by Jack Quaid
Sullivan pulled into a gravel driveway a couple of wooden frames down and shut off the engine.
Winter shot him a worried look. ‘Do we need backup? There were three of them.’
Sullivan scratched at his stubble. He could hear the fear in her voice. ‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said. ‘You can walk away. If it goes bad, no one will know a thing; if I come out with the cash, you can bring it in with me.’
Winter looked out the dusty rear window at the bleakness behind. ‘Fuck it,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
The wind slapped Sullivan across the face as he stepped into the street. Winter slid next to him, unholstered her weapon, checked the chamber, and let it slide back into place.
‘I’ll take the back,’ he said. ‘Give me ten minutes, then come through the front.’
She nodded, and he set off down the dusty road. When he came up on the house, Sullivan pulled his service weapon and held it by his thigh. His boots sank in the mud, covering them in a shitty shade of brown as he moved down the side of the house, past three larger windows and one that looked to belong to a laundry or bathroom. The second floor was laid out the same. Sullivan couldn’t see much besides dark rooms and afternoon glare. Nothing in the backyard either: no dirty cops, no fifteen million. He worked his way across to the back door, pressed his ear against it.
Nothing.
He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and turned. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him, reducing the wind to nothing more than muffled thumps against the windows.
The kitchen had been abandoned before the benches were in place. The walls had been painted in various shades of white, and the fixtures were cheap.
Then he heard it: a sound upstairs. A thump followed shortly by another, then another after that. Sullivan readied his weapon and found his way to the staircase.
The upstairs hall ran both left and right, with the stairs placed dead center. He turned to the right and in the direction of the muffled thumps.
The first two rooms came up empty.
He made his way down the hall.
Only one room left.
Sullivan took a breath, gripped his weapon, and stepped through the doorway, ready to go to war with whatever was on the other side.
Empty.
The thumping he heard was nothing more than a blind slapping against an open window. Sullivan relaxed, dropped his gaze, noticing that his footprints had followed him in. Mud tracked every step he had taken. The house was surrounded by the mud. There were no paths and no steps to the house. The only way in was through that mud, and Sullivan’s footsteps were the only footsteps in the house.
Nobody had stepped foot in that house for months.
Sullivan took the stairs three steps at a time, Winter was in the lounge room.
Sunlight poured through the lounge-room blinds, falling across her face like bars.
‘Find anything?’
‘You’ve been set up. Nobody’s been here for a long time. Let’s go.’
Outside, a car pulled up. Doors opened and closed.
Gunfire blasted through the lounge-room window. The blinds danced as bullets tore through them, leaving shards of light in their wake. Sullivan hit the deck. They were firing off so many rounds it was difficult to tell where and how many shooters there were.
Sullivan returned fire. Unloaded an entire clip randomly through the blinds and into the street.
Gunfire ceased. Clips and clanks. Reloading. He climbed to his feet and ejected the clip, slamming in another and unleashing nine tiny explosions blindly through the window. The room blew up around him with plaster slabs falling from the walls and crumbling over in puffs of dust.
Empty—he ejected the clip. Rammed in a fresh one. Nine rounds later, Sullivan was empty again.
Silence.
A layer of smoke hung in the air and exposed itself in the beams of light protruding from the gentle sway of the blinds. He held his breath and slid the last magazine into the weapon.
Footsteps. Car doors. Tires on the gravel. It was all over in the space of twenty seconds.
He holstered his weapon, wiped the smoke from his eyes, and when he opened them, it was to the sight of Winter facedown on the floor in a pool of her own blood.
Sullivan fell to his knees, put pressure on her wound, and pumped her chest. He talked to her and tried to get her to wake up, but there was no point. One of the first bullets to come through the window had pierced her lung and killed her not long after. Somewhere, buried deep inside him, logic had kicked in and he knew that there was no bringing her back, but his heart wouldn’t accept it, so Sullivan continued to pump her heart while her vacant eyes stared at the roof and tears rolled down his face.
It was the pain that caused him to stop. At first he couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. Then he saw the blood on his shirt, and then he found the bullet hole in his gut.
Chapter Thirty-Five
He was driving so fast the lines on the road looked like dots. In fifteen minutes, the adrenaline would wear off and the pain would kick in. An hour or so later, his body would shut down and he’d pass out. A couple of hours after that, he’d be dead.
Sullivan pulled a phone out of Winter’s handbag and left bloody fingerprints on the screen as he dialed. After the third ring, Dennis answered. He told Sullivan to go to hell and hung up.
Sullivan had busted Dennis Hunt a couple of years ago for practicing medicine without a licence. Now, instead of performing backyard abortions and tending to GSWs, he was running a pawn shop in Flint.
Sullivan bounced the car up onto the gutter outside of the pawn shop and brought it to a stop with the handbrake. He had the sweats, the shakes, his vision was blurred, and his coordination gone. The bell on the shop door rang as Sullivan stumbled through it. Rows of obsolete televisions lined the walls, and saxophones and guitars hung from the ceiling. Dennis emerged from somewhere out the back. The hope of a customer faded from his eyes, and his smile disappeared as he caught sight of Sullivan.
‘I told you not to come here,’ Dennis yelled with enough force to make his comb-over fall out of place.
‘I’m here now. Are you going to do what you do?’
Dennis’s gaze fell to the pool of blood that had formed by Sullivan’s feet, but he remained unmoved.
His wife, Kirsty, stepped out from the back. ‘What the fuck is all this?’
‘None of your business,’ Dennis yelled.
‘I told you no more of this shit.’ She pointed to the blood on the floor. ‘Who’s going to clean that up?’
‘Shut up, I’ll clean it, I’ll clean it, you fucking nag.’
‘Oh, yeah, now I’m a fucking nag. I don’t hear you complaining when—’
Sullivan was feeling woozy, and all the yelling was giving him a headache. ‘Hey,’ he said quietly.
The pair of them turned to him as though surprised he was still there.
‘Is someone going to pull this bullet out of me, or am I going to have to die right here on your floor?’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Blood fell from the tip of Sullivan’s boot and grew into a puddle on the concrete floor. It covered his sock, ran up the inside of his leg, and came to a stop at the hole in his belly. It wasn’t big enough to push a finger through but was big enough to pump blood out every time his heart beat, and when it did, a new wave of crimson covered his badge. Sullivan unclipped it and tried to wipe the tarnished shield clean, but no matter how hard he tried, it still remained stained.
Dennis moved around his dusty storeroom while he collected the tools of his trade: scalpels, needles, vials, and clamps. He laid them out delicately on a Sam Adams serving tray then leaned down to get a closer look at the bullet hole. ‘Not so bad,’ he said. ‘Not as bad as the others.’
In comparison to the bullet scar around Sullivan’s heart and the two in his back, it wasn’t. But Sullivan wasn’t about to get cocky.
Dennis searched around in his little black bag
of illegal medications and pulled out a vial. ‘Patched this guy up once,’ he said. ‘Got one in the gut, just like you. He lived—died three weeks later though.’
‘At least he had you to comfort him.’
‘Oh, not from the gunshot,’ Dennis said as he stuck a needle into the vial. ‘Got bricked in his sleep.’
‘Bricked?’
To make his point, Dennis pretended to have a brick in his hand and beat someone over the head with it. The reenactment didn’t fill Sullivan with confidence. ‘For the pain,’ Dennis said, stabbing Sullivan in the arm with a needle. ‘All good?’
It wasn’t all good.
Sullivan tried to stand, but the world fell from under him.
Within seconds he was out cold.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The beating started long before Sullivan knew anything about it, and whoever was behind it knew how to dish one out. His bottom lip stung, and his eyes were swollen. He had a couple of loose teeth, and there was a stabbing pain in his gut. A blow to the side of his head knocked him back to reality.
At first, everything was in fragments:
The pool of blood by his feet.
The stitches in his gut.
A figure hunched over him, badge on his belt. Blood on his knuckles.
Sullivan’s vision cleared: it was Cooper. Then he copped another blow. A right cross.
He coughed blood.
‘He’s awake,’ Cooper mumbled, then he stepped out of the light to reveal Rayburn leaning against a bench behind him.
Warren, beside him, let out a laugh—sounded like a mule.
‘Feeling a little foolish actually,’ Sullivan said.
Cooper mustn’t have liked the tone in his voice, because he planted a nice uppercut into his ribs. Sullivan heard at least one snap.
He was tied to a wooden chair, his arms and legs taped to its arms and legs. He flexed his muscles, trying to test his bonds without being too obvious about it: things looked bleak.
‘There’s only ten grand here,’ Dennis said from a corner of the room. ‘The ad on the news said it would be twenty-five grand.’
Rayburn pulled the last of his cigarette into his lungs and flicked the butt. ‘You’ll get the rest.’
Cooper’s foot found its way to Sullivan’s stomach. He held it there, and after a little pressure, the wound busted a stitch and blood spattered onto his shoe.
The pain made Sullivan nauseous.
‘What the hell did you fix him for?’ Cooper asked.
Dennis looked up from counting his money. ‘How am I meant to know? He’s a cop. What if I let him die and you want him alive, huh?’
Cooper shrugged and let up on putting his foot through Sullivan’s gut. ‘Making him dead again is no big deal.’
The door opened. Kirsty poked her head through. ‘I can’t run this shop all by me fuckin’ self now, can I?’
‘Get the fuck out of here,’ Dennis yelled.
‘Wankers,’ she muttered under her breath and disappeared again.
Dennis shoved the cash into his pocket. ‘I better go.’
‘Yeah,’ Cooper said. ‘Go shut that bitch up.’
Dennis was halfway through the door when he stopped and looked back. He thought about having a go, but after half a glance at the men in front of him, the thought didn’t last and he slammed the door behind him.
Rayburn paced under the fluorescent light that sucked the color from his skin and made his eyes look black. ‘You’re not easy to kill.’
‘I’ll work on that.’
Cooper came at Sullivan with a right cross. His head snapped back. His mouth filled with blood, he leaned forward and spat. A tooth bounced along the concrete floor.
Sullivan smiled.
‘You got something to say?’
Sullivan’s eyes meet his. ‘You really think this ends here? By the time this thing is over, I’m tipping some of you aren’t going to make it through this ordeal in one piece. I’ll come after every single one of you.’
The three of them swapped a glance as if the unarmed, half-beaten man taped to a chair was something to worry about.
‘Just out of curiosity,’ Rayburn asked, ‘how am I going to die?’
‘Unpleasantly.’
Rayburn laughed and slipped on his suit jacket. ‘Do him quick,’ he told Cooper. ‘Take him to the dog food factory and meet us at the place.’ He cast a parting glance at Sullivan. ‘It was always going to end like this.’
Sullivan’s cold eyes looked up. Sullivan said, ‘Fuckin’ doubt it.’
Warren followed, closing the door behind them.
Once they were gone, Cooper slowly shifted his gaze back on Sullivan. A big creepy smile grew across his face. ‘This is going to be fun.’
‘I think you and I share different views on what fun is.’
Cooper made his way over to the bench, looked around for a moment or two, then took out a dirty towel down from one of the shelves. He smoothed it out until there wasn’t a crease or a crinkle to be seen. He then searched the room for anything made of glass. He collected a couple of old beer bottles, a bottle of rum, and an unopened bottle of vinegar, all of which he put to one side and out of the way. When he was done searching, he placed all the empty bottles in the middle of the towel. As careful as if he were wrapping a baby’s nappy, he brought all four corners together, making a kind of hobo pouch. This he swung around his head, bringing it down on the table hard and fast. When he dragged the pouch from the table and let it hang by his knee, small shards of glass poked through and sparkled in the light.
‘I’m not going to lie to you. This won’t be over quick,’ Cooper said.
He stepped back and swung. Sullivan’s face collided with the pouch of glass; it was softer than he expected, but the glass tore at his skin, studding his cheek like diamonds.
‘I’m going to make you beg,’ he said with a grin as he circled Sullivan. ‘Big, tough Angus Sullivan begging for mercy. This is going to be fucking fun.’
Cooper stepped back and swung again. Sullivan clenched his teeth, but nothing could prepare him for the searing pain as the pouch dragged across his chest, leaving a trail of twinkling splinters in its wake.
‘Beg, motherfucker. Beg like a fucking dog.’
Another blow struck the back of his head. Sullivan clung to the arms of the flimsy chair. A stream of blood rolled down the back of his neck. For a brief moment, its warmth was comforting.
Cooper swung again.
Breath held. Fists squeezed. Teeth clenched.
The chair’s arms creaked.
Sullivan wanted it over. The pain. The blood. The guilt. All of it.
Cooper swung the bloody pouch over his shoulder.
Sullivan’s wrists fought to break free.
The pouch came down hard, and more glass scraped his skin.
Sullivan hoped his mind would cut out the pain or his body would go numb, but with every blow, the pain grew worse.
Cooper wasn’t a fit man, and the beating had taken it out of him. He paused to catch his breath, wiped his sweaty face on his forearm.
‘You finished?’ Sullivan gasped.
Cooper laughed, and kept laughing as he made his way over to the bench. He popped the lid off the bottle of vinegar and held it over Sullivan’s head. ‘I don’t hear no begging.’
Sullivan looked up. He saw three Coopers and focused on the one in the middle. ‘Do you really think you’re going to?’
Cooper emptied the bottle over Sullivan. His body caught fire: every scratch, every open wound set ablaze. He slumped forward, blood drooling from his mouth.
He couldn’t take it anymore.
He mumbled.
‘The fuck you say?’ Cooper gloated. He leaned in close. ‘You’re going to have to beg louder, if you want me to stop.’
Blood rolled down Sullivan’s chin. The words didn’t come easy. He mumbled again, and Cooper moved even closer.
‘I’m listening.’
Sullivan took
a breath. Held it. Then with a yank of his wrist, he ripped the arm of the wooden chair clean off. A long, rusty nail stuck out at one end, and he drove it into Cooper’s neck. The tip of the nail scraped his spine. His body convulsed and crashed to the floor with his hand on his neck and his blood pumping through his fingers.
It took Sullivan a couple of moments to catch his breath, and a few more to pull free of the tape. When he tried to stand, the shards of embedded glass tore at his skin. He ran a finger down his neck and felt the tiny bumps of what used to be bottles and jars.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he mumbled to himself.
No backyard doc operates without a healthy dose of the knock-you-outs. Sullivan checked all the drawers and found a smorgasbord of uppers, downers, sleepers, and don’t-make-any-fucking–planners. He opened a bottle of Brufren, downed three dry, and shifted his attention back to Cooper on the floor. His color was fading and his leg twitching. Cooper wasn’t long for this world.
‘Call an ambulance,’ he stuttered.
Sullivan dragged a hammer off the bench and stepped toward him.
Cooper scrambled into the corner of the room and pushed up against the walls until he couldn’t push back any further. Blood pumped through his fingers, slowly making him an island in a sea of his own blood.
Sullivan’s hands trembled. The hammer tapped against his thigh. ‘You’re going to tell me where you’re meeting Rayburn. And I’m not going to lie to you. This won’t be over quick.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Cooper told him what he wanted to know and then he died.
Sullivan found his shirt and leather jacket where he left them. He picked up his .45, tucked it into his waistband.
When he held out his hand, there wasn’t a shake or a tremor in it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Everything was bright and washed-out when Sullivan stepped into the street. When his eyes adjusted, he saw that the Eldorado was gone. Stolen or towed? It didn’t matter. Wherever it went, it still had the body of Mickey Franks in the trunk. He took Cooper’s car and headed out to the address Cooper gave him out in Fitzgerald.