Empty ever after

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Connie Geary had made it happen. I knew that without Devo having to look it up. She was in this. I just didn’t know how deeply. She had planted the idea of our date weeks ago. She made the call. She set the time. She made sure we were alone and I was unreachable. She arranged for the car. She picked the restaurant. She gave me the first kiss. Christ, even fucking was her idea. At least she let me choose the wine. Had she known what Brightman really had in mind? I’d like to think not. She had probably financed him. Financing Brightman’s campaigns seemed to be a Geary family habit.

For a little while there, I thought about heading to Crocus Valley and grabbing her ass for trade bait. It was a good thing her son wasn’t around, because I was in the kind of mood to have used him too. That’s how fucked up I was. But even if I had been far gone enough to have used them both, it wouldn’t have mattered. Bargaining requires that the parties value what the other party possesses, but Brightman wouldn’t care about Connie or her kid. Too bad Connie was blind to that. She wouldn’t be for much longer. If she had understood the end game and not involved herself, then maybe Brightman would’ve been forced to come directly at me instead of my family. That wasn’t his way.

I was pretty sure I had some time and that Katy was in no immediate danger. My guess, my hope was that Brightman needed my presence to bring down the final curtain. Was I certain? No. I’d been wrong about almost everything else, but I knew Brightman, the way his twisted mind worked. So before heading into town, I stopped at the cemetery to talk with Fallon. I don’t know why it had taken me so long to realize what was right in front of me from the first: that a man with a backhoe, a shed full of pickaxes, shovels, and sledges, a man with unfettered access to the Maloney family gravesite, was a more obvious suspect than neighborhood kids, vandalous ghosts or avenging angels. That the sheriff had also neglected this point was of no comfort.

The crunch of the gravel beneath my tires brought it full circle. I once again thought of that long-ago winter’s day in the cemetery with Mr. Roth. God, how I missed that man, but the love I felt for him was always tainted with guilt over my father. We’re funny creatures, us humans. We live in hope that even the dead will change. I know I did. My dad loved us. We loved him, but he had cut himself off from us. He could never bring himself to meet us halfway. So far, no further. He was a failure at business. Even his failures were unspectacular. I don’t think Aaron, Miriam, or I cared about that, but he did. We saw him as a failure because he saw himself that way, because he failed us that way. Israel Roth came with none of that baggage. That baggage was reserved for his son. He was the father I chose. I was the son he wished he had. It was a cruel bargain for everyone but the both of us.

I parked in front of Fallon’s neat little bungalow, but I didn’t make it up the front steps. The shed door was open, creaking as it swung lazily in the early evening breeze. I reached around for my. 38. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. Besides, cemeteries just tend to throw me off my game. No one likes confronting the inevitable. When your life spreads out before you, there are countless possibilities. Not in the end. In the end, it’s all the same. Death is the most egalitarian of things. Cemeteries, like a constant whisper in the ear, had a nasty way of reminding you of that fact.

“Fallon!” I called out. “Mr. Fallon. It’s Moe Prager, Katy Maloney’s ex.”

The only answer was the whine of mosquito wings. They’d come out for a light supper. In the distance I heard a faint clink, clink, clink — ing. When I grabbed hold of the door and peeked around, I saw why it refused to close. Mr. Fallon’s work boots were doorstops. The caretaker lay face down, one end of a pickaxe stuck so completely through his left shoulder blade that the handle nearly rested on his back. There wasn’t much blood, not on his back anyway. His head was pretty well smashed up. The little blood that had pooled around the wound was thick with mosquitos.

I looked up at the door header and ceiling of the shed as I backed out. Fallon hadn’t been killed in the shed. No way an assailant could have swung the pickaxe high enough to gather the momentum it would have taken to gouge through the body that way. I took a look around. On the far side of the equipment barn, I found the source of that faint clink, clink, clink — ing. Fallon’s abandoned backhoe was still running, the exhaust cap popping up and down in rhythm to the puffing of diesel fumes. The blood missing from the shed was all here, but not pooled all in one place. The caretaker had received quite a beating before dying.

My cell phone buzzed even as I grabbed it to call the sheriff. It was Brian Doyle.

“You were right, boss,” he said. “The tattoo babe confirmed it.”

“Thanks.”

I clicked off and called the sheriff.

“Pete.”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Have you seen my daughter?”

“Sarah? She was just in here with Robby, why?”

I let out a big sigh of relief. “Keep an eye on her.”

“Why? What’s up?”

I didn’t bother explaining. “Listen, Fallon’s dead.”

“Fallon, the guy from the cemetery?”

“Yeah. I’m at the cemetery now. Fallon’s in the tool shed, a pickaxe sticking halfway out his back. My guess is-”

I never finished the sentence because a baseball bat had, at that instant, introduced itself to my right kidney. It’s way back. The leftfielder’s on the warning track… at the fence… looking up. That ball is… outta here! I’ll be pissing blood for a month, I thought, crumpling to the ground, if I live that long. My cell phone seemed free of the bonds of gravity and flew off somewhere, far far away. The involuntary tears and choking mucus that filled my eyes, throat, and sinuses was the least of it. The nausea, the puking, that was the bad part. It made everything else that much worse, especially the pain. When I was done puking, someone slipped a pillowcase over my head, taped it closed around my neck, and cuffed my hands behind me. Two men-I guessed there were two and that they were men-dragged me by my elbows along the dirt and gravel. I was shoved into the back of a car-my car, by the sound of it-and driven away. Someone spoke. The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t Brightman’s or Barto’s.

“You didn’t think you was gonna blow up our kitchen and get away with it, did ya?”

It was Crank.

The ride was a fairly short one. That much I could say, but I was still disoriented from the whack in the kidney and the growing pain in my head. The tape, tight around my neck, wasn’t helping my respiration any, and the buildup of my own vomit-sour fumes in the pillowcase was hard to take. When we stopped, I was yanked out of the car and dragged along some new dirt and stone. A door opened. I was bent into a sitting position with my legs and ass on a cool, damp floor and my back against a rough wooden wall. Something tore open the linen cocoon around my head. The rush of fresh air made me swoon. If there had been anything left in my guts, I would have puked again. As it was, I dry-retched until my head nearly exploded. Someone kicked me in the ribs and the dry heaves stopped. I wish I had known that trick in college.

“Okay, Prager,” Crank said, straddling my legs, twisting my shirt in his hands. “Who are you working with?”

“The KGB.”

“Funny man.” He backslapped my face, but not as hard as I supposed he could have. There was also something in his eyes that belied his angry demeanor. “We know there’s someone working for the Feds inside this organization and you’re the outside contact.”

I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I looked around the room. We were in a cabin not unlike the one Crank and I had been in the last time. For all I knew, it might have been the same cabin. Standing behind Crank were four bikers from central casting. Behind them was a suit. The bikers wore black leather and greasy cut denim, beards, big boots, belt buckles, and bandannas. The suit had cop written all over him, but he wasn’t local. No, Suit’s brown eyes had the requisite sheen of condescension found primarily in Feds.

“ATF or DEA?” I asked the suit.

He smiled. I didn’t. Suit opened his mouth to speak.

“Come on, Prager,” Crank interrupted, “talk to me now and we’ll skip the blowtorch and pliers bullshit. Gimme a name.”

“Make some suggestions and I’ll give you a name. I’m not joking here. I just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Get the barbed wire,” said Suit to the bikers. “We’ll rearrange his face a little and when he sees how much blood pours out, then maybe he’ll-”

“Wait a second!” Crank barked. “This is my thing. The lab blew on my watch. I’ll handle this shit.”

“Yeah,” Suit said, “like how you let him slip away the same night you let a few million dollars of potential income go up like a Roman candle? I don’t think so.”

Crank jumped up, pulled a hunting knife out of the sheath on his belt, and stuck it right under Suit’s chin. For a barrel-bellied guy, Crank moved more like a ballerina.

“Listen, Swanson, you dickless motherfucker, don’t start giving me fucking orders. You get your cut from us, not the other way around. Remember that.”

“And I fucking protect you guys,” said Agent Swanson.

“And we’re paying for your retirement, asshole.”

“Gee, and I thought cops were the only ones who hated Feds.”

Crank back-kicked his leg and hit me square in the belly with his heavy boot. “Who the fuck asked you? Unless you got a name for me, shut the fuck up.”

That one hurt, but the damage could have been much worse had he got me in the jaw. Probably would’ve broken it. As it was, I couldn’t catch my breath.

Crank refocused on Swanson. “Back the fuck off, you suited prick. I don’t take orders from nobody. Just ask my Desert Storm commander. I broke his arm in three places, one place at a time.”

Swanson tried to look cool, but there was real fear in his eyes. “Okay, okay, but we need that name.”

Crank pulled the knife away from the agent’s neck and put the blade back in its sheath. He turned his attention back my way, lifted me off the ground and shoved me into a chair. He spoke softly to me, almost cooing, trying to cajole an answer out of me.

Wouldn’t I feel better getting it off my chest? Wouldn’t I rather avoid the torture, which would surely come? Wouldn’t I like a chance to live until morning? Wouldn’t I…

I would have been happy to give him an answer had I any notion of what he was going on about. I felt like a character from one novel who had fallen through the looking glass into another book: Alice in Fatherland, maybe. My mind drifted, I wondered if this was all part of Brightman’s grand scheme. But when I retraced my steps to my original contact with Crank, I rejected the idea. This was wrong place, wrong time at its worst. Yet in spite of the threat and bluster, not much was happening. Crank even got me a drink and cloth to clean me up some. More than an hour must have passed since I was first brought into the cabin. I got the sense that he was playing for time.

“This is bullshit!” one of the gang of four bikers growled. “Are we gonna kiss this guy’s ass until he gives us a name or what? Deuce and Deadman are gonna be here any minute and they’re gonna wanna know what the fuck is what.”

Swanson raised his hands like a traffic cop. “Hey, don’t look at me. That’s one of your boys talking, Crank, not me.”

“All right, Max, get the wire,” Crank said matter-of-factly. “Prager, gimme a name now, or you’re gonna bleed.”

Only I could see Crank’s face. His back was to the bikers and Swanson. There was something both imploring and reassuring in his expression. It was if he was telling me that things would be okay if I could only give him something to work with. I scoured my memory, trying to recall how things had played out the night the lab exploded. If I wasn’t already motivated enough, seeing the razor wire kicked it up a couple of notches.

“Cutter,” I said. “It’s Cutter.”

Crank winked at me in a brief second of calm. Then one of the bikers, a rough looking dude with a long beard, sunglasses, and prison tats lunged at me.

“You lyin’ motherfuckin’ snake.”

Well, now I knew who Cutter was. Instinctively, I pushed back and my chair went down and I tried to roll away. Crank threw out his left fist, catching Cutter in the Adam’s apple. Cutter, gasping for air, went down on top of me.

“Get ZZ Top off me!”

Agent Swanson actually laughed at that. The other bikers were on Cutter, punching him and kicking him even as they pulled him off. A few minutes of that and he’d look like Fallon sans pickaxe.

“Gag the rat and cuff him!” Crank ordered. “We’ll let Deuce and Deadman deal with him.”

Then, as if on cue, the quiet of the woods was ripped wide open by the distinctive throaty rumble of twin Harleys. The two bikes pulled up almost to the front door. The woods again went silent. The door opened. Two more bikers joined us. They didn’t look any more fierce or rough than Crank and the four that were already here, but it was evident from the look in everyone’s eyes that these two were players: princes among the common scum. There was a round of ritualized hugs and handshakes between the boys. It had the feel of a meet and greet at a Masonic temple. The bikers kept their distance from Swanson. They seemed to regard him as an infectious disease.

“You got my cut?” Swanson said. “I can’t be here for the pleasantries.”

“Shut the fuck up, man,” said the shorter of the two princes. “Ya’ll get your money when I’m ready to give it to ya.”

Crank pointed at me. “That’s the ex-cop. He fingered Cutter as the rat.”

Cutter struggled against his restraints and tried to say something. One of the bikers kicked him in the ribs and told him to shut the fuck up. Apparently, I’d chosen the right fall guy. Neither the original gang nor the two princes acted at all surprised by the news of Cutter’s disloyalty. Swanson was fidgeting, clearly worried about witnessing what would surely happen to Cutter and me.

“Deuce, pay the cunt and get him outta here,” said Deadman, the short prince.

Deuce reached around his back and pulled out a duct-taped brown paper bag. Swanson’s eyes got big, but he didn’t reach for the stack. Deuce threw it on the cabin floor like scraps for the dog and Swanson couldn’t pick it up fast enough. The second the Fed grabbed the package, the world hit a speed bump. There was a flurry of activity outside: gunshots, shotgun blasts, tires skidding, running feet on gravel, motorcycles rumbling. The cabin flooded with blinding light from all sides.

“Inside the cabin, this is Special Agent William B. Stroby of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Combined Meth Task Force. The cabin is completely surrounded. You are all under arrest. Any attempt at escape will be futile and will result in additional charges. Please follow my instructions promptly and to the letter and no one will be injured. A failure to do so will force me to use all necessary means to effect your arrest. Open the cabin door and throw out all weapons. Then, when I give the word, I want you to knee-walk out of the cabin in single file with your hands clasped behind your heads. Any variation in this procedure or attempt at escape will result in your being fired upon. Starting now I want…”

As Stroby droned on, Deuce looked my way.

“We got us a bargaining chip,” he said, reaching for the butt of a handgun tucked into his pants.

“I don’t think so,” said Crank, pressing the muzzle of a Glock to Deuce’s head. “Prager, stand up.” With his free hand, Crank reached into his pants pocket and removed a cuff key. He handed it to Deuce.

“Uncuff him.”

“You fuckin’ mother-”

Crank slammed his boot into the side of Deuce’s knee. Something snapped and the prince crumbled, yelping in pain. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Crank then ordered one of the original bikers to undo my cuffs. He did so.

“Prager, get that hogleg from Deuce and come over here with me.”

I followed Crank’s instructions. Deuce’s gun was a Colt revolver. The barrel on the damned thing was the size of a deer femur.

“Jesus Christ! Will you look at this thing,” I said, pulling back the hammer. “Please, somebody move. I’d love to see what a bullet from this thing would do to you.”

Crank got a kick out of that, but then his face went all business. “All right, boys, all weapons out on the floor now.”

Stroby was still at it when Crank yelled out the door. Some of Shakespeare’s plays had less acts than this guy’s speech. Until that point I had been successful at focusing on saving my own neck and not letting my mind drift to Katy’s plight. If I got myself killed, Katy had no chance. But now that my freedom was at hand, it all came rushing back in.

“Stroby, will you please shut the fuck up!” I thought I heard some of the assault team laughing. “This is Agent Markowitz,” Crank yelled. “The code word is pelican and the color is green. I repeat, this is Markowitz. The code word is pelican and the color is green.”

Stroby shut up.

No one was stupid enough to make a run for it and within fifteen minutes, the weapons had been collected, the bikers and Swanson arrested, the tension gone. Crank-Markowitz-had an EMT look me over. He gave me something for the pain, but that ache in my kidney was going to require weeks of healing and something stronger than glorified aspirin to take the sting out. The EMT had some stuff with him to help me wash up. He even had some mouthwash. Still, I looked and smelled like last week’s garbage.

“You okay?” Markowitz asked, handing me back my cell phone and. 38.

“Define okay.” I checked my phone for messages. None. “Listen-”

“Yeah, pretty dumb question, huh?”

“I’ve heard dumber, but not many. Listen, I’ve gotta get outta here.”

“In a minute,” he said. “I’ve got to get clearance for you to leave from my C.O.”

“So, you want to tell me what the fuck this was all about? I mean, I can figure out that you’re a Fed and that you’ve been undercover in this meth ring, but why drag me into it?”

“I’m ATF and I didn’t drag you into it. You put yourself in it. Who told you to come looking for me? Who told you to show up the night I blew the lab?”

“ You blew the lab!”

“Sshhhhh! Keep it down, Prager. Technically, I’m not supposed to destroy evidence like that, but the case wasn’t ready yet and we were going to ship out a huge volume of product. I couldn’t let it hit the streets, not even for the case. This shit’s like a plague, a fucking cancer. If you thought crack was bad… You ever see what a tweaker looks like after a few months on this shit?”

“Okay, I get it, but why reinvolve me?” I asked, looking impatiently at my watch, wondering when his C.O. would clear me to leave.

“I didn’t reinvolve you. They’ve been keeping eyes out for you. They knew someone was leaking info to the cops and Feds. I told you that night the lab blew that your timing sucked. These kinda guys don’t believe in coincidence. You show up and their lab goes boom… When you got away, they started looking at me. I couldn’t afford that, so…”

“So you told them there was someone inside and a contact outside. I was the obvious candidate for the outside contact.”

“These guys are cutthroats, not geniuses, and they sample a little too much of the product. Too much and it makes you paranoid as all hell. I just fed their paranoia a bit. Yeah, so someone spotted you on the road leading to the cemetery earlier. Good thing I was around.”

“Tell that to my kidney.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Listen, Markowitz, I’m not joking. I gotta get outta-” My cell phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” I said and stepped a few feet away.

“Remember my voice, Moe?” It was Brightman.

“I remember.”

“You were pretty smug the last time we spoke. You feeling smug now?”

“Not at all.”

“Good, but you’re late,” he said.

“Late for what?”

He ignored that. “You were doing so well and then you seemed to disappear on us. Where have you been?”

“Before or after I found Fallon?”

“That, oh, well… how about after the cemetery?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“No.”

Brightman moved his mouth away from the phone, but not so far that I couldn’t hear him. “Hurt her,” he said. There was a second delay and then a woman screamed. He got back on the phone. “Don’t do that again, Moe. I want to kill her in front of you, but if you put me in a bad frame of mind, I’ll do it and they’ll never find her body.”

“Okay. What do you want?”

“I can’t have what I want, but short of that I want you to go for a ride, alone, and keep your cell phone available. I’ll call you when it suits me.”

“Where should I-”

“Head toward the County of Kings. Yes, that suits me fine. Take the thruway and remember, Moe, old stick, alone.”

“I’ll remember.”

I clicked the phone shut.

“You don’t look so good,” Markowitz said. “Who was that?”

“The man who is going to murder my wife.”