The Fury hp-4

by Jason Pinter

pedes trians watching us, hands over their mouths in shock and terror. A few were on their cell phones, no doubt calling 911.

  A little late, but I appreciated the gesture.

  Scotty was still writhing, and I managed to turn him over, placing my knees in the crook of his elbows. Just like I had to the guy who tried to jump me at the apart ment. Scotty's head was bleeding from where I'd punched him. There was a ragged hole in his pants by his right knee. There was a nasty cut that was bleeding pretty heavily. I could feel the slow, hot trickle of blood running down my neck, where he'd clipped me with the lid.

  I raised my fist, ready to exhaust all the rage and fury of the last few days. To get payback for my brother's murder, for my father's incarceration.

  This man, this killer, this hired dealer. The world would be better off without him.

  Yet as I stared at my own fist, poised and ready to strike the helpless murderer, suddenly my hand went slack. My fingers uncurled. I couldn't do it. Justice wasn't about taking an eye for an eye. I was above that.

  I had to be.

  So I sat there, knees on his arms, the man below me in terrible pain, tears streaming down his face.

  "Please," Scotty blubbered, "let me go. You don't know what you're doing…"

  "I know exactly what I'm doing," I said. "I'm giving you the chance you never gave Stephen. I'm going to let you live."

  The sirens grew closer. I could see the red and blue flashing off the windows on the street. The air was hot, swirling around us as I waited, my breathing heavy, angry.

  "Get the hell off of him."

  I didn't recognize the voice. The sirens screamed all around us. I hadn't heard a car pull up. It wasn't a cop talking. The voice did sound familiar, though…

  Turning my head, from the corner of my eye I saw Kyle

  Evans standing two feet from our sprawled bodies. He was holding a gun in his hand. It was pointed right at my head.

  I heard more screams, and anyone who had been on the street watching had run off when the gun was pulled.

  It was just the three of us.

  I took my knees off Scotty, who scooted backward.

  He clutched his knee, biting his lip.

  I stood up. Air was coming back to my lungs, but I was still doubled over slightly.

  "He's a killer," I said, the words coming out in bursts. "He's-"

  And then I saw it. And whatever breath had found its way back into my lungs vanished.

  Kyle was holding a black pistol. And attached to the end of it was a thin metal tube. And I remembered what

  Leon Binks had said to me the night I identified Stephen

  Gaines's body in the medical examiner's office.

  "The killer was using a silenced weapon. Now, very few guns have those kinds of professional silencers you see in movies, that screw on like a lightbulb. Usually they're homemade, a length of aluminum tubing filled with steel wool or fiberglass."

  "It was you," I said. "You killed Stephen."

  Kyle went over to where Scott Callahan was lying on the ground. He was still holding his knee, but smiled when he saw his friend approach. Kyle knelt down, put his hand on his friend's shoulder. Scotty tried to prop himself up, but he was too weak. I stood there, my body rigid with anger and dread.

  Kyle looked back at me. Then he said, "You gotta do what you gotta do to survive."

  Then he placed the gun under Scott Callahan's chin and pulled the trigger.

  "What the fuck!" I shouted. The gun blast was more of a meek pfft, like compressed air escaping from a puncture. Gore sprayed out the top of Scott Callahan's head. His body twitched once, then fell to the ground and lay still.

  My hands wouldn't work. I stared slack-jawed at

  Kyle. He was still on the ground, the gun loose in his hand. He looked at his friend, a sorrow etching across his face for an instant. Then his eyes turned cold and his gaze came to me.

  "You have no idea," Kyle said, "how surprised I was to get to Stephen's house and find a gun already there.

  I had this one all ready. Instead, all I needed was the capper." He pointed to the silencer.

  "You used my brother's own gun to kill him," I said.

  "But he wasn't the last one to use it."

  "No, I really should have bought a lotto ticket that night. When I heard that Stephen's dad got popped for it? I nearly pissed myself laughing. See, that night I wore gloves, figured it would slow the cops down, but

  I had no idea about your dad's shenanigans. I was there to take out Stephen, but I kind of took out the whole family. As long as they had someone else pinned for the murder, we were in the clear."

  "We?" I said.

  "Scotty was supposed to do it. He knew Stephen better than I did. They were pals, man."

  I thought back to our conversation in the deli. Scotty pretending to barely know my brother. That's how they got so close to him.

  "When your dad got popped, we were in the clear.

  We even took the casings just in case. Turns out we didn't even need to. Now, though, Scotty here's gotta take the fall. Can't have anyone thinking the killer's still out there."

  "You son of a bitch."

  "On a normal day, I'd get pissed at you for talking about my mom like that, but I'll let it slide. Besides, when I meant nobody could know, I meant it." Kyle turned the gun to me. He had me less than five feet away, dead to rights. There was no tremor in his hand.

  By the time I even thought about running, he could pull the trigger.

  "Why?" I said. "Why did he have to die?"

  "You said it yourself," Kyle replied. "The man just had to. When you're the top dog in anything, you're gonna get bitten."

  "But Stephen was so young."

  "There's no one guy," Kyle said. "It's like Ronald

  McDonald. Every now and then someone new steps up to the plate. Call it a coup d'etat, call it whatever you want, but every company needs a regime change. Some new blood at the top. Now it's my turn."

  Curt Sheffield had told me that five people connected to 718 Enterprises had been killed recently. Add to that number my brother and now Scott Callahan. Helen

  Gaines told me that Stephen had wanted to leave the country, that he feared something terrible. Clearly he'd gotten wind that there were rivals who wanted to take him out. So, was Stephen systematically wiping out his competition? Is that why Kyle killed him-just to beat him to the punch?

  If what Kyle said was true, and Stephen and Scotty had been friends, Stephen trusted them both. That's how Scotty and Kyle talked their way into my brother's apartment. They were couriers for him, yet he didn't fear them. My brother had been betrayed by his own friends.

  When Stephen came to the Gazette that night, he'd wanted to come clean. He knew the chances of getting enough money to hide were slim. So my guess was that he was going to spill on the whole operation. He didn't fully trust the cops to protect him, but he figured if it made the papers first he couldn't be killed without the public being aware of it. His only hope was to cause a big enough story that he would be forgotten. That he could disappear in the maelstrom.

  But he was killed before he could ever come clean.

  And his story was about to die as well.

  Kyle then took the gun and placed it in Scotty's dead hand. He wrapped his own finger around Scotty's in the trigger guard and aimed it at me.

  Just then a car sped onto the block. It was a black

  CrownVictoria. Kyle's attention turned from me to the car.

  The door opened. And out got Detective Sevi Makhoulian.

  "Freeze, police!" the officer yelled. Kyle couldn't turn away from Makhoulian. A strange look crossed his face, and I swear the gun began to lower. He was going to give up.

  And then three successive explosions turned the air into a thunderstorm, and Kyle Evans's body was flung backward onto the street. He landed next to Scotty, his friend, Kyle's eyes and mouth open.

  I turned to Makhoulian, hands covering my ringing ears. He was saying somethi
ng to me, but I couldn't hear the words.

  He walked closer, gun at his side, the flashing lights now on our block. I felt the detective's large hand on my elbow. He was mouthing, Henry, are you all right?

  I knew instinctively that my voice wouldn't work, so

  I nodded. Then I turned back to see the dead littering the street.

  33

  One week later

  LaGuardiaAirport was surprisingly empty. We bought a couple of coffees at a java stand in the food court. I waited while he came back from the newsstand, carrying a bag with a paperback book and a copy of the

  Gazette.

  My father was thinner than I'd ever seen him. His eyes were sunken and his skin wrinkled. Gray hair taking up most of whatever was left. My father no longer looked angry; he just looked old.

  Prior to a few weeks ago, I hadn't seen James Parker in years. My family was a memory, one I'd longed to forget. If you leave a person, your memory retains your last image of them. My last image of my father was an angry middle-aged man. Now he sat here, one step from broken, waiting for a flight back home.

  "Mom's picking you up in Portland?" I said.

  "That's what she said," my father answered, as though not believing her.

  "If she says she'll be there she'll be there." He nodded, thinking more about it and agreeing with me.

  I popped the top off my coffee and took a sip. Strong and sweet. "At least you've got a great story for your bowling league."

  "I missed three league tournaments," he said, resent ment in his voice. "I'm sure they replaced me by now."

  "Didn't you once tell me you had a 187 average? I'm sure they'll want that back in the rotation."

  "One-eighty-seven, huh?" he said, thinking. "That seems a tad high. Maybe one-forty."

  "Still not too shabby." He shrugged his shoulder, then took the lid off his coffee and took a long gulp.

  When he set the cup back down, there was a scowl on his lips. "You know, prison food gets a bad rap. The eggs and joe down there weren't half-bad."

  "If you really want, I'm sure you could figure out a way to go back."

  "S'alright. Hopefully my TiVo recorded all the Law

  amp; Order episodes I missed."

  "At least your priorities are straight again." He nodded, missing the joke.

  "You told me you saw Helen," my father said, looking back at me. He actually looked concerned. Even sad.

  "She's in rehab," I said. "The state is paying for it.

  Clarence Willingham is quite a guy. She has some good people looking out for her."

  "I never got to tell her I was sorry," he said.

  "I have her address," I said. "Write her a letter. She'd appreciate that."

  "Maybe I will." The way he said it let me know that no such thing would ever be done.

  "So they got the guys who did it. Who killed

  Stephen."

  "They're both dead. The real killer, Kyle Evans, tried to frame his friend. Then the cops killed him."

  "Good riddance," he said. "It's all tied up with a pretty pink bow. I never want to set foot in this city again."

  "I still don't fully get it," I said. "If Stephen was really as high up as Kyle and Scott said he was, did he really need to leave the country to get away from them?

  And if they were able to get close enough, obviously

  Stephen didn't think they were a threat. Which makes me wonder just who Stephen was afraid of."

  "No disrespect to the dead," my father said, "but I don't think any of those boys were in their right mind."

  "And the cop, Makhoulian. I'm glad he worked so fast to get you out. I just didn't think he needed to kill

  Kyle. He looked like he was giving up."

  "You're saying the guy who killed your brother should have lived?"

  "One death doesn't always merit another. We have a justice system."

  "Which would have probably screwed up somehow and either let that boy walk on a technicality, put him in some cushy detention facility because some quack doctor on somebody's payroll said he has woman issues. Or he'd be out in enough time to kill somebody else's son. I don't know what's going on in this city, Henry, but being among criminals day in and day out is no way to live."

  "Maybe I'll move back home with you and Mom,"

  I joked. That made him laugh. He checked his boarding pass.

  "I should head to the gate. They'll probably give my ticket to some freak if I'm not there on time."

  His flight didn't board for another hour, but the

  Parker family bonding hour had run its course. We both stood up. My dad stepped forward, then wrapped his arms around me, the most tentative hug I could imagine.

  I returned it. Just a little stronger.

  "Thank you for your help," he said. The feeling was genuine. He wasn't going to apologize for the years before that, and I wasn't going to ask him to.

  "Take care of yourself," I said. "And please take care of Mom. Do me one favor?"

  He frowned. "What?"

  "Mom was knitting something when I saw her in

  Bend. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to have it."

  "I'll tell her," he said.

  "And if you change your mind and decide to take a vacation in NYC, at least give me a call."

  "I will. And give my best to your girlfriend. She seems like a catch."

  "One in a million," I said. "Without her you'd still be in jail."

  "Guess I owe her a thank-you then. Pass it on for me, will ya?"

  "I will. And Dad?"

  "Yeah, Henry."

  "I'm sorry too. About Stephen. I wish I'd had a chance to know him. Maybe we could have saved him."

  His eyes closed as he took a deep breath. When he opened them, he sighed and said, "Take care, Henry. It's good to see I raised you right."

  Then he was gone.

  34

  We were almost done packing. After several years in that apartment, the time had come to say goodbye before the floor gave out or a black hole opened up that sucked us into some alternate universe. A man can only face so many attempted assaults on his doorstep before rethinking his living situation. And since I'd already been thinking about more space, when Amanda agreed with me it made sense. My lease was up in a few weeks.

  It was as good a time as any to start over.

  We were submerged amongst folded cardboard boxes, masking tape, clothes, books, papers and every thing else you forget about and probably have no need for. My books took up the most room. I packed all of my first-edition Jack O'Donnell tomes in a padded box, reinforced with enough masking tape to hold up the

  Brooklyn Bridge. My clothes were another story. There were two small boxes marked Henry's Clothes. They weighed about as much as a pizza.

  "You know," Amanda said, "you could have saved on the moving van and just rented a bike. You could have fit all your stuff into one of those E.T. baskets."

  "I'm not a shopper, what do you want from me?"

  "Not a shopper?" she said, putting down her Sharpie.

  "Even being able to use the word shopper implies that you have, in fact, shopped in your life. I'm guessing most of these clothes survived from college, or else the local Salvation Army dropoff is pretty bare. When we get settled, first thing we're doing is taking you on a proper shopping spree. You could use a new suit. And new pants, new shirts, and don't get me started on your underwear."

  "Is this what we'll be like five years from now?" I said, smiling. I went up to Amanda, wrapped my arms around her. She snuggled in, resting her head on my shoulder. "On each other's cases about clothing and stuff?"

  "I'm playing with you, you big baby." She tilted her head up until I was staring into those beautiful eyes.

  "Besides, I just want the best for you. You're great at your job. I just want people to know that just by looking at you."

  "You know that just by looking at me."

  "Hopefully, most people won't need to wake up next to you in the morning in o
rder to know you're the best young reporter in the city."

  "Best young reporter?"

  "Don't get ahead of yourself. Give it time, Henry."

  I gave her a quick kiss, then went back to packing.

  Though there were enough bad memories here to make me want to run away from this block screaming like a banshee, I'd miss it ever so slightly. Like that crazy first girlfriend who showed up at your apartment drunk at

  4:00 a.m. and burned all your CDs when you broke up, there would be a small (well-guarded) place for it in my heart.

  I wished there would be room for Stephen Gaines in my heart, but I couldn't force what was never there. I don't know how many people have pasts that exist without their knowledge. There was more to Stephen's life than what I'd uncovered. He'd lived for thirty years, abandoned by his family, given up by his father. The man who killed him had faced the most severe retribu tion possible. Yet a lingering doubt still remained, as I could see him on that street corner, tortured by some thing. Not Scotty Callahan. Not Kyle Evans.

  Having dealt in vice for ten years, Stephen had seen more evil than most men did their whole lives. To do what he did took resolve, the knowledge that you were bringing poison into the world, that you couldn't be scared of the consequences. Every day could have brought jail or death. Yet he kept on living that life. And finally the odds caught up with him.

  So what scares a man who isn't afraid of losing his freedom or his life?

  My cell phone rang. It was the moving van. They were here to pick up our furniture, though we'd be lucky if it made it to their warehouse without disinte grating. I answered, and a hoarse voice told me the van would be there within fifteen minutes. I turned to

  Amanda, said, "Moving company's almost here. Should we, like, start bringing stuff down?"

  She looked at me like I'd just admitted to wearing women's underwear. "Henry. They're a moving company. We pay them to move us. That's their job."

  "I know, I just feel a little silly watching people carry all my stuff."

  "This is New York. If you can pay four bucks for a coffee and not feel bad, paying someone to carry and store your crap shouldn't even register on the guilty-o meter. So enjoy it, babe. It's not too often people are going to do your heavy lifting for you."