Paul Cleave - Blood Men

Schroder convulses under me and a low roaring comes from his lungs. He begins coughing, his body almost doubling up. I roll him onto his side and he coughs out mouthful after mouthful of bathwater. Then he collapses onto his front, his forehead on his arm, breathing heavily into the floor, his body rising and falling seemingly more than need be as though he’s putting on a show. Other than the show, he doesn’t do anything else. Doesn’t jump up to see if he’s still in danger. Nothing. I’ve removed the handcuffs from one wrist, but they’re still dangling from the other.

“Hessus,” he mutters, but can’t add anything else.

“I’m-”

“Hessus woo. .,” he says, and raises a hand up to his face and cups his eyes. He coughs again, then tries to sit himself up and lean against the bath but can’t make it.

“Come on,” I say, and help him. He pulls his knees up against his chest and rests his head on them. The bandage on my hand is loose. I pull it off and dump it on the floor.

“Wash,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate for a few seconds, until “Wash hash,” and then he begins coughing again.

“Wait here,” I say, and I leave him.

I check the bedrooms. It’s a three-bedroom house, built in the peak of the townhouse era and painted in showroom colors that are as boring as hell but managed to stay in style longer because of it. The first bedroom, the smallest of the three, has been set up for Sam. There’s a single bed and kit-set furniture and toys and posters and nobody fought for their life in there. The next bedroom has been turned into an office, with a desk and computer against one wall and a treadmill adjacent to the other.

It leaves one room unchecked, and I walk into it praying that it’ll be empty. I open the door. The air is warm and stale and feels like the room has been unearthed from the back of a very deep cave. Nat and Diana are both lying on the floor, their eyes wide open, staring right at me. I move over to them and crouch down and Nat lifts his head but can’t do much more because he’s been hog-tied, and so has Diana. I rush back down to the kitchen and grab a knife and a moment later they’re free and rubbing their wrists.

“Jesus, Eddie, what’s going on?” Nat asks. “Where’s Sam?”

“I don’t know. I think they have her.”

“They have her? Who? Who has her?”

“I don’t know. The men from the bank, I think.”

“The ones who killed Jodie? Why the hell would they take Sam?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he repeats, getting louder now. “You don’t know? What the hell does that mean? You must know! You have to know!”

“I’m going to get her back.”

“Oh, I know you will. For your sake. I’m pretty convinced you brought these men into our house. What have you done, Eddie?”

“I haven’t done a goddamn thing,” I say.

“They think you did,” Diana is sobbing now. “And now they’ve taken our little Sam.”

“If you’ve caused this, Eddie, if something happens to her,” Nat says, “I swear I’ll kill you. I will goddamn kill you.”

I go back into the bathroom. Schroder doesn’t have the strength to be angry or thankful. “You drowned me,” he says.

“I saved you.”

“You drowned me.”

“I had no choice. If I hadn’t, he’d have shot you. We’d both be dead. Now, listen, you-”

“You drowned me,” he repeats.

With Nat’s help, we get him to his feet, lead him into the dining room, and sit him down. My leg is bleeding and I try taking the weight off it as we walk. “You need to focus here,” I say on the way. “This isn’t about you. It’s about my daughter.”

“What?”

“You owe me, okay? You owe me your goddamn life. Tell me you understand that. Don’t make me throw you back in the water. You owe me because if you’d done your job and caught the people responsible none of this would have happened. If you’d put more than one goddamn man on duty my daughter would still be here.”

“Where is he? The man with the gun?”

“I took care of him.”

“Same way you’ve been taking care of everybody else?”

“Not quite,” I say. “The guy I ran over, that was an accident.”

“Jesus, Eddie, what’s going on?” Nat asks. “Do you know where Sam is?”

“And Kingsly?” Schroder asks. “Was he an accident too?”

“I was never there.”

“He said you had Kingsly’s cell phone. Plus you knew his name.”

“There was a cell phone in the stolen car,” I say, feeling nothing at how seamless the lies are coming now. “One of the paramedics must have thought it was mine and put it with my stuff. I didn’t even know it was there.”

He nods. “Okay, Edward, fine, we’ll go with that for now.”

“Maybe the man who tried killing us is the one who killed Kingsly.”

“I’m not following any of this,” Nat says. “Where’s Sam?”

“Yeah, maybe. But he’d have taken the money with him, right?” Schroder answers.

“I don’t have any money. If I did I’d have given it to him to get my daughter back.”

“Now that I really do believe.”

Nat helps me check through the rest of the house in case Sam’s hidden here somewhere, in a cupboard or under a bed. He takes one look at the dead guy on the floor and doesn’t say a word. I check the playhouse outside-it’s empty. It’s what the men have been telling me-they have her, and I have to pay to get her back.

In the living room Diana is taking care of Schroder. She’s brought him some dry clothes and probably offered to make him coffee in the way that anybody over sixty always has to offer something, no matter what the situation. Schroder’s taken the other cuff off his wrist.

“We have to go,” I say.

“We need to call for backup.”

“We have to get the hell out of here first.” I grab him by the collar and help him to his feet. “They have Sam. We have to do what it takes to get her back. Come on, you’ve got to help me.”

“You all need to get out of here,” Schroder says to my in-laws.

“To hell with what you want,” Nat says, “we’re helping you find Sam.”

“No, no you’re not,” I say. “You’ll only get in the way.”

“Settle down,” Schroder says. “Nobody is doing anything here except me. I’m calling for backup, and you’re going to let the police take care of it.”

“The same way you’ve taken care of finding the men who killed my daughter?” Diana asks.

“Look, we’re doing-”

“What you can,” Nat finishes. “To hell with that.”

“So what, you and your wife are going to come along, is that what you think?”

“I’d like to,” Nat says, “but I know my limitations. That’s important in a man; and one thing we’ve learned since Jodie got shot is your limitations, Detective. This is why you’re taking Eddie. He got us into this mess, and he knows what it takes to get us out of it. Like it or not, Detective, he’s certainly done more to find these men than you ever have, and if he’s responsible for what happened here, then I’ll deal with him when this is over. But right now I have more faith in him finding my granddaughter than you. Call for backup. We’ll deal with whoever you send here and help in any way we can, but right now you and Eddie need to get your asses out there and find Sam.”

“You know he’s right,” I say, looking away from Nat to Schroder.

“Okay, okay, fine. Where’s the man who did this?”

I lead him into the living room. A pool of blood has formed around the guy’s head. He’s ended up lying on top of the bag of pencils and crayons.

Nat and Diana stand in the doorway. “That’s one of them,” Nat says.