David Jackson - Pariah

‘Beaten?’

‘Yes. We received an anonymous phone call. Your wife was assaulted and left in a parking lot. An ambulance picked her up and brought her straight to the ER. We’re doing all we can for her.’

‘All you can? How bad is she? She’ll live, won’t she?’

Another pause. ‘Mr Doyle, your wife is in a critical condition. Her injuries are extensive. The doctors are doing everything they can. . Mr Doyle, are you able to come over to the hospital?’

Doyle is almost shaking now. He hears how carefully the nurse is choosing her words. Worse, he knows what she’s leaving unsaid. What it amounts to is that Rachel is clinging to her life by a thread.

‘Yes,’ he answers. ‘I’ll come now. You’re. . you’re sure it’s my wife?’

‘She had this cellphone on her when she was brought in. Also, her driver’s license.’

‘I’ll be right over,’ he says, and then, ‘Wait. My daughter. A little girl. She should have been with my wife. Is she there too?’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Doyle, but nobody else was found with your wife.’

He ends the call, turns toward Nadine. She has a hand to her mouth, and her eyes are wide. It’s clear that she has caught the gist of the telephone conversation.

‘What’s happened?’ she says. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

But Doyle cannot speak. He thunders toward the door. He needs to help his wife, make sure she recovers fully from this vicious attack. He needs to find his beautiful innocent daughter.

And then he needs to track down and kill the son of a bitch who has so savagely ripped into his family.

He takes the stairs two at a time. He hears Nadine’s clatter from above as she struggles to rush down the steps in her heels. She calls for him to wait, but he’s like a train with no brakes. He keeps going until he’s out on the street, seconds away from leaping into his car and launching it like a rocket.

‘Cal! Wait. Please. She’s my friend. She’s the only real friend I’ve got in this damned city.’

That stops him. He is surprised by her words. Although she is fairly new to the city, he has always thought of her as Miss Popular.

And so he pauses for a while, waiting for Nadine to catch up.

‘You should go home, Nadine,’ he says when she is at his shoulder.

‘Open the car. I’ll drive. You’re liable to take out half the traffic in New York.’

He is reluctant, but when she shows him the whiteness of her open palm he finds her difficult to resist. He hands her the key.

‘It’s the ER at Bellevue. You know how to get there?’

‘Head east, turn before we hit the river, right? Get in,’ she says.

She starts the car up and pulls it out into the traffic, then signals at the next turn to take her back toward Central Park West.

‘Why is she in the hospital, Cal? What did they say on the phone?’

‘Somebody beat her up. I think it’s bad. They beat her up and dumped her in a parking lot.’

‘Oh, Jesus. Is she going to be okay?’

‘I. . I don’t know. They wouldn’t say.’

‘She’ll be okay,’ Nadine says. ‘Rachel’s a fighter. All cops’ wives are fighters.’

‘That include you?’

‘I forced you into taking me along now, didn’t I?’

Doyle looks out of the passenger window at the buildings going by. He wishes he hadn’t let Nadine drive at this snail’s pace. He also wishes that he was in a squad car, so that he could put on the lights and sirens, then floor the gas pedal.

Nadine says, ‘You knew, didn’t you? That something might have happened. Even before you went into the apartment you suspected something was up.’

‘I had an inkling. I hoped I was wrong.’

‘Why? The inkling, I mean. What’s going on, Cal?’

Cal opens his mouth to speak, and then something occurs to him. Does this count? Talking to Nadine at the apartment. Getting in a car with her. In the killer’s estimation, does this cross the line regarding close contact?

‘Nadine, pull over.’

‘What? What are you talking about? We’re nowhere near the hospital.’

‘I know. Just pull over and get out of the car. You need to go home. Now!’

She glances across at him. ‘No, Cal. Not until you explain all this to me.’

Doyle thinks, She’s a fighter, all right.

‘I’m in danger. Everyone who gets close to me is in danger too. That means you, Nadine.’

‘Why? What kind of danger?’

‘Mo hasn’t told you about any of this?’

‘No. He hardly ever talks about his work.’

There is a bitter edge to her voice. A suggestion of discord between her and Franklin. It comes as no revelation to Doyle. His view has always been that this marriage contract was a trade of Nadine’s dizzying curves for the lieutenant’s new-found wealth. Body for bucks — an age-old barter. But right now he has too many worries of his own to go diving into that murky pool.

‘You heard about Tony Alvarez though, right?’

She nods. ‘It was on the news. An explosion of some kind. They’re saying it may not have been an accident. That it may have been deliberate, and that there might even be a cop killer on the loose. Are they right, Cal? Is that why you’re in danger?’

‘Yeah, but not in the way you’re thinking. After Joe was killed, Tony took over as my partner. They both died because of me. Somebody’s trying to hurt me through the people I’m close to.’

‘How do you know that?’

He tells her about the two notes he received, and he can see the shock, the disbelief on her face. Which is fair enough, since he’s finding it difficult to accept this himself.

‘So that’s why I think you should go home, Nadine. If this guy’s willing to kill my partners and knock my wife about, then harming you is something he probably won’t think twice about. I don’t want the responsibility of that.’

He watches her as she mulls over his words. When she nods her head he thinks at first that she’s conceding, but her expression tells him she’s merely signaling the end of an internal argument.

‘I have to see that Rachel’s okay. She’d do the same for me.’ If he were not so strung out, Doyle would smile. The belle has balls.

After Nadine has taken a right onto the service road that runs alongside the FDR Drive, she voices another of Doyle’s fears. ‘Cal, did the hospital say anything about Amy?’ Doyle shakes his head. ‘No. They don’t know where she is.’ He stares at the tall gray-brown building looming up ahead of them and wonders what he will find there. He wants to walk in and see Rachel sitting up in bed. A few cuts and bruises, but nothing a little extra make-up won’t mask. She’ll be sipping the insipid brown stuff that hospitals dare to call tea, and telling him how she left Amy playing at a friend’s apartment. She will tell him that she’ll be able to go home soon, and that she needs to be a bit more aware of her surroundings in future, so as not to get caught like that again. She will tell him that she was furious at him for not calling, but only because she loves him so intensely. She will tell him how much Amy loves him too, and that his little girl can’t wait to show him the picture of a dragon she drew today. And everything will be okay again.

On the way to the emergency room, Doyle steps around a man on crutches, dodges a drunk with blood streaming down his face, and keeps on marching until he reaches the reception counter. Behind the counter two nurses are laughing and joking. One of them manages to slot the words ‘donut’ and ‘anus’ into the same sentence, and the other — a redhead — laughs even harder. The redhead’s hair is an alluring auburn rather than shocking ginger, and is formed into soft curls. She has pale skin and a laugh that hints of mischief and adventure in the bedroom. She reminds Doyle of a girl he once knew in Ireland — an older girl who gave the impression of knowing all the secrets of post-pubescence — and so it is her name badge he examines first. Her name is Nurse Lynley.