Alex Barclay - Killing Ways

Joe Lucchesi’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket.

Shaun’s name was flashing like an alarm on the screen.

Duke was staring up at the ceiling. Without even turning his head, he said, ‘That’s got to be Shaun. I’m sure he’s in a real panic right about now after what he’s just watched.’

Jesus Christ.

Joe was speechless, unmoving.

‘Joe,’ said Ren. ‘Joe.’ She reached out for his forearm.

Look at me. Please look at me. Look at me.

Duke was half-laughing, half-whining. ‘Ignoring your only biological child?’

Joe fell to his knees, grabbing Duke Rawlins by the neck.

‘No!’ said Ren, diving after him. ‘NO! Don’t do this. He fell. He fell. You were not responsible. This... you will be responsible. He’s not worth it.’ I can’t even say, think of Grace. Jesus Christ. Shaun? Everything is so wrong.

Joe had a white-knuckle grip on Duke’s neck. ‘I am going to fucking kill you! I will fucking kill you, you sick fuck. You fuck. You—’

Duke’s eyeballs were bulging, his face bright with compressed blood, the heels of his boots scrambling on the marble floor. The pool of blood under his head was spreading.

Ren tried to grab Joe’s shoulders. It was like grabbing rock. His muscles were rigid, boring every ounce of strength into choking the life from Duke Rawlins.

‘Don’t,’ said Ren. ‘He’s dying, Joe. He’s dying. Let him die. Let him die. We’ll walk out of here. We’ll let him die alone. Let’s leave him here to die. He can’t win. Don’t let him win.’

Joe stopped moving. Arms still rigid, he looked up at Ren, his eyes crazed, desperate, questioning, sweat pouring down his face, his eyes stinging with it. His look said, ‘Please tell me this is not the nightmare I believe it to be.’

There is a monster dying at your feet and living on inside your beautiful daughter. This is the nightmare you believe it to be.

There was a flash of movement outside the building. Joe pulled his bloodied hands from Duke Rawlins’ neck, and fell back onto his heels. Duke sucked in as big a breath as his failing body would allow. Ren grabbed Joe’s arm as he stood up to his full height. Side by side, they watched, dazed, as the doors burst open and the SWAT team plowed in. Ren looked down. Duke Rawlins looked delirious, his head moving again from side to side. He was drawing his final breaths, his face set into one final shit-eating grin.

Ren sat in the car outside Joe Lucchesi’s hotel, her forehead pressed against the steering wheel. Gary was at the hospital, in no position to tell her to go home, not to carry out the courtesy of seeing Joe off at the airport after some of the most horrific moments of his life.

Fifteen hours had passed. Everyone focuses on the shooting, never the aftermath, never the ordinary stuff like people need to eat dinner, sleep, catch a flight somewhere.

Ren checked her cell phone. There were four missed calls from Matt. She didn’t listen to his voicemails, but she guessed he had read about the shooting online. All she managed to do was text him back: I’m fine — don’t worry!

She tried Ben’s phone. She had left three voicemails. Surely he had heard. She’d never wanted to see him as much as she wanted to see him now.

Maybe he found out about the night in the hotel with Joe. But he couldn’t have. How could he have? Maybe he’s on his way. Maybe he’s going to be at the apartment when I get back. Surprise!

She thought about Robbie.

Robbie will never get married, or have kids, or love or be loved the way he always wanted to be, the way he deserved. One last girl emailed him. Maybe she was going to be The One. Maybe Janine was. We won’t ever know.

Everett’s widowed father will never know that Luke, Everett’s handsome, beautiful, carpenter friend, who fell apart when he came to the hospital, was really the man Everett had loved for fifteen years and planned to spend the rest of his life with.

What is to be done with all this grief? I can’t bear this. I can’t. I just can’t. There is no cure. I don’t believe in time. What can time do for me, Everett? You’re the numbers guy. What will it take before I can dance again? Will time make me laugh, or carry me double vodka cranberries, or find me miracles in spreadsheets, and laughs on Monday mornings? And ice for my pineapple juice?

She started crying. I can’t live this way; the horror outside, the horror inside. The thoughts, all the thoughts, over and over. I want silence. I want to be the person who has one thought a day, an unchallenging thought. I want a mind where avenues are really dead ends. No forked thoughts, no networks, no links.

But is that what I want? Is it? Who would I be then?

She dialed Ben’s number again. ‘Ben... it’s me. I’m not sure if you’ve heard anything, but please just call me first, before you speak with anyone else. I love you so much.’ She hung up.

My gut was right about some things. And my gut was wrong. This is so exhausting. Everyone has a gut they can go on and I don’t. Mine is broken. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do about anything? Who can even answer that?

Ren called Janine. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Numb,’ she said. ‘Numb.’

‘Tell me what happened... the email everything.’

‘Don’t cuff me to something in a room full of documents for one,’ said Janine. ‘I just kicked over every pile I could and eventually a paper clip slid my way. I uncuffed myself, ran in to check on Gary. He was unconscious. I thought he was dead. Everett... Everett was still alive, Ren. He was still alive. He told me Gary had a second phone — for Sylvie Ross! I went to find Gary’s phone in his office, somewhere in a drawer. I got it, I ran back to Everett. He told me to write an email pretending I was Joe, told me about Geoff Riggs. He knew it would change things.’ She started crying. ‘When I got back to him, he... he asked me to call his parents and hold the phone up. Then Luke... and... Ren, it was the worst... it was beyond heartbreaking. And Robbie was dead... and Everett was dying. And I was right there, and...’ She started bawling crying.

Ren sobbed along with her.

Everett — in your dying moments, that’s what you did. Made sure Duke Rawlins would want to live, would be more likely not to want to die in a hail of bullets and take everyone with him.

Everett, Janine: you saved my life, you saved Gary’s.

And, Gary, your affair helped!

Jesus Christ.

‘Where are you?’ said Ren. ‘Are you home safe?’

‘Yes. Terri’s on her way over. Will you come when you’re ready?’

‘Of course I will, of course.’

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be meeting Terri under these circumstances.

Ren looked up to see Joe Lucchesi walking down the steps. She pushed open the driver’s door and started to get out of the Jeep. ‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hey,’ said Joe. ‘Stay where you are. Let me just throw this in the back seat.’

Where I looked back at your sleeping daughter not that long ago.

The drive to the airport was mostly in silence, two ghostly, grieving people with black memories, shared secrets, deep sufferings, uncertain paths, scars upon scars.

I don’t want any more war stories. I don’t want any more war.

She could see only Duke Rawlins, Robbie, Everett, Gary.

Where the fuck am I?

She was struck with an image of Dr. Gaston holding a putty knife, she heard his brutal words from an old crime scene: ‘dries like concrete’.