Bloody Mary

by J. A. Konrath

  “I remember now.”

  “You always tried too hard to win, but when you did, you never seemed happy.”

  “That’s because I was thinking of the next match, and wondering if I’d win that.”

  Mr. Friskers hopped onto the sofa and bumped his head into my mother’s thigh, demanding to be petted. She complied, eliciting a deep, throaty purr from the cat.

  “You can’t let the uncertainty of tomorrow interfere with the joy of today, Jacqueline. May I offer a little bit of wisdom?”

  “I thought that’s what you were doing.”

  “You should be taking notes. This is the meaning of life I’m talking about.”

  “I’m all ears, Mom.”

  My mother took a deep breath, sat up straighter. “Life,” she said, “isn’t a race that can be won. The end of the race is the same for all of us — we die.”

  She smiled at me.

  “It’s not about winning the race, Jacqueline. It’s about how well you run.”

  That sounded vaguely familiar.

  “In other words, it’s not if you win or lose, but how you play the game?” I said.

  “I prefer my analogy.”

  “How about something simpler? Like, ‘Try to have fun’?”

  “That works too.”

  I pulled myself out of the rocking chair, destination: kitchen. Alan had his head in the fridge.

  “My mom says I need to have fun.”

  Alan looked at me. “I’ll agree with that.”

  “So maybe we can go do something fun.”

  “A movie?”

  “I just saw two of them.”

  “A few drinks?”

  “That’s a possibility. What else?”

  “Dancing?”

  “Dancing? I haven’t been out dancing since kids were spinning on their heads on sheets of cardboard.”

  Alan held my arms, drew me close.

  “I was thinking something more adult. Something that involved moving slowly to old Motown classics.”

  “I’ll get my shoes.”

  I kissed Alan on the cheek and went back to the living room. Mom was trying, unsuccessfully, to get Mr. Griffin’s mouth to stay shut. Every time she eased it closed, it yawned back open.

  “Alan and I are going out dancing.” I plopped on the sofa and slid on my flats.

  “Good. Take your time. I may wake Sal up and do a little dancing of our own.”

  I leaned over, reaching for my cell phone on the table.

  “Leave it, Jacqueline.”

  “My phone?”

  “It’s a phone? I’m sorry — I thought it was a leash.”

  I left the phone where it sat.

  “Fine. See you in about two hours.”

  “No sooner. You’re putting a cramp in my love life.”

  I pecked her on the forehead. “Love you, Mom.”

  “Love you, Jacqueline. And I’m proud of you. I raised a pretty good daughter.”

  “The apple never falls far from the tree. See you later.”

  From the sofa, Mom waved me and Alan good-bye.

  CHAPTER 45

  Fuller ditches the truck on the West Side and takes a cab to Jack’s apartment. He pays with Robertson’s cash, and quickly cases the building.

  No doorman. The security door is a joke for a guy his size — one solid kick from a size thirteen and the door opens with a bang.

  He knows Jack’s apartment number. While in prison, he would recite her address over and over and over again. A mantra.

  His patience is about to be rewarded.

  Another kick. The apartment door buckles in.

  Fuller, gun in hand, strolls into the living room and finds two old people on the couch, holding each other. He laughs.

  “Were you just necking?”

  The old man, eighty if he was a day, stands up with his fists bunched. Fuller ignores him, walking through the kitchen, finding the bedroom and bathroom empty.

  “Get out of here, right now.”

  The old man points a finger at him.

  Fuller asks, once, “Where’s Jack?”

  The man reaches for the phone.

  Fuller hits him with the butt of the Sig, busting open the old guy’s head like a piñata. The fossil falls to the ground, twitching and bleeding out.

  The old woman is still on the sofa, gnarled hands trying to work a cell phone. Fuller slaps it out of her hands.

  “You must be Mom. Jack’s told me so much about you.”

  The woman stares at him. Fuller sees fear. But he sees anger too. And a hardness that he’s never seen in prey before.

  “You must be Barry. Jack has mentioned you as well. Still humping dead hookers?”

  Fuller laughs, despite himself. Gutsy old bitch. He sits next to her. The sofa creaks with his weight.

  “Where’s Jack?”

  “You’re not only a disgrace to police officers everywhere, you’re a disgrace to the human race.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m a big disappointment to everybody. Now, where’s Jack?”

  The mother sits up straighter.

  “I spent half my life putting scum like you behind bars. I’m not telling you anything.”

  “Tough talk. But you’ll tell me, sooner or later. I can be very convincing.”

  “I doubt that, Barry. I’ve seen you play football. You’re a real candy-ass.”

  He doesn’t use the gun — doesn’t need to. Her bones are old and brittle.

  Snap! There goes an arm.

  Snap! There goes a leg.

  Fuller laughs. “Didn’t anyone tell you to take calcium supplements?”

  He cuffs her across the face, feeling the cheek shatter.

  The old woman’s face is wet with tears and blood, but she doesn’t make a sound. Not even when he grabs her broken arm and twists.

  “Where’s Jack?”

  The attack catches him off-guard. Something hits him in the face. Something soft, yet sharp.

  Fuller cries out in surprise. There’s a yowling sound, and the thing attached to his face is digging at his left eye, scratching with needle-sharp claws.

  A cat. Stuck tight.

  Fuller grabs. Pulls.

  Mistake. The cat holds on, and Fuller almost tears out his own eye.

  He punches the cat. Once. Twice.

  It drops off and limps away.

  Fuller is in agony. The eyelid is rapidly swelling shut, his eye a hot coal burning in the socket.

  Both hands pressed to his face, he stumbles through the apartment, finds the bathroom.

  The Elephant Man stares back at him in the mirror. His left eye has puffed out to the size of a baseball.

  Fuller lashes out, smashing his reflection with a meaty fist. He finds some gauze pads in the medicine cabinet, presses one to his face, and howls.

  He needs a doctor. Without medical attention, he’ll lose the eye. And the pain — Jesus — the pain! He searches the bathroom and finds a bottle of ibuprofen. He takes ten.

  What next? What to do next? A hospital? No. Can’t risk it. He needs a safe place. To heal. To plan.

  Fuller hurries back through the kitchen, stepping over the mess left by the dead guy, and pauses briefly in the living room. Jack’s mother is lying facedown on the carpet. Dead? Possibly. No time to check. He speeds out the door, down the stairs, and onto the cold, wet streets of Chicago. After a frantic moment of wondering what to do, Fuller hails a taxi and knocks on the driver-side window. The driver rolls it down.

  “You need a cab?”

  The guy has an accent. Indian, maybe, or somewhere in the Middle East.

  Fuller says nothing.

  “You okay? You are bleeding.”

  “You are too.”

  He places the Sig against the man’s head and fires, causing quite a mess on the passenger side. Then Fuller opens the door, shoves the guy over, and hits the gas.

  He stops the taxi under a bridge, searches the driver’s pockets. A cell phone. A wallet, with a few h
undred bucks. A set of house keys.

  Fuller checks the driver’s license. Chaten Patel, of 2160 N. Clybourn.

  “Thanks for inviting me over, Mr. Patel. Do you live alone?”

  Fuller pulls back into traffic.

  “I suppose we’ll find out.”

  CHAPTER 46

  When I pulled onto my street and saw the flashing lights in front of my apartment, I knew. I threw the car into park, got out, and ran.

  “Jack!” I faintly heard Alan call after me.

  Herb was standing in the lobby. He saw me, and rushed over to hug.

  “Jack, we thought he got you.”

  “Fuller?” I managed.

  “Killed three cops and a bunch of others, escaping.”

  My eyes welled up.

  “M-Mom?”

  “They’re about to bring her down.”

  “Dead?”

  “No, but she’s in bad shape.”

  I pulled out of Herb’s grasp, raced up the stairs.

  Cops, paramedics, a crime scene unit. Pained looks from people I knew. A black body bag, on the floor of my kitchen.

  My breath caught. I unzipped the bag.

  Mr. Griffin, half of his head missing.

  I pushed into the living room, saw the stretcher, watched some horribly beaten body being intubated.

  “. . . oh no . . .”

  I rushed to her side, unable to reconcile it in my head, unable to believe that this broken, bleeding thing was my mother.

  Her hand was cool and limp. The paramedics pushed me away. I wanted to follow, wanted to go with her, but my legs gave out and I collapsed onto the floor.

  Something brushed against my leg.

  Mr. Friskers.

  I grabbed the cat and held him tight and cried and cried and cried until nothing more came out.

  CHAPTER 47

  Doctors came and went, talking about Glasgow Scales and Rancho Los Amigos levels of cognitive functioning. I was too numb to pay attention. I only knew that Mom wouldn’t wake up.

  Two days passed, or maybe it was three. People visited and stayed for a while and left. Alan. Herb. Libby. Captain Bains. Harry. Specialists and nurses and cops.

  Guards were posted outside my door. I found this amusing. As if Fuller could possibly hurt me more than he already had.

  Benedict kept me updated on the manhunt, but the news was always the same: no sign of Fuller.

  “She’s probably going to die,” I said to Herb.

  “We’ll get him.”

  “Getting him won’t make her better.”

  “I know. But what else can we do?”

  “I should have been there.”

  “Don’t play that game, Jack.”

  “I should have killed Fuller when I had the chance.”

  “This isn’t helping the situation.”

  I got in Benedict’s face. “Nothing will help this situation! This is my mom, lying here. And she’s lying here because of me. Because of my job.”

  “Jack . . .”

  “To hell with it, Herb. To hell with all of it.”

  My star was in my pocket. I held it out, made Benedict take it.

  “Give this to Bains. I don’t want it anymore.”

  “He won’t accept it, Jack.”

  “He’ll have to.”

  Benedict clutched my badge and got all teary-eyed on me.

  “Dammit, Jack. You’re a good cop.”

  “I wasn’t good enough.”

  “Jack . . .”

  “I’d like you to leave, Herb.” I watched my words register on his face. “And please don’t come back.”

  CHAPTER 48

  He watches Detective First Class Herb Benedict leave the hospital. Unlike Jack, Herb doesn’t have an armed escort.

  Big mistake.

  Herb climbs into his late model Camaro Z28, starts it up. Fuller starts the cab and follows Herb out of the parking lot, turning left onto Damen.

  It’s nighttime, cold enough to need the defrosters. The cab smells like blood; Fuller never bothered to clean up after dispatching the hack. Normally it’s a smell he enjoys, but pain is playing tug of war in Fuller’s head, his injured eye and his unrelenting headache each vying for top honors.

  The eye has gotten worse. It’s infected, there’s no doubt. Fuller can’t open the lid, and it’s leaking a milky, foul-smelling fluid.

  Goddamn cat.

  The throbbing in his head has returned with a vengeance too. It’s even worse than before the operation. Fuller wonders if the doctors really got all of the tumor out. Perhaps they’d left a teeny-tiny piece in his brain, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger every day, growing like a seed.

  Benedict parks alongside the street, in front of a health food store. Fuller waits until he leaves the vehicle and enters the shop. Then he pulls into an alley.

  Fuller doesn’t think Herb will be tough to handle, but he’s no geriatric, either. He has a plan to keep the cop under control.

  Two days ago, Fuller shot a street corner dealer and relieved him of his stash. He scored a lot of reefer (which Fuller thought might help his eye but didn’t do a damn thing), a few grams of coke, and three balloons of black tar heroin, complete with works.

  The heroin went down smooth. Fuller boiled the needle first and had no problem tapping a vein — it reminded him of his steroid days.

  Blessed pain relief.

  The last hit he took, a few hours ago, is wearing off. He has one syringe left, resting safely in the inside breast pocket of his jacket, a piece of cork on the tip.

  He prefers to use it on himself, but if Benedict gets rowdy . . .

  Speaking of, the portly detective comes out of the health food store with a protein bar. His attention occupied with unwrapping the snack, Fuller sidles up behind him.

  Benedict spins around, reaching for his gun, but Fuller anticipates the move and grabs Herb’s wrist. His grip tight, he gets behind Benedict and applies a hammerlock, one arm around his neck, another pinning Herb’s wrist behind his back.

  “Hello, Detective. Glad to see you’re watching your health.”

  Benedict reaches for his shoulder holster with his free hand and Fuller tightens the submission hold. Benedict is strong, but not strong enough. With a quick jerk, Fuller yanks upward on the older man’s arm. Benedict’s elbow hyperextends, and then blows out.

  Herb is yelling now, fighting like crazy, but Fuller has a firm grip on his bad arm and levers him into the alley. He forces Benedict to his knees, pulls the cork from the needle with his lips, and jabs the fat man in the neck.

  Benedict continues to resist, but slowly, sweetly, the energy goes out of him.

  Fuller replaces the cork, tucks away the syringe, takes Herb’s gun, and muscles him into the back of the cab.

  Then he goes prowling for more smack.

  The taxi makes him invisible — urban camouflage — so he’s free to cruise parts of the city where a Caucasian might ordinarily stand out. He drives to 26th and Kedzie, an area known as Little Mexico. It doesn’t take long to find a young Hispanic male hanging out on a corner. Cold night to be just hanging out, alone.

  He circles the block twice, and then stops. The youth walks over in the wide, unhurried gait of a young man whose pants are too baggy.

  “Tienes cocofan?”

  The Latino has a little peach-fuzz goatee, and a gold crucifix hanging from his ear. “Que?”

  “Cocofan, puto. Zoquete. Calbo. Perlas?”

  “Calbo?”

  “Yes, jackass. Heroin.”

  “No tengo calbo. Tengo Hydro, vato.”

  Fuller sighs, and shoots the kid in his sideways-tilted baseball cap.

  Rico Suave takes the big dirt nap, and Fuller steps out and gives him a quick pat-down. He finds three loose joints, and six vials of brown granules.

  “No calbo my ass.”

  Fuller squeals tires, heading back to his hidey-hole on Clybourn.

  Twice, people try to hail him. Fuller slows down, lets the
m get close, and then pulls away before they can get in the cab.

  Good, clean, American fun.

  Benedict moans in the backseat.

  “We’ll be home soon, Detective.”

  Chaten Patel shared a residence with his girlfriend. Fuller never got her name. They lived on the ground floor of a two-flat. A modest place, old but clean, with a large basement they used for storage.

  The basement currently stores Chaten, and what’s left of his woman.

  Fuller parks the taxi in the alley behind the house, and half-carries/half-walks Benedict through the backyard and down the steps to the basement entrance. Herb obligingly has a pair of handcuffs in his pocket, and Fuller locks the detective’s bad arm to a pipe under the concrete shop sink, and takes his keys.

  The corpses have begun to smell, but Fuller won’t be here for long. Once Daniels is dead, he’s going to make good on his original intent and flee to Mexico.

  But first things first.

  Upstairs, Fuller fills up a pot with some water, puts it on the stove, and drops in the syringe.

  As it boils, Fuller removes a heroin vial from his pocket and shakes out four big chunks. It doesn’t look like the black tar he’s been using — it’s lighter in color, and crumbles easier. He sniffs it. There’s no odor of vinegar, a telltale trait of smack.

  What did that kid call it? Hydro? Maybe it’s a hybrid — heroin and coke, or heroin and XTC.

  Fuller doesn’t care. It could be heroin and rat poison, and he’ll inject it just the same. He needs a break from the pain.

  There’s a fat candle on the kitchen counter that smells like vanilla. Fuller lights it, dumps the boiling water into the sink, and puts the syringe back together.

  Placing the granules in a metal tablespoon, he adds a squirt of water and holds the spoon over the candle flame.

  With his free hand he removes a cotton ball from the open bag on the table and rolls it between his fingers until it’s the size of a pea. When the drugs are fully dissolved, he puts the cotton on the spoon and watches it expand.

  The needle goes into the center of the ball, the plunger is slowly pulled back, and all Fuller has to do is pick a vein and the good times will roll.