Макс Коллинз - Road to Perdition

Michael closed his door, and was half-standing on the road, half in the ditch. “Why don’t you drive right up to the house?”

O’Sullivan was locking the car. “Son, we still need to be careful.”

His wheelman thought that over. “Sneaking up to check and see if cars are there, huh?”

“We’re not sneaking up — just trying not to be stupid.”

O’Sullivan still had his .45 holstered under his left arm, beneath his brown suitcoat.

The boy shrugged, said, “Okay,” and soon they were angling down a hillside — no topcoat for the father, no jacket for the son, in this inviting weather — emerging from the woods, where a beautiful if oddly desolate landscape awaited.

Dusk was dispensing shadows to soften the view, touching the stretch of beach along the lake with cool blue; a light breeze blew in off the lightly whitecapped water. The cabin-like farmhouse had no barn next to it; the farm was across the road, out of view. No sign of any car except a battered pick-up truck that belonged to Uncle Bob.

Looking toward the house on the beach, Michael asked, “Is that it?”

“That’s it. Ring any bells?”

“Sort of... I’m not sure.”

“Here comes somebody that’ll jog your memory.”

From around the house a big mutt came loping, floppy ears and lolling tongue, a friendly conglomeration of breeds whose tail was wagging at the sign of company. Michael ran to meet the dog, and immediately they began to play, running toward the beach.

O’Sullivan did not join them. He merely stood and watched his son behaving like the boy he was.

“Forgive me, Annie,” O’Sullivan said softly, “for the dangerous road I’ve taken him down.”

Then he loped on toward the house, allowing his son to caper on the beach with the hound. Up the porch and through the open screen door O’Sullivan went, following light at the end of a hallway to the kitchen. He called to Sarah and Bob, announcing himself, but received no immediate answer.

And the kitchen was empty. He looked around — the evening dishes had been put away, the room clean and white. Over the sink, sheer curtains billowing, was an open window onto the lake, where he could see Michael on the beach, bending to pet the dog.

“Hey!” someone said, and O’Sullivan whirled, already sensing something, but his hand hadn’t reached his holstered weapon when the first shot punched him in the chest.

Three more followed — single claps, echoing a bit in the kitchen, ironic applause — and it took the fourth one to knock him back into the windowed wall. He slid to the floor, leaving a smear of red, fighting to retain his consciousness, hoping to summon strength to go for the gun...

The man in the bowler — only he wasn’t wearing one now — stood before him, a nine-millimeter automatic pistol in one hand, his camera in the other. His eyes were unblinking and crazed in a face whose boyish handsomeness had been replaced with a ravaged welter of scars, the aftermath of that shattered crystal lamp in Rance’s suite.

“You disappointment me, Mr. O’Sullivan,” the photographer said, and he put his gun on the kitchen table.

Good , O’Sullivan thought, only he was fading... could he even move his arm... ?

Harlen Maguire — who had stowed the bodies of Bob and Sarah McGinnis in the pantry nearby, just about an hour before — moved in closer, positioning his camera, and began to focus it. He had paid an awful price for this picture — his face would never be right, even with plastic surgery — but this would be the crowning portrait for his gallery of death.

O’Sullivan — lying on the kitchen floor, life oozing out of him — would make an excellent subject, a special study in death, since a succession of photos would record the stages of dying... one photo would have the glimmer of life in those eyes, the next would show the blankness of death.

The photographer — studying the upside down image of the slumped, bleeding man — framed his subject carefully... no rush...

He took his first shot and a bright, hard flash filled the room.

“Try not to blink next time,” Maguire advised his subject, who seemed barely conscious now.

A tiny noise behind made Maguire spin toward the doorway...

... And just behind him stood O’Sullivan’s son — who had taken Maguire’s own gun off the kitchen table, and now pointed it right at him.

Maguire had been in tight situations before — in the Rance suite, among others — but in those instances he’d been armed. Now he stood helpless, and a nausea-like wave of fear such as he’d never known rose up inside him. And Harlen Maguire suddenly understood that his fascination with death did not extend to experiencing his own...

Michael had known there was trouble when that dog ran up to him on the beach, and the boy had seen orange-red-brown dirt or something, streaked and caked on the animal’s paws... blood .

He’d already been running toward the house when he heard the shots...

... and now the boy stood pointing the pistol, shaking not with fear for himself but for his father — his wounded father, bleeding on the floor, defenseless, barely awake... a fallen soldier. That this could happen to Papa, the boy of course had contemplated; and yet seeing this terrible tableau before him, he wondered how it could be possible... was this another nightmare?

Whatever it was, he was in it, and his father was in trouble, and Michael cocked the automatic and the sound was just a click... but it made the man, whose face was all scarred up now, jump.

And Michael almost pulled the trigger.

For once, the man blinked. “Hey!... Easy, son.”

“I’m not your son.”

“No... you’re Michael, aren’t you?” The scarred man had his hands up, and he was smiling a sick sort of smile. “This isn’t about you, Michael... Your father’s gone. This is over.”

Michael aimed the gun. “It’s not over yet.”

The man was really, really afraid. “Don’t... don’t do this... It’s Frank Nitti you want... he hired me... I’ll help you get him... ”

Michael shifted his gaze to his father, for guidance. Should I shoot him, Papa? his eyes asked, but Papa’s response, a sort of weave of his head, didn’t tell him anything.

“Kid... ,” the scared, scarred man said. “Please... it’s a human life... it’s a sin... don’t... please! ”

So many feelings pulsed through the boy — rage, determination, fear, desperation... Then his finger tightened on the trigger.

Two shots rang in the small room — tiny cracks louder than any thunder.

The scarred man looked at Michael, his eyes still pleading; then, like a light had switched off, the eyes were empty, and the man dropped to the floor, a puppet with its strings snipped, landing on top of his camera, making a crunch. A corpse now, the scarred man lay in an awkward, artless sprawl.

Michael, who had not fired, ran to his fallen father, who had. Smoke spiraled out of the snout of the .45 in Papa’s hand, making a question-mark curl.

“I could have done it,” the boy said, kneeling next to his father. “I could have!”

“But... you didn’t,” Papa managed, with a trace of a smile.

Michael took his father in his arms and held him, held him close but not tight, not wanting to hurt him, cradling Papa’s head against his chest, getting blood all over himself, not caring.

The boy looked around them, dead body on the floor, smell of cordite in the air, his father bleeding. “What should I do, Papa?”

“For... ”

“Yes, Papa?”

“Forgive me.”

And his father died there, in the boy’s arms; yet the boy kept rocking him, for a long time, as if the dead man were a baby he was soothing to sleep.