The Blade Itself

12

“Jesus.” Patrick turned, one hand still on the railing, to look Danny in the face. “Are you serious?”

Karen had whipped up pasta for dinner, with spicy sauce and a bottle of red. She hated the criminal in Patrick, feared his impact on Danny, but Patrick the person, him she loved. So the three of them had sat at dinner, laughing and having a good time, all the while Danny raging behind a calm mask, desperately needing to talk to Patrick alone. “Nevermore.”

“I can’t believe he asked you to do that.”

“It wasn’t so much asking,” Danny said, “as telling.”

“Motherfu-”

“Keep your voice down.”

Patrick turned back to the sprawling night sky. After dinner Danny had led him out to their fire escape, ostensibly so that Patrick could smoke, but really for the privacy of it. The game had just let out, and Wrigley Field still blazed with light. The streets swarmed with fans shouting drunkenly for cabs.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Danny shook his head. “I really don’t.” Was it only yesterday afternoon he’d sat at the kitchen table, knuckles clenched on the beer bottle, listening to Evan propose a plan to shatter his life? Hard to believe so little time had passed. He’d thought of nothing else since. Hardly slept, his mind spinning and grasping for a way out.

Your boss, Evan had said. He’s got a kid, yeah?

Right then Danny had known what was coming, and fear climbed his spine one vertebra at a time.

To hear Evan talk, it was a simple thing, no big deal. Together they snatch Tommy, put him somewhere safe. Dick-twist Richard into paying as much as he could afford – not too much, Evan said, no point making it impossible – in trade for his son’s life. Split the score and consider themselves finished, all accounts balanced.

“Jesus.” Patrick’s face glowed as he dragged on his cigarette, eyes wide and dodgy. “What did you tell him?”

“What do you think? Hell no. You know what his response was? ‘Think about it.’ He’s sitting in my kitchen, boots on the table, telling me to think about it. He rocks back a little, so his shirt pulls up? And he’s got a gun tucked in his belt.”

“He pulled a piece on you?”

“Just let me see it, like it was an accident. Then he asked when Karen would be home.”

Patrick blew a breath through his lips. “So he’s set on it.”

“The way he sees it, either we’re partners or I’m disrespecting what I owe him.”

“You don’t owe him shit.”

Danny shrugged. “Not the way he sees it.” Which left Danny in a bad spot. The first times they’d met, there had been awkwardness and even a little fear, but also a faint and reserved fondness. They’d grown up together, suffered Sunday school together. Shared swiped menthols to impress fifth-grade girls in leather jackets and too much hair spray. Watched the sunrise from the top of a parking deck, twelve-year-old Evan afraid to go home, his eye blackened from stepping between his parents. They had history.

But when he’d walked in to find Evan at his kitchen table, fear was all he’d felt, a gnawing in his belly that grew as he listened. His friend had come out of Stateville changed. This man followed him. Spied on him. Broke into his house. And if he’d done all that, what was to stop him from doing worse? Danny shivered. “I’ve got to find a way out of this.”

“Why’s he need you at all?”

“I know Richard. I know his routines, I’ve been in the house. I even know his finances. Plus,” Danny said, “figuring out how to do things, that’s what I was good at.”

“Evan always was just muscle.”

Danny shook his head. “He likes you to think so. He’s got a temper, and he doesn’t give a damn for anybody in his way, but he’s…” He trailed off, searching for the right word. “Cunning. Even so, yeah, he knows his odds are better with me planning it.”

Patrick nodded, lit a cigarette. “You could always,” he paused, “I mean, you could always do the job.”

Danny spun. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Well, just for discussion. It would be easy, no one gets hurt, and Evan is off your back.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“I know, you’re out, I’m just saying-”

“‘Just this once,’ right? Only bullshit, it doesn’t work that way. Everybody always goes down on the last job. You know why? Because if they don’t go down, they do another. Besides, we walked into a pawnshop at midnight, nobody even in the place, and still, somehow, we end up…” He paused, collected himself. Sighed. “I don’t want to go back to that world.”

Down on the street, a cab held his horn, the blare lasting five seconds, six, eight. Someone yelled back angrily. Overhead, indigo clouds moved against a dark sky. Patrick turned away from the railing, his boots rattling the metal grille of the fire escape. “I’ll talk to him for you.”

The words yanked Danny from his thoughts. “What? No.” All he needed, Patrick getting wrapped up in this. He already had enough asses in need of covering, enough liabilities.

“Look, this still is my world. Let me help.”

“No way,” Danny said. “I’m telling you, this isn’t the Evan we grew up with.”

“Yeah, well, I’m all grown up too.”

“Listen.” Danny used his most rational voice. “I know you’re trying to help, and I appreciate it. But that’s a bad play.”

Patrick stared back, like he was thinking of protesting further. Then he shrugged, turned, and flicked his cigarette off the balcony. “Your call.”

Danny nodded, went to stand beside him.

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I have an idea, but I really don’t like it.” Danny paused. “You remember Sean Nolan?”

“Sure. I felt up his sister on the playground behind St. Mary’s. He chased me for a week. Would’ve kicked my ass, too. He’s a cop now, still in the parish. Why?”

Danny just stared at the sky, let Patrick work it out. Funny, though the answer was perfectly obvious, it ran so counter to the lessons of Danny’s old world that it took a minute.

“Jesus,” Patrick said, pronouncing it “Jay-sus,” surprise revealing the edges of his father’s accent. “Going to the cops?”

“Just one cop. A guy we grew up with, from the neighborhood.”

Patrick whistled.

“Yeah. I’m not sure yet. Just thinking about it.”

“But-”

“What are you boys up to out here?” Karen stepped out smiling, carrying three beer bottles in one hand with practiced ease. She turned to close the door, and Danny shot Patrick a quick warning look. He hadn’t told her about Evan’s visit, convincing himself he hadn’t wanted to scare her, knowing that was only part of the truth.

“Just watching the drunks,” he said.

“And the girls, right?” She smiled, handed a bottle to each of them. “Speaking of which, Patrick, I have a friend you’ve got to meet. She’s a nurse.”

Their eyes met, locked. Patrick started first, then Danny, the laughter bubbling up from within, loud, ceaseless peals of it, each fueling the other until it turned to sobbing for breath, their sides hurting as they fell into deck chairs.

Karen looked at them funny. “What’d I say?”

It was enough to get them going all over again.