Curled into a fallout position, I hold the purse tucked tight beneath me like a rugby ball in a scrum, taking blow after blow.
It’s the woman who saves me. She lets loose a lung-freezing scream. “Stop!”
Startled, Ray-Ray pauses. It’s all I need.
I clamber roughly to my feet, purse in hand.
Ray-Ray’s on me instantly, ramming me in the chest with his stub.
I stamp on his foot, pin him in position, then hit him with a brutal headbutt to his face just as I grab his testicles and try to rip them off.
He howls then drops like a politician’s campaign promises.
I stagger back, winded, bleeding, tired.
Ray-Ray lies on the floor. His nose is smashed, face bright with blood. He huffs noisily for air, moans.
I open the purse.
I pull out the pistol.
Dazed, Ray-Ray stares up at me a moment, then props himself up on his stub and struggles to his feet.
Standing hunched like an old woman, he makes a hissing noise and hacks out a mouthful of brown-red phlegm. He’s hurt bad. “That’s not the way I fantasized you would handle my balls.”
He holds out his hand.
I stand some feet away, aiming the gun at his head.
“Make this clover, friend.” He steps forward. “Give me the gun.”
I give him the gun.
Or part of it.
I give him a bullet.
The air splits with a short, startling crack that surprises me.
It surprises Ray-Ray, too. His head snaps back and he wheels hard to the floor, landing in the swath of vibrant, punishing light.
At first I think he’s playing opossum, but then I see a chunk of his lower face is gone. His eyes are filled with wonder, fright. And for the first time I’ve ever seen, his hair is mussed.
From some place deep and secret within him, a gurgle issues, fights its way out into the open through his now enlarged mouth. It’s a language I don’t know, a language only taught at death’s door.
His stub rises like he’s hailing a cab. He’s hailing for help, mercy. He’s begging for his life.
I pull the trigger again. A click. Nothing more. I pull it again. No shot.
One bullet. That was all the gun held.
His arm drops loudly to the floor. He exhales like he’s blowing out candles on a birthday cake.
Ray-Ray’s dead.
Chapter 66
On March 13, 1964, about 3:15 a.m., on her way back from work, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death near her home in Kew Gardens, New York.
Driving the empty streets, Winston Moseley spotted a young woman walking alone on the street. He parked his car, stalked her a half block, and attacked her from behind.
Kitty cried out for help.
Someone yelled from a window, “Let that girl alone.”
Frightened, Moseley fled, leaving Kitty gravely injured.
But no one came to help her. No one called the police. No one stepped out of their warm apartments to see what had happened.
Still calling for help, Kitty staggered into a back vestibule of the building, and collapsed in front of the locked door.
Moseley returned in ten minutes, now wearing a wide-brimmed hat to shadow his face, and systematically searched the parking lot, train station, and small apartment complex, looking for his victim.
He found her half-conscious and bleeding profusely. He proceeded to stab her several more times, then raped her, after which he left her to die.
The resulting investigation by The New York Times said that thirty-eight people had either heard or witnessed the attack. But Genovese’s cries for help went unanswered. No one called the police until long after she was dead. No one did a thing.
At first I worry that the shot I emptied into Ray-Ray’s face will prompt a call to the police. Then I think, Maybe not.
Maybe not.
Chapter 67
Ray-Ray’s blood percolates then slows to a seep, blossoming on the hardwood floor.
Morning washes over all that can’t be changed.
“The gun was empty,” the woman says, stunned. “I checked. There were no bullets. I’m positive.”
There was one, I want to say, but she knows that.
A taste of metal and grease, like a rusty bike chain, floods my mouth. “Shit,” I say, and my voice sounds like cracking timber. My mind glitches on worries that make no sense. Will the blood ruin the floor? Will I get my rent deposit back? Will the woman cry more?
The room’s air is sharp with a smell of burnt flesh and, strangely, wet wool. A fly punches in the open window. It buzzes past Ray-Ray’s face, which is a bouquet of meat, and lands in his blood-matted hair.
The weight of the empty pistol is a boulder in my hand. I can’t hold it any longer, and set it on the floor, then sit in the chair Ray-Ray had been sitting in. It’s still warm, the ghost of his presence lingering.
The woman rises and steps to Ray-Ray, leaning over his body to make certain he’s dead. She says nothing for nearly a minute. Then, “For the longest time, I believed that if I could figure out the moment I made my first mistake, figure out exactly what it was I did to drive myself here, to this juncture in my life, then I’d be able to atone for it. I’d be able to fix whatever it was that is wrong. But it doesn’t work like that.”
She rushes into the bathroom, closes the door. I hear her vomit in the toilet.
I find myself on my feet, rifling through his pockets, hoping for—what? A miracle, I guess. What I find is his gold-plated money clip straining with bills.
What comes next? I wonder. What’s my smartest move?
I pocket the cash and sit back in the chair.
Returning, the woman slowly dresses, slips into her panties, slides on her skirt. She pulls on her blouse then pauses to study Ray-Ray. “Do you know how disheartening it is to realize that, even if you could relive your entire life, do everything different, it’d still turn out the same?”
A voice booms from the doorway in reply. “She loves asking questions like that. The kind of question you’re not sure you’re supposed to answer or not.”
Mason.
He stands at the apartment’s threshold, snacking on a foot-long sub sandwich. Lettuce, salami, cheese, I’d guess. Probably some mayo, too.
Mason/Higgles holds up the sandwich. “I don’t think I brought enough for everyone.” His scar seems to have grown since yesterday. “Guess we’ll have to share,” he says, striding in.
He swiftly grabs the gun off the floor. “I was wondering where this”—he holds up the gun—“went. Couldn’t find it this morning. I couldn’t find you, either.”
Why I put the gun down, why I didn’t just put it in my pocket, I can’t say. True, it’s empty, but Mason probably doesn’t know that. I could have blustered, acted like I had a loaded chamber to back up my threats.
Mason sights the pistol on the woman. Taking a bite of his sandwich, he pulls the gun’s trigger. It makes a hollow click. He lowers the gun. “There was a bullet in the chamber,” he says, his mouth full. “Where’d it go?”
I hear myself say, “Ray-Ray has it.”
Mason turns, plays like Ray-Ray’s body just magically appeared. “Well, hello. What do we have here?” He gives Ray-Ray a hard kick to the head. Blood splays against the wall. “I guess I can take ‘Kill Ray-Ray’ off my to-do list.” He toes Ray-Ray’s stub with his boot, then tosses the remainder of the sandwich in the puddle of congealing blood. He turns to me. “So, you have it?” He pops the empty clip from the pistol, pulls a fresh clip from his back pocket, and rams it in the gun.
My mind whirls, trying to produce a strategy that will keep me alive. Mustering my energy, I prepare to mount a final fight. Find an opening and attack. It’s a last-ditch effort. “It’s still at the bank,” I say, �
��in the safe-deposit box.”
“We discussed this yesterday,” he says, his face darkening. “We agreed on the plan.”
“The plan changed when your boyfriend showed up,” I say, nodding at Ray-Ray. “Your ex-wife didn’t help matters either.”
He studies Ray-Ray, then the woman. “Fair enough.”
To my horror, the woman says, “He has it.”
Mason sights the gun at my head.
“Not him,” she says. “Ray-Ray.”
He studies her a moment then says, “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I know,” he says, moving over to the body. “That’s what I mean. I can always tell when you are and you aren’t now.” Keeping an eye on both the woman and me, Mason works through Ray-Ray’s left pockets, rolls the body over and works through the right. He yanks Ray-Ray’s shirt collar open, then pulls his shirt tail from his pants.
He finds nothing.
“I’m very confused,” he says, standing. He tucks the gun into his waistband, steps to the woman. “You just told me the truth and yet it isn’t true. Can you explain this to me?”
She doesn’t get a chance. He coldcocks her squarely in the jaw.
Mason’s ex-wife flips from her chair and is unconscious before her head bounces off the floor.
Chapter 68
Ray-Ray and the woman are sprawled on the floor. One’s dead, the other is not.
The woman groans, her head lolling.
“God, she’s gotten good at lying,” Mason says. “I actually thought Ray-Ray had it.” He stands over the woman, aims the gun at the back of her head, his finger firm to the trigger.
I could try to save her but there’s no way to save her. I wait for the shot.
There is no shot.
Mason’s arm drops. “Why are the simplest things the hardest to do?” Leaning over her, he shouts like she’s hard of hearing. “I have to make a quick run to the bank, but I’ll be back. You’re not off the hook, young lady.”
The pistol comes level to my forehead. “You have it on you, don’t you?”
A voice fills the void. “Check,” I hear myself say.
Mason holds still a moment then motions the pistol at me. “Best not be fucking with me, cousin.” He nods toward the door. “Lead the way.”
Out the apartment we go, my knees quivering as I lead the way down the long flight of stairs.
The sun stands hard in the sky. Mason slides on a pair of neon pink Wayfarer knockoffs with Volcano Vodka printed on the stems. He points to a powder-blue Smart car, hands me the keys. “Drive.”
“I see you upgraded to luxury.” I take the driver’s seat.
“The car is a metaphor,” he replies.
I buckle up. “For what?”
Mason slides into the passenger’s side, leaves the seatbelt hanging slack. “Does it matter?”
I kick the engine over, drop the car in gear. “How’d you find me that first time? How’d you know I was working with Ray-Ray?”
“This isn’t Scooby Doo, cousin. I’m not going to reveal everything just because you’ve asked. Plus,” he says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He rolls down the window. “Don’t care, either.”
Silence fills the moment. Then Mason laughs coldly. “Wow. You really have no clue what’s going on here, do you?” He pokes my neck where the woman bit me with the muzzle of the gun. I flinch.
“She must really like you,” he says.
“She seems to like anyone who buys her a drink.”
“No.” A slight shake of his head. “She only bites men who are special to her, men who have played an important role in her life.” He scratches his stomach with the pistol’s barrel. “You should see my chest.”
A bit after noon, the traffic is light. I speed down the block, driving toward downtown. “I’ve only known her three hours.”
“It doesn’t take long to realize someone’s worth.” He keeps the gun leveled at me, runs his hand across his face. “I probably should have shot her. You think I should have shot her?”
I say nothing.
“God, I hate indecisive people, and here I am waffling,” he says. “It’s all your fault, cousin. You threw me off my game by killing Ray-Ray. I had everything perfectly laid out and you fucked up my plans.”
“My apologies.” I brake hard at the stop sign. Mason lurches forward.
“Apology accepted.”
I accelerate through the intersection.
“It’s just that, in my mind, I had Ray-Ray going out differently, by my own hand,” he says.
The conversation dies.
I drive on, rolling through stop signs for a few blocks before pulling to a hard stop at the light.
My chance to break away is at the bank. Mason won’t use the gun there. But then there’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow. He’ll keep coming after me, tracking me from state to state, country to country, until it’s over. Until I’m dead.
The old highway stretches before us, running north-south. Trucks and cars and semis snap past in both directions, racing from one place only to be late for the next. The traffic light holds red for what feels an eternity. I look to Mason, look past him at the oncoming traffic. The bank isn’t my way free. My way free is traveling toward us at sixty miles per hour.
I inch the car forward then hold. I say, “Is it true you died in the Gulf? That you were killed and brought back to life?”
Mason nods, studies the gun like he’s never seen one before.
I pray the light stays red. Pray the traffic keeps coming.
Two cars zip past, heading south, followed by a light truck trudging north.
I hold.
“You know, things never turn out as you envision. Love, life, jobs, death. Nothing is ever really resolved. No happily ever after,” he says. “We’re bludgeoned into believing that there is a right way, an answer to everything. But there is no answer. There’s only our daily lives.”
I find myself laughing, even happy, as I ease my foot off the brake.
“Want to fill me in on the joke?” Mason says.
“Gladly, cousin,” I say, and punch the gas, forcing the tiny car into the intersection. Forcing it directly into the path of a cement truck barreling south.
Chapter 69
The impact is spectacular, stunning, pure.
A body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon.
And it’s a cement truck clipping at sixty-plus miles per hour that acts on us, slamming straight into Mason’s side of the car.
Mason, unrestrained, blurs past me, launches through my side window, and hits the pavement face first. I see him skitter across the highway and under an approaching car.
Then I lose sight of him.
Fastened in tight, I am relaxed as I stay with the motion, trapped in the tumbling car.
My head concusses against the doorframe and a sharp light at the back of my eyes sears my vision, blinds me. My vision reemerges momentarily, flickering a whale belly blue-green that then floods to a pus yellow swallowed by grays then shadows then darkness.
Then I lose sight of everything.
Even darkness.
A ringing silence engulfs me. It lasts for days, months, lifetimes.
Then sirens.
My lungs are dusted with platinum and marshmallows, my heart pumping out liquid warmth.
I feel nothing.
I feel everything.
An immense pain shocks me conscious.
I’m in the hospital. Tubes and wires run off me like a failed science project. Every inch of my body, I swear, has been pummeled with a ball-peen hammer.
A thought, then another, breaks through the fog. The first: I wish I were dead.
The second: I am alive.
Chapter
70
The accident, I learn, resulted in a pile-up. Four cars in addition to ours, the cement truck, and a small U-Haul brimming with marijuana and counterfeit prescription pads.
Nine injured. Two people dead.
One of the dead is the driver of the U-Haul, an ex-con with an outstanding warrant.
The other is Mason.
I know for certain because they ask me about him, ask if I knew him, if he was a friend or family member. Knew and was, not know and is. Mason has shifted to the past tense.
Also, I overheard a nurse talking about him. She said he looked like beef carpaccio. “I don’t even know why they wasted their time bringing him to the ER,” she said. “Should have taken him straight to the morgue.”
Most of my injuries are not from the wreck, but from Ray-Ray’s beating. I do have a mild concussion, though. The bite on my neck confuses everyone. How did I get those teeth marks?
Miraculously, the only bone I broke is my left wrist. Internally, though, I feel a mess. My urine is rust-colored.
As soon as I’m conscious and can speak cogently, the questions come. The nurses, the doctors, even the police. What is my name? Who am I? Where do I live? Who was the man in the car with me?
I shake my head, say only, “I don’t know” or “I can’t remember.”
They hand me things they found on me in hopes of kindling a memory. Ray-Ray’s money clip brimming with bills, the initials RH engraved in the gold. My keys, some change.
No ID. No wallet.
Do any of these things spark a memory? they ask.
I act like I’m studying them closely. I shake my head. “I don’t know,” I say again. “I can’t remember.”
Other questions, larger questions, remain unspoken, lingering in the air like fumes waiting to ignite.
But even with the police hovering about, I’m unconcerned.
I’ve seen my future and it isn’t here, in Haven, in the hospital. In jail. I’ve seen my future and it isn’t answering questions I can’t afford to answer.
Night comes.
The nurse checks in on me every hour.
Where Night Stops Page 22