The Blade Itself (35 page)

He shook his head. ‘I know. I’ll handle this part alone.’

She glanced out the window, and then back again. Danny wanted to scoop her up and carry her back to their apartment, to wrap her in quilts and love and tell her she would never have to face another monster. Instead he kissed her, breathed her in, reveling in her. Every time they touched he felt blessed. Different, better, than before. No more living on borrowed time.

He stepped out, pulling his jacket around him. A family walked into the hospital, the automatic entrance swishing open. To the east, he could see the skyline against gray clouds. He reached for the car door, started to slam it.

‘Danny!’

He turned. ‘What?’

‘Promise me…’ She hesitated, like she wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Promise you’ll come back to me.’

He stared at her, feeling like his heart might soar out of his chest. ‘I’ll do you one better. I’ll never leave again.’ He reached across the empty seat, and she seized his hand.

‘You better not.’ Her eyes had the old playful sparkle in them. ‘Or I’ll find a hunky Lamaze teacher to run away with.’

He laughed, and leaned in to kiss her again, and again.

He got directions at the information desk. The comfortable lobby quickly gave way to antiseptic corridors. Fluorescents shone bright and hollow off linoleum floors. He took the elevator up. A uniformed cop lounged in a chair outside the door.

‘I’m Danny Carter. Detective Nolan cleared me to visit today.’

The cop matched his driver’s license to a list on a clipboard, and asked him to sign in. ‘You want me to come in with you?’

Danny shook his head. ‘Thanks.’

‘Suit yourself.’ The cop gestured to the door, then flopped back into his chair.

The room looked like any of a million other hospital rooms, clean, sterile, and cold. A whiff of ammonia lingered in the air. The television was tuned to a Hispanic network, soccer players racing up and down some warm field. A wheelchair sat in one corner.

Evan looked up from the bed as he walked in. His stare grew hard. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Danny closed the door behind him.

In the months since Halloween, Evan had aged ten years. His bulk looked out of place in the adjustable bed, but forced rest had cost him that coiled edge of fitness. Several days of stubble darkened his chin.

‘Sure you are. You want to gloat.’ Evan flipped off the TV, planted his hands on either side, and dragged himself to a sitting position. He pulled the sheet aside and pointed at his useless legs. ‘Take a look. This what you came to see?’

Danny shook his head, spun a chair around, and sat down beside Evan. ‘Nope.’

‘What, you want to play cards?’ His voice rang with bitterness. ‘You candy-striping now?’

‘Maybe I thought I owed something to you.’ Danny kept his eyes level on Evan’s, forcing himself not to reveal the storm of emotions within him. Half of him saw a broken monster, a predator ironically rendered prey. The other half saw a tough little bastard of a kid with a floating smile.

Evan snorted, looked at his hands. ‘That don’t even begin to touch on what you owe me.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

‘I saved your life in the pawnshop. I did seven years for you.’

Danny shook his head. ‘Maybe you saved my life. I don’t think so. But the years, those are all on you. And so is Patrick. And Debbie.’

‘Oh, fuck that,’ Evan said. ‘They were in the life. They knew the risks.’

‘J. A. Pinianski wasn’t.’

‘Who?’

‘The man you killed outside the diner. He was a civilian.’
Danny leaned forward. ‘Never so much as a shoplifting arrest.’

Evan shrugged. ‘You want me to get all teary? Besides,’ his voice fell and he glared at Danny, ‘the high school kid they assigned me as a lawyer, he says they found the body. Problem is, only Debbie and I knew where I stowed fat boy. So she told you about our ride out to O’Hare, and you Judased me. Right?’

The night rose before Danny with Kodak clarity. The cold wind whipping the sheeting. The throbbing of every limb, and the deeper ache within him. He’d felt a hand on his shoulder, opened his eyes to see Nolan. The detective dropped glinting handcuffs in his lap. Danny had looked up at him, and Sean had nodded, just barely, and Danny had fixed the cuffs on his own wrists.

The next days had been a blur of holding cells and interview rooms. An assistant state’s attorney, a small man in a trim brown suit, pacing back and forth. Detectives questioning him again and again. Richard’s lawyer talking to cops in the hallway, all of them casting furtive looks his way.

Danny kept it simple. Told the cops he could help close another case. Their eyes had lit up when he mentioned it was the murder of a civilian outside a diner on Ashland. He told them he knew where the body was, along with the physical evidence that made it open and shut. On every other subject he kept his mouth shut and let the cops and the bureaucrats fight it out.

He’d given himself five-to-two that he’d end up doing time, maybe serious time. But he didn’t count on the wild cards.

The first was Sean Nolan. Danny still didn’t know exactly what story Sean had told. Whether he’d acknowledged Danny had saved his life, or admitted that Danny had come
to him earlier for help. All he knew was what Detective Matthews told him: From a hospital bed, Sean had fought for him. Hard.

The second was Richard O’Donnell. He’d refused to testify against Danny. Refused to identify him as having been part of the kidnapping. Sent his lawyer down to make sure the message was clear.

He’d also fired Danny cold, but that didn’t worry him much.

In the end, the assistant state’s attorney was left with a choice. Prosecute Danny on a weak case and maybe lose. Add to that an unclosed murder file on Pinianski. Two black marks that wouldn’t look good on his record, or do much to help his boss’s reelection bid.

Or they could make a deal.

By the end of the week, Danny was a free man. Detective Matthews told him he was the luckiest bastard on earth, and then drove him home.

‘I told them what happened,’ Danny said. ‘But you Judased yourself.’

Evan glowered. ‘Yeah, I figured you would. The smart play, right?’

‘Just the truth.’

‘So Danny Carter wins again.’ He shook his head. ‘That what you came to say?’

‘No.’ Danny stood up and walked to the window. In the snow, the parking deck was just a hazy shape, like a dream of ghosts, or a memory of his past. ‘I guess I came to say I’m sorry.’ He sighed.

‘I’m sorry for the way things worked out for you. For us. I think back to those days, the way we ran crazy, like nothing had consequences, and I wish I could turn back the clock.’ For the rest of his life, he’d carry a load, a guilt that wouldn’t fade. You didn’t have to do terrible things to have
guilt. Not preventing terrible things from happening would work, too. And sometimes, guilt and pain were just waiting for you, the obvious destination at the end of a road you never meant to choose, but hadn’t fought hard enough to leave.

A psychiatrist would tell him it wasn’t his fault, and he’d be right. But he’d be wrong, too.

‘You got a funny way of showing that,’ Evan said, ‘sending me back to prison.’

Danny shook his head. ‘You don’t get it, man. I’m sorry for not changing things before it was too late. I feel sorry for the boy from the neighborhood, the kid who used to be my best friend. But the man you became?’ He turned to face Evan in the bed. ‘Prison is where you belong.’

Evan stared at him, his glare heavy with the weight of years. When he spoke, his voice was flat. ‘Get the fuck out.’

That old tension filled the air. Once, it would have put Danny on his guard, had him looking for exits. Now, it only made him sad. He nodded. Picked up the chair and moved it back to the wall. Took one last look at his old friend and recent enemy, then walked away.

‘You should have killed me.’ There was no threat in Evan’s voice, only a muted sound that might have been pain. ‘I wish you had.’

Danny paused, his hand on the doorknob. ‘I know.’ He opened his mouth, closed it. ‘So do I.’ Then he stepped out of the room.

Nolan was waiting in the lobby. A gray canvas sling held his right arm in place. His vest had stopped two of the bullets, but the third had shattered his collarbone. ‘Figured I’d catch you here. You get what you wanted?’

‘I’m not even sure what that was.’

Nolan looked at him, nodded. ‘Just good-bye, maybe.’

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘How’s the arm?’

‘Sore as shit. Keeps me awake. Catholic or not, I don’t heal soon, Mary-Louise is going to divorce me for a good night’s sleep.’

Danny laughed, feeling warm toward the guy, but also nervous. A silence fell, neither sure what to say. They had the shared awkwardness of men who had loaned each other money but lost track of the final tally. Was there a debt? Who owed?

Some accounts were too complicated for mathematics. Danny spoke first. ‘Thanks.’ He let the word hang a moment, his eyes on Sean’s, then gestured toward the elevators. ‘For putting me on the list, I mean.’

‘Sure.’

Another moment passed, Danny tracking the progress of an old couple, had to be in their eighties, the woman smiling coquettishly as she leaned on the man in a slow shuffle step. Something about it moved him. ‘Listen, I should get going.’ He zipped his jacket. ‘Hope the arm feels better.’

Nolan nodded, stepped aside.

Through the front glass of the hospital he could see the Explorer parked, a splash of color in a swirl of white. Squinting against the brightness, he moved toward the door.

‘Danny.’

Nolan stood in cop pose, his chest cocked and expression stern. If his hand wasn’t in a sling, Danny had the distinct impression it would be on his gun. Then the detective smiled. ‘Be good.’

Danny snorted. Raised two fingers and tossed a salute. Then he turned and walked out.

After the stifling hospital corridors, cold air was sweet relief. He hiked to the car, opened the door to find Karen
singing along with an eighties song on the radio. She grinned at him. ‘You get your closure?’

‘Almost. Just one more thing to do.’

Against the dark granite, the collected snow seemed bright as a dream of the world. Danny paused in front of it, his breath tight in his chest, and Karen squeezed his hand.

‘I’m okay,’ he said.

She gave him a smile laced with sadness, then stepped forward to brush off the headstone.

A simple cross. Gray. Danny had never had to pick a headstone before. As he’d browsed the catalog, the undertaker nodding solemnly beside him, he’d found himself baffled. How did you sum up a life? What words tied all the ragged strands in a knot?

In the end, he’d gone with just ‘Patrick Connelly’ and ‘Friend.’

Karen finished dusting the marker and stepped back, her boots crunching the frozen grass. She took off one glove and wormed a warm hand into his, and together they stood, looking at the cross and counting the costs. The snow muffled the world.

Finally, he reached in his jacket pocket and took out the necklace. Most of the stuff in Patrick’s place they’d given to charity, the rest consigned to the trash bin. He’d kept a handful of photographs, his friend’s old motorcycle jacket, and this. A black cord bearing a small silver charm of a hunched man with a staff, a glowing baby on his back. The words PROTECT US lettered on the bottom.

‘What is it?’ Karen leaned closer.

‘A Saint Christopher’s medallion,’ he said. He stepped forward and draped it over the cross. The metal clinked quietly against the stone. ‘Patron saint of travelers.’

She smiled wanly. ‘He’d like that.’

He nodded.

A few moments passed, and then she shivered. ‘I’m getting cold. Mind if I wait in the truck?’

‘Not at all.’ He smiled, his eyes flicking to her belly. She wasn’t showing yet, but they’d already decided on names. Circumstances made it simple. Patrick for a boy, of course; for a girl, Debbie. Like Debbie Harry. ‘Want me to come?’

She shook her head, moving away. ‘Take your time.’

He nodded, and squatted to straighten the medallion. The headstone was cold, the ground underfoot hard as steel. Unbidden, his imagination traveled the six feet between him and his brother. To the sepulchral darkness beneath. Nothing but the quiet echo of snowflakes and all the time in the world.

He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt a tear turn to ice on his cheek.

Eventually he stood, his hands thrust in his pockets. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t think what it would be. An apology? A farewell? A promise?

Patrick wouldn’t have wanted any of them.

Finally he just kissed his fingers and touched the necklace. ‘Safe travels.’

As he walked away, a gust of wind caught the medallion and set it rocking against the stone. The quiet, rhythmic clatter sounded a little like laughter.

The snow fell in earnest now, fat laundry detergent flakes. The path through the cemetery was covered an inch deep. He walked steadily, his breath steaming. Everything that had been there when he’d come in – the faded skyline, the dingy town houses, the tired winter grass – had disappeared beneath a clean coat of white. Seeing it, he felt the weight on his heart easing. He knew it would never truly leave him. But maybe the weight in our hearts is all that holds us to earth.

In the parking lot he saw the truck running, thick exhaust
spilling out the back. Karen sat inside, and when he caught her eye, he could see her smiling across the distance.

He put his hands in his pockets and let her draw him home.