A Dark and Broken Heart

by R.J. Ellory

  “I don’t think he’s coming out,” Sandià said. “I think we have to go visit him.”

  Sandià got up, started toward the bathroom door.

  “Come,” he said. “Let’s go find out what is really going on here . . .”

  Sandià allowed Madigan to go first.

  Madigan prepared himself to be shocked by Bryant’s presence, just the mere fact that he was there in Sandià’s bathroom. But he need not have worried too much about the credibility of his performance.

  Bryant—the way he looked, what had already been done to him—was shock enough.

  Bryant was taped to a chair. The chair sat in the bathtub. His wrists were behind him, his ankles bound to the legs. His mouth was also taped, the heavy-duty silver duct tape covering much of the lower half of his face. A thick line of blood had traveled from his left nostril and down the tape to his chin. His right eye was closed. The swelling was almost black, the size of a ping-pong ball, and through his left he squinted at both Madigan and Sandià.

  Recognition was immediate and desperate. Bryant was terrified. His hands wrestled against the tape. His left eye darted back and forth—Madigan, Sandià, back to Madigan—and in that desperate and petrified agitation Madigan saw everything that must have been going through Bryant’s mind.

  Bryant knew that if Madigan didn’t step up, then he was dead.

  But Madigan had known Bryant was dead in the moment he’d seen that nondescript sedan pull up to the curb the day before. He’d known it when he saw Bryant exit that very same sedan and walk toward Sandià’s building. He’d known it as he’d taken pictures of Bryant with his cellphone, as he’d tried to come to terms with the fact that his own squad sergeant—a man he had known and trusted for many years—was the second man in Sandià’s employ.

  “Bryant is telling me something I find hard to believe,” Sandià said.

  Madigan noticed that the top of Bryant’s left ear was torn, almost separated from his scalp. On the edge of the tub lay a pair of pliers. Sandià had tried to rip the guy’s ear off.

  Patches of the man’s hair was missing, and blood had seeped through the skin beneath.

  His right shoe and sock had been removed. His toes were stubs of flesh. The bottom of the tub was smeared with a great deal of blood.

  This had been personal for Sandià, just like Valderas.

  “I found it so hard to believe that I had to insist he tell me the truth. I applied a little persuasion . . .”

  Sandià took a step closer to Bryant and leaned toward him.

  “Didn’t I, Sergeant Bryant?”

  Bryant’s left eye closed, opened, widened—that desperate, hunted look.

  “So we talked. Didn’t we, Mr. Bryant?” Sandià went on. “And you told me that Vincent here would be able to help you explain where this money came from?”

  Bryant nodded furiously. He looked unerringly at Madigan with his one good eye, and he tried to speak from behind the thick band of tape that covered his mouth.

  “What?” Madigan said. “What is this? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Bryant stopped nodding. His left eye widened. Madigan could sense his terror increase a hundredfold.

  Madigan was denying knowledge of the money.

  Madigan was signing Bryant’s death warrant, and Bryant knew it.

  “And so it seems that Vincent here thinks you are full of shit, Al . . . And so, as it happens, do I.”

  Sandià picked up the pliers from the edge of the tub. He held them tight, and then jabbed at Bryant’s temple repeatedly.

  Madigan felt sick. He looked at the eye, the blood from the scalp, the smashed toes, the way Bryant just wrestled relentlessly yet hopelessly against the tape that bound him to the chair.

  The smell of ammonia grew even stronger as Bryant pissed himself once again.

  Sandià stopped jabbing Bryant in the head.

  Using the pliers, he gripped the edge of the tape across Bryant’s mouth. He tried to tear the tape free in one swift motion, but he lost his grip halfway over.

  Bryant screamed from one side of his mouth.

  Sandià backhanded him.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he said. “Enough of this bullshit!”

  He tugged the remaining tape away, and Bryant gasped for air. He coughed, spluttered, started pleading with Sandià.

  “Enough!” Bryant screamed. “Enough . . . Vincent, tell him . . . Jesus fucking Christ, tell him where the money came from . . .”

  Sandià turned and looked at Madigan.

  Madigan shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what the hell you think is going on here—”

  “Jesus Christ, Vincent, noooo . . .”

  Sandià backhanded Bryant once again.

  Bryant was silenced. His head dropped suddenly, his chin to his chest, and when he raised it there was blood flowing freely from both nostrils.

  “Vincent . . .” he gasped. “Vincent, for Christ’s s-sake . . .”

  Madigan took a step forward. His face demonstrated nothing but anger and dismay. “What the living fuck are you talking about, Bryant? What are you saying here? You’re using me to get out of some deep hole of shit you’ve dug for yourself? I cannot believe you are trying to implicate me in whatever the hell is going on here . . .”

  Bryant’s left eye widened once more. “Vincent . . . Jesus fucking Christ . . .”

  “Enough,” Sandià said. “I believe Vincent, of course. Vincent and I have been working together a lot longer than you and I. This ends here. You tell me where this money came from, or it is finished.”

  Al Bryant knew it was finished. He’d known it was finished the moment Madigan denied any knowledge of the money.

  Bryant opened his mouth to speak.

  “You were the fourth man, right?” Madigan interjected before Bryant had a chance to speak.

  “You were the fourth man. You took this money from that house last week, and you killed his nephew, and then you killed those three guys in that storage unit . . .”

  Bryant shook his head furiously. “I didn’t . . . didn’t ha-have any-anything . . .”

  “You were the fourth fucking man,” Madigan repeated. “Jesus Christ, I don’t fucking believe it . . .”

  Bryant tried to speak again. He coughed, spat up blood, and was breathing too heavily to make himself understood.

  “And where is the rest of the fucking money?” Madigan asked.

  “I have people searching the rest of his house now,” Sandià said. “But I imagine it has gone. Who the hell knows what he owed, and who he’s had to pay off.”

  Bryant’s left eye was centered on Madigan. He knew there was no purpose in saying anything. Perhaps he was reconciled to his fate. The end was coming. Maybe all he could now hope for was that it would be swift and final. He could stand no more pain.

  Sandià left the bathroom.

  Madigan could not look at Bryant. He turned away.

  “Vincent . . .” Bryant gasped.

  Madigan turned back. “You brought this on yourself, my friend. We make our own justice, right? That’s the truth. We all pay for our sins . . . eventually . . .”

  “But . . . but, Vin—”

  “But nothing, Sarge. It’s over. We’re done. You were in this as deep as me. We’re both going to hell . . . You’re just gonna wind up there first . . .”

  Sandià came back into the bathroom. He held a .38 in his hand.

  “Wh-what the fuck . . .” Bryant started.

  Sandià raised the gun and pressed it to Bryant’s forehead. “Enough,” he said.

  Bryant’s face creased. He started to heave and sob. He couldn’t breathe. He was trying desperately to speak. There was nothing but blood and spittle coming from his lips.

  Sandià cocked the hammer, and then he turned and looked at Madigan.

  “He has to die,” Sandià said. “An eye for an eye, right? He killed my nephew. He took my money, and then he tries to tell me that you were involved . . .”

 
; Madigan said nothing.

  “Vincent . . . you see he has to die?”

  Madigan looked at Sandià. “No question.”

  Madigan didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. His heart had slowed down. His stomach was in his chest. His hands were running with sweat.

  Sandià lowered the gun, and then turned toward Madigan. “You do it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You do it,” Sandià repeated. “You shoot this lying son of a bitch murdering bastard in the fucking head. He tried to make you guilty for his crimes. He tried to implicate you. He was ready to trade your life for his own. Now you get to take vengeance . . .”

  Madigan looked at Bryant. He looked at the .38 in Sandià’s hand. He looked back at Bryant.

  Bryant was in shock. He was no longer capable of speaking.

  “Do it, Vincent,” Sandià said. “I believe you, of course. Now you show me how much I can trust you. Do it. Kill this asshole . . .”

  Madigan closed his eyes.

  He saw everything behind him. He saw Bernie, he saw the blood and chaos of the house robbery, he saw Larry Fulton and Bobby Landry and Chuck Williams, he saw Melissa Arias lying in a hospital bed, he saw Isabella, the way she closed herself against him and made him feel like the worst human being ever to walk the face of the earth . . .

  He reached out and took the gun.

  If he killed Bryant then it all ended here.

  He was out.

  He was free.

  He hesitated. He considered the possibility of killing them both, of shooting Bryant, and then Sandià, of undoing the tape, of dealing with Sandià’s people, of trying to explain to them that Bryant had managed to get the gun, that he had shot Sandià, that he had then wrestled the gun from Bryant and killed him . . .

  It was hopeless.

  There were people merely ten or fifteen feet away. With the sound of the first gunshot they would be inside.

  Madigan felt the weight of the revolver in his hand.

  He had to do it. It had come this far, and now there was no choice.

  The motion was swift. He did not give himself time to think again. He gripped the gun, steadied himself, turned and aimed and fired.

  Click!

  There was nothing. No deafening roar. No spray of blood as the back of Bryant’s head exploded against the bathroom wall.

  Bryant screamed.

  Madigan was stunned.

  Sandià was laughing. “Now I see who to trust, who is my friend, who is my ally,” he said. He took the gun from Madigan. He gripped his shoulder. “You never disappointed me, Vincent, and you never will.”

  From his pocket he took a single bullet, chambered it, cocked the hammer once more, aimed, and fired.

  The noise was so familiar, and yet so real and sudden.

  Madigan believed his ears had burst.

  The carnage against the rear wall above the tub was sickening. As if someone had hosed the tiles with blood and matter.

  Bryant just sat there, his mouth agape, his left eye wide open, looking right back at Madigan, the hole above the bridge of his nose dark and depthless and black.

  A faint ghost of smoke rose from the barrel of the revolver.

  There was a commotion in the room behind them. Two men had come through, just as Madigan had predicted, both of them wielding semiautomatic weapons. They saw Sandià through the open bathroom doorway. The guns were lowered. They backed up and left.

  Sandià sighed and shook his head. “The fourth man,” he said. “Clever, but not clever enough.”

  Madigan stood motionless for just a second, and then he turned and left the room.

  “You are troubled by this?” Sandià asked, following just a yard behind.

  “I knew him for a long time,” Madigan replied.

  “And now you can remember him for a long time, or you can forget him in an instant.”

  “I will forget,” Madigan said, but he lied, and he knew he was lying. That was what he did and who he was. The Patron Saint of Liars.

  “And now . . .” Sandià said. “Now we can resume business as it was. I have lost my nephew. I do not believe I will ever know what happened to the rest of my money. But this is collateral damage. Order has been restored. Things are back how they should be.”

  “Yes,” Madigan said, but he knew things would never be the same again.

  He had pulled the trigger. He had not known that the gun was unloaded. He had not known that it was a test. He had been prepared to kill Al Bryant to protect himself.

  What kind of person was he? Had he changed at all? Had these past few days done nothing? Was he still the horror of a human being that his wives had finally discovered?

  Yes, he was. Nothing had changed. He had just proven that he was incapable of change.

  “I must go,” Madigan said. “I have things I need to do . . .”

  “The earth keeps on spinning,” Sandià said.

  “Indeed it does.”

  “I am pleased you did not betray me,” Sandià added as Madigan reached the door. “You have confirmed my basic faith in human nature . . .” He smiled, and it was a sincere smile. He was grateful to Madigan for the darkness that he and Madigan shared.

  Madigan smiled back. He felt sick. He knew such sickness was visible in his expression, but he hoped that Sandià could not see it.

  Madigan opened the door. He went down in the elevator. He made it half a block toward the car, and then he staggered against a streetlight and heaved violently into the gutter.

  Looking down, he saw Bryant’s blood on his shoes, just as he had seen Fulton’s less than a week before.

  Madigan heaved again.

  60

  BLACK TRAIN

  Madigan sat in his car for more than an hour. There was nothing in the glove compartment. Nothing at all to help him. His hands shook for twenty minutes, and then they stopped. Then he felt pins and needles in his fingers, his toes, even across his scalp. He was sick twice more, suddenly opening the door and just retching into the street.

  He lit a cigarette, but it simply burned—unsmoked—between his fingers, until he felt the heat on his skin and had to put it out.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Al Bryant’s face. He could see the blood and brain matter on the wall. He could smell the ammonia, the fear, the terror, the sheer desperation of the situation. He could sense that presence in the bathroom, the certainty with which Bryant had confronted the end of his own life, the way he’d looked when he’d realized that Madigan was going to do nothing to help him. The awareness that he’d been set up, that Madigan had seen right through him, that he had been played all along.

  When Madigan stopped thinking, he started the engine.

  He drove home. He wanted to be nowhere else. He wanted to see what happened when he arrived there. Among the familiar. What would he feel then? Isabella too. He wanted to know whether he would still possess that compelling need to tell her the truth. To confess? To ask for forgiveness? To see if redemption was possible? Madigan did not know what he wanted to feel, but he knew that what he felt in that moment was not it.

  Madigan came to a stop outside the house. He killed the engine, sat there for another fifteen minutes and then exited the car.

  He went along the side of the house and entered through the rear. The kitchen was empty. He called out. “Isabella?”

  Nothing.

  She must be upstairs.

  “Isabella?” Louder this time, but again no response.

  Madigan removed his jacket, fetched a glass from the cupboard, ice from the freezer, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the shelf to the right of the countertop.

  He poured the drink, standing there looking out into the night through the window above the sink, and when he saw the reflection of something behind him he knew.

  He did not turn. Not at first. He paused for a moment, his head down, his eyes closed, and then he raised the glass and downed it in one.

  He set the glass in the sink.
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  “Things are never what they appear to be,” Sandià said.

  Madigan didn’t reply.

  “You are a smart man, Vincent . . . But you are not as smart as you think.”

  Madigan turned slowly. He confronted Sandià.

  “We untied him,” Sandià said. “We untied Al Bryant and we went through his pockets and we found this . . .”

  Sandià raised his hand. In it was the cellphone that Bryant had bought from Bernie.

  “I found this, and I was interested to know about Bryant’s contacts, and whether there was anything here I should know . . . and there was a conversation recorded, a very interesting conversation, Vincent. And this conversation was going on between our friend Bernie and some guy called Walsh from Internal Affairs. Seems that Bernie was setting up Walsh, you know? Seems he taped this conversation for some reason. Seems that Bernie knew something about the robbery, and it got me thinking, Vincent . . . and I had to think long and hard to make sense of it.”

  Madigan felt everything and nothing. He wondered where Isabella was. He wondered if Sandià had already killed her.

  “So I started trying to make two and two add up to four, you know? Bernie has a cellphone with a conversation on it. He intends to sell it to Bryant. Bryant intends to pay for it with my money. Bryant needs to get this Internal Affairs guy off his back for some reason . . . And that reason could be that Bryant was the fourth man in the robbery, or that Walsh suspected Bryant was on my payroll. Either which way, it would be worth it to Bryant to get this cellphone out of circulation. And I started to wonder how Bryant might have ended up with my money, money that you knew was marked, money you knew would serve no purpose for anyone. And then I figured that was too easy an explanation, Vincent . . . I really did. I didn’t want to doubt you, Vincent. I really didn’t. And then I started to wonder if you really could be involved in all of this. And so I came over here to talk to you, to really have a heart-to-heart about everything that has happened, to clear the air, you know? I came over here to settle things once and for all, and what did I find?”

  Madigan looked up at Sandià. Sandià was smiling. Avuncular, patient, almost compassionate.

  “I find the girl, Vincent—the one I’ve been looking for all this time—and she is right here, Vincent, and she thought I was you. She heard me coming in through the back door and she called out your name, and you can imagine her reaction when she saw me . . .”