The Dark Path

by Kevin McManus

  “John!” she pleaded.

  “Son of a bitch!” Morrigan screamed, pounding his fist on the steering wheel again and again. “I’ll fuckin’ kill him! I swear to God!”

  “Calm down! Please! John, take it easy!”

  Morrigan gripped the steering wheel as the veins in his neck jutted out as he did his best to wear off the kick of adrenaline. “That bastard,” he seethed. “I’m going to rip his fucking throat out. Once this is all over, rest assured, I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “You need to stay on point.” Bukowski squeezed his arm to offer him comfort. “We have to be smart about this. We need to meet this guy, figure out a play, and go from there. If you go about this the wrong way—Tommy dies.”

  Morrigan looked at her. He took a deep breath. He nodded. “You’re right,” he said with an exhale. “You’re right…”

  “We’ll get him back,” she insisted. “God as my witness, we will.”

  Morrigan shook his head. “This is all my fault. This is all my goddamn fault…”

  “None of that matters now. You know that.”

  Morrigan slowly began to refocus his thoughts, Cooler heads will prevail, he recalled from the mouth of his mother so many years ago. “I need some air,” he said as he piled out of the car.

  Bukowski followed suit as Morrigan fished in his pockets, lit a cigarette, and puffed his anxieties away. “This is never going to stop,” he said. “Klein’s going to keep pushing me until he longer needs me.”

  “What do you mean?” Bukowski asked.

  “There’s no way this ends with me and Tommy coming out the other side alive. That’s just a fact.”

  “Like I said—you need to roll with the punches on this until you can figure out an angle.”

  A nod. “Yeah… Yeah, you’re right.” He puffed.

  “Hey…”

  Morrigan looked up.

  “We got this,” Bukowski said with a degree of certainty that offered Morrigan a slight bit of comfort.

  He looked her in the eyes, feeling for once like someone had his back after years of feeling like he had gone through his whole life with only one person on his side—himself.

  Morrigan took one last puff, flicked his cigarette into the road and got back behind the wheel of the car. Bukowski followed after him, Morrigan then checking the rounds in his SIG before putting the car into gear and saying: “Where are we headed?”

  The location for the meet turned out to be a dumpy and rust-covered shack that once served as a warehouse near the water. The darkness of night had already fallen, covering the entire area in a shroud of black with only the twinkle of city lights off in the distance dancing along the waters.

  Morrigan pulled the car up a hundred yards away from the warehouse. Bukowski sat in the back seat, staying low to make sure that no prying eyes or early birds could make her out.

  “What’s the time?” Bukowski inquired.

  Morrigan checked his watch. “We’ve got thirty minutes,” he said.

  Bukowski checked the rounds in her weapon. She had already done it twice. It was turning into more of a nervous habit than anything else.

  “Okay,” Morrigan said as he drew a breath, eyeballing the surrounding area. “Looks like there’s only two ways in—west and east.”

  “You see anybody?”

  He took a scan around the area. “Zip,” he said, his mind trying not to focus on Tommy and his predicament. “I think we beat them to the punch.”

  Bukowski leaned in. “Okay. What’s the play?”

  “Klein didn’t give me any instructions. I’m gonna wait until I see someone pull up. Once they do, I’ll drive up to meet them. I won’t get out of the car until I have a full view of who’s here.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Stay down. Keep your piece at the ready. I’ll give you a signal if I think I’m running into a snag.”

  “What’s the signal?”

  Morrigan thought about it. “Wildcard,” he said. “Best I can come up with.”

  Bukowski let out a nervous laugh. “Shitty,” she said. “You can’t think of anything better?”

  Morrigan let out his own nerve-wracked and emotionally dry and depleted laugh. “No, not really, my mind is on other things right now, Bukowski.”

  A pause. Nothing but the splashing of the sea.

  “Who do you think they want you to kill?” Bukowski asked.

  A shrug from Morrigan. “I’m sure he’s a thorn in Klein’s side, whoever he is.”

  A dire thought entered Bukowski’s mind. “Do you think this is a blitz?”

  Morrigan looked at her through the rear-view mirror. “You mean, like, is Klein setting me up?”

  “It’s a possibility, no?”

  Morrigan huffed. “Shit… I didn’t really think about it.”

  Bukowski shook her head. “No, I’m wrong in thinking that. I don’t want to psych you out.”

  “Too late.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “Nothing in this situation can be defined by the word ‘fine.’” He sighed. “Christ. I just want this to be over with.”

  “Soon enough.”

  More time passed.

  “Are you going to go through with it?” Bukowski eventually asked.

  “With the hit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You already asked that.”

  “I’m asking again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Klein has your brother.”

  Morrigan turned around. “You saying that I’m on the verge of making a bad move?”

  “I’m not questioning you, John. I’m just trying to make sure you’re all right.”

  “Then stop asking questions I’ve already given you the answer to.”

  “I’m just worried.”

  He rubbed his temples. “So am I.”

  Morrigan checked his watch—there was still more time to wait, and he sure as hell didn’t want to spend it dwelling on the events that lay ahead. “Tell me about him,” he said.

  Bukowski squinted. “About what?”

  “The guy you loved. Tell me about him… Michael.”

  Bukowski smiled. “Michael was a teacher,” she said. “Third grade.”

  Morrigan smirked. “That’s good.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “It always helps to be with someone on the other side of the spectrum when you’re a cop.”

  “I don’t think I ever found that.” Morrigan sighed.

  “I did. And it was good.”

  “How did he die?”

  Bukowski remembered the night well. “Ten years ago,” she said. “I was supposed to meet him for dinner. You know, one of those romantic dinners for two. He didn’t show up. Naturally, I thought that he blew me off.”

  “Were you together long?”

  A nod. “Two years.”

  “Then why would you think that he was blowing you off?”

  A shrug. “Because I think too much. Maybe I’m paranoid.”

  A sigh. “Yeah… Yeah, me too, comes with the job.”

  Bukowski continued with the tale. “Anyway,” she said. “I left the restaurant, went back home, and there were four officers there waiting for me. This was before I became a cop, you see, so I was scared shitless when they were standing there. I didn’t know what to do. They, uh…” she trembled, the memory becoming almost too unbearable to recap. “They said, uh…”

  Headlights appeared from two hundred yards away, the only other car in the area now approaching Morrigan’s vehicle head-on with a slow and timed rhythm.

  “Hold that thought,” Morrigan said. “It’s showtime…”

  The car was an Escalade SUV, black as the night that shrouded the area. The way it approached gave off a foreboding vibe.

  “Get down,” Morrigan said to Bukowski. “Don’t move unless I give you the signal.”

  “Copy that,” Bukowski said as she slid down in the back seat.

&
nbsp; The Escalade came within fifty feet of Morrigan’s Subaru before it stopped, the headlights nearly blinding Morrigan as he tucked his SIG in his waistband and drew a breath to calm his nerves.

  Five seconds passed. Ten. Then the driver’s door to the Escalade opened.

  Morrigan followed suit and stepped out of his car, jutting his chin and trying his best to not blink. He could only make out the faint outline of the driver, his face somewhat blinded by the light.

  Morrigan and the driver stood forty feet apart, neither saying anything for the longest of moments.

  “You with Klein?” Morrigan finally said.

  Nothing from the driver.

  “Answer me, shithead,” Morrigan said. “I’m not going to ask again—are you with Klein?”

  The figure nodded.

  Then the passenger door opened, Pearse McNulty got out and stood alongside the driver.

  “What the fuck is this?” Morrigan said.

  McNulty nodded to the driver and said in a thick North Side Dublin accent. “I’m his backup.”

  “I was told that only one person would be showing up. One—not two.”

  McNulty shrugged. “Well, that’s not how this is going to work.”

  Morrigan nodded. “Okay, then,” he said. “Then this is what we’re going to do—” He drew his SIG in the blink of an eye and aimed it point-blank at the driver.

  “Whoa!” McNulty called out as he took out his own piece and took aim. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Morrigan lined the driver’s head up flush between the sights. The driver stayed still. He didn’t twitch. It almost looked like he wasn’t even breathing. “Klein’s played enough games with me already,” Morrigan said. “I’m not going to keep participating.”

  McNulty adjusted his grip on his Beretta. “Just cool down. We’re only here to give you the assignment.”

  “And you’re already—”

  “That’s enough,” the driver cut in with a low growl, his voice sounding almost inhuman.

  Morrigan sucked air through his teeth. “And he speaks.”

  “Put the gun down, Morrigan. We’re not going to do this,” McNulty ordered.

  “Oh yeah? Why not?”

  “Because if I wanted you dead I would have killed you when I was tailing you outside your apartment the other day.”

  Morrigan knew immediately what the guy was referring to. He couldn’t help but shake the feeling that evening that someone had been following him. “I knew the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up for a reason.”

  “Trust me,” McNulty said. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

  “You’re quite the cock of the walk, aren’t you?”

  The driver took a step forward, his pale face and features now visible in the light.

  “Jesus,” Morrigan said. “You’re a fucking sight to soak in.”

  “Let’s just get this over with,” the driver said. “I have an envelope for you. Inside is your assignment.”

  “Quit beating around the bush and just call it a hit,” Morrigan shouted.

  “Put your gun down,” the driver demanded.

  Morrigan jutted his chin toward McNulty. “Tell your guy to do it first.”

  A moment passed—then the driver nodded to McNulty. He lowered his weapon, Morrigan then following suit. But still kept his gun trained at his side in case of a last-minute blitz. “Toss over the envelope,” he said.

  The driver reached into his jacket pocket, produced a sealed and bulky envelope, and began to take a few steps forward.

  Morrigan raised his gun again and partially aimed it. “Easy,” he said. “Just a few more feet. That’s good.”

  The driver walked three more feet before he stopped, threw over the envelope, and then began to pace back toward his vehicle. Morrigan, his eyes still glued to the driver, slowly reached down and picked it up.

  “That’s it,” the driver said. “We’re done here.”

  Morrigan nodded at him. “Who the hell are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” McNulty said.

  “I wasn’t asking you.”

  “And yet I answered. I tell you, Morrigan, you really are an asshole.”

  Morrigan fired a shot that skimmed off the ground next to McNulty’s foot. He ducked for cover and the echo of the shot caused Bukowski to shudder as she laid prone in the back seat. The driver, however, remained completely unfazed.

  “You prick,” McNulty scowled.

  “Get up,” the driver said to him. “We’re done here.”

  McNulty got up and walked back toward the Escalade. “This isn’t over, Morrigan!” he hollered as he pointed. “You and I aren’t finished!”

  “Tell Klein,” Morrigan said, “that the next time he doesn’t stick to a plan, I’ll kill any extra men that he sends over. Capisce?”

  Neither McNulty nor the driver gave a reply as they piled back inside the Escalade—but Morrigan was certain that he spotted the driver smiling. He didn’t care. He was too far past his breaking point to care.

  The doors to the Escalade closed, the car backed out, and then it took off into the night and left a plume of dust in its wake.

  Morrigan, once he was certain the coast was clear, got back inside his car.

  Bukowski breathed a sigh of relief. “Jesus, Morrigan.”

  “I had it under control.”

  She shook her head. “You’re fucking insane.”

  “So I’ve been told,” he said as he opened the envelope and looked at the contents.

  “What did you get?” Bukowski asked as she leaned in.

  Morrigan shut his eyes. “Son of a bitch…”

  “They give you a target?”

  “Yeah,” he said as he handed her the envelope. “Yeah, they gave me a target. Take a look.”

  Inside the envelope was a photo of the target and his name on the back. She couldn’t help but sigh when she saw the face. The name of the joint lawyer for Klein and Connolly, Ross Simmons, was scrawled on the back.

  “Why does Klein want you to carry out the hit?” Bukowski asked. “He seems to have plenty of psychos on his payroll who would gladly do it.”

  “I wondered that myself. I think this is just a test to see how loyal and dependable I am.” Morrigan replied as he swung the Subaru around and headed away from the harbor.

  Bukowski hunched down again in the back seat as he drove across the gravel lot and weaved his way back into the city.

  “Why do they want to kill Simmons?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But I think we got that line we were looking for. I go to Simmons, I find out what he knows, we go from there.”

  “What’s going to happen when they find out you didn’t kill him? I’m assuming you’re still just going to go through the motions without actually offing him.”

  Morrigan sighed. “Look at the note they stuffed in the envelope…”

  Bukowski looked over the materials and saw a hand-scribbled note folded up around the photo of Simmons: PROVIDE PROOF OF COMPLETION.

  “Shit,” Bukowski hissed.

  “Yeah, shit.”

  “That’s going to be hard to fake.”

  “Not impossible though.”

  She laughed. “So, what are you going to do? Hit up a Halloween store and buy some fake blood and bullet holes? Stage the thing?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind, yeah.”

  “You gotta be careful, John. They’re going to know if you’re playing them.”

  “I’m aware.”

  He took a left. Then a right. Then another left. Morrigan wasn’t a hundred percent sure where he was going but driving somewhat aimlessly took his mind off things for a brief spell. “We gotta find out where Simmons resides,” he said. “Klein didn’t leave me any info.”

  “Asshole,” Bukowski said. “But it’s not that difficult.” She pulled her cell. Opened the Internet. Started surfing.

  “Checking your e-mail?”

  “No. Google. I’m seein
g if Simmons is listed.” A few minutes passed. “Bingo. Here.” She handed Morrigan the cell and found the address for Simmons’s office. Once Morrigan plugged it into his map, he found that Simmons’s office was an eight-block drive from their current location.

  “Let’s scope it out first,” Morrigan said. “Then we’ll figure out a play.”

  He drove the eight blocks and pulled up outside a high-rise with only a few lights on in the upper-floor offices. Morrigan parked a half block away, close enough that he had a solid view of the building but far enough away that he wasn’t attracting any attention.

  “What do you think?” Bukowski said after ten minutes. “Think he’s working late?”

  “Wish I had the balls to go up there and check.”

  She huffed. “After you popped that shot off back at the warehouse…”

  He looked at her through the rear-view mirror. “What are you trying to say?”

  “You’re just getting… bolder, John. I don’t know.”

  “You think I’m slipping?”

  Bukowski wasn’t sure how to answer—but she told him “no” for the sake of his sanity and her own.

  “Looks like we are going to have to sit it out here for a while to see if our man Simmons appears.”

  “It could be a long wait,” Bukowski moaned.

  “You got any other ideas.”

  “I guess not.”

  As Morrigan kept his eyes focused on the front door of the office building, his partner snored on the back seat. The stress, anger and adrenaline in his system keeping him awake. The minutes and hours on the clock on the dash slowly ticked by until it was 3:30am.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Morrigan said, perking up in his seat. “Wake up. Take a look, Bukowski.”

  Bukowski still half asleep leveled her gaze to the front of the building and saw none other than Ross Simmons exiting the building and moving toward a polished Mercedes parked two spaces down from the front entrance. He looked tired, rubbing his eyes as he clicked the button on his keys and slid behind the wheel of his high-ticket vehicle.

  “What the hell is he doing at work at three thirty in the goddamn morning?” Bukowski asked as she yawned.