The Blade Itself

by Marcus Sakey

  The flush in his gut worsened. He broke off a piece of bacon, munched slowly. Didn’t taste it. Point of no return. Once he crossed this line, he’d be giving up the last bit of honor among thieves. Chips on the table, kid.

  “It’s Evan McGann.”

  Nolan was silent for a moment. He turned back to his plate, stabbed a forkful of eggs and passed them into his mouth, chewing vigorously. When he was done, he turned to look at Danny.

  And burst out laughing.

  “I’m not kidding, Sean.” Danny’s knuckles went white on the edge of the counter. He felt like he might slide off the stool and right off the face of the planet.

  “Oh, I believe you.” His face was red with hilarity, the freckles a scattering of dark buckshot. Danny stared in silence, the seconds passing, the pressure in his stomach mounting. The laughter finally wound down. Still merry, Nolan shoveled up the last of his eggs, speaking around a mouthful of them, flecks of egg spattering. “Time to pay the piper, eh Carter?”

  Danny’s heart fell. Nolan wouldn’t help him more than any other cop would. He’d crossed the line for nothing. “Sean.” He kept his voice level and quiet. “We’re scared. Evan’s not messing about.”

  “I bet. Probably a little pissed about his last fall, yeah? ’Course, you wouldn’t know anything about that. You weren’t there, right?”

  Danny forced himself to stare at the detective. “I was always small-time. You know that. For chrissake, we grew up in the same neighborhood.”

  “Bullshit.” Nolan’s face went from the red of laughter to a more dangerous shade. “Bullshit, Danny. Don’t lay that on me.”

  “You won’t help.”

  “Help you what? Your old partner is back in town, wants something from you? You’re in construction, right? So what’s he want?”

  Danny said nothing.

  “Yeah, I thought so. What, is he after some old score you spent instead of splitting? Or just pissed you bailed on him? You were in the pawnshop, weren’t you?”

  The answer would be inadmissible, but Danny didn’t see any point in speaking.

  “You crack me up, you really do. You’re clean? Good for you. Most people have been their whole lives. You want special treatment because you mended your ways?”

  “The same treatment would be nice.”

  “A citizen would call in and have a squad car come by, get the whole story. You can’t do that, can you?”

  Danny shook his head.

  “And that tells me all I need to know. Time to pay the fucking consequences. Overdue, if you ask me.”

  “Sean-”

  “It’s ‘Detective.’” Nolan stood, brushing crumbs from his pants. “And Danny, word to the wise. Since you called me, I’m not going to make much of this. I got better things to do than dig in decade-old robberies. But I’m gonna watch you. If you make one move out of line, and I mean one tiny little step, I’m going to pack your Irish ass off to Stateville. Where you belong.” He tossed the crumpled napkin to the counter. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  The bell tinkled as he walked out, leaving Danny alone at the counter, officially between worlds. He put his head in his hands and sighed. In that moment, if he’d been given the chance, he might have taken back his whole life.

  15

  White Stars

  Finding the bastard was proving harder than he’d expected.

  Patrick had started at Murphy’s. A blue-collar institution, the neighborhood bar was a dim, narrow place nestled between gray tract houses. Thick dust coated an unlit Guinness sign in the window. A battered pool table sat in back.

  Smilin’ Jimmy had pulled pints for thirty years without cracking the permanent scowl that had earned him the nickname. Patrick said hello, ordered a shot and a beer. Jimmy knew everything happening in the neighborhood, but you couldn’t ask him outright. There was an art to it. To get him talking at all you had to start with horses, so Patrick listened – for what had to be the hundredth time – to Jimmy’s fail-safe system for picking winners. He knew better than to question why the inventor of a fail-safe system still needed to tend bar.

  After Jimmy wound down, Patrick asked him, keeping his tone casual, like he was just inquiring after a friend.

  “Evan McGann?” The bartender glowered. “Big guy, used to box? Yeah, he’s been in.”

  “I heard he got out of Stateville recently. Haven’t seen him since. I’d love to catch up with him.”

  “Sure he’ll be around.”

  “I might have some work for him,” Patrick lied. “He say where he was living?”

  “Nope.” The bartender wiped the wood with a dingy rag. His knuckles were thick knots.

  “Mention if he was in the neighborhood, at least?”

  Jimmy stopped wiping, looked up. His eyes had the cool distance of those of a man who’d spent his life breaking up fights between young criminals. “He didn’t say, and I don’t ask.”

  Patrick caught the hint. Murphy’s was a neighborhood bar. You didn’t ask somebody like Jimmy to air dirty laundry. It was a violation of neutrality.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon cruising his personal map of Chicago. Not for tourists, this one – a ragtag of storerooms piled with liquor boxes, off-track betting parlors, delis reeking of sauerkraut, shabby ranches with crank-lab kitchens. If Evan planned to start operating again, he’d need to let people know he was back in town. It wasn’t like the movies, where everybody worked in a vacuum. There was a community, and success depended in part on whether people recognized your bona fides.

  The afternoon was a bust. For a man who said he wanted to get back in the game, Evan had been surprisingly quiet. Patrick went home thinking he might have to spend the next few days just hanging out at Murphy’s, waiting for Evan to wander in.

  The next morning, Monday, it hit him. Evan had been strapped that day in Danny’s kitchen.

  There were lots of ways to get a gun. The safest was to steal one from a civilian. That way you knew the piece was clean – the cops could still nail you with weapons charges, but you weren’t going to have to answer for a murder somebody else committed. But that took legwork, and more patience than Evan possessed. Nor could Patrick see him tracking down one of the black kids who sold out of the trunk of a car.

  Which meant he’d used a pawn.

  He found it on the third try. AAA PAWNSHOP, the sign read. ELECTRONICS GOLD JEWELS BOUGHT SOLD!!! What it didn’t say was that Rashid did a bustling and illegal trade in stolen handguns.

  “Patrick, my friend!” Second generation, the man spoke perfect English, but affected awkward sentence structure in a kind of reverse pretension that baffled Patrick. “But of course I have seen him. We did business only last week.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Your friend had fine jewelry for me, earrings and a necklace.”

  “And you gave him a fair price.”

  “Of course, of course. As always.”

  “Some of it in trade,” he said. “Right?”

  The man hesitated, said nothing.

  Patrick took out his wallet, made a show of rifling through the bills. “Did my friend happen to say where he was staying?”

  Rashid smiled. “I feel as though he did, but I do not remember where, exactly.”

  From then on it was only haggling.

  Rashid hadn’t known an exact address, just that Evan rented a place on the south end of Pilsen. Cold winds blew grim clouds as Patrick cruised up and down the streets, past taquerias and discount shops with signs in Spanish. If luck was with him, he’d spot Evan’s old Mustang. If not, he’d come back later and try again.

  As it happened, luck one-upped him. The sports car sat with its hood open outside a run-down bungalow. Evan leaned over the grille, peering at the engine, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was so engrossed that he didn’t react until Patrick pulled up practically on top of him. Then he turned fast, a wrench clenched in one hand, the muscles in his shoulders and arms tightened to strike.


  Patrick stared at him, a street look, his features giving nothing away. He revved the engine to a throaty rumble to underline the moment. Evan took a rag from his pocket and wiped grease off his hands, then finished a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the street. “Come inside.” He turned and walked up the cracked sidewalk.

  The house was old, with a faint smell of mildew. Patrick cased the place on instinct. No pictures on the wall. The only furniture in the living room was a weight bench, the bar loaded with 250 pounds of cast iron. He followed Evan down a dingy hallway to the kitchen. A card table and folding chairs sat in one corner. Without waiting for an invitation, Patrick pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, his feet up on the table.

  Evan chuckled, shook his head. “It’s been, what, eight years?” From a cabinet he took a half-empty bottle of Jameson’s and two highball glasses. He spent a couple of moments rummaging in a drawer, his back to Patrick, and came up with a kitchen towel. He set the lot on the table, poured two doubles, and took a seat. “What’s on your mind?”

  Adrenaline made Patrick’s skeleton hum like crystal, and he savored it. “I know what you’re doing to Danny.”

  “Is that right?” Evan asked. “He send you?”

  “I’m here for him.” No point splitting hairs.

  Evan drained half his whiskey, set the glass down lightly. “It’s between Danny and me.”

  “He’s not in the game anymore.”

  “So I keep hearing.”

  Patrick took his feet off the table, sat up. He picked up his drink, using the opportunity to reposition the chair. He needed enough clearance from the table to move quickly. “Why are you doing this? You guys were like brothers.”

  “There’s a debt.” Evan’s voice was flat but firm. “Danny pays it, we go back to being brothers.”

  “Balls to your debt. Nobody cheated you. You fucked up.”

  Evan smiled. “That what you came to say?”

  “No.” He leaned forward, his gaze hard. “I came to ask you nicely. Leave Danny alone.”

  Evan knocked back the rest of his whiskey. His T-shirt had grease on it, and there were yellow sweat stains at his armpits. “Go fuck your hat.”

  Patrick smiled, took a sip of the whiskey. So much for doing it nicely. Time to dance. When he set the glass down, he kept his hand moving, casual-like, to his lap. He could feel the switchblade poke against his calf. “What happened to you inside, man? Just get too used to being a bitch?”

  Evan’s eyes narrowed and his shoulders tensed, like he was going to make a move. “Patrick, you shoot your mouth off. Have since you were a little brat used to follow us around like the sun shone out of Danny’s ass.” He refilled his glass and topped Patrick’s off. “Someday you’re going to get slapped for it.”

  Patrick slid his hand from his lap, careful not to dip his shoulder. This was the delicate part. He lifted his foot to meet his hand halfway, staring at Evan the whole time. He had to get the blade out without tipping Evan off. His fingers wormed into the soft leather of his boot. “Doesn’t it mean anything to you, all the jobs you guys pulled together?” Negotiations were over, but he had to keep him distracted.

  Evan smiled. “It meant more before he sent you to hard-case me.”

  His index finger touched the butt of the knife, and he pinched it gently, sliding it out. The grip felt warm from his skin. He braced his feet, one a little ahead, ready to lunge from the chair. The trick would be to do it easy; fast, but not hurried. “How’s this for hard case? You back off Danny, or I’ll come at you with everything I have.” He pictured the moves. Click the knife open, spring forward, clock Evan with a left – it would be clumsy, but it would sting – get the blade to his throat. Dig in enough to bring a little blood. Evan wasn’t the only bad boy on the playground.

  Evan smiled, laid one hand on the table atop the rag. “Fuck you, Patrick.”

  Now.

  He leapt to his feet, the chair falling backward as he thumbed the stud. The knife opened smooth and clean in his right hand. Evan’s eyes tracked him, but he hadn’t stirred from his seat. Taken by surprise. Patrick drew back his left fist as he moved, feeling the blood surge through his body, feeling unstoppable, unbeatable-

  The whiskey bottle exploded. Something sucker-punched him, white-hot in his chest. It didn’t hurt, but it stopped him like he’d hit an invisible wall. He stared at the table, at the green bottle fragments and the shattered Jameson’s shield. Evan’s hand rested on the kitchen towel, which was smoking from a ragged hole, the edges burned powder black.

  Oh. No.

  Evan stood in slow motion, a hint of a smile on his face. His right hand blurred in a backhanded slap. The world burst into black-and-white stars as Patrick felt himself falling. His back smacked the linoleum, the wind springing from his lungs. It was the first thing that hurt.

  The second was Evan stepping on his knife hand, crunching down on his ohgodjesus his fingers, his motherfucking fingers!

  Then a steel toe caught his temple, and darkness smothered him like a heavy wool blanket.

  16

  Mute and Far Away

  It was after three in the morning, and the diner was nearly empty. Evan took a booth in the smoking section and scanned the place. Two cops hunched over coffee mugs at the counter. A table of twenty-something drunks told too-loud stories that all began with “You’se guys,” like they were in a Scorsese movie. The Italians outnumbered the Irish in Bridgeport these days, but that was nothing to brag about. There was a Buddhist temple where he remembered a Catholic church. Half the signs were in Spanish. And Asians had taken over McGuane Park, trying to pose and play basketball like the brothers.

  Once he had his stake, it’d be time to move on.

  The waitress called him honey and touched his shoulder, her tits straining against the cheap uniform. He thought about kicking it back to her, asking when she got off, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble. He ordered, then lit a smoke and took it deep.

  So Danny had sent Patrick after him. Surprise move.

  Typical, though, of the guy he’d become. A couple of years wearing a white collar, and Danny had forgotten what was important. The thought chafed at Evan, the idea that while he’d been doing his time, the smug fucker was busily erasing his past.

  You could read the Trib through the burger the waitress finally plunked down. The soup looked like cream of cornstarch. It reminded him of prison food, and he imagined Danny waiting in line at the Stateville cafeteria for a plastic plate of mac and cheese with mashed potatoes, lukewarm milk to wash it down. He liked that image. Liked it quite a bit. A six-by-nine cell might be exactly what Danny needed.

  Something to think about.

  He ate without relish, keeping one eye on the cops at the counter. They talked quietly, making the most of their break, radiating that fuckoff attitude. He noticed the waitress touched their shoulders, too, cock-teasing for a tip. Everybody had a hustle.

  Outside, the lights of the skyline burned above the Mustang, and as he dug for his keys he stared at the towers of money and influence. They were mute, and far away.

  The cold air stung – it would be Halloween in a week or so – but he rode with the windows open anyway. A jumble of tract housing and bungalows spilled off either side of Loomis Street. Johnny Cash sang to him, telling him there was a man coming round taking names, telling him everybody wouldn’t be treated all the same, and cruising alone through the neighborhood that used to be his, rolling under the concrete monstrosity of the Stevenson Expressway, heading for a river that flowed backward, he knew it was true.

  Brandenburg was an industrial demolition firm with buildings on both sides of the street, maybe fifteen acres of storage and equipment. A dock wall ran along the river, oily water licking at the rusted faces of barges floating like rotting giants. The company had built its business on smashing things that were no longer useful and then disposing of the junk. What better place?

  He glided into the parking lot in neutral
, headlights off. Security was probably a couple of rent-a-cops playing gin rummy through the midnight shift, but no need to draw attention. He stopped in a pool of darkness and thumbed the trunk release button.

  The black tarp shone like wet ink by the light of the trunk. He grunted a little getting started – the angle was a bitch – but once he had it out, shouldering the load was easy. Twice a week he squatted several times Patrick’s weight.

  A funny place, Chicago. Something like nine million people, forty thousand violent crimes a year, more goddamn cars than you could count, but in the middle of the night, in the middle of the city, you could find quiet. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing and the wet slap of the river. Evan stepped onto the dock running along the river’s edge. The water glowed black a few feet below.

  He bent down, lowering his burden to the concrete. A boot stuck out of the tarp like it was waving good-bye. Evan put one foot against the middle of the bundle and shoved. The plastic scraped to the edge, friction fighting him, then the weight overbalanced and it slipped off. Half a heartbeat of silence later he heard a splash like a dark fish jumping, and Patrick was gone.

  Evan shook out a cigarette, lit it. The ripples spread out from below, semicircles drifting to kiss a barge forty yards upriver. He could almost see the silhouettes of teenage boys reclining on the mountain of trash it bore, stolen forty-ouncers in their hands and the skyline filling their eyes. What had happened to those kids, him and Marty and Seamus?

  And Patrick. And Danny.

  Tonight’s work was done. Tomorrow he’d plan his next move. It baffled him that Danny had sent Patrick after him. Could he really be so fucking dense after everything Evan had done to make his point?

  Apparently talk wasn’t getting through.

  He’d have to find a clearer way to communicate.

  17