by John Dunning
If Dante got to me, he’d be killing himself.
“Now it’s real,” I said to nobody.
* * *
I lay in my sleeping bag outside the museum door and stared at that crack in the sky. It was beginning to fuzz over now as the cloud cover fattened and spread. I felt a drop of rain, thought I should move inside, but I only moved deeper into my bag. Sleep was impossible but that didn’t matter. Once we were in the car heading north, Erin could drive and I’d catch up then.
I thought these things and the time was heavy. At some point I fell asleep, but not for long. I am good with time and I opened my eyes knowing it was somewhere near three o’clock. I wiggled out of my bag and sat up straight. Some noise, some fleeting thing out there where the wind blew, had wafted around my head. It had shifted from an easterly blow to southwesterly, and suddenly I felt an alarm go off under my heart. I told myself it was nothing but that hunch; not even the sound I thought I had heard had any true substance or source in this black world. My practical nature said I had been dreaming, that’s all it was, I had come out of the dream thinking of Dante and those guys in the boat, there was no reason to make that connection, it was just a case of nerves. But it wouldn’t go away, and now I got completely out of the bag and stood on my tiptoes looking out toward Morris Island.
Dante. I saw his face swirling through the dark in various shades of clarity. He was certainly insane, and that, combined with his other charms, made him far more dangerous than any thug I had ever faced as a cop. I had humiliated him in front of his men—that was another part of the case against me—and I had done a lot of damage to his face. His bruises would look worse day by day until they began to get better, and by then it wouldn’t matter anymore. After a week of staring at his own black-and-blue face in the mirror, who could tell how crazy he’d be? He would have a score to settle and in his mind there could be none bigger, ever, and the longer it went unresolved the angrier and more dangerous he would be. This was strictly a guess: How reckless could he be? What was he going to do, scale the wall and kill everyone on this island just to get me? That would be the act of a real madman, but it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened. It depended on the depth of his hate versus the degree of his own survival instinct. I fiddled with a mathematical formula—Dead Janeway equals Perp’s Survival over Perp’s Hate squared. Maybe by now his hate would be at the fourth or fifth power, or the fiftieth power, all but obliterating even his instinct for self-preservation. In that case, anything could happen. Madmen have been known to walk into certain death to get at the object of their loathing. Dante would have covered himself as well as possible, and maybe that would be enough. Who else knew of his connection to us? There would be half a dozen cronies back in Baltimore who’d line up and swear that he had never left town, he had been there among them, having dinner in full view of a dozen witnesses, at the very moment when this strange carnage began, six or seven hundred miles away. I had nothing to do with it, he would say, and the cops would have the job of proving that he had. But they wouldn’t have to prove it to Vinnie Marranzino, and in death I’d have my victory. A damned hollow one, but I was glad, on this side of death, that I had it.
I thought of Luke and Libby. It had never occurred to any of us that we might be putting them in danger. This is how different things can be at three o’clock in the morning.
None of this was at all likely. To be out there in a boat now would mean he had known or anticipated our every move: that he had gotten the boat and made his plans, and all this had been done from the time the Fort Sumter tour boat had arrived back at the marina in the late afternoon without us on it. Not likely, but not impossible either. Thugs like Dante know people like themselves in many towns. He may have lined up some local pal two days ago, and in this town a boat was easy to get.
I looked at the sky and saw nothing. If he was coming at all, it would be now.
I felt the uneasiness filling up my soul. I began to pace along the front of the battery, looking for something I couldn’t see and listening for a sound that wasn’t there.
I stood at the top of the stairs and waited.
At some point I started down. I followed my light around the battery and up to the old wall. There was a wooden barrier at the lowest point; they would have to scale it at the higher wall and come into the fort from there. I was beginning to know the way now, and I moved easily out toward the edge, keeping my light down at my feet and shaded by my hand, so it couldn’t be seen from the water. Fifty yards from the gorge, I stopped and turned off the light.
I saw a soft glow out there, at the base of the wall.
Something moved. Some bump in the night. The squeak of an oar, maybe…
Then I heard a voice. They were out there. They had defied the odds.
I shucked my way out of my coat and got out my gun. Got down on my knees and crawled along a rough surface to the edge.
The rain began. I barely felt it.
I peeped over the edge. They were there on the little beachhead below. Four of them, and Dante had been the first to step out on land. There was no mistaking that overgrown palooka: I had his number even in the dark. He stood outlined against a dim light, then he spoke. “Come on, let’s get that ladder out here, we ain’t got all fuckin‘ day.” No mistaking that nasty baritone: it was packed with authority and gave orders like other men breathe. I heard a brief metallic sound, and by the same dim light I saw an aluminum ladder being slipped hand to hand over the bow of the boat.
I could’ve killed them all then; they were like four fat fish in a barrel just waiting to be shot. I had the gun in my hand, why didn’t I just do it? I could still get all four before any of them could clear their own guns; I had been that fast and my gut told me I still was. I could get them now. I could get them all. Their asses were mine. But at the last second, God knows why, I stayed my hand.
I knew why. I had never shot a man that way. I could kill him, but not that way.
I shrank back from the edge as the ladder bumped against the wall. Who would come over the top first? If Dante came up, my job would be easier. But my hunch told me it would be someone local, a pathfinder who could lead them across the treacherous parade ground to the place where, they thought, we’d all be happily asleep. I heard the ladder shake, saw it move in the dim glow from the boat far below. I slid back on my belly with the gun in my hand, getting very still as a head came over the edge. I had been right, it wasn’t Dante. But I was sure he’d be the next one: it wasn’t in his nature to take up the rear. The pathfinder came head and shoulders over the wall, a little penlight in his teeth, and in that moment I knew how it was going to go. If I was lucky, it would be a replay of Baltimore.
He turned his head and his light went right over my back. He looked down and nodded, then he came over the wall and stood up, waiting.
Again he nodded his head. Coast is clear, boys.
My heart was pumping like a war drum, I could feel my gun hand trembling, I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. The ladder moved: Dante was on the way up. I felt cold one second, giddy the next. I almost laughed out loud, these guys were such schmucks, in their own dumb way as stupid as those kids I had faced down on the street so long ago. I knew what was going to happen ten seconds before each move. The pathfinder would reach down and give the man a respectful hand, leaving them both vulnerable for that moment. I could push them both off the wall: I could easily get close enough to kick them out into space. It probably wouldn’t be a lethal fall unless Dante landed on his ass, but it was high enough to do some real damage and at least they’d be stunned for a moment. Then perhaps they’d come up shooting, and that was my kind of action; I could kill them all then and sleep just fine tomorrow. And in the heat of that moment, I found myself actually craving it, savoring what might come.
I saw Dante clear the wall. A Confederate defender with a Whit-worth rifle could’ve popped his thick head from a bunker a mile away on Morris Island, that’s what a target he
made. There was a moment: I hung back, waiting for some defining motion to egg me on. The ladder bumped again. I knew it was the third man, on his way up, and that was something I couldn’t wait around for.
I stepped up beside them, still a foot back in the shadow. Both were looking over the edge: neither had a gun out and that gave me a huge advantage. I cocked my gun and even in the wind it sounded like the clap of doom. I saw them stiffen. “Don’t move,” I said. “I will kill you both right where you stand.”
In almost the same breath the third guy began to clear the wall. He still didn’t know anything had happened and his moment of clarity came slowly. He said, “Hey,” and that was it, his sudden awareness in a nutshell as I kicked him in the head. He tumbled into space, clawing wildly for something to grab. I heard him hit the sand and the ladder crash over on top of him. All this time I kept my light in Dante’s eyes. “You don’t learn very good, do you, stupid?”
The pathfinder started to back up, away from the edge. “Wrong way, fuck-knuckle,” I said, and I lifted my foot and shoved him off. He screamed, going down like I’d just pushed him off a thousand-foot cliff.
Dante and I stared at each other, primal, mortal enemies. He looked at my gun, then at me. I taunted him. I wanted him to try something.
“Come on, fatso, you’re such a tough guy, come take my gun away from me.”
“You’d like that. You need that excuse. You haven’t got the balls to just do it.”
That was his only try at bravado. I leaned into the light and said, “Is that what you think?” and in that moment I became one with the killer: whatever difference I thought had existed between us was gone now. I was going to kill him, there wasn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind, and in that second he knew it too. I saw it in his face: the born intimidator who had spent his life watching people cringe had never once faced the possibility of his own death. He saw it now.
The flesh began to sag around his mouth, under his eyes. He tried to recoil but I grabbed him by the shirt and heaved him around. “You lose, asshole,” I said, and I banged him in the mouth with the barrel of the gun. He let out a little cry and tried to back away, he stumbled and fell. Again I shoved the gun into that gaping mouth, bloody now where two teeth had broken off. My hand trembled: any little movement might’ve set it off and I didn’t care.
“Wait,” he said.
I rammed the gun down to his tonsils. “Wait for what?”
He gurgled out something that sounded like, “Just wait.”
I leaned down close to his face. “Wait for what, asshole? Wait for what? You got something to say, say it now.” I jerked the gun out of his face. “Say it now. Say it. What’ve you possibly got to say that I would care about?”
“We could make a deal.”
“Don’t make me laugh. What’ve you got that I want? I’ve got your nuts in my pocket, Dante, what can you give me for that? Give me Burton’s notebook for starters. Maybe then I’ll let you live another five minutes.”
Suddenly he looked like a gored weasel, a rat trapped in a flooding sewer. His eyes had the same dead look as Little Caesar, who couldn’t believe he was dying even in death. Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico? Same dead eyes. Same incredulous face. I put the gun to his eyes and he shivered in what he must have expected to be his last minute on this earth.
“Are you scared, Dante?”
Even then he couldn’t say it.
“Are you scared?”
His lower lip trembled. His head scrunched down between his shoulders and he closed his eyes.
“What’s going on in that pea brain of yours? Is it fear? Are you scared?”
Go on, stop talking, I thought. Kill him.
For Christ’s sake, stop playing around and just do it. The hell with history and notebooks, just do it. I took a deep breath. “So long, stupid…”
Then he cracked. It came out of him as a pathetic, whimpering sound. “Please…don’t do this…” “Please? Did you say please?”
I put the gun to his ear, he groaned out a “No…please…” and for the second time I backed away.
I stuck the gun in my belt. He could’ve made a grab for it: he didn’t dare. He had never made a move for his own gun, which I now frisked away from him and threw into the sea.
I gripped his shirt and balled it up in my fist, drawing him close. “You got one last chance to live, Dante. Here’s what’s gonna happen. Later this morning you will get your fat ass on a plane back to Baltimore. There you will wait for further instructions. It might take a week or a month, but at some point a friend of mine will come visit. He will make damn sure you understand me this time. You are going to hurt for a long time after he sees you, but if you resist, or if you surround yourself with bodyguards and armor, it will be much, much worse. You had better listen to what he says because there won’t be any more chances. I’m telling you the truth now and you’d better believe it. He will tell you what to do and he’ll tell you in a way you’ll never forget. You’ll be told what you must do to stay alive. That’s your choice, asshole. Agree or die right now.”
I took out the gun and cocked it and he whimpered out a watery “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“…Whatever…whatever you say.”
“You got that right, Dante. Now get the hell off my fort.”
I rolled him to the edge and pushed him off. He flailed away at the air and I heard him hit the ground with a mighty grunt. He rolled over desperately sucking air, all the wind knocked out of him, maybe some bones broken; I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I sat in the dark, cross-legged and invisible, and after a while I did peer over and I saw them loading Dante onto the boat. He looked hurt bad. They pushed away, the oar squeaking, the boat fading slowly in the early morning. They slipped out into the water and disappeared. A few minutes later I heard the motor start as they turned back toward Charleston.
CHAPTER 38
I was still sitting there when the sun cracked over the sea. The harbor was empty at dawn, a couple of sailboats just heading out from the marina. Erin came out. I was facing the wrong way to see her, but I heard her climbing up to the wall and I knew who it was. She picked up my balled-up coat and sat beside me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. But I looked in her face and I knew I couldn’t sell that and I’d better not try. “They came for us during the night. Three of them got thrown off the wall. Dante might be hurt pretty bad.”
She sat down beside me. “Well,” she said, and that was all for a moment.
“If this didn’t discourage him…” I shrugged.
“Wish I could’ve helped you.” She put an arm over my shoulder. “I slept like a baby.”
“That’s good.”
“Cliff?”
“Yeah?”
“About us…”
“What about us?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat watching the sun, listening to the waves lap against the fort.
“What now?” she said.
“Now we go into Charleston and get our car.”
“Are we still looking over our shoulders?”
“In the long run, who knows? You can never know with a guy like that.” I shrugged. “I think we’re safe for today at least.”
“What about Archer?”
“Whatever you want. If you want to go by the hospital, fine.”
She leaned against me. “That must’ve been some fight.”
“It could’ve been better. I had the terrain on my side.”
“Like the Confederates.”
“Yeah. This old fort is still a tough place to take.”
Luke came out and put up the flags. Libby watched pensively from the window.
We ate a simple breakfast with the Robinsons. I left my coat off now and I rolled up my sleeves and put the gun in my bedroll. The three of us made a final tour of Sumter, I promised Libby we’d keep in touch, and we took the morning boat back to the city.
; We had the cab drop us at Roper Hospital. All of us went up together. I wasn’t surprised to find Dean Treadwell sitting in the visitor’s chair.
“If you’ve come to see Archer, he still can’t talk. He’s doped up and hurting pretty bad.”
“I just came by to say we’re leaving,” Erin said. “See if anything’s changed.”
“As a matter of fact, yeah. He’s gonna give you the book.”
Her first reaction was no reaction at all. As the moment stretched, she finally said, “Really?” but she was unflappable even when news was sensational.
“Some things just ain’t worth the grief, no matter how much money’s involved,” Dean said. “Naturally, we’re hoping the judge’s offer is still on the table.”
“I’m sure it is. I’ll call him and give you something in writing if you want.”
“He doesn’t think that’ll be necessary.”
“Tell him not to worry, then. Lee will do the right thing.”
“Let’s just go get it,” Dean said. “We want to be rid of it.”
It was like Poe’s gold bug, buried in the sand on Sullivan’s Island. Archer had triple-wrapped it in plastic, put it in a metal box, stuffed the box with plastic bags, and buried it in the dry sand under his back steps.
“He had a hunch,” Dean said. “Sooner or later that bozo would come after us.”
I wondered why now.
“It wasn’t the book. They were lookin‘ for you. Archer made a mistake, said the wrong thing. You know how he can be, sometimes he pops off. This time he never got a chance to say I’m sorry. They never even asked about the book.”
“What if they’d killed him? Nobody’d ever know where it was.”
“At that point, what did he care?”
We looked at each other in the hot noonday sun, two bookmen from different worlds, pulled together briefly by the same quest. Dean lit a smoke and I found a clumsy way of apologizing for the razzing I had given him back in town. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”