His chest feels tight when he looks at her. He can’t believe what he’s done. He planned to do it, he knows he had to do it, but still he looks at her inanimate and can’t believe it. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen when you meet a woman you could love; this simply isn’t the way it’s supposed to go.
He closes his eyes. He tells himself to be calm, to be focused. He’s almost at the end of this. It’s almost over.
He opens his eyes.
He pushes up her dress, revealing her sex, her red pubic hair, and straps her holster around the inside of her thigh, then pulls the dress back down, covering her once more. She deserves that at least. He tapes her ankles and wrists, being careful not to step in the puddle of blood forming beneath her body. He removes Evelyn’s gun from his pocket and puts it into her hands. With her hands wrapped around it, he fires the gun toward Lou so that if the police check her for gunpowder residue they’ll find it. He gets to his feet. He looks down at her yet again. He looks at her mouth. He wants to kiss it and say goodbye, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve it. And, anyway, he’s already told her goodbye in the most definitive way possible.
Kissing her would be a lie; he did this and must own it.
He takes a step back, away from the body, and tries to think about what to do next. It’s difficult to think at all, let alone clearly.
He glances at his watch to see how much time he has before the Man arrives.
The second hand glides past the twelve. The minute hand moves forward a notch.
He has no time at all.
The blue door squeaks open.
He looks up to see a heavy-set man in a gray suit walk into the warehouse. He carries in his right hand a black briefcase.
Eugene looks at him across the empty room. There he is, James ‘the Man’ Manning, that mythological figure he’s heard about for as long as he can remember. If you were to judge only by outward appearances you’d think he might be a bank manager in a small town somewhere; an unhappy bank manager with a drinking problem. But there’s something within him which belies that outward appearance, some cold black malevolence. Eugene knows the exterior is a lie, a facade which means nothing.
He stands fifty feet from Eugene and looks at him while Eugene looks back.
‘Where’s my daughter?’
His voice echoes in the empty room.
Eugene glances briefly to his left.
‘Your daughter’s dead. So are you.’
Eugene raises Louis Lynch’s pistol while taking several running steps to his right, toward the back of the trailer at dock number three.
The Man drops his briefcase and reaches into his coat. The briefcase hits concrete and breaks open, revealing thousands of dollars in twenties. A breeze blows through the warehouse. Paper money flutters through the room.
The Man comes out with a rifle of some kind, swings it up, pumps it, and fires. The muzzle flashes and the gun kicks, but Eugene feels no pain. The round flies instead through the air where he once stood and slaps into the wall behind him. The echo of the report bounces around the warehouse, sounding like a series of hands clapping — softer, softer.
Eugene gets off three shots himself but because he’s running to the right while firing he misses with all three.
The Man pumps the rifle, sending an empty brass shell arcing through the air, clinking to the concrete floor. He walks slowly toward Eugene, cool and calm. His daughter’s dead, he’s in the middle of a shootout, and but for the rifle jutting from his right hip he looks as though he’s simply gone for an evening stroll, his face placid and emotionless.
Eugene slides to a stop, hunching behind one of the trailer’s doors at dock number three, his heart pounding in his chest. If he panics he’ll miss and he can’t miss. This is his last round. He glances toward the pallets where he set Louis Lynch’s revolver last night and wishes he’d thought to pick it up; but he didn’t, so this is his situation. He empties his lungs, blowing out a long stream of air. Then he inhales, gets to his feet, and steps from behind the trailer door.
The Man continues toward him, face stoic, gun raised.
Both men aim as the distance between them shrinks.
They fire simultaneously.
20
Three men in suits push out of a black car and step into daylight. They walk to the trunk, on the floor of which lie three Thompson submachine guns with fifty-round drum magazines already locked in place. They pick them up, each man yanking back the bolt on his machine, readying it for fire.
They walk across the street, moving in on the warehouse.
21
The police come screeching around the corner, a radio car with its lights flashing followed by a black van. They slide along the asphalt, leaving dark trails of burned rubber as they come to a stop in the street one in front of the other. The van’s back doors swing open and several uniformed cops, half a dozen armed six- and eight-dollar shooters, step from within, rifles gripped in their fists.
Carl follows them out, frantic-eyed and sweat-drenched. He blinks, pulls off his fedora, wipes his forehead with an arm.
Then looks toward the warehouse on the south side of the street. There he sees three men standing on the sidewalk with submachine guns hanging from their arms. The three men are looking in his direction.
For a moment nobody moves. Then the three gangsters lift their Tommy guns.
‘Oh, shit.’
22
Eugene stands motionless, smoke wafting from the pistol in his gloved fist as smoke also wafts from the barrel of his enemy’s rifle only ten feet away. He looks across those ten feet to a heavy-set man in an impeccable gray suit, his white shirt bright and starched crisp, his tie in place, the corner of his handkerchief poking neatly from his breast pocket. His hair is parted razor-straight on the left and combed into place but for a single gray strand hanging over his brow. He doesn’t move. When the guns went off he stopped, wobbled a moment, and now he simply stands there, the barrel of his rifle slowly dropping toward the floor. Eugene sees no wound.
But behind him, a long smear of blood on the concrete floor. He opens his mouth to speak to Eugene, but no words pass his lips. Only a low groan and bits of bloody teeth which fall to the concrete like shattered porcelain.
Eugene watches as he falls sidewise, and it’s a strange thing to see. He goes down stiff and doesn’t try to catch himself, simply falls to his side like a felled tree and rolls prostrate, bloody drool and bits of teeth leaking from his mouth to the concrete floor. The back of his head is an inverted cone and his suit coat is dotted with gray pieces of brain and flecks of skull.
For a moment Eugene just stares.
Then he blinks and his mind begins working once more.
The police could be here at any moment. He doesn’t have time to stand around.
He walks to Louis Lynch’s body and puts the pistol into his hand before searching his pockets for a piece of paper. He finds the paper in a hip pocket: the bait with which Eugene lured him here. He folds it up and pockets it.
He tries to think of what he’s done. Has he forgotten anything? The revolver. He walks to the stack of pallets on which it lies and picks it up. He doesn’t know what to do with it. After a moment’s thought he simply slides it across the concrete floor toward the blue door, as if the Man had told Louis Lynch to lose his weapon before they carried out the trade. Then he glances around the room to see if he missed anything else. He doesn’t think so.
He’s done the best he could.
He looks toward Evelyn.
And he’s done the worst he could.
He hears gunfire from right outside. That’s it. He’s out of time.
He steps into the trailer and pulls the doors shut. He has to slam the second door three times before he gets the outside handle to fall and lock him inside.
Once in darkness, he removes his gloves.
23
Carl dives for cover behind the police van as gunshots ring out. He hits asphalt and draws hi
s weapon. He hears cops shouting all around him, and explosions of gunfire, and bullets hitting metal and glass.
He ignores all of this. He takes aim.
He squeezes his trigger.
A moment later a man collapses to the sidewalk, suddenly vacant of life — an empty nest from which the birds have flown.
The two remaining gangsters continue their retreat.
24
Eugene sits in the trailer. The air is hot and nearly without oxygen. His lungs hurt. He’s covered in sweat. He thinks about how he kept Evelyn in here for hours. He thinks about how he killed her.
Outside the gunfire stops.
The warehouse door opens and closes.
He gets to his feet and walks to the back of the trailer. He looks out to see two men in black suits with Tommy guns hanging from their fists. They look around the warehouse with their weapons ready, but only silence greets them, and the dead, whom they see and approach without speaking. They stand before the carnage like children awed, their faces pale. For a long time they neither move nor say a word.
Then, from outside, tinny through a bullhorn: ‘You have ten seconds to come out with your hands up.’
Without looking away from the dead, the two men speak in soft tones. Eugene is only ten feet away, but cannot hear their words. When the speaking is done they turn toward the blue door and raise their weapons to await the police.
‘Ten,’ through the bullhorn. ‘Nine.’
25
But when the police count their last nobody rushes into the warehouse.
From a rooftop across the street one of the LAPD shooters squeezes his trigger twice. A ventilation window shatters. He looks down to the street.
He gives a thumbs-up.
26
One moment the two men are simply standing there with their weapons raised at the ready; the next their heads are replaced by red mist. They collapse to the warehouse floor, one after the other. Their weapons fall from their hands.
Eugene backs away from the trailer door. The shooting is finished.
He sits down, pulls his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around them. He closes his eyes. He hears police push into the warehouse. He hears their feet stomping. He hears their talk. He hears their exclamations.
He puts his hands over his ears.
He knows the police will soon discover him. They’ll pull him from this trailer, put him in handcuffs, and haul him away. He knows that, and he knows he deserves it.
But for a few minutes he can have this quiet.
27
Carl stands watching while around him other men work. Bodies are bagged. Evidence is collected and numbered. Flashbulbs explode. The case is wrapping up. It’s almost finished. He wonders if he has it in him to get clean, but he doesn’t want to think about that just yet. He doesn’t want to think about that at all.
Someone says his name. He looks up. One of the men from the crime lab stands by the back of a trailer looking at him.
‘What is it?’
The man points.
He walks over and looks into the trailer. Eugene Dahl sits on the floor inside with his legs pulled up to his chest. He looks at them, his face pale and drawn. Blood drips from his left ear.
‘He was locked inside.’
28
Eugene steps from the trailer. Detective Bachman leads him to a quiet corner of the warehouse, somewhere we can talk for a few minutes, and hands him a handkerchief.
He holds it in his hand and looks at it, confused.
‘Your ear,’ Detective Bachman says, pointing.
He touches it and is surprised by the sharp sting of pain. He hadn’t realized he’d been injured. He felt nothing when it happened, but he feels it now. The last rifle shot must have come within mere inches of killing him.
‘Looks like the lobe is gone. Stray bullet must have gone into the trailer. Lucky you aren’t dead. Need a few stitches but that’s all.’
Eugene nods and puts the handkerchief to his ear. He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this. He needs answers. He needs finality. He doesn’t even care what the answers are so long as he understands what’s happening.
A man can warm himself even beneath the blanket of certain doom.
He looks at the detective.
‘Are you going to arrest me?’
FIFTY-THREE
1
Nobody arrests him. It’s almost impossible to believe. He should be arrested. He should be tried and convicted and electrocuted till he’s dead, but nobody arrests him. The detective takes his statement, and when he’s finished talking simply nods and says yeah, that’s about what I thought. He asks if he can go home. The detective says he can, but in the next couple days we’ll need you around to answer any questions might come up. He says okay and walks out of there.
The daylight is very bright.
He supposes they might arrest him later, but he doesn’t think so. The police like his story. And who gives a shit about a few dead lowlifes, anyway?
He rides his motorcycle to his apartment. He’ll have to stop by the motel room on Whitley and collect his things at some point, but not today. Today he wants to lock himself in a small room and not come out again. He wants silence and darkness.
Everything seems alien to him now and oddly flat. His street doesn’t feel like his street. His stairs don’t feel like his stairs. Standing before his front door he’s sure it isn’t really his front door at all, and there’s no chance that his apartment is on the other side of it. He unlocks the door and pulls the police tape away and steps inside. While it looks like his apartment, he knows it isn’t. It feels wrong. It feels like nothing. The world has somehow become two-dimensional, a stagecraft version of itself.
There’s no depth to it, nor is there feeling.
He closes his door and locks it.
He walks to his bedroom and grabs a blanket from the bed and carries it into the bathroom. He lies in his bathtub and covers himself with the blanket and closes his eyes.
This is what he needs. Darkness and silence.
But there’s neither darkness nor silence to be found, not for long, because the darkness isn’t empty. It never was.
2
Carl packs his suitcase and leaves the boarding house. He drives home, parks in front of his house. He walks to the front door and stands facing it for a long time. He doesn’t know if he can do this. He doesn’t think he can.
He reaches forward with a shaking hand, key extended. He pauses. He puts the key into the lock and turns it. He pushes the door open. It swings wide. He looks into his living room without stepping inside. He can see Naomi everywhere. Pictures of her rest on end-tables, the curtains she bought cover the windows, the couch they shared sits in the middle of the room.
He looks down at the metal threshold, afraid to pass over it. He considers pulling the door closed and walking away. He doesn’t think he’s ready for this.
He steps forward — for the first time in months he steps into his home. Then he closes the door behind him and locks it.
He sets down the suitcase.
He already feels sick, and knows over the course of the next week it’ll only get worse. Much worse. There will be vomiting and diarrhea and tremendous leg cramps and probably he won’t be able to sleep through any of it. There will come a time, he knows, when he thinks he might die and hopes he does. He will want to use so that he doesn’t die, but he won’t use, and he won’t die either.
He’s determined to reach the other side of this.
He will.
And he’ll do it here, in his home, where almost every beautiful moment he ever experienced still lives.
He picks up a picture of Naomi. He looks at her beautiful heart-shaped face and her kind eyes. He loved her very much and he loves her still. He misses her and knows he won’t ever stop missing her, not completely, and it hurts, but he knows that’s okay. It’s how you hold onto a memory; you accept the pain so you can keep the memory alive. You move on not b
y ignoring pain, but by accepting it and carrying it with you to the new places you go.
He’ll get through this week because Naomi would want him to. She’d not want him to leap into the abyss after her. She’d not accept that. So he can’t either.
This week will be the most difficult week of his life. He knows that.
But it’s time.
Looking at his picture of Naomi, and thinking of his loss, he begins to cry. He gasps as the hurt washes over him. He tries to speak to her, to the photograph, but he’s incapable of words. Words are insufficient. Words are for everyday experiences. Only childish grunts can properly express what he’s feeling — this raw loneliness and pain. But he lets himself feel it. He lets himself cry.
It’s time.
3
Eugene sits up alone in the gray early morning. He looks around the bathroom, feeling confused and sick. His neck is sore from sleeping in the bathtub. He pushes his way out from under his blanket and gets to his feet. He lights a cigarette and inhales deeply. He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror for a long time without knowing exactly what it is he’s trying to catch a glimpse of, but he knows he isn’t seeing it and suspects it isn’t there. Whatever it is. He walks out to the living room, and through it to the balcony. He looks at the shallow world he now inhabits, drained of color and life. He thinks of the dream he just awakened from, the nightmare. He thinks of the cannibals. He thinks of that small boy they murdered, and the part they saved for him. He takes a drag from his cigarette. He knows who the boy was now, and supposes he always did.
But the boy is gone, even to the last part.
He flicks what remains of his cigarette out to the street.
This is what he’s left with.
EPILOGUE
Carl steps from the shower and dries off. He puts on slacks, a clean white shirt, and a coat. He combs his hair and looks at himself in the mirror. His cheeks are hollow, and his eyes tired, but he’s healthy and his mind is clear.
The Last Tomorrow Page 35