John Katzenbach - The Wrong Man

O’Connell sneered, and Murphy slapped him hard across the face. The sound of his palm striking O’Connell’s cheek resounded through the small apartment.

Murphy smiled. “I shouldn’t have to explain these things to you, not someone who thinks he knows his way around like you do, Mike-y boy. But, just for the sakes of our little discussion this evening, let me explain a few items. One, I was a cop. Put in more than twenty years fucking with folks a whole lot tougher than you. Most of those tough guys are sitting in stir, cursing my name. Or else they’re real dead, and not thinking too much about yours truly because they probably have much more significant problems in the hereafter. Two, I am duly licensed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States federal government and fully authorized to carry this weapon. Now, you know what those two little things add up to?”

O’Connell didn’t reply, and Murphy slapped him again.

“Shit!” The word burst out of O’Connell’s lips.

“When I ask you a question, Mike-y boy, please respond.”

Murphy pulled back his hand again, and O’Connell said, “I don’t know. What do they add up to?”

Murphy grinned. “What it means is that I’ve got friends-real friends, not like our little play friendship here tonight, Mike-y boy, but real friends who owe me all sorts of real favors, whose butts I might just have pulled out of one fire or another over all those years and would be more than willing to do absolutely fucking anything for me, and who are gonna believe everything I say about our little get-together here tonight if it comes to that. They aren’t going to give a damn about a punk like you, no matter what happens. And when I tell them that you came at me with a knife or just about any sort of weapon that I can plant in your dead and lifeless hand, and I tell ’em it was just some damn tough luck, but I just had to blow your sorry little ass away, they’re going to believe me. In fact, Mike-y boy, they’re gonna congratulate me for cleaning up this world a little bit, before you had a chance to make any really big trouble. They’ll file it away under preventative maintenance. So, that’s the situation you’re currently in, Mike-y boy. In other words, I can do just about anything I fucking well want to, and you can’t do a thing. Is that clear?”

O’Connell hesitated, then nodded when he caught sight of Murphy pulling back his hand for another slap.

“Good. Understanding, they say, is the path to enlightenment.”

O’Connell could taste a little blood on his lips.

“Let me just repeat this so that we are completely clear: I am free to do anything I might think right, including send your sorry little life straight to kingdom come or more likely hell. You get this, Mike-y boy?”

“I get the picture.”

Murphy started to walk around the chair. He kept the barrel of the automatic in contact with O’Connell’s skin, occasionally tapping it painfully against his head, or digging it into the soft space between O’Connell’s neck and his shoulders.

“This is a really crummy place you’ve got here, Mike-y boy. Pretty rundown. Dirty.” Murphy stared across the room and saw a laptop computer on a table, making a mental note to take a handful of O’Connell’s backup discs with him.

So far, things were going more or less as Murphy had anticipated. O’Connell was as predicted. He could sense the younger man’s discomfort, knew that the insistent rapping of the weapon against his head was creating indecision and doubt. In all moments of confrontation, Murphy thought, at some point the skilled interrogator simply takes over the subject’s identity, controlling, steering him to compliance. We’re on track, Murphy thought to himself. We’re definitely making progress.

“Not much of a life, is it, Mike-y boy? I mean, I’m not seeing much of a future here.”

“It suits me.”

“Yes. But what is it about this that makes you think for a single second that Ashley Freeman would want to be a part of it?”

O’Connell remained quiet, and Murphy whacked him from behind with his free hand. “Answer the question, asshole.”

“I love her. She loves me.”

Murphy slapped him again. “I don’t think so, you low-life, bottom-dwelling slug.”

A thin line of blood came from O’Connell’s ear.

“She’s a class act, Mike-y boy. Unlike you, she’s got possibilities. She comes from fine folks, and she’s well educated and filled with all sorts of big-time potential. You, on the other hand, come from shit.” Murphy accentuated the last few words by smacking the younger man hard. “And you’re going to end up in shit. What? Prison? Or do you think you can manage to stay out?”

“I’m okay. I haven’t broken any laws.”

The repeated blows were taking effect. O’Connell’s voice cracked slightly, and Murphy thought he could hear a little quaver behind the words.

“Really? You want me looking at you any closer?”

Murphy had come full circle, and once again he tapped the gun barrel against the bridge of O’Connell’s nose, demanding a response.

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

He grabbed O’Connell’s chin and twisted it painfully. He could see some tears in the corners of the younger man’s eyes. “But, Mike-y, don’t you think you ought to be asking me a little more politely to stay out of your life?”

“Please stay out of my life,” O’Connell said slowly and quietly.

“Well, I’d like to. I’d genuinely like to. So, Mike-y boy, just looking at it all, objective-like, don’t you think it would be a really, really good thing for you to absolutely make sure that I’m not in your life anymore? That this little get-together, friendly as it might be, is the absolute last time you and I ever see each other? Right?”

“Right.” O’Connell wasn’t sure which question to answer, but he was sure that he didn’t want to be hit again. And while he didn’t think that the man in front of him would shoot him, he wasn’t totally sure.

“I need to be persuaded, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

Murphy smiled. Then he patted O’Connell on the head. “Just so we truly understand each other, what we’re doing here is negotiating our own private, special, one-on-one temporary restraining order. Just as if we’d gone to court. Except ours is fucking permanent, got it? I know you know what one of them means: stay away. No contact. But ours, because it is a special one, just between you and me, Mike-y boy, well, because ours isn’t any wimpy old sort of eminently forgettable piece of paper issued by some old-fart judge that you’re not gonna pay any attention to, ours comes with a real guarantee.”

With the final word, Murphy slammed his fist into O’Connell’s cheek, sending him sprawling on the floor. Murphy was over him, automatic in hand, before the younger man had a chance even to collect his thoughts.

“Maybe I should just stop fucking around and end this right now.” With an audible click, Murphy released the safety catch on the pistol with his thumb. He held up his left hand as if to shield himself from the blowback of brains and blood.

“Give me a reason. One way or the other, Mike-y boy. But give me a reason to make a decision.”

O’Connell tried to twist away from the gun barrel, but the ex-detective’s weight pinned him to the floor. “Please,” he suddenly pleaded, “please, I’ll stay away, I promise. I’ll leave her alone.”

“Good start, asshole. Keep going.”

“I’ll never have any contact whatsoever. She’s out of my life. I’ll stay away. What do you want me to say?”

O’Connell was nearly sobbing. Each phrase seemed more pitiful than the last.

“Let me think about it, Mike-y boy.”