Pulse

by Michael Harvey

  “Just because they didn’t hurt you doesn’t mean they won’t,” Daniel said.

  Barkley sat again. The dogs collapsed back into their bones, listening to the hum of the boy’s thoughts and watching the huge black man like he was their next meal.

  “I can’t stay here, Daniel. You know that.”

  “Walter Price didn’t kill Harry.”

  The boy knew Price’s name. Barkley wasn’t surprised. “You’re wrong.”

  “Whatever you think you see, you don’t. And whatever you don’t see can hurt you.”

  “What the Christ does that mean?”

  Daniel pulled out a second gun he kept somewhere behind him and put it next to Barkley’s.

  “He’s in the basement. The dogs led me there.”

  “But you didn’t shoot him. Why’s that?”

  Daniel stroked a shelf of bone between the Presa’s eyes. “You think I killed my mother.”

  Barkley felt a tingling somewhere deep in his skull. The dogs’ ears stood up.

  “Tell me about her, Daniel.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Maybe I’m playing a hunch.”

  The boy slid a small object across the floor. It spun as it skittered, a ring, red enamel, encrusted with diamonds in the shape of a rose. “She was wearing that when she died.”

  Barkley stared at the ring but didn’t touch it.

  “Pick it up, Detective.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I told you. My mom was wearing it when she died. Pick it up.”

  Barkley shook his head. The boy’s gaze narrowed and the Presas muscled up, one climbing to his feet, nostrils flared, breath bubbling low in his throat.

  “I know about the fire escape, Detective. I’ve seen Jess fall.”

  “Fuck off, Daniel.”

  The other Presa was up now, straining to get at Barkley, held fast by an invisible chain fashioned by the boy. He flicked his finger and the dog charged, scuttling close and stopping an inch or two from the detective’s face. Barkley could feel the Presa’s hot exhaust on his neck and kept his eyes averted.

  “You gonna let them tear me up, go ahead and get on with it.”

  Daniel lifted his chin as the dog retreated and Barkley felt his hand close over the ring. He was there, sitting in his kitchen on the top floor of the Roxbury tenement, windows flung open to the city, a summer breeze billowing sheer white curtains across the room in lovely, liquid streams. He could see Jess through the lacy mesh. She was at the stove, making pancakes and shimmying to a song Barkley couldn’t hear but knew was Gladys cuz what else could it be. And then he saw who was helping with the batter. Long limbs, soft curls like her mom. She turned, warm and supple in the morning sun, and Barkley saw she had her dad’s smile. And then he couldn’t see anymore. Not because he couldn’t. But because he couldn’t. And so he released the ring and the boy was back, crouched close in the darkness.

  “My mother says you’re damaged. Says you need time to heal.”

  “Does she really?”

  “Yes, but that’s probably not gonna happen tonight.” Daniel picked up the ring, putting Barkley’s gun in its place. “You need to go.”

  “In a minute.”

  “Go. Your partner’s in trouble.” Daniel turned and left, one dog in the lead, the other following.

  Barkley clipped the gun back on his hip, grabbed the flashlight, and climbed to his feet. Already what he’d seen was fading, the threads of a fever dream trailing off into the mist. Maybe it was for the best. Or maybe we tell ourselves what it is we need to hear.

  He’d just reached the top of the stairs when he heard the first shot.

  34

  DANIEL SLIPPED down the alley. To his right was a fenced-in yard full of cold metal—engine blocks and steel frames, hunks of pipe and chains and random pieces of scrap, all of it painted in lashings of white and purple light. A howl of wind swept down off the roofs and the Presas froze. The one Daniel thought of as the leader leaped the high fence in one movement. The other followed before the first hit the ground. Daniel listened for some sound of their passage and heard nothing but the night. The Presas did their own bidding and that was as it was.

  He started to walk again, coming to the place where the alley joined the street. A mustard-colored Caddy with a white vinyl roof swept around a bend, cruising past before stopping and backing up. A car full of black men in Boston got watched everywhere it went. Except in the Bury. Here they did the watching.

  Daniel could hear the thump of a bass line as a window rolled down. He still had Walter Price’s gun tucked under his sweatshirt. His hand drifted toward it as one of the Caddy’s heavy doors rocked open. Then the Presas were back—the first vaulting a ragged row of bushes and circling Daniel before placing himself between the boy and the car; the other crossing in front of the Caddy and sitting in the street, just beyond the reach of the car’s headlights. Daniel could hear voices arguing. A man leaned out of the rear window and pointed a gun at the dog in front of Daniel. The Presa stood up and waited, aware of death and unconcerned, brave as only a dog can be. The front door swung closed and the gun disappeared. Then the Caddy was gone, disappearing in a taste of oil and smoke.

  Daniel knelt and put his forehead to the Presa’s, feeling the simplicity of his needs, the nakedness of his wants, life shorn of artifice and full of all its raw, elemental power. It should have been terrifying, but Daniel craved it and celebrated it and tried to understand something he knew before he could ever remember and would never fully know again until he’d passed beyond all understanding.

  He walked the rest of the way down the block, one dog ahead, the other leaning up against him. Around the corner a second car waited, this one a silver BMW. Grace stepped from the passenger’s side, and Daniel realized for once and forever that it wasn’t going to be a teenage romance, no lovestruck, star-crossed, thunderbolt Romeo and Juliet deal. Wouldn’t be a slow ripening either. They wouldn’t find each other again and again—friends in high school, then dating in college, breaking up, realizing the mutual error of their ways and circling back to each other, this time for good. She’d never bear him children. They’d never grow old. Nope, this was it. Her stepping from the car and standing in an ugly stab of street light, urging him to hurry while the wind tugged and she pushed her hair back behind her ear. Him running, the dogs peeling away and disappearing as quickly as they’d appeared while he climbed into the car. Her never asking why, never asking how, never asking who, just turning and staring at him over the back of the seat as the years and decades and lifetimes flowed past and nothing ever changed as everything moved underneath and around them and they played their part and spoke their lines over and over. He was sixteen, falling in love and getting his heart broken all at once, for the first time and the last. And there was nothing to be done, save miss her for a million moments in the space of a breath and know he’d do anything for it. Again and again.

  “You okay?”

  Daniel glanced at the driver. “I’m fine, Ben. You didn’t have to come.”

  Ben Jacob’s intelligent eyes stared at Daniel from the rearview mirror. “What else did I have to do?” He’d grabbed his father’s car and driven it into Roxbury in the ass end of a winter’s night and Daniel would never be able to thank him enough. But Grace would. Daniel could see that, too, just as clearly as the other. For a second he fought it. Then the idea found its place in his heart and he loved both of them for what they were and where they were going, but mostly because they were here when no one else was. Ben put the car in gear.

  “The police are in there.” Daniel nodded and all three watched the three-decker as it slipped past.

  “Did they arrest someone?” Ben said.

  “I don’t know. I think it’s complicated.” Daniel turned to Grace. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I told you. I get feelings, too.”

  “We followed you,” Ben said. “Lost you in Franklin Park, but Grace said to
cruise Dudley Square. And here you are.”

  Grace put out her hand and Daniel placed Walter Price’s revolver in it. She took a quick look. So did Ben as he drove. Then Grace stuck it in the glove compartment.

  “The police are gonna be looking for that,” Daniel said. “Maybe me as well.”

  “I don’t think they’ll be looking in the backseat of a BMW driven by a sixteen-year-old Jewish kid from the ’burbs.” Ben’s grin lit up the mirror.

  “Probably not.”

  “All right, then. Keep your head down and lock the door. Grace, how the hell do I get out of here?”

  35

  BARKLEY HIT the bottom of the stairs as the echo of another shot thumped off the walls. He thought about calling it in but just kept moving, through a small room and down a tight corridor. At the very end a door stood ajar. Barkley didn’t hesitate. In the Bury hesitation only got you dead. He ducked low and shouldered through, the walnut grip of the Smith & Wesson slick and rough at the same time in his hand. Tommy Dillon was planted in the middle of the room, legs spread slightly, right arm extended as he fired a final time into the crumpled body of a young black man. Tommy dropped his arm to his side, service weapon hanging from his fingertips. Barkley moved in a slow circle, his gun not pointed at his partner but not holstered either. He waited until Tommy could see him before speaking.

  “Hey, bud.”

  “I came in and he took the shot.”

  “How many did you fire?”

  A small rise and drop in the shoulders. “Dunno. Five, maybe.”

  Meaning he had one left. Barkley took a step closer. “I’m gonna need to take the weapon.”

  Tommy looked down at the gun in his hand and tossed it near Barkley’s feet. There was a second piece by the body. A .25-caliber Baby Browning. Looked like a toy. Barkley checked the magazine, then searched the pockets of the kid until he found a license. Walter Joseph Price. Nineteen years old and very much dead.

  “We should call it in.” Tommy’s face played flat in the tinfoil light.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Just did.”

  “Ain’t gonna fly, bud.”

  “No?”

  “Not unless I back it up. So tell it to me straight and make it the truth.”

  “You fucking serious, B? After all we done?”

  “He fired once, Tommy. You put five in his chest. The last from about two feet away after the man was dead.”

  “You seen what he done to that kid.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Just what I said. He fired. I put him down.” Tommy was still wired, breath hissing through narrow slits in his nose. “Gimme his gun.”

  “Why?”

  “Why you think? We pop off a few more rounds. Make it look like the fucking OK Corral. No one’s gonna care, B. Gimme the piece.” Tommy held out his hand as something stirred in the reptilian part of Barkley’s brain and he knew this guy could kill him, right here in the fucking cellar. And it wouldn’t even be a surprise. Outside there was noise in the alley. Someone had heard the shots. Tommy flicked his fingers impatiently.

  “Give me the fucking gun, B. You call it in and deal with the locals.”

  Barkley handed over the service weapon and the Browning. Then he left the cellar. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the winding scream of a siren. Closer, much closer, the pop, pop, pop of a pistol as Tommy Dillon staged his one-man shooting war.

  Part III

  36

  4:54 A.M.

  GRACE SAT in the curve of the doorway, staring at the black face of the apartment building, a lonesome rectangle of canary yellow floating in the middle of the second floor. It was the third night she’d been out there. The third night she’d watched Simon Lane pacing against the darkness. He paused in the eye of the window and Grace felt the pressure of his gaze. He couldn’t possibly see her tucked up in the alcove that marked the entrance to Music City. Could he?

  She shrank back against the rough cement and ran her fingertips over the architecture of his mind. The thing was a puzzle, a gleaming hall of mirrors riveted with narrow staircases, some leading up, some plunging down, one circling back on another, and everywhere she looked, Grace saw only herself. Was she truly inside his head, or he in hers? Was there a difference between the two?

  Grace closed her eyes and lifted her chin, the better to drink in the morning air. She hadn’t seen Daniel, hadn’t spoken to him since the night in Roxbury more than a week ago. Still, she could feel his presence and knew he was sleeping somewhere inside the apartment. The idea soothed her. Calmed her. Grace’s eyes flicked open. The window was empty, the front door to the building swinging wide on its hinges. Simon floated down the steps, gliding to a stop under a streetlight. She could see him clearly, wrapped in a long swath of coat with a red scarf and black watch cap tugged down over his face. He took out a pipe and knocked it on his heel. Then he filled and lit it, streaming a crest of smoke that circled his head as he looked directly at her. The clock on the insurance building clicked over to 5:07. He turned and walked away, sliding down Beacon Street, deeper into the oiled joints of the city. Grace stepped from her hiding place. He’d known about her all along. And now he was telling her to follow. It was the price she’d pay for Daniel’s safety.

  And so she went.

  He moved incredibly fast, a gritty wind funneling him down Beacon, his thoughts reduced to a mumble in her head as she tried to keep up. He was twenty yards ahead when, without warning, he dipped into a side street. Grace sprinted to the corner and stared down an empty block sealed off at the end by a tumble of stone standing big-shouldered against a growing sky. The building looked like an old New England meetinghouse or church, bounded by a black fence and flanked by iron-gray trees with sinuous branches that grew into the sides of the structure and overhung the roof.

  Grace paused at the gate and listened. The silence ran wild in her blood, pounding at her temples and dilating the soft veins in her throat. The only marker on the building was a year, 1789, carved into a lintel set over the wooden door. Grace tugged at the door’s handle. To her dismay and relief, the thing was locked.

  She sat in a finger of street light, one step down from the top, and stared out at silken skeins—fear, desire, anxiety, confusion—flitting in and out of the trees, flying up into the branches and back across the courtyard. The smell of pipe smoke arrived on the ragged edge of a breeze, then a melody of thumps as something landed lightly behind her.

  The big cat took his time, circling in and out of sight, drifting a silvered tail across Grace’s cheek before coming up on the other side and angling close enough so she could hear the muzzled breathing that might have been a purr and might have been a growl. The cat’s face was cut close to the bone, one eye a dry, unblinking blue, the other bleached and blind to the world. Grace watched the cat’s black and white whiskers tremor as he kneaded meaty paws, shoulder muscles tensing and bunching and working. The cat peeled back his lips, if cats had lips—Grace knew nothing about cats, except she knew after tonight she’d never have one—and showed his teeth, licking the side of her face with a coarse tongue. For the first time, Grace noticed the others—five, ten, twenty sets of eyes assembled from bits and pieces of darkness and arranged in receding circles around her, watching their leader as he jumped onto a stone railing and switched his tail. The word subtle came to mind, like the cat had decided to play with Grace before snapping her neck and feeding her to his friends. Then something whispered in the trees and the cat leaped without warning, bared claws hunting for anything soft, anything breathing, anything flesh, anything Grace.

  She screamed and ducked, the cat flying past, tumbling and rolling down the steps in that elegant way cats always seem to fall. Somewhere at the end of a narrow tunnel was the gate and the street. Grace ran for it, felines coiling and closing on all sides, swiping and hissing as she fled. And then she was down the block and around the corner, sprinting through the empty city. Up ahead, Kenmore Squa
re beckoned and teased and laughed at Grace’s fears and Grace’s foolishness. Behind her, pipe smoke eddied and swirled and she could taste it following in her wake.

  37

  THE PUBLIC Gardens were mostly empty, Bostonians reduced to scuffs of gray as they hurried through the Arlington Street gate. Fat clouds scudded overhead, greased by a soft wind and sullen with the promise of winter rain. Barkley sipped his drink from the safety of a window seat in the bar at the Ritz. Cat McShane sat across from him, looking like she was in her own private Bogart movie as she toyed with the stem of the cherry atop her ginger ale. They’d given it to her in a tall glass loaded with crushed ice. Cat pointed her eyes at Barkley’s tumbler, short, squat, and full of mind-numbing scotch.

  “Are we going to eat, or is it that kind of thing?”

  He’d bought meatballs and sauce in the North End. A bottle of Chianti. Cannolis from Bova’s. Figured they’d have dinner at his place. Afterward, maybe a walk in the neighborhood. Forget about the day and live for the night. Just him and Cat. Then the hearing happened, and Barkley decided to drink his lunch instead.

  “You go ahead and order,” he said.

  The DA’s office had set up Tommy Dillon at a conference table ten feet away while one of their prosecutors ran out the dog, then the pony, then the dog again just for good measure. Afterward, there’d been a meeting in another room and then the official finding. Tommy was cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting death of Walter Price. Pending some paperwork, he’d be back on the street by the end of the day.

  “They read your report into the record,” Barkley said.

  Cat nodded as a waiter came over and dropped off a menu. “I did my job, Bark.” He lifted a finger to speak, but Cat wasn’t done. “Full autopsy, detailed wound descriptions, entry and exit angles. It’s all there.”

  “You saw my statement?”

  “Of course.”