by Ben Sanders
Dexter said, ‘No, no, no, Perry, come on, it’s easy.’ Sounding soothing now. ‘You find Marshall like you’re supposed to, we can figure out where Marie is. I think that’s a fair deal. You should give me another call when you’ve got him, and then we can work something out.’
‘Where is she?’
Dexter said, ‘Come on, Perry. You know what you gotta do.’
Marshall
Perry Rhodes’ driver’s licence said he lived up on Humboldt Avenue, over in Brooklyn. Marshall parked the Escalade at the northern end, under the freeway overpass. There were about a dozen other vehicles, a couple of oil drums holding blackened ashes, a hollow, ghostly note from the traffic overhead. Brooklyn turning on its best décor.
He’d left Perry’s phone on after his talk with Henry, but there’d been no calls or messages. They weren’t desperate yet. If they really wanted to find him, they could just call and ask. Or maybe that hadn’t occurred to them.
He left the phone in the centre console and got out and went to the rear of the Cadillac, collected his bloodied jacket and draped it on the edge of a scorched oil drum. Someone else could decide its future: garment, or fire starter. He locked the truck and started walking south on Humboldt, collar turned up and the hem of Henry’s coat flapping at his knees in a stiff wind.
It was only a couple blocks to Perry’s place, and the marked NYPD car out front made it easy to spot. Marshall stopped on the sidewalk and stood for a moment with his hands in Henry’s pockets, watching the house. No movement in the front windows. Maybe they just had questions for him. There’d be more cars here if they had a search warrant.
He headed back the way he came, and at the next crossroad turned left and then left again, walking down the street parallel to Humboldt. He could see Perry’s roof over the nearside houses—no action in his back windows either.
When he drew level with the Rhodes place, he went left again down a tight alleyway between adjacent buildings, shoulder-first so he’d fit in the gap. He made it past a row of trash cans and then a reeking heap of plastic liners, and paused at the far end. A waist-high chain-link fence separated him from Perry’s backyard, only twenty feet away. He could hear a TV in the building on his right: the low, formal tones of world news. Someone speaking Spanish in the place on his left. No one in their backyard, though. Not in New York in December, coming into dark.
Hands still in his pockets, he walked to the fence and stepped over, casual as he could in a stolen black overcoat, and then crossed the dirt yard to Perry’s back door. He would’ve smashed a window if he had to, but the door was unlocked. He eased it open with the back of his hand and stood waiting on the threshold. No motion. Only the fridge spoiled the quiet. Marshall stepped in and closed the door behind him. The tongue gave a click, and he listened again in the aftermath of that tiny sound. No change in the house. No creaks of killers shifting stance.
He moved away from the door. It was a remarkably normal kitchen. A box of Special K on top of the fridge. Kids’ mugs on the counter, bright plastic with Batman graphics. Pink flowers on the curtain across the window.
There was a cordless phone on the table, and a half-full bottle of Jack Daniel’s. The booze was the only thing that didn’t fit. He took the phone with him as he wandered down the hallway to the front of the house. No one in the living room. He checked the adjacent bathroom, but there was no one waiting for him. Nothing illicit in the medicine cabinet. It was a kid-friendly environment.
The stairs creaked as he went up. He paused halfway and then sprinted to the landing, but there was no one waiting for him. Same again in the bathroom and the master bedroom. Empty house.
It was strange in its way, all this civility. He’d been expecting something sordid, Perry and a group of thugs smoking crack, him then beating out confessions, leaving with blood on his hands. But this was innocent and tidy, a different world that shouldn’t be a part of his.
There was a kids’ room as well, at the back of the house. Bunk beds to the left, and posters hiding most of the wallpaper: baseball one side and cartoons the other. Above the window a Yankees team photo was positioned hard up against a picture of Spider-Man. He figured the join was the dividing line. He never had a room like this. He wondered if a cartoon poster on his wall might have changed something for him, whether softer roads would have brought him to the same place. That’s the illusion of looking back. You see more paths than just the one, and you wonder if they might have formed a different Marshall.
He stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, and through the window he could see the edge of the police car still parked there at the kerb. He looked at the phone for a moment. If Perry had been sent to kill him, it might’ve been a conduit for all kinds of talk.
He pressed redial and listened to the ringing, a long wait before a man’s voice said, ‘Perry, what do you want?’
Marshall said, ‘Is this Dexter Vine?’
‘Who’s calling?’
Marshall walked slowly along the corridor and leaned in the doorway to the kids’ bedroom. He said, ‘I don’t know. It depends if you’re Dexter. If you’re not, then I’m nobody. But if you are, then I’m the man you’re looking for.’
Dexter didn’t answer.
Marshall said, ‘This is Marshall.’
‘Calling me from Perry’s house.’
‘Yeah. He’s not home.’ Marshall sat down on the bottom bunk, elbows on his knees. Spider-Man looking back at him. He said, ‘I thought I could ask him how to find you. But I guess now I can ask you myself.’
‘We could meet—’
‘No, I’m not interested in that. I say come alone, you say come alone, everyone breaks the rules, the whole thing gets messy.’
He could hear Dexter breathing, was glad he’d caught the man off guard, with no reply.
Marshall said, ‘And don’t bother sending someone here. There are cops outside, and I’m not hanging around anyway. But here’s what I’m going to offer.’
Dexter didn’t answer.
Marshall waited, wanting impact for his ultimatum, sensing all the scheming at the other end of the line. He said, ‘I never heard of you before, so I know you’re not chasing me for your own reasons. But I know who’s paying you. And if you tell me how to find them, we don’t have to take this any further. I’ll go straight to them and miss you.’
Dexter didn’t answer. Marshall thought he heard someone in the background, a woman’s voice, far off or muffled.
Marshall said, ‘Otherwise I’ll have to kill you on the way to the top.’
He listened to the pause, the sound on the line not quite dead, the woman saying something he couldn’t catch. Then Dexter said, ‘Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you.’
The line went dead.
Marshall sat with the tone a moment, and then he got up and left the room.
He was at the top of the stairs when he heard the key in the front door. He paused, the phone still in his hand, one foot on the landing and the other on the first tread. He heard the grating as the key withdrew and then a squeak as the door opened. Marshall backed up into the master bedroom, and stepped behind the doorframe.
A slam as the front door closed, and then a child’s feet on the stairs, a quick patter. He thought if the kid used the bathroom, he might have a chance to slip out the back door without being seen. But a police car at the kerb outside is a curiosity to a little boy, and the master bedroom gave the best view.
The kid screamed when he saw Marshall standing beside the door, this giant stranger in a black coat hiding in his house. He tripped and turned and tried to run, and Marshall caught him around the midriff with one arm and placed his other hand across his mouth, silencing him. The kid’s protest a low hum in his throat, breath from his nose warm on Marshall’s forefinger.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK. I’m just looking for your dad. It’s OK.’
He waited until he felt the kid’s breathing subside, and then he let him go. The screaming had stopped, too.
<
br /> Marshall crouched and raised his hands. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’
They were about eye level now. The boy backed off and regarded him suspiciously. He was a slight and nervous little kid, definitely from Perry’s mould. He was lugging a backpack bigger than his torso, gripping the straps at shoulder level, his arms doubled, winglike.
Marshall said, ‘I’m Marshall.’
‘I’m Liam.’ A reluctant admission from a pursed mouth.
‘Nice to meet you. Where’s your brother?’
The kid didn’t answer, and Marshall nodded down the hall. ‘I saw you got a pretty awesome room there.’
The kid gave a small nod, well aware of that already. He said, ‘He got detention.’
Marshall said, ‘That sucks.’
‘Why are you looking for Perry?’ Not ‘Dad.’
Marshall said, ‘Because he was looking for me.’
The kid didn’t answer. With Perry being a hired gun, maybe a stranger in the house wasn’t such a rarity. Marshall could see some kind of thought process in action, the kid’s suspicion slowly fading.
Marshall said, ‘Do you know where he is?’
The kid shook his head, but his gaze didn’t move.
‘Do you know where your mother is?’
‘No. Why were you hiding?’
‘I didn’t want to scare you. I was going to slip out down the stairs so you wouldn’t get a fright.’
‘You’re dressed like a robber.’
Marshall glanced down, as if the possibility had never occurred to him. ‘No, I just happen to be wearing a black coat. Lots of people have black coats. And why would I break in when there are police outside?’
The kid didn’t answer. He twisted one way and then the other to slip the straps off his shoulders, dumped the backpack on the floor. It seemed to signal some conclusion, a ruling on veracity.
Marshall said, ‘Do you want to get a drink?’
They went downstairs to the kitchen. Liam opened the refrigerator and removed a carton of juice from a shelf and drank from the top. He licked his lips and leaned against the fridge door, still watching his visitor carefully. He said, ‘You want some?’
Marshall had the Jack Daniel’s by the neck. He held it up. ‘I think I’ll try some of this.’
‘That’s from the cupboard. We’re not allowed.’
‘Adults are.’
Marshall picked up a Batman cup from the counter. ‘Is this clean?’
The kid nodded. ‘Yep. The clean ones go on that side. The dirty ones go on the other side.’
He rinsed it under the tap anyway and poured himself an inch of the whisky, and then the pair of them sat at the table drinking.
Marshall said, ‘Do you know why there’s a police car outside?’
The kid’s feet didn’t reach the floor. His legs swung at the knees. He shook his head and said, ‘No.’
Marshall nodded to himself. He said, ‘Can you do me a favour?’
The kid thought about it. ‘Say what it is first.’
‘I’m going to leave soon. Ten minutes after I’m gone, you need to go across the street and tell the police officers that I was here. Just tell them what I look like.’
‘Tall with a black coat.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Should I say you’re Marshall?’
He finished his whisky and grinned with the heat of it. It took him back to last night, his talk with Henry in the Cadillac. He said, ‘Yeah. You can tell them I’m Marshall. I’m sorry I grabbed you.’
The kid had another two-handed swig. ‘Why do I have to tell them?’
‘Because there might be people looking for me. So it’s best the cops come inside.’
He thought that might rattle him, but the kid took it in his stride. ‘Perry says it doesn’t matter who shows up. Just have to know they’re coming.’
Marshall didn’t answer.
The kid said, ‘So you can be ready.’ Elaborating for him.
Marshall said, ‘You need to tell the cops, though, so they can be ready, too.’
‘All right.’
Looking up at him with that little-boy earnestness. He wasn’t going to get a firmer promise than that, and he wasn’t going to warn them himself. He left his cup in the sink and then left via the back door.
Back in the Cadillac he sat in the driver’s seat, watching two guys get a fire started in an oil drum. His guessed his old jacket had been deemed most useful as fuel. It’d be a brutal night down here in winter with the rats and trash and potholes, sheltered by a grey concrete overpass.
He closed his eyes, seeing the events of the day, heard his conversation with Perry Rhodes’ boy.
‘Doesn’t matter who shows up. Just have to know they’re coming.’
He picked up Perry’s phone and called Lana. When she answered he said, ‘It’s me. I need to see you right now.’
TWENTY-SIX
Perry
The girl needed food and water, but he didn’t want to leave the room. He set her up on the bed and put cartoons on the TV, and then went and took a shower. It was dribble pressure, but it was hot. He sat in the corner of the metal stall with his legs in a V, water running off his head, and watched the floral curtain through the steam.
He knew he’d lose his mind if he thought about Tolson.
Tol dead in Henry’s building. Tol who’d been there his whole life. The only thing holding him together was the fact Marie needed him. It should have tipped him off the edge, but it hadn’t. Somewhere in his head was a gatekeeper, holding back the mayhem until he found her. That was his one imperative. Get her back.
So, how to do it. Dexter had his wife. Perry could call Marshall and confess all. Appeal to the man’s goodwill, and make him save Marie. But that wasn’t justice for Tolson, bargaining with the man who killed him. Unless he made Marshall find Marie, and then served up penance for Tol later.
Or maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe Dexter’s method was best: clip Marshall, get his wife back, collect the payment for the job. Kill Dexter Vine once everything was tidier.
He shut off the water and dried himself with a towel that felt like cardboard, and then tied it around his waist.
The girl was still on the bed, watching Looney Tunes. Perry sat beside her with his back against the headboard and his legs stretched. He numbed his brain with kids’ TV for five minutes, and then he pushed redial and called Henry Lee.
‘It’s me.’
‘Yeah, Perry, I’m on the way, I just gotta swing by Frankie’s.’
Perry said, ‘I need you to bring me a gun.’
Henry showed up forty minutes later in a cab that stopped nose-in by the front window. He had Frankie with him, and they didn’t look their best: Henry with bags under his eyes and his shirt open one too many buttons, Frankie looking around a lot, like he’d been doing uppers on the way over.
Perry stood waiting with the door open as Henry handed cash to the driver. The cab pulled away, and the pair of them came inside, Frankie carrying a briefcase that might’ve been the source of his nerves.
Perry said, ‘Where’s the Escalade?’
Henry said, ‘Marshall borrowed it.’ Not sounding like he approved of the arrangement. He said, ‘Shit, aren’t you cold?’
Perry didn’t answer. He sat down on the bed again, still wearing only his bath towel.
Henry pulled a chair out at the table by the TV and sat down sideways, propped an elbow on the backrest and raked his hair with his other hand. He said, ‘You forget how much hassle things are. You know, like I’m used to just getting in the car and getting out at the other end and that’s it, don’t have to pay. But taxis, gah.’ He waved a hand. ‘You forget.’
Frankie dropped the briefcase on the bed by the girl. He said, ‘It’s just like restaurants, though. You don’t have to do any work, but you got to pay when you leave. Cabs’re the same.’
Henry sighed, seeming done in as he looked around the unit. ‘Yeah, maybe.’ He look
ed at the girl. ‘How you doing, sweetheart? Bit of an exciting morning, huh?’
The girl stayed focused on the TV.
Henry sucked his top teeth and turned to Perry. ‘So. The hell’s going on?’
‘I told you on the phone—’
‘No, bullshit.’ He was shaking his head. ‘I got a dead guy in my stairwell. I just had cops and FBI in the apartment, grilling me on and fucking on.’ He made a flapping beak with his fingers to illustrate.
Perry said, ‘So why do you think I know anything about it?’
Henry spread his arms and leaned forward. ‘How else did you know to call and say people are coming? Or did you study David Copperfield in prison?’
‘What?’
Henry said, ‘Like, mind reading and shit.’
Perry closed his eyes and raised his hands. He said, ‘Dexter sent us to ask about Marshall, I could see they were getting brutal, so I got out.’
‘Yeah, and that’s what I’m getting at: who is “them”?’
Perry laid an arm along the headboard, trying to seem cool, trying to slow things down. He said, ‘Did you bring me a piece?’
‘Jesus Christ, just answer the question.’
Perry rubbed his face, saw old memories in the dark. A schoolyard scene in flashes, Tolson hauling someone off him. Echoes through the years, Tol telling him it’s all OK. Perry sucked some air and said, ‘I tipped you off, I saved your daughter, and the dead guy in your stairwell is my brother.’
He kept his eyes closed, and he liked how there was no reply. He said, ‘So what do I have to say to convince you I’m on your. Fucking. Team.’
He shouted the last three words, and the fact he’d started off in a whisper gave it an extra kick. The kid slid down off the bed and leaned against the mattress, crying.
Henry licked his lips and adjusted his collar. Frankie had his arms folded, weight on one leg as he watched cartoons, not really keyed in to the discussion.
Henry said, ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. We’re going soon.’ He wiped his hands on his thighs. ‘Well, you know. Yeah, the cops told me about that. And it really sucks, I’m sure. But.’ He thrummed a little beat with his fingers, as if to say, That’s life.