Fear and Loathing

by Hilary Norman

  ‘On my way.’ All the shock in the world in Martinez’s voice.

  There was a taxi parked outside, the driver pacing the sidewalk. The man Sam had entrusted the bags with earlier.

  ‘I didn’t know what apartment you went to, and they wouldn’t let me in.’

  ‘No time.’ Sam was moving away.

  ‘No answer at your house, but I still have the bags in my cab.’

  Running now, down Collins, Bal Harbour Shops on his right, dodging the cars queuing to enter, banging a fist on the hood of a Chevy in his way.

  ‘This is costing me, man!’ The cab driver was following, his voice trailing away.

  On Harding, making the turn at 96th – he’d run this stretch a few times with Cathy: Kane Concourse, crossing the water, then onto the first of the Bay Harbor Islands …

  More colors going off in his brain, images.

  Cathy tied up in Chauvin’s house.

  The first two couples hideously dead in Gary Burton’s BMW, the cord around Mo Li’s neck, her face …

  He was sprinting, elbows pumping, and Cathy would say he was doing it all wrong, that he might injure himself …

  Not true. Cathy would just scream: ‘Go faster!’

  Over water again, and he needed backup, needed to call it in …

  Martinez taking care of that.

  Maybe it wasn’t true, maybe it was another deranged old bitch fucking with him, with his heart, which was in some kind of overdrive now, keeping him alive, running faster, his eyes not seeing the Intracoastal or the cars, hanging left onto East Broadview.

  Another image, of Chauvin flying off that bend …

  Death everywhere.

  Slow down.

  Sam halted, stumbled, fell on his knees, and his breathing sounded like a tornado whistling by as he stared at his home.

  Normal on the outside. Nothing out of place, twin palms, bottlebrush tree all present and correct, and this was crazy. Hildy Benedict had made it up, had seen her Wanted notices, gotten mad, figured she was good to go, but maybe one last game before she left. Or maybe this was all Harper’s doing, maybe she was the queen bitch on wheels …

  He got up. Seeing, finally, what was out of place, what was missing.

  Grace’s VW Golf Hatchback – a gift from Cathy last birthday – was parked out on the street, which made sense, because Sam had dumped his Saab in the driveway last Tuesday before he’d caught the cab to MIA.

  The Saab was not there now.

  He began to walk, all his senses heightened, knowing that Kovac might be watching, whether from inside their house or maybe outside, perhaps opposite in the garden, and if the threat was real, he’d be armed with his Glock, minimum – who knew what else?

  If it was true.

  Aunt Connie.

  Constance Cezary with her very own nephew in the same department as the couple who’d made the news a few times, black police detective, white child psychologist wife, the prototype target and detested by Kovac …

  ‘He hates you and your wife so much … ’

  Sam knew Kovac had always disliked him – mutual feelings, well-known to all – but it was news to him that it – hate – had spread to Grace.

  Still walking.

  Breathing.

  And then he heard it.

  He knew the sound intimately, had been driving his car more years than he could remember, loved its growl.

  He heard the Saab now, idling.

  Inside the closed garage.

  ‘Oh, dear Lord.’

  For an instant, Sam went limp, so weakened he almost fell again.

  Get them out!

  Running again, trying to find his keys, but he didn’t have them, and the garage door remote was on the ring.

  He was in the driveway, could smell the fumes.

  ‘Grace!’ he bellowed, bent, yanking at the handle, but it wouldn’t shift.

  He kicked it hard, but it didn’t budge, and kicking wouldn’t do it because the door was made to flip out and up from the base.

  He wrenched at the handle again, yelled their names, pulled out his iPhone, hands shaking, needing to call it in, but then he heard sirens, knew that Martinez had gotten backup, was almost here, and now he couldn’t find his house key either.

  To hell with that.

  Two kicks, and he’d busted through the front door.

  Everything quiet.

  ‘Grace!’ He screamed her name. ‘Joshua!’

  No entrance into the garage from this house, but Grace’s car keys with the remote clicker were in the right place, in the dish on the shelf in the hall.

  ‘Kovac!’ he bellowed. ‘I’m coming for you!’

  Two MDFR trucks were drawing up outside, but Sam was back outside the garage, clicking the door, nothing happening.

  He sprinted to the first truck. ‘My wife and boy are in there. You need an axe!’

  ‘We’re on it.’ One of the men was hauling equipment.

  ‘You need a Halligan, you need leverage – give it to me, I know the door.’

  Another man materialized beside Sam, a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Lieutentant.

  ‘Detective Becket?’

  Sam was back at the garage, pounding on the door. ‘Grace, Joshua, we’re coming!’

  ‘You need to step away, sir,’ one of the men told him.

  ‘You need to get them out!’ Sam wheeled around, saw two more guys coming, one with a Halligan, the other with a flat-headed axe. ‘For God’s sake!’

  He heard Martinez’s Chevy screech around the curve, grind to a halt. Heard the first blow of the axe, and his hands clamped both sides of his head, squeezing tight, and he was praying, and Martinez was beside him, talking, but Sam couldn’t hear him, wasn’t listening, there was too much rage, too much anguish …

  The leverage end of the Halligan made swift work of the door.

  The garage was filled with carbon monoxide.

  ‘OK, man, they’re going in.’

  Martinez gripped his right arm but Sam shook him off, pushed his way past two firefighters, but there were two more ahead of him and he couldn’t get through.

  ‘Let me in there!’ he bellowed. ‘That’s my family!’

  The Saab’s engine cut out.

  The firefighters emerged.

  ‘No one in there,’ someone said.

  ‘Let me in!’ Sam yelled.

  ‘Sir.’ The lieutenant was by his side. ‘There’s no one in the car. No one in the garage. You have my word.’

  ‘Let me see!’

  ‘It’s not safe,’ the lieutenant told him.

  ‘Fuck safe,’ Sam snarled and pushed inside.

  Saw for himself that they were right, came out, coughing. ‘Where are they?’ He stared at Martinez. ‘Jesus!’

  He turned, ran back into the house, Martinez behind him, through to the kitchen, then backtracking, into the den, the living room, through the lanai, out to the deck, staring down at the water, turning away …

  ‘Give me your gun,’ he said to Martinez.

  ‘Backup’s on the way. If he’s up there …’

  Sam shoved him aside, ran inside, took the stairs three at a time.

  Their bedroom door was shut.

  Martinez was right behind him. Their eyes met and Sam nodded.

  One each side of the door.

  Silent count.

  On three.

  Sam kicked in the door, Martinez covering him.

  Grace and Joshua were on the bed, both bound and gagged with tape.

  Two pairs of beautiful eyes, filled with terror.

  Both alive.

  ‘Bathroom,’ Martinez said softly.

  He moved toward the door, saw Grace shaking her head.

  Sam had the tape off her mouth first.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she said.

  Martinez checked the bathroom. ‘Copy that.’

  Sam sat on the side of the bed, breathing hard, and very gently peeled the tape off his son’s mouth.

  ‘Hey, brave boy
,’ he said.

  ‘Daddy, you saved us,’ Joshua said.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  He’d had them, just the way he’d planned it, had him in the palm of his hand, ready to squeeze that black, oh-so-holy heart of his into rubble, into dust, and then what did he do? He had to go and get himself a fucking conscience.

  It was the kid, Becket’s little cocoa-butter brat. He’d gotten to him with those damned coffee-colored eyes, and Aunt Connie was going to blow her little iron-lady stack when she heard that he’d failed.

  He’d had his orders direct from Virginia, for the love of Christ, and hell, it was the mission he’d wanted more than any other, wasn’t it? He’d been heartily glad that his involvement with the others had been purely strategic, and he’d been good at that, damned good. Tracking and bugging victims, using his privileges, his knowledge, his expertise, to help oil the wheels of the Mission, to help his aunt and the other ‘Virginia’ with one stolen powerboat, not to mention a whole bunch of firearms – and his years in Strategic Investigations had helped with all of that, and a man could learn all kinds of things if he was determined enough.

  He’d only come back to Violent Crimes because Alvarez had gotten sick, and he’d preferred his life away from Becket and his sidekick, would have been happier staying away, but his Aunt Connie had decided it was better for the ‘cause’, as she called it. His mom had often referred to her sister as Crazy Connie, but his aunt had always been sweet to him, had always said he was her favorite, that one day, if he was good to her, all her wealth would come to him – it was in her will. And it was, she’d shown him a few weeks ago, when he’d been wavering a little; she’d brought out the big envelope with its seal and opened it, given it to him, then made a fresh seal herself, with red wax and a big gold ring that had been her grandfather’s.

  They’d shared special times, when she’d served him Polish delicacies and talked about her great Mission and about her friend – ‘her confrère’, she called her – Hildegard Benedict, whose mother-in-law, Alida Benedek, had written a great racist work, whose husband had not understood her, but who had spent her life seeking out likeminded fellow travelers.

  A relationship born out of a chance meeting back in the eighties in Richmond, Virginia, both women at a gathering attended by admirers of white nationalist activist, William Pierce, a connection struck and continued over afternoon tea at The Jefferson Hotel; the differences in their backgrounds brushed aside as they’d uncovered their remarkably similar ideologies. A staunch friendship forged in the Palm Court, the seeds of their Mission sown; Hildegard the intellectual lead, but Aunt Connie, the tougher of the two, the strategist.

  He’d often thought, in earlier years, that his mother was right, that Aunt Connie did have a screw or two loose, was living in some weird aristo-type time warp, that the ‘Mission’ was a crock – and it was pretty loopy calling her hitmen her fucking ‘Crusaders’ because she claimed to be descended from Teutonic knights. But as time had gone on, he’d come to realize that her aims were solid, that they shared common principles, and sure, her approach was radical and criminal – but that depended, Aunt Connie said, on whose laws you lived by.

  Biggest thing they had in common was their contempt for mixed marriages.

  In her case, she’d had her top one hundred sinners to choose from.

  In his case, it had just been the one couple.

  ‘I’m not sure about the boy,’ he’d said to her a while back.

  ‘The boy is the whole point,’ she’d answered.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he said now.

  The Benedict woman was dead – her couriered letter informing him of that and commanding him, in view of his Aunt Constance’s ‘indisposition’, to undertake the final part of the Mission. Aunt Connie was behind bars, her Crusaders likewise or dead – so it was only a matter of time before one of them gave him up. He’d met Copani more than once, and he might have told the others, and he guessed he’d always known he might get found out, but he’d just gotten so pulled along by that crazy old broad’s enthusiasm.

  For execution.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he said again.

  He’d come here, to this place, after he’d finished at the Beckets’ – and it hadn’t been easy fixing that garage door. Anyone could have walked by, challenged him, even called 911, and he’d had his ID ready for that eventuality, and his Glock and Smith & Wesson too; but no one had bothered him, and he’d been as good at that part of the job as all the other things he’d been ordered to do.

  But then, when it had come to the task he’d wanted most, he’d failed. He’d failed Aunt Connie. Failed himself.

  Only three things left to do now.

  Wait for Becket to find him here, which he would.

  Put a bullet through that jumped-up, righteous heart.

  Then put one through his own skull.

  No way was he going to be a killer cop in jail.

  Martinez had taken care of business: alerting Duval first, then calling in the crime against Grace and Joshua and putting out a BOLO on Lieutenant Ron Kovac, wanted for imprisonment of a minor child and suspicion of nine counts of conspiracy to murder.

  ‘Suspect armed and dangerous.’

  They’d talked fast, while Sam was still engaged in priority number one: making sure that neither Joshua nor Grace were in need of urgent medical attention, and Grace was claiming to be OK, but Sam wanted them both checked out, and Mary Cutter was en route, guaranteeing to make damned sure Grace let someone look at her head.

  Kovac might be anywhere by now.

  Sam’s best hunch that he was probably on his way, or already at, Rosemont House.

  The elderly care home had been shut down, residents moved to alternative accommodation, searches and Crime Scene work complete, entrances and exits sealed.

  ‘If Cezary really is Kovac’s aunt, then I’m betting that’s where he’ll go to ground,’ Sam said. ‘Do we even know where the bastard lives?’

  ‘Riley’s on it,’ Martinez said. ‘Duval’s on his way.’

  ‘I’m not waiting,’ Sam said.

  ‘You’re off the case, man.’

  ‘Not officially,’ Sam said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Can’t take your car,’ Martinez said. ‘I’ll drive, soon as backup arrives.’

  Sam had already collected his Glock from its lock box upstairs, knew that Grace, sitting in Joshua’s room, holding him in her arms, was aware that he’d taken the weapon; he’d seen her face, knew how unfair this was on her, because there was no way she was going to scare Joshua further by fighting his father about walking into more danger.

  ‘Daddy and Uncle Al have to go out for a while,’ Sam had told Joshua, nice and calm for the child’s sake, ‘but there are going to be cops all over this house.’

  ‘Don’t go, Daddy,’ Joshua said.

  ‘I have to, sweetheart.’

  ‘Do you?’ Grace’s eyes were cool, chilling him.

  ‘After what he just did to you two,’ Sam said, still quiet. ‘No choice.’

  ‘There’s always a choice,’ Grace said.

  The troops had not yet assembled outside Rosemont House.

  Sam and Martinez sat in the Chevy two blocks away, Sam using his Zeiss monocular telescope, moving window to window, floor by floor, seeing no sign of life, not expecting to.

  ‘He might not be in there,’ Martinez said.

  ‘He’s there,’ Sam said. ‘Hiding. Waiting.’

  He’d hated that look on Grace’s face, hated leaving them that way.

  No choice.

  Not for him, not now, not after what Kovac had done.

  ‘All these years,’ he said softly. ‘Knowing he hated my guts, knowing he was probably a racist, but never dreaming …’

  ‘We hated his guts too,’ Martinez said. ‘He’s always known that.’

  ‘You making excuses for him?’

  Martinez glanced at him, hearing aggression, seeing it in his face. ‘Take it easy, man.’r />
  ‘Let’s go,’ Sam said.

  ‘I told Duval we’d wait,’ Martinez said.

  ‘You told him,’ Sam said. ‘I’m not waiting.’

  He opened the passenger door.

  ‘Man, this is nuts.’

  Sam shut the door, began walking.

  He knew Martinez was right, yet there was no way he was going to stop. The craziness of the past days and nights, the helplessness. Feeling out of control while Jones and the French PI worked on his behalf, doing for his daughter what he ought to have been doing.

  Then this.

  Reading the letter.

  The terror of not knowing.

  The sound of the Saab in their garage, the inability to reach Grace and Joshua, having to leave it to other men again, then, finally, the greatest relief in the world because they were alive; and yet he felt – he knew – that nothing would ever be right again unless he found Kovac, made him pay.

  He heard Martinez behind him, heard his breathlessness, his friend less fit than he should be, and he’d push him about that soon, when this was over, because a man needed his best friend. But for now, he wasn’t even going to turn around to reassure him that he was only going in, not turning vigilante, that one rogue cop in the department was enough.

  Sam wasn’t going to tell Martinez any of that, because he couldn’t.

  Because he didn’t know what he was going to do when he found Kovac.

  He knew better than to kill the racist scumbag, knew better as a cop and as a human being. But right now, moving fast, his Glock holstered, out of sight, he wanted to do exactly that. To kill him. Not only because of Grace and Joshua, but because of the other nine innocent victims and the tenth, the unborn child.

  ‘To hell with him,’ he said out loud.

  ‘He’s going there, man.’ Martinez had caught up. ‘But we need to do this right.’

  ‘Sure,’ Sam said.

  ‘You don’t want to give him what he wants,’ Martinez said, breathing hard.

  Sam didn’t answer, nearly there now, and he was going to the back, was going to climb up via the fire escape, break in wherever he could. Or maybe the roof was the best place – he could sit it out there, either wait for him to emerge or go in from up there …

  ‘Suicide by Sam Becket,’ Martinez said. ‘I’m betting that’s what he wants. If he’s here. Bastard might be long gone, someplace we don’t know about.’