Jonathon King - A Visible Darkness

"We need to go, Max. If they corner Baines we need to be there."

"Yeah, I know, just give me a minute."

She didn't sigh in resignation, or huff in exasperation. There was an element of trust going on.

We were standing in the swale, just behind my truck. I crouched down and sat on my heels and Richards followed. In less than a minute there was movement at the fence. I could pick up the light- colored material of clothing, then watched someone moving our way. There was a stumble, and a girl's quiet curse.

When we stood up she yipped in surprise, her hand to her mouth, and then started to spin away on her blocky shoes. Richards snapped, "Hold it." The girl was experienced enough to freeze.

We flanked her and she was looking defiantly at me when Richards flashed her badge.

"We're police officers," she said. "Where not going to hurt you."

"No shit," the girl said.

She was the young woman I had seen before, the one who the Brown Man had slapped across the face, the one who had spat at the feet of the junk man. She was wearing the same summer skirt but had changed her shirt.

"Have you been around all night?" I asked.

"No, I been at church all night with my girlfriends workin' the brownie sale," she said, folding her arms over her skinny chest, challenging me with her eyes.

"You didn't see your friend the Brown Man tonight?" I tried again.

"Carlyle? That fool ain't no friend of mine," she spat. "Juss a punk think he all high and mighty cause he got the franchise on the block."

She had raised her voice but then looked past us both, nervous at her own words thrown out in the dark. I reached out and grabbed her upper arm and spun her around to face me and her eyes went big.

"Ditch the attitude," I said. "You were here when Carlyle shot the junk man. What happened?"

She looked down at my hand and winced and I tightened the grip.

"She's the cop, I'm not," I said. "I don't need to worry about how I get my answers. What the fuck happened?"

The girl tried to catch Richards's eyes for some kind of protection, but she had turned away.

"Wasn't no shootin'. Not like a real one anyways," she finally said. "The junk man got in Carlyle's face an' when Carlyle got his gun out to scare him this nigger goes an' grabs it and they was both standin' there when it goes off. Then Carlyle goes down on the ground whinin' and cryin' 'bout how his damn hand was busted."

"And the junk man has the gun?" Richards said, now moving in to team up on the girl.

"No," the girl said. "He throwed it in the street an' one of Carlyle's boys went an' snatched it up."

"Where did the junk man go?"

She hesitated, looking down the street.

"He was draggin' hisself that way," she said, nodding south.

"He was wounded?" Richards asked.

"Mighta been," she said, gaining back some bravado in her voice. I squeezed the arm tighter.

"Where did he go?" I shouted.

"I didn't follow him," she said defensively. "He probably go where he always go." Tears were now coming to her eyes. "He probably go down the blockhouse where he always go."

Richards looked up at me and I eased off my grip on the girl's arm.

"Are you sure?" Richards asked the girl quietly. "Are you positive? Did he push his cart down there?"

"He didn't have no cart with him this time. He was draggin' his leg an' he saw me lookin' and axed me would I help him and he had a hundred-dollar bill so I helped him down at the blockhouse an' ran out of that place," she said, unable to remember her own lies.

"This is the old concrete utility room down off Thirteenth?" Richards asked.

"Yeah, where all them girls always be gettin' hurt," she said, her voice now quiet and young and sorry.

I opened the tailgate of my truck and guided her to sit. Richards was trying to raise someone on her radio.

"I already tol' that other cop where he gone," the girl said.

"What other cop?" I said. "The sergeant?"

"No, not the one with the uniform," she said. "The big ol' cracker cop been sneakin' around watchin' everybody."

Richards and I looked at each other.

"When?" Richards said. This time she grabbed the girl by the arm. "When did you tell this cop?"

"Just before you all jumped out and scared me. He come up after all the police cars got here," the girl said, turning her head to look back toward the corner where she'd been hiding.

I handed Richards my truck keys.

"You've got to hold on to her. She's a witness," I said and started walking south.

"Max, goddammit, wait for backup, Max," Richards yelled.

"And make sure you get that hundred-dollar bill for evidence, too," I said before jogging into the darkness.

Eddie was on the blockhouse mattress, bleeding and mumbling. The gunshot wound in his side was bearable. Eddie had a way with pain, to deal with it by keeping it out of his head. The blood had soaked through the bottom part of his T-shirt and had turned the material of his dungarees wet and dark down to the hip. But he found a ragged piece of clothing some junkie had left behind and pressed it into the spot and then leaned against the wall. He could ignore it by thinking about the girl.

After the Brown Man had shown him the gun, after he'd crushed the dealer's hand, squeezing the bones around the metal of the gun until they crinkled and snapped under his own palm, after the explosion and quick pain in his side, Eddie had walked away. He wasn't sure where he was going, just into the dark of the street where no one could see him.

But he saw the girl around the corner, the one with the sharp mouth who always turned away from his offers, and this time she listened. He asked her to help him, told her he would give her half of his heroin if she would get him to the blockhouse. She'd hesitated at first and then nodded her head. She stayed at his other side, steadied him when he'd started to fall until they'd gotten through the field to the blockhouse where Eddie laid down. Then he'd reached deep into his pocket and came out with the hundred- dollar bill and made her promise to go buy a bundle and bring it back. She took the money and left. He would give her half, he thought, and then he could get himself high and think of what to do.

Now he was thinking about her. Would she come back? Would she just use him like the others? His blood was seeping into the mattress, the stain spreading around him. No, she would come back, he thought. He could hear her outside, stepping through the grass. Eddie would get what he needed. Eddie always got what he needed.

I stayed on the streets, jogging at an even pace down the center, reading the signs at each intersection and recalling the way Richards and I had come the night of our zone tour. I could find the blockhouse again and that gave me an advantage over McCane. I had to figure Eddie Baines would not be armed. If the girl had told the truth he'd tossed the Brown Man's gun. And in not one of the rapes or killings had a gun been used.

I hoped he was injured, but not dead. We needed him to talk, not to die. If he had killed Billy's women, he could make the case against Marshack. With that we could string the payoff evidence to McCane. With that they could go after the insurance investors. "Not dead," I said out loud.

When I got to Thirteenth Street I saw the open stretch of darkness and recognized the field. There was no spotlight this time, but the night eyes I'd developed on my river would help me find the dull glow of concrete far in the back of the lot.

I tried to move quietly through the high grass but each step was like shaking a half-filled paper bag.

Ten feet away I could hear him breathing, the inhalations like a big, laboring beast but with a low gurgling sound at the end. He was mumbling with each exhalation but I couldn't make out the words.