Live Bait

40

Marty was standing directly in front of Jeff Montgomery, the kid’s 9-mm pointed right at his chest, his thoughts slamming against the brick wall of the obvious, bouncing off when they didn’t like looking at it.

In the past hour he’d learned that beloved, elderly Morey Gilbert was an executioner, and so, apparently, was this innocent-looking kid with the smooth face and the clear blue eyes. The real question was why should he be so goddamned surprised?

Too many years working in Narcotics, he thought, where meth freaks looked like meth freaks, street dealers looked like street dealers, where everybody looked exactly like what they were. There was a sick kind of security in that particular segment of the underworld, where what you saw was what you got, which was what had drawn Marty to it in the first place. But out here in the real world, almost everyone wore a disguise. He’d known that as a kid, of course; his father had taught him well; but he’d forgotten.

None of that mattered now, and he freed his mind to race at breakneck speed along the path it was trained to take. The hows and whys and motivations of an armed man were totally irrelevant when a cop found himself on the wrong end of a gun – the only thing that mattered was what happened next.

He was too close to the kid, and too far away, all at the same time. Too close to dodge a shot, too far away to disarm him. Talk was the only option he had. ‘What are you doing, Jeff?’

‘Just taking care of business, Mr Pullman.’

He wasn’t ending sentences with a question mark now, Marty thought, trying to push back the feeling that he was racing around some preordained circle that was going to open up at any moment and launch him off in a direction he hadn’t imagined. It seemed ironic that his last earnest attempt at suicide had been interrupted by Jeff Montgomery when he came to tell him that Morey was dead, and now that same kid who’d unwittingly saved his life was holding a gun on him.

‘What kind of business would that be?’ Marty asked, keeping his voice easy.

It surprised him a little when Jeff smiled at him. ‘I think you must have been an excellent police officer, Mr Pullman. “Engage the enemy’s attention when you find yourself at a disadvantage. Initiate conversation, introduce distraction…” That’s right out of the handbook.’

‘Not any handbook I ever read.’

‘Would you please turn around, Mr Pullman? Then lift your shirt with your right hand, and remove the gun from your waistband with your left. Use only two fingers, then turn to face me again and toss the gun over here, well to my right, if you don’t mind.’

‘You going to shoot me in the back, Jeff?’

‘Certainly not, sir. I wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be honorable.’

The funny thing was that Marty believed him, but still, he didn’t move for a minute, a little unnerved by the pervasive politeness of this strange boy.

He turned halfway around and looked at Jack, who was leaning forward on the sofa, wobbling just a bit, his hands gripping his knees. The worst part was his eyes – they weren’t frightened; just big and sad and apologetic when they met Marty’s.

Marty winked at him, then lifted his shirt and eased out the gun with two fingers, just as Jeff had told him to, then turned around to face him again. ‘You don’t want me to toss this gun at you until I put on the safety, Jeff.’

‘You put on the safety before you tucked it in your pants, Mr Pullman. Please don’t patronize me.’

Shit, the kid was on top of it, but Marty still stood there holding the gun at his side, thinking how heavy it was when you could only use two fingers, his mind so busy it was falling all over itself trying to sort out the options.

You don’t give up your gun. Period. Which left him with two choices. Toss the gun, use that off-balance moment when Jeff reached down for it to leap at him; or crouch a little like he was cooperating, but slide the gun back toward Jack, then surge up and hit the kid. Jack was a good shot by his own admission, and if he was fast, he might be able to use the moment to get off a shot. Then again, Jack had put away a lot of booze, and his reaction time had to be down near zero.

‘The gun, Mr Pullman.’

Marty looked at the kid who’d worked by his side for the past three days, the kid who had cried at Morey’s funeral after he’d shot him in the head. ‘I can’t do that, son.’

‘I understand and respect that, sir.’ Jeff said, but he steadied his aim and his finger tightened on the trigger. ‘But if don’t give up your weapon I’m going to have to shoot you.’

‘You’re going to shoot me whether I make it easy for you or not,’ said Marty.

‘No, Mr Pullman, I am not. I didn’t even know you were out here until I walked in the door. I have no argument with you, and I don’t want to shoot you. But I will if I have to.’

‘So you were in the loft at Brainerd, right?’ Jack said conversationally from the sofa. Marty heard the gurgle of Jack filling his glass from the bottle.

Jack, what the hell are you doing? But Jeff’s eyes had flickered, just a little. Jack had taken him by surprise, just as he did everyone.

‘Excuse me?’ Jeff asked, his eyes still hard on Marty, his finger still tight on the trigger.

‘Brainerd. The fishing lodge. You were in the loft, you saw what happened, you saw us. So that guy behind the counter, what was he? Your dad?’

Jeff’s eyes darted briefly to Jack, and Marty tensed, feeling the first surge of hope he’d felt since Jeff had pulled the gun from beneath his slicker.

Keep talking, Jack, he sent him a mental message that was absolutely unnecessary, because talking was what Jack did for a living. Distraction, persuasion, bullshitting – those were the lawyer’s forte, and now Jack was doing what he’d been trained to do. But Jesus, it was still an act of courage. He turned a little sideways, looked at Jack out of the corner of his eye. Thirty seconds ago he’d been hanging on to sobriety with his fingernails; now he was waving his glass, playing the part of a sloppy drunk.

‘Kind of old to be your dad, come to think of it. Grandfather?’

‘He was my father,’ Jeff said stonily. ‘Mr Pullman, slide your weapon over right now or…’

‘Shit. Must have been hell growing up with a Nazi for a father. Christ, I thought I had it bad. Kid, you got my sympathy.’

The 9-mm shuddered slightly in Jeff’s hand, and color started to bleed up from his neck into his face.

Too fast, Marty thought, jumping in. ‘If you saw everything that happened in Brainerd, Jeff, you know that Jack didn’t shoot your father.’

Jeff’s smile was absolutely humorless. ‘You expected him to tell you anything different? I came out of my room when I heard the shots. Jack was holding the gun.’

‘He didn’t pull the trigger, Jeff,’ Marty insisted. ‘The others shot your father. They tried to get Jack to shoot him after he was dead, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.’

Jeff narrowed his eyes at Marty. ‘He was there.’

‘You bet your bonnet I was there,’ Jack slurred from the sofa; ‘and you wanna know why? ’Cause my dad was trying to get me to finish his business, just like your dad got you to finish his. I’m telling you, kid, we got a lot in common…’

‘Please be quiet, Mr Gilbert.’

‘… but what I really want to know is just how the fuck did you find us?’

Jeff was still focused on Marty, still in control, but Jack was unnerving him a little bit, momentarily diverting his attention from the.357 Marty still held at his side. Marty started to move his finger ever so slightly toward the safety.

‘Your father was foolish enough to drive his own car. I saw the plate, cozied up to the sheriff, waited until he signed onto the DMV for a license check on some speeder, and ran the numbers. Once I found your father and got a job here, all I had to do was wait for the other two to show up. Child’s play.’

‘Why didn’t you tell the cops?’ Marty asked, moving his finger a little closer.

‘In my family, we take care of our own business.’

‘And now your business is to kill Jack.’

‘That’s correct. An eye for an eye. I’m not an indiscriminate murderer. These are righteous acts, and Jack is the last of them. I don’t have to kill you, Mr Pullman, and I certainly don’t want to. Originally I’d hoped to stay on at the nursery, helping Mrs Gilbert, maybe even make my life here…’

Marty heard Jack’s sharp intake of breath behind him, and had a hard time keeping his face expressionless.

‘… but when I saw you, I knew I’d have to sacrifice that, just complete my mission, and then disappear. I’m happy to do that to spare your life, Mr Pullman. All you have to do is choose to live by passing over your weapon.’

Marty just stood there, eyes steady, finally feeling the safety nudge the side of his finger.

‘You’ve made your choice, haven’t you, Mr Pullman?’

‘I guess I have, Jeff.’

‘Goddamnit, Marty, give him the fucking gun!’ Jack yelled, jumping up from the sofa, making Marty start a little, and in that instant Jeff’s left foot shot out with amazing speed and accuracy, kicking the.357 out of Marty’s hand. It spun across the floor and under the sofa, hitting the wall behind it with a loud clunk.

Marty closed his eyes and kept them closed. Fifteen years a cop, disarmed by a kid. Goddamnit to hell, he couldn’t save anybody.

The gate to the nursery parking lot had been locked. By the time Magozzi and Gino pulled up, four squads were already lined up at the curb and another two were coming in from Lake Street. No lights, no sirens, thank God. Peterson was doing his job.

Viegs came trotting up to them, his hat protecting his hair plugs from the rain, a hat condom protecting the hat. ‘There’s a squad in the lot. Two of the guys went through the hedge to check it out. No sign of Becker. Didn’t know if you wanted us to go any further. Peterson said to wait.’

‘Hold on a minute,’ Gino said, pulling out his cell, shielding it from the driving rain. He keyed in a number and listened. ‘Pullman’s still not answering,’ he said.

‘Let’s move it,’ Magozzi said. ‘Viegs, cover the perimeter with whatever men you’ve got; we’re going in.’

He and Gino ripped off their rain slickers at the car – too restrictive, too noisy – and started circling the property close to the hedge, heading around the side to where the bushes opened, near the office. The thunder and lightning were easing up – just a flash or two and a distant rumble every few minutes – but the rain was heavy, and the wind was hitting them hard.

Please, please, Magozzi prayed to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in: Let Montgomery not be here, let him be at his apartment, let Langer and McLaren be slapping the cuffs on him right now, and let there be no more bodies in this awful war that never seems to end.

They found Becker in the planting beds a few yards from the office door. He was on his back, eyes closed, rain smacking against the young skin of his face, the entire left side of his head oozing blood. Magozzi didn’t know if Becker was alive or dead. He pressed hard into where the carotid should have beat against his fingers, and felt a pulse that could have been Becker’s, but might have been his own.

Gino was on his feet instantly, cell phone in his hand, racing toward the front of the greenhouse, frantically signaling the officers in the lot with hand gestures he’d learned in the academy and thought he’d forgotten.

Behind him, Magozzi crept closer to the office door alone. Slices of light were leaking out from around the edges.

Jeff Montgomery’s kick had had enough force behind it to push Marty back a few steps, and to break his hand. It hung uselessly at his side now, swollen and throbbing and empty.

‘I’m sorry I had to do that, Mr Pullman. It was the only way I could think of to save your life.’

Jesus, Marty thought, shaking his head, smiling helplessly. Jeff was focusing as much attention on saving Marty’s life as he was on taking Jack’s. It was such a bizarre, twisted sense of honor and right and wrong that for a minute, he couldn’t get it to gel in his head.

And then suddenly, it did, and he realized that he wasn’t just looking at Jeff Montgomery now – he was looking at Morey Gilbert, Rose Kleber, Ben Schuler, and last but certainly not least, Marty Pullman. For the first time in a long time, he felt easy with himself. He was looking at things head-on, seeing them clearly. ‘Listen to me, Jeff. I’ve been where you are; I’ve done what you’re doing; and I am telling you it is not a righteous act.’

Jeff eyed him cynically. ‘You do not understand. Killing in the line of duty isn’t the same thing.’

‘I never killed anyone in the line of duty.’

Now Jeff’s brows peaked with interest, and so did Jack’s ‘Just what exactly did you do, Mr Pullman?’

Marty took a breath and blew it out so the words would have something to float on. ‘I killed the man who killed my wife.’

Jack’s mouth sagged open and he reached back, found the edge of the sofa and eased himself down. ‘You shot Eddie Starr?’ he whispered, and Marty nodded without turning around to look at him.

Jeff was smiling at him beneficently. ‘Then it was a noble kill, Mr Pullman. You had to do it.’

‘I shot an unarmed man when he was sticking a needle in his arm, Jeff, and there was nothing noble about it. It wasn’t justice, it didn’t elevate me, it just made me a killer, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to fix that. But you’ve got a chance that I never had. Walk away from the last one. Make a choice not to kill. Just turn around and walk out that door, and you’ll have that to hang on to for the rest of your life.’

The wind was picking up outside, buffeting the side of the building, rattling the door in its frame.

Jeff was looking at him with pity in his eyes. ‘It’s really too bad, Mr Pullman. You did the right thing, the honorable thing, and you can’t even see it.’ He took a quick step left to get a clear shot at Jack and pulled the trigger, almost before Marty realized the moment was at hand. Almost, but not quite.

In that millisecond before Jeff’s finger tightened on the trigger, Marty had launched himself sideways into the air, feeling right, and good, and suddenly pure as he put himself between the bullet and the only innocent man in the room. The Amazing Flying Gorilla, he thought, and he was smiling as the bullet drilled into his lower chest.

‘Goddamnit!’ Jeff screamed, taking fresh aim at Jack, and then the door flew open, banging against the inside wall, ripping away from its hinges, and Magozzi crouched there in the driving rain and wind, shouting, ‘Drop it! Drop it!’

Jeff spun around fast, shooting wildly because he’d lost control, because everything was going wrong. When wood splintered near his head, Magozzi pulled his own trigger again and again, firing repeatedly into Jeff Montgomery’s chest, hot adrenaline feeding his muscles and skipping his brain so he wouldn’t see the baby-smooth face, the surprised blue eyes of the very young person he was killing.