by Ben Sanders
He felt the guy’s arm tighten around his throat, a chokehold grip, the crook of the guy’s arm across Marshall’s windpipe, the other hand hauling it closed.
Marshall punched him in the face, hit the mouthpiece of the helmet, jabbed with an elbow, and caught the guy in the ribs. The axe man hung on, panting and wheezing with the effort. The helmet had slipped forward, the guy grinning molar to molar, foam at the corners of his mouth. Marshall reached up with both hands, grabbed the guy by the shoulders, and hauled forward like in a stomach crunch, trying to flip the guy off him. The axe man shook free and hung on, kneed him in the back, ribs, kidney, ribs again.
Marshall’s head was throbbing, the roar gaining tempo. He pulled his knees up, trying to use his feet to push away, heard the scrape of the Python somewhere as he kicked it. He reached up and got a hand in the helmet: mouth, nose, the guy whipping his head back and forth to save his eyes. Marshall felt blindly for the Python, brushed the gun with a fingertip. He reached again, a mad claw with one hand, hooked the pistol around the trigger guard. The pressure on his neck was cranking up again, the two of them thrashing in this strange, tangled brawl, and Marshall reached across himself like pulling on a seatbelt, pressed the muzzle of the gun to the guy’s chest, and pulled the trigger.
And they were done.
The axe man lying there slack and ruined, blood slowly spreading. A soothing quiet, post-conflict, a faint ringing in his ears and the hum of the fan way up there. A few seconds’ grace, and then a fire alarm sounded, a high-pitched whining klaxon. Maybe Henry Lee’s initiative, or maybe someone heard the shot and panicked.
Marshall eased himself from the guy’s embrace and lay on his back, panting. The stars fading and his vision gaining clarity. The guy’s tongue was hanging out his mouth, a Cadillac key fob hanging out his pocket. Marshall got to his knees and returned the Python to his belt, used the wall for balance, and found his feet, dizzy, tottering like a drunk, part of his brain still functioning enough to recall that the other guy was still out there somewhere.
And he would’ve heard that gunshot.
He ran then: this wild, aching lurch down the stairs to the door on the twelfth floor, and he was four steps from the bottom when he saw the shape in the window, this slice of black helmet in the little strip of glass.
The world slowing down again, another dose of treacle-time, like watching his fingers slip backward off the tile. The plunge set to claim him.
He saw the handle turning, the gap widening, a gun and a hand coming through. He reached the landing and dived, hit the door with his shoulder, slammed it against the guy’s wrist.
He felt a bounce with the impact, contact cushioned by flesh, and the guy swore and dropped the gun. Marshall thrust with his full weight, urging the damn thing shut, and then the door snapped closed with a bang as the guy yanked his wrist back.
Marshall slid to the floor and looked upward through the glass, the helmet staring back from behind the wire grille. Visor down, strange morphed reflections in the concave shine.
The guy stood there a second, looking down on him, Marshall panting and stained with someone else’s blood, and then the guy turned and walked away.
He heard doors opening on floors above, people realising the fire alarm was maybe more than just a drill. Clatter of feet on the stairs, wouldn’t be long before—
Someone screamed.
Ludo
The wrist still moved, so he figured it wasn’t broken. The bruise would be worth a photo, though. He wondered if it was Henry who flipped the alarm. Up on 14, he was probably too far away to hear the shot, but he might’ve called 911, depending on what he had in the apartment. An interesting trade-off between the risk of a trafficking bust and the risk of a dead bodyguard.
Someone was screaming now, all that blood a sure way to set folks off. He figured Tol was dead, given the mess and lack of movement. Good thing about fire alarms, though—no one uses the elevator. He walked back along the corridor, people stepping out of doors, getting a fright when they saw him. Gunshot noise, and then a big dude in a motorbike helmet. They put two and two together pretty fast, ran the other way or went back inside. The smart ones who heard the noise would’ve never opened their doors.
He pushed the down arrow, only had to wait five seconds for the doors to open. The polite little ding, and there was his cardboard box waiting for him. His botched murder had a silver lining. He got in and pushed the button for 3, figured he’d merge with a decent crowd and walk out looking dazed. Better than riding all the way to 1 and getting nabbed by cops in the lobby. Same with the basement. Perry’d have to roll solo. This was one of those every-man-for-himself situations.
He took off the helmet and shrugged out of the UPS jacket and put them both in the box. He closed the top, an over-under pattern with the flaps so they stayed closed, and then stood the thing up on its end in the corner, underneath the button panel.
He was tugging off his gloves when the doors opened on 3, and he joined a loose stream of people heading for the stairs, a lady in her seventies with dyed red hair telling everyone that they only just had a drill last week for God’s sake, I mean come on.
The alarm was loud enough in the stairwell he thought his ears might pop, but he could still hear someone screaming, the red-haired lady shouting don’t worry, it’s just a practice.
Out on the street everyone knew the moves, milling around and looking up for signs of smoke, using their hand as a visor. There were cops as well, four uniformed guys heading into the lobby, another two waiting at the kerb. Gossip was starting to circulate, people saying someone up on 12 was shot. He crossed to the other side of the street, wanting a wider perspective, stop Marshall from slipping out unnoticed. Hopefully the little altercation with Tol had given him a decent fright, shaken him enough he’d walk out the front door without noticing a tail.
A guy in a ball cap and a satchel came up to him, leaned in on one foot, and squinted as he shouted, ‘There been a fire or something?’
Ludo did his concerned-gentleman act, touched his chin as he looked off toward Park Avenue, siren noise building. He said, ‘Yes, I believe so.’
The cops out front were getting news on their mikes, tucking their chins to their collars to hear above the street noise. Probably getting confirmation that yes, there was a shooting, and we got a body, too.
The crowd on the street was about a hundred now. Ludo scanned faces, watching people coming out the door, watching people on the sidewalk, looking for the blond guy. The flow began to stall as the two cops outside tried to make their way indoors, a fire truck turning in off Park Avenue, a patrol car behind. He turned back to the crowd and glimpsed headlights in the garage entry, a flash as a vehicle crested the ramp, and then Henry Lee’s Cadillac emerged onto the street and took off east. He couldn’t see with the tint, but he’d bet his mother’s life it was Marshall at the wheel.
TWENTY-ONE
Marie
She hated these Perry dramas. She could lose the whole day pacing, worried he was doing something that would put him back inside—or worse, put him in the ground.
She thought her mother would be shocked when he went away the first time, but she’d acted like she saw it coming, as if Perry in prison was some kind of vindication. Every call, she’d repeat her prophesy, that Perry was bad news and he’d bring her to no good.
Only once did Marie lose her cool, told her she couldn’t pass judgment, having lived for so long with a man who would get drunk and belt his wife and children, but it didn’t end the argument. Her mother could never see the other side of it, that they were struggling, and that Perry’s actions were always well intentioned. He had that protection instinct, wanted to provide for her; nothing wrong in that department. He just didn’t have the ethics to rein it in. He was sort of primitive, following some Neanderthal model that if you helped your family you had a warrant to do anything.
Her own denial was a problem, too. She’d worked for Dexter and she knew what he di
d, but she’d convinced herself Perry wasn’t part of it. When he took the gun with him, she told herself it was for protection. When he was out till three A.M., she told herself he was just drinking. Facts were malleable. Anything could be moulded to the desired reality. It wasn’t until he went away that she got the story, or at least part of it: that a daytime shift for Dexter normally meant robbing someone.
She vacuumed the upstairs, not that it needed it, but chores helped her daydream. It wasn’t much comfort today: she kept seeing coffins, hearing eulogies.
She gave it up and went and sat on their bed, on Perry’s side. There was already a dip there. His favourite place to sit and worry. She wondered what caused the most damage, regretting what he’d done or fretting about what was next. She picked up the phone from the charger on the nightstand and wasted some more time staring at the buttons, the dial tone very faint as she held the thing aloft.
A strategy had been forming the last few days, an exit plan to get Perry out of trouble. Not that she knew what he was into, but she could see the solution, could see herself sitting with Dexter over coffee, telling him the game was up. Something along those lines.
The problem, of course, was that it took a big dose of courage to get things moving. She was usually a prisoner of inaction: all she’d ever think about was what she should be doing.
So set yourself a deadline. In five minutes, you’re going to do something proactive.
She set the phone down on the bed and went to the closet and opened Perry’s side. Plenty of room on the rack—most of his clothes were on the floor if they weren’t in use. She went up on her toes to reach the cardboard file box on the top shelf,shunted it back and forth with her fingertips, coaxing it nearer until it tipped gently off the edge.
She set it down on the floor and lifted the lid. The cardboard was damp-stained and fuzzy along the top edge where it was folded, the glossed photos all faded, faces tinged a sulfur yellow. He didn’t like to show her these, but he talked about the people a lot, he and Tol and their mother. Their uncle Tyler who showed them how to pick locks and hot-wire cars, the same Tyler who robbed the Bank of America up in Concord and died not much later, killed in a shoot-out with the state police on the road outside. She flipped through carefully. There was a picture of their house in Providence, Tol and Perry about eight and ten, sitting on the front step and squinting at the lens. A picture of Tyler with Perry on his knee, neither of them looking thrilled. Perry never knew his dad, maybe not a bad thing, given what people can be like. Then again, it would take some wild luck to find a worse role model than a dead felon. Wild luck happened, though. How else did you get here?
She’d catch him going through the box sometimes, sitting cross-legged and reliving memories one by one, tilting each image in the light before moving on. He had medals as well, a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. Tyler’s, apparently, proceeds of Vietnam. There was an old woollen sweater in there, too. He told her it had sentimental value, the first and only thing his mother knitted him for Christmas, but she wasn’t sure if it actually meant something, or if it was just an easy way to hide the gun.
She lifted the sweater out and sure enough the pistol was in there, along with an almost-full box of .38 shells. She picked up the weapon gingerly, holding it on both palms, like handling a dead pet. It was a snub-nose revolver, dull black with a wood handle.
It seemed simple enough. There was a little grooved lever on one side, and when she pushed it forward the cylinder flipped out, revealing five empty tubes. Loading was straightforward. The shells had a narrow lip at the base to stop them from slipping too far forward. You just thumbed them in from the back and they sat more or less snug. She could see how people did this sort of thing, robbed banks and killed people. It was that feeling of precision: every shell perfect for the tube, the trigger perfect for your finger, the weight perfect for your hand. You’d start thinking nothing will go wrong.
She placed the lid on the box and lifted it back onto the shelf. The gun was only a few inches long, but her jeans were too snug to let it in the pocket. She loosened her belt a notch and slipped the pistol in her waistband at the small of her back. That worked. She did a circuit of the room. It made her walk a little taller, but she didn’t know if that was from the feel of it or the thought of it. She picked up the phone and remained standing to make her call.
A man’s voice said, ‘Yeah?’
‘Is Dexter there?’
‘Nah. Who’s this?’
‘Just a friend.’
The guy didn’t seem to know how to handle that. She heard muffled talking at the other end, and then a new voice came on. ‘Who’s this?’
She said, ‘A friend of Dexter’s.’
‘Dexter’s not here. Who’re you, sweetheart?’
Marie said, ‘Do you know how I can reach him?’
Quiet for a few seconds and then the voice said, ‘Jesus, is that you, Marie?’
She closed her eyes and opened them again. ‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well shit, if you’re wanting strip work, you can just come straight here, don’t need to worry about Dexter.’
It really cracked him up, saying that. Someone in the background, probably the first guy, having a good time too.
Marie said, ‘Have you got his number?’
‘Come on, Marie, you want to get your tits out, I’m telling you, I’m the man to see.’
She didn’t answer.
‘I promise, we don’t mind sag.’
She said, ‘You should try it out yourself, then. Just shave around your belly button so they know where to slip the bills.’
He didn’t answer, but she could still hear laughter in the background, the first guy getting his money’s worth from the sag insult.
The guy on the phone said, ‘Yeah, fuck you.’ A chuckle mixed in, so he wouldn’t sound hurt.
She said, ‘Don’t hang up. It’ll seem like I won.’ Not sure about the logic, but it sounded good, a nice smooth delivery now that she’d got a couple of digs in.
He let the laughs tail off. ‘What do you want?’
‘Just Dexter’s number. Like I told you.’
‘Right, yeah, hang on.’
The phone clattered on something. Someone said, ‘Just hang up on her, it’ll be classic.’
She wandered around to the foot of the bed, used her sole to rake up carpet fluff as she waited.
The clatter again. ‘You still there?’
She said, ‘Yeah. I’m still here.’
He read out the number. She closed her eyes as she listened, repeated it under her breath, and then hung up on the guy.
It took her a moment to work herself up to calling Dexter. She built a tumbleweed of fluff and stared at the phone. The plain digits made it seem easy, but there was still a hurdle in her mind. She took some deep breaths, trying to swell her courage, and then she did it: dialling fast, wanting him on the line before she got the urge to back out. The ringtone in her ear, counting down:
Four, three, two, one—
Dexter said, ‘Perry, what?’
She licked her lips. ‘It’s Mrs. Perry.’
He hadn’t seen that one coming. There was a pause, and then he said, ‘Oh, Marie, yeah.’ He took another second, fixing his attitude. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Great.’
She said, ‘I take it Perry’s on a job for you?’
‘No, well, you know.’ Sounding tense and impatient.
Marie said, ‘Yes?’
Dexter started to say something and then changed tack, back on the offensive. He said, ‘Marie, what do you want?’
She took a breath and said, ‘I want to know what you’ve got my husband into.’ That was better than calling him Perry. It was possessive, showed that she was part of this, too.
Dexter laughed, indulgent, like talking to a moron. He said, ‘Whatever he’s doing it’s none of your fucking business.’ She listened to him breathing, a crackle on the line before he contin
ued. ‘I didn’t go telling people what you may or may not have done when you worked for me.’
She didn’t answer, toed her tumbleweed around.
He said, ‘You still keeping in shape?’
‘Yeah, I am, actually.’
‘Great.’
‘But whatever it is you’ve got going with Perry, this is the end of it.’ A good line, that one, like a verbal nose punch, let him know she wasn’t messing around.
Dexter laughed again, sounding relaxed, not a put-on for effect. ‘I think that’s sort of up to Perry.’
‘It’s up to me as well. It’s in the fine print when you get married. I’m meant to help with decisions.’
Dexter didn’t answer.
She said, ‘I’m tired of hearing your name. I want you out of our lives.’
He said, ‘It’s not really that straightforward.’
The gun told her it was. She’d brought it down thinking it’d be useful in a meeting, moral support if she had to look him in the eye and warn him off, but why not just tell him now? She said, ‘Look, it’s like this: if I don’t hear from Perry in the next sixty minutes, saying he’s cancelled your job, the next call I make is 911.’ Dexter gave her some dead air, and then said, ‘How will you know he’s not bullshitting?’
Marie said, ‘You better hope I’m convinced,’ and hung up on him.
That was the way to do it, cut him off once she’d laid out the rules. One hour for Perry to call her was clear enough. But God, the relief of having done it. She sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands, palms over her eyes, watched the lights in there. Strange shapes and colours shifting on her lids, like some solar oddity. She lay down and waited for the call, the house quiet, nothing to mark the time except the soft note of intermittent traffic. It was the most relaxed she’d felt in days, calm and sort of weightless, released from obligation.