Mad Dog Justice (32 page)

“Okay, John, you’ll tell the police everything?”

“I will. I swear, I will.”

“You’ll tell them about your Ponzi scheme and about Walt McKay and Crystal? And about trying to have us killed?”

“Yes … I will. I swear. Please let me go.”

“Okay, Danny’s gonna call the police. And when they get here, you’ll tell them everything, won’t you?”

“Yes …” Harris groans, trembling.

“Just so you know, John, Danny’s recorded everything. We have it all.”

“Okay … okay …”

“You know it’s over, don’t you?”

“Yes. Please don’t hurt me.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No.”

“And the Russians have been paid fifty thousand?”

“Yes.”

“With another fifty to come if they finish the job, if they get
rid of Danny and me?”

“Yes.” Harris moans. Roddy’s hands remain on Harris’s face.

Dan stands and nods at Roddy.

Roddy eases up on the pressure and stands back. Tears ribbon down Harris’s face as he lies on the desk. He’s depleted. He sobs. Mucous has collected around his nostrils. His arms are spread outward and his eyes remain closed.

Roddy stands over him. His pulse has already slowed.

“Now, before you get up, John, let’s go over what you’re going to say to the police.”

In a halting, weak voice, Harris repeats his suspicions concerning Danny, the hits he’d arranged, the killing of Walter McKay, the staged suicide of Crystal Newcomb, and the Ponzi scheme.

“Very good, John,” says Roddy. He pats Harris on his cheek.

Harris gasps and turns sideways on the desktop. “Can I stand?” he whispers.

“Yes, slowly.”

“I feel so dizzy,” Harris says, and then retches.

“Swing your feet down,” says Roddy. “Let them hang. Then stand slowly, not fast. Otherwise you’ll faint.”

Harris moves his feet to the side. They come off the desk and drop to the floor as he twists his body around. He raises his torso and sits at the desk’s edge. His head hangs with his chin on his chest. He places his hands over his heart. “I’m going to die,” he whispers.

“No, John. You won’t die here,” says Roddy. “You’ll die in prison.”

Roddy positions himself next to Harris. “Stand up slowly.”

Harris gets to his feet. He wobbles and nearly falls, but Roddy grabs his arms and supports him.

“Nice and slow. Otherwise the blood will rush to your feet and you’ll faint.”

Harris stands with his head bowed. He holds himself up with his right hand on the desktop. He coughs a few times and keeps his head down. He rubs his eyes with his left thumb and middle finger and inhales deeply. He keeps his eyes closed.

“We’re calling the police now,” Danny says, reaching for his cell phone. He sets the digital recorder on Harris’s desk. “Just so you know, John, we have copies of your computer files and we’ll be giving them to the police. It’s a done deal. There’s no way out. It’s over.”

Harris nods his head, still looking down. He straightens out a bit, still stooped. He leans back on the desk. He looks like a beaten dog.

Roddy watches Dan raise his cell phone. He sees a blurred movement in his peripheral vision.

Harris’s right hand shoots to the desk. The top, right-side drawer slides open, and before Roddy can move, Harris’s hand clutches a revolver. The pistol is out of the drawer, but before Harris can slip his finger inside the trigger guard, Roddy lands a fist to his gut.

Harris’s breath explodes from his chest. He doubles over, still clutching the gun, then staggers back. The weapon sways unsteadily in his hand as he tries to find the trigger.

Still staggering, Harris raises the revolver; it’s nearly chest high and points at Roddy.

Roddy lunges toward Harris and slams into him. Harris stumbles and staggers sideways. Roddy spins him around and lands another blow to his belly.

Harris bends at the waist as air leaves his lungs again. Roddy is about to throw an uppercut when Harris spins away. Gasping for air, he raises the pistol; it points directly at Danny, who reflexively jumps back with his hands raised.

Roddy grabs Harris from behind and wraps his arms around him. Harris’s arms are pinned to his sides. He spins with Roddy
at his back; Harris stumbles forward, and Dan—using his uncasted hand—tries to wrest the pistol from him. Harris squirms in Roddy’s grasp and, gurgling, manages to free both arms. He clutches his right wrist with his left hand and spins away from Roddy. The weapon angles toward Roddy. Harris’s finger is on the trigger.

Danny launches a solid kick behind Harris’s right knee and slams his casted arm into his head. Harris’s knee buckles; he groans but still holds the pistol. He spins toward Danny; the weapon is at eye level, pointing at Danny’s face.

Roddy launches himself toward Harris and lands a hammer blow to Harris’s right kidney. The punch thumps into the lower back with such force, Harris staggers toward Danny, who jumps aside. The revolver drops to the carpet. Harris is propelled forward a few feet. He cries out in pain and keeps going—caroming forward—and hurtles through the open French doors onto the balcony.

Roddy and Danny watch—frozen in place—as Harris goes over the iron rail at the balcony’s edge.

He flips over the railing and plummets to the driveway below.

R
oddy stands at the French doors. His heartbeat pulses into his skull. Danny stands beside him, breathing heavily. Roddy hears bubbling from deep in Dan’s chest.

The night air looks purple, and the doorway light below the balcony casts an orange luminescence on the Belgian-block driveway. Roddy can’t see Harris, unless he walks onto the balcony and looks straight down.

“You think he’s dead?” Dan asks from very far away, even from a distant room.

Roddy’s in a daze; rolling banks of fog close around him.

“Roddy?”

Danny’s voice sounds closer.

“Roddy, you hear me?”

“Yeah?”

“You think he’s dead?”

“Could be …”

“Think you oughta go down and check him out?”

“No.”

“Did he jump?” Dan asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you care?”

“No. He deserved it,” Roddy says. “He deserved worse.”

Roddy’s hands feel weak; they hang at his sides.

Get ahold of yourself. This is no time for reflection
.

The room seems brighter, as though Klieg lights have detonated. Roddy turns and looks at Harris’s office: the desk, furnishings, and the pistol on the carpet.

He moves closer and examines it without touching the thing. It’s a Smith & Wesson stainless-steel revolver. Looks like a .38-caliber piece.

“I’ll call the police,” Danny says.

“Call the cops? If we do, we’ll have a lot to explain. It’ll get very complicated.”

“It could go either way,” says Danny.

Gotta make a choice, which way to go. Call the cops or get outta here?

A few moments pass. Roddy looks into Dan’s widened eyes.

“You’re right, Roddy. Let’s get outta here.”

“Okay, but first, grab one of those towels by the bar.”

With a hand towel, Roddy lifts a pen from Harris’s desk, slips it through the trigger guard, and carries the revolver back to the desk. He drops it in the drawer, and using the towel, slides the drawer shut.

“What have we touched in here?” Roddy asks.

“The wood on the sides of the chairs,” Dan says.

Using the towel, Roddy wipes down the arms of each chair. “Anything else?” he asks.

“My prints might be on the keyboard and mouse from the other day,” Dan says.

“I doubt it. Harris has been on the computer. Any of your prints would be smudged by now. And covered over by Harris’s prints.”

“What do you wanna do with the recording?”

“If Harris is dead, we won’t need it.”

“What if there’s a security camera we didn’t see, something on the house or at the front gate?” Dan says. “It could link us to
tonight.”

“Good thought.”

“We need this recording so if it ever comes back to us, we can prove Harris had people murdered and we didn’t murder him.”

“You’re right. Gimme the recorder, Dan. I’ll open a new safe-deposit box and store it for safekeeping.”

Danny hands Roddy the digital recorder.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Roddy says. “And leave those French doors open.”

Roddy returns the hand towel to the rack.

They make their way downstairs. Using his jacket sleeve, Roddy opens the front door. He adjusts the inner lock so it’ll snap into a locked position when the door closes. Again, using his sleeve, he closes the door. It clicks shut.

H
arris lies unmoving on the stone driveway. Roddy peers up at the balcony. It looms above them in the night light. It looks like Harris fell to the driveway—a distance of at least fifteen feet below. The decorative lamps on the sides of the door cast an eerie glow over his crumpled form.

The angle of Harris’s neck is an instant giveaway: it’s broken. The vertebrae have snapped. His spinal cord was severed in the neck region. His skull is smashed inward, completely caved and flattened. Harris is as dead as any cadaver Roddy’s ever seen in a morgue. A glistening delta of blood seeps slowly from his head onto the stones. It gleams like purple paste in the lamplight.

“Bastard broke his neck and smashed his brains in,” Roddy says.

“Son of a bitch … killed himself,” says Dan.

“Died the way he had Crystal snuffed.”

“Good riddance, you piece of shit,” Dan murmurs.

In the car, Roddy rotates the key. The engine turns over.

Roddy peers about. He sees nothing but darkness and the glow of a few lights from inside Harris’s house. They make their way along the driveway with only the Toyota’s fog lights on. When they reach Baldwin Road, Roddy flicks on the headlights and drives back toward Route 684.

“Make that call, Danny.”

Dan’s on his disposable cell. “Kevin, post those files online now.”

There’s a pause as Dan listens.

“Yes, now. Upload everything.” He listens again. “Yeah sure. On any other site you know so long as it’s anonymous.” Another pause. “Thanks, Kevin. I owe you big-time.”

“Dan, when we’re on the highway, pull that phone apart, including the battery. Then toss it piece by piece. And wipe each piece down.”

Roddy drives toward the highway. His hands clutch the steering wheel so tightly that his fingers nearly cramp.

Danny keeps silent.

“How do you feel?” Roddy asks.

“It’s strange. Back there in Harris’s office, I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t care if you’d plucked the bastard’s eyes out. But now I feel sick.”

“It’ll pass. You need time.”

“Did you mean for him to go over the railing?”

“No. He was trying to kill us, so I punched him.”

“You think he committed suicide?”

“We’ll never really know, will we, Dan?”

Danny shakes his head.

“He was alone in his house and he saw that stuff posted on the Internet,” Roddy says. “His Ponzi scheme was exposed, and his whole life crumbled right there. He couldn’t take it, so he jumped. That’s what it’s gonna look like.”

“You think the cops’ll buy that?”

“What else can they conclude? We were never there.”

“Any signs of a struggle?” Dan asks.

“I don’t think so. His body’s broken. I don’t think he has any bruises from what went on in the office. He just jumped—couldn’t take the disgrace.”

There’s silence as Roddy gets to the on-ramp of 684.

“You did good detective work, Dan, getting into his computer and seeing all the crap there.”

“Yeah, but it was your idea to visit Omar and Crystal. That’s what got me thinking about Continental Towers, Harris, and every single thing that happened before I was shot.”

Roddy drives on; he makes certain to stay in the middle lane and keeps the car at a steady fifty-five miles an hour.

“Your guru’s posting that stuff on the Internet?”

“As we speak.”

A few moments later, Roddy veers into the right lane and says, “Begin tossing that cell.”

Danny takes the phone apart, wipes each piece clean with a handkerchief, lowers the passenger window, and tosses the pieces, including the battery.

He closes the window on his side and turns to Roddy. “Lemme run something by you.”

“Yeah?”

“We have a recording of everything that happened back there. Why not contact Morgan and give it over to the police?”

“No, Dan. Not the way to go.”

“Why not? It would clear up everything. We have Harris confessing to everything—my getting shot, Walt McKay’s shooting, and Crystal’s death. And, Roddy, it’d be the right thing to do.”

“Listen, Dan. It’d clear things up for the cops—close a few cases for them—but it’d open a Pandora’s box for
us
. Especially for me. I tortured Harris, and they’d hear a struggle on the recording. And then Harris goes out the window, and there’d be
a million questions about … who knows what? And before we know it, we’d be getting more questions about Kenny and the whole McLaughlin’s thing. Forget it.”

“But Morgan’s gonna keep sniffing around about Kenny and about me getting shot.”

“Let him sniff. What’s he gonna find?”

“Jesus, I dunno. But this way, we gotta keep a lid on all this. We’ll be living a life of lies.”

“We live the lives we live, Dan. Let’s just do the smart thing … even if it’s not the
right
thing.”

Danny shakes his head and sighs. After a brief silence, he says, “We gonna take the car back now?”

“No. I don’t want any connection between our having a car and what happened to Harris. Let’s take it to the Doral and I’ll return it tomorrow, like I told the guy. From there, I’ll take the train back to Bronxville.”

“You checkin’ out?”

“Yup. I gotta get back to the hospital and take care of things.”

“Won’t it look suspicious? Harris dies and we’re back at work.”

“Gotta get back at some point. So we take a chance.”

“Think we’re safe now?”

“From the Russians? Yeah. Once word of Harris’s death hits the news, we’re fine. He paid those guys plenty. Up front. And when they hear he’s dead, why bother finishing the job? They won’t get paid another nickel. We’re safe.”