Dennis Lehane - Prayers For Rain

The first drops of rain found my head as I crouched by the car door and looked in at Christopher Dawe. It wasn’t a refreshing rain, though. It was warm as sweat and oily with humidity. It felt dirty in my hair.

“Let me stop him,” I said. “Give me the bag in the trunk, and I’ll bring your son home alive.”

He leaned one arm over the driver’s wheel, turned his head to me. “Why should I trust you with five hundred thousand dollars?”

“Five hundred thousand?” I said. “That’s all he asked for?”

He nodded. “It’s all I could lay my hands on with such short notice.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something?” I asked. “The short notice, his willingness to settle for far less than he originally asked? He’s in a rush, Doctor. He’s burning his bridges and cutting his losses. You go to that rest stop, you’ll never see your house, your office, the inside of this car, again. And Wesley will die, too.”

He dropped his head back into the seat, stared up at the ceiling.

The rain fell harder, but not in drops so much as strips, sheer ropes of warm water that bled down the inside of my shirt.

“Trust me,” I said.

“Why?” His eyes remained on the ceiling.

“Because…” I wiped the rain from my eyes.

He turned his head. “Because why, Mr. Kenzie?”

“Because you’ve paid for your sins,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

I blinked at the rain and nodded. “You’ve paid, Doctor. You did a terrible thing, but then she fell through the ice, and first your son and now Pearse have tortured you for ten years. I don’t know if that’s enough justice for God, but it’s enough for me. You’ve done your time. You’ve had your hell.”

He groaned. He ground the back of his head into the seat rest. He watched the rain cascade down his windshield.

“It’s never enough. It’s never going to end. The pain.”

“No,” I said. “But he will. Pearse will.”

“What?”

“End, Doctor.”

He stared at me for a long time.

Then he nodded. He opened his glove box and pressed a button and the trunk popped open.

“Take the bag,” he said. “Pay the debt. Do whatever you have to do. But bring my son home, won’t you?”

“Sure.”

I started to rise and he put a hand on my arm.

I bent back into the window.

“I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“Karen,” he said.

“In what way?”

“She wasn’t weak. She was good.”

“Yeah, she was.”

“That might be why she died.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Maybe this is how God punishes the bad,” he said.

“How’s that, Doctor?”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “He lets us live.”

Christopher Dawe drove home to his wife with instructions to pack a bag and check into the Four Seasons, where I’d reach him when this was over.

“Whatever you do,” I said before he drove off, “don’t answer either your cell phone, your pager, or your home phone.”

“I don’t know if-”

I held out my hand. “Give me them.”

“What?”

“Your cell phone and your pager. Now.”

“I’m a surgeon. I-”

“I don’t care. This is your son’s life, not a stranger’s. Your phone and pager, Doctor.”

He didn’t like it, but he handed them over, and we watched him drive away.

“The rest stop’s bad,” Bubba said once I climbed in his van. “There’s no way to guess at his defenses. I like Plymouth.”

“But the place in Plymouth’s probably a lot more heavily fortified,” Angie said.

He nodded. “Predictably, though. I know where I’d put the trip wires if I was in for the long haul. The rest stop, though?” He shook his head. “I can’t deal with him if he’s improvising. It’s too risky.”

“So we go to Plymouth,” I said.

“Back to the bog,” Angie said.

“Back to the bog.”

Christopher Dawe’s cell phone rang just as we pulled off the expressway into Plymouth. I held it to my ear as Bubba’s taillights flashed red at the stop sign ahead, palmed the shift into neutral.

“You’re late, Doctor.”

“Scottie!” I said.

Silence.

I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear, shifted up to first, and turned right behind Bubba.

“Patrick,” Scott Pearse said eventually.

“I’m kind of like bronchitis, don’t you think, Scott? Every time you’re sure you’re through with me, I come back.”

“That’s a good one, Pat. Tell it to the doctor when his son’s aorta shows up in the mail. I’m sure he’ll have a good laugh.”

“I got your money, Scott. You want it?”

“You have my money.”

“Yup.”

Bubba turned off the main drag onto the access road that cut through the edge of the Myles Standish forest and would eventually lead us to the bog.

“What sort of hoops do I have to jump through for it, Pat?”

“Call me Pat one more time, Scottie, and I’ll fucking burn it.”

“Okay, Patrick. What do I need to do?”

“Give me your cell phone number.”

He gave it to me and I repeated it to Angie, who wrote it down on the pad held by a suction cup to my glove box.

“Nothing will happen tonight, Scott, so go home.”

“Wait.”

“And if you try to contact the Dawes, you’ll never see a dime of this money. We clear?”

“Yeah, but-”

I hung up.

Angie watched Bubba’s taillights turn off onto the smaller road.

“How do you know he won’t go back to Congress Street?”

“Because if Wesley’s stashed anywhere, he’s stashed here. Pearse is feeling his control slip. He’ll come back here to see his trump card, to feel that control again.”

“Wow,” she said. “You almost sound like you believe that.”

“Ain’t got much,” I said, “but I got hope.”

We drove past the clearing and down another four hundred yards, buried our cars in the trees, and walked back up the access road.

For the first time in at least ten years, Bubba wasn’t wearing his trench coat. He wore all black. Black jeans, black combat boots, a black long-sleeved T-shirt, black gloves, and a black knit hat over his head. We had, per his command, stopped at my apartment on the way out to intercept Christopher Dawe and grabbed black clothes as well, and we donned them before we left the cars behind in the trees.

As we walked back up the road, Bubba said, “Once we locate the house, I walk point. Point is very simple. You stay ten paces behind me.” He looked back at us and held up a finger. “Exactly behind me. Where I step, you step. If I blow up or trip a wire, you run back the same way you came in. You don’t fucking think about carrying me out. Clear?”

This was not a Bubba I’d ever seen before. All traces of psychosis seemed to have vanished. Along with the disappearance of the loose-cannon aspect, his voice had changed, deepened slightly, and the aura of otherness and loneliness that usually hovered around him had disappeared, given way to a total confidence and ease with his surroundings.

He was, I realized, home. He was as in his element as he ever could be. He was a warrior, and he’d been called to battle, and he knew he was born to it.

As we followed him up the road, I saw what men in Beirut must have seen-that if it came to battle, no matter who your commanding officer was, it was Bubba you’d follow, Bubba you’d listen to, Bubba you’d depend on to lead you through the fire and back to safety.

He was a born sergeant; next to him, John Wayne was a pussy.

He unslung the duffel bag from his back and brought it around under his arm. He unzipped it as he walked, pulled an M-16 out, and looked back at us.