A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Forget it,” Jack said, genuinely insulted. “Boosting a mom-and-pop?”

  “Why not? Maybe business is slow. You operate on their level, Mr. Repairman. You’re an unknown quantity. You’re capable of anything as far as I’m concerned. So maybe Andrews did shoot Carella and maybe you two had a falling out over who was gonna get his service revolver, or who was going to finish him off. So you shot Andrews.”

  “Sure. And then I tried to finish off your friend by clamping down on that artery in his neck.” Jack lifted his cuffed wrists and wiggled the fingers of his right hand. “Here. Take a look. I’ve still got his blood under my fingernails.”

  Carruthers stared at Jack’s hand but didn’t move.

  “Come on,” Jack said. Get close . . . real close. “See for yourself.”

  Carruthers shook his head. “Maybe you knew you were about to get caught and were just putting on a show.”

  Jack dropped his hands. “You’re all heart.”

  Carruthers scowled. “Even if I wanted to let you go—which I don’t—it’s out of the question.”

  “We’re not just talking about me losing my way of life here,” Jack said. “We’re talking about my life. Put me in the spotlight and I’m a dead man. I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years. I can handle them fine by myself out on the street, but put me in the joint and every slimeball and two-bit wise guy with a grudge who’s got a friend inside will be gunning for me. All for helping out a cop.”

  Evans barged in the door then, grinning.

  “Carella’s out of surgery! Gonna be okay!”

  Carruthers leaned back and closed his eyes. “Thank God!”

  “And you know what he says? Some citizen saved his life—blew away the guy who was gonna off him.”

  The big sergeant looked at Jack and winked.

  After a protracted pause, Carruthers opened his eyes, rose from the chair, and went to the window to do his staring routine.

  “Our suspect here thinks we should let him go and forget he was ever in custody.”

  “What suspect?” Evans said, looking around the room. “I don’t see no suspect. I don’t remember booking anybody tonight. Do you?”

  Another long pause, with Jack holding his breath the whole time.

  “Check the files,” Carruthers said without turning. “See if there’s any unaccounted-for paperwork or property out there, and bring it in.”

  “You got it.”

  Evans gave Jack a thumbs-up as he left the room.

  Jack sat quietly, watching Carruthers’ back. He said nothing, fearing to break the spell of unreality that had taken control of the room.

  Evans returned in no time with a brown folder and a manila envelope.

  “Here it is.”

  Carruthers joined him at the table. “All of it?”

  “Personal property, print cards, booking sheets, photos, and miscellaneous paperwork referring to some suspect I’ve never heard of.”

  “Unlock him.”

  As Evans keyed the cuffs open, Carruthers scooped up Jack’s array of ID and dropped it in the envelope. He slid the folder and envelope across the table to Jack.

  “Sergeant Evans will take you out the back.”

  Jack’s legs went Wrigley as he stood. He could barely speak.

  “I don’t—”

  “Damn right, you don’t,” Carruthers said, looking him in the eyes. “You don’t know me and I don’t know you. And you don’t owe me and I don’t owe you. This is it. We’re even. I don’t want to see or hear of you again. And if I do see you and you’re so much as jaywalking, I’ll pull you in. We clear on that?”

  “Yeah. And thanks.”

  “No, thanks, dammit! Just evening up. You didn’t have to do what you did but you did; I don’t have to do what I’m doing, but I am. Like you said: Quid pro quo. This for that. Now get out of my sight.”

  Jack got. He followed Evans out to the back of the precinct house.

  “Not easy for him to do this,” Evans said along the way. “He’s a real straight arrow.”

  “So I gather.”

  Jack understood what Carruthers was going through in overcoming a career’s worth of conditioning, and he appreciated it. He stopped at the back door and faced Evans.

  “He thinks we’re even but we’re not. I owe him. I’ll give you a number. If there’s ever anything I can do for him—”

  “Too bad you can’t get his kid brother out of Costin’s.”

  The shock pushed Jack back a step into the alley.

  “The hostage cop is Carruthers’ brother?”

  “Yeah. Patrolman Louis Carruthers. Twenty-two years old. Got any miracles in your pocket?”

  Jack remembered something Julio had showed him in the basement of his tavern.

  “You never know.”

  He turned and hurried toward the street.

  3

  Downstairs, ten feet below the bar, past the cases of booze and kegs of beer, an old hutch stood against the wall. The glass was long gone, and a thick layer of dust hid the scars in the warped mahogany veneer.

  Jack coughed and grunted as he and Julio slid it away from the wall.

  “See?” Julio said, pointing to the rectangular opening in the brick. “It din go nowhere.”

  Costin’s backed up against Julio’s. Years ago Jack had asked if there was an emergency escape route from the tavern—besides the back door. Julio had brought him down here and shown him the old airshaft that ran up from his basement.

  “Refresh me on this. Where does it go?”

  Julio handed him the flashlight and smiled.

  “Up. After that, I don’ know. Never wanted to find out. You gonna be the first guy in there since I bought the place.”

  Jack poked his head and shoulders into the shaft and shone the flash upward. Crumbling brickwork, cobwebs, and an inky blackness that devoured the beam of light. The basement of Costin’s was only a few feet away. Maybe the shaft could get him there.

  “If this is an airshaft,” Jack said, “how come I don’t feel any airflow?”

  “Because ‘bout fifty years ago, somebody covered the buildings with a single roof. Probably a dead end. You wasting you time, meng. ‘Sides, it’s not like you to get involved in this kinda thing.”

  “I owe somebody a try.”

  Jack tied a string around the neck of the flashlight, looped the rest of the length around his neck, and let the light dangle over his sternum where the beam splashed up over his face. A miner’s lamp hat would have been better but this would have to do. He pulled on a pair of heavy work gloves.

  “Hang around, okay? In case I get stuck.”

  Julio seated himself on some cases of Yeungling Lager.

  “Don’ worry. I be right here.”

  Jack took a deep breath, let it all out, then squeezed through the opening. He hated tight places. Especially dark tight places. He straightened inside the rectangular shaft. The crumbling brick surface was rough and craggy. He braced his hands against the wall along the wide axis of the shaft, dug the side of a sneaker into one of the countless little crevices, and began to climb.

  A long climb. A three-story struggle, with a long, maiming impact lurking below, hungering for a slip. And above—the very real possibility of finding the upper end of the shaft sealed.

  But it wasn’t. Jack reached the top and found a two-foot gap between the roof and the last of the bricks. Directly to his right, mated side by side to this one, stood another shaft. Hopefully leading to Costin’s.

  Jack slid over the top of one and into the other. He had a bad moment when his sneakers began to slip, but he dangled by his hands until his feet found purchase. Then he began the long descent, dragging his denimed butt against the brickwork as an extra brake. The trip down was quicker. He was glad he’d thought of the gloves. Without them his hands would have been raw meat by now.

  When he reached bottom he stood perfectly still and let his ears adjust.

  Quiet.

  He
swept the flashlight around and checked out the base of the shaft. The opening was at knee level and blocked with a smooth brown surface. Jack nudged it with his foot and it gave easily. Cardboard.

  With the flashlight off, he knelt and inched back the stack of cartons that formed the barrier. He peeked into the basement: empty, cavelike darkness. He listened again. Someone upstairs in the store was talking—shouting—in a high-pitched voice. Even through the floor Jack could feel the hysterical edge on that voice. Only one voice. Probably Khambatta’s partner talking on the phone to the hostage team.

  Jack squeezed through the opening and stood. From this angle he could make out a faint sliver of light high up and off to his right. Had to be a doorway. He pulled the flashlight free of the string and flicked it on and off, just long enough to find a clear path through the piles of stock. Straight across the floor lay a set of steps. Jack drew the Semmerling and slid through the dark.

  As he neared the other end he flicked the flash on and off again. And froze.

  Someone on the steps to the door.

  Jack waited, listening for movement, for breathing. Nothing. Just an occasional squeak of the floorboards above. And something else. Whoever was up there had stopped talking and was making another sound. Jack cocked an ear toward the ceiling. It sounded almost like . . . sobbing.

  But who was on the stairs?

  Jack turned on the flashlight and trained it straight ahead. A man lay sprawled, head down, one arm flung out, the other under him, legs splayed, eyes wide, staring. Very still. And wet. The front of his uniform glistened a deeper blue where a thick, dark fluid had soaked through it. His throat was a ruin and half of his lower jaw had been torn away. But deathly white and upside down though it was, enough of the face was left undamaged for Jack to catch the resemblance to Lieutenant Carruthers.

  “The kid.” Louis.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Another throat shot. Same style as Khambatta’s: Aim high in case the cop was wearing a vest.

  Jack slipped the Semmerling into his pocket and stretched a hand toward Louis’s forehead. No question that he was dead, but Jack needed to touch him. To be absolutely sure.

  The skin felt dry and thick and cold. “The kid” was very dead.

  Cold black anger surged. Twenty-something years old, stopping by Costin’s for a late-night snack, and getting blown away.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Jack straightened and turned off the flashlight.

  What next? He’d come here as a payback, to see if he could get Carruthers’ brother out of this jam. But the kid was beyond help. So there was nothing left for him to do.

  Except maybe settle a score on the lieutenant’s behalf.

  But old man Costin was upstairs somewhere. Jack had known Costin since moving to the city. He didn’t like to think of the old guy held hostage, maybe face down on the floor, shivering with terror. But he could back away from that. He didn’t owe Costin—not enough to risk exposure by making a move on the remaining gunman. Better all-around to leave old Costin’s fate in the hands of the hostage team.

  Time to fade away. Time to head back to the air shaft.

  But he didn’t move.

  Just then the door above slammed open and a wide shaft of fluorescent light pinned him like a frog on a log. A high male voice began screeching at him.

  “Hold it, muthafucka! Hold it or I’ll blow you away just like I did him!”

  Jack turned slowly and saw a wide silhouette in the doorway. He showed his flashlight and his empty right hand.

  “I’m not armed.”

  Jack was glad he’d brought only the tiny Semmerling. It lay flat in his pocket.

  “Yeah, right. An’ I’m Fiddy Cent. You a cop, fucka. An’ you was tryin’ to sneak up on me.”

  “I’m no cop. And I was just leaving.”

  “The fuck you was. There ain’t no door down here. I checked already.”

  “If you say so.” Jack waved his empty hand. “Bye!”

  Jack dove into the darkness to his right, rolled to his feet, and ducked behind a stack of canned goods. As a stream of curses erupted from the stairwell, he pulled out the Semmerling and crept toward the rear. Behind him he heard some fumbling against the wall, then a click and the cellar lights lit up—a few dim, widely spaced naked incandescent bulbs set among the ceiling beams. Jack got his first look at the guy as he rushed down the steps, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste.

  He had a buzz-cut head and he was fat. No more than five-eight, but at least three-hundred pounds. Baby-faced with huge cheeks and tiny dark eyes barely visible above them. His skin was black as a bible and glistened with sweat. Fat. Not brawny fat, not hard fat. Jell-O fat that lurched and rolled around his middle as he moved. The sawed-off shotgun he carried looked like a toy in his pudgy fingers.

  “Ain’t no use in hiding, fucka. Ain’t no way outta here.”

  Then how’d I get in? Jack thought, wondering when that notion would strike Fatso.

  He stayed low, listening as the guy moved through the dimly lit cellar like a bull, knocking over stacks of cans, smashing cases of bottles. The odor of gherkins began to filter through the air. Jack wondered how long it would take Fatso to find the opening.

  From the rear of the cellar: “Shee-it!”

  He’d found it.

  And then as Jack crouched and waited, he heard a frantic scratching, scrabbling sound, like Fred Astaire on speed doing a softshoe to Motorhead. Coming from the airshaft entry. Jack crawled over to investigate.

  Fatso was there. He had his head and one shoulder rammed into the airshaft opening and was trying to squeeze the rest of his body through. He grunted and groaned as his Pumas scraped madly on the dusty floor in a desperate effort to force his way in. But it wasn’t happening. He was a bowling ball trying to drop into a billiard pocket. No way.

  Finally, he gave up. Panting, gasping, retching with the exertion, he pulled himself free and slumped to the floor where he cradled his sawed-off shotgun in his lap and began to cry.

  Jack was standing over him by now, but for a moment or so he could only stare and listen to the guy sob. Pitiful. He’d wanted to pop the guy. But now . . .

  When he’d heard all he could stand, he raised the Semmerling.

  “Okay, Fatso. Cut the blubbering and get up—without the shotgun.”

  Fatso started and looked up at Jack, at the Semmerling, and got to his feet. But the shotgun still hung from his hand.

  “I said drop the sawed-off or you’re dead.”

  “Go ‘head,” he said, sniffling but still clutching the stock grip. “Good as dead already.”

  “For blowing away a cop—yeah, I guess you are.”

  “Didn’t kill no cop.” He was sulky now.

  “That’s not what you told me a couple of minutes ago. And by the way, how’s old man Costin—the owner? He okay?”

  Fatso nodded. “Locked him in the crapper.”

  “At least somebody’s still alive.”

  “Ain’t never killed nobody! That was Abdul. He done the cop. Didn’t have to, neither. Had the drop on the guy but he just pulled the trigger and liked to took his head off.”

  That jibed with Jack’s take on young Carruthers’ neck wound. He tasted his saliva turning bitter.

  “Swell. He was only twenty-two. A little younger than you, I figure.”

  “I didn’t do it, man!”

  “Doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger. You’re a part of a felony where a killing’s gone down. Automatic murder-one for you.”

  “I knew you was a cop.”

  “Already told you—not a cop. Don’t have to be a cop to know you’re heading for a major jolt in the joint.”

  His fat lips quivered. “Already done that.”

  He lifted the shotgun and Jack ducked to his right, his finger tightening on the Semmerling’s trigger. But the sawed-off barrel kept on rising till the bore was snug against the underside of Fatso’s chin.

  Jack crin
ged, waiting for the boom and brain splatter.

  It never came. A sob burst through Fatso’s lips as he dropped the weapon back to his side and slumped to the floor again.

  “I can’t do it!” he screeched through clenched teeth.

  Jack, speechless before this utterly miserable creature, said nothing.

  “Can’t hack the joint again, man,” Fatso moaned. “I can’t!”

  “What’d you go in for?”

  “Got a dime for dealin’. Out early.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Henry. Henry Thompson. They call me Fat Henry.”

  Can’t imagine why,” Jack thought

  “The joint—is that where you met Khambatta?”

  Fat Henry nodded again. “He on the back end of three-to-five when I got in. We became . . . friends.”

  “You two don’t seem to be each other’s type.”

  “He protected me.”

  Jack nodded. He got the picture.

  “I see.”

  “No, man. You don’t see,” Fat Henry said, his voice rising. “You don’t see shit! You don’t know what it was like in there! I was tail meat! Guys’d be lined up in the shower to get at me! I wanted to die!”

  “And Khambatta saved you.”

  Fat Henry let out a tremulous sigh. “Yeah. Sort of. He took me in. Protected me.”

  “Made you his property so he could have you all to himself.”

  “I ain’t like that, man! I just did what I hadda to get through it! Don’t you dump on me if you ain’t been there!”

  Jack only shook his head. He didn’t know how many things were worth dying over, but he was pretty sure that was one of them. And he didn’t know what to make of Fat Henry. He was one pathetic son of a bitch, but he wasn’t a killer. He was going to be treated as one, though—a cop killer.

  “So how come you’re still with Khambatta?”

  “I ain’t. He ain’t like that, either—least not outside. We got out about the same time and he call me last week ‘bout picking up some quick cheese.”

  “Swell. What you picked up instead was another trip to Attica.”

  “No way I’m goin’ back inside! I’m getting outta here.”