John Verdon - Shut Your Eyes Tight

The intense revulsion Gurney had felt toward violence and blood as a rookie cop, especially the blood from a fatal wound, was something he had learned to contain and conceal during his twenty years in homicide. When he had to, he was able to cloak pretty effectively what he felt-or at least to wrap his horror in the semblance of mere distaste. Which is what he did now.

Commenting on the blood spreading out in a slow oval, being absorbed into the delicate intricacies of the Persian rug, he said, as if he were describing nothing more tragic than bird shit on a windshield, “What a fucking mess.”

Hardwick blinked. He stared first at Gurney, then at the body on the floor, then at the fiery bedlam on the screen. He looked uncomprehendingly at Ashton’s father. “The doors. Why don’t you unlock the fucking doors?”

Gurney and the old man gazed at each other with an eerie lack of any visible concern. In past difficulties the ability to project an attitude of perfect calm had served Gurney well, given him an advantage. But that didn’t seem to be the case now. The old man was radiating a quiet, brutal confidence. It was as though killing Ashton had brought him a deep peace and strength-as though an imbalance had finally been righted.

This was not a man with whom one could win a simple staring contest. Gurney decided to up the ante and change the rules. And he knew that he needed to do it quickly if anyone was going to get out of that building alive. It was time to take a wild swing.

“Reminds me of Tel Aviv,” said Gurney, gesturing toward the screen.

The little man blinked and stretched his lips in a meaningless smile.

Gurney sensed that the wild swing had produced a solid hit. But now what?

Hardwick was staring at them with a bewildered fury.

Gurney continued to focus on the man with the gun. “Too bad you didn’t come a little sooner.”

“What?”

“Too bad you didn’t come sooner. Like five months ago instead of three.”

The little man looked honestly curious. “What’s that to you?”

“You could’ve stopped that crazy shit with Jillian.”

“Ah.” He nodded slowly, almost appreciatively.

“Of course, if you’d intervened even sooner, back when you should have, everything would be different now. Better, I think, don’t you?”

The little man continued nodding, but vaguely, without any apparent meaning. Then he frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Gurney was seized by the sickening possibility that he was on the wrong track. But there was nowhere left to go except forward, no time left for thinking twice. So, then, forward with a vengeance. “Maybe you should’ve killed him a long time ago. Maybe you should’ve strangled him when he was born, before Tirana really sank her teeth into him. Little fucker was nuts from the beginning, like his mother, not a businessman like you.”

Gurney searched the man’s face for the slightest reaction, but his expression was no more communicative-or human-than the pistol in his hand. So once again there was nowhere to go but forward. “That’s why you showed up here after the Jillian drama, right? Leonardo killing her was one thing, that could just be good business, but cutting her fucking head off at the wedding, that was… more than business. My guess is you came to keep an eye on things. Make sure that things were conducted in a more businesslike fashion. You didn’t want the crazy little fucker fucking it all up. But, to be fair, Leonardo had some strong points. Smart. Imaginative. Right?”

Still no reaction beyond a dead stare.

Gurney went on. “You have to admit that the Hector idea was pretty good. Inventing the perfect fall guy in case anyone caught on to all those Mapleshade graduates being unlocatable. So the mythical Hector ‘appeared on the scene’ just before the girls started disappearing. That shows forward thinking on Leonardo’s part. Real initiative. Good planning. But it came with a price. He was just too fucking crazy, wasn’t he? That’s why you finally had to do it. Backed into a corner. Crisis management.” Gurney shook his head, looked with dismay at the huge bloodstain on the rug between them. “Too fucking little, Giotto. Too fucking late.”

“The fuck did you call me?”

Gurney returned the man’s granite stare for a long moment before answering, “Don’t waste my time. I have a deal for you. You have five minutes to take it or leave it.” He thought he saw a tiny crack in the stone. For maybe a quarter of a second.

“The fuck did you call me?”

“Giotto, get it through your head. It’s over. The Skards are done. The Skards are fucking done. You get it? Clock’s ticking. Here’s the deal. You hand me the names and addresses of all Karnala’s customers, all the Jordan Ballston creeps you do business with. I especially want the addresses where some Mapleshade girls might still be alive. You give me all that and I give you a guarantee that you will live through the process of being arrested.”

The little man laughed, a sound like gravel being crushed under a blanket. “You got amazing balls, Gurney. You’re in the wrong fucking business.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re down to four and a half minutes. Time fucking flies. So if you choose not to give me the addresses I want, here’s what’s going to happen: There will be a careful, by-the-book attempt to take you into custody. You, however, will foolishly try to escape. In doing so you will endanger the life of a police officer, making it necessary to shoot you. You will be shot twice. The first bullet, a nine-millimeter hollow-point, will blow your balls off. The second will sever your spinal cord between the first and second cervical vertebrae, resulting in irreversible paralysis. This combination of wounds will convert you into a soprano in a wheelchair in a prison hospital for the rest of your fucking life. It will also give your fellow inmates an opportunity to piss in your face whenever they feel the urge. Okay? You understand the deal?”

Again came the laugh. A laugh that would make Hardwick’s nasty rasp sound sweet. “You know why you’re still alive, Gurney? Because I can’t fucking wait to hear what you’re going to say next.”

Gurney looked at his watch. “Three minutes and twenty seconds to go.”

There were no voices coming from the monitor now-just moans, hacking coughs, a sharp little scream, crying.

“What the fuck?” said Hardwick. “Jesus, what the fuck?”

Gurney looked at the screen, listened to the piteous sounds, turned to Hardwick, spoke with deliberate clarity and evenness. “In case I forget, remember that the door opener is in Ashton’s pocket.”

Hardwick looked strangely at him, seeming to register the implication of his statement.

“Time is running out,” Gurney added, turning toward Giotto Skard.

Again the old man laughed. He could not be bluffed. There would be no deal.

A girl’s face appeared on the screen, half obscured by a tumble of blond hair, full of fear and fury, larger than life, distorted into ugliness by its closeness to the camera.

“You fuck!” the girl screamed, her voice cracking. “You fuck! You fuck! You fuck!” She began to cough violently, wheezing, hacking.

The cadaverous Dr. Lazarus appeared from behind an upended pew, crawling like a giant black beetle across the smoky floor.

Giotto Skard was watching the screen. Worse than emotionless, he seemed amused.

This minor distraction, Gurney concluded, was as good as it was going to get. This one last chance was all he had left.

There was no one to blame. No one to save him. His own decisions had brought him to this place. This most dangerous place in all his life. This narrow place, teetering on the edge of hell.