  "I meant if they tag him for the disappearances," I said. This time he looked me in the eyes.

  "Be careful, M-Max," he said without hesitation. "If they come up with enough evidence to indict O'Shea on homicide charges, w- we both may have made big mistakes."

  CHAPTER 21

  She knew she'd made a mistake, and now she was paying for it. Scared as hell, and paying for it.

  They'd gone to dinner, his choice, the steak house that she was really getting sick of, but whenever she balked he gave her that look, the one that made her turn her face away, waiting, the skin on her cheek almost warming like she'd already been slapped.

  But the dinner conversation went well. He was smart, no doubt about that. He kept up on current events and spoke intelligently about issues that she rarely paid attention to. They'd talked, like adults. Then they went to the movies, again, his choice. Again, somehow, they always ended up at the show he first suggested. Not that she hated them. It was just that if she mentioned another film, he'd say "Yeah, OK, that's a possibility. Let's see what else there is," and by the time they went through the listings in the paper, they'd be right back to his choice.

  She'd thought about her father then, how they always "discussed" things but whenever it looked like she might get something her way, he'd pull his trump card: "Your holy mother and the Lord himself are looking down on us, Marci. Ask them. What would they do?"

  Kyle didn't have to push those cheap buttons. His trump card was now the back of his hand. In the last two weeks he'd stung her a couple of times. She'd told herself that was it. Then he'd show up with apologizing flowers. Then there was that "love light" with the candle in it that he said he wanted her to hang in her window to remind him that even brushing his hand too close to the flame could put it out, and he would never do it again. Christ, she'd thought. How do you dump a guy like that?

  She'd told him after the movies that she didn't want to go riding again. She was tired. She had another double shift coming up. He started driving out Broward Boulevard and pulled the flask filled with Maker's Mark from under the seat and didn't bother mixing it, just sipped it, right out in traffic.

  "Come on, Marci. Just for a little while."

  "Kyle, no," she said. He didn't like no. But she wasn't sure she cared anymore.

  "Oh, I see. I take you to dinner. I take you to the movies. Then when I want to do something for me, it's no."

  She was silent and he looked over. She sat there, slack-jawed. Then she let that half-grin come into her face, the one she knew pissed him off. The one he called her "It's almost amusing how stupid you are" look. Then she made her big mistake. They were already west of Dixie Highway, past where he should have turned to take her home.

  "Christ!" she snapped. "Can't you give up this 'My way, my way, my way' all the time and give someone else a little say?"

  She watched those marbles in his jaw start to roll, but didn't care this time.

  "I mean, goddamn. It's not always about you, Kyle, and you ruin it when you're always making it about you!"

  He still remained quiet, but she could feel the car accelerate as they passed the Fort Lauderdale Police Department building doing at least fifteen over the speed limit. But what were his friends going to do? Pull him over?

  "Goddammit, Kyle. Take me home! Now!"

  The movement was faster than she could catch in the soft darkness of the car. She didn't even pick up on it until the impact snapped her head to the side. He'd backhanded her with the speed and lightning-fast anger she'd seen him use on others. The sound of his skin and knuckles smacking her cheek and the bridge of her nose came a millisecond before the sting of pain.

  For a moment she thought she hadn't even had time to close her eyes, and was astounded that someone's hand could be faster than a blink. Then she opened her eyes and oriented herself. She was against the door. Kyle was staring straight ahead, both hands on the wheel. She blinked through welling tears and looked out the windshield, thinking. Now they were pulling up to the I-95 entrance and she could make out the blur of colored traffic lights going from green to yellow. She felt the car slow, felt for the door handle and clack! The locks snapped down. He'd anticipated her move, flipped on his siren and lights and swung through the red light, gathering speed onto the interstate. She knew she'd made her big mistake. Now she was scared.

  CHAPTER 22

  Turnkey" sandwich. Maybe the food was better than the prison wit. I had coffee and watched the morning hustle. There were lots of ties and an equal number of wonderful women's dresses. There was an energy around the place, people moving, bumping, saying hello or even avoiding eye contact. A guy shuffled a briefcase from one hand to the other to dig for change. A woman watched the eyes of the cashier, waiting for them to catch hers and take an order. A too loud guffaw sounded from the knot of three suited men, causing the rest to turn and look. People moved with purpose and checked their watches. In my semi-isolation I had lost some of my people-watching skills. It had been a constant when I'd worked a beat, watching, and not always just for the pickpocket working his way through the tourists or the smack dealer hooking up with a new face on the corner. You had to have a suspicious eye as a cop. But you also had to remind yourself that ninety-nine percent of what went on around you were folks just living, working honest jobs, filling their spot in the world. You got jaded if you weren't careful and did something stupid or just burned out. Richards's words were still stinging. She was right. She was the cop. I wasn't. But I resented her implication that I'd gone home and fallen back into the brotherhood of see-no-evil. I'd gotten jaded and left. The shadows followed, but I had left.After I left Billy I went across the street to the Barrister's Bagel and had breakfast. They had a special on a "Locks amp;

  I bought another large coffee to go and walked back to the jailhouse. I was on the outside bench when O'Shea came through the doors, automatically looked up into the sky and took a deep breath of air, and then spotted me.

  "Thanks, Max," he said, shaking my hand, "and your friend Manchester."

  His eyes were red-rimmed. He'd only been in overnight but looked like he'd lost weight. His clothes carried a stink that flashed me back to Philadelphia lockups that we as officers only had to stand for a few minutes and then joked about back in the squad rooms.

  "You all right?" I said, watching his face.

  "You see that bitch, Richards, standing in the back of the courtroom?"

  I just nodded.

  "Took that fucking gloat off her face, your boy Manchester did."

  "He's good," I said. "You need a ride home? Want to get something to eat? It's almost noon."

  O'Shea nodded and walked with me.

  "What's with that guy's stutter, anyway?" he said after a few moments. "He puttin' that on for a sympathy factor or what?"

  "Does he look like a guy who needs sympathy?" I said, sharp, snapping to Billy's defense even when he didn't need it.

  "No. Shit, no. He kicked their ass," O'Shea said and took my tone and let it go.

  We got to my truck and as soon as I started the engine I hit the automatic windows and pulled out of the parking to get some air circulating. I got on Andrews Avenue and headed north. O'Shea put his arm out his window.

  "Back in the world. Isn't that what the cons say?"

  "Yeah."

  "Christ, only one night and you can feel it," h
e said. "I can't understand why they even take the gamble."

  I looked over at the side of his face when he said it. She was wrong, I thought again, shifting more of my doubt. O'Shea wasn't the one. When I got to Sunrise Boulevard I started east and then threw a U-turn at the crossover and pulled into a small lot at Hot Dog Heaven. Chicago-style dogs. Best in the city. Plus tables outside in the breeze. I bought two with everything for O'Shea and couldn't help myself and got a third for me. We sat at a picnic table outside, only fifteen feet from the street traffic. I let him finish the first dog.

  "So tell me about the photo."

  "Oh, yeah. OK," he said, wiping relish off his chin. "Sorry, had other things on my mind." He finished chewing, took a gulp of coffee, exhaled and looked across the street like he was seeing it.

  "I took the third seat from the end of the bar, figuring, like you said, he liked the last seat and I didn't want to crowd him if he showed. I was a couple of beers into it when some woman sat down on my left. Not my type and besides she was taking up the trap so I belched once, trying to dissuade her.

  "She asked a question about the game that was up on the tube, trying to be friendly, so I asked her if she ever heard the joke that goes: 'What did one tampon say to the other when they met on the street?'"

  "Did she wait for the answer?" I said.

  "No. She got up and left," O'Shea said. "Then about eleven the guy in the picture comes in and sits at the end. I can tell there's something up between him and the blonde bartender. She ignores him at first and he just sits there, same look on his face, passive, not a bit bothered. I'm checking him in the mirror and he's playing the same game, watching me. Guy's got cop all over him. Tight haircut, like old Sergeant Rixson used to push on us.

  "He's got that smell of talcum like we all did in the days after we had to wear the Kevlar every night. Get so goddamn sweaty you had to powder up even after you showered at the end of the shift."

  "What about him and the bartender? Did they talk?" I asked, maybe a little too suddenly.

  "You didn't say you were looking for a cop, Max," O'Shea said, putting both elbows on the table and bringing his coffee cup up with both hands.

  "No, I didn't," I said. I wasn't going to offer that I hadn't known I was looking for a cop until Richards ID'ed the photo two hours ago. "Did they talk?"

  He sipped and made me wait.

  "She finally came down and put a Rolling Rock in front of him without being asked and they looked at each other for a couple of seconds longer than a barmaid and just a regular would. Now mind you, she'd been pretty friendly before he got there, worked the bar nice."

  "Thanks, O'Shea. I know you're an expert in that area, but did they talk?"

  "Not a word with me sittin' there but there was a hell of a lot being said, if that's what you're asking. They knew each other. She might be dealing for him from the bar. Might be something else. My take was he's trying to be contrite about pissing her off about something and she's making a plan that he ain't got a clue about."

  O'Shea had been a good cop. He knew something about reading people. But he'd yet to prove himself a psychic.

  "You picked all this up through their body language, Colin?"

  "Some of it, yeah," he said. "The girl walks down to the other end and I say to the guy 'Nice ass on that one, eh?' and he looks at me like I just insulted his mother."

  "And of course you let it go."

  "Sure. I say: 'Well excuse me, pal, but if your name ain't on it, every paying customer in the place has the right to at least look.'"

  "And?"

  "Guy's got an eye, Max. Kind you see on the street that makes you want to take the baton out of your belt loop just for safety sake."

  "He say anything?"

  "No. But it was in his throat, twitchin'. I could see it there so I backed off, bought him a beer and made like I was calling someone on the picture phone. When the girl brought him the Rock, I snapped that shot of him," O'Shea said, obviously proud of himself. "That's when he got up and walked out through the back hallway. Left the beer and his money untouched."

  O'Shea said he stayed in the bar and hadn't tried to tail the guy. I started to react but held myself; he was right, if the guy was a cop and made him as a tail it might have scared him off completely. O'Shea said he stayed put and waited for the bartender to close up and watched her get into her own car, just like I had the other night. When he got home to his apartment, two Broward sheriff's officers were waiting for him. He called Billy, sent the photo over the phone and went to jail.

  When we got back into the car I asked where I could drop him and he asked me to go east. We got over the intracoastal bridge and he motioned me to pull over next to the Holiday Inn.

  "You got a room?" I asked.

  "Not exactly," he said, getting out at the curb. "I'll keep in touch."

  I watched his back while he walked away. I knew the Parrot Lounge was just around the corner and I would have bet a paycheck that's where he was headed. Irish whiskey, straight up, and I'm not sure I could blame him after the night he'd had.

  CHAPTER 23

  He'd pushed the patrol car up to eighty on the freeway and blown through the toll plaza to Alligator Alley, and hadn't said a word since he'd slapped her.

  She didn't know where the hell he was going, but she did know that if she pushed it the wrong way it was only going to make it worse. They'd done this dark stretch of straight road before at night. She remembered the turnoff that he'd taken, up a hard-scrabbled path that was barely a road at all and ended up in some kind of woods he called a hammock.

  They'd done some necking and then screwed in the backseat of the squad car. She'd thought it was actually pretty cool at the time. When they were getting dressed she clicked on the switch for the swirling blue lights and it made him yell at her at first and then he'd smiled that goddamn smile.

  "You are a pistol, girl."

  He wasn't smiling now and she knew she didn't have a choice.

  "Come on, Kyle. What're we doing?"

  Nothing.

  She was using a soft voice and brushed the hair off her face.

  "Look, I'm sorry. Really. I just get tired sometimes and, you know, I say stuff I don't really mean."

  He was still quiet, but in the dim light from the dash she could see that his jaw was loosening, the marbles of muscle settling. At this point she didn't trust what the hell he might do. She'd witnessed that anger and speed when he'd done it to others and now it was on her and she didn't know how far he might take it. And Jesus, look where they were now, way the hell out here where nobody was going to hear her scream and no way was she going to jump out and run if he ever slowed the hell down or stopped.

  She'd been out here during the daytime when they'd taken a drive to Naples on the west coast of the state. The sawgrass and open land went on like a damn meadow for miles and miles and she knew enough about the Everglades to know that most of it was hip deep in water.

  But she'd also had plenty of practice getting pissed-off men to calm down. When you're in the bar you use what you've got. Sometimes it's a free drink. Sometimes a smile. Sometimes a promise of something to come later. It was a small price to pay.

  "Come on, baby. I wasn't trying to order you around," she said. "I was just thinking about going home and relaxing and being with you instead of driving."

  Christ, she thought. Just like her father when he'd start crying about mom and saying how it wasn't worth carrying on and where was the Lord when you were the one in need, and she'd sit down on the floor in front of his chair and take his big thick hands in hers and tell him how strong he'd always been and how much she loved him and as long as they were together they'd be a family and everything would be all right.

  She hadn't believed any of those words, either. But it got both of them through. It was the same thing, she told herself now while she forced back the bile that came up while she was apologizing for nothing. But this time she was scared and only trying to get herself through.r />
  "Kyle. Come on, baby. I can't stand it when you ignore me. It makes me feel alone and you know I need you to talk with me."

  She straightened up in her seat and squared her shoulders against the seat back, still watching his face, watching that right hand on the wheel, waiting for him to slap her again.

  He cocked his head and tightened his lips and she reached out, slowly, thinking she'd try to touch him.

  "You don't know how close you come, Marci," he said.

  Yes, she did, she thought.

  "You know I try to give you everything I can. And then you turn on me like that and how the fuck do you think that makes me feel?"

  You're insane, she thought.

  "I know, baby. I know and I'm sorry," she said.

  He was easing off the speed and she thought that was good. They'd already passed the few cars and a tractor-trailer that had probably gone through the toll before them and now there weren't any taillights out ahead of them. Across the divided highway she saw some headlights going east, but only a couple of pairs. She reached out farther and touched his thigh and forced herself not to flinch when she felt the muscle in his leg quiver.

  "I really am sorry, Kyle."

  This time he turned his head and looked at her. The expression on his face said "you poor pitiful little girl" and she absorbed it and bit the side of her lip and swallowed it and let him repeat himself: "You don't know how close you come sometimes."

  He slowed nearly to a stop and then pulled onto what felt like that same dirt road and now they were moving into the trees and into the dark. When they came to a stop, she let him kiss her. She got out of the car with him and looked up at a smear of stars and thought "Where's my goddamn fairy godmother when I need her?" and then she let him undress her and said she was sorry again, but this time she was apologizing to herself.

  She heard the leather of the gun belt creak and then drop to the ground. He pushed himself against her and she let him take her on the back bumper. She picked a spot out in the darkness and focused on it, watched it, wished she was in it. Was this her fault? she thought. Did I do this to myself again?