Rusty Nail

by J. A. Konrath

  Screw it. I needed a day off.

  I peeled myself out of bed, found my way to the bathroom, coughed and hacked and spit black mucus into the toilet for ten minutes, changed into some old Lee jeans and the Bulls sweatshirt I inherited last night, and then lurched into the kitchen. Checked my answering machine. No calls. Plodded back into the bedroom and checked my cell phone. No calls. Found some aspirin, made quick work of three, then forced myself back into the kitchen, where I liberated a tray of ice from the freezer.

  I chewed on the cubes, which helped my sore throat. Then I called the graphologist, Dr. Francis Mulrooney, to cancel our appointment. He wasn’t in. I left a message.

  I spent the next thirty minutes cleaning and oiling my .38. I carry a Colt Detective Special, blue finish, black grips, with a two-inch barrel. It weighs twenty-one ounces, and is seven inches from butt to front sights. I preferred revolvers to semiautomatics for several reasons. They had fewer moving parts, which meant less could go wrong in terms of jamming and misfiring. At any time, I could visually check how many rounds were left. And they were easier to clean.

  I threw away the two remaining bullets still in the cylinder, not knowing how the heat and the water from yesterday had affected them, and was loading six fresh rounds when I heard someone at my door.

  It wasn’t a knock. It was someone trying to turn the knob.

  I slapped the cylinder closed and walked silently up to my door, keeping to the right of the frame.

  The knob continued to turn, and I heard the jangle of keys.

  Latham? He had a key to my apartment. I disengaged the burglar alarm and almost turned the dead bolt and threw the door open, but thought better of it and checked the peephole first.

  Good thing I did. The woman outside my door was someone I’d never seen before. She looked to be in her late thirties, short brown hair, with a jagged scar reaching from her left eye to the corner of her mouth.

  I wondered how I should play it. Announce myself as a cop through the door? Ask who is it? Surprise her with a snub nose in her face?

  “Who’s there?” I said.

  My voice seemed to startle her. She backpedaled away from my door and walked quickly down the hall.

  I flipped back the dead bolt and swung the door open, my .38 locking on her back.

  “Stop! Police!”

  She turned and froze, her face going from white to whiter.

  “Hands in the air!”

  Her hands shot up. “I just moved in! I thought that was my apartment!”

  “Palms on the wall, feet apart.”

  The woman hugged the plaster like she knew the drill. She wore some kind of work overalls, brown and grubby, and the odor she gave off wasn’t pleasant.

  I did a quick but thorough pat down, and found a butterfly knife in her boot.

  “That’s for work.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “Department of Sanitation. The sewers.”

  “You need a martial arts weapon for sewer work?”

  “It’s under four fingers. It’s legal.”

  I opened the butterfly knife, and it had a short blade. Short but thick. Any blade longer than a handspan was against the law, and this one looked like it could go either way.

  “Why were you trying to break into my apartment?”

  “I told you, cop.” She said the word cop as if it hurt her. “I thought it was mine. It was an honest mistake. Quit hassling me.”

  I fished out a wallet, which wasn’t the most pleasant thing to do because she had gunk—presumably sewer gunk—on her pockets. Her driver’s license told me she was Lucy Walnut. Address in Oak Park.

  “Says here you’re in the suburbs.”

  “I just moved in last week. Haven’t got the license changed.”

  “Okay, Ms. Walnut. Let’s see if you’re telling the truth. Which door is yours?”

  “I’m in 304. The doors don’t have numbers on them.”

  Three-oh-four was right next to mine.

  “Keys. And stay put.”

  She handed over the keys and I kept a bead on her while trying the lock. It turned.

  “Told you so. Can I go now?”

  “Where’d you do time, Ms. Walnut?”

  She stayed quiet.

  “I can find out easy enough.”

  “Did a nickel at Joliet.”

  “What for?”

  Silence again.

  “I asked, what for?”

  “I don’t need to tell you nothing.”

  “No, you don’t. But if you’re on parole, I can find out who your PO is and explain how you were trying to break into a cop’s apartment.”

  “That was an accident.”

  “My word against yours. Who do you think the judge will believe? Now, what were you in for?”

  “Battery. I answered your damn questions. Can I go now?”

  I tossed her keys on the floor by her feet.

  “Keep your nose clean, Ms. Walnut. I’m going to hold on to your knife, because I wouldn’t want you hurting yourself with it.”

  “Whatever.”

  We both went into our respective abodes, and I took a big breath and let it out slow. My hands were quaking from adrenaline, just like they always did after I shook down a suspect.

  I set my gun on the counter, tossed the knife in the garbage, closed my eyes, and let my body return to calm.

  The calm was shattered two minutes later, by a knock on my door. Ms. Walnut again, back to take revenge against the cop who stole her knife?

  I picked up my gun and peered through the peephole.

  It wasn’t Ms. Walnut. It was someone a lot worse.

  CHAPTER 14

  WHAT DO YOU want?” I said through the door.

  “Can’t an old friend drop by and say hello?”

  “An old friend, yes. You, no.”

  “Come on, Jackie. Open the door.”

  “No.”

  He knocked again, harder.

  “Hurry! Open up! It’s my heart! I feel a blockage in my pituitary artery! My left arm has gone numb! Jackie, for the love of God!”

  I thought about going into my bedroom and watching TV, but I knew he’d just keep bugging me until I let him in.

  “I’m dying, Jackie! Everything’s getting dark! So dark! I’m too young and too pretty to die like this!”

  I wistfully eyed the .38 I’d set on my counter, then unlocked my door.

  Harry McGlade, private investigator sub-par and namesake to the lead character in the TV series Fatal Autonomy, came into my apartment without being invited.

  He wore the typical Harry outfit: a wrinkled brown suit, a stained tie, a chubby face in need of a shave, and enough cologne to make my nose hurt.

  “Hiya, Jackie. What’s shaking?”

  “I see you’re still allergic to ironing.”

  McGlade tugged on his lapels like a wise guy. “This is Armani. Armani doesn’t wrinkle.”

  “Then what are all of the crinkles and creases?”

  “Those are style lines.”

  He smiled at me, the smile becoming a wince as he took in my condition.

  “Damn, what happened to you? Looks like you got into a fight with an ugly stick, and the ugly stick kicked your ass.”

  I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “This is the amount of patience I have left, McGlade. What do you want?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “No.”

  “It’s important.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not work-related. It’s personal.”

  “Hell no.”

  “I’m getting married.”

  “My sympathies to your fiancée.”

  “I’d like you to stand up.”

  I was about to say no again, but I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly.

  “What did you just ask me?”

  McGlade spent a moment studying his shoes. Brown leather, Italian. Probably worth a fortune.

  “I need a, uh, best man. I
want you to be my best man.”

  I considered all of the hurtful put-downs I could sling at him, and gave him my best.

  “Let me guess. You don’t have any friends because you’re an obnoxious bottom-feeding creep, so I’m the only person you can ask.”

  Harry shrugged. “Yeah. That pretty much covers it.”

  I rubbed my eyes, a bad move because they hurt like hell. Millennia ago, McGlade worked for the CPD and was my partner. He screwed that up, and screwed me over, which should have been the end of our relationship. But Harry kept reappearing in my life, like an antibiotic-resistant rash. He was the reason why that stupid character on that stupid TV show was named after stupid me.

  “Will you do it?”

  “I’d rather eat a box of tacks.”

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll pay you. I’m rich.”

  “Pay someone else.”

  “I would, but my betrothed wants it to be you.”

  “She knows me?”

  “She loves the TV show.”

  That damn show. “I’m close to losing my job because of that show.”

  “Aren’t you knocking on retirement anyway, Jackie? Pretty soon you’ll be chasing bad guys with a walker.”

  It was my fault. I let him in.

  “You want me to be your best man?” I gave him a sharp poke in his chest, feeling my finger sink into pudge.

  “I’m begging you, Jackie. I’ll do anything.”

  “Kill me.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”

  “On the show. Kill my character. You’re the executive producer, right?”

  “Yeah. But an executive producer doesn’t do anything, other than collect a fat paycheck.”

  “Then find some other moron to stand up for you.”

  McGlade chewed his lower lip, and I could practically see the two gears turning in his head. I was pretty sure there were only two.

  “We haven’t filmed the season finale yet, and it has a big surprise in it.”

  “Great. Gun me down.”

  “Actually, your character professes love for me and we have sex in an alley.”

  “There’s your surprise. After sex, I eat my gun. A perfectly natural reaction.”

  “I have to talk to the producer. And the writers. And the network.”

  “Yes or no, McGlade?”

  He grinned. “It’s a deal. The network has always pushed to replace you with someone sexy. Here’s their chance.”

  “Good. Now you can leave.”

  Harry headed for the door.

  “The rehearsal is in two days.”

  “Two days?”

  “Wedding is in four days. Why wait?”

  “Indeed . . .”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. And you need to bring a date.”

  “Why?”

  “Holly doesn’t have anyone to stand up either.”

  “Great.”

  “Toodles, Jackie. And try to wear something nice, not any of that Home Shopping crap.”

  I may have smacked him in the ass with the door as he left.

  After regaining my composure, I hit the bathroom and took a few more aspirin—standard procedure after a visit from Harry—and then attempted to shower.

  The water hurt, but I scrubbed until the last of the soot swirled down the drain. After the shower I rubbed some burn salve on my hand, bandaged it up, dressed in a T-shirt and jogging pants, and jogged into the kitchen to eat.

  I microwaved a potato and stuffed it with cheddar cheese and some pan-seared broccoli. Swallowing brought tears to my eyes, and the tears in my eyes made them hurt. I was squirting myself in the face with Visine when the phone rang.

  Latham? I hurried to answer.

  “Hughes at county. Got some results.”

  I sighed. If I couldn’t speak to my ex-boyfriend, I suppose the next best thing was speaking to an assistant medical examiner about a jar of severed toes.

  “I’m all ears, Max.”

  “My bone girl, Jess Coran, confirmed the toes are all about thirty years old. We also did some tests, found saliva.”

  Yuck.

  “Is it from a secretor?”

  “It’ll take a few days to know. Sample is tiny, it will be tough to pull.”

  “If anyone can do it, you can.”

  “I wouldn’t need the flattery if I made more money.”

  “Flattery costs the taxpayers less. What about those holes you found in the toes?”

  “I’ve got a hypothesis. We dissected one, found minute fibers. Could be thread.”

  “Meaning?”

  Hughes clucked his tongue. “I arranged the toes in a circle. There were just enough to make an adult-sized necklace.”

  CHAPTER 15

  ALEX SHIFTS ON the couch and mentally replays the shrink’s question.

  “What are some of the things your father did to you?”

  There are so many, Alex sometimes wonders if they were all real. The punishment box, the size of a coffin, locked inside for days without food or water. Wetting the bed and being forced to lick up the mess. Kneeling on thumbtacks. Being hung from the rafters and lashed until you went hoarse from screaming. Having to help Father kill people. Even other children, friends from school.

  “He did many things,” Alex says. “If there was an award for child abuse, he’d have won.”

  “You know it’s abuse as an adult. How about as a child? Did you understand your father was unfit?”

  “I knew Father was different, but I didn’t understand he was crazy until years later. I didn’t question the abuse. I just tried to cope.”

  “By killing cats?”

  Alex smiles. Dr. Morton has probably been waiting to slip that in.

  “Among other things. We lived in constant fear, and did things to help with the fear.”

  “What things?”

  “I would cut myself, sometimes, on my legs. Isn’t that strange? Here I was, a kid, being horribly abused, and I abused myself even more.”

  “Perhaps you were doing it to express the pain you were feeling inside.”

  Alex digested this.

  “Or perhaps I began to like the pain.”

  “Do you enjoy pain, Alex?”

  Alex sneaks a glance at Dr. Morton. The good doctor is calm and composed, as usual.

  “I’m not sure. I was always terrified of being hurt. But after a while, it was kind of like a challenge. Sort of like, I can handle this, what else have you got? I don’t think I enjoy the pain so much as I enjoy mastery over it.”

  “How about the pain of others?”

  Alex grins, full wattage.

  “Oh, now that I love.”

  “Hence the cats.”

  “Yeah. Hence the cats.”

  “But you know now that it’s not beneficial for you to harm animals.”

  Alex nods. “Right. No more animals. I’m clear on that.”

  Dr. Morton makes a grunting sound, perhaps trying to convey approval.

  “What are some of the other things you did to cope, Alex?”

  “Sex. I had sex.”

  “Were you sexually abused by your father?”

  “No. Never. For Father, sex was something perverted. Unnatural. The devil’s work.”

  “Is that how you feel about sex?”

  “No. I think sex between two people who love each other can be a beautiful thing.”

  “How old were you at the time?”

  Alex thought about it. “Fourteen.”

  “And the person you had sex with?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Were you in love?”

  Alex’s eyes close, and the memories seep in. Stolen kisses. Sideways glances. Shameful caresses that felt so good, they couldn’t be the devil’s doing.

  “Yes. Yes, I was in love.”

  The timer on the desk beeps.

  “We’ve come to the end of another session.” Dr. Morton stands up, smiles benevolently.


  “Same time tomorrow?” Alex asks.

  “Unfortunately, no. I’m booked for the day.”

  Alex’s mood darkens. “You told me we could have daily sessions. I’ll only be in town for a short time, and I have a lot to figure out.”

  Dr. Morton pats Alex on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. I can see you the next day, same time.”

  “I’d really like to see you tomorrow.”

  “Impossible. But if it matters, I think you’re coming along wonderfully.”

  Alex blinks. “I am?”

  “You are. You’re well on the road to recovery, Alex. The progress you’ve made in these last few sessions is tremendous. Take a day off. Do something fun. Enjoy yourself.”

  Alex stands, extends a hand.

  “I’ll do that. Thank you, Doctor. See you tomorrow.”

  Dr. Morton smiles. “The day after tomorrow, Alex. You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  Alex walks outside, to the rear of the rental car. Looks carefully up the street. Down the street. No one is around. Alex opens the trunk.

  Dr. Francis Mulrooney stares up, eyes wide with terror. Clothesline binds his wrists and ankles, tight enough to be cutting off the circulation. It’s probably excruciating, Alex thinks. The graphologist’s hands are an ugly blue. Deprived of blood, necrosis is already setting in. Like dead fruit, rotting on the vine.

  It doesn’t matter. He won’t be needing his hands ever again.

  Mulrooney tries to scream, but the gag muffles it. Alex shushes him.

  “It’s okay. My psychiatrist says I’m making a lot of progress.”

  Mulrooney had been incredibly easy to locate; a quick call to the university did the trick. And kidnapping is child’s play. All a person needs is some Rohypnol, available over the Internet, and a used wheelchair. Jab a man on the street, sit him down as the drug takes immediate effect, and take him anywhere. He won’t even complain.

  Alex opens the kit bag by Mulrooney’s feet and removes a syringe.

  “Nighty-night time. When you wake up again, we’ll be at my new place. I’m going to see how much of your skin I can peel off before you die.”

  Another muffled scream. Alex jams the needle into his biceps and injects the drug.

  It will be a pleasant warm-up for Jack. Alex is pleased that the lieutenant survived. It would have been a shame for her to die without getting to know her.