The Blade Itself

20

“This is Patrick. Give me one good reason to care that you called.”

Danny cursed. He’d tried three times already with no luck. If he knew Patrick, the man was right now curled up in a bed with too many pillows, plotting his escape from the girl sleeping next to him.

He leaned forward to hang up the phone and overreached, scraping his bruised knuckles against the wall. The sudden sensation made him wince, and then smile. Popping Evan had felt good.

Not half so good as what he’d like to do to the guy, though.

Thursday night, when Karen had come in crying, Danny had been ready to beat Evan to death with a fucking baseball bat, damn the consequences. For her sake he’d kept his cool. Said soothing things. Put her to bed and crawled in beside her, stroking her hair until she fell asleep.

Then he’d turned to face the red glow of the alarm clock and imagined shooting his childhood friend in the face.

No, not imagined – planned. Figured out how to do it. Funny, all that time spent trying to find a loophole and he’d never really considered the most direct option, the one Evan would have come to first. But he considered it that night.

That night, a dark alley and a pistol with a grip-taped handle seemed like the answer.

But by morning he’d known better. The last time he’d held a gun he’d been thirteen, wilding with a rust-spotted piece Joey Biggs had snuck from under the sweaters in his dad’s closet. They’d strutted the alleys popping at crows and beer cans and the occasional factory window. Kid’s stuff a thousand miles from pointing at a human being and pulling the trigger. From watching Evan’s head explode.

And in truth, it didn’t matter. Because once he got past the anger and actually thought about things, killing Evan wasn’t an out anyway. The moment the cops found his body, Detective Sean Nolan would look up from his desk and wonder who might want to be rid of Evan McGann. About five seconds later squad cars would be rolling up to their condo, and the rest would just be foreplay to the fucking Danny would take. No, killing Evan wasn’t an out.

Nor could he go to the cops, confess everything, and take his chances. At this point, all they had on Evan was maybe a parole violation. A weapons charge if Danny got lucky. Whereas Evan could place Danny at the pawnshop, where a man had been shot and crippled, a woman beaten half to death. His new life would disappear like smoke.

If he did the job, he protected Karen. Hell, he protected Tommy and Richard, too, by controlling the situation, making sure no one got hurt. And at the end of it, he could go back to a regular life.

It was a lousy option, but it was the smart play.

A door opened down the hall, and he heard the hardwood squeak as Karen walked toward the kitchen. He’d been hoping to leave while she was in the shower. He scooped up his keys, turned as she walked in.

“You going?”

“Work.” The lie stung him. There had been too many lately, but what choice was there?

“It’s Sunday. You’re working too hard, baby.” She smiled at him, one hand going up to adjust a bra strap. Seven years they’d been together, but every time she did that, he lost his concentration. And odds-on she knew it.

He turned around, fumbled in the cabinet, wanting a moment to get his story straight. “Yeah, you know. The winter and all.” He grabbed a glass from the second shelf, held it under the faucet.

“Danny,” her voice serious, “what’s wrong?”

“Huh?” He flashed a forced smile over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Something’s bugging you. Something big.”

He’d read somewhere about mental patients that were basically catatonic because they’d suffered damage to the fragile connections between the brain’s hemispheres. The result was that the two halves of their brain were essentially at war.

Lately he knew how that felt.

He wanted badly to tell her the truth, all of it, from Evan’s reappearance in his – in their – lives right up until this morning. But the calculating half of him warned to keep his damn mouth shut and talk her down. The woman who’d sworn she would bolt if he so much as shoplifted – she was going to accept him going back to work? Even if he was doing it for her, for them? Best to play it smart. “What do you mean, baby? Nothing’s bugging me.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “If you tell me what’s wrong, maybe I can help.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He took a sip of water, set the glass down.

“Danny.” She did that bra strap thing again, and it drew his eyes to her body, clothed in one of his sweaters and a pair of black leggings.

“I…” He paused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Something changed in her eyes, and the warmth vanished entirely. “Okay.” She turned to open a drawer and started rummaging through it, her back to him.

“Karen.”

She ignored him.

“Karen, Christ, it’s nothing. Just… just busy at work. The winter, all these things to handle before the snow, you know.” It sounded lame. He was normally a good liar – just not to her. Never to her.

She nodded, her back still turned. “Sure.” She gave up digging through the drawer and slammed it shut. “See you when you get back.” She put on a very thin smile and left, the sound of her shoes all business.

He turned to the sink and poured out his water. “Shit.”

The girl with Evan looked familiar. Blond, pretty, though kind of a stripper vibe. Too much makeup, and the clothes – a ruffled skirt like a cheerleader and two T-shirts – a little out of date. He’d seen her somewhere.

“This is Danny Carter.” Evan nodded toward him, hands in his pockets. “Danny-boy, Debbie.”

“Debbie?” he asked, looking up, wondering what thirty-year-old woman would choose that over Deborah or Deb.

“Like Debbie Harry,” she said, sounding friendly, though Danny couldn’t help but be aware that she knew his last name and he didn’t know hers. He gestured at the other side of the table. Debbie threw her purse in before sliding herself, flashing a little smile and a lot of cleavage. Evan dropped his keys on the table, his jacket on the booth seat. “I’m gonna take a shit. Order me some eggs, they come by.”

Danny sighed and shook his head. Across the table, Debbie took one of the menus from the stand on the table, flipped it open, and started turning pages without paying much attention. He kept his eye on her, sizing her up. Unimpressed. Pretty face, but starting to get that worn look, like she’d spent a lot of time drinking cheap beer in smoky bars. Her blond hair had darker roots. He’d definitely seen her somewhere.

“So.” She looked up, the menu framing her face. “Evan tells me you’re a thief.”

Danny leaned back, the Naugahyde seat cool through his shirt. “I’m in construction.”

“Yeah? He said you were his partner.”

“Long time ago.”

“This must feel like déjà vu, huh?” She smiled at him, no hint of the game face he was used to in this kind of discussion. “So is this like a one-time thing, like the movies?”

“Yes, it’s a one-time thing. No, it’s nothing like the movies.”

She nodded, looked back down at the menu. Flipped another page, then her face lit up like a little kid’s. “That’s what I’m talking about. Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries.”

He shook his head, took another sip of coffee. This was the woman Evan thought they should bring in on a federal job? Danny would have to call Patrick again. Much as he disliked involving him in this, they needed someone capable. Not some bimbo Evan happened to be fucking.

He realized Debbie was looking at him from across the table, and made an effort to smile.

“Lemme see your hand.” Her gum popped.

“What?”

“I’ll read your palm.”

He shrugged, set the mug down and leaned forward. Her touch was cool. She held his hand lightly, turned it over, her fingers under his wrist. When she leaned in over the table he caught drugstore perfume, something candy-sweet.

“Hmmmm.” She peered closer. “Interesting.”

He ignored the bait, kept silent.

“I see a couple of things.” She traced a line across his palm.

“Yeah?” He stifled a yawn.

She nodded. “I see you think I’m a moron.”

He was surprised, the yawn turning to a smile. “That’s in my palm?”

“That’s in your eyes.” She said it matter-of-factly, still looking at his hand. “In your palm I can see that you’re in management.”

“How?”

“You said you’re in construction. While back, I dated an ironworker. His hands were like baseball mitts. Yours are soft.”

He laughed. “What else?”

“You’re not wearing a wedding ring. But you didn’t check me out.” She brushed a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Most guys do. So I bet you have a serious girlfriend, somebody you really love.”

He thought of Karen adjusting her bra strap that morning, how even in the middle of fighting with her, lying to her, it had sent a little shiver through him. “Right again. What else does my palm tell you?”

“It tells me I should read a book on palm reading.” She released his hand, smiled up at him. They held the gaze for a long moment, and then he started laughing, a sincere laugh that started low in his gut. It felt good.

“What?” Evan stood at the edge of the table.

Debbie looked at Danny innocently and popped her gum. He laughed again.

“I think we’ll get along fine.”

It was one of those days, the sky throbbing blue, fall light golden across the hood of the Explorer. This October had been shaping up colder than usual, today in the forties, but the sun was so bright it didn’t feel bad, especially with Dylan on the radio, singing about helping her out of a jam but using a little too much force.

He turned right onto Randolph, the skyline swinging into his rearview mirror, the Sears Tower and the Hancock sharp-edged against the horizon. Behind him he could see Evan’s Mustang, Debbie with her feet up on the dash. He wondered about her. She didn’t seem like a hustler. Maybe a groupie, one of those smart women who like dangerous men. Regardless, he was glad to have her, if only to keep Evan away from Tommy. They might be partners again, but he wasn’t about to lower his guard. Just do the job smart, get paid, go their separate ways.

The money. He hadn’t even thought about it. Hell, he’d only decided to do the job to get clear of Evan. What was he going to do with Richard’s money?

He thought of the lawn crew, of Richard smug in his designer house. Of Dad sitting at the kitchen table, a cigarette smoldering untouched in the ashtray.

Call the money a bonus. A karmic payout for everybody who’d ever screwed his old man. Stash it in a safe deposit box and always have an umbrella against gathering storms.

He forced his thoughts back to the road, watching loft complexes give way to industrial space. The El rattled a couple of blocks away. New residential construction crept ever outward, but it was still quiet here, few cars and nobody on the sidewalk.

When he turned on Pike Street, the loft complex sat snug ahead of him, five stories of structural steel swathed in dirty gray plastic. A chain-link fence circled the whole site. Danny parked in front of the gate and stepped out, digging in his jacket for a ring of keys on a clip chain. He popped the padlock and swung the gate open, gestured the Mustang through, then returned to the Explorer and drove into the rutted dirt of the yard.

Evan leaned on the car door and glanced around. He nodded. “Not bad. They let you walk around with the keys?”

“It’s my job. Come on.” He turned toward the trailer, O’DONNELL CONSTRUCTION neatly lettered on one side. It felt weird to walk the yard without his hard hat. Behind him, he heard the sound of a car door opening, Debbie getting out. He turned back, caught Evan’s eye, and shook his head.

“Baby, wait in the car, okay?” Evan didn’t make it sound like a question.

Danny pushed open the trailer door and stepped in, feeling it rock slightly. The inside was as he remembered it, only cleaner. The smell of old coffee scorched the air. A trickle of dusty sunlight came through the windows. He walked over and closed the blinds.

“Sure.” Evan looked around, moving to the couch, lifting one end and then dropping it with a thump, like he was gauging the weight. “Seems private.”

“This area is still pretty industrial, not many homes yet. The owners got the land cheap, so they’re rolling the dice on lofts.”

“Money in that?” Evan looking curious, like he might invest.

“No doubt. Used to be, people wanted to live in the suburbs. That’s why Daley Senior put the housing projects in the city. Except now people are moving back, everybody wants to live downtown, ride the El to work. So everything changes. You know the Green?”

Evan nodded.

“Cabrini Green is one of the worst projects in the country. Something like ninety percent unemployment. So bad they have those chain-link walls on the hallways, so the cops can see inside from the street.” It had always made him a little sick, the people walking out their own front door to an exposed hall like a cage. Kids leaning against the wire with forties in their hands and anger in their eyes. “But it’s on great land. Close to the city, the trains. The only thing wrong with the area where the Green sits is the Green. So Daley Junior, he’s been tearing down what his father built, one at a time. Technically they’re building mixed-income housing, but what you got, there’s a strip mall half a block away now with a Starbucks, the parking lot full of expensive cars. Lofts going for three hundred grand.” Danny sat at the table. “You want to make money in Chicago, figure out where the poor people live and move them.”

Evan shrugged, his interest gone. “Sucks to be poor.”

“Yeah.” Danny’s eyes roamed the walls, the old instincts coming back, a strange rush with them. Was it excitement? Guilt? Hope? A bit of all of them. It set him on edge, like too many cups of coffee, his stomach jittery, wondering what he was doing here, knowing he had no choice.

“All right. We snatch the kid, get a blindfold on him, bring him here. Tie him to the couch.” Evan paused. “What happens if a cop comes by, sees the cars?”

“Nothing, so long as we don’t act stupid. They see cars in here all the time.” Danny scratched at his elbow. “We make the call-”

“I make it.”

The words came too quickly, not the easy toss-out Danny would have expected. It set off an internal alarm. But Evan was right, it wasn’t like Danny could call his own boss. “You make the call. We ask for half a million. Tell him we’ll call back in a couple of days to set up the meet. Debbie takes care of Tommy. How much does she know?”

“She knows she’s babysitting. I told her she’d see twenty large on it. She doesn’t know who the guy is.”

Danny nodded. “I might need her help with something else, too.”

Evan shrugged. “Whatever. She’ll do what I tell her.” He moved to the couch, dropped down, put his feet up on the counter opposite. Leaned back with hands laced behind his head. “You know what I like about this?”

“What?”

“Keeping the man’s kid in his own trailer.” Evan’s face split into a hard smile.

Later, back in his truck, the seat sun-warm against his back, Danny replayed that look. Saw how much the cruelty of the irony pleased Evan. It made Danny wonder, turning onto Halsted, made him question. Was he about to get back in over his head?

Enough. He’d been over this a million times. Given the choice between losing everything he cared about but standing on principle, or bending the rules in a way that didn’t harm anyone, well, that wasn’t any kind of choice at all.

Besides, he was starting to think they could pull it off. His problem would be solved, and Karen would never know a thing. And while he’d happily trade the money to get Evan out of his life, having a quarter million in a safe deposit box couldn’t hurt. In fact, he was starting to entertain a strange sort of hope, an old excitement. The looming black clouds might turn out to be a summer storm, hard and fast, but gone without doing any real damage.

Before he’d left the trailer, Danny had cleaned up. He didn’t want the kid to somehow accidentally see a piece of letterhead, an envelope, something that might help the police track them down. Though at half a million, Danny didn’t see Richard going to the police. The guy was a blowhard and a bastard, but he loved his son. Why play games?

“It doesn’t matter what kind of car it is,” he said, giving Evan his assignment. “So long as it’s decent-looking. The neighbors will notice a beater.”

“Sure. And afterward?”

“Park it in front of Cabrini-Green with the keys in it. Give somebody a stroke of luck.”

Evan liked that.

“I’ll bring masks and gloves.” Danny’s mind churned, trying to think of all the angles. He’d talk to Debbie later. Stop by the store on the way home for some rope. Maybe a pair of nylons? Something that wouldn’t chafe or scrape the kid up. There was something else, something important.

Oh yes. “One more thing.”

“What?” Evan said, bored already. Always happier to be doing the job than thinking about it.

“Don’t bring a gun.” Danny kept his voice level and his eyes hard, not trying to stare Evan down, just letting him know he was serious. “Not a scratch, remember?”

Evan shrugged. “Okay.”

Danny held the look for a minute, then nodded, went back to straightening up. “Get the car tomorrow morning. You can pick me up at the same spot as last time, round one o’clock.”

“We going tomorrow?” Evan sounded surprised, turning to look up.

“What, you got somewhere to be?”