The Poisoned Rose (22 page)

And this was all it took to send everything into an even higher gear.

Marie began to flail wildly with her arms and kick furiously at her brother’s shins. One of her hands must have grazed his eye, because he flinched and leaned back suddenly. She broke free of his grip and dove for the passenger door of her Saab. But Jean-Marc recovered and caught her as she was bending forward and reaching in for something. He grabbed her around the waist with both arms and pulled her back. But she squirmed and fought him and bit his hand. He screamed out and let go of her again. She dove once more into the passenger seat of her car. He shook his injured hand and stomped his foot in anger, like a kid throwing a tantrum. Then he snapped out of it and went after her again. He leaned into the car and blocked my view of what was going on.

I heard Marie scream, and I did what I could to run. I still couldn’t see what was going on, only Jean-Marc’s back. He was leaning into the car, struggling with his sister.

I looked behind and saw that George and a few of the regulars were standing in the doorway. They were watching in total disbelief as I dragged a semiconscious man to whom I was handcuffed toward a man and a woman grappling inside a car parked at the curb.

I turned and looked at Jean-Marc. I took a breath to prepare myself to sprint the rest of the way to the sidewalk. But it was a breath I don’t remember exhaling. Marie screamed loudly then, and I heard the condensed crack of a gun going off inside an enclosed space. It startled me, and I crouched low out of reflex and froze dead in my tracks.

Then I saw the smoke rising out of the Saab and turned back to George and the other and said, “Call an ambulance.” George took a few tentative steps back before bolting into the Hansom House.

I looked toward the Saab and saw that Jean-Marc was standing outside now, the gun in his right hand. I could not see his face, but by the way he stood, he seemed to be staring in disbelief at what was inside.

I pulled myself together and yanked Searls the rest of the way down the pathway. Jean-Marc heard me coming and turned around fast. He raised the gun with one hand and leveled it at me. His hand was shaking, and his arm seemed loose, almost rubbery. But his narrow eyes—the eyes of a hunting bird, the eyes I had seen the night Augie had been beaten—remained sharp and quick.

“She pulled a knife on me,” he said. He seemed almost offended by the audacity. “She tried to stab me in the chest.”

“Give me the keys,” I said.

“She just grabbed the gun,” he said without apology. “Then she tried to fucking stab me.”

“Give me the fucking keys!”

He didn’t move at first. Then he looked past me at the people standing in the doorway. He lowered the gun slowly, then dug into his pocket and pulled out the set of small keys. He tossed them to me. I let them land on the ground by my feet, then picked them up and unlocked the cuff, slipping my wrist free from it. I hurried past Jean-Marc to the Saab.

I could see her from the edge of the curb. She was slumped over in the seat, her hands limp in her lap. The diver’s knife was on the floor by the pedals. I took a step off the curb and leaned in and saw that her head was turned sharply. There was a bullet hole just above her right temple and blood along that side of her body.

I knew immediately that Jean-Marc hadn’t been struggling against a knife at the time he shot his sister. He would have needed his left hand to press against her face and twist her head around so the right side would be exposed to the gun in his own right hand.

I leaned in for a closer look and saw that there were abrasions on Marie’s right jaw. They were the impressions left by his fingers.

Even though I already knew she was dead, I felt her neck for a pulse. I found nothing but a fading warmth beneath the tips of my fingers.

I closed my eyes. It didn’t matter anyway if they were opened or closed. Either way all I saw was black. I leaned out, turned, and stood face to face with Jean-Marc. The gun was still in his hand, the muzzle pointed toward the ground. I knew who he was and what he had done. I knew, too, that he was another creation of the Chief’s, that he was just like the Chief’s son, lofted by his own arrogance, unreachable, without conscience. But the actual son was nothing compared to Jean-Marc. Jean-Marc was the real beast. He had gotten away with murder. He had gotten away with worse. And he clearly had no doubts that he would get away with this, too.

He had the connections and the money to pull it off—regardless of the witnesses, regardless of the evidence. No one knew better than I what the rich got away with in this town.

I heard sirens coming from several different directions. They were in the distance still but closing fast. Jean-Marc casually tossed the gun past me and into the Saab. It landed on the floor by Marie’s feet. He peeled off his gloves and dropped them to the pavement.

I could feel my anger mounting. I could feel my heart pumping its poison through me. I could feel it rushing in the place of my blood.

Jean-Marc looked toward the sirens and listened without showing a hint of fear or concern. I realized then that there was nothing that I could do beyond the only thing there was for me to do.

The sirens were almost upon us. But I could barely hear them over the buzzing in my ears. I could barely think of anything past the fact that I was here all over again, that I was back in the presence of a rabid beast, that there was only one course of action left for me to take.

“You don’t look so good, Mac,” Jean-Marc said. “You look like someone just shot your only friend. Trust me, buddy, she wasn’t your friend. She wasn’t anyone’s friend. And between you and me, didn’t you find her a little less than enthusiastic in the sack—”

I exploded then, ducked low and rushed him, wrapping my arms around his waist and lifting him off the ground, then slamming him hard onto the sidewalk, landing on top of him with all my weight. I mounted him fast, both my knees on the pavement, my thighs locked tight around his ribs. He raised his arms to fight back and I slipped a lock around his left and twisted abruptly, breaking his elbow clean. He cried out and I repositioned the lock and twisted again, tearing the soft tissue in his shoulder. Then I abandoned that arm and sunk my weight onto his chest and let go with a flurry of punches to his face. Almost all of them connected and cut divots out of his skin. I heard voices from somewhere but I ignored them and hit till my hands hurt. Then I leaned in and held myself over him with my left arm and threw a flurry of elbow shots into his head with my right.

My rage was rushing through me like electricity. I heard more voices then. I heard people moving toward me. I heard keys jingling on belts, I heard hard shoes on pavement. I noticed blue and red lights in the trees. I realized then that I was ranting, but I had no idea what I was saying. And anyway, I didn’t really want to know.

I was still working Jean-Marc when I felt hands on me, grabbing me and trying to pull me off him. I shrugged them away. But then more hands grabbed at me and pulled me off him and to my feet.

I struggled against the hands holding me, shoving people away. I knocked someone to the ground. Then someone else. I knew by then that they were cops but I couldn’t stop myself. My rage wasn’t done. I tried to break free. I wanted to throw myself back on Jean-Marc. But too many hands had me. Still, I managed somehow to twist free of some and to pull those still clinging to me as I labored to get closer. I managed to maneuver the pack and put myself in range and stomped hard on Jean-Marc’s head with the sole of my work boot.

And that’s when the first nightstick come down on my head. The pack pulled me away again, and something jammed me hard in the ribs. I grunted and jerked my head in rebuttal, catching someone flush in the nose with the side of my skull. I knew then that after all I had done to avoid this, I was right where I wasn’t supposed to be, in the hands of the Chief’s boys, giving them the reasons they needed to take me out.

The nightsticks all came out then, jamming me, banging me. I took a few glancing shots across the head, shots that stung me more than they rocked me. Most of the blows came to my body and legs. I wanted to fight back but my strength was close to gone. My wits weren’t all that far behind.

I was determined not to fall to the ground with all of them over me. But my determination was weakening with each shot that came in. I felt my knees bending under the weight of their blows.

I was close to going down when suddenly I heard someone ordering, “Enough! That’s enough!”

But still more shots came, and I dropped down to one knee. The sticks were working my shoulders and upper back and arms. There was nothing I could do. The swarm was too tight. There was nowhere to go, no way out.

I dropped my other knee, then fell to my hands and knees. I took shots to the ribs, jabs that shifted my internal organs. I heard the same voice order with authority and anger, “That’s enough, that’s enough,” and it wasn’t long after that that the flurry of blows finally ceased and the swarm was no longer so tight around me.

I realized then that I was on grass, on the lawn in front of the Hansom House. I looked up, laboring to breathe, and saw Augie pushing at cops with his cane, shoving them away. They didn’t seem to know what to make of him. They looked to the Chief for his reaction. Then I saw Frank Gannon behind Augie. He, too, had his hands on a cop, pushing him back by the shoulders. Between the two of them was the Chief. He just stood there in the middle of it all and looked down at me.

I bunched together what I had and got to my knees. From there I was able to stand. It took a moment but I did it. I stood to face with the Chief.

There were patrol cars on the street behind him. Five uniformed cops were scattered around us. Their sticks were still in their hands, their chests heaving.

I looked at the Chief. I was wavering like a drunk. He looked at me for a while, then at Augie. There was something in the way they stared at each other, a kind of brief recognition, that led me to believe that they knew each other. Or maybe had once. Augie had grown up out here. So had Frank. Had the Chief as well?

The Chief looked away from Augie then, turning to where Jean-Marc Bishop lay on the sidewalk. He looked down at him without expression. I watched the man’s profile till he turned back to me. His eyes were hard.

He said to me, “You give a guy enough rope and he’ll hang himself with it eventually.”

I didn’t say anything to that. The Chief nodded toward the Saab and said, “Did you see this?”

I nodded. He gestured behind me, toward the doorway of the Hansom House and the people in it.

“Did they?”

“You’ll have to ask them.”

The Chief stared at me for a moment more, then waved a uniformed cop over. The cop rushed to the Chief’s side. “Get statements from all these people over there,” the Chief said. He raised his voice and announced to the other uniforms around him, “This is by the books, gentlemen. Do we understand this? This is by the books. Dot and cross, dot and cross.”

The Chief took a step toward me. We locked eyes. His jaw was clenched shut.

“Get out of here,” he said softly.

I stared at him dumbly and didn’t move.

“Get out of here.” His anger broke through the tight clamp he held over it, his voice louder now. When I still didn’t move, he looked over my shoulder and yelled to someone standing there, “Please take your boyfriend and get him out of here.”

I looked back. Tina standing on the lawn several feet behind me. She looked frightened, unable to move. She looked from me to the Chief and then back at me.

The Chief regained his temper and said in a calmer voice, “Please, Tina, get him out of here.”

She walked to me then, her eyes blinking, her mouth opened slightly. She came up beside me and propped herself against me like a crutch, wrapping her left arm around my waist and draping my right arm around her neck.

But I still didn’t make a move to leave. I looked at the Chief as if the sight of him might help me understand.

He stared at me for a moment, breathing short through his nose. His face was set in a wince, as if the sight of me caused him discomfort.

“You did me a favor,” he said flatly, “and now I’m doing you one. Nothing has changed between us, nothing at all. Now get out of here, MacManus. Get out of my sight while I still have my dinner. Get out of my sight before I have a chance to change my mind.”

I still didn’t move. The Chief turned to Augie then and said, “Get this son of a bitch away from me.”

Augie started toward me. I saw Frank behind him, slipping through the crowd of cops and heading toward his Seville parked in the middle of the street. He wasn’t going to stick around. I didn’t really expect or want him to.

Tina tugged on my arm, then whispered, “C’mon, Mac.” I had nothing with which to fight her. Augie came up on the other side, and together the three of us turned away from the Chief and headed across the lawn toward the Hansom House.

My legs were shaky, my knees buckling a little with each step I took. Tina held her hip tight against mine, bracing me, holding me up. Augie’s arms were like tree limbs.

I had to stop for a second, to catch my breath. While I rested, I heard a car door close somewhere behind us. I turned and saw Long walking from a patrol car through the maze of cop cars on the street. He met the Chief. The Chief spoke to him for a moment, then walked past him. Long just stood there and did nothing as the Chief got into his Crown Victoria and drove away.

I looked for Marie then but couldn’t see her through all the cops gathering around the Saab. All I could think of was that I wished there was a way she could know how sorry I was. I wished there was a way that I could tell her that now. But of course there wasn’t. Of course she could never know.

“Mac,” Tina said. “Mac, c’mon. Let’s get you inside.”

I maintained my morbid watch, hoping for one last look of Marie. But Tina tugged at me gently and I turned to look at her.

“You’ve got blood on your hands, Mac,” she said. “We need to get you inside and wash it off.”