The Fury

3

There are times in your life when you walk forward despite knowing that something unexpected, even dan gerous, lies just around the corner. This allows you to steel yourself; to prepare for it. You go over the different permutations in your mind, positive and negative, weighing how each might impact you. Then when the blow comes, you're able to soften it a bit. Retaliate if nec essary.

When Detective Makhoulian said those five words- Stephen Gaines was your brother -they hit me, knocked the wind out of me. I had no time to prepare, no time to soften the blow.

At first I didn't believe it. Or I didn't want to. But

I'd heard the name Makhoulian before. I'd spent enough time with cops, mainly my buddy Curt Sheffield, that it rang with a modicum of familiarity. If Curt men tioned him, that was a good sign. The man spoke ear nestly, a minimum of sympathy. Like a cop.

Sitting in the back of a taxi, I tried to wrap my head around it. I'd never heard of a Stephen Gaines before.

The last name did not sound familiar. Gaines.

On the street earlier, Gaines looked older than me by four or five years. Of course, considering how strung out he looked, it could have swayed a few years in either direction. But if he was older, it meant he was gone from my life long before I was aware of his exis tence. I had too many questions to ask, and unfortu nately Leon and Detective Makhoulian wouldn't be able to answer them. At least not all of them.

I stepped out at the corner of Thirtieth and First in

Manhattan's Kips Bay. The medical examiner's office had a facade of light blue, the stone dirty, as if the building refused to modernize. It was a block away from Bellevue Hospital, one of the more notorious medical centers in the city. Prisoners from Riker's

Island, as well as criminals from New York's central booking requiring medical attention, were among the most frequent guests. And if you happened to be in the emergency room late at night, you'd be in the company of numerous men in orange jumpsuits and chains, armed police at the ready. Just a few blocks away were a coffee shop, a bookstore and a multiplex movie theater. Scary to think that while you were busy munching on popcorn, evil lingered so close by, cloaked in formaldehyde.

I approached the entrance tentatively. Who was I going to ID? I'd never met this man before last night, and now I was expected to point him out, feel some deep-down emotion like I'd known him my whole life?

I'd never bonded with this person. Never done things most brothers did. Never played catch. Snuck a drink from Dad's liquor cabinet. Never smuggled dirty maga zines under our covers, or smoked cigarettes until our lungs burned. I was identifying a stranger, yet expected to act like he was my blood. Impossible.

Pushing the door open, I went up to the receptionist.

He was wearing a white lab coat, and didn't look a day over twenty-five. I figured he was some sort of medical intern, manning the phones while studying for his exams.

"May I help you, sir?" he asked. His name tag read

Nelson, Mark. He chewed on a pen while he waited for my answer.

"I'm here to see Binky…er Dr. Binks," I corrected.

No sense ruining the illusion that Binks was a sane and respected member of the medical profession.

"And you are…"

"Henry Parker," I said, taking my driver's license from my wallet. "I'm here to identify Stephen Gaines."

The name felt foreign on my tongue, yet Nelson's eyes melted with sympathy. He looked down at his desk, pursed his lips.

"Right," he said. "I'm sorry for your loss."

I didn't bother to point out Nelson's faux pas. That it was a little premature to console someone for their loss before they'd actually identified the body. Or that

I felt no loss at all. How could I? Nevertheless, I told him I appreciated it. He asked me to have a seat while he paged Dr. Binks.

I took a seat on a light blue couch. It was hard. There was a small table in front of me. No reading material.

This wasn't your typical waiting room. If you were here, I supposed not even Golf Digest could take your mind off of what lurked below.

After several minutes, I heard the ding of an elevator and out strode Leon Binks. Binks was in his late thirties, graying hair matted against his brow. His eyebrows were as messy as his hair, a collection of short pipe cleaners bent every which way. The medical examiner was perpetually disheveled, as though he cared no more about his appearance than those corpses he worked on would. His hands always seemed to be moving, offering gestures that his dialogue (and lack of social skills) pre sumably could not. I imagined that if, like Leon Binks, my whole life was spent amongst the dead, I might have some personality idiosyncrasies as well.

"Mr. Parker," Binks said, approaching me with his hand outstretched. I went to meet him, and he shook it vigorously. An awful smell wafted off of Binks, iodine perhaps. I didn't want to ask, but I hoped he showered before attending any dinner parties. "Thanks so much for coming. Detective Makhoulian is downstairs already." Then Binky's eyes lowered, and he said, "I'm sorry for your loss."

I sighed, thanked him. "Can I see the body?"

"Oh, of course," Binks said. "Follow me."

Binks led me into a gray metal elevator. He took a key chain from his pocket, inserted it into a slit next to the sole button. Once turned, he pressed the button, and the doors opened. Once inside, he pressed a button marked M. For Morgue. The doors closed, and we traveled in silence, down several flights. Finally the elevator stopped and the door slid open.

Whatever odor had been stuck to Binks was even stronger down here.

Outside of the elevator, the hallway divided into two separate pathways. A plaque mounted on the wall had arrows pointing in either direction. To the left, the arrow read, Morgue. To the right, the arrow read, Viewing

Room.

Binks began walking toward the right.

I followed behind him as he opened a door and led me into a small room. A man was waiting for us inside.

He was about five-eight and built stocky and muscular, like one of those NFL linebackers who had trouble seeing over the center but could deliver a hit like nobody's business. His skin was dark, a neat goatee, and he wore a dark gray suit. He looked at me as we entered.

"Detective?" I said.

"Detective Sevag Makhoulian," he said. He ap proached and shook my hand. "For short, people call me

Sevi."

"Makhoulian…what background does that name come from?" I asked stalling for time.

"It's Armenian," he answered patiently.

"Were you born here?"

"I was born in Yerevan, my parents emigrated here when I was very young." His accent was noticeable but not thick, and his suit was as American as they came.

"Gotcha, don't mean to pry."

"I know it's your job to do just that, Mr. Parker. I do appreciate your coming down here on such short notice.

And I must say I enjoy your work. Insightful, not to mention how nice it is to see a young man achieving success based on something other than setting fire to hotel rooms. It's a shame we had to meet under these circumstances. Curtis Sheffield speaks very highly of you."

"How's Curt doing?" I asked.

"Aside from the bullet in his leg? He's just peachy."

Makhoulian said this with a slight smile. Last year Curt had taken a shot that nicked his femoral artery while looking for a family that we believed had abducted a child. He'd been assigned to desk duty since then, and

I was lucky to have remained on his good side. Though he hated being off the streets, I think he secretly liked the attention from the opposite sex. Nothing sexier than a guy who took a bullet for a good cause. "Anyway, I'm sorry for your loss, Henry."

"It's not really my loss," I said. "The first and only time I met Stephen Gaines was a few hours ago."

"Well then," Makhoulian said, "if his death isn't your loss, whose is it?"

"Someone else's," I replied. "Just not mine."

"Somebody cared for this guy," Binks interjected. We both stared at him. The M.E. was right. Yet as much I tried to, I still didn't know what to think about every thing.

The viewing room resembled a typical examining room, if all the machines and instruments had been removed. The only thing remaining was a long metal table. The table was covered by a sheet. Underneath the sheet was a body, about six feet long. Most likely be longing to a man named Stephen Gaines. A man who was presumably my brother.

"Before we begin," Binks said, "be warned that there's been extensive damage to the cranium."

"Extensive?" I said, looking at Makhoulian.

"That's right," he said. "From the damage, we can gather that the muzzle of the murder weapon was held less than a foot from the back of his head, a 9 mm fired at near point-blank range. The apartment we found him in wasn't a pretty sight."

"From the wounds," I said.

"Not just that," Makhoulian said. "We found…how can I put this simply… paraphernalia. Pipes, needles.

You name the drug, it looked like Gaines was on it."

I took a deep breath, said, "How old is…was he?"

"Turned thirty a month ago," Makhoulian said. Four years older than me, I thought. Still a young man.

"He's cleaned up the best we could, but…" Binks said, his voice trailing off. He knew from the look on my face that this was best done quickly, with minimal cushioning. "Anyway, here he is."

Binks leaned over the body, took two folds of cloth between his hands and gently pulled the cover back until it stopped just below the corpse's neck. From there I could see the victim's head. Or at least what was left of it.

Stephen Gaines was lying on the table faceup. A half dollar-size hole was blown out of his forehead. I could see the man's skull and brain, both shredded from the bullet's impact. His eyes were closed, thankfully.

When that cover came down, I felt like everything in my body dried up. My insides felt like a black hole, my heart, lungs, my blood, all of it drained away.

"That's him," I said. "The man I saw on the street."

"This is your brother?" Binks said, eyes raised, curious more than sympathetic.

"According to the detective here," I said.

Binks nodded, his mouth still open, as though ex pecting me to relate just how this felt. The truth was I wasn't sure yet. I'd seen enough corpses, visited enough morgues to have been able to distance myself for the most part from the realities of death. A reporter could go crazy letting each individual horror pile up upon their psyche. Like a doctor, you couldn't think of blood as blood, but more a by-product of your work.

"Where'd you say he was found?" I asked.

"Apartment near Tompkins Square Park," the detec tive said. "Odd place for someone with your brother's seemingly…limited means to be these days. Twenty years ago, maybe. But now? That's the heart of Stuy

Town. All young families and old folks."

I nodded, trying unsuccessfully to process this while staring at the body.

"That's the exit wound we're looking at," Binks said.

"The bullet entered just below the back of the right parietal bone and exited through the forehead with a slightly upward trajectory."

Makhoulian took over. "The first entrance wound, combined with what we know about Mr. Gaines, suggests that his killer was right-handed and slightly shorter than him."

I listened to this. "Wait," I said, looking at Makhou lian. "You said 'first' entrance wound."

Makhoulian eyed Binks. Then he turned back to me.

Binks said, "There was a second entrance wound. It went right through the occipital bone in the back of

Gaines's skull. That bullet was still lodged in his head when Gaines was brought here."

"I thought you said he was shot point-blank," I said.

"How can you shoot someone in the head twice from point-blank range?"

"Only the first wound was delivered from close range," Binks said, his voice growing softer. His fingers traced the path of a bullet as he showed where the first bullet entered Gaines's skull. "The second was delivered from about four feet away. From a downward trajec tory."

Binks raised his arm with his forefinger and thumb cocked like a gun. He pointed it at the floor to demon strate the likely scenario. He continued, "There were no muzzle burn or gases expelled from the second shot.

Despite the brain matter, the wound itself is oddly clean."

"What does that mean?" I said.

"Well," Binks said, scratching his nose with a gloved hand. "The impact and the trauma suggest the initial shot was fired from very close range. The brain matter and impact site…"

"Impact what?" I said.

"It's where the bullet impacts after exiting the body,"

Makhoulian said. "In this case, ballistics found the first bullet in the wall about six feet off the ground. But they didn't find the bullet itself."

"So the killer took it," I said.

Makhoulian nodded.

Binks continued. "The entry wound is nearly devoid of gases or burn marks. Considering the devastation and the impact site, it has all the marks of a point-blank shooting. See, normally when a bullet is fired, espe cially from close range, the wound will leave burn marks on the flesh, which is literally seared from the heat. In this case, the burn marks were nearly unde tectable."

"Why?" I asked.

"My guess?" Binks said. "The killer was using a silenced weapon. Now, very few guns have those kind of professional silencers you see in movies, that screw on like a lightbulb. Usually they're homemade, a length of aluminum tubing filled with steel wool or fiberglass."

"Forensics is checking for both," Makhoulian added.

"It's not just professionals who use them. Some hunters use silencers out of season. Even guys in their backyards shooting beer bottles who don't want their neighbors to hear. Of course, there's a chance the killer simply did it the old-fashioned way," Binks said, "and covered the muzzle with a pillow. The killer didn't need to be an expert in weaponry. In fact, there's a reason you see that in the movies. It's not going to dampen the noise completely, but as a quick fix-"

"Please," I interrupted, pleading to either man.

"Explain to me what the hell all this means."

Makhoulian said, "It means whoever killed your brother shot him once in the back of the head with a silenced weapon. Then while he was lying on the ground, dying, the killer shot him one more time to finish the job. Your brother wasn't just killed, Henry. He was executed."