Last Dark Place

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “A lot of money.”

  The man in the bed closed his eyes and was silent for about thirty seconds. Lieberman thought he was asleep, but with closed eyes Johnstone said quietly, “You see where I’m going with this?”

  “I think so. Someone paid you a lot of money for you to kill Gower. You’re going to give it to your grandchildren to go to college.”

  “A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Seen those ads?”

  “I donate to the United Negro College Fund,” Lieberman said. “Who paid you to shoot Gower?”

  “So the man I shot was named Gower? First name or last?”

  “Last.”

  “You had a photograph of Gower in your pocket.”

  “But not his name. Never knew his name till you just said it. You ever kill a man? I mean you being a cop?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “Thought I’d feel bad,” said Johnstone. “I do, but physical not mental. Ever been shot?”

  “No. The person who hired you to kill Gower wasn’t a good man,” said Lieberman.

  “Maybe so. Maybe no. But he was a man with money.”

  Johnstone leaned a little toward Lieberman and lowered his voice.

  “Between you, me, and your Snickers bar, I already put the money where only my grandkids can get it. Add that to my insurance money and it’s a nice amount. You can’t take it from me.”

  The oscilloscope let out a series of blips. The green line was frantically drawing the dark landscape.

  “I don’t want to take your money. I want the name of the man who paid you.”

  “Can’t do it,” Johnstone said. “I think I better … there water in here?”

  “I’ll call the nurse. They told me not to give you water.”

  “But they didn’t say anything about candy bars?”

  “I’ll call the nurse.”

  “No.” He held up a thin arm, bone and veins showing. “No more talk now,” Johnstone whispered and then he was definitely asleep.

  Lieberman got up and moved toward the door. He would come back later.

  “You understand?” Monty said. Monty the barber looked like a twig, a bald twig with wide brown suspenders. Monty had blue eyes and peppermint breath. He popped Certs like Wayne’s cousin Kenneth had popped uppers back in the eighties when they were kids.

  “Yes,” said Wayne looking at himself in the mirror, watching the hair fall in ringlets as Monty cut and talked, narrow knobby shoulders huddled holding today’s suspenders.

  The Clean Cut was old, ceiling a patterned plaster, floor white tile blocks with cracks that ran like meandering rivers, walls covered in paper with repeating pictures of ancient airplanes.

  Monty was alone today. The other barber chairs sat empty and only Mr. Photopopolus, who lived in the Garden Gables Assisted Living Facility in a three-story off of Morse near the El, sat waiting. The bus had driven Mr. Photopopolus from the Garden Gables. It would be back for him in an hour. Mr. Photopopolus didn’t care if it was five hours. He liked the smell of the barbershop. He liked fingering the curled edges of the magazines that flopped on the small table next to him. He liked listening to Monty and throwing in an observation when he could.

  “So, it’s a miracle,” Monty said. “All this.”

  He paused to wave his comb and point it around the shop. Wayne could see him in the mirror.

  “You gotta think about it, Wayne,” he went on. “People were on the earth with nothing, nothing at all, no thing at all. Just people and the earth and the animals and whatever was growing. And they made from it houses and cars and computers and cake mixers.”

  “And streets and telephones and airplanes,” said Mr. Photopopolus.

  “I’m going to shoot someone today,” said Wayne softly, looking at the elegant letters painted on the window more than forty years ago by his father saying this, indeed, was the Clean Cut barbershop.

  “That a fact?” said Monty.

  “Yes.”

  Monty had heard crazier things in his decades of scissors, razors, and combs. Wayne was harmless, a little off, but harmless. Customers babble. You listen, nod your head, let them tell you they were about to make millions or shoot the latest blond rock star.

  “Something eating you?” Monty said.

  “No, nothing special. It’s just the day I’m going to shoot someone,” said Wayne again, very softly, calmly, looking in the mirror to be sure Monty was cutting his hair just the way he liked it, not too short. Too short and his face looked like a balloon, like John Candy.

  “You got to kill somebody, kill Dwight Spenser,” said Mr. Photopopolus. “No loss there. You gotta kill somebody, kill Spenser, get it out of your system, rid the world of an anti-Greek. I thought a couple times about braining him with a bedpan.”

  “I don’t know Spenser,” said Wayne.

  “Room next to mine,” said Photopopolus. “Must be a hundred years old. God’s keeping him alive to punish those around him who’ve screwed up their lives. I’m eighty-six. He’ll outlive me. The bad die ancient. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I know what you’re saying,” said Wayne. “But I’ve got to kill someone important.”

  “Like who?” asked Photopopolus.

  “Lee Cole Carter,” said Wayne.

  “And that’s who?” asked Photopopolus.

  “Country singer,” said Monty dreamily, still thinking about the miracle of the world, the wonders of a comb, the marvel of the scissors in his hand. “Mother and father live in one of the high-rises on Sheridan. Top floor I hear. Lee Cole Carter won the Grammy last year for singing something about dirty women.”

  “‘Hard Drinking Woman,’” Wayne said. “Youngest country-and-western singer to win a Grammy. He’s in the city now visiting his parents. Heard it on the radio.”

  “Done,” said Monty, sweeping the sheet out from under Wayne’s chin so that the hairs on it floated neatly to the floor like snowfall in a glass bubble. Monty twirled the sheet like a toreador and laid it neatly in one movement on the empty barber chair next to him. It was Monty’s trademark. That little move. Been doing it for thirty-six years.

  Wayne got out of the chair. He always gave Monty a dollar tip. Wayne always said, “Thank you kindly, Mr. Czerbiak, sir.”

  He did this time, too. Photopopolus had put down the magazine and was walking slowly, stoop-shouldered toward the chair. He looked like a gnome with a secret. Photopopolus had perfected the knowing look to hide his basic lack of intelligence.

  “You got a gun?” Monty asked Wayne, wrapping the cloth around Photopopolus’s wrinkled neck. “You going to shoot someone, you need a gun. Am I right or am I right?”

  “Yeah,” said Wayne. “I’ve got a gun.”

  Wayne went out the door and onto the sidewalk in front of the mall shops. The gun in his pocket belonged to his father. Kept it loaded in a drawer in the shop. Until today.

  4

  THE YOUNG MAN, WHOSE name was David Sen, was certainly feeling the pain of the tightly knotted cord that bound his hands together behind the chair in which he was sitting.

  Parker Liao sat about five feet away facing the young man. He was sitting in a straight-backed chair just like David Sen’s, but Parker’s hands were not tied.

  It was a game. Both men knew it and both knew who the winner would be.

  “He’s alive,” said Parker Liao, folding one leg over the other and clasping his hands.

  David Sen didn’t even consider pleading. He tried to keep his voice steady as he said, “I only got one shot. They, his people, came running in. I was lucky to get away.”

  “Lucky is a relative term,” said Parker. “Because you got away you are here. Are you feeling lucky?”

  Both men were in their mid-twenties. Both had been born in Chicago. Both were Chinese and members of the Twin Dragons. There were thirty-eight Twin Dragons. Parker was the leader, a responsibility he took seriously. The latest clash with Los Tentaculos had not been about turf but about pride. Mr. Woo, who ove
rsaw the criminal enterprises of Chinatown, had given the Dragons an assignment. He had no gang, just five bodyguards. Were he to need evidence of his control, he could have several hundred men from both the United States and Canada standing next to him within a day.

  Mr. Woo cultivated a mystique drawn from Old World myths and American-breed images. He often wore silk Chinese robes when he held an audience. He burned incense, an odor that irritated him, when he wanted to impress a visitor or enemy. He had begun as a thief in Shanghai sixty years ago and bribed, stole, and murdered his way to respectability. He had come to America and learned that playing to a stereotype had advantages in dealing both with white Americans and with Chinese. Gradually, very gradually over the course of decades, Mr. Woo had grown accustomed to and comfortable with the persona he had created. He had become what at first he had only pretended to be. He was well aware of this and accepted it with no discomfort.

  Mr. Woo had sent Parker to convince the policeman named Hanrahan not to marry Iris Chen. Mr. Woo had wanted to marry Iris Chen. It had been an honor to bestow on her rather than a command. He had failed. Woo had graciously accepted defeat, but Parker Liao did not accept defeat with dignity.

  Not that Parker was really into the “saving face” business, but he was very much into the power business, and the other gangs and people with whom he did business, especially Mr. Woo, assumed that face-saving was an essential part of a Chinese gang’s mantra. It was also, he knew, an essential part of the success of any gang. Parker, too, had to maintain a mystique though he really didn’t give a shit about honor. He had long ago decided that life was about power and money.

  When El Perro and Los Tentaculos had run him and two of his people off of North Avenue in front of several dozen watching Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, in front of Hanrahan and his partner, the old Jew, Parker knew the story would get back to Chinatown, that it would suggest weakness and a loss of both face and power, that he might have to deal with other gangs that ringed Chinatown. Blacks to the south and west. Latinos to the north. The backs of the Twin Dragons against the shore of Lake Michigan.

  “I …,” David Sen began. “I’ll take responsibility. I’ll lose face.”

  “Face? You idiot. You’ll lose more than face,” Parker said, reaching down for his cup of coffee on the table in front of him. “No, maybe we should make literal what has only been figurative for thousands of years. Maybe I should have your face removed and show your corpse to the world.”

  Parker had no intention of mutilating the frightened would-be assassin, but he would have to do something. Failure could not be ignored.

  The room was small, behind a Chinese grocery store. The smells of herbs permeated the room. Parker liked the smell. It reminded him of his mother’s kitchen, of the traditional foods he liked. Parker loved history, the history of the world, particularly of China, and the history of his own family, which was not distinguished but which was comforting. He had photographs of his grandparents and great-grandparents in his apartment. The photographs had been taken in China. They all wore the garments of the ancient country. Parker had never worn anything but Western clothes. To do anything else, no matter how much he would like to make contact with his past, would look like an affectation.

  On the other side of the door, waiting to find out how their leader was going to deal with Sen’s failure, were three young Chinese men, the oldest twenty-four, the youngest seventeen.

  “Any thoughts? Suggestions?” he asked David Sen, who sat up straight and shook his head instead of answering because his throat and tongue had suddenly gone very dry.

  “Give me another chance to get him,” he managed.

  Parker considered the offer and said, “You’ll need time to heal before you’re capable of anything.”

  Parker drank some more coffee so that David Sen would have time to absorb what had just been said, and to wonder what it was he would have to heal from.

  There was no point in arguing or pleading. David Sen could only hope. Two years ago he had graduated from Northern Illinois University with a degree in political science and a minor in Spanish language and literature. He hoped that his knowledge of Spanish was useful enough to Parker so that the punishment would not threaten his life.

  He had been recruited into the Dragons because his cousin Daniel was a Dragon who had boasted about David’s academic accomplishments. In truth, they had been minor and David had been unable to find a job when he graduated. It had not been all that difficult to recruit him with the promise of money for him to take care of his mother, father, and sister, and to live well himself.

  But there was a price to pay. He had failed in his first true test.

  Parker looked into his empty cup and put it back in the saucer. The pauses were growing longer.

  “There is nothing to gain from my having you tortured or killed,” said Parker. “So I propose we give you a choice, actually any one of twenty choices.”

  David willed himself to stop sweating. It wasn’t hot in the room. The ceiling fan revolved, humming gently. There was a breeze, but he felt the perspiration on his cheeks and forehead and knew that Parker saw it, too.

  “Pick a finger or toe,” said Parker.

  David was relieved.

  “The small toe on my left foot,” he said.

  Parker was shaking his head “no.”

  “Wrong choice,” he said. “It lacks gravity. One more choice and if it doesn’t reflect the requirement of the situation, I’ll choose.”

  Parker Liao rose and walked behind the seated man. David Sen willed himself not to look back over his shoulder. He heard the click of a folding knife being opened and then there was a tug at his wrists and his hands were free.

  “Choose,” Parker said.

  David thought.

  And then he chose. Parker nodded his agreement and called the three men who were waiting behind the door.

  “David has made a decision,” he said.

  The three men looked at David Sen and then at their leader. Parker held up the middle finger of his right hand.

  “He will do it himself,” said Parker.

  Parker held out his hand palm up toward the three men. The youngest stepped forward and removed a folding knife from his pocket. He handed the knife to Parker, who opened it and started to hand it, blade forward, to David Sen.

  Sen took the knife, willing his hands not to shake. He placed his left hand flat on the table next to Parker Liao’s empty coffee cup. He could not chop down without the risk of mutilating one of his other fingers. He decided he would place the point of the knife on the table next to the joint of his finger. Then, in one quick stroke, he would bring the blade down with all his strength, hoping he would not hit bone and fail to cut through.

  Knife in his right hand, he flexed his fingers, locating a whorl on his knuckle. He moved the knife, readied it and was about to strike when …

  “Wait,” said Parker Liao. “I have something I want you to do before your penance.”

  David Sen held his breath.

  For Sen it was a reprieve, not permanent, but maybe, if he redeemed himself, Parker would change his mind.

  For Parker it was an opportunity to make Sen suffer and think about the moment that had almost been and would be again. Besides, the task he was about to give to David Sen might well be more frightening than cutting off one’s own finger.

  “Yes,” said Sen, mouth dry.

  “I want you to deliver a message to the Puerto Rican son of a bitch.”

  Marie Drewbecki was fifteen, pale, fair-skinned, pretty, and not sure whether to be frightened of the two cops or defiant. She would have chosen defiance if her friends had been watching, but they weren’t and Marie’s fear of the police prevailed.

  They were sitting in an office at Senn High School, just her and the two beefy-looking cops, both with Irish names like you hear in television sitcoms. She had lost their names as soon as they gave them.

  “Who beat you up last month, Marie?” asked H
anrahan.

  She thought she heard sympathy in his voice. Maybe she was just hearing what she was hoping to hear.

  “I dunno,” she said with a shrug. “Just some guys. I dunno.”

  “They did something else to you,” said O’Neil.

  She turned her head away and looked at a black-and-white photograph of a Chicago subway station on the wall. It looked old. People were wearing funny clothes. She hadn’t been in this office before. It belonged to the placement teacher. Marie had a long time to go before she needed placement help.

  “You’re a smart girl,” said O’Neil. “Principal Mackie told me. Smart girl. College material.”

  She didn’t respond, just looked at a man in the photograph. The man had a stiff collar and wore a little hat with a round top.

  “There were three of them,” she said without facing them.

  The detectives knew this from the report of the girl’s beating. There had been no descriptions of the men or their car.

  “The car,” O’Neil said. “Anything about it?”

  “Just a car,” she said. “Not too new. Not too old, you know. Just a car. I didn’t get a real good look. They just screeched up on the street and piled out yelling, pushed me in the alley.”

  “How many doors?”

  “Four? Yeah, four.”

  “Color?”

  “I dunno. Hold it. There was something hanging from the mirror by the driver. A monkey, something. I dunno why I remember. It … a monkey, I think.”

  “They didn’t use each other’s names?” asked Hanrahan.

  “Don’t remember,” she said. “Can I go back to math now?”

  “Old woman died yesterday,” Hanrahan said. “She was hit with a baseball bat.”

  Marie gulped, trying to hide it.

  “She didn’t bother anyone,” said O’Neil. “Just an old bag lady. Whoever did it just wanted to have some fun. They were just having fun with you, too. Same people. Same bats they used on you. You know who they are.”

  “I can’t,” she said softly, so softly that the two detectives could barely hear her.

  “What?” asked Hanrahan.

  “I can’t,” she said a little louder and looked at him.