The Blade Itself

42

Richard was upstairs changing when Danny saw the duffel bag. Black with a dull silver zipper and padded handles, it looked like any other gym bag.

But Danny knew different.

He hefted it, surprised at the weight. Thirty pounds, maybe more. The zipper pulled smoothly over thick teeth, a quality item like everything else in Richard’s world. Danny eased it down slow, not to tease himself, but out of respect to a certain deadness he felt toward the bag and its contents. Once, this would have fired his heart and set his mind racing. Once, he would have been planning how to escape with it, envisioning the things he could do.

Now, as he stared down at the neatly bundled currency, all those Jacksons, Grants, and Franklins staring up at him, he felt only a vague nausea. Paper. Stacks and stacks of green paper. After all the discussion, after all the philosophy, that was what this came down to. These were the answer to Richard’s question. These were the lives of the people they loved, the futures of the people they worked with, the prime movers of darkness. Fate had borrowed the scales from Justice, set blood on one side and these dirty slips of paper on the other, and judged them even.

He thought of Karen’s brown sugar smell, the wet sparkle in her eyes when she laughed, the soft curve of her back. Acid soured his stomach. He zipped the bag and stepped away from its gloomy gravity.

Richard’s footsteps sounded down the stairs. He’d done as Danny asked, changed into loose, dark clothing: jeans and an old sweatshirt.

“You have any black tennis shoes?” Danny asked, gesturing at the white Nikes, their reflective swoosh bright even in the dim light.

Richard shook his head. “Just these.”

“All right.”

The doorbell rang, kids yelling, “Trick-or-treat!” They ignored it, their gaze locked. The bell rang again, and then the kids moved on to the next house, a parade of normalcy.

“Should we bring a weapon?” The question sounded bizarre coming from Richard.

A knife block stood in the center of the kitchen island, and Danny slid an eight-inch chef’s out, feeling the weight. German steel, well balanced and heavy. Perfect for chopping. He tried to imagine slipping it into Evan, blood spilling over his hands like soup.

He put the knife back in the block. “It will just get in the way.”

For a moment Richard looked like he was going to argue, but finally shrugged. “What time is it?”

Danny looked at him. “Time.”

The garage looked the same, and Danny swallowed a wave of guilt as he remembered Evan carrying Tommy’s limp body in his arms. Richard heaved the money bag in the back of the Range Rover and climbed into the driver’s seat. Danny joined him, feeling the first tingles of fear knit his stomach.

Easy, he told himself. Stretch it out. They had forty minutes yet – no point arriving adrenaline-sick and shaky.

The neighborhood streets were bright with the warm glow of porches and the sweeping arcs of flashlights. Children ran from house to house, their cotton capes and rubber monster masks providing a surreal background. Danny clenched and unclenched his fists, popping his knuckles.

“You want to go over it again?”

“I’ll drop you off a couple of blocks away.” Richard spoke mechanically. “Then find somewhere to park and wait. I show up at nine, and do everything Evan says. You sneak in and find Tommy and Karen.”

Danny nodded. “When you’re talking to him, remember not to say anything about Karen. We don’t want him to have any idea I’m there.”

“Right. You free them, tell them to get out. I try to stall Evan until you can jump him from behind.”

“There you go.” It was so flimsy it could hardly be called a plan. There were a dozen things that could go wrong. But in a situation with no time, no advantages, and no foreknowledge of the setup, it offered a chance to get the innocents out. Catching Evan was secondary to that. Everything was secondary to that.

Besides, Danny reasoned, Evan would be on unfamiliar ground. A construction site at night was a treacherous place. Danny had spent the last seven years on them. He could stride a twelve-inch beam without hesitation, could visualize the blueprints for each level, and knew every piece of cover. That might give them the edge they needed.

“It’s funny.” Richard’s face glowed pale in oncoming headlights. “My son would never expect me to do this.”

“What?”

“Rescue him.” Richard sighed. “I’ve been a lousy father. When I grew up, my dad was always gone. Working, building this company for me to inherit. He was proud of that, that it would one day be for me. Only, in the process, he forgot to actually be a father. I swore that I’d be different, that I’d be there. But I’ve been as bad as he was.”

The confession surprised Danny. Richard had always kept up a gruff front, never revealing this kind of emotion. Had he maintained the same face around his son? Debbie had said Tommy told her his father didn’t know he was alive.

“My father worked hard, too,” Danny said, his voice quiet. “I used to hate him for it.”

“He was gone a lot?”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t it.” He remembered the way Dad would leave the house in the morning, his posture upright, almost military despite his dusty clothes and lunch box. “I hated that we were poor. I hated eating potatoes and fried mush to stretch the grocery budget, hated that we had to listen to Sox games from the parking lot because we couldn’t afford tickets. I’d see these kids on the El, North Side kids, with trendy clothes and headphones, money to spare, and I’d hate that I didn’t have what they did.” He started cracking his knuckles one at a time. “One day I stole the Walkman out of a kid’s schoolbag. Suddenly I had something I wanted, just because I had the balls to take it. I was proud of that. Kept it under my pillow.”

“Let me guess. Your father found it.”

Danny nodded. “He was stern, strict, and I thought he’d beat me blue. Instead, he sat me down and tried to explain why it was wrong. Said that you had to earn things. That a man was measured by the way he acted, not what he had.” He shook his head. “As he’s talking, I’m thinking about how Joey Morgan’s older brother makes two grand a week stealing cars, and gets to spend most of his time in the bar. Compared to that, my Dad seemed like a fool, busting his hump every day and never having anything to show for it…” He trailed off. “It took fifteen years to begin to understand what the old man really meant. And by then, he was dead.”

They rode in silence. The skyline loomed larger, a bright harvest moon hanging above it. They’d left Lakeshore for surface streets five minutes ago. Just a few more blocks. The roads here were quiet, with few cars and no pedestrians. The same things that had made the construction site a good place to keep Tommy made it a good place for Evan to plan the meet. A couple of gunshots would go unobserved.

That brought back the sliver of fear, the old tingle in Danny’s fingers and wrists. No fighting it this time. He thought of Karen and Tommy, bound and scared. All of the last weeks came down to the next half hour.

More than that. All of his life.

“Over there. By that park.”

Richard nodded, steering the Range Rover to the playground. Shallow ruts marked where Danny had driven across it yesterday. The loft was two short blocks from here. On foot, he could wend through dark alleys and approach unseen. It would do.

Danny reached for the door handle, then stopped and looked over at Richard. The glow from the dashboard carved his face from the darkness. He looked ready, resolute, but a deep sadness had inscribed itself on his features. Richard had discovered what really mattered to him just in time to lose it. Danny winced, fought the urge to look away as he spoke. “I’m sorry, Richard,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry to have dragged you and Tommy into this.”

Richard glanced at him. “There’s no forgiving you.”

Danny nodded. “I understand.”

“But I know you had no choice.” Richard’s eyes were weary. “That helps.”

But you did have a choice, the voice inside Danny whispered. In the beginning. You could have gone to the cops and taken your chances. Even if they’d tried to charge you for the pawnshop, at least you wouldn’t have fucked up any other lives. You had a choice and you made the wrong one.

Never again. He gripped the handle, took a deep breath, exhaled loudly. Then he opened the door, slid to the ground, and closed it behind him. The city’s hum filled his ears. Not waiting for Richard to pull away, Danny sprinted for the shade of the alley, keeping low. He didn’t stop running until he had his back against the cold brick of a building. He glanced in both directions, then loped off to the west, dodging from shadow to shadow.

It was time to clean up his mess. No matter the cost.