Mad Dog Justice (31 page)

“Tell us, John. Do you know that apartment?”

Harris says nothing; he stares vacantly at Roddy.

“Okay, let’s cut to the chase, John. You own that apartment. It’s a condo, so you can rent it out. True?”

“I own the apartment?”

“Oh, I stand corrected. Your corporation owns it. That’s what your computer says.”

Harris opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

Roddy’s skin feels like it’s blistering.

“And I don’t think Crystal could afford the rent a place like
apartment 40-A would command. You’re a real estate guy. You know what a two-bedroom apartment on the fortieth floor of a concierge building on the Upper East Side goes for, right?”

Harris shakes his head back and forth.

“So, John, you were letting Crystal Newcomb live there rent free.”

“In exchange for sexual favors,” Danny calls, still seated in his chair.

“Talk to us, John,” Roddy says. “Just talk to us.”

“I have nothing to say,” Harris whispers. He clears his throat once again. His eyes dart back and forth from Roddy toward Danny and then to the door.

“Nothing?” Roddy says.

“My personal life is none of your business,” Harris squeaks.

“Let’s get something straight,” Roddy says. “I don’t give a shit about your personal life. But some other things are important. Do you understand?”

Harris says nothing. His chair looks like it will tilt over.

“
Answer
me. Do you understand?”

Harris flinches, turns his head sideways, and nods.

“Certain things are very clear—
crystal
clear, if you know what I mean. Like the fact that you also own apartment 40-B, just across the hall from 40-A. A pretty convenient arrangement, don’t you think? You just walk across the hall and Crystal’s right there.”

Harris’s face looks sea green. Spittle forms on his lips and turns frothy.

“Am I right, John?”

“No.” Both of Harris’s hands rise reflexively, as though he’s trying to shield himself.

“Tell me the truth, John. It’ll go easier if you do.”

Harris shakes his head.

“Stand up.”

“Please … don’t do anything.” Harris’s lower lip begins trembling.

“Do what the man says,” Dan says from the chair. “Stand up, John.”

Harris hesitates and then, grasping the armrests of his chair, rises slowly to his feet.

“Now,” Roddy says, inching closer. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Did you own both apartments in Continental Towers—40-A and B, right across from where Crystal lived?”

Something volcanic surges through Roddy as though he’s about to erupt.

“No … no …”

Roddy shoots a lightning-fast, stone-heavy fist into Harris’s belly.

There’s a whooshing sound as Harris’s lungs empty. He doubles over, gasps for air, and clutches his abdomen. Still bent at the waist, he retches and then coughs; a sticky thread of mucoustinged saliva slides from the corner of his mouth. He gulps hungrily for air and looks like he’ll sink to the floor. An animal-like grunt comes from deep in his throat. Roddy is certain a rope of vomit will gush from Harris’s mouth, but only frothy drool hangs from his lips.

Roddy’s hands move in a blur.

He grabs Harris’s shirt and sweater and slams him onto the desktop. Harris lands on his back. His head bounces on the surface from the force of the impact. Roddy hauls Harris’s hips onto the desk. The man is pinned there, lying on his back.

Roddy feels an urge to pummel Harris with hammering blows; he wants to pound him until the man’s face is a wet slab of pulp. This spineless bastard is a shit-ridden con man who’s fucked over people’s lives. Roddy feels the beast inside him surfacing—the monster he thought he’d buried so long ago—and he knows he could tear Harris apart, shredding him into a million pieces.

But Roddy holds back, knowing more must be done.

“Kill the bastard, Roddy,” Dan mutters from his seat across the desk. “Just kill him.”

Roddy shakes his head. “I’m not gonna kill you, John,” he whispers. “You’ll live through this, but the life you know is over.”

Harris gasps.

Roddy presses him on the desktop and shakes him violently.

Dan calls from the chair, “You know, John, Roddy was an Army Ranger and learned hand-to-hand combat, how to disable an enemy without killing him. Isn’t that right, Roddy?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Roddy rasps into Harris’s ear. He moves his face so close, their eyes are inches apart. Roddy smells cognac on Harris’s breath. It’s mixed with the ureic odor of sweat dribbling from Harris’s fear-filled pores. Adrenaline surges through Roddy. He fights to keep his fists from bashing Harris’s face to a macerated paste. He knows he could pulverize the man in a few moments of fury. But he won’t do it.

“Kill the bastard, Roddy,” calls Dan.

“No. I won’t,” Roddy growls. “That would be too kind. I’m gonna do worse, much worse.”

R
oddy’s palms go to the sides of Harris’s face. It’s a gentle touch, with four fingers over each ear. Harris’s face feels sweaty. Roddy’s thumbs cover Harris’s closed eyes. Harris trembles as Roddy holds him down. Roddy presses so his thumb tips fit into the corners of the eye sockets on each side of Harris’s nose.

“Now, John, this is called a gouge move. If I push my thumbs in a little bit deeper and snap them to the sides, your eyes will be plucked out.” Roddy’s thumbs sink into Harris’s eye sockets.

“No,” Harris gurgles. “Please don’t.”

Roddy feels the spongy pressure of Harris’s eyes beneath his thumbs. He pushes inward. The eyeballs sink deeply into their sockets. Roddy maintains the pressure.

“Oh, I’ll do it,” Roddy says with a snarl. “I can show you by taking out only one eye. Which one do you want to lose, the left or the right?”

“Please … please … don’t.” Harris’s trembling intensifies.

“Choose an eye, John.”

“No,
please
no.”

Maintaining the pressure, Roddy moves his thumbs laterally, pushing Harris’s eyeballs slightly to the sides. He feels them move beneath his thumbs as the muscle attachments in the sockets stretch.

“No … no …” Harris yelps. “Please don’t.”

“John, talk to us.”

“You wouldn’t do it.”

“Yes, I will.”

“You’ll go to prison,” Harris cries as his breath whistles through his nostrils.

“I don’t care, John. My life’s over anyway. You’ve cost me everything. Nothing matters anymore, least of all whether or not you’re a blind man or if you go on with your miserable little life.”

Roddy increases the pressure—downward and outward. He feels something tear inside Harris’s eye sockets—a stretching of tissues near the ripping point. Just an ounce more pressure and Harris’s eyes will pop from their sockets.

“Okay.
Okay
. What … what do you want to know?” Harris gasps.

“You killed Crystal, didn’t you?”

“No … no.”

Harris’s eyeballs are pressed as far laterally as they can go without severing the attachments.

Dan remains silent.

“Tell me the truth, John.”

Tears pour from Harris’s eyes; they snake down the sides of his face, which grows slippery and wet. Harris groans and tries to turn his head.

“Don’t move, you son of a bitch. Don’t even try, or you’ll lose both eyes. It’ll happen very fast.”

“Okay …
okay
.” Harris sobs. His body shakes.

“Why’d you kill Crystal?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Tell me the truth. I’ll rip your eyes out if I even
think
you’re lying. It’d be the last lie you ever tell. It takes very little pressure. Understand?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand,” Harris whimpers. “Please …
please
.”

Roddy keeps pressing.

“Who killed Crystal?”

“Two men.”

“Which two men?”

“They came to my apartment.”

“40-B?”

“Yes.” Harris groans.

“And then?” Roddy maintains the pressure; he feels something stretching in the eye sockets.

“No … no,” Harris pleads.

“Tell me what happened.”

“They went across the hall and made her call you on the number you left.”

“So they could get to me?”

“Yes.”

“What then?”

“They …”

Roddy presses harder. Harris’s eyeballs are at the tearing point. The slightest pressure will do it.

“No, please,” Harris cries. “Please don’t.”

“You’ll be blind with a flick of my thumbs. You understand?”

“Yes … yes.”

“What happened then?”

“They threw her off the balcony.”

Harris moans.

“Who’re those men?”

“People … hired …”

“I said
who
are they?”

“Russians. I don’t know their names.”

“How’d you meet them?”

“I didn’t. I don’t even know them. I met some people at McLaughlin’s.” Harris wraps his hands feebly around Roddy’s wrists.

“Don’t fight me, John. You’ll lose your eyes.”

“Okay … okay.” Harris’s breath comes in short, honking gasps.

“Were they the same guys you had coming after us?”

“Please don’t,” Harris whimpers.

“Answer me. Were they the same guys who came after us?”

“Yes.”

“The same ones who killed Walt McKay?”

“Yes.” Harris goes limp.

Roddy’s hands tremble as he’s flooded by a cocktail of emotions: rage, disgust, disbelief, and sorrow. A sickening, out-of-control part of him could emerge at any second.

“Why’re they coming after us?”

“Please. It was all a mistake. Believe me.”

“What mistake?”

“When Danny asked about the Aruba deal, I thought he’d figured it out. I didn’t want … I didn’t want an investigation. Please don’t …”

“I didn’t know a thing, John,” Dan says from the chair. “I just thought the numbers were a little off, and I didn’t understand why.”

“I … I thought you did. I thought you were onto it, and …” Harris’s voice trails off.

“And
what
?” Roddy snarls.

“I thought he’d tell you.”

“Why would he tell me?”

“Because … because Crystal said you two talk about everything, that you’ve been friends all your lives. You have no secrets from each other.” Harris gurgles. His breath whistles through his nostrils. “And …”

“And what?”

“And … oh God … please don’t hurt me.
Please
.”

“I will if you don’t cough it all up.”

“I came to the hospital to check on Danny—before the time you and I met—and when I got to the room and stopped at the
door, I …”

“What?”

“I saw Danny asleep in the bed and you were sitting in a chair, reading a newspaper. I knew … it confirmed you two were very close.” Another gurgle, then a cough. “And I thought for sure, since he survived, I was sure he’d tell you. So, I …” More coughing.

“You
what
?”

“I had to do something,” Harris burbles as tears stream down his face. Roddy’s hands are taut and soaked.

“So what’d you do?”

“I contacted the Russians again.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.” Harris whimpers.

“Tell me or you know what’ll happen.”

“Someone I met at the restaurant. He set it up. I don’t know any of their names. Please believe me.”

“How much did you pay them?”

“Fifty thousand.”

“Up front?”

“Twenty-five each, with another fifty when it was done.”

“And extra for Crystal?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Oh God.”

“How much?”

“Twenty thousand.”

“Why Crystal?”

“I didn’t want any loose ends.”

“Meaning what?”

“She knew too much.”

“You bastard.”

Roddy flexes his thumbs, increases the pressure.

“Please …” Harris screams. “Please. I can make it worthwhile
for you. I have money … cash …”

Rage scorches through Roddy. How tempting it is to press harder, to push deeply inward and snap his thumbs sideways, to enucleate this bastard’s eyes. He could rip the globes from their sockets—sever them from the muscles and small arteries inside the orbits. God, how tempting it is to forget he’s a doctor—yes, he swore by the Oath of Hippocrates that above all, he would do no harm.
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius
. But that’s all a bunch of deluded bullshit for the self-righteous who know nothing of the cruelty and harshness of this life.

Roddy wants to do more to this rotten son of a bitch, this money maggot, this blood-sucking bastard—a poor excuse for a human being who had Danny shot, Walt McKay killed, and Crystal thrown from the balcony of his apartment, all with fore-thought and without mercy … and this bastard wanted him dead, too.

And why? To save his greedy little ass from being exposed as the Ponzi-scheming shit-worm he is. So he could keep ripping people off—without remorse or concern—so he could buy more houses, yachts, condos, cars, and toys.

For what? To have more and then more after that?

Roddy’s hands are quivering. He’s ready to spill Harris’s eyes onto his fancy rug in this well-appointed mansion. Sweat prickles on Roddy’s forehead, and he feels his armpits soaking. Tension builds in his arms; they feel like they’re about to spasm. God, how he wants to lose control, go into mad dog mode, but even as he wants to blind this man—force him to live in darkness—he feels his arms and hands and shoulders ease the pressure.

“Oh, please … please …” Harris squeals.

Roddy thinks he hears Danny’s voice in the distance. Is it telling him to blind Harris, to kill him or maim him? Is it urging him on the way it did at Snapper Pond when Kenny was in the hole begging for his sniveling little life after admitting he and Grange
had been partners in a scheme to bilk them out of a million dollars? Is Danny’s voice propelling him to more violence, or is it a voice of calm and reason?

“Ease up, Roddy,” he hears Dan say from very far away. “There’s no need for more.”

Hearing Danny, Roddy realizes it’s the voice of reason. He lessens the pressure on Harris’s eyes. The man sniffles and moans as he lies across the desk.

It’s finally out in the open: the deaths and near deaths are explained. No more need be said. And no more must be done. Roddy can control the beast. He won’t go into that default setting of the mad dog. He’ll use sound judgment because, as he’s told Tom, you live with the consequences of your actions. The heat and rage, the intensity of the feelings, ease into restraint … tranquility.