Marked

FOURTEEN

‘You need to talk with her.’

This from Rachel, across the dinner table. It’s spaghetti bolognese tonight. Not fish. There shouldn’t be bones. If there are bones, then his wife has planted them there to teach him a lesson.

‘Tomorrow,’ he says, even though he knows it’s pointless.

‘No, not tomorrow. I know what it’s like when you’re working a homicide. We hardly ever see you. You’ll be out before Amy is up for breakfast, and you’ll be home after she’s gone to bed. I’m not complaining about that. That’s just how it is. To be honest, I’m a little surprised you’re home right now. But since you are, you should take the opportunity to talk to Amy. It can’t wait, Cal.’

The reason Doyle is home right now is that it’s probably his only chance today to see his family and have a decent meal. He hasn’t told Rachel yet, but he’s got a busy night planned, and it doesn’t involve dancing or drinking. It doesn’t involve solving the murder of Megan Hamlyn either. As far as Doyle is concerned, he’s already nailed that one. All he needs to do now is find a way to prove it. And it’s precisely because of what he intends to do tonight that he is determined the couple of hours he can spend at home now will be friction-free.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘Gimme five minutes, okay?’

She smiles at him. Doyle finishes his meal. Doesn’t find a single bone.

‘What’s for dessert?’ he asks.

‘Chocolate mousse,’ says Rachel. ‘It’ll be your reward for counseling Amy.’

Doyle frowns at her. ‘You do know that attempting to bribe a police officer is a felony, don’t you?’

‘It’s also an offense for an officer to accept a bribe. Let’s see what you do when the chocolate mousse is on the table in front of you.’

Doyle gets up from his chair and starts to head out of the living room.

‘This mousse better not be something you made up just to get your own way,’ he says.

He finds Amy in her bedroom. She’s lying on her bed, wrapped in a fluffy white towel, her head buried in a book.

He’s had a lot of conversations with Amy in this room. For some reason, it has become a place of opening up, of voicing fears and innermost thoughts and wishes for the future. And not only by Amy. Doyle has often found himself putting his own opinions and worries under the spotlight during these brief one-on-ones with his only daughter. She has that effect on him. Her innocence and complete trust never fail to make him lower his shield.

‘Hey, sugar,’ he says. ‘What’s the book?’

She looks up at him, beams a cheeky smile. ‘Hi, Daddy. It’s about stromony.’

‘Stromony, huh? What’s that?’

She looks wide-eyed at him. ‘You don’t know what stromony is?’

‘Nope. Is it about dinosaurs?’

‘No, silly.’

‘Ponies?’

‘Uh-uh.’

‘Fairies?’

‘No, Daddy,’ she says in despair. ‘It’s about stars and planets and space.’

‘Ah. And little green moon goblins?’

‘No. No moon goblins. Don’t you know anything?’

‘Not a lot, I guess.’

He tries to dredge up a fascinating astronomical fact, and fails miserably. All that comes to mind is a limerick that begins, ‘There was a young space-girl from Venus,’ but he decides it’s best not to share it.

He says, ‘Tell me something about stromony.’

‘Well. .’ says Amy. ‘You know all the stars?’

‘You mean the movie stars?’

‘No, silly. The stars in the sky. The twinkly ones.’

‘Oh, those stars. What about them?’

‘Well, they’re really suns.’

Doyle allows his jaw to go slack. ‘No. Suns? Tiny little suns?’

‘No, they’re not tiny. They’re big, like our sun. But they’re really far away.’

‘How far? You mean, like, from here to Ellie’s apartment?’

‘More than that.’

‘How about here to New Jersey?’

‘More.’

‘To the North Pole?’

Amy has to think about this one. ‘Can we see the North Pole from here?’

‘No.’

‘Then maybe not that far.’

‘But still a long way,’ Doyle says.

‘Yes.’

‘Wow!’

‘Yes, it’s amazable, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is amazable. Are you doing this stuff at school too?’

He thinks, Subtle switch, you sly dog.

‘Sometimes. Not all the time.’

‘No. You have to do lots of other work too, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Hundreds.’

‘Sure. And I bet you get through lots of pencils and erasers and things, don’t you?’

Amy goes quiet then, and drops her gaze. Even at seven she can see Doyle’s ploy for what it is. She knows exactly where this is headed.

‘Honey, you listening to me?’

She nods. Says nothing for a while. Then: ‘Are you mad at me?’

‘No. Why would I be mad at you?’

‘I don’t know. Mommy’s mad at me.’

‘No she isn’t. She just wants to understand.’

Amy picks at a stray thread on the edge of her towel.

‘Pumpkin?’ says Doyle. ‘Is there something going on at school? Something you don’t want to talk about?’

Amy shakes her head.

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. I told Mommy. I don’t know how those things got in my backpack.’

‘You didn’t put them there?’

‘No.’

‘You weren’t looking after them for a friend?’

‘No.’

Her head is bowed really low now. So low that Doyle cannot see her expression. But it seems to him that she is on the edge of tears. He feels his own heart cracking.

And then a sequence of images starts to play in his head. He is back in Proust’s tattoo parlor. Ripping the guy’s shirt off. Threatening him. Letting him know that there is no doubt in Doyle’s mind about his guilt.

So why the difference?

Why the heavy-handed approach with Proust and the soft touch with Amy? Why believe one and not the other?

And what if he’s wrong? What if Proust is actually innocent and his own daughter has become a thief? Is that possible? Could Doyle’s own judgment be so impaired?

No, he tells himself. I’m right, on both counts. Even if nobody else trusts me on this, I’m right.

‘All right, Amy,’ he says. And when she doesn’t reply, he touches a curled finger to her chin and raises her face to look at him. ‘I believe you. No big deal, okay?’

He spends a few more minutes with her, changing the subject and doing his best to blot the earlier conversation out of her mind. But when he leaves her bedroom he cannot shake off the profoundly sad feeling that a little something has died between the two of them tonight, and with it, a little of his belief in himself.

Lorenze Wheaton ain’t afraid of no man. Not tonight. Not any night.

That’s what he tells himself. That’s what he believes. He doesn’t see what’s underneath. He’s blind to the young man in constant fear for his life. That version of Wheaton is a pussy. This here is the real Wheaton, walking tall and slow, not afraid of meeting the gaze of any motherfucker who might feel the need to stare him out.

His bravery is supported by the six-pack of beer he just shared at Tito’s place. The blunts they fired up there didn’t hurt neither. That was some seriously good shit Tito had there.

And then of course there’s the nine. The biggest confidence booster of them all.

He reaches behind, taps himself on the back, just over the right kidney. Feels through his jacket the reassuring hardness of the Beretta 92 tucked into his waistband.

Go ahead, Mojo, he thinks. Make your play. This nigger’s strapped, motherfucker, and don’t that change everything?

He’s strolling back from the projects on the other side of Avenue D, heading along East Seventh Street. It’s after midnight and it’s raining hard and the slick street is quiet. He doesn’t mind the rain. In fact he likes it. It calms him. He thinks he could just stop and stand here for hours, his face upturned to the sky, feeling the heavy raindrops beating softly on his face.

But he doesn’t stop walking. Something is dragging him home. Not fear. He ain’t afraid.

He knows Mojo wants to down him. Mojo has been putting the word out on this for weeks, and for no good reason. Not unless getting it on with Mojo’s huge-titted girlfriend counts as a reason.

Wheaton chuckles to himself. She was a fine piece of ass, all right. He’d loved to have seen Mojo’s face when he found out.

He hears the deep-throated roar of a car as it accelerates behind him. He turns, and is dazzled by the headlights. He halts and puts his hand behind him. The car goes straight past, the passenger, a blond white woman, giving him a cursory glance.

Wheaton blows air. Ain’t nothin’. Not Mojo’s boys and not Five-O. Besides, he can handle either one of them. If it’s Mojo’s crew, he pulls his nine and starts downing those bitches. If it’s the police, he books. He’s got it all figured out. Soon as a cop shows interest, he takes off like Road Runner, meep-meep. Maybe they catch him, maybe they don’t. What matters is that it gives him time to toss the strap. And if they find it, he can deny all knowledge. He always wears gloves when he takes the Beretta out with him. He’s not taking chances. If he’s caught carrying a concealed weapon it would mean serious jail time.

It’s but a short walk to his mom’s place. She won’t be there. She’s hardly ever there. She’ll be out with that new boyfriend of hers. She’ll turn up some time tomorrow. Lunchtime probably. Looking like shit. Then she’ll go straight to bed.

Wheaton doesn’t care. He likes having the crib to himself. When he gets in he’ll be able to play his music as loud as he wants while he has another beer and smokes some more weed.

Another car approaches. Wheaton tells himself to ignore it. He’s already at his apartment building. Seconds from safety. Not that he’s scared or nothing.

He doesn’t even bother to look as the car flashes past and he hears the spray of rainwater churned up from the wheels. No gunfire, no yelling at him to freeze. Nothing to get worked up about. He smiles as he permits himself a moment of feeling bulletproof before he abandons the street.

He looks up at his building. One light shines out from the top floor. The rest is in blackness. On the other side of the tall stoop he can make out bags of garbage stacked high on the trash cans. He kicks open the iron gate and starts down the steps to the basement apartment. The front door is set into the side of the stoop. He pats his pockets as he tries to get his fogged brain to remember where he put his damned keys. He hears a small metallic sound somewhere in his jacket. He reaches into one of his inside pockets, finds the key. He inserts it into the keyhole and turns. Pushes the door open.

The shape is on him in an instant.

It floats down from the street level. Barely seems to touch the steps. The slightest of sounds is all it makes. Wheaton has time to turn only a fraction before the dark shape is level with him. And although it seems to Wheaton that this must be some terrible ethereal demon to be able to travel so quickly and silently, when it strikes he discovers just how solid it actually is. Something — a fist, a weapon, he doesn’t know — connects with the side of his head with force enough to make everything go temporarily black, and when he next can see again, it’s the tiles of his floor he’s staring at.

He feels hands sliding over his back. At least he presumes they are hands. Right now he’s not even sure his attacker is human. What if these are some kind of feelers or claws running over him?

He hears a whimper, and realizes it’s himself.

He feels his jacket being yanked up and the Beretta snatched from under his belt. Now he’s utterly defenseless. Something grabs him at shoulder level. It lifts him from the ground slightly. Starts to drag him along the floor and into the interior of the apartment. There are no lights on in here. He cannot see anything. He feels like he’s being dragged into the lair of a giant insect of some kind, to be trussed up and eaten at its leisure.

Another whimper. Then he remembers he has a voice. ‘Hey! HEY! What is this? Who are-’

He gets hit again. Another blow to the right side of his head. He grunts, then starts to feel the burning pain in his ear.

His arms are grabbed and pulled behind his back. Something is tied tightly around his wrists, binding them together.

He raises his head from the floor. ‘Please, man. . Whoever you are. . Please. .’

He knows he’s making no sense, but he has no idea what is going on here. He doesn’t know what he should say, what he can do to stop this.

Something presses to his face. It forces his head back onto the cold floor. It’s a hand — a human hand. He’s sure of this now. ’Course it’s a human hand, Lorenze, you dumb fuck. What the fuck else would it be?

The hand is gloved. He can smell the leather as he struggles to draw air into his lungs.

And then his ear burns some more, but this time because hot breath is being blown onto it. Breath that carries three simple words that explain all this.

‘Mojo says hello.’

So this is it. The moment he has been preparing for but which, deep in his heart, he never really thought would come. He thought it was all bluster on Mojo’s part. Trying to sound big. Trying to maintain control through fear. All part of the game. The game that Wheaton has been playing too. Carrying that piece to show that he is also a warrior, ready to do battle at any time, even though he believed he would never have to pull the trigger.

And now that time has actually come, and he has already lost. He is about to die. Here in his mother’s place, where he ought to be safe. And tomorrow she will come home and find her only son with a bullet-hole in his skull, and his blood and brain matter spilled across her cold tiled floor.

‘I got money,’ he says. ‘I can get it for you. Just don’t-’

But his words are lost when the sack comes over his head and is fastened tight around his neck. He hears only his own breath now, coming fast and shallow, and his pulse, booming in his head. He closes his eyes. Even though he can see nothing anyway, he screws his eyes up tight and clenches his teeth and waits for the gunshot.

But it’s not going to be so quick and easy. His mental torture is not yet over.

‘Sing,’ the voice hisses against the cloth. At least that’s what it sounds like to Wheaton.

‘Wh-What?’

‘I want you to sing.’

‘Sing? You want me to fuckin’ sing? S-sing what?’

‘Whatever. You choose.’

Wheaton’s mind races. He can’t focus on songs right now.

For his hesitation he receives a slap through the hood.

‘I said, “Sing!”’

‘I–I can’t think. The words won’t come. I can’t-’

‘All right, then. I’ll choose. Sing “White Christmas”.’

‘What? You fucking with me, right? You want this nigger to sing ’bout a white Christmas?’

‘Just do it.’

‘I. . I can’t. I only know the first line. Bill Cosby ain’t exactly my thing, yo.’

‘All right, then. “Jingle Bells”. The chorus, okay? Everybody knows the chorus to “Jingle Bells”.’

‘But. . but it ain’t even Christmas. Why the fuck do you-’

Another slap. ‘Do it! Now!’

‘Aiight! I’m doing it, I’m doing it. . Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. .”’

‘Louder!’

‘. . Oh what fun, di-dah-di-dah, on a sumthin’ sumthin’ sleigh, hey!’

‘Again, Lorenze. Even louder. Keep repeating it. Stop and you’re dead, hear?’

Wheaton knows he’s dead anyway. He doesn’t know why he’s singing, but he does it. In truth, he’s glad of it. It takes his mind away from what’s about to happen. He doesn’t want to hear a round being chambered or a safety being flicked off or a hammer being cocked. So he sings. Louder and louder. Sings like he’s trying to fill Carnegie Hall with his tuneless voice. Sings like he really does want this to be Christmas, and he’s standing in the cold air of Washington Square Park, belting out his festive chorus for all to hear, for all to know just how wonderful he feels at this happy, happy time of peace and generosity and good will to all men. Sings like he knows it will-

Where the fuck is that bullet?

He stops singing. Strains to listen through the thick cloth. Hears nothing.

‘Yo,’ he says quietly. He tenses, still expecting the gunshot. When it doesn’t come, he risks raising his voice. ‘Yo, you still there?’

Still nothing.

He dares to move. Lifts his head from the floor first of all. Rotates it in all directions while he tries to detect the slightest sound. Any indication that he is not alone.

Silence.

He rolls onto his side, brings his knees up and manages to push himself up into a sitting position.

‘Hey!’ he calls. ‘Whatchoo doin’? Where you at?’

It takes Wheaton a while to convince himself that his attacker is not still here, playing some kind of cruel joke for which the punchline is a bullet to Wheaton’s brain. And when he eventually does manage to believe it, he still can’t understand what this was all about. Why is he still alive? Was this simply some kind of warning? A message to let him know that he’s not untouchable and can be taken out at any time?

He sits cross-legged in the darkness of his mother’s apartment. The hood still on his head. His hands still bound behind his back.

‘Fuck!’ he says. ‘Fuck you, motherfucker!’

His outburst is fueled by anger, but also by self-loathing. He wishes he had fought back more. He wishes he had been more of a man in the face of death. Above all, he wishes it had been the truth when he told himself he was not afraid.

He was very afraid. He knows it now, and it stings.

He could try denying it again. Try acting the hard man he wants everyone else to see.

But his lie would be betrayed by the tears on his cheeks.

Those, and the large wet patch on his pants.

Doyle pulls the car over. He strips off the leather gloves and drops them onto the black ski mask he has already tossed onto the passenger seat.

It doesn’t rattle him that he’s just terrorized another human being. Lorenze Wheaton hardly enters into that category anyhow. Lorenze Wheaton is a punk. A lowlife. He sells drugs to schoolkids. Rumor has it that he also raped a girl of fifteen, but the cops never managed to make that one stick. So what if he’s just had a taste of the misery he doles out to others?

But of course that’s not the real reason Doyle paid him that little visit. He’s not in the business of setting up as a vigilante. No, something else drew him to Wheaton’s place tonight.

He’d heard on the streets about Wheaton’s feud with Mojo. Heard too that Wheaton had taken to carrying a semi-automatic pistol around with him for protection.

Doyle reaches into his pocket and pulls out the Beretta 92. Wheaton’s gun.

He doesn’t know how dangerous this mission he’s on for Bartok is likely to get. What he does know is that if he needs to shoot someone, this time he’s going to make damn sure he doesn’t use a weapon that can be traced back to him.

Not that it will come to that. Doyle doesn’t plan to shoot anyone.

And don’t his plans always work out?