by Ronan Frost
“Won’t be here long,” the spitter said, drawing a finger slowly across the curve of his throat.
“Shut your mouth, Gonzalo, unless you want me to shut it for you,” Law said, putting the baton to work again.
Rye took the orange coverall and a pair of plastic-soled prison-issue sneakers and dressed without saying a word.
The guard disappeared through the door.
He waited until he was told to follow.
The eight of them shuffled along the corridor.
The place reeked of the twin odors of cabbage and urine, fused forever together. Night-lights lit the way.
Law curled a finger, “Follow me, Blake. The rest of you, it can be a long lonely first night. We’ve got a pool on who will be the first to break.” He grinned at Rye. “Don’t let me down. We’ll all be listening.”
The walk to the cell was as daunting and depressing as any he’d ever taken, right up there with the short walk to the observation room in the mortuary, though at the end of that journey there had been a dead body waiting for him on the slab. The smell didn’t get any better the deeper he got into the complex. He noted several security cameras, a small red light beside each lens. Law was good for his word; the cameras outside his cell weren’t working.
The door was open. It was a mag-lock. There was no key.
“In you go,” the guard said, following him inside. The room was basic, two wire-frame beds with thin mattresses and a single sheet folded on top with a pillow at the head, and between the beds a toilet without a lid. He took the belt from his pocket and put it on the pillow of one of the cell’s two beds. “Don’t make a mess. It’s got to look like he’s sleeping, otherwise when it comes time to move you out the alarm’s going to be raised and Marty Blake will be going nowhere, you understand?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why do you care?” The other man said.
“Just curious.”
“You want the truth? I don’t care what you do to Langley when that door behind me closes. You can slice his balls off or put his eyes out with your thumbs. Doesn’t matter to me. He deserves everything you do to him. What he did to those people … in your place I’d hope there was someone like me to give me the chance to make sure he paid for what he did. Justice. Retribution. Whatever you want to call it. It’s yours. That good enough for you?”
Rye nodded. “And the guy who sorted it out?”
“Not my secret to tell, pal. Okay, make yourself comfortable. Langley will be joining you in about forty minutes.”
Law left him, drawing the door into place behind him. The magnetic locks engaged with a deep resonating chime like the tolling of a bell. In those harmonics hid a voice that quietly promised a reckoning.
He made both beds.
Law had said he needed it to look like Langley was sleeping; you didn’t do that on an unmade bed. Then he sat down on one, with his back against the wall, and held the leather belt in his hands. He hadn’t considered how he would do it, but alone with his thoughts he had plenty of time to imagine the way the meeting would play out.
The reality was nothing like he envisioned.
SIX
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, even after seeing the still from the surveillance camera, but it wasn’t this.
Matthew Langley wasn’t some demonic colossus of a man. He was the weedy runt of his particular litter. He stumbled as Law pushed him into the cell. He looked surprised to see that he wasn’t alone. He had lank greasy black hair that was too long for his face and hollow cheeks with half a dozen angry red pimple-heads cratering them.
Rye couldn’t picture him ever looking frightening, but put an assault rifle in his hands and a balaclava over his face and Rye had the portrait of a mass murderer standing in front of him.
The kid couldn’t have been much more than eighteen or nineteen.
Rye tried to imagine being so full of hate you couldn’t contain it all within your flesh.
He was a kid.
His mind kept coming back to that.
Matthew Langley was a kid.
Rye looked at him standing there in his dark red jumpsuit looking like he was playing dress up.
The color designated the risk; Martin Blake’s orange put him as medium risk, red was high risk, dark red marked the kid as the worst of the worst, a candidate for supermax.
“You all right?” Langley asked, taking up a seat on the empty bed.
“Been better,” Rye said. They weren’t the words he’d imagined greeting his wife’s killer with.
“What you in for?”
“Murder,” he said, which wasn’t, technically, a lie.
“Me too.”
“Well, would you look at us, two bad hombres,” Rye said.
The kid laughed. It was a wheezy nasal sound.
“Who’d you do?”
Rye looked down at his hands. For a moment he thought about telling Martin Blake’s story, but he wanted the kid to know who he was in here with, and for however long he had left to understand the true meaning of fear. “You first.”
“Why not,” the kid said, like he was trading war stories. “Sheridan Mall. That was me.”
“I thought they killed the guys who did that?”
“That’s what you’re supposed to think.”
“Why’d you do it? Some sort of political thing?”
The kid’s face twisted into a passable sneer. “Nah. That’s all bullshit. Those niggers who pledge themselves to ISIS then go shoot up a mall, they’re just cunts, same as the closet fags who shoot up a nightclub because they secretly wanna suck some cock and don’t like what that says about them.”
“So, what, you depressed? Looking to martyr yourself?”
“Just like Jesus,” the kid said and laughed that laugh again.
Rye was going to take that sound to the grave.
“Just angry then?”
“Sure, if you want a reason, that’s as good as any. Some people just wanna watch the world burn. Why’d you do yours?”
“Justice,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall. He felt the belt beneath him. He reached down for it.
“There you go, that’s what I call a reason. Good for you, man. That’s some pure motivation there. What they do to you?”
Rye stood.
“They killed the woman I loved. And you have no idea how much I hate using that word, loved, instead of love. That one extra letter changes a man. It took a good man and made him into a murderer.”
“Fuck man, that’s heavy. Why’d they do it?”
“You tell me,” Rye said, grabbing the kid by the ankles and hauling him off the bed in one sudden, violent, motion. The base of Langley’s spine jarred against the metal frame. As he hit the floor Rye drove a soft-soled foot into the V between the kid’s legs, kicking him hard enough to ram his testicles back up into his throat.
He stood over Langley as he gagged and gasped, choking and clutching his cock.
Rye tangled his fist in the kid’s greasy hair and jerked his head back, forcing Matthew Langley to look into his eyes. “Let me give you one more clue, make it easy for you: she can’t come to the phone right now. Ring any bells?”
Langley started to answer.
Rye punched him in the throat with his free hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He stood over him. All the anger, all the rage, all the desperation he’d felt over the last six months flooded through Rye McKenna in that moment. He was a black angel dispensing justice. He was vengeance. He was wrath.
But most of all he was human.
He looped the belt through the buckle and dropped it over the kid’s head like he was playing lasso, then pulled it tight, and kept on pulling on it as the buckle bit deep into Langley’s Adam’s apple. The kid clawed at the leather, desperately trying to get his fingers under the belt as though that could somehow save him. His eyes bulged in his face as his brain was starved of oxygen. The leather took the heads off two of the pimpl
es, leaving blood on Langley’s hollow check. Rye kept on pulling on the belt until the kid’s legs kicked out desperately, and then stopped. He let go of the end of the belt. This wasn’t him. He wanted it to be. He wanted to be Death.
But he couldn’t.
He learned something about himself in that moment: whatever else he was, Rye McKenna wasn’t a murderer.
But that didn’t mean the kid got to live.
He stood over him.
“I’m going to leave that belt with you. You’re going to hang yourself. You understand?”
Matthew Langley stared up at him. “You can’t make me.”
“I think we both know that I can,” Rye said. “I’m giving you a way out. The alternative will be worse.”
He handed the kid the belt.
SEVEN
He felt nothing.
Not satisfied, not avenged, not empty or changed.
He was the only prisoner on the transport.
Getting out had been easy. Law had turned up maybe forty minutes after Langley had hung himself from the pipe. The guard took one look at the body in the bed and grunted, “Good enough,” before he led him away. The lights beside the camera, Rye noted, were still red. He didn’t know who this mysterious benefactor of his was, but the man had some juice.
The transport, another battered yellow school bus with the words PRISONER TRANSPORT stenciled on the side, waited in the lot. It was a different driver. He wasn’t chained into his seat this time. The driver put on the radio as they peeled out onto the highway. The station offered some sort of bebop. The tune was familiar, but he couldn’t have picked the players out of a lineup.
“Your clothes are in the sack on the back seat,” the driver called back. “Figure you might want to get changed.”
Everything was there.
With the dark country rolling by outside, Martin Blake ceased to be as Rye reclaimed his life.
“Mind me asking, what did it feel like?” And that was the question that had prompted the realization that he felt nothing. “I like to think I’d be able to do it,” the driver continued. “You hear people say it, don’t you, how they’d give anything for a few minutes alone with the killer.…”
“It’s not how you would imagine,” Rye said, still trying to process it himself. “I can tell you this much, you build the guy up in your head until he’s a monster. He’s this black hole responsible for sucking all of the living out of your life. But when you come face-to-face with him you don’t see some devil, no matter how desperately you need him to be that, he’s just some snotty-nosed kid who happened to be the one who pulled the trigger.”
“Shit.”
“I don’t feel like Dirty Harry, put it that way.”
The driver didn’t say anything else for a while. It obviously wasn’t the answer he’d expected.
Rye bundled the orange jumpsuit into a ball and stuffed it into the garbage sack and dumped it on the back seat. He went to sit up front.
“I heard what happened to you,” the driver said as he took his seat. “Just wanted to say I’m sorry, man. I can’t imagine.”
He’d heard the same thing countless times over the last six months: I can’t imagine. He didn’t have to. He’d lived through it. But it was over now, wasn’t it? That’s what this night had been about. The gift of closure from his mysterious benefactor.
Matthew Langley was dead, and in dying knew exactly why.
Hannah was avenged.
So why did he feel so hollow?
“It doesn’t give you your life back,” he said, answering his own question.
The driver nodded thoughtfully.
“You think it will. You think seeing the killer die will solve everything, but it doesn’t change a thing. Hannah’s still dead, I’m still living alone the life we were meant to share. It isn’t some magic wand solution that makes everything all right.”
“Would you do it again if you had a do-over?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
EIGHT
Vic waited for him at the same rest stop.
The big man had his eyes closed, hands crossed behind his head, and seemed to be asleep.
For all he knew, Vic had been there all night cramped in his ludicrously expensive sports car waiting for him to return from the lockup.
Rye walked slowly across the gravel to the car, savoring the chill bite of the predawn air on his skin.
He might have only been inside for a few hours, but he felt dirty. No, not dirty. Unclean. There was a difference.
He opened the passenger’s-side door and clambered in.
“I trust you had a fruitful trip?” Vic said.
“He’s dead, if that’s what you mean.”
“I know. Andy Law radioed ahead. His body hasn’t been discovered yet, though it’s only a matter of time. But don’t worry, no one knows you were there, only that Martin Blake was a temporary inmate. Any fallout will burn him without ever touching you.”
It wasn’t just morally ambiguous, it was disturbing how callously these people were prepared to play with someone’s life, even a racist murdering prick like Blake deserved some sort of protection by the law—you had to believe that if you believed in the rule of law—but the rules were different for these people. They were the church in a society that worshiped money.
“I’m good,” Rye said. “I didn’t kill him. I just gave him the belt, he chose to take the easy way out.”
“Good. Here.” He offered Rye the envelope with the rest of his life in it. Rye took it, and in return gave the black man everything that marked him as Martin Blake.
“Only one question remains, Mr. McKenna: Am I to drive you back to your home, or should I take you to meet my employer?”
“So, I’ll finally get to know who my mysterious benefactor is?”
“You will, but only if you choose to meet him. If you want me to take you home, we will part ways with a handshake and I will wish you the very best with the rest of your life.”
Rye nodded. “Assuming I say yes and finally get to see the wizard hiding behind his curtain pulling the levers, I can still walk away, right? You’re not about to produce a film of me watching Matthew Langley hang himself and say you own my soul?”
“Where would be the fun in my answering that one?” His smile was genuine. “You can walk away at any time, Mr. McKenna, but I would suggest you ask yourself this: What have you got to lose by listening? Perhaps you will learn something you didn’t know you needed to hear? When I was in your place, I did. I wouldn’t be the man I am today if I’d chosen to walk away from my invitation.”
Rye nodded. “And that’s a good thing?”
“I believe so.”
“Fine, let’s do it. Take me to your leader.”
“A wise decision.”
“We’ll see soon enough.”
They drove all through the day, heading into the sunset, and on into the night. Vic stopped twice at charging stations. That was one drawback with the whole hybrid eco-warrior sports car, they were limited in where they could refuel, making some legs of the journey a kind of treasure hunt. Vic was a good conversationalist, though in all the hours on the road he gave nothing away about his employer. Eventually they left the interstate, the lanes narrowing down to a single lane, the asphalt giving way to a dusty track that ended at a huge iron gate. The gate appeared to have been wrought in the shape of a winged man or an angel, it was hard to tell as it glided effortlessly open as they approached.
“Icarus,” Vic said. “It’s all about reaching for the sun.”
“Is there a clue in that,” he asked with a wry smile.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Beyond the gate was a richly cultivated landscape with woodland on the left and a lake off to the right. It was like entering a walled city, the grandeur of it was inescapable. The gravel driveway twisted and turned up a series of switchbacks that climbed a steep hill, before leveling out to reveal the house at the h
eart of it all. The manor house was immense, with dozens of gables and climbing plants clinging to the white-painted cedar façade. There were rose beds and granite stairs bordered by plant pots as big as him overflowing with colorful blossoms. More climbers, these ones on thin, reedy stalks, entwined the banisters on either side of the stairs leading up to a terrace where an older man, in his early fifties, sat drinking his mint julep and enjoying the cool of the night. Japonicas grew along the wall beneath the terrace.
Five cars were lined up outside the house; one Rye noticed was an Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Volante. There were only ninety-nine in the world. It was a stunning piece of engineering worth more than Rye’s house.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Well, not that I’m complaining about your wheels, but if the boss had given me a choice between the two, I’d have come to impress the new boy in that.”
The other cars were variants of the same, super cars; nothing that would have looked at home in the lot outside Walmart.
Vic pulled in and killed the engine.
“Any last-minute advice?”
“Just be yourself,” Vic said, clambering out. “He’s really not that intimidating when you get to know him.”
The man on the terrace raised his glass in greeting as they approached. He had more salt than pepper in his goatee, and more crags and crevices on his face than any amount of laughter could cause. He looked deeply tired. “Join me, Ryerson. You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”
“It’s my name.”
“Indeed it is. I think it’s about time we had a chat, don’t you?”
NINE
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Rye said, taking one of the three empty seats around the table. He had his back to the wall, looking out across the grounds. It was an old habit, don’t leave your back open for someone to sneak up behind you.
“Guuleed, would you fetch our guest a drink?” The big man looked at him, his gaze implacable. It left Rye feeling judged without having opened his mouth. “Ryerson, what’s your poison? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.” The man made a show of looking him up and down. “You strike me as a single malt soul?”