Pariah

THIRTY-ONE

Franklin leads Doyle through a large kitchen to the rear door of the house. He unlocks it and motions Doyle out into the backyard. He picks up a spade resting against the wall of the house and tosses it to Doyle. Then he grabs a flashlight resting on the windowsill and aims it away from the house without turning it on.

‘Walk,’ he says. ‘That way.’

Doyle looks down to the bottom of the yard. The moon overhead is almost full; it bathes the scene in an eerie gray light. He begins to walk, his feet crunching on the coarse white gravel path. Halfway down, he hefts the spade in his hands, debating whether he can swing around fast enough to smash it into the face of the man behind him.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Franklin says, and Doyle stops doing so.

They reach a fence separating the yard from the woods beyond. Franklin tells him to unlatch the gate, then switches on the flashlight and shines it into the trees.

‘Through there.’

The way he’s indicating is straight into the thick of the woods, away from any well-defined path.

Doyle pushes on. Without a flashlight of his own it’s slow going. He frequently trips on gnarled roots or gets poked in the eye by a branch. At every step, small forest-dwellers in the blackness ahead of him scurry for cover.

After ten minutes of fighting nature, he halts and turns toward Franklin, who responds by shining blinding white light into his eyes.

‘You don’t think we should be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs or something?’

‘Not much farther, Cal. Straight ahead.’

Doyle continues his struggle for another few minutes as the ground begins to slope downward toward the banks of the reservoir. Then, after unsnagging his pants from a particularly stubborn tree, he stumbles into a small clearing. Following behind, Franklin switches off the flashlight and allows the moonlight to take over the illumination of this stage upon which Doyle figures he is to play out his final moments.

Franklin circles the arena, then hops onto a large rock and sits himself down. It’s clear from his sure-footedness that he’s been here before.

‘I come here alone sometimes,’ Franklin says. ‘Just to think, to get away from the world. I’m sure there’s hardly another soul even knows it’s here.’

Doyle sniffs against the cold. His nose feels like it’s on fire. ‘I’m honored you feel you can let me in on it. Why don’t you do some more of that being-alone business while I head back to somewhere a little warmer?’

‘A little exercise will soon warm you up. Start digging, Cal.’

Doyle looks down at the ground. With the tip of the spade he scrapes a hole in the carpet of dead leaves, then taps the hard soil beneath.

‘This ground’s frozen, Mo, and I’m not in the best of shape right now.’

‘I’ll do it myself if I have to, Cal. But only after I’ve put a bullet in you.’

‘Never mind. I’ve just remembered how much I like digging.’

He puts his foot on the edge of the spade’s head and transfers his weight onto it. He’s surprised at how easily the blade sinks into the soil once it breaks through the top crust.

Which means that this isn’t going to drag on as long as I hoped, he thinks. Great.

He throws out a few mounds of earth, wincing against the pain in his side with each swing.

Franklin says, ‘Hurry it up, Cal. I’ll be arriving home soon, crying out at the sight of my poor murdered wife.’ He pauses for a second. ‘Or maybe I had too much work to do and decided to stay in my Manhattan apartment. Hmm, I’ll have to think that one over.’

Doyle continues to dig. Sweat trickles from his brow, and now his whole ribcage seems to be throbbing with the pain.

He pauses for breath, one hand resting on the end of the spade, the other pressed to his side.

‘What’s the matter, Cal? Young guy like you shouldn’t have any trouble doing this.’

Doyle doesn’t answer. He sniffs again, smells the resin from the trees surrounding him. He looks hard at those trees. Looks for a way out of this. Looks for some hope. Finally, he puts his hands down and faces Franklin. The upright spade topples and falls to the ground.

‘What are you doing, Cal? That’s not nearly deep enough.’

‘It’s over, Mo.’

Franklin raises his gun and points it at Doyle. ‘It’s over when I say it is. Now keep digging or I’ll shoot you. Makes no difference to me whether I kill you now or when you’re done. Just thought you’d appreciate a few more minutes to make your peace with the Lord. You’re a Catholic, aren’t you?’

‘Lapsed. I got the feeling He wasn’t listening to me. Somebody else has been, though.’

Franklin says nothing for a few seconds. Doyle senses the alarm creeping into the man’s bony frame.

‘What? What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘Back at the house. I wasn’t the only one listening in to that microphone strapped to Nadine. You may have got my recorder and my tape, but the wire was still running, Mo. Still pumping it out to another machine. All that stuff you said after you brought me into the house. It’s all been recorded. You’re finished, Mo.’

Franklin stands up on the rock. His gun is still aimed at Doyle, but his eyes scan the woods nervously.

‘Don’t try to mind-fuck me, Cal. As an attempt to save your ass, it’s pretty pathetic. You’re the loneliest man on the planet. You dropped off the face of the earth, and even if you hadn’t, there isn’t another cop who’ll knowingly come within a mile of you.’

‘Who said anything about cops?’ Doyle asks.

The crack of the gunshot sounds like a huge branch snapping off one of the trees. Doyle’s whole body jumps.

But he’s not the one who’s been shot.

Franklin’s gun hand jerks to his left, the Glock flying from it and clattering onto the rocks. The woods are suddenly alive with the sounds of animals and birds scampering and flapping in panic. Franklin clutches his arm, looks down at it in disbelief and agony.

Then, from behind Franklin, another figure appears and steps up onto the rock. He walks casually, a sniper rifle with telescopic night sights in his hands. Franklin whirls on the intruder.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asks.

The man’s response is to slam the butt of his rifle into Franklin’s face. Franklin spins away and drops heavily from the rock. Without hurry, and seemingly without emotion, the man follows Franklin down and aims his rifle at him.

Another man comes into view from around the rock. He’s not holding a gun, but Doyle knows that he is definitely the most dangerous man here.

He steps over to where Franklin is lying on the ground.

‘Stand up.’

Franklin staggers to his feet.

The man says, ‘You know who I am?’

Franklin rubs his injured face. ‘You’re Lucas Bartok.’

Bartok nods. ‘And you’re the man who had my brother killed.’

Franklin hesitates. He knows it’s the end, Doyle thinks. He hopes his boss will choose to go out like a man.

‘Your brother was a stinking piece of shit,’ Franklin says. ‘And you’re a stinking piece of shit who can’t even see straight ’cause he jerks off too much. Get it over with, Squinty.’

Like a man, then, Doyle thinks.

Bartok doesn’t argue and doesn’t wait for a second invitation. His arm shoots out into Franklin’s face, and for a brief moment Doyle wonders why he leaves it there.

And then he remembers something about Bartok.

He remembers that he likes to use a meat hook.

And right now that hook is embedded in Franklin’s left cheek like he’s a fish.

With a roar of anger, Bartok yanks Franklin toward him, spins him right around, and then flings him toward the rock. As Franklin goes one way, Bartok wrenches the hook in the other direction. Franklin’s cheek explodes as he hurtles back against the rock.

Doyle takes a step forward, but Bartok’s henchman raises his rifle, smiles, and shakes his head.

Bartok advances on Franklin, and again his arm whips out. This time the tip of the hook sinks into Franklin’s eye.

Franklin’s high-pitched scream scythes through the night air. He claws frantically at the metal thing protruding from his skull as Bartok drags him away. They disappear behind the rock, and even though they are now out of his sight, Doyle finds that he has to fix his eyes on the ground. He has to stare into the hole he has been digging and concentrate on that blackness to shut out the images. He tells himself that the noises he hears are wild animals fighting and calling to one another. It’s nature, that’s all. Just the animals. They sound like that sometimes. Almost human.

When it ends, Doyle feels faint with relief. The clearing is so chillingly silent he wonders if his fervent desire to cut out the screams has made him go deaf.

Bartok reappears looking like something from a zombie movie. In the moonlight, the blood that covers him from head to toe looks black. He walks toward Doyle, panting with the effort of his labors.

‘Talk about cutting it fine,’ Doyle says.

Bartok’s arm lashes out again. Doyle starts to dodge, but isn’t quick enough to avoid the cold steel connecting with his face. He drops to the ground, rolls to get away from Bartok’s onslaught. But when he looks up at Bartok, he sees that the man is no longer carrying his meat hook. What he struck with was Doyle’s own Glock.

Doyle touches his cheek. He feels warm blood there, but nothing as bad as he expected.

‘That’s for when you arrested me and my brother,’ Bartok says.

Doyle can sense he’s not done, though. When Bartok’s foot comes up, Doyle is ready to block it, grab it and push upward and back, knocking Bartok off balance.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t because that would mean his death. It would mean a salvo of bullets piercing his body within a split-second of any reaction against Bartok.

And so he takes the lesson, lets Bartok get it out of his system. Allows Bartok’s shoe to collide with his face, splitting open his lip.

‘And that’s for being a wise-ass.’

Doyle gets to his knees, tastes the blood gushing into his mouth. He spits it out onto the ground.

‘You done?’ he asks. ‘We finally quits now?’

‘Put your hands behind your back.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me, you dumb Irish fuck. Put your hands behind your back.’

Doyle looks at Bartok. Wonders why it is that the end of one predicament always seems to lead straight into another.

When Doyle has clasped his hands behind him, Bartok signals his goon to approach. The man slings his rifle over his shoulder, then pulls a length of cord from his pocket and begins to tie Doyle’s wrists together.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Doyle asks.

‘Shut up,’ says Bartok. He snaps his fingers at the other man, who tosses him something soft and dark. Bartok moves behind Doyle, slips the cloth bag over his head.

Oh, Jesus, Doyle thinks. Not like this. Not after all I’ve been through.

He feels something hard press into the back of his skull.

‘You know what this is?’ Bartok says, his voice muffled through the cloth.

‘A gun.’

‘Yeah, a gun. Your fucking gun.’

My gun. Aimed at me again. This is starting to get repetitive.

‘We made a deal, Bartok.’

Ah, yes. The deal. Me getting my life back in return for handing Bartok the killer of his brother. Lucas sure got a shock tonight when I turned up at his door offering that one. Now where did I get the idea he could ever be a man of his word?

‘You think I’m stupid, don’t you, Doyle? Think I don’t know shit. To you, Kurt was the brains and I was just the dumb sidekick. Ain’t that right, Doyle?’

‘No, actually your dastardly ruse never fooled me for a minute. I always suspected you were the criminal mastermind and Kurt was just your puppet.’

For his impudence, Doyle receives another smack in the mouth, rattling his teeth.

‘Oh, you are so pushing it, Doyle. You are so asking to die here.’

‘What’s the difference?’ Doyle asks, finding it harder to speak now. ‘You’re gonna kill me anyhow.’

The laugh from Bartok seems to fill the clearing. Doyle can picture the forest denizens deciding they want nothing to do with whatever insane creature is issuing that fearful noise.

When Bartok speaks next, his voice is just an inch from Doyle’s ear. Doyle can feel the man’s warm breath pushing through the cloth.

‘Kill you? I ain’t gonna kill you, you stupid fucking mick. I want you alive. And you know why? To show you that I’m smarter than you think. I’m gonna help you, Doyle.’

‘I don’t need your help.’

‘Oh, yes, you do. Think about your situation. Think about your ex-boss lying in pieces behind that rock over there. Think about his missus with your bullet in her brain. She’s got great tits, by the way — I copped a feel on the way out.’

Doyle tries to suppress his anger. His mind struggles to work out where Bartok’s going with this.

Something — probably his gun — taps against his skull.

‘This,’ says Bartok, ‘gives you a story. You say that the lieutenant tied you up and put the hood on your head. That he was going to shoot you and dump you in that hole over there. And then somebody else came along. You have no idea who. You heard noises and that’s it. You got that, Doyle?’

Doyle doesn’t answer. He feels his coat being opened, a hand reaching into his inside pocket.

‘And this,’ Bartok continues, ‘gives you the rest of what you need to get out of the fix you’re in.’

‘I don’t want it. Whatever it is, I don’t want it.’

Bartok laughs again, but it’s more of a chuckle this time.

‘We were quits,’ Bartok says, ‘but now you owe me. You owe me big time.’

Doyle swallows down some blood. ‘I don’t owe you shit. Take your crap out of my pocket. I’ll take my chances.’

‘It stays, Doyle. And I think you’ll use it. But even if you don’t, you still owe me.’

‘Yeah? How d’you figure that?’

Another cruel laugh. ‘Because I got something else up my sleeve. Something you don’t want anybody to know about. Any ideas yet?’

Doyle’s mind races, but doesn’t seem to get off the starting line.

Bartok’s voice drops to a whisper. Although carried on lungfuls of air that feel almost burning against Doyle’s ear, the words themselves chill him to the bone.

The breathing moves away. When Bartok speaks again it sounds as though he’s standing up again.

‘Think about that, Doyle. Not so much the dumb brother now, huh? We’ll talk again soon. Oh, and one other thing before I go. .’

Doyle waits for more words he doesn’t want to hear. What he gets is something hard smashing into the side of his skull, and then a feeling of sinking into the soil as though it’s quicksand, swallowing him up and closing over him.

He thinks he’s dead.

When he opens his eyes he sees nothing, feels nothing. His brain sends out commands to the rest of his body, but nothing responds. It’s like he’s become some kind of disembodied soul, floating in a featureless limbo.

Gradually, he realizes that his limbs are moving, but the cold has numbed them — turned them into unfeeling slabs of frozen meat. He manages to roll into a sitting position, then starts pumping his legs along the ground to get the blood circulating again.

Next, he flexes his biceps, rubs his arms up and down his back, wrings his hands together until they start to thaw a little. When he has finally re-established the perimeter of his own body, he goes to work on the cord binding his wrists. He frees his arms more quickly than expected, and when he pulls off the hood he sees why: the lack of sensation in his hands meant that he didn’t notice he was sloughing off layers of skin as he pulled and twisted them against the rope.

He stands up. Shakily at first, he stamps his feet and slaps his arms across his body, trying to dispel the iciness that seems to have sunk right down into his bones. Each movement sends jolts of pain coursing through his battered body.

He burrows his hands deep into his pockets, then scans the clearing. It’s so quiet, so peaceful here. It’s almost impossible to believe that this place was recently witness to such extreme, sickening violence.

He knows he has to look, has to confirm what he already knows to be true. He’s a cop. He has seen numerous corpses, in various states of decay and putrefaction. But as he circles the rock and glances at what lies behind, even he feels the bile rise in his throat.

He performs a quick search of the area. There’s no sign of either his gun or the lieutenant’s, but what he does find is Franklin’s flashlight. He switches it on, but just before he aims for the woods he takes another look at the hole he started digging. The site that almost became his grave.

With no idea of the route, and nothing that looks familiar, it takes him a long time to get back to the house. When he finally arrives, he stamps across the back porch, enters through the kitchen, then goes straight to the living room. He wonders why he finds it surprising that Nadine is still there in the armchair. Still half-naked, still staring sightlessly, still dead.

There’s one slight difference: Nadine’s skirt is pushed up around her waist, and Doyle’s Glock has been tucked under the waistband of her panties. A parting message from Bartok.

‘Sonofabitch!’ Doyle mutters.

Gingerly, he retrieves his gun, then smoothes Nadine’s skirt back into a more respectable position. As if it makes any difference to her.

He looks long and hard at the face of Nadine, tries to see past the mask of blood she now wears. He pictures her laughing, smiling, teasing, flirting. He tries to comprehend how such a vision of beauty can be the trigger for such a tidal wave of destruction. How she could possibly have acted as the inspiration for all that hate, all that evil. He wonders, too, whether she managed to convince herself that it was none of her doing, or whether she suspected the real reasons for what was happening to Doyle and chose to say nothing.

He reaches into his inside pocket, takes out Bartok’s present.

A cassette tape. Presumably containing a record of everything said in this room since Franklin arrived home.

Doyle goes over to the tape recorder he left on the table. He slips the tape in, rewinds it a little, then hits the play button. He hears Franklin’s voice telling how he used a nanny cam to confirm his wife’s infidelity, how he was convinced that Parlatti and Alvarez couldn’t be allowed to live after that. And then. .

Nothing.

Just hiss. Nothing about Rocca or Bartok. Nothing about the dirty cop in the precinct.

When a voice cuts in again, it’s Doyle asking what happens next.

So, okay, Lucas, you’re not so stupid after all.

He ejects the tape, holds it in the air and looks at it questioningly. And what, he thinks, do I do with this? Destroy it? Consign it to the fire like the other one?

What the hell. Bartok was right. This tape is the only proof of what really happened. Much as Doyle hates to admit it, this tape saves him. Unless Bartok’s whispered message was a bluff, destroying the tape gains him nothing and could lose him everything.

Sighing, he pockets the tape and reaches for his cellphone.