‘I’m coming back to town, Green, there’s one more thing I need to do.’
And for a moment, Green panicked, he imagined Walker outside his building; his men crouched outside his apartment door, ready to kill, one final fire from above, his door blowing in, the sound of gunfire; the sharp stink of smoke. His attempt at calm dissipated, he was as ready for a fight now as if he’d cornered a suspect whose one way out was past him. He was, he realised, gripping the phone too tightly.
‘What’s that, Walker?’ he said quietly. ‘Stuff another pool ball into some poor bastard’s mouth, tread on a few more lives; break more bones?’
He listened intently even as he spoke; he was imagining figures scratching around outside his apartment, the soft click of a gun’s hammer being pulled back into place, Walker’s men preparing to charge.
‘No,’ said Walker, ‘I want to atone.’
November 1980
The warehouse rose up out of the night, one side of its façade a network of metal tubes and wooden planks like industrial ivy scaling a giant tree. Green couldn’t understand the scaffolding covering one massive wall: they couldn’t rent the place before the fire had almost consumed it, but now they were rebuilding, adding flesh to the bones of the structure that remained. Insurance, maybe, he thought, too expensive to pull down, maybe? But here it was, lit with security lamps and covered in alarm warnings, rectangles of red with stop signs emblazoned across their front. Inside, the corners were lit up by industrial-sized lamps, the floor was rippled with faint grey concrete; a metal stairwell ran up one wall, the roof was almost complete now, though some night sky still got in. He remembered the last time he’d been here, broken wood underfoot, the cold night air coming through the devastated ceiling, glittering constellations hundreds of thousands of miles away sending their last light to earth, Red in the far corner, her hair spread out, exploding silently away from her head. The blood at her temple, her innate stillness, how peaceful she looked – not all crime scenes were so strangely beatific. Green remembered how he’d leant over Red’s body and had a strange and alien desire to lift her head suddenly, to cradle her for a moment before they took her away; he could imagine what his men might have been saying about that as he stepped carelessly all over their crime scene.
Walker stood against the building’s back wall, as shadowy as the ones that consumed him, staring at an unwitting Green there caught in his reverie. It was winter the last time they’d been here, Red too. Though, as Walker had discovered, she’d kept coming back to this place more and more. Red, wanting to save everyone and everything in this world, except him, walls talked to her, buildings said her name; the streets came alive as she passed. She was as intangible and as connected to the universe as anyone he’d ever met; Walker’s father might have been magical, he thought, but Red was the girl among the stars. She’d brought this place to life once, but in killing her, Walker had killed the building too; it might now be rising again as an edifice along the highway, but it was just bricks and mortar, the soul was gone out of it. Walker might have killed the thing he loved, but he’d also killed the thing she’d loved too; he took a grim satisfaction in that.
Green felt Walker behind him before he heard him. He tensed, instinctual and predatory, a feral cat caught by the sudden beam of a lit window.
‘Green, so glad you could make it. I think I’ve actually missed you.’
Green turned and there was Walker dressed in Green’s jacket that he’d taken off his unconscious body at the bottling factory. Blood still stained one lapel; it was torn, there were no buttons left on it as far as Green could tell.
‘Nice fit, don’t you think?’ said Walker, examining the collar before brushing it down; he shot the cuffs and smiled like an alligator.
‘You went out hard and fast at the factory,’ said Walker, ‘I didn’t take you for a glass-jaw kind of guy. You were unconscious for a while there, one of my boys wanted to skin you. I thought that was crass. It’s not like you could feel anything.’
‘Nothing crass about shoving a pool ball down someone’s throat then?’ said Green evenly, counting the breaths he made, centring himself, stilling his heart to a manageable rate; the queasiness in his stomach made him feel lightheaded as if he were on the deck of a ship and it had suddenly dipped in an unexpected swell.
‘The pool ball, that’s, what’s the phrase, a signature of sorts?’ said Walker; he was still and remote, immutable, unblemished by all the blood he’d spilt, by the blood that covered him.
‘My old man used to hustle at pool long after he made his millions,’ said Walker, ‘he said it gave him the common touch – that was his idea of the common touch, shaking the poor down for their last few dollars.’ He looked squarely at Green. ‘The pool ball, that’s my nod to him, the passing of the torch from one generation to the next.’ He made a shape with his hand as if he were holding a pool ball between thumb and finger, as if explaining his reasoning slowly to a child.
‘He was a remarkable man, the most fully rounded bastard I’ve ever met. Were you close to your old man, Green? Silly question, of course you were, you still are; he’s like your fucking guardian angel out there upstate, wearing his faith like some cheap watch. He was disappointed in your lack of faith, wasn’t he, let down? Do you think that’s why he didn’t come to your rescue when I was taking pot shots at your face; I ruined a perfectly good pair of gloves on you, but then I did ruin your nose too.’ Walker chuckled as if the thought had just struck him for the first time.
‘You don’t even flinch, do you? I’m standing here pissing on your back, calling out your old man, and nothing, not a flicker. I can see you in the interrogation room, those dead eyes, pure, unreflective black, all the colour run out of you, those poor bastards trying to see into you and there’s nothing to see, is there, Green?’
Walker turned on his heel as if to leave and then spun around again, walking in a straight line towards Green. Posturing, thought Green, catwalk model, fucking idiot. Walker had paused as if to gather his thoughts and was then suddenly struck by them.
‘Do you know what James said to me when I turned up with my friends to see him with a can of gas under my arm?’ asked Walker. ‘He wanted to know how I was, he was happy to see an old friend, he genuinely had no idea what I was doing there in the middle of the night with gasoline, he offered me sanctuary, maybe he thought my car had run dry and I was looking to refuel? Imagine, Green, imagine if I had turned up at your door with a container of gas – you’d have made me drink it and then beaten me half to death with the can and then you’d have done the right thing, you’d have taken my smashed, broken-down body and then you would have processed me. That’s what you do, isn’t it, process people? Push them down the pipe to their doom and then move on to the next thing.’
‘They chose that path,’ said Green. ‘I just guide them along it.’
‘She speaks! I love it when you talk back, I love it when we get to talk like this,’ said Walker with a grin. ‘Now then, let me tell you about James: even as my boys were holding him down and I was dousing him with gasoline, he told me he forgave me, he told me he loved me, that he could save me. The gas permeating his clothes, the smell of it stinking up that room, there was no fear in him. You know what I think, Green, I think he wanted to burn. His world was flames anyway, he was just another ember to add to the eternal fire.’
‘He asked me to forgive you,’ said Green, his jaw set so hard that his teeth were starting to ache.
‘You’d have to forgive yourself first for that to happen, wouldn’t you?’ said Walker. ‘For all the sins you’ve committed, hearts and hands broken, the men you’ve stood on, crushed. I bet your old man would want you to do the same thing, to forgive yourself.’
Breathe, thought Green; don’t let him in, just breathe. When he was younger an older boy at a swimming pool had held his head under the water until Green thought his skull might explode, he thrashed and thrashed to no avail and then relaxed and gave in to it, and when
the older boy could see there was no fun to be had there anymore he let him go. That’s Walker, thought Green, a lifetime of bullying, bullied by his old man and then he in turn bullied his employees, his friends, the women who tried to love him. Stand in his way and he’d happily pay someone to beat you to death, he’d happily watch it happen too; stand over the body as it faded in and out of consciousness and produce a pool ball from his pocket and force it into the man’s mouth, the muffled screams, thought Green, the snapping teeth. The ever-wronged Walker taking back what he thought was rightfully his.
Walker, sensing that he was losing his audience, stepped forward, but moved quickly back as Green’s head snapped up again at the sound of movement.
‘Attack dog,’ said Walker. ‘A big, ugly attack dog. In another life I could have hired you to work for me, to protect me, but you’d have turned on me one day, bitten the hand that feeds you, and like Moon you’d have ended up in that factory trying to bargain your way back to life. He cried, you know, like a little girl, once he knew the end was coming, once we’d got him in that place.’ He moved to the far wall, Green’s eyes following his every measured step, and picked up a wooden chair. Green wondered if he’d placed it there earlier for a moment like this. Walker dragged it back theatrically and sat down with a sigh.
‘I’d offer you a seat, but as you can see …’ Walker spread his hands out wide to indicate the echoing emptiness. ‘Imagine sleeping here, imagine what that must have felt like for Rose? The last time we spoke about her you snapped, my dear Green, do you remember? Those strong hands wrapped around my neck, banging my head against the drinks cabinet, my drinks cabinet!’ A chuckle. ‘If I didn’t know you any better, then I’d think you might have been trying to kill me. You spilt my drink.’ And only in that last moment did he sound at all slighted, almost hurt, the indignant boy angry at everything and everyone.
They were both silent then; there was the slow swish of the cars on the highway off in the distance, someone shouted a girl’s name, but its shape was lost before it got to them.
‘Someone called to tell us that Red was here that night,’ said Green. ‘That was you, wasn’t it? Even though you killed her, you couldn’t bear for her to be out here alone, you wanted someone to come and take her inside. But you couldn’t take her with you, someone had to see your handiwork, that justice was served, that she’d crossed you and that you’d settled the debt.’
‘Clichés, Green, Christ! You’re better than that!’ Walker was exultant, suddenly on his feet, head thrown back. ‘Justice served? Debts settled?’ He eased himself back into the chair and crossed one leg over the other, pausing to sniff at Green’s blood on his lapel.
‘Do you believe in the universe, Green?’ Walker stared up at the ceiling and at the pocket of sky beyond. ‘Do you believe that the universe takes as well as gives? Now I’m not talking about your God, the God that you think failed you, the God that your father brought into your house one Californian summer and tried to spoon-feed you. I’m talking about a series of weights and measures strung high up there among the clouds, things bartered and bought, things owed. I’ll tell you what the universe meant to Rose, but first let me tell you what the universe means to me. My father touched the universe; Rose touched it too, but in different ways. My father’s life was ordered, the skies spoke through him maybe, but he needed structure, the ideas of anarchy and disorder made him feel physically sick.’
‘So you brought anarchy and disorder to him?’ asked Green.
‘I gave him life, I took him outside of the boundaries of his own world,’ said Walker with his head hanging forward; his posture was that of a broken puppet, his swept-back hair now hanging down in shining strands. ‘God spoke to him and yet he lived mutely, my father built his own walls and lived discreetly behind them. I chose to break those walls down.’
Walker thought back to that final night in his father’s hospital room, still amazed at the old man’s final rattling exit – how much life had actually been left in him? When he’d appeared at his father’s bedside, the old man hadn’t even looked surprised; even as Walker prepared himself to deliver the final, metaphorical hammer blow, his father, even while taking in oxygen through a thin tube looped around his skull, told him he lacked insight, that even his desire to kill his own father was a Shakespearean cliché, that he had fulfilled his own destiny by becoming the failure his father had always imagined him to be. Walker blotted out his life as much to stop the noise as he did to take control of his father’s company.
‘Tell me about Rose,’ said Green. ‘Tell me all of it.’
‘Always the detective, Green; this is my last will and testament, I’m here to tell you everything, so that we might share this moment and see where fate might finally lead us. We’ll get there, but I’ll tell you this: it was her fault things fell apart finally, she brought out the human in me and what ungracious vermin we are. She snared me; spat me out; said I couldn’t be saved. Me, Green, as if I wanted to be saved!’ He stood up and kicked his chair back so that it went skittering along the concrete floor.
Dramatist, thought Green, idiot boy, and wondered how long he would have to listen to this until he could pin Walker to the floor, break his jaw and then take him in.
‘Dark thoughts, Detective Green?’ smiled Walker. ‘Your eyes might have died but that brooding forehead, that ever-tightening face always gives you away.
‘You got away from Rose, didn’t you, Green? You were the one she really wanted, but even you were beyond her reach. Look at us now, the men she touched, Alejandro, Hank, me, who knows how many others? Nothing but ashes, all of us; she stalked Washington Square seducing us, taking us in. The first time she spoke to me I never made the connection that she was one of Bulley’s flock, the very monster I’d created, the monster I finally killed! Christ, if only I hadn’t crossed the park that day, Green; she took my wrist, I let her touch me, she made me vulnerable, can you imagine?’
*
It was a rare for Walker to be out of his car or his glass-walled office, but that morning, returning from a meeting, he’d ordered his driver to go through the city so that he might gather his thoughts before he had to return and face his old man and explain once again why he wanted to push the company forward in one direction while his father still clung to the past, forever formulating words for the world to speak. I’m an antenna, the old man would say, I’m tuned into the universe – crediting the sky for his gifts, but still revelling in all their glories, happy to have their praise heaped on him and to reap the rewards. Washington Square was quiet; still, Walker couldn’t remember the last time he was truly still. And then Rose was there, he saw a flash of copper hair out of the corner of his eye, long, curling tresses that billowed mutely and then she was seated next to him; he glanced furtively sideways to take in the green of her eyes and she was staring directly at him, into him.
‘You look,’ she said, ‘like you could use a friend.’ Her hand was at his wrist, just lightly enough that he could move his arm away if he chose, but he let it sit, suddenly itchy yet thrilled. She was beautiful, the focus of her face her piercing eyes, the red of her long hair framing her pale features; he couldn’t see beyond her anymore, in that moment the city fell out of sight, he felt consumed. And then he shook her and it off, stalking across Washington Square looking out for his driver and car, looking to get away; he felt pursued, like the runt in the pack suddenly marked out for death. This, he thought, suddenly breathless, is ridiculous. He bought women and then gave them away, closed down any kind of feeling, hid them out of sight. How many times had he heard the phrase ‘piece of shit’ or something similar as the elevator doors had closed quietly and he’d smiled, happy the negotiation was finished, the contract complete and to his advantage.
‘Where are you going?’ Rose said, and as she stopped to wait for his reply he knew that if he turned to answer her then he had lost the upper hand; that he had acquiesced. He spent his life negotiating, dealing cards, playing the dead-eyed mon
ster that never caved in; he always had the last word. People said he was made of stone and he liked that, liked to feel them reaching out for him only to have them recoil on contact. And so what was this? This strange woman who had reached out for him on a park bench – he often wondered later what might have happened if he hadn’t stopped that day, if he’d stayed in the car, if he’d never met Rose, opened himself up like a wound and let her see him bleed, taste his blood. And so he had turned and she had smiled at him and asked his name and in giving her that he had, briefly and eventually, given her everything.
*
‘But you knew Bulley, you must have known what the church was about, what Red was selling?’ said Green; a light rain had started coming in through the corner of the warehouse where the roof remained unfinished. He watched it smearing the floor.
‘I never went there, I never went inside there, I should say; I knew that was where Bulley did his work’ – Walker made ironic inverted commas with his fingers. ‘She talked about her leader, her priest, about him, but I never went to that basement, I’d had enough of cults and religions and people gathering in groups like cowed livestock hoping to be spared, to be saved.’ He was venomous now, stung by something, he was on the attack.
‘I told her she could try and save me, that I’d read her flyer …’ Walker reached into the pocket of his coat and fished out a glossy, thin pamphlet, bent and pored over a hundred times, its corners now losing their colour. ‘This flyer,’ he waved it weakly around. ‘She said that if I read it, if I truly took it in, that maybe she could persuade me to visit the basement with her, and I agreed, but only if she’d go for a drink with me first. I thought I was playing her – what’s the phrase, love makes fools of us all? If that’s the case, then I was a complete fucking idiot.’
The Death & Life of Red Henley Page 19