The Blade Itself

by Marcus Sakey

  Danny glanced up at him with a bland smile, but Nolan kept his own expression neutral as he took measured steps to the table. He stood for a moment sizing Danny up, letting the silence draw out a few seconds longer than was comfortable. Finally he pulled out a chair.

  “So,” he said, “I’m obligated to remind you that you can have counsel here if you like.”

  “Do I need it?”

  Nolan shrugged. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “This is about Patrick?” Danny’s voice caught slightly, and the sadness that flickered across his face seemed real enough.

  “Mostly.”

  “I can’t believe what happened. We’re still shocked. If there’s anything I can do to help, I’d be glad to.”

  The mask was back up, Nolan noticed. “Let’s start with you telling me how you knew him.”

  “We grew up together.” Danny continued, talking about Bridgeport and Back of the Yards, their mutual old neighborhood. How they’d been friends in grade school, and how when Patrick’s parents died, he’d come to live with Danny. A very Irish, very old-school story, and one Nolan mostly already knew.

  Still, Nolan let him talk, prompting here and there with questions to keep it flowing. Timing was crucial. He spent more than an hour establishing the basics, just letting Danny get used to talking. He asked about their friendship, about Danny’s past. Every time he spoke about Patrick’s death, he saw that same flash of sadness. Once, Nolan had thought that Danny might have had to dig deep to come up with someone still in the life, someone he could pay to get rid of Evan. But that obviously hadn’t been the case.

  “You guys have been friends all along, right? So you knew what he did.” Nolan made it a statement, holding his gaze on Danny’s.

  “Sure.” Danny didn’t flinch. “In general terms.”

  “And you felt okay being friends with a felon? I mean,” he paused, readying the barb, “this guy was a real piece of shit.”

  A vein in Danny’s forehead throbbed, but he kept his tone pleasant. “He was a good guy, Sean.”

  “Yeah?” He paused, changed tacks, trying to keep Danny off-kilter. “Hey, who gave you the shiner? Looks nasty.”

  “This?” Danny touched his cheek, where the skin was purpling. “Dumbest thing. I was working in the basement. Walked right into the cold water shut-off valve.”

  “That scratch up your hands, too?”

  Danny smiled. “Guess I should wear gloves when I work, huh?”

  Nolan didn’t return the smile. “I was wondering if maybe it had to do with that thing you came to see me about.”

  “Evan?” Danny shook his head. “Haven’t heard from him in a couple of weeks.”

  Fifteen years as a cop gave you an eye for reactions. Danny was a good liar, Nolan could see that, but he was lying just the same. “Just went away, huh?”

  “I guess he realized I wasn’t much of a target for a shakedown.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe he got tired of the weather. Either way, I haven’t heard from him.”

  Nolan nodded slowly. It was a good play. Any admitted contact with Evan would give Nolan something to hammer away at. He knew Danny was lying, knew that Evan was still in his life, that they were up to something. He’d been able to see it on Karen’s face, and in Danny’s actions. But knowing wasn’t the same as hard evidence.

  Unfortunately, evidence was in short supply. Unless circumstances changed, the only way he was going to get somewhere was if Danny slipped. He had to keep the pressure up, keep him off guard. With a smile on his face, he attacked.

  “So who killed Patrick?”

  The sudden change of topic seemed to throw Danny. His hands fidgeted on the table. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do.” Sean stood up and leaned into the table, his hands on it, using the height advantage to bring more power to his gaze. Danny looked up at him. “I think you did it.”

  “Huh?” His tone stunned.

  “I think you hired him to get rid of Evan, and Evan took him down. Which means, basically, you killed him.”

  Danny paused like he was fighting for composure, and Nolan knew he’d hit on something. Time to run his bluff.

  “We’ve got you on tape, asking Patrick to call you about a job. Sounding desperate. This is a couple days after Patrick’s supposed to have finished Evan off, and you’re getting worried.”

  “What tape?” Danny injected just a hint of scorn into the question, but Nolan knew he was upset.

  “Come on, Danny, admit it. You were scared. You needed help. You paid your childhood friend to take care of it for you. But Patrick got killed, and that’s why you’ve been running from us.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Remember,” Nolan said, trying a different direction, “Evan is still out there. And I’m sure he figured out who sent Patrick after him. You’re going to need protection.” He could see that something was churning in Danny’s mind, could almost watch him calculating. “We can make a deal here, Danny. You’ll have to face some charges, but you can put Evan away for murder. Be able to stop looking over your shoulder.”

  Danny stared at him.

  “Help us out and this can all be over.”

  He’d made his play, and knew he’d hit a nerve. Nolan kept his eyes hard, his body language aggressive, wanting Danny to feel the pressure of his presence. To feel leaned on. The two men locked glares, Nolan willing him to speak. Give me something, asshole. Just a tiny crack, anything, and he would hammer away till Danny shattered. All night, if that’s what it took.

  Then Danny smiled. “Detective,” he said, his voice calm, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Forty minutes later, Nolan was still smoldering. Back in the observation room, that smug expression of Danny’s hung in the shadowed air in front of him. On the other side of the glass, Detective Jackson was talking to the man, getting the same stonewall answers. Danny had made his decision. He was hiding behind a pretense of normalcy.

  And the part that burned was that no matter the fact that Nolan knew, just knew that the guy was dirty, all he had to connect the two was a phone call that wasn’t nearly as incriminating as he’d tried to make it sound. In fact, on the surface, the call was completely innocuous.

  The door opened, and Matthews stepped in to join him. He was silent for a moment, then nodded toward the glass. “Willie taking a run at him?”

  “I sent him to ask the same questions, see if anything changes.”

  “Any luck?”

  Nolan shook his head. “He’s sticking to it.”

  “Maybe he’s got nothing to stick to.”

  Nolan looked over at Matthews, then back through the glass. He could see his own reflection in it, very faint in the darkness. He paused, then spoke softly. “You ever know anybody in the Program?”

  “AA?” Matthews hesitated. “Yeah. My daddy was in it.”

  Nolan nodded. “Mine, too. He stick with it?”

  “For a while. Till the Zenith plant moved to Mexico. He went on a three-day bender. Ended up cutting a man in a bar fight. Went on the run, never came back.” The detective’s eyes seemed distant, like he was grappling with the demons of long ago. Then he shook his head, looked over. “How ’bout yours?”

  “He stuck with it. Did his twelve, went to commitments twice a week.” Nolan paused. “It worked for him. But you know the whole basis of the thing? You pledge not to drink today. That’s all. Tomorrow, you get up and do it again. You’re never really cured.”

  “So?”

  “It’s all about avoiding temptation. The thing about recovering alcoholics, you put a glass in front of them, sooner or later they drink it.” Nolan nodded through the glass. “Danny’s the same way.”

  “You think someone put a job in front of him.”

  “And he took it. Yeah.”

  Matthews nodded, shrugged. “Okay. So what you want to do?”

  Nolan shrugged. “Let him go.”
/>   “We can keep him here, sweat him. Wake him in the middle of the night and go through it again. He might slip.”

  “He might not. And if he doesn’t, we’d end up dealing with the state’s attorney before we could pick him up again.” He straightened, checked his watch. Almost five. “When Willie’s done, turn him loose.”

  “You’re going to let him walk clean?” Matthews sounded incredulous.

  “Hell no.” Nolan reached for the door handle. “I’m going to let him go and see where he leads me.”

  40

  A Thousand Curses

  The scream he’d been strangling for hours was starting to scrabble and tear at his insides. But Danny kept his citizen face up, trying to strike a pose of annoyed politeness as the old cop fumbled in a manila envelope.

  “One wallet, leather. One pair shoelaces. One ring of keys.”

  He noticed that his toe was tapping impatiently and made himself stop. Almost out. But then, frying pans and fires. Somewhere beyond this police station, Evan held all the threads of Danny’s life clenched in a callused fist.

  “And one cell phone. Sign here, please.”

  He snatched the pen and scribbled his name on the clipboard. “Where’s my car?”

  “Sir?” The officer blinked at him.

  “My car. One of the detectives drove it here.”

  “Let me check on that.” The man reached for the phone with the alacrity of drying cement.

  Danny swallowed the scream, bent down to lace his shoes. He tried to avoid looking at the watch as he fastened it, but couldn’t help himself. Jesus. Five thirty. In a day when every second counted, he’d just lost seven hours.

  Karen spent that time with Evan.

  The thought made his hands quiver, a pale anger rising in him, the scream almost escaping, making him want to shake the white-haired cop till his eyeballs rattled.

  Instead, he took a breath and adjusted the plastic smile on his face.

  The cop hung up the phone. “Sir, I believe you’ll find your car in the visitor’s lot in front of the station.”

  Danny turned away before the man finished. Everything in him wanted to run, but he forced himself to take measured steps, to move swiftly but not recklessly. He skipped the elevator in favor of a flight of steps he took in four leaps. In the lobby, a fit black beat cop stood behind the desk, patiently explaining something to a finger-pointing Latina. The evening’s crop of homeless and lost filled the benches, staring with wary eyes. Danny hurried past, opened the door, and stepped into the evening air. Traffic on the Dan Ryan buzzed white noise. As soon as he was out of sight, he broke into a run, sprinting past broken-down pickups and old Caddys. In his mind, the slaps of his feet were the ticking of a clock, tick-TOCK, tick-TOCK. He found his truck and had it in gear almost before the engine finished cranking. Roaring out of the parking lot, he swerved across two lanes and jumped on the highway.

  The whole time he’d been at the station, his mind had been racing, trying to think of a way to track Evan down. The man didn’t have a cell phone, had carefully kept his address from Danny. The last time he’d needed to get in touch with him, he’d called Murphy’s and left a message with the bartender. Evan wasn’t likely to return his call this time.

  Which left only one route that Danny could think of. Slaloming through traffic with his left hand, he flipped open his mobile phone with his right. He pulled up the menu, then the call register, and selected CALLS DIALED.

  There it was, dated just three days earlier. Felt like years. He punched DIAL and whispered a silent prayer as he counted rings. The line went to static as he shot under a bridge, swerving to the left shoulder to dodge a long line of traffic. A chorus of honking counterpointed the third ring. “Come on, Debbie. Pick up the phone.”

  Her voice truncated the fifth ring. “Hello?” She sounded tense, high-strung with panic.

  “Listen, I don’t have much time. I need you to pay attention. Evan has lost it. He went to my house and kidnapped my girlfriend.”

  There was a pause. “I know.”

  “What?” His ears seemed to ring. He couldn’t process what she had said.

  “He… he made me help him. He hit me, told me he’d kill me, that he’d-” She broke off in a choked sob.

  The image played out in his mind, Evan caressing the gun, Debbie wanting to do the right thing, but too scared, too weak to defy him.

  “It’s okay.” He spoke soothingly. “I understand. I’m coming. Where are you?”

  “The bathroom. I needed to pee, and… he just tied her up. He didn’t hurt her any.”

  “Debbie, what bathroom? Where are you?” The highway ahead was a parking lot, and he exited to surface streets, scanning for patrol cars as he jumped the light.

  She took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was an accusation. “You said you’d take care of everything.”

  The words cut. He remembered the parking lot the day before. Telling her to go home, telling her he’d end this. Saying it with a certainty, a bravado, which today seemed faint as dawn stars. “I tried.” He paused. “Yesterday was different.”

  There was a long pause. “Danny, I’m scared.”

  He sighed. “I know.” Stoplight after stoplight was mercifully green. “Me, too. It’s okay. Just tell me where you are.”

  “No.” Her voice was at once faint and resolute. “I can’t. If you show up, Evan will kill me.”

  His stomach seemed to shrink. Somehow he’d never considered that she might not help him – that she might decide Evan was the safer bet.

  “Debbie, I know you’re scared.” LaSalle was oddly quiet, and he gunned the truck, the blocks disappearing under his tires as he tried to be reasonable enough for both of them. “And I know that you’re hoping things will just turn out all right. That you can ride them out. But you can’t. If you don’t help me, Evan will kill Karen, and probably Tommy and his dad, too.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He sighed. “I used to think I could make this go away by playing along, just like you. But it only keeps getting worse. Sooner or later you have to realize it won’t stop. Unless we stop it.”

  There was a moment of silence, and he let it hold, afraid to push too hard for fear of shutting her down. Five seconds stretched into ten, ten into fifteen. He could imagine her thinking about it, weighing his words. He fought the urge to tell her to open her fucking eyes, to remind her of the diner parking lot and the dead man in a trunk at the airport parking lot. Then, in the background of the phone, he heard a sudden banging sound and a muffled voice. “What the fuck’s taking so long, Deborah?”

  “I’ll be right out.” She sounded shrill as glass. There was a pause like she was waiting to hear Evan walk away. When she came back on, she was barely whispering. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait!” He yelled. “Debbie, please.” Terrified that he might lose her now that he was so close. “Tell me where you are.”

  There was a sniffle, and he pictured her, sitting fully dressed on the toilet of some thin-walled bathroom, the scariest monster she’d ever known stalking outside the door. Her mascara stained and running, a bruise from wherever he’d hit her. The picture killed him. Then he remembered that she was the safest of the people at risk.

  “Please.” He whispered the word. “For Tommy.”

  He heard a shuddering intake of breath. He waited for her answer, ready to spin the car in any direction. Wherever they were, he’d have the element of surprise. It would put him back in control. All he needed to know was where to go.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  And then hung up the phone.

  He held it to his ear for stupefied seconds. She’d abandoned him. The only one who could tell him where Karen was. The only one who could save Tommy’s life. She’d hung up the phone.

  Goddamn her.

  A honking horn yanked him back to reality, and he spun into a gas station, barely avoiding the front end of a Volvo. He jerked the car in
to park and looked at the phone. Calling back was a risk to her. It might make Evan nervous, might make him question her loyalty.

  Fuck that.

  He hit redial, held the phone to his ear.

  One ring. Then, “Hi, this is Debbie. Leave your digits and I’ll hit you back.”

  She’d turned off her phone.

  He was out of options.

  He almost threw the mobile through the window. Stopped himself. Dropped the phone on the seat and his head in his hands. For what seemed like long moments he just sat there. Then he put the car in drive and continued up Clark.

  By breaking every rule of the road, he’d made amazing time, but it was hard to get excited about the prospect of arriving home. He had no idea where Evan was, no idea how to stop him. All he had was an empty house, a ticking clock, and a head full of useless plans.

  He double-parked in front of the apartment and got out. Things were unnervingly normal. Halloween decorations blinked and flashed. Down the block, a couple laughed as they struggled to hoist a pony keg up their front steps.

  He took the steps two at a time. Evan had said that he hadn’t hurt her, but there was no way to be sure. No way except to step in and pray not to find her bleeding out on the hardwood floor. The door to their apartment was slightly ajar. He put a hand against it, feeling the touch of the wood, wondering if this was going to be one of those permanent moments. If after this, his life would be divided into the time before he stepped into the apartment and the time after.

  He pushed the door open.

  The place was a shambles, and it took him a moment to realize that much of it was the mess from the night before. Boxes sat with clothes stacked beside them, and loose pictures were strewn across the floor.

  But there were other things wrong. The lamp by the couch was knocked over. The glass top of the coffee table was cracked in spiderwebs.

  He stepped in and walked down the hall. The bedroom was empty. So was the spare. There was a broken water glass on the kitchen floor. The back door stood wide open. On the counter was a tuft of brown hair, stained dark at one end, as though it had been ripped out.