David Ellis - The Hidden Man

“Go get some rest, Kolarich,” she said, the flip use of my last name concluding whatever may have just transpired. As usual, Shauna was making the right call. I was in no condition, mentally or circumstantially, to do anything but head home.

The depth of sleep deprivation was sudden and heavy. Maybe it was the power of suggestion. Maybe it was a release of tension, having let Shauna in on the secret, knowing that I finally had some help in all of this. Either way, the walk to the elevator, then across the street to my car, felt like the Bataan Death March, cast in shadow, my movements awkward and timid. I made it home at an hour that I would typically be eating dinner, just getting started on an evening of isolation, shitty paperback novels, and insipid television sitcoms. I hit the pillow thinking of Pete, how I’d failed him, how I was getting some shut-eye as he faced another day of torture. But the guilt, however powerful, was no match for my exhaustion. I was asleep in minutes, leaving me with my dreams, with an insecure, troubled sibling fighting various demons of the human and inhuman kind, a wife and child struggling for air underwater, a young next-door neighbor being swept out of her bed in the midst of sleep, wondering where the scary monster would take her.

IAWOKE WITH A START, to the vanishing sensation of being electrocuted, only to find my cell phone still in my hand from last night, now buzzing. I’d slept like a rock. I hadn’t moved all night. I was still in my clothes. The clock at my bedside read half past seven. I’d slept over ten straight hours.

“Today’s the day,” said Smith, when I answered the cell phone.

I was dazed, still coming out of a heavy fog.

“Today’s the day you make things right with DePrizio,” said Smith. “Or it’s not a finger. It’s an entire hand.”

I sat up in bed, shaking out the cobwebs. “Denny’s gonna rat you out,” I said.

“Something you don’t want,” he countered. “What do you think will happen to your brother then ? You think we’ll let him live?”

I was still in recovery mode. I didn’t have my wits about me. “Talk to me later today,” I said. “Maybe I can make you happy.”

“Yeah? You’ve thought about how you’ll explain this away to the police?”

“I have some thoughts, yes.”

“I’d like to hear them.”

“I’m sure you would.” I hung up the phone and got out of bed. I took a quick shower, dressed, and drove to see Sammy at the detention center.

“ I ’ L L TAKE EIGHT.” Sammy Cutler said these words the moment the sheriff ’s deputy left us alone in the all-glass interview room at the detention facility. His eyes were clear, his chin up. He’d been thinking about this, clearly, at great length since we spoke and seemed comfortable with the decision. “This guy Perlini, he was a bad guy. He did bad things. But he didn’t kill Audrey. Right?”

“Right.”

“So I can’t walk away from what I did. I don’t want a life sentence for killing this scumbag, but killing’s killing, right? I shouldn’t get off, either.” He nodded. “I can do eight. Out in four, one already served, right?”

My first thought, I had to admit, was my brother, not Sammy. I could close this thing off right now. Smith’s people would avoid a trial. He would get his certainty right away, no delay. I thought about my conversation with Shauna Tasker last night, parsing through all the information we had, distinguishing what we knew from what we thought:

They want Sammy to win this case, and win it now .

Was an eight-year plea enough of a “win”? I couldn’t imagine why Smith would care about that. The case would be over. He’d have the conclusion, the certainty that he wanted. From Smith’s standpoint, this should be a satisfactory resolution. And from Sammy’s standpoint, it was acceptable as well.

From my standpoint, I still had a problem. I still had to assume that they’d kill Pete-and me-as soon as they didn’t need me anymore.

“The prosecution has offered twelve,” I said. “I can try for eight.”

Sammy softly patted the table between us. “If it’s twelve, it’s twelve,” he said. “I can do twelve, too.” His fingers began to caress the table as he lost himself in his thoughts. I couldn’t imagine what runs through your mind as you contemplate surrender, a long prison term.

“I told her,” he started, and then his throat choked off. His eyes filled with tears. It was a long moment before he was able to continue. “I know it’s funny but I still talk to her, Koke, y’know? She’s still that little girl. Still that little kid following us around.” He looked at me. “I told her last night, I fucked up again. My whole life, I fucked up everything I did, and then I see this guy in the grocery store, and I think to myself, here’s your first chance to do something right. To do something for Audrey. And I couldn’t even do that right. I killed the wrong guy.”

“I’ll find the right guy, Sammy. I promise. I promise you that.”

He nodded; then a partial smile broke out on his face before evaporating. “Koke, if it was me with the talent, I’d have done the same as you. I’d have gotten out of our sorry-ass neighborhood quick as I could and not looked back.”

I drew back. Something I hadn’t expected. “But if the roles were reversed,” I said, “would I have taken the fall on the drug charge and let you walk?”

“Course you woulda. Course you woulda. They already had me. What was the point a makin’ you go down, too?”

Maybe. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t ever know. All I could do was go forward, the advice I’d received so many times over the last four months, since the death of my wife and daughter. Go forward. Do better. Keep motoring until the day your ticket is punched.

“You still pray?” he asked me.

“Do I-no, I don’t.” I shook my head. “No.”

“It helps.” He took a deep breath. “I mean, we was kids, we just went ’cause our moms made us go. But, y’know, I’ve been gettin’ back to it since I’ve been inside. I mean, before, I was inside for drugs or such, and I never really saw why I had to be locked up for messing up my own life. But since this thing-since I killed somebody-I been talkin’ to Him. You kinda work things out that way.”

I packed up my stuff and signaled to the guard. “We should quit while we’re ahead,” I said. “Let me see what I can do about this plea. We’ll get you the hell out of this place in a couple of years and get you back on track. Okay, my friend?”

Sammy lifted his manacled hand and shook mine. “Okay, Koke.”

AS I DROVE back to my law firm, the cell phone buzzed, the caller ID blocked.

“Any progress?” Smith asked. “You told me you might have something that makes me happy. You should really want to make me happy right now, Kolarich, because my friends are just itching to keep going on your brother.”

I took the ramp onto the highway to head back to the city’s commercial district. “I can end this whole thing for you,” I said. “A plea bargain. I have the structure of it already in place.”

“You have-a plea bargain?”

“Sammy cops for a reduced sentence, and I promise not to come looking for you if you let my brother go. No hard feelings, is how I see it. You get this thing over, which is what you want, no delays, and I pretend the whole thing never happened. And the reason I pretend the whole thing never happened,” I added, because Smith would need convincing on this point, “is that I know you could always come after Pete and me again. So we call a truce.”

I knew that I would never rest until I found Smith, until I found Audrey’s killer, but it was the best sales job I could give Smith.