by Matt Rogers
Where he’d been.
What he’d done.
Who he was.
The cop on the left said, ‘You’re under arrest,’ but he kept his voice low as if he were afraid of getting overheard.
King said, ‘No I’m not.’
He gently inched sideways, putting himself in front of Rebecca, shielding her cowering frame with his mass. They didn’t shoot him for taking a step. Which told him they weren’t cautious enough to survive what came next.
The cop on the right was a little more confident. Taller, broader, deeper voice. His hair was darker, his jaw was firmer. He said, ‘What part of that didn’t you hear? Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head.’
King said, ‘Read me my Miranda rights.’
‘What?’
‘You heard what I said. You’re just stalling for time.’
‘Get on your fucking knees.’
‘Read me my rights.’
‘Get on your knees.’
‘No.’
Silence.
King said, ‘Call it in. I’m not cooperating. You need backup.’
The cop on the left looked at the cop on the right. Just a glance, but it spoke volumes.
King said, ‘Get to it, boys.’
‘Last chance,’ the cop on the right said.
‘To do what?’
‘On your knees.’
‘I thought I already established that’s not fucking happening.’
No response.
King repeated, ‘Call it in.’
They didn’t budge.
‘You can’t call it in,’ King said. ‘So I’m not under arrest. And you want me alive or you would have shot me already. So you’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. You’re law enforcement. Tough guys. And there’s two of you. I’m big but not bigger than two of you. You’re four hundred pounds put together. I’m two-twenty.’
They didn’t budge. But the guy on the left said, ‘We could shoot to wound.’
Like he wasn’t even sure what he was saying.
King said, ‘But then I’m only wounded. And you have my word if you shoot me in the leg I’ll come at you like a fucking freight train, even if you hit an artery, and you’ll be forced to shoot me dead unless you want to be torn apart.’
They knew that.
That’s why they hadn’t done it yet.
King said, ‘You heard I beat up your buddy at Mass General. That’s why you’re hesitating.’
Silence.
King asked, ‘You two are just as weak as him, then?’
That triggered the cop on the right. He holstered his gun and clenched his teeth and hissed, ‘Keep your aim on him,’ as he strode forward like King had lit a fire under him. His fists were bunched as he power-walked into range and he probably thought his intimidating stance would help him in some way, because he threw the first punch with real confidence. Like he really expected it to connect, really planned for it to teach King a lesson he’d never forget.
He seemed to forget that his target was a living, breathing human that could move his head.
King moved his head.
56
Out front of Alonzo’s apartment, Slater got behind the wheel of the Porsche.
Tyrell stewed silently in the passenger seat.
Slater didn’t put the car in gear. He just sat there. ‘I’m sorry about all this.’
Tyrell shrugged, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘I get it, man. We in danger. No choice but to keep movin’ around.’
‘You haven’t asked why Alexis isn’t coming.’
‘’Cause you didn’t ask her before you helped me. So this ain’t her problem, it’s yours.’
‘Yeah,’ Slater said, flabbergasted by the kid’s intelligence. ‘That’s right.’
‘So we gotta do what we gotta do. Where we going?’
‘Haven’t figured that out yet.’
‘Ain’t you got a friend? Big tough guy at the hospital. Looked as scary as you, only white.’
It almost made Slater laugh but he held it in. ‘Yes, I’ve got a friend. He’s busy.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Sorting out the mess I dragged him into.’
‘Damn, man. He just had a kid, too. You pissing everyone off lately, huh?’
Slater playfully shoved the boy. ‘Which is your fault, right?’
‘Nah,’ Tyrell said. ‘I didn’t ask for your help.’
‘I know.’
‘But I’m glad you helped. I, uh … I needed it. Clearly.’
Slater got a lump in his throat. He swallowed it down, hoped Tyrell didn’t notice.
Tyrell asked, ‘Can you do something for me?’
‘Sure.’
‘I mean it.’
‘So do I.’
Tyrell paused anyway. He seemed to be mustering the courage to ask something.
Slater said, ‘Ask it.’
‘Can you just tell me the truth?’ Tyrell asked. ‘Like, I know we’re goin’ somewhere to do somethin’ dangerous ’cause you don’t want your girlfriend or your friend to be involved. So can you just tell me what we doin’ instead of sayin’, “I don’t know.” If you got a plan I want to know about it.’
Slater stared at the boy, thought about it. Then took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to kill Dwayne and whoever else he sends to deal with us. I’m going to make it happen faster than it would if we tried to hide from him. I don’t like hiding from anyone.’
Tyrell mulled it over. ‘You know he’s got a problem, and he ain’t goin’ away. So, like, you don’t have a choice.’
‘There’s always a choice. We could run. But I don’t want to do that. I’m tired of moving places.’
‘You moved places a lot before?’
‘More than a lot.’
Tyrell said, ‘I can help.’
Slater shook his head. ‘It’s best you stay out of this.’
‘I will, man. But I can give you something now. To help get it done.’
‘What?’
‘Dad didn’t talk to me about Dwayne much. But when he did, he was real angry. Like … what’s that word? … Bitter. I think he hated that Dwayne was doin’ good at slinging dope, and was tall and had muscles and … you know, just had his shit together. He always used to say Uncle Dwayne was pretendin’ to be a rich white boy. He said it so many times and I never asked what he meant but one day I did. He told me Uncle Dwayne had a place out in Marshfield that he spent a lot of time at. I was like, “Those salt marshes down south? Rich people live there?” and Dad told me yeah, they do. He said they ride horses and they live on big blocks of land and they go to fancy churches and fancy schools. And I asked, “So Dwayne does all that fancy stuff?” And Dad, he must have been drinkin’ ’cause he never tells me anything, and that night he was talkative. He says, “No, Dwayne got a place there, it don’t mean he lives there.” And I said, “What sort of place?” And Dad said, “A shitty little shack that he keeps stuff in.” This was like two years ago, so I was ten, so he didn’t explain the details, but now I get what he meant. Like a safe house. Maybe he’s got guns or drugs there. Or other things.’
Slater chewed his lower lip as he listened, then said, ‘Marshfield’s a big place. Lots of land. I appreciate the effort but I don’t think that helps.’
Tyrell shook his head, grinning ear to ear. ‘Ain’t got to the good part yet, man.’
He pulled out his phone, opened the “Notes” application and scrolled all the way down to the bottom. He opened the very first digital note and showed Slater the screen. It read: SOUTH RIVER MARSH.
Tyrell said, ‘That’s the first thing I ever put in this phone when I first got it.’
‘Why?’
‘Dad was goin’ downhill. This was like the only time he ever talked to me about anythin’. And he was real clear about where this place was, I think because he wasn’t supposed to know and he wanted one up on Dwayne. He was talkin’ to me like he was a crazy person. Eyes wide and everything.
He said, “South River Marsh. A little shack at the end of one of the streets overlookin’ South River Marsh.” And I wrote it down and I never knew why, but I think it’s ’cause it was the closest thing I had to a backup plan. For when he went off the rails, tried to kill me or hurt me real bad. Somewhere I could run to.’
‘“When”?’ Slater said. ‘Not “if”?’
‘It was always “when.”’
Tyrell clammed up after that, doing the same routine as the previous day. A near-manic period of information overload before withdrawing into himself. Either blabbering his mouth off or not at all. But it made sense. Everything was still so raw, so fresh. There’d be peaks and valleys, brief moments of hope followed by chasms of despair. The kid was probably re-living it all now. Mentioning his father would have triggered it.
Slater said, ‘Breathe, kid. You did good.’
Tyrell’s eyes were basically closed now, and he’d shrunk into the corner of the passenger seat. The Porsche still idled in the garage of Alonzo’s building, but now Slater twisted the wheel and pulled out into the daylight.
Tyrell squinted his eyes all the way shut. ‘Where we goin’?’
‘To find whatever your uncle’s hiding out there.’
57
The cop overcommitted with the punch and ended up awkwardly stumbling forward, hitting King’s chest with his shoulder.
King spun him around with a powerful two-handed shove and then smashed an elbow into the back of his neck. When the cop folded over King grabbed him by the back of the collar and wrenched him upright and elbowed him in the ear, destroying his equilibrium, and probably his eardrum. Then he ripped the cop’s freshly holstered weapon — a Glock 27 chambered in .40 S&W — away from him and used the guy as both a human shield and a gun rest. He propped the Glock on the big cop’s shoulder and aimed it at the smaller one.
The guy was trembling now.
King said, ‘Keeping your aim on me doesn’t mean much anymore because you’ll just hit your friend.’
The smaller cop started shaking.
King said, ‘Shoot and hope for the best or put the gun down.’
The cop pulled the trigger.
It shocked King to the core, feeling his human shield’s head pop as a .40 calibre round ripped through and came out the back of his head in a grisly exit wound. At first he thought the first cop had betrayed his colleague, but as the guy’s face morphed into an expression of horror and regret, King realised the man had honestly expected to hit his intended target.
Which he obviously hadn’t.
It was unfortunate, but the guy still had a live weapon and probably every intention of using it, so King shot him in the head.
He put the big cop’s gun back in its holster, still propping up all two hundred pounds of the corpse’s weight. Muscles straining, he dragged the guy up the short driveway and then let go with one hand, bending down so he could grab the second cop’s collar and drag him, too. Then he hustled up to the building, pulling nearly four hundred pounds behind him, every sinew gasping and screaming for relief.
Face wet with perspiration, he heard Rebecca tottering along behind him.
‘Get the door,’ he said through gritted teeth.
She rushed past him to push it inward, but she flinched as she did so, expecting gunfire to erupt from within.
She was met with an empty corridor. The only natural light spilled in through the front door, creating a shadowy tunnel-like effect. King used what little strength he had left — the weight of two bodies was near-impossible to manoeuvre, and it had already sapped him to the bone — to heave the corpses over the threshold and dump them in the entranceway. He ushered Rebecca inside and slammed the door shut.
He could barely feel his arms.
Lactic acid screamed in his muscles.
As he panted for breath, Rebecca simply stood there, face aghast at the sight of the bodies. He wondered if she’d seen a corpse before. As a nurse she must have, but there was a difference between a patient slipping away and violent murder.
As King brought his heart rate back down, she said in a shaky voice, ‘Those were loud shots.’
‘There was no one around.’
‘People might come out of their shops.’
‘They’ll see a police cruiser out front with its lights on. They’ll assume the situation’s being handled.’
She didn’t seem confident.
He wasn’t, either, but he needed time to search the warehouse and offices, and her panicking wouldn’t expedite things.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the cops. ‘Who were they?’
‘Myles’s friends.’
‘But … why?’
‘Why what?’
‘They must have known they were putting themselves in serious danger trying that.’
‘Your boyfriend is spineless,’ King explained. ‘Blackmailed others into handling his business. I’m sure he had dirt on them. Must have threatened to leak it unless they did this favour for him. They would have known that if they went down they could’ve taken Myles with them, but they weren’t willing to self-sabotage, and he was. He had nothing to lose—’ King looked at the cops’ glassy eyes, ‘—and they did.’
She was transfixed by the blood draining from both exit wounds at the backs of their heads. ‘So where’s Myles?’
‘Not here.’
‘He must be…’
‘You’re still convinced he’s someone he’s not.’
She shook her head. It didn’t compute. Maybe it never would.
Something buzzed in the pocket of the larger cop. King reached down and fished the phone out, answered and brought it to his ear. He didn’t need to look at the contact information to know who it was.
There was a pause, then a familiar voice asked, ‘You got it done?’
The last time King had heard the voice was in the maternity ward’s corridor, with an echo behind its shrill laugh. None of that crazed confidence was there now. Myles was desperate, pathetic.
‘No,’ King said. ‘They didn’t. You should send more.’
He hung up, popped the SIM card out of the phone and crushed it. He threw the broken pieces, along with the phone, back on the body.
Rebecca asked, ‘Who was that?’
King just shook his head.
He slipped past her and ripped his own Glock 43X out of its concealed holster. He and Slater had bought identical guns when they’d first set up home base in Winthrop. At home they each had an arsenal sealed away, accessible whenever the situation demanded it, but the compact pistols stayed on them at all times.
Now King moved down the corridor and went through into the central warehouse. He swept all the corners of the dark space, searching every shadow. It was empty. The old setup had been gutted out, too. One glance told King it was a heroin mill. There were plastic gloves and hairnets scattered across the concrete floor, discarded by the workers in a hurry, and there was dust surrounding clean squares on the bench tops where machinery had been removed. In a sink King found parts of coffee grinders soaking in water to remove all remnants of the heroin they’d been cutting.
The thin rectangular frosted windows running up high along each wall of the warehouse gave the vast space a cathedral-like effect. It played at him, the way anyone could be hiding in the nooks, the crevasses. He backed out of the mill and returned to the corridor. As he stepped inside he said, ‘There’s nothing for us here.’
He looked up and down the hallway.
He wasn’t talking to anyone.
Rebecca was gone.
58
The air started to shift after they took I-93 south all the way to the sprawling coastal swamp of Marshfield.
Slater buzzed his window down as they took Ferry Street deeper into the marsh, and already he could taste the salt on the air, feel the thickness of it. He knew his body was exhausted from the previous twenty-four hours when it upped the sweat rate, pushing perspiration out of his pores to regulate his core temperatur
e. His shirt clung to him, nearly soaked through by the time he reached the row of cul-de-sacs that backed onto South River Marsh.
Tyrell said, ‘You look like you ran a marathon.’
Slater kept glancing instinctively in the side and rear mirrors. ‘It’s tough work keeping you safe.’
‘From my own family,’ Tyrell mused. ‘Ain’t that some shit.’
Slater said, ‘I’m sorry I had to bring you with me.’
‘What?’
Slater gripped the wheel, felt the sweat squelch between his palm and the leather. ‘You weren’t wondering why I didn’t leave you back there?’
‘It ain’t my place back there.’
Slater shook his head. ‘It’s not that, kid. It’s that right now Dwayne wants you more than anything else. If I try to coax him out on my own, he might not bite. I need to make sure he takes the bait.’
Tyrell shrugged, turned away to stare out the window at the cypress trees flashing past, rearing up out of the mud.
Slater let the silence develop until he couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘You’re not mad?’
‘Huh?’ Tyrell said. ‘Why would I be mad?’
‘I just called you bait.’
‘People called me a lot worse than that before. Anyway, you doin’ this because you tryin’ to help me. That’s already more than anyone’s ever done for me. So you can call me what you like, man. Ain’t gonna bother me.’
Slater smiled.
A couple of turns later the marsh seemed to enclose them, the thick cypress trees creeping closer and closer to the sides of the narrow roads. Slater coasted the Porsche down an irrigation road and then they were at the end of one of the isolated cul-de-sacs that backed onto South River Marsh. The swamp spread out in front of them, weeds overgrown and thick, dead trees reaching for the sky. The low cloud hung thick and heavy and grey above their heads.
