The Broken Ones

by Stephen M Irwin

  “It’s not too late, Albert. You can go back to your cell, no need to extend your sentence. You just have to tell me—”

  “Cut it,” Naville said, glancing at his watch. “And kick me your jacket.”

  He kicked the jacket to the old man.

  Naville knelt. “Now, which pocket do you keep your cuffs in?”

  “I don’t remember,” Oscar said.

  Naville shook his head, disappointed. He kept the Twinny trained on Oscar and began to search the jacket pockets. Oscar saw something small catch the flickering light on the floor behind Naville. Two thumbtacks had escaped their box.

  He said, “Who are you working with, Albert?”

  Naville pulled out Oscar’s key ring, a cigarette lighter, and his bribery stash of condoms, tea bags, and Viagra tablets. “I’m a solo flyer, Mariani. Didn’t your father teach you anything?” He looked up at Oscar and affected a frown. “Or maybe he couldn’t be bothered.”

  He grinned and kept searching.

  “You screwed up dumping Penny in the sewage plant, didn’t you, Albert? Bet they weren’t happy with you then.”

  Something flashed behind Naville’s eyes. “You’re a shithouse guesser,” he said. “I’m amazed you found me at all.”

  The old man glanced again at his watch.

  “When are they getting here?” Oscar asked.

  Naville hesitated as he emptied pockets. “There’s no ‘they,’ Mariani.”

  “They’re coming, aren’t they? You keep checking your watch. That’s what you did when you heard me outside. You grabbed your phone and you called your betters.”

  “They’re not my—” Again, a flash behind the old man’s eyes: something twisting and reasonless as fire. Oscar realized that Naville was, indeed, almost mad. “Things will be easier if you just tell me where your cuffs are.”

  “Did they let you kill Taryn Lymbery? Or were you only allowed to mark her, since you screwed up so badly with Penny Roth?”

  “I didn’t screw up.” Naville bit down on his next words. This time his sharklike smile had to thrash harder to beat down the madness in his eyes. He lifted the pistol. “Keep stalling and I’ll shoot you right here and burn it all down. I’ve done it before. Handcuffs, please. Now.”

  Oscar could see the snub barrel of the Twinny shaking. The knuckle of Naville’s trigger finger was turning white. Oscar swallowed down his fear and shrugged.

  “So now they’re freezing you out. They don’t need you anymore. They’ve got the altar, so now they can get rid of Bert Naville before he fucks up again.”

  “I didn’t fuck up!” Naville snapped, stabbing the pistol toward Oscar’s chest. His wild grin was unmoderated now: it was the same savage smile Oscar had seen in the photograph of Naville cuffed to Sandro. Naville’s hand was shaking. His blood was up. “Cuntish Marianis,” he whispered. “Cuntish guessers.”

  Naville looked at his watch, did a calculation in his head, then kicked Oscar’s jacket away. He was done searching for the cuffs. “I wanted to keep this place. Too bad.”

  He aimed the pistol at the center of Oscar’s chest.

  Oscar clapped his hands together and shouted in his best approximation of a correctional officer: “Inmate Naville!”

  The old man jerked instinctively. The Twinny barked, and Oscar felt hot air brush his cheek like a salamander’s lick as Naville took a startled step backward and suddenly howled, reflexively grabbing at the thumbtack in his bare heel.

  Oscar dropped and jumped for the Taurus.

  Naville, unbalanced on one foot, spun as he tried to follow Oscar with the Twinny.

  The trigger pull on the .44 was heavy, but there was no time to cock it first. He aimed for Naville’s thighs, and squeezed. The boom of the large gun shook the cold air in the room. A hole the size of a softball appeared in the wall behind Naville. The old man bleated and aimed the derringer at Oscar’s face.

  Another thunderclap, and a large part of Naville’s upper leg disappeared, and a violent fountain flumed out behind it. The old man twisted and collapsed like a breaking chair. The Twinny yacked again, but Naville’s second shot went wide, high into the wall.

  “Naville!”

  The old man dropped the Twinny and grabbed at his spouting leg. He was spasming, his mad eyes wide and searching.

  Oscar could see that a fistful of flesh was gone from the upper thigh. Shattered bone protruded and blood gushed. He scurried over and clamped both hands down and into the deep wound. Blood simply squeezed out between his fingers, under his palm.

  “Where is Taryn Lymbery?” Oscar said. “Albert? Where is Taryn? Is she dead?”

  Naville’s face grew white, and suddenly all the years flowed back onto it. His other leg began jolting like a dog’s in sleep.

  Oscar squeezed harder, fingers probing and catching on sharp bone, trying to find the artery and stop the tide. “Who were you doing this for, Albert? Is it Haig? Albert!”

  Naville’s eyes lost focus and his jaw suddenly jerked wide.

  “Naville!”

  The old man went still, and breath slid out of him in a soft sigh.

  Oscar looked around. A puddle the width of a child’s wading pool had flowed from the body.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  And he glimpsed Naville’s watch.

  A car was coming. Naville’s accomplices.

  Oscar grabbed the Taurus and his flashlight and hurried through the lounge room, looking around wildly. No sign of Naville’s phone. He ran down the stairs and into the alley. The loud reports of the pistols had roused residents of nearby buildings, and shadowed figures appeared from dark doorways. “It’s all right,” Oscar said, running and trying to hide the bloody .44. “Police! Go back inside.”

  It had no effect; more figures began to arrive, murmuring and shouting over the wind: What happened? What’s down there? Who shot who?

  Oscar ran to the head of the alley, where a small but growing crowd had gathered. “Move away!” he called. “Police!”

  Someone flicked on a bright flashlight and shined it down the alley.

  “No!” Oscar shouted, and pushed through the onlookers to try to stifle the beam.

  “Fucking cops,” someone said.

  “Put in a complaint,” suggested another, and there was a burst of laughter.

  Oscar saw the headlights of a dark car appear at the far end of the street.

  “Back inside!” he hissed.

  “Fuck you,” someone said.

  The dark sedan stopped, too distant for Oscar to read its license plate. Men and women and children milled at the head of the alley. A group of boys squeezed past and ran down into darkness, tiny flashlight beams winking like fireflies. Oscar saw the car reverse, perform a quarter turn, and speed away.

  He swore, his voice bouncing off the hard brick. Then three or four copycats of both genders contributed their own echoes. Peals of laughter rode over the wind.

  Oscar returned to Naville’s flat and was almost knocked aside by the two young boys from the shadowy doorway; they scampered out carrying armfuls of food from Naville’s kitchenette.

  “Hey!”

  Oscar hurried back inside.

  Naville’s body remained where it had fallen, but footsteps radiated from the blood puddle like crimson petals. The ladder was gone. Naville’s wooden footlocker had been upended and pawed through; paper and notepads were strewn across the floor, and a dozen old books were scattered. Nothing there had interested the thieves. Oscar heard footsteps behind him. A pasty-limbed girl of ten or eleven appeared in the doorway—she regarded the body without interest, then looked over the rest of the room.

  “Anythin’ left?”

  Oscar showed his badge and she slumped away, disappointed.

  In the distance, the faint, tweezing pinch of approaching sirens.

  He returned his attention to the wooden footlocker and its contents. It was old, and three letters had been carved in its base: A.J.N. Oscar hunched on his heels and peered at
the books and papers. He pulled out a handkerchief, wrapped it around an extended finger, and began picking through the papers. There were titles on the occult, Mesopotamia, Aztec religions, African vodun. All were published before 1983.

  The sirens grew louder. Overhead, the papers rustled louder in the stiffening wind.

  One book stood out from titles on lost civilizations and diabolism: a King James Bible. Its cover was a dark-blue fabric, worn through at the corners, and the exposed edges of its pages were the color of brass. This book looked more than a century old. Oscar carefully picked it up. Why would an occultist keep a Bible?

  The inscription in the front read, “For Elliot Naville, with gratitude and regard, the Mgt. & staff of Gowe & Smith & Co.” On the next page was a list of family names and significant dates: births and marriages, deaths and divorces. A family tree.

  The sirens pulled up outside as Oscar found Albert Naville’s name and birth date. And, next to his, his sister’s: “Leslie Naville.” Only her surname had been bracketed in ink of a different color and prefaced with “nee”; next to it was written a wedding date, and Leslie’s married name.

  “Chalk.”

  The bike slewed dangerously, throwing a rooster tail of gravel as he raced up Elverly’s drive. The windblown branches of willow trees whipped at his hunched back. He dropped the bike and ran up the stone steps.

  The front doors were locked.

  She’s not here, he told himself. She’d be at home, tucked in bed.

  But the tight knot in his belly told him that wasn’t so.

  As he rang the buzzer he smelled gasoline.

  Oscar ran down the side of the old building, his boots crunching on twigs, and overgrowth catching at his cold, bloodied trousers. Somewhere a loose metal door banged loudly. Despite the rushing air, the dry-swallow stench of petrol fumes grew stronger.

  The back of the building had a concrete pad, large bins, propane tanks with heavy chains, and a utility shed. The shed’s door was loose and it clanged monotonously against the metal sides. Oscar tried the back door. It opened.

  The reek of fumes inside made him cough and gag. Children were crying. It was dark. As he stepped onto the old polished-tile floors, he slipped. His fingers came away wet.

  Gas.

  “Chalk!” he yelled, and his voice echoed off the dark timber.

  He flicked on his flashlight, and the circle of light reflected off a wet trail running up the hall. He played his light on the timber walls but saw no fire alarms to sound. He ran as quickly as he could without slipping, and the cries of frightened children grew louder. Some banged on their walls. Two girls appeared, arms upraised against the light, the larger with crutches, the other a mute limpet on the older one’s side.

  “What happen? What happen?”

  “Outside!” he yelled as he ran. “Get outside!”

  He followed the fumes, expecting any moment to see a sunlike puff of yellow ahead, followed by a rolling wave of red fire.

  He rounded the corner into reception. He stopped, his feet sliding treacherously on the wet floor.

  Leslie Chalk hung from a rope threaded through the carved fretwork breezeway above the office door. Her slippered feet twisted lifelessly above a red plastic jerry can. The fingertips of one hand were purple, trapped between the choking rope and her pinched neck. Her other hand hung like the bob of a stopped pendulum; directly beneath it, on the gas-soaked floor, was a yellow plastic cigarette lighter.

  The lights of emergency vehicles made the glossy leaves of Elverly’s trees and bushes flicker like the facets of great gems—jumping forward when the strobing lights hit them, then retreating into darkness. Three patrol cruisers were parked on the gravel near the entrance. Behind a LaFrance fire truck and two ambulances, the Scenes of Crime van was packing up. Even out here in the cold air, the smell of petrol wafting from the main doors made Oscar’s tongue curl to the roof of his mouth. He watched as undertakers loaded a small covered body into the back of their hearse.

  He sat on the front steps, rocking gently and humming. His knees stung from kneeling in the gasoline attempting to revive Chalk, and he wanted badly to wash from his mouth the taste of her dead lips, but he didn’t want to let go of the girl sleeping in his lap. Megan was crying when he found her. He simply lifted her and carried her outside as he made all the phone calls. Summoned from the other buildings and roused from sleep in their homes, caregivers shepherded the children from the old main building into B-Block; some pushed wheelchairs, some carried small mattresses and blankets. Every time one of the caregivers came to get Megan, the look in Oscar’s eyes sent them away. The tears had dried on her face, and he’d wiped away most of the mucus from under her nose. He stroked her hair and hummed.

  As the Scenes of Crime van went past him, the officer in the passenger seat sent Oscar a cold, superior stare. A fourth cruiser was coming up the drive. Oscar watched the van stop halfway down the drive beside another patrol car arriving. The drivers talked for a moment, then the van continued and the glossy cruiser parked near Oscar. Haig alighted and walked toward him, the gravel under his highly polished shoes grinding like worried teeth.

  Oscar stopped humming. He felt Haig’s stare.

  “Is this the girl you hit?” Haig asked.

  For a long moment Oscar said nothing. “Back, are you?” he asked finally.

  Haig sniffed the air and pulled his cigarillo tin from his jacket. “What makes you think I’ve been here before?”

  “There were no prints on the jerry can,” Oscar said. “And no prints on the cigarette lighter. Kinda weird, don’t you think?”

  “Gasoline’s a solvent,” Haig said. “Dissolves body fats.”

  “And Chalk’s car isn’t here. How did she arrive?”

  Haig’s eyes glittered, reflecting his lighter’s busy little flame. “Murder, you think?”

  “Yes,” Oscar replied. He felt drained. “I do.”

  “Someone was covering their tracks, then.”

  “That’s my thinking,” Oscar agreed.

  “And you say”—Haig produced a clear plastic evidence bag from a pocket and held it open in front of Oscar—“the woman was dead when you arrived?”

  Oscar snorted a laugh and pulled the silver Taurus from his jacket pocket. He quite liked the way the Taurus felt in his hand. Solid. And he knew it worked. He let the muzzle aim loosely at Haig’s belly.

  “Neat thought, Geoffrey. I killed Chalk. And what would be my motive?”

  The inspector shrugged. “I really don’t know. You’re an odd fish. Not money.”

  “No. That’s your game.”

  Haig inhaled and the cigarillo’s end glowed brightly. His face was as impassive as firelit stone, yet his eyes sparkled smugly. He knows I won’t shoot him, Oscar thought. He thumbed back the hammer of the pistol.

  Haig’s eyes widened the tiniest bit.

  “What are you thinking, Mariani?”

  “We both know Naville and Chalk weren’t working alone,” Oscar said.

  Haig exhaled smoke. A dozen possible futures raced through Oscar’s mind like the dogs at Gillin’s track, bounding in colorful streaks. Shooting Haig, and being gunned down before he reached the bike. Shooting Haig, and going on the run. Shooting Haig, being arrested and led to the holding cells while wondering what would happen to Megan and Zoe. He thumbed down the hammer and dropped the pistol into the evidence bag. Haig slowly zipped it shut.

  Oscar realized that his career was over. Megan wriggled in her sleep, and he stroked her face.

  “You’re the wrong man for the job,” Haig said. He walked past Oscar up the stairs into Elverly. “Always have been.”

  A few feet away, two caregivers hovered nervously with an empty wheelchair. Oscar nodded, and the girls came to get Megan. He watched them wheel her away.

  He stood and walked on stiff legs toward the motorcycle. His partner was dead. He’d run out of leads: two perpetrators were dead, but he still knew nothing of their motive, nothing of their
collaborators, nothing about where Taryn Lymbery was.

  And Haig. Something told him that Haig was implying the truth, that he really had never been here before.

  Oscar lifted the Triumph from the gravel, and every muscle hurt.

  Haig was right. He was the wrong man for the job. Always had been.

  Chapter 32

  The cold chicory water swirled in a pleasingly hypnotic rhythm. Oscar watched the oily rainbow slick shift and break on its black surface. As long as he swirled, he didn’t think. As long as he didn’t think, he was okay.

  From the far end of the corridor came a carillon trill of laughter. Two nurses joked. The predawn sky out the window was pewter-gray. By habit he glanced up at the hospital corridor clock. It was nearly six in the morning. Behind him were the double doors leading back into Cardiac Care. He’d moved out here at around four, after he’d caught himself watching the blips on Sandro’s cardiac monitor with the intensity of a doomsday scryer. At some point, a nurse had brought him a pair of trousers from Lost Property and spirited his old pair away, but he still smelled faintly of gas and blood.

  A door opened somewhere, and he heard footsteps approaching.

  Moechtar’s suit and face matched—businesslike and bland. He carried a leather document folder. Oscar nodded to himself. Only dazzling promotions and embarrassing departures arrived out of the office at six in the morning, and there was no fanfare accompanying his inspector.

  Moechtar sat beside him. They were both silent for a long while.

  “How is your father?” Moechtar asked eventually.

  “Surgery went well. But he’s had a reaction to the antibiotic. They’ve changed it. We’ll see.”

  Moechtar rested his hands on the document folder.

  Oscar asked, “Did anyone find Naville’s phone?”

  Moechtar pulled off his glasses and wiped them with a white handkerchief. “No. Detective Bazley suspects there probably was no phone, given that one must present photo ID to purchase a SIM card, and Naville, having left prison unlawfully, couldn’t have ID.”

  Oscar nodded. Of course, one could go to any market and buy a stolen phone complete with SIM card and a bunch of credit for twenty bucks. Oscar wondered why he wasn’t angrier. Tired, he supposed.