by Thomas Laird
Then I re-focused on the movie.
‘It’s just a movie. There are no vampires,’ I whispered.
The Redhead shivered and moved closer to me.
‘Not anymore, Jimmy. You found him and you put him away.’
I blinked, and then Natalie turned her face toward mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A month after we’d grabbed The Count, Abu Riad went to Federal Court. The trial lasted only four weeks, and he received twenty years for fraud and for income tax evasion. His next appearance in court would be for the murders of Arthur Ransom, Dorothy Beaumont, and for the two gang members he had ordered executed in an alley. The chief witness against Riad was going to be Rico Perry — who was going to get a minimum of twenty years with a chance for parole because of his age and because the murder of Joellyn Ransom was deemed ‘a crime of passion’. That was the deal Rico received from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
So Riad was finally going away for the rest of his life. It had been a lot of years since Andres Dacy had been gunned down in front of Cabrini Green as his mother Celia Dacy looked on in horror. I didn’t know if any of this was payback, but it did feel like some kind of closure, some kind of ending to a long period of suffering. It didn’t bring Andres or Celia or any of the other victims back to life, but it spoke for them, somehow.
*
The Redhead, Natalie, worked homicides. They wouldn’t let us work together, but our paths crossed occasionally. As they did on a Tuesday night around 8:30 p.m.
I took her to Garvin’s tavern in Berwyn. Doc was home sick with the flu and Jack was downtown finalizing the paperwork before Maxim Samsa went to trial. I would need to get back from this dinner break pretty soon in order to help him finish.
The Garvin’s Comeback Inn was located next to a pair of unused railroad tracks. The weeds grew profusely all over those bars of iron, and only a spot for parking was mowed to keep the greenery from devouring his patrons’ rides.
Natalie had been here before, but she didn’t relish the place the way Doc did. I simply found the bar comfortable — like a torn-up recliner that you can’t seem to throw out.
There was talk of renovation in this Berwyn neighbourhood. Talk of tearing down Garvin’s to find room for a mini strip mall. The Berwyn bigshots promised Garvin a spot for a new place in the strip mall, but like most old guys, John Garvin resisted change. He was vintage World War II, he had fought with Patton at the Battle of the Bulge, and most of the politicians didn’t want a brawl with the old man. But John was playing their game against them. He really had dreams of a new joint — without sawdust on the floor. No spitting in the new bar. He just didn’t let them know his real plans. In that way, he figured, he’d up the price of the demolition of the current Comeback Inn. I knew all that because he had confessed it to Doc and Jack and me a couple of weeks before.
‘How can you stand the smell?’ Natalie asked, her nostrils pinched in disgust.
‘The place has what Doc calls ambience.’
‘You and Doc are full of it,’ she declared.
‘Yes. We are.’
I smiled at her and she squeezed my thigh.
‘John doesn’t allow public displays of affection in here,’ I warned her.
‘Nobody’s ever gotten lucky in one of those smelly bathrooms?’
‘Well ...’
‘The Count goes down tomorrow,’ she said.
‘Yes. The trial begins tomorrow morning.’
‘He’s still his own counsel?’
‘Yes, Natalie.’
‘You have to be there, of course.’
‘Of course, Red.’
‘It’ll be a media circus, I’m sure.’
‘You’re right.’
‘Jimmy.’
I looked over at my beautiful wife.
‘Are you any better, now that this guy is in the lock-up?’
‘Yeah. Yes, I think I’m all improved.’
‘No more thoughts about retiring?’
‘No, Natalie. Not recently. I’m sure something’ll come along to provoke those same thoughts all over again.’
‘You’re not over the hill, my love.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I know it. Absolutely. I’m sure you’re not decrepit and all used up, sweet.’
‘Well, thank you. I’m happy for the vote of confidence.’
‘This guy was just difficult. Everybody in the division was aware of that. You didn’t make bad moves. He —’
‘I’m all right, Natalie. I’m okay. Really.’
This time I squeezed her thigh.
‘Was that an indication of things to come, Lieutenant?’
‘We could always sneak into one of Garvin’s smelly johns.’
‘Not in this lifetime, Jimmy.’
‘Maybe when he opens his new place, then?’
‘Anything is possible, no?’ she grinned.
Then she winked at me brazenly, in full witness by John Garvin himself, limping toward us with our brats and Diet Sprites.
*
The trial of Maxim Samsa went the way the columnists and the journalists and the rest of the media people predicted. It was short, it was no contest, and Samsa was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder. All that was left was for the judge to pronounce sentence.
On a Wednesday following the trial, the judge pronounced Samsa’s sentence. Death by lethal injection. The justice explained that the nature of the crimes showed a lack of mercy, of human pity, by its perpetrator, Maxim Samsa. Samsa may have deserved life without parole, and the State of Illinois might overthrow the sentence because of the conflict about the death penalty, but the judge, Alfred Carrigan, said if anyone deserved to be put down like an animal, it was Maxim Samsa.
The Count had his teeth fixed before the trial. The unbroken fang was removed and his crushed canine was fixed. He wore a brown three-piece suit, he’d had his hair styled, and he’d managed to get enough sun somewhere in jail to appear a bit more brown than he’d ever appeared before.
None of which swayed the jury. They were out a total of forty-five minutes. Guilty on all four counts. No brainer. Samsa had stuttered and bumbled his way through, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had obtained a first-class defence lawyer for himself. The evidence was overwhelming, and The Candyman, our Prosecuting Attorney, was magnificent. He would’ve nailed OJ. Simpson with the legal attack he threw at Samsa.
Before The Count was taken away in cuffs and shackles — they were slapped on him after he was pronounced guilty — I walked up to his defence table.
He turned and looked at me as if he were afraid I was going to beat him with my fists. He almost flinched.
‘Here. This is for you. Keep it close ’til you feel the prick of that needle.’
I handed him a piece of eight and a half by eleven typing paper with some verse typed on it. But I didn’t wait to see if he read it. I found Natalie at the back of the courtroom and we walked out together.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked as we descended a flight of stairs.
‘Here. I’ve got a copy of it. Wanted to keep it for myself.’
We stopped at the landing so she could read it.
The breeze — the breath of God — is still —
And the mist upon the hill,
Shadowy — shadowy — yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token —
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
‘What is it?’
‘Poe’s “Spirits of the Dead”.’
‘Oh. Yeah! The poems that were attached to his vics, right?’
I nodded.
‘But why —’
She looked at me, stopped her query, and smiled.
‘Which one of you’s the real devil, huh, Jimmy?’
She kissed my cheek, and then we continued our descent to the main floor.
*
My son had done his duty. He got on t
he witness stand and he told the jury what Father Mark had done to him. There were four other witnesses who followed, saying much the same thing that Mike said before them. It was a brief trial. A waste of the diocese’s money, trying to defend a priest who had no defence.
The priest got fifteen years in prison.
Michael was still seeing a counsellor, but it wouldn’t be long before the therapist released him. I had my son back, it appeared. His demons were becoming impotent. Mike was too busy with school and sports and a newfound interest in females to spend much time revisiting the horrors he’d endured with Father Mark.
I wondered if any old mini devils would descend upon me in the near future. I hoped not, but there was never any way to predict their reappearing. I’d have to deal with it if they showed up again. That was what you had to do. There was no place to evade them or escape them. They dwelled somewhere in the dank dungeons of the soul, waiting to break their bonds, waiting to fly upward and at you.
But I wasn’t going to spend any time anticipating their re-emergence. I was going to try to enjoy every minute I had with my beloved wife and with my equally beloved children. I could deal with the terror of the street. That was my profession. And whatever it was that still attached itself inside me — I’d confront whatever it was when that time came. For now, I was going to breathe. Breathe until my lungs ached with all that fresh air.
I felt something akin to a high. I felt light, lighter than air. Like a balloon wafting away with the fresh western breeze.
Michael asked for the car keys. I tossed them to him without an interrogation.
‘You okay, Pa?’ Michael smiled.
‘Yeah. I think I am. How about that?’ I smiled at my son.
He didn’t argue. He looked at the keys to the van with something short of astonishment, and he took off.
EPILOGUE
I knelt on the kneeler. I was alone in the church. It was after the sole eight o’clock on a weekday, so the place was empty.
I saw Father William on the altar. I got up after I crossed myself and I approached our parish priest.
Father William looked over at me and smiled.
‘Can I help you, Jimmy?’
‘Father ... I’d like to make a confession.’
‘It’s not the usual ...’
Then he looked at me and smiled.
‘All right. You know where the confessional is.’
He put the flowers he had in his hands before the altar.
I walked over to the box, opened the door, went in, and I kneeled once again. Father William entered from his side and opened the little door that we talked through.
‘Father forgive me for I have sinned. This is my first confession since ... It’s my first confession in more months than I can remember.’
‘Go ahead, my son.’
‘I was afraid I lost my faith. I was afraid I lost my hope. I was afraid ... I was afraid I’d lost a lot more than that, Father.’
‘God will forgive you. You know that. You know how it works, Jimmy.’
‘I was angry at the Church because of what a priest had done to my son.’
‘I know. I read all about Mike and the trial. I’m very sorry he had to be hurt so badly by a man who ... I’m very sorry, Jimmy.’
‘I wanted to kill Father Mark.’
‘Yes. I understand ... but you knew that another sin would only compound the first sin.’
‘Yes. But I almost killed him anyway. I am a police officer. I’m not supposed to execute anyone ... I almost drowned a criminal I arrested, a few months ago. And I have to confess, Father, that it felt good, holding him under the water.’
‘You are a human being, just like any other. Vengeance seems to taste sweet.’
‘I felt that way when I envisioned killing that priest. I am ashamed that I could feel that way. I know better. It isn’t the way I really am ... but sometimes I’m afraid that the guy who enjoyed almost drowning Maxim Samsa and who got a real electrical jolt out of fantasizing about putting bullet holes in a priest — I’m afraid that’s the real me.’
‘I’m not a psychologist, Jimmy. But it’s pretty obvious, even to us laymen, that you reacted the way an outraged policeman would react when he was repeatedly frustrated ... it took a long time to catch up with this Samsa, didn’t it?’
‘Yes, but —’
‘And it was a long time coming with the knowledge of what had happened to Michael.’
‘Yes.’
‘Jimmy, anger is natural. It’s what you do with it later that really matters. And you didn’t murder Samsa and you didn’t shoot Father Mark. I don’t know any other way to judge a person than to look at the final result ... Do you, Jimmy?’
I felt the beginning of tears at the edges of my eyes.
I began again.
‘Father, forgive me for I have sinned.’
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