The Blade Itself

2

It started different ways, but always ended the same.

This time he’d been in a church. It wasn’t the Nativity, but he’d known that he was in the old neighborhood. A deep voice intoned alien words. Stained glass spilled bloody light across polished pews. Karen held a hymnal, terror squirming in her eyes. He’d tried to read the book, knowing the key to her fear lay on the page, but the words twisted and blurred. Sliding metal rattled behind him. In the half awareness of an ending dream, he knew he wouldn’t make it, that he couldn’t impose sense onto this world in time. He looked up to find that Karen had turned into Evan, and that the hymnal had become a pistol aimed at Danny’s chest.

The furious orange of the soundless gun blast yanked him from sleep, as it always did.

Beside him, Karen murmured something soft and rolled away, pulling the blankets with her. The draft cooled his sweat-soaked body. Danny sighed and rubbed his eyes, glanced at the clock. Ten minutes. He should probably just get up. Instead he wormed closer to Karen, let her soft skin and brown-sugar smell fill him. Why did she always feel best when it was nearly time to leave her?

He let himself drift until the alarm rang. Karen fumbled for the snooze button; she’d hit it two, three times before getting up. He rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb her, popped his head to either side and stretched his arms. Thirty-two years old, and it was already harder to get out of bed than it used to be.

In the shower, the water diamond sharp against his back, he replayed the dream. Probably two months since the last one. For a while they’d been weekly. It had been a hairy time, seven years ago.

Waiting for the train had been maybe the toughest ten minutes of his life. He’d wanted to take a cab, even just to sprint, but he needed the anonymity of the El. Mouth dry, sirens in his ears, a quarter mile from the pawnshop, and he’d stood waiting for the train, certain every moment that this would be the one when they’d come for him.

But when the Brown Line had finally rattled in, the wind from it stale breath on his face, he’d boarded like any civilian. There’d been a kid with baggy pants hanging off his ass, and a fat woman with a Marshall Field’s bag, and he’d stepped on between them as though he had nothing to fear. The train ran north, into the land of yuppies and condos and coffeehouses, and he made a fresh compact with God at every stop. Each one a step farther from where he’d come. A preview of things ahead. A series of geographically minor hops that took him from his old world into what would become his new one.

And good goddamn riddance.

Karen opened the bathroom door, rubbing at her eyes. She sat on the toilet, yawned.

“You have a nightmare, baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Bad?”

“The same.”

She flushed, and he almost jumped out from under the shower before remembering that wasn’t a Lincoln Park problem. It was the little things that brought home the difference between his old world and new. Karen slid open the curtain and stepped into the shower, eyes half closed. He swapped places with her, watched her tip her head back, the water sluicing over her body, flattening her dark hair to her shoulders.

On second thought, thirty-two didn’t look so bad. Not so bad at all.

“Christ, I hate mornings.” She fumbled for the shampoo. “Aren’t you late?”

“It’s Wednesday.” Most days he spent the bulk of his time on-site. Wednesdays he spent in the office, reviewing paperwork, filing permits, trying to juggle the budgets of half a dozen construction projects so that each, barely working out, could finance the next. When he’d reached management, it’d struck him as funny to realize that life as a contractor wasn’t much more stable than life as a thief.

“I’m off tonight.” Her eyes still closed. “Let’s go out.”

“I’m meeting Patrick.”

“Again?”

“He’s like my brother, Kar.” He couldn’t keep the tone out of his voice.

She opened her eyes then, her hands up in her hair. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“I understand, babe.” He put his hands on her waist, resting them on the thin ridge of her pelvic bone. “Don’t worry.”

He kissed her, her small breasts firm against his chest. She ran a hand down his back. Her fingertips sent electric shivers through his groin. Reluctantly, he pulled away, breaking the kiss. “I still have to make it to the office. Rain check?”

She smiled. “Any time.”

The Iron Crown was a copy of a replica of a pub, but not too bad for all that. Danny ordered a shot and a beer and settled at the bar. Patrick would be late. In twenty years, he hadn’t been on time for anything that wasn’t illegal.

Danny couldn’t blame Karen for her love-hate with Patrick. He was Danny’s last tie to the old neighborhood, the old life. Since walking out of the pawnshop he’d not so much as spit on the sidewalk. But in the swaggering flush of youth it had been different. His whole crew had wandered the city like young lions, thrilled and a little surprised by the ferocity of their own roar.

They just hadn’t realized the world would roar back.

Evan had landed in Stateville Maximum Security. The Jimmy brothers were serving twenty in Glades, some Florida bank job gone wrong. Marty Frisk had walked into a liquor store with an empty pistol; both barrels of the owner’s sawed-off turned out to be loaded. Those who hadn’t been busted or killed mostly still lived the life, and Danny had no common ground with them.

Patrick was different. After his mother passed – cancer – his dad had concentrated on drinking himself to death. Most things in life he’d failed at, but at this he turned out to be a natural. Faced with seeing another Irish kid from the neighborhood end up bouncing through foster homes at sixteen, Danny’s father had taken Patrick in. Tight as money was, that was the kind of thing you did in Bridgeport in those days.

And they’d thanked the old man by getting busted stealing a car two years later.

Danny shook his head, sipped his beer, and picked up the paper. He’d finished the Metro section when something hard poked his kidneys, coffee breath over his shoulder.

“Hands on the bar, son.”

“Patrick. That one never gets old.”

“You’re already losing your instincts. Lose your sense of humor, too, you may as well take up golf with the rest of the North Side fairies.”

Danny picked up the whiskey and poured it down slow, savoring the amber glow. In the smoked mirror above the bar he could see Patrick behind him, tall and angular, the smile cocky.

“You passed twice on your bike before you parked. Came in the side door, stopped to bullshit the girls at the corner table. Your wallet’s in your back right pocket. And after everything I told you, you still carry a blade in your boot.”

Patrick’s smile had faded. “How?”

Danny raised his right hand, cocked it like a gun, and shot Patrick in the mirror. “Losing instincts my ass.”

Patrick threw his head back and howled, then settled on the bar stool and finger-combed his black hair. Over a long-sleeve thermal he wore a threadbare T-shirt advertising a defunct bowling alley. The bartender poured Jameson’s into their glasses without taking his eyes from the classifieds, then moved to the other end of the bar.

“I got a good one tonight.”

Patrick always had a story.

He’d been cruising in his low-loader, looking for just the right car. BMWs and Mercedes, they were too likely to have LoJack. Hondas were good, Explorers, your midrange Fords. And if you were smart, you’d pick one parked illegally. Two inches into a fire lane. Expired meter. Just a little cover.

“So I’m in the West Loop, where they’re building all those fake warehouses for yuppies.”

“Lofts, Patrick. We call them lofts.”

“I bet you love them, folks paying four hundred grand for a house with no walls. Anyway, it’s a good spot, decent cars, not too many people. And there’s a GTO, you know the one with the V-8?”

Straight as he was these days, the thought still made Danny smile, Patrick backing up his tow truck, lighting a cigarette as he worked the hydraulics. Put on a pair of overalls, nobody questioned you stealing a car in broad daylight.

“So I’ve got it half loaded, the alarm has shut off now that it’s hit the tow angle, and all of a sudden, running down the street is some guy looks like he just stepped out of a Banana Republic ad. Actually,” his eyes rolling up and down Danny’s khakis and pressed shirt, “you probably know him.”

“Fuck you.”

“I don’t have the car locked down yet, and I don’t want to just dump my truck. Worse, I see the guy’s got a cell phone, he’s talking into it as he runs.”

Danny winced. “Ouch.”

“No shit. Maybe he’s calling the cops, right? But I figure okay, stay cool. Pop the guy hard enough to drop him, lock down the car, drive away.” Patrick paused, reached for his shot.

“And?”

He laughed. “Just as I’m about to hit him, he yells that his car’s getting towed and hangs up. So I hold off and stand there staring at him. Guy barely looks at me, just asks what the problem is. I tell him he was sticking into the alley.” He laughed again, lifting the glass to his nose to smell the whiskey. “And then this joe, type of asshole who thinks he knows all the angles, you know what he does?”

Danny smiled, shook his head, though he could see it coming.

“He takes out his wallet, asks can we settle it right here.”

“No kidding.” Laughing now.

“Man offers me fifty bucks to lower the car I was in the process of stealing from him.”

“What did you say?”

“I said a hundred.” Patrick grinned and tossed back the shot.

They had a couple of rounds and then went down the street for a steak. It should have been a good night, but something was throwing Danny off, nagging at him. Had been all day. Maybe the nightmare this morning. But Patrick was in a good mood, all jokes and stories, and didn’t seem to notice.

After they finished – Danny stuck with the check – they stepped out onto Halsted. Though it was only October, the air felt crisp, with the smell of winter sharp on it.

“How ’bout another round?” Patrick smiled. “I gotta tell you about this girl I hooked up with last week.”

“Next time, Romeo. Which reminds me, Karen wants you to come over for dinner.”

Patrick groaned. “And the friend she invites, social worker or librarian?”

“Both, probably.”

“With a face like a boot, but the sex drive of a jumped-up gerbil. The last one chased me to Lakeshore, waving her panties over her head and neighing.”

“All right, all right,” Danny said, laughing. “No blind date this time, I romise.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.” They reached Patrick’s motorcycle, an old Triumph that had been taken apart and put back together enough times to render it unrecognizable. He brushed a speck of dirt off the leather seat, and then swung one leg over to straddle the bike. “Oh, I almost forgot. I heard somebody was asking about you.”

Old instincts tightened Danny’s skin. “Who’s that?”

Patrick looked up at him, the joking in his eyes replaced by something more serious, like he was watching for a reaction. “Evan McGann.”

Danny’s mouth went dry, and he felt that tingling in his chest, the sense of his heart beating hard enough to rattle his ribs. He scrambled for his game face, almost got it.

“Chief?” Patrick looked at him quizzically.

“Yeah.” He forced a smile. “How is he?”

Patrick shrugged. “Haven’t seen him myself. Just heard he was around, asking questions.”

“I thought he was doing twelve years.”

“Good behavior, I guess.”

“Sure.” The dream came back to him, the sense of rushing danger, Evan with the gun pointed at his chest.

“You awright?”

“Yeah.” Danny shook his head. “Fine. Just surprised me.”

His friend laughed, turned the key. The bike started with a throaty rumble. “I told you.”

“What?” Shouting over the sound of the engine.

“You’re losing your instincts, brother.” Patrick smiled, gunned the bike, and disappeared down Halsted.