Howard Shrier - Boston Cream

There was no need for more. His gun fell to the floor a second before he did. Ryan kept his shotgun levelled as he stalked over to him. I ran to Frank. Blood was streaming from his scalp and running down his neck. I dug my fingers into his carotid artery and felt a faint pulse like a faraway drum.

I said. “Grab his legs.”

“One sec.” Ryan put his shotgun down and knelt at Daggett’s side.

“Forget him,” I said. “He’s dead.”

Ryan took his Glock out of the shoulder holster and screwed on the suppressor. After the torrent of gunfire we had just unleashed, what could be the point of that?

“Dante. Now.”

“Shh.”

He stood, backed up a step and fired two shots into the centre of Daggett’s forehead, just missing getting hit by the spray. “Done.”

We got Frank to the surgeons in half a minute. Ryan ran to free Dr. Reimer from the trunk of Stayner’s car while the rest of the team started prepping Frank. Stayner told us to clear out, that the sterility of the room had already been compromised a thousand times over, but that he would do what he could, no guarantees. We retreated to the chapel. After the roar of shotguns and automatic fire, it was incredibly peaceful.

“Won’t someone call the police about all the shooting?” Marc McConnell asked.

“Maybe in your neighbourhood,” I said. “I believe the motto around here is, Don’t snitch. But if you’re worried about being found here, take off.”

“Not yet.”

“Honey,” Lesley said, “maybe we should. If the police do come, how would we explain this?”

“Soon,” he said.

We sat along the front pew facing the dais where ministers and family members would have delivered eulogies for the dead over the decades Halladay’s had been in business. With all the men who had died tonight, it seemed someone should have been up there speaking. But we just sat in the dim light, all of us wearing latex gloves as if we feared catching something from the very air. I had my arm around Jenn, holding her tightly. Ryan was on my other side. At one point he leaned in and whispered, “I can’t believe of the two of us, you got the centre mass.”

“Only because you hit his shoulder first. You made him a good target.”

“The shotgun jumped,” he said. “A Mossberg. I’m a little upset about that.”

He could dismiss it so easily. Not me. Brooding is a skill Jews learn early and perfect all their lives. I sat there soaking in the fact that I had killed again. And with a gun, again, the first time I had fired one at a man since that ambush in Hebron when I had shot the man stabbing my friend Roni. But I would change nothing of what had happened to Daggett. He was a murderer many times over. In the last few days alone he had ordered the killings of David, Carol-Ann, his own two thugs. Had caused the death of Victor and so nearly of Frank. Had tried to kill Ryan and me. Would have killed my best friend and partner in the most callous and gruesome way possible.

So why were my hands shaking? Why was my mouth so dry? Why was my head aching again, and from more than just Daggett’s elbow? I wished I had gelcaps. I tried stroking Jenn’s hair but with gloved hands there was too much static for it to be reassuring. For either of us. I went back to holding her shoulder.

“Hello?”

We all turned to see Jim Reimer in the chapel entrance, his mask lowered, an unperturbed look on his face.

“He’ll be all right,” Reimer said. “The bullet tore a furrow up the back of his scalp but caused no grievous damage.”

“A doctor who speaks English,” Ryan said.

“They teach that in Boston,” Reimer said. “We stitched the wound closed and gave him something for the pain and some antibiotics he needs to take until they’re gone. You may need to repeat that to him when he’s a little less groggy.”

We trooped out of the chapel and back to the makeshift surgery. Frank was lying on the table, his head bandaged, staring dully at the ceiling.

“You saved us,” I said to him.

He turned his eyes to me, struggling to bring me into focus. “Wasn’t trying to,” he said. “I just wanted one of you to get him.”

“We did.”

“Then I’m thanking you.”

“We all do,” Stayner said. “He put us through a nightmare. It went against everything we believe in.”

“So does your fee,” I said.

“I don’t know what you mean. I told you I give every cent of his money away.”

“I’m talking about the congressman’s money. The rabbi was getting a quarter-million,” I said. “I can’t believe you’d take less.”

His face coloured a moment, then he put his shoulders back and assumed the posture of the great surgeon who must never be questioned or second-guessed. “This is not the time for this. Everyone,” he said to his people, “start packing up.”

“No,” Marc McConnell said. He was behind me, the last one to have come into the room. And he was pointing his gun at Stayner.

“What are you doing, Marc?” Stayner asked.

“Be quiet. I want all of you behind the table. Now!”

There was no point in any of us drawing on him. In the crowded room, a crossfire would be deadly. Slowly we moved to the far side of the table where Frank lay.

“Get him off the table,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“We came here tonight to save my wife. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Marc,” Lesley said. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about her,” McConnell said, pointing the gun at Jenn. “Daggett was going to kill her, wasn’t he? He was going to take all her organs and sell them. Right?” He kept the gun trained on Jenn and looked at me. “Right?”

“Right.”

“I don’t want to kill her,” he said. “And I don’t want all her organs. Just the one. One kidney. She can live with one. Without it, Lesley is going to die.”

“You can’t do this,” Lesley said.

“Yes I can.” He swung the gun back at me and said, “Get him off the table or I’ll shoot your friend, I swear.”

“You do that, you’re dead,” Ryan said. “Before you get a second shot off.”

“I don’t care. If Lesley dies, I might as well too.”

“Marc, please,” his wife said. “This isn’t the way.”

“What is? To keep waiting for a phone call that never comes? To watch you get thinner and paler and weaker? Tired all the time, thirsty all the time. You’re still young, Les, you don’t deserve this.”

“No one does,” she said. “But what does that change?”

“Look at her,” he said, pointing at Jenn. “She’s probably never been sick a day in her life. From the time I first saw you, Les, first fell in love with you, you were battling. You were under ninety pounds before your lung transplant, remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“Lugging around that oxygen tank wherever we went. And then you got healthy again and you were the most beautiful woman in the world, and you still are, but look at you, honey, you’re dying again. Day by day, inch by inch, you’re slipping away from me and I can’t watch it happen again.”

“Put the gun down,” she said. “Before you hurt someone.”

“I can’t …”

“Put it down. We’ll find another way.”

“No.”

“Marc!” Her voice got harsher. “Put it down now.” Her hand reached out and snatched a scalpel from a tray covered in green cloth. She put its tip to the vein in her wrist and said, “I’ll cut myself open if you don’t.”

His eyes, already tearing, widened in disbelief. “No.”

“I’ll do it, Marc. I’d rather die right now than go slowly without you. With you locked up in jail for this.”

She pressed the scalpel harder. The skin around the tip went white as pearl. “Oh, God,” McConnell said, and his gun hand came down. Ryan stepped forward and took it from him.