Darkness, Take My Hand

by Dennis Lehane

  Mae tackling the dog in the grass.

  Grace’s damp body rolling on top of mine in the heart of a warm night.

  Cal Morrison locked in the back of that grimy white van.

  The bloody red leer of the clown as he said my name.

  “Grace,” I whispered.

  “It’s okay,” Angie said into the phone, “we’re almost there now.”

  We turned onto St. Botolph and the driver put on the brakes, caught more ice under his wheels, and we slid past Grace’s brownstone before the car jerked to a stop two houses up.

  The rear cars were pulling to erratic stops behind us as I got out and ran toward her house. I slipped on the sidewalk and dropped to my knee as a man came charging out between two cars on my right. I turned, pointed my gun at his chest, saw him raising his arm in the dark rain.

  My finger was depressing the trigger when he screamed, “Patrick, hold it!”

  Nelson.

  He lowered his arm, his face wet and frightened, and Oscar hit him from behind like a train, Nelson’s small body disappearing completely under Oscar’s bulk as the two of them hit the ice.

  “Oscar,” I said, “he’s okay. He’s okay. He’s working for me.”

  I ran up the steps to Grace’s door.

  Angie and Devin came up behind me as Grace opened the door and said, “Patrick, what the hell is going on?” She looked over my shoulder as Bolton barked orders at his men and her eyes widened.

  Lights went on up and down the street.

  “It’s okay now,” I said.

  Devin’s gun was drawn and he stepped up beside Grace. “Where’s the child?”

  “What? In her bedroom.”

  He went into the house in a target shooter’s stance.

  “Hey, wait.” She rushed in after him.

  Angie and I went in behind her as agents tramped through the surrounding yards with flashlights.

  Grace was pointing at Devin’s gun. “Put that away, Sergeant. Put it—”

  Mae began to cry loudly. “Mommy.”

  Devin was sticking his head in and out of doorways, his gun held tightly next to his knee.

  I felt nauseous as I stood in the warm light of the living room, my hands shaking with adrenaline. I heard Mae weeping from the bedroom and I followed the sound.

  A thought—I almost shot Nelson—passed through my brain with a shiver, and then was gone.

  Grace held Mae to her shoulder, and Mae opened her eyes and saw me and burst into a fresh peal of tears.

  Grace looked over at me. “Jesus Christ, Patrick, was this necessary?”

  Flashlight beams bounced off her windows from the outside.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Patrick,” she said and her eyes were angry as they stared at my hand. “Get rid of that.”

  I looked down, noticed the gun in my hand, realized it had brought forth Mae’s last burst of tears. I slid it back into the holster, then stared at them, mother and daughter as they hugged on that bed, and I felt soiled and foul.

  “The first priority here,” Bolton told Grace in the living room as Mae changed in her bedroom, “is to get you and your daughter to safety. A car’s waiting outside and I’d like you two to get into it and come with us.”

  “Where?” Grace said.

  “Patrick,” a small voice said.

  I turned and saw Mae standing in her bedroom doorway, freshly dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, shoelaces untied.

  “Yeah?” I said softly.

  “Where’s your gun?”

  I tried to smile. “Tucked away. Sorry I scared you.”

  “Is it fat?”

  “What?” I bent by her, tied her shoes.

  “Is it…” She fidgeted, groping for the word, embarrassed that she didn’t know it.

  “Heavy?” I said.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Heavy.”

  “It’s heavy, Mae. Too heavy for you to carry.”

  “How about you?”

  “Pretty heavy for me, too,” I said.

  “So why do you have it?” She cocked her head to the left, looked up into my face.

  “It’s sort of equipment for my job,” I said. “Like your mom uses her stethoscope.”

  I kissed her forehead.

  She kissed my cheek and hugged my neck with arms so soft they didn’t seem as if they could come from the same world that produced Alec Hardimans and Evandro Arujos and knives and guns. She went back into the bedroom.

  In the living room, Grace was shaking her head. “No.”

  “What?” Bolton said.

  “No,” Grace said. “I won’t go. You can take Mae and I’ll call her father. He’ll—I’m sure of it, yes—he’ll take time off and go with Mae so she won’t be alone. I’ll visit until this is over, but I won’t go myself.”

  “Doctor Cole, that’s unacceptable.”

  “I’m a first-year surgical resident, Agent Bolton. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, I do, but your life’s in danger.”

  She shook her head. “You can protect me. You can watch me. And you can hide my daughter.” She looked at Mae’s bedroom door and tears welled in her eyes. “But I can’t give up my work. Not now. I’ll never get a decent job if I walk away in the middle of a residency.”

  “Doctor Cole,” Bolton said, “I can’t allow this.”

  She shook her head. “You’ll have to, Agent Bolton. Protect my daughter. I’ll take care of myself.”

  “This man we’re dealing with—”

  “Is dangerous, I know. You’ve told me. And I’m afraid, Agent Bolton, but I’m not going to give up what I’ve spent my life working toward. Not now. Not for anyone.”

  “He’ll get to you,” I said and I could still feel Mae’s arms on my neck.

  Everyone in the room looked up at me.

  Grace said, “Not if I—”

  “Not if you what? I can’t protect you all, Grace.”

  “I’m not asking you—”

  “He said I had a choice.”

  “Who?”

  “Hardiman,” I said and I was surprised at how loud my voice was. “I had to choose between people I loved. He meant you and Mae and Phil and Angie. I can’t protect all of you, Grace.”

  “Then don’t, Patrick.” Her voice was cold. “Don’t. You brought this to my doorstep. My daughter’s doorstep. Your stupid fucking pursuit of a violent life led this person to me. Your life is my life now and my daughter’s and neither of us asked for it.” She punched her knee with the side of her fist and then looked at the floor, inhaled sharply. “I’ll be fine. Take Mae someplace safe. I’ll call her father now.”

  Bolton looked at Devin and Devin shrugged.

  “I can’t make you go into protective custody—”

  “No,” I said. “No, no, no. Grace, you don’t know this guy. He’ll get to you. He will.”

  I crossed the floor until I was standing over her.

  “So?” she said.

  “So?” I said. “So?”

  I was aware that everyone was looking at me. I was aware that I didn’t feel completely like myself. I felt crazed and vindictive. I felt violent and ugly and unhinged.

  “So,” Grace said again.

  “So he’ll cut your fucking head off,” I said.

  “Patrick,” Angie said.

  I bent over Grace. “You understand that? He’ll cut your head off. But last. He’ll do that last. First, Grace, he’ll rape you for a while and then he’ll slice off pieces of your body and then he’ll hammer nails through your fucking palms and then—”

  “Stop it,” she said quietly.

  But I couldn’t. It seemed important that she know this.

  “—he’ll disembowel you, Grace. He loves that. Disembowling people so he can see their insides steam. And then maybe he’ll pluck out your eyes while he lets his partner rip into you and—”

  The scream came from behind me.

  Grace had her hands over her ears by this point, but she pulled them off wh
en she heard the scream.

  I turned and Mae was standing behind me, her face bright red, her arms jerking spasmodically by her sides as if she’d been electrified.

  “No, no, no!” She screamed it through tears of horror and pushed past me and jumped on her mother and clung to her with ferocity.

  Grace looked past her daughter as she held her to her breast, looked at me with a naked and total hatred.

  “Leave my house,” she said.

  “Grace.”

  “Now,” she said.

  “Doctor Cole,” Bolton said, “I’d like you to—”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  “What?”

  Her eyes were still fixed on me. “I’ll go into protective custody with you, Agent Bolton. I won’t leave my daughter. I’ll go,” she said softly.

  I said, “Look, Grace—”

  She placed her hands over her daughter’s ears.

  “I thought I told you to get the fuck out of my home.”

  The phone rang and she reached for it, her eyes never leaving me. “Hello.” She frowned. “I thought I told you this afternoon not to call back. If you want to talk to Patrick—”

  “Who is it?” I said.

  She tossed the receiver on the floor by my feet. “You gave my number to that psycho friend of yours, Patrick?”

  “Bubba?” I picked up the phone as she brushed past me, carried Mae into the bedroom.

  “Hello, Patrick.”

  “Who’s this?” I said.

  “How’d you like all those pictures I took of your friends?”

  I looked at Bolton, mouthed “Evandro.”

  He ran from the house, Devin a step behind him.

  “They didn’t do much for me, Evandro.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been working on my technique, trying to play with light and space, respect the spatial tableau, that sort of thing. I think I’m developing artistically. Don’t you?”

  Outside the window, an agent scaled the telephone pole in Grace’s side yard.

  “I don’t know, Evandro. I doubt you got Annie Leibovitz looking over her shoulder or anything.”

  Evandro chuckled. “But I’ve got you looking over yours, don’t I, Patrick?”

  Devin came back in holding a piece of paper with the words “Keep him on for two minutes” written on it.

  “Yes, you do. Where are you, Evandro?”

  “Watching you.”

  “Really?” I resisted the urge to turn and look out the windows fronting the street.

  “Watching you and your girlfriend and all those nice policemen tramping around the house.”

  “Well, since you’re in the neighborhood, drop on by.”

  Another soft chuckle. “I’d rather wait. You look very handsome at the moment, Patrick—the phone clenched tightly against your ear, brow furrowed with concern, hair disheveled from the rain. Very handsome.”

  Grace came back into the living room, dropped a suitcase on the floor by the door.

  “Thanks for the compliment, Evandro.”

  Grace blinked when she heard the name, looked over at Angie.

  “My pleasure,” Evandro said.

  “What am I wearing?”

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “What am I wearing?”

  “Patrick, when I took the pictures of your girlfriend and her—”

  “What am I wearing, Evandro?”

  “—little girl, I—”

  “You don’t know, because you’re not watching this house. Are you?”

  “I see a lot more than you can imagine.”

  “You’re full of shit, Evandro.” I laughed. “Trying to come off as—”

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

  “—some all-seeing, all-knowing master criminal—”

  “Change the tone of your voice. Immediately, Patrick.”

  “—when from where I’m standing you look like a punk.”

  Devin looked at his watch, held up three fingers. Thirty seconds to go.

  “I’m going to cut the child in half and mail her to you.”

  I turned my head, saw Mae standing over her suitcase in the bedroom, rubbing her eyes.

  “You’re not going to get anywhere near her, jerkoff. You had your chance and you choked.”

  “I will annihilate everyone you know.” His voice was ragged with rage.

  Bolton came through the front door, nodded.

  “Pray I don’t see you first, Evandro.”

  “You won’t, Patrick. No one ever does. Good-bye.”

  And another voice, huskier than Evandro’s, came over the line: “We’ll be seeing you, laddies.”

  The connection broke, and I looked at Bolton.

  “Both of them,” he said.

  “Yup.”

  “You recognize that second voice?”

  “Not with the phony accent.”

  “They’re on the North Shore.”

  “The North Shore?” Angie said.

  Bolton nodded. “Nahant.”

  “They’re holed up on an island?” Devin said.

  “We can lock them down,” Bolton said. “I’ve already alerted the Coast Guard and sent police cars from Nahant, Lynn, and Swampscott to block the bridge leading off the island.”

  “So we’re safe?” Grace said.

  “No,” I said.

  She ignored me, looked at Bolton.

  “I can’t take the chance,” Bolton said. “You can’t either, Doctor Cole. I can’t risk your safety and your daughter’s until we’ve got them.”

  She looked at Mae as Mae came out of the bedroom with her Pocahontas suitcase. “Okay. You’re right.”

  Bolton turned to me. “I have two men on Mr. Dimassi’s place, but I’m stretched thin. Half my men are still on the South Shore. I need the ones I have.”

  I looked at Angie and she nodded.

  “Those are state-of-the-art alarms on both front and back doors of your house, Ms. Gennaro.”

  “We can protect ourselves for a few hours,” I said.

  He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve got them, Mr. Kenzie.” He looked at Grace and Mae. “Ready?”

  She nodded, held out her hand to Mae. Mae took it and looked up at me, her face a mask of confusion and a sadness older than herself.

  “Grace.”

  “No.” Grace shook her head as I reached my hand toward her shoulder. She turned her back to me and left the house.

  The car that took them away was a black Chrysler New Yorker with bulletproof windows and a driver with cold, brightly alert eyes.

  I said, “Where are you taking them?”

  “Far away,” Bolton said. “Far away.”

  A helicopter touched down in the center of Massachusetts Avenue, and Bolton and Erdham and Fields jogged gingerly to it on the ice.

  As the helicopter lifted up and blew trash against storefronts along the avenue, Devin and Oscar pulled up beside us.

  “I put your dwarf buddy in the hospital,” Oscar said, holding out his hands in apology. “Cracked six of his ribs. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged. I’d make it up to Nelson someday.

  “I’ve sent a unit to Angie’s house,” Devin said. “I know the guy. His name’s Tim Dunn. You can trust him. Head back there.”

  We stood together in the rain and watched them pull into the police and FBI car caravan and head down Massachusetts Avenue, and the patter of the rain against the ice was one of the loneliest sounds I’ve ever heard.

  33

  Our cab driver maneuvered the icy streets with a deft touch, keeping the needle around the 20 mph mark and rarely touching the brake unless he had no other choice.

  The city was encased in ice. Great glassy sheets covered building facades, and gutters bent under the weight of cascading white daggers. Trees shimmered platinum, and cars along the avenues had turned to sculptures.

  “We gonna have many blackouts tonight, man,” the cab driver said.
/>   “You think so,” Angie said absently.

  “Oh, you bet, pretty lady. That ice, she gonna pull all those power lines to the ground. You wait and see. Nobody should be out on this bad night. No.”

  “Why’re you?” I said.

  “Got to feed the little ones, sure. Little ones don’t have to know how tough this world is for their papa. No. Just got to know they get fed.”

  I saw Mae’s face, scrunched in confusion and abject terror. The words I’d spewed at her mother echoed in my ears.

  The little ones don’t have to know.

  How could I have forgotten that?”

  Timothy Dunn clicked his flashlight beam at us twice as we walked up Angie’s front walkway.

  He crossed the street to us with careful steps. He was a slim kid with a wide, open face under his dark blue cap. It was the face of a farm boy or a boy whose mother raised him for the priesthood.

  His cap was encased in plastic to keep it dry and his heavy black raincoat was slick with drizzle. He tipped the cap as he met us at the front steps.

  “Mr. Kenzie, Ms. Gennaro, I’m Officer Timothy Dunn. How we doing tonight?”

  “Been better,” Angie said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I heard.”

  “Miss,” Angie said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Please call me Miss or Angie. Ma’am makes me feel like I’m old enough to be your mother.” She peered at him through the rain. “I’m not, am I?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I sure doubt it, Miss.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Whew.”

  “And you?” he said.

  She chuckled. “Never ask a woman her weight or her age, Officer Dunn.”

  He nodded. “Just seems like, in either case, the Lord’s been awful kind to you, Miss.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  She leaned back, took a second look at him.

  “You will go far, Officer Dunn.”

  “Thank you, Miss. People keep telling me that.”

  “Believe them,” she said.

  He looked down at his feet for a moment, shuffled them slightly, and tugged on his right earlobe in such a way that I was sure it was a nervous habit of his.

  He cleared his throat. “Sergeant Amronklin said the FBI boys would be sending reinforcements by as soon as they get them all rounded up on the South Shore. He said by two or three in the morning, the latest. I understand front and back doors are protected by alarms and the back of the house is secure.”