“And do you really think that mere money can make up for what you’ve done to them?” I ask.
“They were perhaps a little hurt – a little frightened – but that was all. Unlike the gladiators – who saluted their emperor on the way to the arena – nobody died.”
“What about Bobbie?” I ask. “He died.”
“That was a rather unfortunate mistake,” Craddock replies, waving his hand airily, as if he is talking about a typing error or the failure to deliver a newspaper on time. “If the matter had been handled exclusively by my people, it would never have happened. It was always my intention to put him out to pasture, like Gary Stacey.”
“And what about your wife?” I ask. “She died, too.”
The mad eyes are suddenly filled with regret and shame. For a moment, he is almost sane again – for a moment, these newly visible feelings are even stronger than his own megalomania.
“We were married for over twenty years,” he says. “It was arranged, of course, an alliance between our two families. And though it was not – and never could be – a normal marriage, she bore it all with fortitude. That is something people like you will never understand, Lieutenant Kaleta. Fortitude – and loyalty.”
“But then she found out what had happened in Macclesfield, didn’t she, Thurston?”
It’s all there – for anyone to see – in the Boston Registry of Vital Statistics:
Name: Nancy Chetwood Craddock
Date of Birth: June 12th, 1944.
Date of Death: December 5th, 1987.
Cause of Death: Overdose of sleeping pills. Presumed suicide.
‘Presumed’ suicide because Nancy Craddock didn’t leave a note – because she couldn’t leave a note.
“She never knew, with absolute certainty, that you were behind the attacks, did she?” I ask.
“That’s just the point, you fool,” Craddock says. “She killed herself to avoid certainty – to avoid being forced to act against her sense of duty.”
“The deal,” Porky says, from the head of the table. “Tell me about the deal.”
40
I want to tell him it’s too late for a deal.
I want to say that all of them – the Mayor, the Chief of Police and the Boston Lawyer – share in Craddock’s guilt, and will have to be punished.
But I can’t do that. Prosperity Park is as a much a straightjacket on me as it is on Porky. If I expose these assholes for what they really are, the Park goes down the toilet – and Harrisburg follows it. I would do almost anything to see justice done – but I cannot kill this town.
“Craddock Industries stay here,” I say, “but Thurston Craddock goes.”
“I think I can agree to that,” Craddock says, like we are all reasonable men having a pleasant discussion. “My work in Harrisburg is nearly finished anyway. There are many other poor towns which need my help.”
I look straight into his eyes.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I ask. “There aren’t going to be any other towns like Harrisburg.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” Tait says.
“I want him locked away in a private mental institution,” I tell the lawyer. “And I want a guarantee that it will be for life.”
Craddock’s usually pale face goes redder than ever, his eyes bulge and a vein beats out a fast tattoo on his temple.
“Who do you think you are?” he screams. “Do you seriously think that you can dictate to me?”
“Yes, I do,” I tell him, “because the only alternative is the state prison for the criminally insane. And believe me, you wouldn’t like that at all.”
Craddock turns to his lawyer.
“Do something,” he orders Tait.
Tait shakes his head, sadly.
“There’s nothing I can do, Thurston. Kaleta’s right – those are the only two choices you have.”
“I made you,” Craddock says hysterically. “You were a little backwoods lawyer – and I made you.”
“And I saved you, Thurston,” Tait reminds him. “You couldn’t trust the big city attorneys who were working for you, so you came to me, and begged me to get Gary Stacey acquitted – because you knew that if he went down, he’d take you with him.”
Tait had been expected to perform the same magic in Harrisburg. Gary Stacey had been saved, Bobbie Hopgood sacrificed. Neither of them mattered. His only real concern, in both towns, was preservation of the great Olympian, Thurston Craddock.
“I gave you the money to buy respectability, Maxwell,” Craddock screams. “I gave you all Craddock Industries’ business – something any lawyer in Boston would have sold his own mother to get.”
I think of the lonely old woman back in Macclesfield.
Sell his own mother – yeah, that’s exactly what Tait had done.
“You promised there’d be no more, Thurston,” the lawyer says. “You promised me that if I got you off the hook in Macclesfield, there wouldn’t be a repetition.”
“I restrained myself for seven long years,” Craddock protests. “Do you know how hard that was – once I’d got a taste for it?”
Tait shakes his head again, and I realize that, in the whole wide world, he is probably the only person who feels any concern for Craddock the man, rather than Craddock’s money or power. He understands obsession – he is driven by one himself – and he’s been looking out for his friend Thurston in the same way as I tried to look out for Bobbie. For a second, I almost like the man.
“You let me down,” Tait says. “I thought it was finally safe to go to Europe and leave you on your own for a few months, but I’d only been gone a week and you’d started again.” He sighs. “Well, I can’t protect you any longer. Not from Kaleta. Not from yourself.”
“I can’t be locked away!” Craddock shouts. “That can’t happen to me!”
“It must,” Tait says gently. “You know it must.”
And Craddock does. He cradles his head in his hands, and begins to weep. He is not sobbing at the thought of spending twenty or thirty years in prison – in a sense he has always lived in prison. What has broken his heart is that, for the first time in his adult life, he is not the god-like hand which moves events but only a pawn on the board, part of the game in which Pine and I are the players.
Porky looks at me through his narrow, scheming eyes.
“That it?” he asks. “That the whole deal?”
It could be. I need only nod my head in agreement to walk out of here alive. I have only to say that it is the whole deal, and I can go back to my lovely Carrie.
“There’s one more thing,” I hear myself saying. “Somebody has to pay for Bobbie’s death.”
My hand stays by my side, my weapon remains in its holster. I may be able to kill to avenge Bobbie, but I can’t bring myself to execute.
Pine is nodding, like this is what he’s been expecting all along.
“Lemme see now,” he says, “Craddock and me didn’t know nothin’ about it till it was all over, so we’re not responsible, and all Tait did was put on a show for the press. So I guess that leaves Ringman.”
“Leaves me to what?” Ringman says.
“Shut up, George, I’m thinking,” Pine says. He turns back to me. “You coulda taken this to the state Attorney General. Fact that you didn’t tells me you don’t want a public scandal ’cos it’ll only hurt Harrisburg. How am I doing so far?”
“Right on track.”
“We both know there’s no way to punish old George here judicially, not without blowing everything wide open. So you gotta be talking about non-judicial punishment. Kinda … vigilante justice.”
“That’s what Bobbie got,” I tell him.
“Mayor …” Ringman says.
“I told you to shut your mouth, George.”
Pine screws up his piggy eyes as he thinks through his choices. I can read his mind. He is telling himself that he either has to give me what I want, or get rid of me. And while there’s nothing he would like better than to see
me dead, that’s a luxury he can’t afford – because Carrie is still on the loose, and what I know, she knows.
And that leaves the fickle finger of fate pointing firmly at Ringman.
But there’s a problem here. What if Ringman kills me, instead of the other way around? Then he’d be back to square one, with Carrie raising all kinds of stink.
“You took out a couple of guys in a shoot-out once, didn’t you, Kaleta?” Porky asks.
“Yeah,” I agree.
But I am not looking at the Mayor any more. Instead, I am watching Ringman. The Chief has his left arm on the table and his right hanging down by his side. He is looking worried at the way the conversation is going – but not quiet worried enough.
“So you gotta be pretty good with a gun, Kaleta,” the Mayor says. “Reckon you’re better than old George?”
Ringman shifts slightly in his seat. He blinks – twice – then fixes his eyes firmly on mine.
“Yeah, I’m better than old George,” I say.
But what I really mean is: ‘Maybe I’m better than old George.’
“Okay, here’s the way we play it,” Porky says. “I’m gonna count to three …”
“Don’t make me do this, Mr Mayor,” Ringman says, his gaze still on me.
“Hell, George, I don’t want to make you do it, but Kaleta’s got me by the balls,” Porky tells him. “So like I said, I’m gonna count to three, and then you can both go for your guns. You ready? One … two … three!”
*
Ringman’s right arm is still by his side. His swings it up to table-level, and there is already a gun in his hand – a back-up pistol which he must have plucked from his boot. I gaze at the barrel, which looks as big as the Lincoln Tunnel, and remember what it feels like to take a bullet.
Ringman is raising his gun, and taking aim. My right hand is reaching for my shoulder holster, but I already know that it is too late – know that however fast I am, Ringman is way ahead of me.
I see a blur in the corner of my eye.
Maxwell Tait is dragging Thurston Craddock under the table – protecting him for the last time.
Ringman aims at the center of my chest. I have pulled my weapon clear of its holster, but am still a split-second behind – and that split-second is gonna make all the difference.
Ringman’s finger squeezes the trigger, and I dodge to the side.
Hoping his bullet will fly harmlessly past me.
Hoping for a miracle.
I’m slammed against the back of my chair, like I have been hit by a giant hammer. My fingers want to open – to spread the pain – but I force them to hold onto the lump of cold metal in my hand, which is the only thing which can save me.
My brain tells my right arm to raise itself. My vision is blurring, but I can still see Ringman raising his pistol higher – going for a head shot.
I should try to dodge again, but it’s taking all my effort to grip my gun and lift my arm at the same time.
Ringman fires again, at the same moment as the slug in my chest sends a sudden spasm of pain racing through my body and my neck snaps forward. I feel a whoosh as Ringman’s second bullet flies past my head, and hear a thud as it buries itself in the wall behind me.
Ringman is nothing but a shape now – a wavering, hazy shape. I no longer know whether my gun is pointing at him or the ceiling, but I pull the trigger anyway.
The shape jerks backwards. I want to fire again, but my fingers can’t take the pain any more and my weapon clatters onto the table. I force my eyes to focus and see Ringman – blood pumping from his chest – reaching across towards me.
“He’s trying to grab my gun!” I tell myself. “He’s lost his own, and he wants mine!”
I should try to stop him, but I don’t have the strength. As I feel my life ebbing away, I watch Ringman pick my weapon and take aim for the third time. His mouth is set in a savage, pained grin, and his eyes say that this time he will finish the job.
Then the eyes go blank, and Ringman slides off his chair.
41
The sun shines down on the white marble headstone. In the laurel bushes, the birds are singing out that they feel pretty good about themselves. From below, on Lee and Davis, comes the steady rumble of traffic. But up here, in the cemetery, everything is peaceful.
Carrie looks down at me, a serious expression on her face.
“Does it hurt?” she asks.
“Getting better all the time,” I say. “But I could still use a little help.”
She stretches out a hand, and pulls me up from the bench. A thin needle of pain stabs my chest, but I have told the truth – on a day on which everything else is wrong, the wound, at least, is easing up.
I walk stiffly between the gravestones, stopping now and again to catch my breath and look around me. From here, at the peak of Washington Height, we can almost see the whole town:
– the Special School, the only place where Bobbie Hopgood found someone who really cared about him
– Beauregard Park, where Bobbie raped a little girl to please his special friend, Thurston Craddock
– Prosperity Park, with its bright new factories rising up, a monument to the way in which money can change destinies.
“I’ll have a scar on each side, now,” I say to Carrie. “Mike Kaleta, the four-nipple wonder.”
“It’s the price you have to pay for being Supercop,” she replies.
She laughs, but not like she’s real amused.
A sheet of newspaper, caught in the breeze, flutters its way over the headstone like a huge black and white butterfly. Then the wind drops and the paper glides slowly down, landing almost at our feet.
Carrie stops to pick it up, gives it a brief glance, and then holds it so I can see it. It is the front page of the Harrisburg Reporter, and right under the banner headline is a photograph of a man lying in a hospital bed. He doesn’t look very happy.
“You again, Supercop,” she says.
I’ve been in the papers nearly every day since the shooting. Mayor Pine has made me into a hero – because that was the only way to explain how I came to kill Ringman.
In the truth according to Pine, Ringman was the one bad apple in an otherwise lily-white Police Department. No, he was more than just a bad apple – he was the Wicked Wizard, Jack the Ripper and Al Capone all rolled into one. And no one suspected it, save Young Lochinvar Kaleta.
The evil chief learned that the pure young lieutenant was on to him and plotted his murder – but only succeeded in killing two other policemen. Then, like the villain of a true melodrama, he laid the blame on Kaleta, and our hero was forced to flee. But not for long! With the help of the wise and good Mayor Pine, he returned, took on the wicked chief in single combat and slew him. The lights go up, the heavenly chorus swells, truth and justice triumph once more.
“You want to see the grave now, Supercop?” Carrie asks me.
She’s been calling me that – Supercop – ever since she first came to see me in hospital:
‘How you feeling, Supercop?’
‘Anything I can get you, Supercop? Books? Magazines? A Batman outfit?’
What the wisecracks try to paper over – and fail to – is that, for her, the bond between us is gone. She is no longer the woman I shared danger with, and made sweet and tender love to when we were on the run. The soft, giving Carrie, after only a few days of life, is submerged again – and Williams is back.
I wanted to talk to her about it back in the hospital, when I first noticed the change – but we never seemed to be alone for long enough. Or maybe what I mean is, Carrie made sure we were never alone long enough. Now, finally, on my first day out, I have her pinned down. Now, finally, we will say what has to be said.
We reach the grave. It is a simple white stone on which are written the words:
‘BOBBIE HOPGOOD 1970-1994
Rest in Peace
“For not to know we sinn’d is innocence”’
“Did you have that put on it?” Carrie ask
s.
“Yeah, I did,” I admit.
“That was really sweet of you, Mike,” she tells me – and for the first time since the night I killed Ringman, the edge of aggression is absent from her voice.
“Carrie, what’s wrong?” I ask.
“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. Why?”
She’s not even looking at me. Instead, she’s gazing down at the river.
I put my hands on her shoulders and twist her round. Pain bites into my chest.
“Carrie, what’s happened to you? To us? Don’t you think I’ve got a right to know? I love you.”
Her deep blue eyes finally meet mine.
“And I love you,” she says. “But it’s not enough.”
“Not enough? How can that be not enough?”
“You shouldn’t have drugged me,” she says angrily. “You had absolutely no right to do that.”
I am suddenly angry, too.
“Is that what it’s all about?” I demand. “You’re jealous because I’m getting the attention, and you’re not. Well, shit, I never wanted to be a hero.”
Carrie is standing with her hands on her hips, just like the day she faced down Duffy in the Squad Room.
“Well, shit, neither did I,” she says. “I just wanted to be a part of it.”
“It was dangerous.”
“Sure it was dangerous, you son-of-a-bitch. That’s why I wanted to be there – to share the danger with you.”
“I couldn’t have done what I did if I’d been worrying about you.”
“That’s the problem. That’s just how our life would be if we stayed together. You out being a superhero, and me in our little nest, safely wrapped up in cotton wool. I’m not like that, Kaleta. You gotta to take me for what I am – or not at all.”
“I only wanted to protect you.”
“I didn’t want a protector!” Carrie screams. “I wanted a partner. I thought I’d got a partner. I thought I’d earned the right.”
“Carrie …”
“Would you have drugged Marty?” she demands. “Would you have drugged him – or would he have been right in there with you?”
Violation Page 23
