by Ian K. Smith
“Who knew about your pregnancy?” I said.
“My father was the first and only one I told for a while. I knew he would keep it a secret. He also talked to Dr. Weems, who connected me to the clinic and doctor in Wicker Park. Then I told Dr. Patel. She was already helping me with so much other stuff, and her husband knew, so it made sense to tell her. I had been stressed out about the pregnancy and the charity thing, so I was planning on going away anyway. She had agreed to look after Tabitha for me for a few days. I dropped off Tabitha the afternoon Hunter and I had that fight. I wasn’t expecting to leave so soon, but all the stuff Hunter was saying, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to go.”
“When did your mother find out you were pregnant?” I asked.
“I never told her. My father kept it just between us. He said he would handle it all and just make it go away. But then when I called him from out here and he told me what happened to Chopper, I told him he could go ahead and tell her. I didn’t want to talk to her. I was in no condition to fight.”
I could relate. I often felt the same way with my father.
She tilted her head toward the sky. Tears flowed steadily from underneath the glasses. “I feel so alone,” she said. Then she rubbed her stomach and smiled softly. “I hope one day when they get older, they’ll understand how much I truly loved their father.”
55
HORACE HENDERSON STOOD BESIDE me with great determination as he lowered his head and took a deep breath. He stood not much better than five feet, and his lean frame still held the tight muscles that had served him well working construction on the streets of Chicago for almost forty years. His black skin glistened even in the darkness of the chamber’s anteroom. His salt-and-pepper hair had been cut close against his scalp.
“You’re not worried he’s gonna say something to someone once you let him go?” Henderson said.
“Not one bit,” I said. “He knows the only reason he walks out of here on his own two feet is because of me. He understands that he says a word to anyone, next time he leaves in a bag.”
Henderson looked at me.
“I have options. I have friends. He doesn’t even know where we are. Nothing connects me or you to him. What happens here will stay here. You’re safe.”
Henderson returned his gaze to the monitor. I could see the resolve settle in his eyes.
“Ready?” I asked.
He nodded without looking at me.
I opened the chamber’s heavy steel door and stepped aside. Henderson carried a chair in with him. I stayed back in the shadows. Henderson walked in ten feet, then sat on the chair.
“Who are you?” Stanton said, his voice scratching through his dry lips. “Please, help me.”
“I hate you,” Henderson said, his dark face emotionless, empty. “I detest you with every fiber in my body. Just the sight of you makes me taste blood.”
A look of confusion wrinkled Stanton’s gaunt face. “What have I done to you?”
“You stole my only child. You seduced him. You abused him. You raped him. You broke him.”
“Who is your child? I’ve never met you.”
“Calvin Henderson.”
Stanton’s chest heaved, then tears slowly fell down his face. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry is too late,” Henderson said. “He’s gone. You killed him.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him. He was such a good boy. I just wanted to guide him and help him. He was such a precocious child.”
“He was just that . . . a child. An innocent, loving, gullible little boy. You took advantage of his trust and my wife’s trust. She’s gone too. She died in her sleep exactly a month to the day after they found him hanging in the shower in his apartment. My wife was a healthy, strong woman. Never been in the hospital her entire life. She died of a broken heart. You killed her, too, muthafuckah.”
Stanton shook his head. “I am ashamed of what I did, and the pain I caused you. I was selfish. I didn’t think about the harm I was causing. I never meant for it to go where it went. I was not a well man. Can you forgive me?”
“Why my son?” Henderson said, his voice cracking slightly, his first display of any emotion. “What did he do to deserve that?”
Stanton shook his head and hiked his shoulders as much as the restraints would let him. The peanut butter had begun to harden and was flaking off his bare legs and crotch.
“I need to know,” Henderson said, his voice stronger. “Tell me why you chose him!”
“I don’t know,” Stanton cried.
“Not good enough,” Henderson said, shifting in his chair.
“I . . . he was just there,” Stanton said. “He was so kind and gentle and looking for answers. He was such a perfect child in so many ways.”
“And you just couldn’t help yourself. You were like a wolf let loose in a sheep’s pen. You could have whatever you wanted, so you just went after all of them. Do you even know how many you took?”
Stanton dropped his head and cried harder.
“Do you even know how much pain you caused and how many families you destroyed? Calvin never told me what you did to him, because he was ashamed. And what still makes my blood boil is knowing that right up till he killed himself, he wanted to protect you from me. That’s the kind of gentle heart he had. You abused him and raped him and hurt him, and he still wanted to protect you from me. He knew you were good as dead the second I heard what you had done to him. So all those years he kept it from me.”
Henderson paused for a moment to fight back tears. He clenched his fists and looked away from Stanton to gather his strength.
“You are the lowest of low,” Henderson said. “A coward. A sick predator walking around in the disguise of a religious man. I’ve lost so many nights of sleep seeing the beautiful face of my boy, tortured and hollow, because of what you did to him. All these years, I have asked myself what I could have done to protect him. If only I had even the smallest clue of what was going on at the time. There’s nothing that crushes the heart more than the guilt and regret of not doing enough.”
The two sat there for a moment, staring at each other. Stanton knew his words at this point were useless, so he offered none. Henderson got up from his chair, walked over to Stanton, and stood over him. As Stanton dropped his head, a slight smirk parted Henderson’s stoic face. The gleam of his white teeth flashed against his dark skin.
“Look at you, you little coward,” he said. “You pathetic waste of life.”
Just as Stanton looked up, Henderson released a right blow to the side of his face. The crunching and snapping of bone bounced around the chamber. A squirt of blood flew from Stanton’s mouth, followed by a roar of pain. Henderson spit on him, then turned and walked back to the door.
I stepped in with the cage. The twenty rats weighed more than fifty pounds combined. They squealed and climbed over each other and scratched the bars. I’d made sure they hadn’t eaten in a week so that they were ravenous and would be indiscriminate in their search for anything to keep them alive. They were so desperate they were on the verge of eating each other if they didn’t find food soon. The smell of peanut butter and bacon threw them into a frenzy. I set the cage on the floor.
“For Calvin and all the others who suffered,” Henderson said. “May their faces and cries haunt and chase you into hell.” He lifted the cage door and the rats raced out, squealing and stumbling over each other, their feet pitter-pattering across the concrete floor.
Stanton let out the most dreadful shriek I’ve ever heard in my life. Pure fear and desperation. His face distorted with horror as the rats followed the scent and ran directly toward him, circling and squeaking and hissing as they cautiously assessed the danger that might stand between them and a hearty meal. Rats were extremely intelligent animals, especially sewer rats. Soon, a younger rat would be the first to take a chance, and once Stanton could do nothing to stop him, the rest would follow and feast. I thought about Michael Weiland and t
hose bees so many years ago. The visceral satisfaction I’d felt then had returned. The feeling was like a drug—exhilarating and calming at the same time.
Henderson and I stepped out of the room, locked the door, then sat and watched the monitor on the other side. Henderson took it all in, not once smiling, but I could see the relief saturate his eyes. The peaceful look of contentment when justice was finally served was unmistakable.
It took almost half an hour for that first rat to make his move. He stood at Stanton’s feet and sniffed; then he started his climb. Stanton jerked, and the rat fell. The hungry rat waited a couple of minutes, then began to climb again, this time hanging on as Stanton thrashed. His bravery was rewarded; he licked and chewed the peanut butter, then nibbled at the bacon. A second rat made a quick ascent on the other leg. Minutes later they all started to climb, stepping over each other, hissing and fighting, desperate for a meal, clawing and chewing away at the food and his skin, not discriminating between them.
Stanton howled and writhed, but the intelligent rats knew he posed no threat. It was going to be a painful hour, but I wouldn’t let them kill him. It would be a greater physical and psychological punishment if he had to live and live with agony. For the rest of his life he would have those scars all over his body—reminders every time he got dressed in the morning or stepped in and out of a shower of all the damage he had done to those young boys.
I looked over at Henderson. A small stream of tears finally fell down his frozen face.
56
CAROLINA AND I SAT comfortably by the robust fire inside of Fig & Olive on fashionable Oak Street. The well-heeled shoppers and their black cards were taking a much-needed break. I had ordered the tuna tartare with cucumber carpaccio to start. Carolina ordered the avocado toast without the bread, of course. She looked her usual flawless self in a black pencil skirt and red silk blouse.
“You feel better now that it’s over?” Carolina asked.
“Not sure if I would describe it as feeling better,” I said. “Let’s just say I feel more settled.”
“About Chopper?”
I nodded. “And Tinsley. Knowing that she’s alive and plans on having the babies makes me feel like a part of him is still with us. Who knows if it ever would’ve worked out between them, but I believe they really loved each other.”
“But others wouldn’t let it be.”
“And that’s the real sadness of it all. No one really gave them a chance.”
“What’s Ice gonna do?”
“He had a visit with Merriweather.”
“How did that go?”
“He told him not to waste any money on hotshot lawyers. His son would be a lot safer on the inside than he would be out here. The justice of the courts would be a lot kinder than his justice.”
“I got chills just hearing you say that,” she said.
“Imagine how Merriweather must’ve felt sitting across from him.”
The waiter replaced the basket with more warm bread, and I commenced to exponentially increase my carb intake. Unapologetically. Carolina was happy to just watch.
“You were really cut out for this,” Carolina said.
“Eating good food?”
“Trying to make right out of wrong.”
“I’m not delusional enough to think that I can change the world,” I said. “But I do think there’s a universal karma that dictates good will ultimately prevail over evil. Maybe not always in the terms that we want or can identify, but it still happens.”
“It all just seems so natural to you,” Carolina said.
“Don’t tell my father that. He still thinks I should’ve been a tennis star.”
“And mine thought I should’ve been a ballerina.”
“What happened?”
“My curves started coming, and I had a choice of either starving myself to fit into my tights or letting my pubescent body develop. I chose the latter. My mother said that my body was a gift from God.”
“Amen to that. Now if only I could unwrap it.”
“All talk and no action,” she said, smiling.
“Until there is,” I said, then asked the waiter for our dessert to go.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Detective Socrates “Soc” Mabry for his invaluable insight into the inner workings of the Chicago Police Department. His patience and willingness to answer even my most mundane questions, regardless of the hour or how often I asked them, gave me the best chance to get all the procedural stuff as correct as possible. Of course, any mistakes are solely mine. Big shout-outs to Detectives Fred Marshall and Gerald Cruz, also from the Area Central Detective Office, who explained in great detail how they do what they do as part of a big-city police force that doesn’t always get it right but tries its best. Have fun in retirement, gents, and enjoy your next chapter. Big fist bump to my agent, Mitch Hoffman, who read the very first draft of this manuscript and understood what I was trying to do as well as my vision for the Ashe Cayne series. Every writer needs at least one champion, and you stood shoulder to shoulder with me through it all from day one. Editors Megha Parekh and Caitlin Alexander—your eyes and thoughts and diligence so wisely helped give this story the shape that is now on the pages. For that I am most grateful and inspired to write even more. And to my fans who read The Blackbird Papers and The Ancient Nine and nicely said they liked my health books but really wanted me to write another novel—know that your words constantly ring softly in my ears.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2020 by Triste Smith
Dr. Ian K. Smith is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Shred: The Revolutionary Diet, as well as Super Shred: The Big Results Diet, Blast the Sugar Out!, The Clean 20, The Ancient Nine, and eleven other books, with millions of copies in print. Dr. Smith’s critically acclaimed novel The Blackbird Papers was the 2005 BCALA fiction recipient of the Honor Book Award.
Dr. Smith is a former cohost of the Emmy Award–winning daytime talk show The Doctors and is currently the medical contributor and cohost of The Rachael Ray Show. He has written for Time, Newsweek, Men’s Fitness, and the New York Daily News, among others. Dr. Smith has served on the boards of the American Council on Exercise, the New York Mission Society, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, the New York Council for the Humanities, and the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity.
Keep up to date with Dr. Smith by visiting his website, www.doctoriansmith.com, and following him on Twitter @DrIanSmith and Instagram @DoctorIanSmith.