The Ashes of an Oak

by Bradbury, Chris

  At that moment he realised that these strangers were real. He knew that, at the very instant when weakness shone through, when there was nowhere left to go, nowhere to hide, when they were exposed, that they were as true as they would ever be. They were clowns, forced to tear off the mask and reveal the face beneath the grease.

  He walked on, past the fast food, the laundry, the bookshop, the butcher, the hotels, the fruit shop, the liquor shop, the pharmacy, all that square yardage that screamed existence and at the same time whispered of ashes yet to be.

  He was about the turn and go home, cleansed of the day by the rain, when he saw the man in the sharp, dark grey suit.

  At first he wasn’t sure. People walked at a pace on the gushing sidewalk. The rain, each a tiny magnifying glass that distorted all as it fell, made him stop, against the flow of that mighty human river and peer into the distance at the figure that leaned against the wall, his arms and ankles crossed, as if he was waiting for something to occur.

  Frank launched himself towards him. He used his forearms, his elbows, his shoulders to push against the stream. He ignored the curses and the insults, bellowed at people to get out of the way as he charged like a determined drunk towards his target, his eyes fixed upon a distant point - the hat, the suit, the shoes - as his body weaved and bobbed through the crowd.

  Now he saw that the man was looking at him, that he had seen him long before Frank had noticed him. Had he followed Frank there? Had he been outside his apartment all the time, waiting, watching, anticipating his arrival as a lover waits quivering for his new amour or as a murderer waits with his heart in his mouth behind a door?

  The hat still shielded his eyes. It added to his mystery, to the myth that had already begun to blossom in Frank’s mind. He would deny it, of course. There were no myths, merely a millefeuille of notions and doubts and fears, compressed tightly one upon the other until they fused and produced something so much bigger than the thousand individual, razor thin, layers. But pull them apart, tear at them with your teeth and nails, and they fall apart, not as layers, but as crumbs, insubstantial and weak.

  He charged on, threw himself between cars to cross the intersection, brought down the wrath of the city, of the vehicles, that seemed now to have a life of their own and screamed their displeasure, that hurtled recklessly past flesh and bone, between the concrete towers, upon the asphalt aprons that had come to represent the divisions in class, in colour, in creed, in birth.

  He was within twenty-five feet of the man. A car tapped his knee and brought him down. He fell clumsily onto the road, into the deluge that rushed unremittingly towards the sewers. He picked himself up and ran, falling forward as he went. His legs tried desperately to catch up with his torso, which lurched haphazardly onwards, held upright by his flailing arms.

  By the time he was able to look up, the man had gone. Frank stopped at the kerb and squinted through the rain. He saw the flash of an upturned sole and accelerated towards it.

  It disappeared left, between some shops and into an alley. As he ran, he took out his gun and held it tight in his fist as his feet tried to grip the slippery sidewalk.

  He entered the alley.

  It was empty.

  He caught his breath, the gun at his hip, his finger coiled around the trigger shield, ready to jump back that half an inch and fire at any shadow that came towards him.

  He took some wary steps into the darkness. The street lights fell weakly into the first few feet of the alley then faded. He looked up and saw the rain cascade from the fire escapes and roofs. It fell to the ground like diamonds and then shattered. The pieces jumped for half a second into the air, then melted into the puddles beneath. The puddles rippled and threw back reflections from lights that he couldn’t see, that wavered and shimmied, as if they marked the entrance to another world.

  Ten feet away he saw an open door. Jewels of water fell like a bead curtain between the jambs. He stepped through it as one would step through a waterfall into the cave behind. He pulled the door to behind him. It resisted and groaned and shuddered against the floor. If anybody tried to leave, he would hear them.

  He inched forward, his eyes able only to see the skyline silhouettes of warehouse shelving and empty boxes.

  He could hear his heart beat in the silence. It pulsed through his abdomen, into his chest and up to his neck. His head ached. It throbbed with each pulse.

  Suddenly, to his left, as if from the substance of the wall, a figure emerged.

  Frank raised his gun and shouted at the shadow to stop. It froze and turned towards him. He could see the outline of its hat, its broad shoulders, the slow upward swing of its jacket as it raised its hands to shoulder height.

  Frank moved towards it. He didn’t lift his feet for fear of tripping in the poor light, but dragged his soles along the ground. It sounded like the shuffle of a reanimated corpse.

  ‘Against the wall,’ he ordered.

  The shadow moved back until it could go no further.

  ‘Turn around.’

  The shadow turned.

  Frank reached around for his handcuffs. As he did, the shadow moved, dropped, turned.

  Something glimmered in its right hand.

  Frank fired, a random, hopeful shot as he tried to block the knife with his other arm and at the same time jump back out of reach of the blade.

  Too late, too slow. The knife bit at his neck. His head exploded as he felt an eruption of warmth seep down under his collar and onto his shoulder and chest.

  The shadow straightened up and raised the knife again. Frank pushed forward with all his weight, fired again, so close he could feel the sound, and pressed the man against the wall, held his forearm to the neck of his assailant and tried to choke him.

  Dizziness, exacerbated by the thunder of the shot and the nauseating smell of chemicals from the gun smoke, began to overwhelm him. The shadow pushed him away.

  Again he fired. He felt his legs go.

  He heard the knife fall, a tinny jingle in the receding boom of the shot.

  He grabbed the shadow’s lapel and dragged him down with him. If he was going to die, the murdering son of a bitch would die with him. He had put three bullets in him. He was going nowhere.

  Frank tried feebly to reach the hat, to pull it off and see his eyes, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t raise his arm enough. It was as if it was held down by a weight. He searched desperately beneath the brim of the hat, but there was nothing there; no eyes, no face, just more shadow, more dark, more nothing at all.

  He heard the metallic clatter of his gun as it fell from his useless hand.

  The world slowly became an echo, distant, incomprehensible. His vision narrowed to a swimming slit of dark and light.

  He felt himself hit the floor. With all his strength he held onto the lapel.

  Then he fell gratefully into the void.

  Thursday

  Chapter 8

  Mary Matto sat in a comfortable hospital chair. She had her feet up on the bed. A couple of times the nurses had given her a disapproving look, but she had stuck her head in a book and ignored them.

  She had phoned the precinct at midnight, had tried to make it sound like a routine call – ‘Have you see Frank? He’s not home yet. I just wondered…’ - but inside she was filled with the dread of a cop’s wife, that barely suppressed scream that sticks in the throat, straining for release each time he left the house, that constant thought at the back of her head that he may not come home that night.

  It was bad luck to dismiss such thoughts. It tempted fate, made the bad things happen, but to live with them was an albatross, a constant weight around the neck that daily dragged you down. She couldn’t wish it away, she couldn’t welcome it in.

  It wasn’t the first time Frank had done this. The first time, he had been tapped on the head during an apartment search and spent three days in hospital with concussion.

  He still had the scar on the left side of his abdomen from the second time. That h
ad been a bullet during an intervention in a liquor store robbery. That time he’d had a month in hospital and took another month to return to work.

  So this wasn’t new; this feet up on the bed, this waiting for an eyelid to flicker or a finger to twitch, this wasn’t new.

  Yet it was, because each time it happened it was new. The fears were reborn, the pain regenerated, the anticipated condolences foreseen, the empty chair, the life without, the slow exclusion from the cop club that existed only because you had something in common, because what was there to talk about outside the job?

  All that had happened before this day meant nothing. It was a new day, a new game, only there was a little more chipped away, a little more of him eaten in the acid rain that fell relentlessly upon his aging bones and weathered insides.

  He was a cat running out of lives. Every day you live, the closer you are to death. Every chance you take is one chance wiped off the slate. Each new bullet or knock on the head was a step towards the edge.

  She shouldn’t have married a cop. She should have married a plumber or an electrician or a lawyer, someone who rode a desk and made a mint, whose only risk was the drunk driver or debris falling from a plane, that thousand to one chance, instead of walking headlong and headstrong into it every day and inviting the end.

  Frank opened his eyes.

  ‘Hey,’ she said.

  He felt dry. His throat felt sore. ‘Hey.’ Even talking sent a jolt of pain through his head.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘You wanna dance?’

  Mary laughed. ‘Sure, but I’ll have to lead.’

  ‘Rain check then.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  Frank tried to push himself up and failed. ‘A little pissed off. You?’

  Mary got up and straightened his pillows. ‘Similar.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know.’ Mary brought some water to his lips. ‘Take a sip. Try not to choke.’

  ‘You saving that for yourself?’

  ‘Drink.’

  Frank took a sip. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He swallowed and winced.

  Mary took the glass away. ‘Does it hurt?’ Frank nodded. ‘Good. Remember that next time you decide to go off into town in the middle of the night like some idiot vigilante.’

  ‘I went for a walk.’

  ‘I know people who go for walks. They go, they come back. That’s it. They don’t end up unconscious in some shithole while their family sits at home wondering where the hell they are.’

  Frank couldn’t argue. He didn’t have the energy and, when all was said and done, she was right.

  ‘You’re going to have to forgive me. You know that, right?’

  Mary sat next to him on the edge of the bed. ‘I want that house upstate by the lake, Frank. I want the small school with the fresh-faced kids. I want to know the name of the mailman and the woman behind the counter at the post office. I want to watch you sitting in a chair in the yard, drinking a beer, as the sun comes down over the water and know that tomorrow will be there, the same, reliable. I feel at the moment as if we just borrow our time together. I feel like I just leased you. I married you, Frank. I‘m owed that time. You’re owed that time.’

  He reached out and put a hand on her knee. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m seeing Emmet at the end of the week to get the ball rolling on the retirement.’

  ‘Could you stay out of trouble ‘til then, Frank?’

  He lowered his eyes. ‘We both know that ain’t guaranteed.’ Mary opened her mouth to dispute him. He held a hand up. ‘I’ll do my best. Okay?’

  ‘Okay. Emmet’s outside. Wants to talk to you. You up for it?’

  Frank rolled his eyes. A wave of dizziness washed over him. ‘Yeah. He’s just going to blow hard like you.’

  ‘Then listen and learn.’

  ‘Okay, teacher.’

  Mary leaned over and kissed him. ‘I’ll go and get him, then I’m going home to have a shower and some food, maybe catch a bit of sleep.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She kissed him again. ‘See you later.’

  Mary left with a smile.

  On the way out she saw Emmet.

  ‘He’s all yours,’ she said. ‘I’ve softened him up for you.’

  Emmet held his hand out and she took it. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Sure I am.’

  He regarded her doubtfully. ‘Okay. I know how these things can wear you down. You know where I am…’

  ‘I know where you are, Em,’ she sang. She was pleased with the over-easy lilt to her voice. She waved a warning finger at Emmet as she left. ‘Don’t hurt him. That’s my job.’

  It wasn’t until she got back to the car, parked in the dark recesses of the multi-story, that she finally cried.

  Emmet looked tired. It was three am, but even taking that into account, Emmet looked tired.

  He sat down in the chair recently vacated by Mary.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘You want your rep here?’

  ‘My rep? Why would I want my rep here?’

  ‘Well, for one, it’s an officer involved shooting. Two, because I’m going to ask you some questions. At the moment I’m not on duty, but when I am on duty, I’m going to have to ask you those same questions, but in an official capacity.’

  Frank reached across to the bedside table for a cigarette. There were none there. ‘Give me a cigarette, Em.’

  Emmet lit one up for him and passed it over.

  ‘No, I don’t want a rep. Not yet. What questions? I nailed the guy fair and square. What questions?’

  Emmet opened the window and lit a cigarette for himself. The noise of the streets squeezed through the window and played in the background like an old, familiar song. He looked down and wondered where all those people came from at daybreak and stole away to at night. Brake lights trailed red in their wake and writhed anguineally along the road. From the opposite direction, bright lights bore down upon them like dragons and, as they passed, fire and blood mingled and rippled through the air.

  He turned away and sat back down.

  ‘Who’d you nail?’

  Frank inhaled deeply and let the smoke out slowly. What the hell was this? ‘Are you serious? The guy…’ he stuttered. ‘The murderer. The one who’s been watching me.’

  Emmet nodded, his lips tight white. ‘Well, we found a body,’ he said.

  ‘There you go! Jesus!’

  ‘You know what else we found, Frank?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘We found a wall with three bullet holes in it. One of those bullets had ricocheted off the wall and taken the smallest nick out of your jugular.’ Emmet tapped at his neck as he said it.

  Frank stared open-mouthed. ‘Bullshit! That’s bullshit. I put three holes in that guy. I was close enough to smell it.’

  ‘Did you see what he looked like?’

  ‘I told you before – sharp nineteen fifties suit, hat, six one…’

  ‘His face, Frank. What about his face?’

  ‘I didn’t see his face. I was too busy trying to stay alive. He had a knife. That’s what nicked my neck, not some wayward bullet. You’ve got his body for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘No, Frank, we have a body. We have the body of a young woman who’s been suffocated with Saran wrap and dumped in the same place we found you.’

  Emmet let that sink in a moment. He could see in Frank’s eyes that none of this made sense to him, that it was all news. Whatever the truth was, Frank believed he had been in a fight with the man who had been following him and that he had killed that man. ‘There was no body of your guy, Frank,’ continued Emmet. ‘The doctors confirm that your wound is inconsistent with a knife wound but consistent with a graze from a bullet. You fired three times at a blank wall. You were found unconscious by a unit after someone reported hearing the gunfire. They find you, they find the body of the girl not three yards away from you. They mo
ved you to look for damage and your wound threw off the clot it had made and started gushing again. They put pressure on until the paramedics arrived.’

  ‘Who found me?’

  ‘Affuso and Markham. Markham used to be a paramedic. He knew what to do.’

  Frank’s eyes danced as he tried desperately to remember the scene. He could see it all. The shadow, the hat, the knife. He could still hear the retort of the gun ringing in his ears and smell the smoke.

  ‘Why didn’t you call for assistance, Frank?’

  ‘I’d have lost the guy. You know how it is.’

  Emmet shook his head. ‘No. No I don’t know how it is and neither will IAD if they hear this.’ He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. His eyes looked out from under his brow like an eagle about to swoop. ‘Let’s run through it. You finish work and instead of going home, decide to go for a walk on the rainiest night for a month and a half…’

  ‘It wasn’t raining when I left…’

  Emmet held up a finger to shut him up. ‘By coincidence, you happen to see the guy who’s been stalking you for days. I’m assuming that’s how it happened? Right?’ Frank remained silent. ‘So you follow him into a deserted building and get into a fight with him, a fight which involves the triple discharge of your weapon into the alleged suspect, while you’re three yards away from the body of our latest victim in a series of murders.’

  He paused and waited for a reaction. None came.

  ‘Then, I’m telephoned at home at two-thirty in the morning and told that you have been found at the scene of this murder with a neck wound and your recently fired gun on the floor next to you. On the wall in front of you are three bullet holes that were apparently fired into a body that doesn’t exist. And, you have to trust me on this, we really have tried to find it, because we knew that if Frank Matto had fired his gun, it wasn’t just to hear the pop. So we looked for whatever or whoever it was that you’d let loose at. And then we looked again. But, you know what? There was nothing. Now it looks bad for two reasons.’ He counted off on his fingers. ‘You look like some sort of vigilante, stalking some guy you half-recognise through town in the middle of the night. Off duty or on duty, you risked your life by going in without back up and then you contaminate a crime scene in which a cop, that’s you, is found unconscious. You’ll have to explain what you were doing there because saying it’s all a coincidence is going to be to IAD what poking a stick up its ass is to a bear. You’re just going to make them mad, Frank.’