“Any idea who did it?”
“Just his car.” He saw the old gray Studebaker speed across the dark field. “So fast. The way it happened.”
The attendant wrestled with a length of tubing. “So you didn’t get a look at the driver?”
Yearwood shook his head. “No,” he said. “Too dark. Everything.”
He felt the rumble of the bridge beneath him and knew that they were passing over the river, would soon be racing down the avenue toward Saint Vincent’s. “Hold on just a little longer, Jack,” he told Pierce. “We’re almost there.”
Are you listening to me?
5:34
A.M.
, Dunlap’s Collectibles
The knock at the door was brutal, like a cow kicking a barn wall, and so Dunlap knew instantly that it was Blunt.
“Jesus Christ, you don’t got to wake up the whole neighborhood,” he said as he swung it open.
Blunt stepped into the murky light, and Dunlap saw that he was sweating.
“Jeez, Ralph, you look like you been—”
Blunt jabbed a finger hard into Dunlap’s chest. “Don’t say another fucking word.”
“Okay, okay,” Dunlap said, raising his hands defensively. “Come on back.”
The two men made their way down the shop’s center aisle, and on the way, Dunlap swore to himself that he
would never get his ass in this kind of sling again, that nothing was worth dealing with psychos like Blunt and Stitt.
Halfway to the curtain Dunlap stopped. “Listen, Ralph, I got a visitor,” he whispered.
“A what?”
“The guy whose money you got,” Dunlap explained. “He come for it a little early.”
Blunt reached for his pistol. “You little prick.”
Dunlap felt the barrel of the thirty-eight like the nose of a serpent, cold and deadly. “Holy shit, Ralph,” he gasped. “Holy shit, put that thing away.”
“Who’d you send out there?” Blunt demanded.
“Send? Who? Out where?”
Blunt jabbed the pistol into Dunlap’s belly. “Who’d you send out to that fucking shed, Harry?”
“Me? Nobody,” Dunlap wailed. “What are you talking about?”
Blunt shoved Dunlap hard, sending him stumbling backward through the curtain.
Stitt leaped to his feet. “What the fuck!”
“Shut up,” Blunt snarled.
Stitt glared at Dunlap. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“I don’t know, Burt,” Dunlap whined. “What’s the story, Ralph? We got no idea—”
“Shut up.” Blunt jerked the pistol. “Sit down. The both of you.”
Stitt and Dunlap lowered themselves onto the sofa.
“You bring my money or not?” Stitt demanded.
“Yeah, I brought it,” Blunt replied.
“Where is it, then?”
“It’s in the car.”
“Well, why don’t you go get it, fatso?”
Blunt’s eyes narrowed. “What’d you say?”
“You heard me.”
Blunt took a short step toward Stitt. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Me?” Stitt answered coldly. “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m the guy that paid this shithead cousin of yours three grand to hide my goddamn money.”
Blunt’s eyes cut over to Dunlap. “Three grand?”
Dunlap swallowed hard.
Stitt laughed. “You stiff this lummox, Harry? No wonder he’s pissed at you.”
“Shut up!” Blunt yelled.
“You don’t have much of a vocabulary, do you, fat boy?” Stitt sneered.
Blunt jabbed the pistol toward Stitt. “Shut … you … you better …”
“Spit it out there, dumbo,” Stitt cawed.
Blunt drew back the hammer.
“Oh, fuck,” Dunlap gasped. “Please, Ralph. Let’s all think this through, okay? This guy you saw. Let’s figure this out, okay? ’Cause what I’m saying here is, I didn’t send nobody.”
“What guy?” Stitt demanded.
“Some guy showed up where the money was,” Dunlap told him. “That’s why Ralph’s so pissed. Ain’t that right, Ralph? So what I’m saying is, let’s figure it out. Go slow, you know? Figure it out, like I said. So, please, that gun there, Ralph, you can put that way.”
“I ain’t puttin’ nothing away.”
Stitt chuckled. “Just don’t shoot yourself in your big fat foot.”
“Shut the—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Stitt yawned. “Get the money, Harry. Send this fat … whatever … out to his fucking car and get me my money.”
“Take it easy, Burt,” Dunlap pleaded. “So, Ralph, this guy, what’d he look like?”
Stitt kept his eyes on Dunlap. “I don’t give a shit about any of this, Harry. Are you listening to me? I want my money. Now!”
“Burt, please,” Dunlap begged. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with here.”
Stitt glared at Dunlap, then cut his eyes over to Blunt. “Your shit cousin says I don’t know what I’m dealing with. Well, here’s the bottom line. Nobody gets between me and my money. Anybody does, they’re dead. You got that, dumbo? I don’t give a fuck if some stupid bastard got in your face. I don’t give a shit what you did to him.”
“I shot the fucking guy,” Blunt yelped.
Dunlap dropped his face into his hands. “Oh, Jesus,” he moaned fretfully.
Stitt laughed. “So you shot a guy, fat boy? So what? That fucking money’s already got blood on it.”
Dunlap lifted his head. “Blood, Burt? You didn’t tell me about no blood.”
“Who cares what I told you.”
“But if that money’s got—”
Stitt waved his hand. “It’s the hophead that fucked it up, grabbing at my stuff.”
“So … what happened, Burt?” Dunlap probed timidly.
“He fucking grabbed my briefcase,” Stitt howled. “Tossed it all the way across the room. Flew open, the fucking thing. Cash scattered everywhere.”
“Jeez,” Dunlap breathed.
“Then he goes out the door, and on the way snatches a chain off this kid’s neck, the fuck.”
Dunlap felt a blade of dread slide across his throat. “You mean …?”
“Yeah, her,” Stitt said. “Snaps the fucking chain right off her neck and just keeps going. And me with that goddamn money scattered all over, and that kid scared out of her fucking mind. No way she’s not going to the cops.”
Blunt blinked sluggishly. “Kid?”
“Yeah, what of it, fat ass?” Stitt said.
“You hurt that kid?” Blunt asked.
Stitt stared at Blunt contemptuously. “You get in my way, you get the same. It’s just that simple. Real simple. So simple, a dumb-ass like you can—”
The blast was deafening, and in its explosive charge Dunlap dove frantically for the floor, covering his ears and whimpering. “Oh, shit. Jesus. Jesus. Oh, shit, man.” He lay there, curled tight, his eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, Jesus,” he whimpered. “Sweet Jesus.”
Stitt remained in an upright position, eyes open, his head cocked to the right, as if listening for a distant sound, a neat round hole at the center of his forehead.
Dunlap cautiously opened his eyes, then drew himself from the floor, working desperately to compose himself, think things through. Blunt stood motionless, the pistol dead still in his hand, nothing moving but the curl of blue smoke that twined up from the barrel. “So what do we do now, Ralph?” he asked softly.
Blunt said nothing, but Dunlap could see the tumblers of his brain working. What, he asked himself, what was he trying to figure out? His eyes fell toward the pistol, and he wondered if he could take a short, very slow step and ease it from Blunt’s fingers. He waited, thought about it a little longer, then stepped forward.
“So, Ralph, why don’t you just—”
A siren wailed distantly; something glimmered in Blunt’s eyes.
“I got to go,” he said.
“Sure, Ralph,” Dunlap agreed. “We’ll figure it out, you know?” He took another small step. “You don’t have to worry about me.” He smiled crookedly. “I mean, we’re family, right? Cousins, right? Stitt? Fuck him, you know what I mean? Imagine, a kid. Jesus Christ. So, like who’s
going to miss the lowlife, right?” Another short step, he thought, then touch the barrel. Don’t grab. Just touch it with one outstretched finger and nudge it very gently to the side. “So, Ralph, what do you think, we get this all cleaned up, then we can—”
The second blast struck Dunlap as infinitely loud, the small piece of lead that tore into his chest infinitely large, the fall of his body to the floor infinitely swift, and the silence that followed infinitely long and dark and cold.
5:41
A.M.
, Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Emergency Room
He could feel the entire fabric unraveling life’s tiniest and most elemental threads, his pulse vibrating on this string of particles that only briefly united, as if drawn together on a breath, then released again, each time holding more tenuously, the lineaments more frayed, the light, when it shone, more distantly reflected until it died entirely, and the beginning and the end were the same.
5:44
A.M.
, Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Waiting Room
“You brought in Mr. Pierce?” the doctor asked.
“Detective Pierce,” Yearwood said. There was blood on his jacket and he kept fingering it.
“I’m sorry. Detective Pierce died at five forty-one. I’m sorry we couldn’t save him.”
Yearwood reached for the dusty canvas bag that rested in the chair beside him. “So am I.”
Outside, the traffic had begun to build with shift workers on their way to the steel and rubber factories
that huddled north of Harbortown. Yearwood took a right on Banks, and then a left on Marigold. The look of the city grew dingier amid the pawnshops and bail bondsmen. He knew that Police Headquarters lay somewhere to the east, but the name of the street eluded him.
At Cordelia he saw an old gray Studebaker beside the curb, its visor pulled down, a pasteboard sign attached: POLICE VEHICLE, OFFICIAL BUSINESS.
The man behind the wheel did not look up as Yearwood approached.
“Sir?”
The man startled violently and reached for the briefcase that rested beside him in the front seat. “Whuh?”
“I noticed the sign on the visor,” Yearwood told him. “I figured you’d be able to tell me where Police Headquarters is.”
The man nodded heavily, a half-dazed look in his eyes so that for a moment Yearwood took him to be drunk.
“Police Headquarters,” Yearwood repeated politely.
The man looked at his pudgy fingers resting on the brown briefcase, then back up at Yearwood. “Straight down to Trevor,” he said gloomily. “Turn right.”
“Thanks,” Yearwood said, and proceeded on until he reached the corner of Trevor Street. Before turning, he glanced back down the street, intending to wave a thank-you to the man who’d given him directions, but the car was gone.
5:59
A.M.
, Interrogation Room 3
I have no more questions, Cohen thought helplessly. There is nothing more I can do.
He watched the second hand make its final sweep of the five o’clock hour. He could not imagine why Pierce
had not called in. Even if he’d found nothing that could be used in the interrogation, he had the duty to report that failure. Cohen studied the clock, considered the few seconds that remained, and summoned one more question. “Where are you going when you leave here, Jay?”
“Nowhere,” Smalls said without hesitation.
“Back to the park?”
“Nowhere.”
“Okay,” Cohen said. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. “Remember this, Jay. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
Smalls’ spidery white hand crawled to his throat, then fluttered back into his lap.
Cohen walked to the door, jerked it open, then glared back into the room. “Someday I’ll get you, Jay.” His voice was firm and confident, but it was an act, and he knew it. Nothing would ever deliver Albert Smalls into his hands. The great engine ground on indifferently, reducing the child and the killer of that child to the same white dust, giving no sign that it cared for anything. He heard his father’s words again.
God is not subject to interrogation, Norman.
In the elevator, Cohen thought of Pierce, trying to find some reason why the night had passed without word. Then his attention turned to his own activity during the last twelve hours. What, he wondered, what could I have done differently and changed the course of things?
The doors opened on the ground floor, and he saw an old man in a black hat, clutching a soiled bag to his chest. “I’m looking for someone named Cohen,” the old man said.
“You found him.”
“Detective Jack Pierce wanted you to have this.” The old man handed Cohen the bag.
Cohen pulled a dusty drawing pad from the bag. The cover was soiled, the edges frayed. He flipped the cover and looked at the first drawing, a girl in a dark swimsuit, the designation
Betty, Seaview
written beneath the portrait. He turned the page. Another drawing of a young girl, this one in jeans and a blouse with puffed sleeves. The caption read
Carla, Titus.
“Pierce found the bag in a storage shed the man you’re interrogating lived in for a while,” Yearwood said breathlessly.
“Just pictures,” Cohen said as he turned to the next page, then the next page, then the next, moving ever more quickly through the dozens of drawings, all of young girls, their names tidily inscribed beneath their portraits, along with the towns, Cohen assumed, in which the drawings had been made.
“This won’t help us,” Cohen said as he turned the last page, started to close the pad. Then he stopped, his eyes drawn to the dark-haired child of Smalls’ final portrait. She stood in a wooded area, dressed in dark shorts and a white blouse, her bare arms dangling at her sides, smiling brightly, with nothing to suggest anything but a happy youth save the metal brace clamped around her right leg. Cohen’s eyes bore into the identification Smalls had written beneath the drawing.
Debra, Englishtown.
Cohen instantly recalled the awesome guilt he’d seen in Smalls’ eyes, his terror of something that would inevitably be found out. “Debra,” he whispered. “Debra Pierce.”
6:05
A.M.
, West Ramp, City Bridge