Michael Harvey - We All Fall Down

“You think you know who’s behind all of this?” she said.

“I have some ideas.”

“For a while you thought it might be me.”

I shook my head.

“What changed your mind?”

“Your pain.”

She wanted to laugh but couldn’t seem to muster the energy. Instead, she slipped a flat package onto the table between us. “For you.”

I looked at the parcel. Wrapped in brown paper with black string. “What is it?”

“Read the note inside. Then do what you want.”

I began to pick at the wrappings.

“Later, Michael. After I’ve gone.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Eventually? Back to my microscopes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe find some answers of my own.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

She gave me a hard, ugly snicker. A shiver ran between us.

“This won’t end well, will it?” I said.

“What do you think?” She pushed her glass forward an inch. “Maybe we should have another drink.”

“You gonna tell me what you’re scared of?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay, then. Let’s have another.”

We stayed for another hour at Little Kings. When we left I looked for the man with the limp, but couldn’t find him. Even better, he didn’t find us. We headed north to Old Town. The bars, like the streets, were mostly empty. Any stores still open had been picked clean: food, bottled water, rubber gloves, disinfectant, and, of course, medical masks. A middle-aged man in a Lexus had gone into the Walgreens at North and Wells and tried to buy their entire inventory of cotton breathers. Another customer shot him dead in the parking lot and took his stash.

We celebrated all the fun by drinking past midnight. Ellen was quiet toward the end and held my arm as we walked down Wells. A single cab drifted up. A window rolled down. The cabbie wore a pink mask over his nose and mouth. I could tell by the busy eyes he wanted us to get in. So we did. I had him drop us at a boutique hotel called the Raphael, just off Michigan Avenue. We got a room, number 312, and went upstairs. She kissed me just inside the door. I told her to wait. Told her to lie down and close her eyes for a moment. I watched her breathing slow. Sleep crawled across her face.

I picked up the bottle we’d bought and sat by the window. Smoke from my cigarette coiled in electric light from the street. Below, a lonely figure ducked into a doorway and let the wind tumble past. I took a drink and closed my eyes. I thought about the infection crawling through my city’s bloodstream. The body itself was jaundiced, skin swollen, limbs black with rot. Knives needed to be sharpened. Sacrifices made. But only if the patient was willing to pay the price.

I opened my eyes just in time to see my friend leave his doorway. He was wearing an overcoat and dragged his left foot behind him as he walked. I had a pretty good idea what the man with the limp wanted. The question was why. And when.

Behind me, Ellen moved in her sleep. The package she’d given me was lying on the dresser. I’d asked her about it a second time at one of the bars, and she’d called it a going-away present. Then she’d put a finger to my lips and ordered us another round of drinks. Now I opened it, read what was written inside, and slipped the package into my pack.

Her skin was warm when I touched her shoulder. Her eyes opened like she’d been waiting for me.

“How long have I been out?”

“Couple of hours. Go back to sleep.”

“Did I make an idiot of myself?”

“Hardly.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

She propped herself up on an elbow. “You told me you had a girl.”

“I told you it was complicated.”

“Sometimes it’s easier than you think.”

“And sometimes it’s not.”

“You sure about that?”

I thought about Rachel. Broken bones and bruises. Memories that licked at the edges of her smile and lurked in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sure. Go back to sleep.”

She brushed my fingers with hers, rolled over on her belly, and buried her face in a pillow. Within a couple of minutes, her breathing had softened again. I went back over to the dresser. There was a Gideon’s Bible there. I tore out a blank page, scribbled down a few words, and left the note where she could see it. Right beside her gun. It was just past three when I stepped out into the hallway.

I had two advantages. First, he was outside in the cold. And I wasn’t. Second, he knew about me. But didn’t know I knew about him.

I watched for half an hour from a second-floor stairwell. He moved every five minutes, drank coffee to stay awake, smoked cigarettes to keep warm, and kept his eye on the front door of the Raphael. A squad car rolled by once. He did a nice job of fading into the overhang of a Gold Coast brownstone.

The coffee especially intrigued me. A curl of steam when he took the lid off told me it was still hot, which meant he probably got it somewhere close. Even better, it was a large, at least sixteen ounces. I waited until he finished and threw the blue-and-white cup into the gutter. Then I cut through the lobby and found the back service entrance. Once out in the street, it took all of three minutes to find the only coffee shop open in the area. I looked through the plate-glass window and saw a stack of blue-and-white paper cups beside a large silver urn with black handles. I turned up my collar and stepped inside. The place smelled of Vaseline and earwax. The cook was at the far end of the counter, talking to a slip of a woman in a long black jacket and jeans. She sat on a stool, jacket open, legs crossed, a shoe dangling off her right foot. Neither of them looked at me, and I hiked down a short corridor to the men’s room.

I had a plan. Like most plans, it needed a little bit of luck. I went into the bathroom and got my first small piece. A latch on the door. I left it unlocked.

To my left was a single stall, a long white urinal trough, and a window at the far end. I pried the only mirror in the place, a small plastic stick-on, off the wall above the sink. In a room like this, reflections were something I could do without.

I stepped inside the stall, crouched up on the toilet, and closed the door. Ten minutes later, I heard the diner’s front door open and a soft scraping. My second piece of luck had just walked in.

The seconds stretched and hung. But they always did just before. I thought I heard him in the hallway. Then I was convinced he’d stopped at the counter, probably got himself another cup of coffee. I was thinking about taking a look when the men’s room door pushed in. I watched his left foot drag past and let him settle in front of the urinal. He might have done his business in an alley. Might have never left the street. But it was cold out. And I was upstairs in the hotel, warm, with a woman. And the goddamn large coffee. So the man with the limp came inside for his piss. And made a mistake. I wouldn’t make a second.

I eased the stall door open, grabbed him by the hair, and cracked his face into the fly-specked drywall above the trough. His nose burst in a cloud of red and he went to a knee, right hand reaching inside his coat. I slammed his temple into the porcelain edge of the urinal. A gun skittered across the tiles and he sagged sideways. I stepped to the bathroom door and slipped the latch. I was back in less than five seconds. He was already struggling to get up. I put a boot to his head. Then hammered home two straight rights. This time, he was out.

I found his cuffs and chained him to a pipe running along the base of the wall. The ID inside his pocket said he was a special agent with Homeland. Name was Robert Crane. I picked up the piece he’d been reaching for. A twenty-two with a suppressor. He had a second gun, a standard. 40-caliber service weapon on his belt. Crane groaned and tried to raise his head. I took out a handkerchief and threw it at him.