by Harry Dolan
She would try to reason with him, stall him. It was the best she could do.
“Mr. Peltier.”
He took a step back from Loogan and turned to look at her.
“Think about what you’re doing,” she said.
David Loogan chuckled then. An unexpected sound.
“Oh, he’s thought about it,” Loogan said. “He’s been thinking about it for years. He’s been working up the nerve.”
Peltier stood impassively. The golden light cast half his face into shadow.
“He used to throw rocks through my windows,” Loogan said. “Used to call me in the middle of the night. Always from a public phone, always untraceable. And he never said a word. The police could do nothing about it. After a while, I moved away. I changed my name. I’m almost grateful to him for that. I never much liked being Darrell Malone.”
Elizabeth studied the easy set of Loogan’s shoulders. He looked relaxed for a man with his hands cuffed behind his back. She allowed herself to hope that he might have a plan. He was a juggler. Dexterous. Perhaps he had other skills. Perhaps, somehow, he was picking the locks of the handcuffs even now. 2 8 4 h a r r y
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He was still talking: “Mr. Peltier and I have been out of touch for six years. I thought maybe he had mellowed. He’d come to grips with what happened. But I guess not. Here he is, primed to shoot me. That’s a far cry from prank phone calls. But I think I understand. You got old, Jim. Time’s running out. If you don’t do it now, you might never do it.”
“If I were you, I’d keep still,” Peltier said in his gruff smoker’s voice. “I’d think about the state of my soul. I’d try to get myself right with God.”
“I feel like talking, Jim. When are we going to have a chance to talk again?”
“I’ve heard enough of you talking. I sat through two days of it at the trial.” Peltier drew the gun from his waistband and glanced at Elizabeth.
“He testified at his trial. He told them exactly what he did to my son. He didn’t even try to deny it. And they let him go anyway.”
“I’d like to hear about it, Mr. Peltier,” she said calmly. “Why don’t you sit, and we’ll talk about it?”
His expression showed his disappointment. “That’s not going to work. You’re not going to talk me out of it. And I don’t care to listen to him.”
“You and I can talk,” she said. “I’d like to hear what you have to say.”
“Talking won’t do any good.”
Loogan broke in. “You heard him, Elizabeth. He doesn’t want to talk. And he doesn’t want to listen. I killed his son. Jimmy Wade. I was there in his last moments. I heard his last words. But Jim here’s not interested.”
Peltier pointed the gun at him accusingly. “That’s a lie. Jimmy didn’t say any last words.”
“Of course he did.”
“You’re trying to buy yourself time. You never said anything about last words at the trial.”
“It’s something I kept quiet about at the trial. Because what he said wouldn’t have helped my case.”
Peltier aimed the gun at Loogan’s heart. “What did he say?”
“That’s not how it’s going to work,” said Loogan. “I’ll tell the story my own way, from the beginning.”
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“Tell me now, or I’ll shoot you.”
Loogan sat very still and said in a low voice, “You’ll shoot me anyway. I know I’m going to die. But so are you, Jim. Both of us are dying men. Do you want to die without hearing your son’s last words?”
The nine-millimeter held steady. Peltier’s face was impossible to read.
“What harm can it do to hear him out?” Elizabeth said. “You’re in control here. You can show some mercy.”
“He doesn’t deserve mercy.”
“Justice then,” she said. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re not a killer. You’re an executioner. He deserves to die.”
“That’s right. He does.”
“But even a condemned man has the right to make a statement. That’s the law.”
Without looking at her Peltier said, “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to save him. He’s not worth saving.” The gun stayed steady, then fell a fraction of an inch, then dropped gradually to Peltier’s side. “You can listen to him if you like. It won’t change anything. When he’s done, I’m going to shoot him. You can arrest me after. I don’t really care what happens to me, so long as he’s dead.”
In the next moments, as Loogan began to tell his story, Elizabeth knew for certain that there was no grand plan. He didn’t have the skill to pick a handcuff lock, and he had nothing to pick it with anyway. He could only play for time, try to draw out the last minutes of his life.
“It happened in the summer,” he said. “Nine years ago. June twenty-first. I went out that night with Charlotte Rittenour. Charlotte had a beautiful face. People have done studies about what makes faces beautiful. It’s mostly symmetry and proportion. High cheekbones and wide-set eyes and just the right distance between the mouth and the bottom of the chin. Charlotte’s face was perfect. That’s not opinion. I think it could be proven mathematically.”
James Peltier stood back by the sofa, well out of reach of either Loogan or Elizabeth. He held the gun down by his side, but his finger rested on the trigger.
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There were frames behind him on the wall—rectangles of glass. Sean Wrentmore’s black-and-white photographs. Grim, sober, defiant faces.
“Charlotte met me for dinner at an Italian restaurant,” Loogan said. “It was our first date. The waitress put a basket of rolls on the table and when Charlotte and I threatened to run out of conversation I picked out three and started juggling them. My one trick. It went over well, and later on the waitress brought three little bottles of Perrier and I did it again. I made kind of a stir. Darrell Malone, entertainer. Charlotte seemed amused.
“We went to a movie after, but I couldn’t tell you the plot. What I remember is sitting close to her in the dark and waiting for something bright to come on the screen so I could turn and look at her face.
“It was late when the movie let out. I walked her to her car—we were parked in the same garage. But when we got there she wanted to go to the top and look at the stars. We got up there and she pointed out a radio tower in the distance. It wasn’t far from the house where she lived as a kid. She talked about her family then, and growing up, and I talked a little about my work. I was a structural engineer. I had consulted on the construction of the parking garage we were standing on. She was interested in that, miraculously, and I spent a few minutes explaining to her what kept the garage from collapsing beneath our feet.
“I’m not sure how that led to kissing. It was a fine night, and clear, and we were alone in a high place under the stars. We got carried away, I guess. Lost track of our surroundings. And that’s the way Jimmy Wade Peltier found us.”
Loogan turned suddenly toward Elizabeth. “I don’t know what Jim told you about his son—”
“I told her what she needed to know.”
“He wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout—”
“You’re on thin ice,” Peltier said, tapping the barrel of the gun against his side. “You better get along to the end. You don’t have much time left.”
Loogan took a long breath before resuming. “He’d been raising hell, before he ever got to us. Jimmy Wade. The police went back and retraced his b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n
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movements afterward. He clocked in and out of five bars that night. Got into a scuffle with a college student, chipped the kid’s tooth. Tried to pick up at least two waitresses, and struck out with both. By midnight, when he broke in on us at the top of the parking garage, he was drunk, and high on crystal meth.”
“I told her that,” Peltier snapped. “I never pretended Jimmy was perfect.”
“No, I think
you’d have to say he was slightly imperfect. Also, he was stranded. He had hitched a ride into town with a friend of a friend, who had promptly abandoned him. So when he found Charlotte and me, he was looking for a car.
“There happened to be a single car on the top level of the parking garage. It didn’t belong to either one of us, but we were standing near it so Jimmy made an assumption. The first words out of his mouth were a demand: He wanted our keys. He startled us out of the clinch we were in, and as soon as I got a look at him I didn’t like him. I took a step forward to get between him and Charlotte.
“He was thin and pallid and his shirt had a tear from the fight he’d been in. His hand came out of his pocket and there was a flash and a twist of metal and suddenly he was holding a knife.
“ ‘Car keys,’ he said again. ‘Right now.’
“I made the mistake of trying to reason with him. ‘That’s not our car,’
I said.
“ ‘Don’t fuck with me,’ he said. ‘Gimme the keys.’
“Charlotte was more sensible. She got her key ring out of her handbag and stepped around me. ‘The man wants keys,’ she said. ‘Give him keys.’
“He didn’t take the keys. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward him.
“ ‘Smart girl,’ he said to her. ‘Too smart for this bozo you’re with. You should take a ride with me.’ ”
Loogan had been talking with his eyes held shut, as if to remember better. Now he opened them. “Several things happened then. She tried to pull 2 8 8 h a r r y
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away, but he kept his grip. Without thinking, I reached for his right hand, the one that held the knife. I felt a sting and drew my arm back. Charlotte stomped a heel hard on his foot and broke away from him and took off running across the parking deck. He let out a yell and chased after her. I froze for a second. There was a six-inch slash along my forearm. It wasn’t deep and didn’t even hurt that much, but as I looked at it blood started to well up along the length of it.
“Charlotte might have made it if she had gone for the stairs, but she didn’t feel right about abandoning me. There was a phone in the elevator alcove—an emergency phone—and she snatched up the receiver. She realized too late that the cord had been cut. The line was dead in her hand. She spun around and Peltier was on her. She swung the receiver at his face, but he caught it on his shoulder. It hurt him enough to make him angry. He shoved her into the wall, yanked her hair, put his knife to her throat.
“By then I had come to my senses. I had lost a few seconds, mesmerized by the sight of my own blood. But now I approached him, cautiously. I called out to him—I’m not sure I even used words. It was like trying to get the attention of a wild animal. He turned around warily, put Charlotte between us. The knife at her throat.
“I stopped a few feet away from him, showed him my empty hands.
“ ‘Back off,’ he said.
“I took a step back.
“ ‘I’m taking the car,’ he said.
“ ‘Take it,’ I said.
“ ‘And the girl,’ he said.
“I shook my head. ‘You can’t expect us to go along with that.’
“I watched his fingers flutter as he loosened and tightened his grip on the handle of the knife. Charlotte strained against him, trying to tuck her chin down toward her chest.
“ ‘I guess you’re right,’ he said. Then his knuckles went white and he slashed with the knife and she screamed and he pushed her roughly to the ground.
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“Next thing I remember I was on my knees beside her. Blood on my hands and her eyes were closed. Her head had struck the pavement hard. But when I put my cheek next to her mouth I could feel her breath. I got a handkerchief out of my pocket and tried to stanch the bleeding. That didn’t get me very far.
“I had my jacket off when Jimmy Wade reappeared. He had figured out that Charlotte’s keys wouldn’t open the car. He stood over me with his knife.
“ ‘I’m only going to ask this once more,’ he said. ‘Give me your keys.’
“I reached into my pocket and tossed them up to him without thinking. I hoped he would go away. But he singled out the key to my car and said,
‘This is for a Toyota. That car’s a Mazda. Do you think I’m stupid?’
“I had an answer for that, but it wouldn’t have calmed him. So I explained to him once more that the car wasn’t mine. I handed him my wallet, hoping he would take it and go. I reached for Charlotte’s handbag, which was on the ground beside me, thinking I would give Peltier her wallet too.
“I reached in and felt something wet, and for a moment I thought that blood had somehow gotten into her handbag. But it wasn’t that. She had taken a bottle of Perrier from the restaurant—one of the three I had juggled—
and the bottle had broken when she fell.
“I got out her wallet and passed it to Jimmy Wade, and while he was looking it over I wrapped my fist around the neck of the broken bottle and brought it out and jammed the jagged edge of it into his thigh.
“He sank to his knees then and let loose the knife. I left the bottle in his thigh and looked down at the silver blade where it had fallen. I saw the shape of him reflected in it. Then my own face. I picked up the knife and drove it into his stomach and drew it out again and I swear it came out clean. He gasped and fell toward me and I drove it into him again and he wrapped his arms around me in a weak embrace and I could feel his breathing on my neck. I kept at it until I could feel all his weight against me and then I got out from under him and eased him to the pavement. The knife stayed where it was.
“I staggered up to my feet. Charlotte was still unconscious. There was a 2 9 0 h a r r y
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good deal of blood and I didn’t know then if she would live. She needed help, so I had to go look for a phone. My clothes were stained with Peltier’s blood and if anyone had seen me on the stairs I don’t know what they would have thought. But no one saw me. I found a phone one level down and got through right away to a 911 operator. She promised an ambulance. I left the receiver dangling and went back up to the top.
“Charlotte was awake when I returned. She had managed to sit up and had her back against the wall near the elevator. One hand rested at the base of her throat, the other at her cheek. Blood trickled down her wrist. The sight of me must have frightened her—she slid herself sideways along the wall. I crouched down, told her help was coming.
“After a few seconds she got over the shock of seeing me. Slowly she peeled her hand away from her face. The knife had missed her throat. It had sliced a long curve that started below her ear and passed over her cheek and along her jaw. I found out later that Peltier had cut her clear to the bone. Her face had already begun to swell. She kept her hand away and lifted her chin and whispered a question. ‘How bad?’
“I didn’t expect it. I should have. If I had been prepared I might have handled it better. But she saw something in my eyes. I got the words right.
‘It’s not bad,’ I told her. ‘You’ll be fine.’ But my eyes betrayed me, because I knew it was bad, and I wasn’t at all sure that she would be fine. She turned her face away from me then and I knew that something good was gone. Whatever we had gained that night was lost, it was over, and nothing would be the same.
“I heard the sirens then, the police and the ambulance, faintly at first but growing closer. I stood up, half intending to go watch for them, but just then Jimmy Wade Peltier stirred. If he had stayed still, he might have lived, they might have saved him. But as I watched, he planted his palms, he dragged his knees along the hard concrete until he was up on all fours. The palm of his right hand separated itself from the ground and hovered in the air, trembling. He got control of it slowly and sent it trailing along his chest, along his stomach, until it found the knife.
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“The fingers closed around the handle and his b
reath caught and the blade began to slide free of his flesh. I got down beside him and our eyes met and he adjusted his grip on the knife and drew the last slow inches out of him. His knuckles dragged along the concrete and his fingers went slack and there was a click of metal on stone. He closed his eyes and I reached for the knife. I looked at Charlotte but she had turned away from me. There was no one watching.
“Then the sirens suddenly went quiet and patiently with my fingers I hunted for a space between his ribs. And Jimmy Wade’s eyes came open and I found what I was searching for and sank the blade in.”
Sometime in the course of Loogan’s story, Elizabeth found that the light of the table lamp had ceased to flicker, her muscles had ceased to twitch. A mild ache remained in her shoulders, the consequence of having her hands cuffed behind her back. With the end of the story, in the silence that followed, she had a strange thought: He would be feeling the same ache. She looked up and saw that James Peltier hadn’t moved. He was still there by the sofa, with the picture frames behind him. He still held her ninemillimeter. She saw his heavy-lidded eyes and thought for a second that Loogan’s story had somehow put him to sleep. But it wasn’t so. He was awake. The story had done nothing to him, unless it had borne down upon his body, bowed his head, bent his back.
Loogan himself sat patiently. His words had gained him time, but nothing more. They hadn’t saved his life. It would be different, Elizabeth thought, if this were a story in Gray Streets. She thought again of the shotgun that Loogan had laid on the front steps, that Peltier had left there. If this were a story, some conscientious passerby would have seen the shotgun and called the police. They would have come, and they would have recognized the address—Sean Wrentmore’s condo. They would have seen her car in the parking lot.
Carter Shan would have come, and Harvey Mitchum, and all her col-2 9 2 h a r r y d o l a n
leagues. Owen McCaleb himself. They would have cordoned the place off and surrounded it. All without sirens or lights, without tipping James Peltier off. And one of them would have come in—it would be Carter. He would have come in through the sliding glass door of Wrentmore’s bedroom. He would have stalked through to the hallway without a sound and he would have come down the hallway toward the living room, and he would be there now, with a clear shot at Peltier. He would be behind Peltier and off to the side, and Peltier wouldn’t see him. And Carter would wait until Peltier raised the gun, and then he would take the shot.