The Darkness Inside: Writer's Cut (26 page)

By the waterfront, within spitting distance of the Long Wharf and the ugly upturned hull-like shape of the Marriott that protruded from its centre, I found myself walking through sparse crowds at a miniature fairground set up on the wet paving stones. Lights from the half dozen or so rides cast long, shimmering lines of color on the harbor water and the city’s regular noise was drowned out by piped music, rattling machinery and the voices children somewhere within the neon whirl.
 

I found a payphone by the harbor railings and made the call.

“Mr Robertson.”

“Mr Tucker.”

“Have you found that information I was looking for yet?”

“Maybe, maybe,” he said. “I’ve got a package that might help you. Come down to the club and you can have it.”

Where Heller’s guys could wait for me in comfort, I figured. I said, “That’s quite a walk and I don’t have a car.”

“The city has many fine taxi companies.”

“I’ve only got the change for one ride and I have to get home again.”

“I pity you, facing such a dilemma.”

“I have a better idea,” I said. “Have someone drop it with me. I’ll be near the entrance to the Long Wharf Marriott. Don’t take too long, either — it’s almost my bedtime and I’ll have to go home.”

After I hung up, I figured I had at least fifteen, twenty minutes before anyone showed up looking for me. I bought a couple of hot dogs and found a spot where I could see the Marriott to eat them, looking out over the water.

I pictured myself diving in, letting my lungs fill. Washing away all the problems. The ultimate solution.

What a fucking mess I’ve made of all this,
I heard myself thinking.
Everything. Holly gone, maybe already dead, Goddard free, Cody laughing at me. And when they catch me, everything’ll come out. The whole lot will come crashing down.

If the water had any advice for me, it kept it to itself.

Stood there a while after I finished my dinner, mind empty. I checked my watch and saw that it was time to get into place, although I couldn’t see anyone hovering near the hotel doors just yet. I turned away, back towards the bright lights of the fairground.

I was weaving through the rides when the cop saw me.

39.

He was ambling past the stalls with a beat officer’s gait. A few yards behind him, hurrying to catch up, was his partner carrying two newly-bought cups of coffee. For a brief moment he looked my way and I lowered my eyes, tried to look inconspicuous, as I turned away from him and kept walking.
 

Past a half dozen people waiting by the side of a spinning teacup ride. All quiet behind me, and maybe he hadn’t recognized me after all.
 

I heard the “Hey!” as I was approaching a cotton candy stand.

Don’t flinch, don’t speed up. Don’t run. Crowds always looked at a running man. Instead, with thin lines of raw adrenaline pounding through my arteries, I made a right, between the teacups and the cotton candy. I jogged across the road through a narrow gap between passing vehicles.

“Hey! Stop! Police!” from behind me as I dodged between a bus and an oncoming Chevy. Kept walking, briskly, without looking back. The traffic noise didn’t let up until I was almost at the corner of the restaurant opposite the fairground. Then I heard horns blare, cars stopping. I pictured the two cops holding them up, hands outstretched, as they crossed in my wake.

I dived into the alley that ran next to the restaurant and, safely out of the way of the general public, ran like hell.

I sprinted down the canyon between buildings, cut left where the alleyway turned, and skidded to a walk about a yard from where it spilled out onto the street beyond. I heard the echoing
rap rap rap
of running feet behind me as I strode briskly away and hailed a passing cab.

The two cops emerged, out of breath and staring hungrily around, as I closed the door and the taxi pulled away in the direction of North Station. There was plenty of civilian traffic, but no squad cars o my trail. From the station, a second cab took me to a spot four blocks from my hotel.

The night had grown colder, and this part of town was far quieter than the centre. The adrenaline rush from the waterfront had turned sour, and although my ears jumped at every little noise around me, what I felt most was tiredness.

The taxi had just vanished from sight when a black BMW cruised past me at speed and skidded to a halt on the sidewalk a few yards ahead. Three big guys in suits jumped out, two of them carrying guns and all of them looking at me.

40.

For a moment we stared at each other. Six eyes boring into mine. Hard as steel. Unflinching. Then I vaulted over the chain-link fence next to me and pounded across the parking lot beyond. One of them shouted, “Fuck!” and I heard the fence screaming in protest as they climbed after me. No one shot.

Skidded round the side of a darkened convenience store, hoping for a back way off the lot. Running footsteps echoing in the night air. A car engine, probably the BMW, near the other end of the building. Past a couple of dumpsters, and I heard a woman’s voice suddenly cry out in anger or protest. The deep rumble of a man replying, tone heavy with threat.

Between the back wall of the store and a sedan of some kind was a girl I figured for a hooker arguing with a big guy in a sports jacket. He had one fist raised beside his head.

“Victor, you fuck, I paid you everything I owed. You give the rest…”

Her voice died suddenly as she saw me running towards them and the back entrance of the parking lot. Victor was about to say something pertinent, probably about minding my own business, when the BMW rounded the far corner and screeched to a halt, lights blazing. He shut his mouth again. A fourth guy in a suit popped up from the driver’s side of the car with a gun in his hand. I heard the other three behind me, saw the hooker’s shocked eyes flicker past me to the pursuing pack.

The math said I either surrendered or got shot. Or first one, then the other. That I wasn't going to make it off this lot without dealing with the suits.

The math said if I tried to charge the guy by the Beamer, him or his friends would start firing.

But instinct said they hadn’t shot me yet, so they wanted me alive. An edge, maybe.

Victor was obviously slower on the uptake than everyone else. He stared at the suits, then rounded on the girl and yelled, “You call the cops? You fucking bitch!” She doubled up and collapsed to the ground as Victor slammed his fist into her stomach. “Fucking set me up!”

The BMW driver’s eyes slipped in his direction, and by the time his attention was back on me and the gun, I was crashing full tilt into the car door with all my weight. The door rammed him back against the frame with an ear-grating crunch and his gun went skittering into the darkness.

I’d been planning to follow up with a kick to the head, but as he dropped he was making horrible roaring, rasping noises with each labored breath like a lung had gone or his throat was crushed and I didn’t bother.

Then someone punched me in the kidney like a kick from a horse and I bit gravel. A couple more blows, one to the base of my spine, one to the thigh. They hurt like hell, although the pulsing agony from the first one still came through strongest. Someone huffing and swearing above me. My arms balled behind my head and my still-bruised neck. Somewhere upstairs, someone was saying, “Hey, easy there.”

Kick. “Fuck easy. Look what he did to Jack.” Kick.

“One piece, remember, the boss said.”

“He’ll live.” Kick. I tried to twist round, get into a position where I could catch the guy’s foot, haul him off balance, maybe fight back.

“Mr Heller wants to have a word with you,” the third suit said. “He’s not—”

There was a
pock
like someone banging two bricks together and the voice cut out. A wet gurgle and the taste of copper on the air, and he collapsed to the floor next to me with a hole in his throat.

Past the slumped form of the driver I saw a figure moving. A man’s silhouette picked out for a second as he stepped through the thin pool of light cast by one of the dim security bulbs at the back of the store. Coat flapping behind him as he ran. His movements were smooth, practiced. He swung his outstretched hand up and round like he was casting a rose into an invisible audience. There were another two
pock
s from the gun in his fist and something wet hit the asphalt behind me.

The third suit, the one who’d been kicking me, finally freed his weapon from his jacket and whipped it up at the approaching figure. I took the opportunity to punch him in the balls. He dropped, and the look of surprise was frozen on his face forever as another two bullets slapped home.

I rose to my feet, wincing at the pain in my back. I was amazed to see, over by the wall, that the pimp, Victor, was oblivious to what was happening around him. He was standing over the girl with his fist raised again, face twisted with rage. Locked inside his own anger.

He never got the chance to do anything more because I kicked out the back of his knee. Followed up with a punch to the side of the head as he fell backwards and crunched to the asphalt with a grunt of pain. Almost immediately he lunged upwards, reaching for something in his jacket pocket, but I drove my knee into his nose with a snap of cartilage and he dropped again, out for the count, blood already pouring down his face.

Behind me, the man in the trench coat said, “We’ve got to be making tracks, Alex.”

I looked past him, at the carnage. “Who the hell are you? What the hell is going on?”

“Save it for later. At the moment, I’m your friend. We need to get this cleaned up. Then we can talk.”

He walked back in the direction of the BMW. I looked down at the girl, who’d realized the beating had stopped and was looking around her with tear-streaked eyes. Her face was already going red in places. She gasped at the unconscious form of Victor.

“He was trying to keep more money than you owed him?” I said.

She nodded and managed to get to her feet, still fighting to draw breath. “He said… interest. But I need… Who are you? What’s happening?”

I started going through Victor’s pockets. “Right now, I’m asking myself the same question. I’m not Victor, which I guess is good for you.”

He had about seven hundred bucks loose in one pocket, and a money clip in another with what at least another three grand. In his jacket, I found a slightly battered Berretta. It was loaded, but there were no spare clips. More for show than anything else, I guessed.

“Is… he… dead?”

“No. Broken nose, but he’s just out cold. You OK?”

“Short on… breath, but I’ll be all… right.”

“You got kids, boyfriend, any family?”

She shook her head uncertainly.

I pocketed the gun and tossed her the money. “Then take this, get a cab, throw your stuff into a bag and get on the next train out of town. Raise kids. Open a flower store. Have a good life. Just get well away from this one. And forget everything that happened here.”

She went silent for a moment, then very quietly said, “Thanks. Why do… I mean, why did you do all this? I mean, with the cash and all.”

I shrugged. “I need the karma. Go.”

She scurried away with a last downward glance at Victor. I turned towards the BMW just in time to see the guy in the trench coat put a bullet between the eyes of the wheezing suit I’d crushed with the car door.

41.

He saw my expression. said, “What? You gonna complain? You gonna call the cops? To clear away the rest of these assholes and sort out this mess I can’t leave ‘em alive. Get fucking real, Alex. You’re not in Boy Scouts any more. These people were going to kill you.”

I considered drawing Victor’s gun on him, but everything was starting to hurt big time and I was in no condition to pick another fight. “Who the
fuck
are you?”

“When we’re away from here,” he said, and hauled the dead suit round to the BMW’s open trunk. The others were already inside. He looked some way younger than me. Mid to late twenties, maybe, but worn down. A ragged mop of bleached hair, equally ragged face a shade too pale to be completely healthy, trench coat over cargo pants and a t-shirt. Battered sneakers. Leather gloves.

“What are you doing?”

“Amazing the amount of room there is in these things. When you don’t have to leave breathing space, anyway.”

“What?”

“Parking the car some place out of the way. The harbor maybe, away from anyone much. It’ll be a few days at least before they’re found, and by then it’s just another mob murder.”

I just stood there and stared at him, baffled.

“Who’s that?” he said, pointing at Victor.

“Some pimp who was having an argument back here when I showed up.”

“He alive?”

“Unconscious.”

The guy reached into his coat and pulled out a pistol. It had an overly-thick barrel. One of those integrally-silenced weapons; I guessed the noise it made was because he was using ordinary shells, not subsonic.

“Whoa, whoa,” I said. “You’re not going to kill him too. He’s unconscious.”

“He’s a witness.”

“He’s a shitty little pimp. You think he’s going to report any of this? To who? He’ll wake up, know he got caught up in something beyond him, and be fucking thankful he wasn’t killed. He won’t care about anything else.”