by David Levien
53
“We need the quarterly numbers on Ramapo Industries,” Kenny, his manager, says, standing in his office doorway.
“Okay. I’ll have them before the weekend.” It is Thursday afternoon, so Kenny won’t have to wait long.
“And the year-to-date projections based on cash flow for Constantine. How you coming on that?”
“That I have for you now,” he says, digging around on his desk and finding a folder.
“My man, Hardy,” Kenny says.
“Paper copy, and I’ll e-mail you the file,” he says, handing over the folder.
“Good deal,” Kenny says, and leaves.
Later, he is heading to the kitchen for a coffee and comes upon a group of five people from his department. Claudia and Beth, Tom and Grant, and Kenny. They shift and get a little quiet when they see him, but he’s heard what they are talking about: their plans for the evening. He knows he makes them uncomfortable. He is a bit older than most of them, maybe that is why. Or maybe it’s the hair, the eyebrows, the alopecia universalis from which he suffers. All the hair on his body started falling out in clumps in his early twenties right when basic training ended. The doctors couldn’t explain it. It was some sort of immune system failure, they said, and suggested it could have been brought on by stress. It was right around the time of Mother’s illness and death, and grief, they said, could be a trigger. What they didn’t recognize was that it was basic itself, with all the talk of killing and the shooting and bayoneting and hand-to-hand, that had lit a magnesium fire in him, and that checking his urges was the stressor. If he’d only recognized what was happening and started in on his life’s work sooner, it would have abated, and his whole body wouldn’t have become smooth. But it had happened the way it had happened, as all things did. Regardless, the younger set these days expects everything and everybody to be perfect, and turn away from anyone who isn’t.
After a moment Kenny clears his throat. “Colts game at eight twenty, NFL Thursday-night edition down at Scotty’s. Are you in?”
“Thank you, Kenny, guys, for the invite, but I am not in. I’ve got some stuff to do tonight.”
“All right, Hardy,” Kenny says. If there is relief in Kenny’s eyes, he can’t see it. “Next time.”
“Indeed,” he says, and goes to fix his coffee. He watches them break up and go their separate ways. He does have something to do. He has a busy night ahead of him.
54
Ringing …
… Why the hell is my phone ringing in the middle of the night? Behr wondered.
It wasn’t like he didn’t need the sleep. It was four in the morning on the third day since the community meeting and it was official now: after running all the plates, parking tickets, and traffic stops in the areas of the body drops, he’d come up bone-dry. His effort had been a complete waste of time, and a third of a bottle of Wild Turkey had been his only solace once he’d finished.
The phone rang again and his mind went to Susan, calling about something wrong with Trevor, and his heart raced as he reached out and grabbed his phone from his nightstand but saw that Gary Breslau, not Susan, was the caller.
“What’s up?” Behr asked.
“It’s Quinn,” Breslau said.
“What about him?”
“Someone got him. He’s at Eskenazi, in Smith Trauma. I’m on my way there now.”
“So am I,” Behr said, putting his feet on the floor.
Behr heard the wailing before he even turned the corner and saw the police officers in the hospital hallway standing guard.
“Frank Behr,” he said, as they squared to him.
“Lieutenant said he’s good,” one of them told the other, and they pushed the door open, causing the pained cry to grow louder as he entered.
The room was full of doctors and nurses, with Breslau and a few other cops in street clothes, but was dominated by Sheri Quinn, the source of the sound, her petite figure vibrating with anguish and fear. Behr’s eyes met Breslau’s, but before they could exchange a word, a doctor cleared from the bedside and Behr got a look at a battered and mutilated Quinn. His head was massively swollen and wrapped in white bandages that were stained through with seeping bright red blood. Quinn’s eyes were blackened and closed, his nose looked broken, and his jaw appeared to be wired in place. And that was the good news. Behr’s gaze traveled down Quinn’s body, where bloody bandaged stumps were all that remained at the end of his forearms. Quinn’s hands were gone.
That was when Sheri Quinn seemed to notice Behr’s presence. With a half scream she babbled something that sounded like “You …” and started swiping feeble blows at his chest. A female nurse and another woman, perhaps a relative, got hold of Sheri Quinn’s shoulders and pulled her away.
Breslau signaled, and he and Behr retreated to a far corner of the room.
“Some workmen on a paving crew found him wandering around by the railroad tracks west of the stadium. He was all fucked up, didn’t even know his own name, but he still had his wallet in his pocket …” Breslau said, his voice low.
Behr looked at Sheri Quinn, seated now, her small frame racked with sobs.
“Blunt-force trauma to the head. Fractured skull.”
“What the hell happened to his hands?” Behr asked.
“They’re gone. Amputated, with a blow torch, is the best guess.”
I had that prick Prilo in the room, Behr thought to himself, looking for someone to lash out at, and I let him leave before getting something out of him …
“Ah fuck,” Behr said. “Why is he still alive?” he asked about Quinn, as quietly as he could.
“He shouldn’t be,” Breslau whispered. “The theory is he was left for dead. Between the bludgeoning and the hands, he should’ve bled out and died in a matter of minutes, and he would’ve, but the torch cauterized as it cut and the bleeding stopped pretty quickly. Somehow the tough bastard came to and got up and started walking.”
“Fuck me,” Behr said again. “This is my fault. For using him …”
“Easy,” Breslau said. “We’re thinking the same thing, that you drew the guy out, that he saw the pictures, but no one knows for sure what happened, and it’s not on you.”
“Tell me you recovered some DNA this time at least.”
“They went over his body as best they could. No DNA, no evidence of rape or sodomy …”
Thank God for small miracles, Behr thought.
“No hits. They went over his clothes with a fine-tooth comb too and they’re still working on it.”
“And?”
“You’re not gonna believe this—they recovered hairs.”
“Belonging to the perp?” Behr practically jumped.
“Doubtful. Long. Blond. Female.”
“Are they—”
“They’re being crossed against recent victims right now. I called a guy in special to run it as we speak.”
“If they belong to a victim, then this is our guy,” Behr said. He’d struck a nerve. Despite himself Behr felt his adrenaline surge. Prilo had been there at the meeting, and it had incited him.
That’s when they heard some babbling come from the bed, from between the clenched lips of Quinn, and Behr heard his name.
“Tell Behr …” the babbling came again, and the nurses and doctors made room for Behr and Breslau to approach the bedside.
“I’m here, Quinn,” he said, “it’s Behr.” Even Sheri Quinn stopped crying and went quiet.
“I’m sorry, Quinn, for what happened.” Behr moved close and Quinn’s eyes flickered. “Was it him?” Behr asked, but before he could say the name “Prilo,” Quinn babbled, “Hydroxyl … hydrox … benz …”
“What?”
“Smells like benz … benzy …”
“Smells like benzene?” Behr asked.
It wasn’t a nod, but some movement in the affirmative came from Quinn.
“What does? Where?”
“Where I was … Where he put …”
“Hydroxylate
d benzene,” Sheri Quinn said. “It’s a chemical used in developing film. He’s been going on about it since he came to. It’s all he’ll say. That you were right …”
The lead doctor, a man with steel-rimmed spectacles, thin red hair pressed to his temples, and an air of extreme competence, stepped forward and made himself noticed for the first time.
“We’ve got to do the procedure now,” the doctor said.
Breslau nodded and stepped back. Behr looked to him.
“He might have brain damage,” Breslau said low, pulling Behr away from the bedside. “They want to induce a coma. They need to try and control the swelling to his brain or he could end up a fucking cauliflower.”
“Shit,” Behr said, sick to his stomach. “Shit … What kind of a fucking asshole am I?”
Behr blasted the door open with a kick and stormed out to the hallway between the surprised police guards. He saw a steel medical rolling cart and picked it up, ready to smash it through a plate-glass window, when he felt hands that possessed real strength gripping his biceps, holding him back.
“What the fuck are you doing? Huh?” It was Breslau.
“I did that, in there,” Behr said, raw emotion in his voice. “I got that guy mutilated, maybe killed. He’s got kids, the wife. She could end up feeding him with a spoon. I—”
“Whoa, man. Come on. Who the fuck are you?” Breslau said. “Who are you that you think you can control everything?”
It stopped Behr cold.
“Put it down,” Breslau said. And Behr dropped the rolling tray back onto its wheels with a clang. The cops cleared a little way down the hall, giving them some space.
“I learned it by my second year on patrol same as you must’ve: we’re out there in the middle of it, but we’re not in charge of anything. You open the chute and try and ride the bull. You might think you can dictate where it’s gonna go a little, guide it once in a while. But the truth is: that beast is gonna go and do wherever and whatever the fuck he wants to and the best you can hope for is to hang on for the ride,” Breslau said.
Behr stood there staring.
“And you did. You got something going. You opened the chute. So now ride this fucker. Wait until we get back the match on those hairs, then chase down whatever it is you got.”
All Behr could do was nod.
55
The lead pipe hitting the man’s skull felt like the truth …
He is in bed, Margaret snoring softly beside him, thinking about it as if recalling a dream. Following the photographer off and on since the meeting only served to build his fury. All he could think of, driving behind Quinn, were those shoddy, garish photos.
That first night would’ve been the easiest. Quinn had split off from his friends, left the bar, drove home, parked two blocks from his loft building, and strolled casually home through the night. But he hadn’t been prepared. He’d had nothing with him. He’d had no plan in place.
Over the next few days, Quinn stopped by the police station several times. He worked there after all. And a crime scene—a carjacking that turned into a fatal motor vehicle accident—that he went to shoot was thick with cops. He didn’t know where else Quinn had gone, since he’d had to go to the office himself. But today, after work, once it was dark, he’d found Quinn leaving the station, perhaps for home. His senses lit up. By now he knew when the moment was coming. He made the moment come.
Quinn had pulled over at a dry cleaner not far from his place. The length of pipe felt heavy and good in his hand as he waited. The little strip mall housing the cleaner might have cameras. But Quinn might also find a parking spot right in front of his building when he got home and be inside in an instant, so he had to act. It was a calculated risk. It always was. It all was.
Quinn came out of the shop with his clothes on hangers inside a plastic bag and moved around to the trunk. The car slid like a nosing shark and thumped into Quinn’s legs, hurling the photographer into the rear of his own car and then to the ground. If anybody witnessed it, it would surely look like an accident. He was out of his car, and glancing around, no passerby to be seen in the darkness, by the time Quinn was struggling for his feet, uttering sounds of protestation and pain.
The pipe cut the night. Quinn’s skull absorbed the energy of the dense metal rod. If there was a noise from the first blow, he wasn’t aware of it, only a sigh escaping from Quinn as he buckled back to the ground. He delivered one more blow for good measure. This time the skull yielded and he almost couldn’t stop himself. He might’ve struck a few more times before moving on, because he sensed the arm that held the pipe moving up and down as if detached from his body.
Then it was up and into his trunk with Quinn’s unconscious form—the hardest part. But it was no more heavy or ungainly than three slabs of quarter-inch gypsum drywall, or sheet metal, or two-by-fours, or feed sacks or hay bales, things he’d lifted and carried all his life through his youth and even college. Back then he’d tried to work himself into exhaustion, in order to not do what he’d been called to do. Small animals were just a silly distraction by then, but he hadn’t yet been ready to become all he eventually would. There had been some uncomfortable moments, with girls he’d dated, that had ended in tears, but he’d always managed to talk his way out, to apologize, and to dive back into the work. It was almost as if it all had prepared him for Quinn.
He knew the spot out by the tracks. He had it all picked out. Not as private as his workshop, but this piece of garbage didn’t deserve to be brought there. He belonged outside like refuse.
The tank was waiting, just where he’d hid it. The flint sparked like a friendly greeting, and then the oxy mix howled in the darkness while he adjusted the flame.
Quinn’s body writhed as his first hand dropped off like rotten fruit, and then the second. He imagined the gouts of blood soaking into the ground in the darkness that would soon carry the hack to his death.
But then the cough of a diesel engine and backing beeps of a dump truck reached him. Some kind of crew was gearing up to work and he had to go.
The hands went into a bag, and it and the tank went into his trunk. His gloves went in on top of it all and he slipped away. He’d done it again, just what he’d had to.
His bed feels soft and warm around him. This was not like his other projects, but all the same he is ready to sleep the black, formless sleep of afterward. Quinn has taken his last picture, and by now, his last breath. Sleep comes and pulls him down.
56
Behr paced around in the street in front of the crime lab, sucking on a vile, ice-cold cup of gas station coffee and waiting for the results of the DNA test. Finally, after hours that felt like days, the door swung open and Breslau stepped out.
“You do know you can come inside,” he offered.
“I needed the air,” Behr said.
“I can see that. They only ran a rapid screen. Showed that the high probability is it’s not hair belonging to the Gibbons girl,” Breslau said.
“Okay. Who?”
“Unknown. For now. Only that they’re white-female. It’ll take some time to run the full test and cross it against the database.”
“You’ll let me know as soon as you get the full results?”
“Sure,” Breslau said.
“Anything else?”
“Django’s wife got a call from their dry cleaner. An Asian guy—”
“Just like the old commercial.”
“Which one is that?”
“Never mind. What’d he say?”
“That Quinn picked up some clothes last night right before closing, and the owner found them in the street outside, the ticket still on them.”
“That’s where Quinn got grabbed,” Behr said.
“We’re thinking the same,” Breslau said.
“Did the owner see anything? Anything caught on camera?” Behr asked.
“Don’t think so. But I’ve got some guys down there checking it out.”
“Can I head over?”
&n
bsp; “Go for it,” Breslau said and gave him the address.
Behr drove too fast and hoped too much on his way to the dry cleaner. He saw an unmarked car in front when he arrived and a pair of detectives was inside the store talking to the owner, a slender man in his sixties.
“My name is Behr,” he announced when he entered.
“Breslau called about you. I’m Kelty,” a tall bald-headed detective said and then pointed to his partner. “He’s Sanchez.”
They were in the process of fingerprinting the dry cleaner, who said nothing.
“What do you have?” Behr asked.
“These are Quinn’s things,” Sanchez said, indicating hangers bearing clothes covered by a plastic bag. “We’re hoping to get a fingerprint, so we’re printing Mr. Kim to exclude him since he handled the bag.”
“I saw it in the street and brought it back inside,” Mr. Kim said, speaking for the first time, his English unaccented. “I didn’t know anything bad happened, I just thought he dropped it.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir,” Kelty said. “You likely didn’t destroy any evidence. If there are prints on there besides yours and Quinn’s, we’ll find them.” The detectives bagged the bag. “Same with Quinn’s car. It was found out front and it’s been transported to the lab to be run for DNA.”
“Cross any results you get with known murderers,” Behr said, thinking of Prilo.
“Thanks,” Sanchez mocked. “How would we have thought of that?”
“Anything show up on the security cam?” Behr asked, ignoring the jab.
“Come with me,” Kelty said. “Okay, Mr. Kim?” Kim nodded, and then Kelty, Behr, and Sanchez moved around the counter toward the back. They passed between rows of hanging clothing on rotating racks and reached a small cramped office. There they reviewed security footage on Mr. Kim’s desktop computer.
The image was from a four-millimeter lens that provided a seventy-degree viewing angle stretching about thirty-five feet before it fell off into darkness. The face of a housewife registered clearly as she entered with her arms full of clothing at close to 9:00 P.M. the night before. Kelty fast-forwarded through her departure and some dead time and slowed down when Quinn appeared. He showed up empty-handed and left moments later carrying his dry cleaning. That was not something Quinn would be able to do perhaps ever again, Behr considered. Quinn left the spill of light and the range of the lens, and if anybody was in the darkness waiting for him, he was not visible in the footage. Before long the store’s lights went out, and Mr. Kim came into frame, locking up.