Trial Junkies

— 58 -

As he opened his eyes, hands were slapping at him. "That's right, son-wake up, now. Time to wake up."

The voice had a familiar warmth to it and Hutch blinked, his head pounding, his vision doubling and tripling as he looked up into an equally warm and familiar face-neither of which fully registered in his brain.

He felt as if he had the world's worst hangover.

Then the cobwebs began to clear, his eyes focused, and he realized who was crouched over him.

He blinked again.

It was Gus.

Hutch frowned, struggling to properly assemble a sequence of events that was now scrambled in his mind. He saw a man in the hallway, lying at the top of the stairs, near the worn bannister. Saw himself crouching over this very same man.

Crouching over… Gus.

"I… I thought you were cut," he said.

The old guy smiled. "I'm afraid I took a page out of your book with that one, son. I don't figure I'll win any awards, but I didn't do so bad, did I?"

Hutch felt as if there was something loose jangling around inside his head, making it nearly impossible to think. He tried to move, to get to his feet, only to discover that his wrists and ankles were bound with gaffer's tape.

What the hell was happening to him?

And what was he forgetting?

"Here," Gus said, "let me give you a hand."

But rather than remove the tape, Gus grabbed him by the shoulders, lifted him off the ground and sat him down in a rickety wooden chair, its legs groaning beneath his weight. The movement made Hutch dizzy, and he had to close his eyes to steady himself.

He sat there a moment, then opened them again. He was in a semi-dark room that looked as if it could use a bit of TLC. It was the sparsely furnished living room of an apartment that had seen much better days, and not recently.

He heard the tinny sound of a woman crying and swiveled his head, regretting it the moment he did. His brain jangled again and his vision blurred, but he could make out two flat panel computer monitors that sat on an old wooden table in the corner of the room, their screens aglow.

That was where the sound was coming from.

Then all at once his vision cleared again and on the first screen he saw a familiar-looking stairway and a door with frosted glass just beyond it-the lobby door of an apartment building.

This apartment building.

On the second screen was an overhead shot of Ronnie lying naked on a dirty mattress, swaths of gaffer's tape strapping her to it, her eyes wide with terror, face streaked with tears.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Christ.

Hutch struggled to make sense of it, then, one by one, the sequence of events began to fall into place and he remembered it all. Climbing the stairwell, bursting into that room, his revolver raised, Frederick Langer standing over the bed-standing over Ronnie-with a switchblade in his hand.

But as Hutch had tried to fire, the gun had betrayed him.

And it was Gus who had given him that gun.

Gus, the kindly bailiff.

Gus, the aging commando.

Gus, the old man who didn't seem quite as old now, smiling at him as if he was aware that Hutch was finally putting it together.

"It was you all along," Hutch said. "You killed Jenny."

"No, son, I'm afraid I can't take credit for that particular accomplishment, as much as I might like to. I've done a lot of terrible things in my time, but Jenny Keating's not one of them. Hell, I didn't even know who she was until she wound up dead."

"Langer?"

Gus shook his head. "That boy couldn't tie his shoes without me telling him what to do. Besides, she's not his type."

Hutch glanced at the second computer screen, Ronnie's sobs rising from a set of speakers next to it. He thought about the disappointing text message he'd received in the car, and the photo showing that it wasn't Langer who had visited Treacher amp; Pine.

Had they been wrong about him all along? He was clearly a psychopath, and there was no doubt he'd been stalking Ronnie. But if Gus was telling the truth, then who had killed Jenny?

"I don't understand," he said. "If you had nothing to do with her death, why are you doing this? How do you even know Langer?"

"You might call him a student of mine."

"Student?"

"Protege, apprentice. Truth is, he's more a source of entertainment than anything else. Just like you, Veronica, and all your little friends. Langer doesn't look like much, but he knows when to do what he's told." Gus gestured to a stack of DVDs next to the monitors. "Thirteen girls in nine different states. Every one of them a delight."

Hutch stared at him blankly and this provoked another smile.

"I can see you don't quite get it yet. You still think I'm Gus the retired bailiff from courtroom two twenty-three. It's amazing how people are so quick to believe anything you tell them. You say it with enough authority and you'll get 'em every time."

"But the guards downstairs. They know you. They're friends of yours. They helped us identify Langer."

Gus chuckled. "Did they now? You saw them wave to an old man, then do their job and hand me my wallet after I went through the security line. Nothing more, nothing less. It's all about perception, Ethan. Like what goes on inside that courtroom."

Gus crossed to the monitors and picked up a backpack that was sitting on the floor beneath the table. He opened it, then grabbed the stack of DVDs and stuffed them inside.

"There was a time I'd do all the footwork myself. I must've had my fun with thirty or forty little gals before I called it a day. Prostitutes, office workers, students. You name it, I've probably done it, and had a helluva good time in the process." He paused. "But as you get older, you get tired, son. You may not lose the desire, but you lose the energy to do anything about it. And that's when you have to make a decision. You either quit having fun, or you find a new way to play the game."

Hutch thought he understood now. "You recruited Langer to do the killing for you."

Gus nodded. "He's not the first and he won't be the last. I always let him pick out the girls, because that doesn't matter much to me. He's the one who has a thing for gals like Veronica, and that waitress and all the others Matt told you about. I think they remind him of his sister, who used to sexually humiliate the poor boy." Another smile. "We started with her."

Hutch glanced at the monitors again, nausea sweeping through him at the sight of Ronnie lying there so helplessly.

"I don't get it," he said. "If Langer picked out Ronnie, then why is she still alive?"

"I told you he's a slow burner and I like to give him room. I'm in no hurry myself." He patted the backpack. "I've got my DVDs to tide me over. But by the time he was ready to do the deed, your ex-girlfriend wound up dead and Veronica got herself arrested for it. And I can't say we were anticipating that particular turn of events. Coincidence is cruel sometimes."

"So why not move on?"

"Trust me, we considered it. Even picked out that waitress you saw. But I have to admit the thought of seeing our little gal on trial for her life got me excited. I do like to watch. And when you and your friends came along, gettin' all riled up about Langer, making all your plans, talking about finding the real killer, well that was a show I just couldn't say no to. Better than any episode of TV I've ever seen. No offense." He gestured to Ronnie onscreen. "And now, here we are, ready to make our own little TV show, and I'm your new director."

"You sick son of a bitch."

Gus laughed. "Oh, that I am, son. That I am. But we haven't even gotten to the good part yet."

Good part? There was a good part?

Hutch couldn't imagine what qualified as good in this psycho's brain, but then a thought suddenly blossomed-an image he'd conjured up as he lay in bed tonight: Ronnie and Christopher standing hand in hand as they waited to board a train.

With sudden ferocity, dread coursed through his veins. Pure unadulterated horror. If Christopher was with Ronnie when Langer and Gus took her, where the hell was he now?

"I can see that mind of yours working, Ethan. Wondering what's about to happen. Are you gonna die? Is Veronica? And what about that boy of hers? What did bad old Gussie do with him?" He waved a dismissive hand. "Don't you worry, I've got him stashed somewhere nice and safe, and I'm thinking he might turn out to be my new protege. That boy is raw material, just waiting to be molded."

Hutch struggled against the bonds. "You motherfucker."

Gus chuckled again. "I confess I've been there, too, right before I killed the old bitch. But that was a long, long time ago and isn't particularly important to the here and now. I know you're thinking this is the end of the line, but that doesn't necessarily have to be so. I wouldn't be a sporting man if I didn't give you a chance to redeem yourself. That is, after all, what you've been after, isn't it?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Gus slung the backpack over his shoulder, then crossed the room and crouched in front of him. "This is your trial, Ethan. A chance for you to make things right. A chance for you to save Ronnie from certain death, save her boy from the likes of me, and prove her innocence all at the same time. So the stakes are high. But I gotta warn you, it isn't gonna be easy. And it all comes down to you, son. It all comes down to you."

The nausea swept through Hutch again. "What are you saying?"

Gus tapped the watch on his wrist. "You have three minutes. And keep in mind these are the most important three minutes of your entire career."

"To do what?"

"Well now, that's up to you, isn't it? You're gonna have to improvise. But you'd better make it an Emmy-winning performance, or your girlfriend is dead, and her little boy spends his life learning a new sport." He gestured to the monitors. "But, lucky you, you'll get to watch the best part in glorious color."

He stood up again and reached into a pocket of his backpack. He pulled out a kitchen knife, showed it to Hutch, then crossed the room and set it on the table, next to the monitors. He gestured to the first screen-the shot of the stairway and the lobby door.

"As you might've guessed by now, we're not in the same apartment that Veronica's currently occupying. That would make things too easy. But to give you a head start, I told our friend Mr. Langer to wait downstairs in the street. You'll have three minutes to stop him from gutting your little whore." He pointed to a camera mounted in a high corner, then pulled a computer tablet from the backpack and showed it to Hutch. "I'll be watching it all from my car."

"You sick, crazy fuck."

"You're pretty hostile for a man who's about to be given a second chance. You should be grateful. Normally, I wouldn't do this." He smiled again. "But I like you, Ethan. Have since the moment we met. And just between you and me, I've grown a little tired of our friend Langer. So, believe it or not, I'm rooting for the good guys this time."

Small comfort, Hutch thought, then glanced at the knife next to the monitors. "You want me to kill him."

"That would be a wonderful thing to see, no doubt about it. Question is, do you have it in you?" He gestured to the image of Ronnie onscreen. "If you do, if you can manage it, you'll find a reward for your services underneath that mattress. Something that'll help answer all your questions, find that little boy, and lead you straight to Jenny Keating's killer."

Gus zipped up the pocket of his backpack and started toward the door. Sudden panic rose in Hutch's chest-and he knew this was it. This would be the start of the clock. But his head was still reeling and he wasn't sure he had it in him to play the action hero. Not for real. He thought again about his encounter with Langer in the alley. About his failure to act.

Would he fail this time?

In his panic and confusion, all he could think to do was stall Gus. Keep him talking. Keep that clock from counting down while he tried desperately to clear his head.

"So it really wasn't you," he said. "Or Langer. Neither one of you killed Jenny."

Gus stopped. "Considering the current circumstances, what on earth makes you think I'd need to lie about that?"

"But you know who did kill her."

"Oh, I've known for some time now, and I think you'll be surprised. Assuming you make it that far."

"Why not just tell me?"

Gus chuckled. "I've never understood you young people and your inability to delay gratification. You've gotta earn it, son. Prove to me you deserve to know."

"And if I do get Langer," Hutch said, "what happens then? Where will you be?"

"On to the next adventure. You'll never see or hear from me again." The twinkle in the old guy's eyes had not disappeared, but now it took on a whole new meaning. "Good luck, Ethan. I mean that quite sincerely. And don't be too hard on yourself for getting it wrong. At least you got one thing right: you've been very entertaining."

He checked his watch and seemed to be counting off the seconds as he circled around toward the door. Then he said, "Aaaaaaaaand-Action!"

And the chair suddenly flew out from beneath Hutch, knocking him to the floor.