The Mercy of the Night

by David Corbett

  “Amazing how you still hear these ass-clowns propping him up like some kinda hero. Yeah, sure, he was good to his pals, plenty of perks for his buddies, laughing all the way to the goddamn bank. Now it’s all, Oh boo hoo, we want justice. Sick greedy fucks.”

  He shot a glance her way, and it lingered. He seemed so caught up in his own bitterness—entranced with it, in love with it—and yet he seemed almost shy, too, like the issue wasn’t what happened or what he thought about it or even what she thought about it. It was how she felt about him. He needed her approval, her say-so. She had the magic power. The female always does. It’s her curse.

  “Bet Verrazzo was nice to you too,” he said.

  The tiny gold hummingbird around her neck suddenly felt like an anchor. What, she thought, I’m supposed to feel bad a guy treats me okay? Offers to take me outta here? She missed him, or the idea of him. Fireman Mike to the rescue. Wouldn’t that have been pretty?

  “It’s what he did, he bought people. Only reason I was following him around? Keep tabs on him, see who he met, report back if money changed hands. Found out pretty quick, guy was a total muffhound. Banged you what, six times in two weeks?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” He shrank a little, turned away. “What you want me to call it?”

  “Don’t call it anything. It’s none of your business.”

  “You made it my business.”

  The way he thought, it was crazy making. “I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Look, all I was trying to say, what Verrazzo did to this city is kinda like what happened to you. The city got taken hostage. It got raped. The guy’s no more a fucking hero than the piece of shit you sent away.”

  What do you know about it, she thought. What does anybody know about it? “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Except Verrazzo was gonna get away with it. Walk away clean. That’s what drove Bauserman nuts. And so he had me taking pictures, of him and you—”

  “You’ve got pictures of me?”

  “Him and his other hookers, too.” He gave her a cagey look. “He was cheating on you, know that?”

  Little-known fact, she thought. Men are like dogs: if you can’t eat it or screw it, piss on it. “How many pictures?”

  “Not just pictures. Video. That’s what I was doing there on Goldenrod. Which kinda brings up what I really need to talk to you about. What happened there at the end of the fight.”

  The fight, she thought. Not the beatdown. Not the murder.

  “I’m watching the thing from the corner, you know? And as bad as I hate the guy, as much as I enjoy watching him suffer, I get that enough’s enough. I figure somebody’s gotta stop this. And Bauserman, guy who has me tailing him, he can’t get his revenge, not the kind he wants, if the guy’s dead. So I walk up, and it’s obvious, I start mouthing off to those guys wailing on him? They’ll just turn on me. But I figure if I can just act like the ref, call the fight, let everybody know who won and get him up, drag him to his feet, maybe I can hustle him outta there, you know? But I crouch down, roll him over, and there’s like this look in his eyes, this weird kinda far-off nothing, and he’s pale, I mean for real. He’s all tensed up, not just from getting hammered. It’s cuz he can’t breathe. He’s making this noise, wheezing, trying to suck in air, but he can’t.”

  No, she thought, you hit him, three good cracks at least, I saw you. Or did I?

  What he’d just said, it wasn’t so far off from what she thought might’ve happened, could’ve happened. Eerie, hearing it from him.

  Maybe her mind was playing tricks, she’d gotten it wrong. He hadn’t delivered the final blow, the others had already seen to that. Rendered their verdict. If so, she and Teddy Buker weren’t so different after all. Both just there, wrapped up in the same bad luck. In this.

  “The other guys can tell they fucked up, took it too far, he’s dying, you know? So everybody bails. And I’m stuck there, wondering what the hell to do. I kinda freeze for a second, I’m not proud of that. Then I think: Go to the car, create some distance before you fire up 911. So I turn around, start humping back. That’s when I saw you.”

  He wasn’t glancing at her now. He was staring. And his eyes had this hard, feral want. He needed her, needed her to understand. The truth is never what it seems. The truth is complicated. The truth has a life of its own.

  “I don’t know what you think you saw, but you went off on me like I was one of them, like I was no different. I didn’t have time to get into it with you.”

  The room seemed to shrink, drawing him closer. She wished for the courage to reach out, lean over, touch him, reassure him somehow. Tell him: I do, I understand. But she couldn’t bring herself to touch him, couldn’t bridge that gap, not yet.

  They both knew what it felt like, being used and angry, young in America, Land of the Gone, but they were different too and right now she needed to cling to that difference because it felt like everything, even if everything was a lie.

  “Look,” she said, “I don’t know why you’re telling me this, what you—”

  “I’m telling you what happened.”

  “Nothing more unreliable than an eye witness—that’s what they say, right?”

  “You’re not listening,” Teddy Buker said. “I’m telling you what—”

  “Look, I already spoke to one of the detectives, he wants nothing—”

  The guy reached across the bed, snatched her arm. “You spoke to the cops?” His voice like a saw biting wood. “What did you tell them?”

  “I didn’t tell them anything, that’s the point.”

  “I just told you what happened. You tell them anything, you tell them that.”

  “Now you’re the one not listening, I’m—”

  “I was trying to help the guy.”

  “Okay. I get it, I heard you.”

  “Then say it back to me. Tell me what happened.”

  She almost wanted to scream. Nobody wants me on a fucking witness stand. They’d rather see me dead.

  “I’ll say whatever you want me to say.”

  “I want you to tell the truth.”

  “Okay.”

  “So say it back to me.”

  She swallowed from fear, her mouth stone dry, and fussed with her hair just for something to do. Trying to look past the angry mask and the feral need to that deeper thing she’d sensed just a moment ago, the hunger for approval. Her approval. And yet she knew if she joined in his lie he’d hate her even more, hate her forever. Not a lick of safety there. I want you to tell the truth—yeah, sure. So what to tell him?

  “I know what it feels like to want to kill the person who ruined your life.”

  His eyes tightened and his gaze seemed to back away as the rest of him tensed. “I didn’t say I killed him. I said just the opposite.”

  “I know. I’m just saying, I’d understand.”

  He took in a short rough breath. “Understand for somebody else.”

  “Okay. If I have to.”

  And she finally had it in her to reach out, bridge the divide, touch his arm gently. Because she did understand. How many thousands of times had she wished she’d done exactly what he’d done, put an end to it, the big sick bullying thing, the face that wakes you up in the middle of your nightmare, then lingers, like it knows you better than you know yourself.

  And then it came to her, the person he reminded her of.

  She started rubbing his shoulder, stroking his back, a metronome: I care, I understand, I’m right here.

  He sat there, accepting her touch, the tension dissolving a little in his body. His head sagged an inch, then an inch more. He whispered, “Thanks, okay?” Eyes shut tight. Rain pattering the roof in windy bursts.

  He cleared his throat, shook off some shuddering though
t. “It just, you know, happened fast. Turning him over and seeing his fat, scared face and not thinking, you know? Not till after. That wheezing sound I told you about. Trying to suck in a breath. Felt righteous for a second, then it felt wrong. Then, I dunno, just felt done.”

  Something inside him weakened as he spoke, withered, she could feel it beneath her hand, like sand giving way. “Yeah,” she said quietly.

  He looked at her—not long, just a second—and from somewhere, not in the room but in her mind, she detected the faint scent of plums.

  The door cracked open. It was LeQuan. He took a moment, studied them, sitting close on the bed, touching. “You two cool?”

  “Yeah.” Teddy Buker straightened, shook off her hand, then stretched like he’d just woken up. “Everything’s copacetic.”

  LeQuan gestured with two fingers, like he was summoning a pet. “Give me a minute, my man. Something I need to tell you.”

  59

  Teddy couldn’t quite believe just yet he’d said what he’d said. The beginnings of regret fished around inside him and yet the girl seemed okay, she got it, she understood. At least that’s what she said. But women do that, it’s why they exist—to fuck you up, fool you. I’ll say whatever you want. Next thing you know . . .

  Jacquelina, he thought, pretty name. How come she didn’t call herself that?

  Fishbelly, the botany bum, had left, just LeQuan and him and the girl in the house now, the lingering smell of dank and gin and Nitro Takis, XFO cage fight on the big screen, sound muted. Chrome S&W .44 on the coffee table, whomping big and deadly.

  LeQuan went to the front window, peeked out the curtain, came back, his nerves electric, a sheen of sweat on his coffee-dark skin. The beaded curtain rattled behind him.

  “Listen, my man, need to ask a favor. Ever hear of a dude named Pete Navarette?”

  Teddy felt a vague hint of recollection, nothing specific. “Can’t say. Why?”

  “Not the kind of guy you cross in this town. Can bring the hammer down, anybody he wants to, anytime, you feel me?”

  On-screen, some tatted-up Serbian monster in red board shorts had a Latino cat down, pounding him hard, the spic’s legs twined around the Serb’s waist. Strange, Teddy thought, how often X-treme fighting looked like rough sex.

  Then it was him in the red shorts, Verrazzo on the ground.

  “Okay. So . . .”

  “Just got a call from one of his guys,” LeQuan said, “motherfucker named Escalada. Seems they’re lookin for our girl in there, just like you were. They found out she used to be in my pen. Him and this meathead, Hector—you do not mess with this hook, trust me—they wannna drop by, have a conversation. See what I know, get me involved in the hunt. Make an impression.”

  He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, eyes darting toward the window again, past the hypnotic beads.

  “Now I got no business with them direckly, not like I got with you, so I don’t owe ’em nothing, right? Except respect. I don’t show respect, I’m in a goddamn world of pain, ya know?”

  “LeQuan—”

  “They’re on their way. Like, now.”

  On-screen, a reversal, the Latino fighter on top now, the Serbian looking like the one getting his ass tapped.

  Teddy said, “You’re gonna hand her over?”

  “No, man, I want you to get her outta here for a while, so there’s no possibility of a fuckup on that front. She can’t come hard-charging out of that room, slinging her banshee bullshit.”

  Teddy hardly knew LeQuan well, fist bumps and money, but he knew enough to recognize there were angles to this, and more angles tucked inside those.

  “And once we’re gone, what if these guys press? What’s to stop you from telling them where she’s off to, who she’s with? Then who’s in a world of pain?”

  LeQuan’s eyes narrowed for just an instant, like his brain had an itch, then he reached out, put a hand on each of Teddy’s shoulders. “I said I owe them respect. No more. I know where the money comes from.” Then the weirdest thing—he patted Teddy’s cheek, a Brando move. The Godfather. “You ain’t gotta lot of time. Get her up and outta here.”

  60

  Tierney, having exhausted all the likely haunts inside the city limits, headed out to the river road, the spot where he’d found her the day before. Last stop before heading home, he supposed. Then again, given the jangle of his mood, he might just retrace his steps, drive around all night. Never say die.

  His heart sank as he drew close, spotting the telltale T-shirts. Ho Patrol. He’d seen a few other gatherings during the night, the do-gooders clustered together like corner choirs, trying to scare off johns, pamphlet the girls, stare down the pimps. Noble cause, largely futile, but how many noble causes weren’t?

  There were four of them here, huddled inside the bus shelter, staying dry. Fat chance of finding her now, he thought, only spotting the wild red hair after a second, then recognizing the proud height, the lanky build.

  He would have felt less stunned seeing a gryphon.

  He threw the car into park, left the lights and wipers on, got out. As he headed for the shelter, a nimble little biddy—wearing, of all things, a sombrero—stepped out into the rain and aimed a camera, thumbed the shutter button—ticking delay, then flash.

  “You use that image without my permission,” he said, “I’ll sue you into ruin.”

  “There’s no one for you here,” she began, her voice warbly and brave. She reached into a satchel for a flyer.

  He eased past her. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

  Cass stood waiting inside the shelter, wearing perhaps the blankest expression he’d ever seen. Two other women lingered behind her, one with her chin out, the other just sad. In their dayglow shirts they looked like a highway cleanup crew.

  He was about to ask what she was doing there but she beat him to the mark.

  “You’re not the only one looking for her,” she said.

  He instantly thought of Navarette’s men, then realized that wasn’t what she meant. Not exactly.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. “Talk about it.”

  61

  Jacqi had the window up and one leg over the sill, ready to head off into the dark, when Teddy Toolbelt slipped back into the room.

  He shut the door and just stood there for a second, staring at her, puzzled, like she’d broken something. For some reason, rather than duck out, drop to the ground, she stopped, staring back the same way. Like they had something to discuss.

  Shouldn’t have turned out this way. It’s me, not you.

  He lunged across the room just as she got all but the second leg out, his hands clamping down, one on the straggling leg, the other snatching her arm—his grip so strong, like a winch was dragging her back inside.

  Too tired to fight, a few listless kicks just for show. He pushed her down onto the floor, straddled her, pinning her arms with his knees.

  His eyes blazed. “The fuck were you thinking?”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “Dumb cunt, I’m gonna get you out.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Settle down.”

  She waited for him to hit her but the blow didn’t come. He leaned down, gripped her head in his hands, forcing her to look straight up into his face.

  “Listen to me. Calm down. Nothing’s gonna happen if you do like I say.”

  Yeah, right, never heard that before. That basset hound howl in his eyes, the dark folds of oyster flesh, the long grim undertaker face. He loomed so close, like he meant to kiss her. Or bite out her eye.

  “Okay, Teddy. I’ll listen.”

  A mystified look, confused, scared. Eyes narrowing.

  “Your name’s Teddy Buker.” Her hands had gone all pins-and-needles—his knees, nailing her arms to the floor, cutting off the blood. “Wanna guess how I know?
LeQuan told me. Made me memorize it. He’s setting you up. Either I nail you and claim the reward or he shakes you down to keep me from talking.”

  A pained expression, like his thoughts were too loud. “He just told me to get you outta here.”

  “He’s gonna shake you down.”

  His grip tightened. “I told you, I didn’t do anything.”

  So we’re back to that, she thought. Like a curse. Keeping other people’s secrets was her reason for being.

  “Your turn to listen to me. He’s going to set—”

  The door banged open—LeQuan, thundering across the hardwood, shoving Teddy aside with one hand, the other gripping the chrome-plated pistol, raised like a hatchet.

  The gun slammed into her skull so hard the room exploded. She could smell the stench of his sweat, feel the scrawny meanness of him, the cold jagged metal slamming down two more times, cutting her face open, then Teddy Buker dragged him off, the two of them spinning away like a Siamese dervish.

  In the dizzy blur, trying to sit upright, trying not to puke, feeling the stream of blood down her jaw, she saw them scrumming, heard their clenching grunts and their bodies slamming into walls and then the hellish, deafening boom of the gun, the devil’s welcome, the hiss of falling plaster, and she told herself: Get ready. Get ready to die.

  She got as far as up on one elbow, arm cocked beneath her, eyes floating toward the two of them locked together, waiting out the next gunshot, but then Teddy pulled some deft move, a twist and a whirl of punches, a kick—the gun fell, clattered, spun.

  Grab it, she thought, unable.

  LeQuan’s legs vanished beneath him, he dropped to the floor, Teddy jumped on top of him, pinning him like he’d pinned her, but now the arm raised up, hand knotted in a fist, and down it came, three hammering blows, all to the throat.

  Jacqi grabbed the mattress, dragging herself to her knees, saw her blood dripping on the sheet like dark rain. Only a few feet away, that terrible desperate hiss, a sound she remembered. Not Verrazzo this time. LeQuan, scraping the air for oxygen.