Charlie Parker Collection 1

by John Connolly

  ‘Billy,’ I said sharply.

  He looked up at me. ‘I fucked up,’ he said, ‘didn’t I?’ Then he went back to humming his song.

  ‘I don’t know, Billy. I need you to tell me about the man you saw, the old man. Describe him to me.’

  Jennings’s voice came from behind me. ‘Parker, get away from the prisoner.’

  I ignored him. ‘You listening to me, Billy?’

  He was rocking back and forth, still humming, his hands wrapped around his body ‘Yeah, I hear you.’ He screwed his face up in concentration. ‘It’s hard. I didn’t but hardly see him. He was . . . old.’

  ‘Try harder, Billy. Short? Tall?’

  The humming started again, then stopped. ‘Tall,’ he said, during the pause. ‘Maybe as tall as me.’

  ‘Slim? Stocky?’

  ‘Thin. He was a thin guy, but lean, y’know?’ He stood, interested now, trying hard to picture the figure he had seen.

  ‘What about his hair?’

  ‘Shit, I don’t know from hair . . .’ He went back to his song, but now he added the words, only half forming some of them as if he were not entirely familiar with them.

  ‘Come all you fair and tender ladies

  Take warning how you court your man . . .’

  And I recognised the song at last: ‘Fair and Tender Ladies’. Gene Clark had sung it, with Carla Olson, although the song itself was much older. With the recognition came the remembrance of where I had heard it before: Meade Payne had been humming it as he walked back to his house.

  ‘Billy,’ I said. ‘Have you been out at Meade Payne’s place?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know no Meade Payne.’

  I clutched the bars of the cell. ‘Billy, this is important. I know you were heading out to Meade. You won’t get him into trouble by admitting it.’

  He looked at me and sighed. ‘I didn’t get out there. They picked me up before I even got into town.’

  I spoke softly and distinctly, trying to keep the tension out of my voice. ‘Then where did you hear that song, Billy?’

  ‘What song?’

  ‘The song you’re humming, “Fair and Tender Ladies”. Where did you hear it?’

  ‘I don’t recall.’ He looked away, and I knew that he did recall it.

  ‘Try.’

  He ran his hands through his hair, gripping the tangled locks at the back as if afraid of what his hands might do if he didn’t find some way to occupy them, and began to rock back and forth again. ‘The old man, the one I saw at Rita’s place, I think he might have been singing it, soft-like, to himself. I can’t get the damned thing out of my head.’ He started to cry.

  I felt my throat go dry. ‘Billy, what does Meade Payne look like?’

  ‘What?’ he asked. He looked genuinely puzzled. From behind me, I heard Jennings say: ‘I’m warning you for the last time, Parker. Get away from the prisoner.’ His footsteps sounded as he walked toward me.

  ‘That’s Meade over there, in that picture on the wall,’ said Billy, standing up as he spoke. He pointed to the framed photograph of three men which hung on the wall near the front desk, a similar version of the picture that hung in the diner but with only two faces instead of three. I walked over to it, nudging Rand Jennings out of my way as I went. In the middle of the group was a young man in a US Marines uniform, his right arm around Rand Jennings, his left arm around an elderly man who grinned back with pride at the lens. A plaque below the photograph read ‘Patrolman Daniel Payne, 1967 – 1991’.

  Rand Jennings. Daniel Payne. Meade Payne. Except the old man in the picture was short, about five-six, stooped and gentle-eyed, with a crown of white hair surrounding a bald head marked with liver spots. His face was mapped with a hundred lines.

  He was not the man that I had met at the Payne house.

  And slowly, tumblers began to fall in my mind.

  Everybody had a dog. Meade Payne had mentioned it in his letter to Billy, but I had seen no dog when I was out there. I thought of the figure Elsa Schneider had seen climbing the drainpipe. An old man couldn’t climb a drainpipe, but a young man could. And I recalled what Rachel had said about Judith Mundy, about her being used as breeding stock.

  Breeding stock.

  Breeding a boy.

  And I remembered old Saul Mann, his hands moving over the cards, swiftly palming the lady, or slipping the pea from under a soda pop cap to take five bucks from a sucker. He never pushed them, never hailed them or tried to force them to come, because he knew.

  Caleb knew Billy would come back to Meade Payne. Maybe he got Meade’s name from Cheryl Lansing before he killed her, or it could have come up during Willeford’s investigations. However he found out, Caleb knew that if he took away all of the obstacles and all of the options, Billy would have to turn to Meade Payne.

  Because Caleb understood what con men and hunters all understood: that, sometimes, it’s best to lay the bait, wait, and let the prey come to you.

  I turned to find Jennings with his Coonan in his hand, pointing in my direction. I guessed that I had ignored him for just that little too long. ‘I’m tired of your shit, Parker. You and your buddies just drop your weapons and get on the ground,’ he said. ‘Now.’

  Ressler, too, drew his weapon and, in the rear office, the younger policeman was already holding a Remington pump to his shoulder.

  ‘Looks like we just crashed a nervous cops’ convention,’ said Angel.

  ‘Jennings, I don’t have time for this,’ I said. ‘You have to listen to me –’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Jennings. ‘I’m telling you for the last time, Parker, put . . .’ Then he stopped suddenly and looked at the gun in my belt.

  ‘Where did you get that gun?’ he asked, and menace stepped softly into his voice like a gunman at a funeral. He eased back the hammer on his pistol and took three steps towards me, his gun now inches from my face. He had now recognised the jacket and sweater as well. Behind me, I heard Angel sigh loudly.

  ‘You tell me where you got that gun, dammit, or I’ll kill you.’

  There was no good way to tell him what had taken place, so I didn’t even try. ‘I was ambushed on the road. The old man who lived out by the lake, John Barley, he’s dead. He died in my car. I was chased, I got to your house and Lorna gave me a gun. You may find some bodies in your living room when you get back but Lorna’s safe. Listen to me, Rand, the girl –’

  Rand Jennings let the hammer fall gently, hit the safety and then pistol-whipped me with the barrel of the gun, catching me a hard blow on the left temple. I staggered backwards as he drew his arm back to hit me again, but Ressler intervened and caught his arm.

  ‘I’ll kill you, you fuck. I’ll kill you.’ His face was purple with rage, but there was grief there too, and the knowledge that things could never be the same again after this, that the shell had finally been broken and the life he had lived up to then was escaping even as we spoke, dissipating into the air like so much gas.

  I felt blood running down my cheek and my head ached badly. In fact, I ached all over, but I figured that was the kind of day it was. ‘You may not get the chance to kill me. The men who ambushed me work for Tony Celli. He wants Billy Purdue.’

  Jennings’s breathing slowed, and he nodded at Ressler, who cautiously released his hold on Jennings’s arm. ‘Nobody is taking my prisoner,’ said Jennings.

  Then the lights went out, and all hell broke loose.

  For a few moments, the station house was in total darkness. Then the emergency lighting kicked in, casting a dim glow from four fluorescents on the walls. From the cells, I heard Billy Purdue shouting: ‘Hey! Hey in there, what’s happening? Tell me what’s going on. What happened to the lights?’

  From the rear of the station came the sound of three loud bangs, like hammer blows, followed by the sound of a door hitting a wall. But Louis was already moving, the huge Roadblocker still in his hand. I saw him pass Billy Purdue’s cell and wait at the corner, where the corridor leading down to
the back door began. I felt him count three in his head, then he turned, stood to one side and fired two shots down the corridor. He moved out of sight, fired one more shot, then moved back into our line of vision. Jennings, Ressler and I ran to join him, while the young cop and Angel bolted the front door, Walter beside them.

  In the corridor, two men lay dead, their faces concealed beneath black ski masks, both wearing black denims and short black jackets.

  ‘They picked the wrong camouflage gear,’ said Louis. ‘Ought to have checked the weather forecast.’ He pulled up one of the masks and turned to me: ‘Anyone you know?’

  I shook my head and Louis released his hold on the mask. ‘Probably not worth knowing anyways,’ he said.

  We advanced cautiously to the open door. Wisps of snow flew into the corridor, blown by the wind outside. Louis took a broom and used it to nudge the door closed, its lock splintered by the impact of the blows it had received. No more shots came. He then helped Ressler to carry a desk down the corridor from the office and they used it to block the door. We left Louis to watch the door and returned to the main office, where Angel and the young cop were each at one side of a window, trying to catch a glimpse of the men moving outside. There couldn’t have been many of them left, I figured, although Tony Celli was still among them.

  Walter stood farther back. I noticed he had his old .38 in his hand. I was certain now that I knew where Ellen was, assuming she was still alive, but if I told Walter he would run hell-for-leather into Tony Celli’s men in an effort to get to her, and that would serve no purpose at all, apart from getting him killed.

  A voice came. ‘Hey, inside. We don’t want nobody to get hurt. Just send Purdue out and we’ll be gone.’ It sounded like Mifflin.

  Angel looked at me and grinned. ‘Just promise me, whatever happens, that you’ll finish off that gimpy fuck for good this time.’

  I took up a position beside him and looked out into the darkness. ‘He is kind of irritating,’ I agreed. I turned around to find Louis beside me.

  ‘The door should hold. They try to come in again, we’ll hear ‘em before they can do any damage.’ He took a quick look out of the window. ‘Man, never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I feel like John Wayne.’

  ‘Rio Bravo,’ I said.

  ‘Whatever. That the one with James Caan?’

  ‘No, Ricky Nelson.’

  ‘Shit.’

  Behind us, Jennings and Ressler seemed to be attemping to come up with a game plan. It was like watching two children trying to hold chopsticks with their toes.

  ‘You got a radio?’ I asked.

  It was Ressler who acknowledged the question. ‘We’re getting white noise, nothing else.’

  ‘They’re blocking you.’

  Jennings spoke. ‘We stay here, they’ll give up. This isn’t the frontier. They can’t just attack a police station and take a prisoner.’

  ‘Oh, but this is the frontier,’ I said. ‘And they can do what they want. They’re not going to leave without him, chief. Celli wants the money Purdue took from him, or his own people will kill him.’ I paused. ‘Then again, you could always give them the money.’

  ‘He didn’t have any money when we found him,’ said Ressler. ‘Didn’t even have a bag.’

  ‘You could ask him where it is,’ I suggested. I could see Billy Purdue looking at me curiously. Ressler looked at Jennings, shrugged and moved across to the cell. As he did so, Angel dived sideways while Louis pushed me to the floor. I cried out as my injured side hit the carpet.

  ‘Heads up!’ shouted Angel

  The front window of the station house exploded inwards and bullets tore into the walls, the desks, the filing cabinets, the light fittings. They shattered glass partitions, blew up the watercooler and turned reports and files to confetti. Ressler fell to the ground, the back of his leg already ragged and red. Beside me, Angel rose and opened fire with the Glock. Louis’s Roadblocker thundered as he took up a position beside him.

  ‘We’re going to be torn apart here,’ shouted Angel. The firing from outside ceased. Behind us, there was only the sound of paper settling, glass crunching and water still dripping from the remains of the ruined cooler. I looked at Louis. ‘We could bring the fight to them,’ I said.

  ‘Could do,’ he said. ‘You up to it?’

  ‘Just about,’ I lied. On the floor, Jennings was cutting the leg of Ressler’s pants to get at the wound. ‘You got a window that leads out into somewhere dark, maybe concealed by a tree or something?’ I asked.

  Jennings looked up at us and nodded. ‘Window of the men’s John, down that corridor. It’s right beside the wall, too narrow for anyone to fit through the space but someone could get onto the surrounding wall itself from there.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Louis.

  ‘What about me?’ said Angel.

  ‘You doing a bang-up job with that Glock,’ replied Louis.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Yeah. You actually hit anybody I’ll start believing in God, but you sure scaring the hell out of Tony’s boys.’

  ‘You want help?’ said Walter. They were the first words he had spoken to me since the funeral in Queens.

  ‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve figured something out.’

  ‘About Ellen?’ The pain in his eyes made me wince.

  ‘It’s no good to any of us while Tony Celli’s men are out there. When this is done with, we’ll talk.’

  We turned to leave, but it seemed like it was going to be one obstacle after another. Rand Jennings was still kneeling by Ressler. His gun was still in his hand. It was still pointing at me.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere, Parker.’

  I looked at him, but continued walking. The muzzle of the gun followed me as I moved past him.

  ‘Parker . . .’

  ‘Rand,’ I said. ‘Shut up.’

  Surprisingly, he did.

  With that, we left them and headed to the men’s toilet. The window was frosted and opened out above a pair of sinks. We listened carefully for movement outside, then slipped the latch, pulled the window open and stepped back. There were no shots, and within seconds we were hauling ourselves over the wall and into a patch of waste ground behind the north wall of the station, the shells in Louis’s coat pockets jangling dully as he hit the ground. My side hurt, but by now I was past caring. I reached out for Louis as he prepared to move away.

  ‘Louis, the old man out at Meade Payne’s house is Caleb Kyle.’

  He almost looked surprised. ‘What you say?’

  ‘He was waiting for Billy. If something happens to me, you take care of it.’

  He nodded, then added. ‘Man, you be takin’ care of it yourself. They ain’t killed you yet, then they ain’t never gonna kill you.’

  I smiled and we separated, slowly making our way in a pincer movement to the front of the station house, and Tony Celli’s men.

  Chapter Thirty

  I do not remember clearly much of what happened after I stumbled into the darkness. I recall that I was shivering constantly, but my skin was hot to the touch and my face was shiny with sweat. I had Jennings’s gun but it still felt strange and unfamiliar in my hand. I vaguely regretted the loss of the Smith & Wesson. I had killed with it and, in doing so, had killed something inside me, but it was my gun and its history over the previous twelve months had mirrored my own. Perhaps it was for the best that it now lay deep in the water.

  Snow was falling and the world was mute, its mouth stifled with flakes. My feet sank deep as I followed the wall, the station house to my left, cold piercing my boots and numbing my toes. On the other side of the station, I knew, Louis was moving steadily, the big shotgun in his hands.

  I stopped where the wall fell suddenly at the edge of the building, becoming instead a three-foot high surround for the parking lot. I glanced into the lot, saw no movement, and made for the cover of a late-model Ford, but my responses were sluggish and I made more noise than I should have. My hands now
shook continuously, so much so that I had to reach up with my left and still the barrel of my gun as I went. The pain in my side was unrelenting. When I looked down, I saw fresh bloodstains on the sweater.

  The snow was being urged on by a wind that seemed to have gathered renewed vigour as the night drew on. Great swaths of white were swept into my face, and flakes crowded on my tongue. I tried to find Louis’s dark form, but could see nothing beyond the lot. I knelt down, breathing heavily, sick to my stomach. For a moment, I thought that I might faint. I took a handful of snow and, crouching down carefully, rubbed it into my face. It didn’t make me feel much better, but the gesture saved my life.

  Above me, and to my left, a shape moved behind one of the cruisers. I saw a black, patent leather shoe rise from the snow, flakes still clinging to the cuff of the dark pants above it, the tail of a blue overcoat dancing and waving in the wind. I rose, and the gun rose with me, up, up, until my head and the gun were above the hood of the Ford. And as the figure turned, registering the movement, I fired a single shot into his chest and watched dispassionately as he fell back into the drift that had built up against the wall. There he remained slumped, his chin resting on his breast, his blood turning the snow black.

  And in that instant, something happened inside me. My world turned dark as the blood-drenched snow and my mind began to lose its general focus. The universe blurred at its edges, leaving me with only a pinhole of perspective. And as the world shifted and tilted I seemed to both feel and hear the sound of a blade entering flesh and then a noise like a melon being halved with a single blow. I followed the tiny lens of clarity across the wall and over the road, where a small bank sloped down to the trees. In the snow a man lay in a heap, his body split from chest to navel and snowflakes gathering in his ruined head. There were footprints around his body, deep and firm. The footsteps veered away from the body and headed towards town, following a second trail of prints whose footfalls were distorted by a limp. There was blood between the marks of Mifflin’s shoes. As I followed the tracks, more shots came from the direction of the station house, among them the sound of Louis’s gun.