James Patterson - Beach Road

A happy woman is such a lovely sight, and Kate looks so content, even in her sleep. If she’s determined to start a family, why not do it? I’m not getting any younger. Maybe she can go to work, and I’ll be the stay-at-home dad, teach the little ginks the fundamentals before it’s too late, have them dribbling with both hands by the time they’re in preschool.

The alarm clock on the nightstand clicks, and the digital readout flips over to 6:03. I carefully slide out of bed, and with that old Joni Mitchell tune-“I was a free man in Paris ”-lodged in my head, and willing the ancient floorboards not to creak, I tiptoe to the bathroom.

I take a long, hot shower and shave. Slip on my new slacks and unwrap a shirt just back from the hotel laundry. Free and easy.

Of all the things I love about Paris, I love the mornings the most. I can’t wait to step onto the wet streets and buy my Tribune. I can already taste the flaky croissants and rich, muddy coffee.

At the door, I take one last look at Kate, lost in her unfathomable maternal dreams, and as I very gently close the door behind me, the cold steel barrel of a revolver presses into the back of my neck and the hammer is cocked back and catches in my ear.

Before I hear Raiborne’s voice say “Thanks for bringing me to Paris, Dunleavy,” I smell his cheap aftershave. Then he kicks my loafers out from under me and throws me facedown onto the floor, pulls my wrists behind my back, and cuffs me. You could be a tough guy too if you had six gendarmes with guns drawn behind you.

I still haven’t said a word because I don’t want to wake up Kate. I want her sweet dream to live a little longer. Fucked up as it may sound, I was starting to believe in it too, and if Raiborne or someone else hadn’t caught up with me, I might have gone through with it. It’s all just acting, right? If I could act like a good enough lawyer to save Dante’s ass, acting like a father and husband would have been a piece of cake.

But Raiborne doesn’t care about that.

“Your nephew knows you better than you think, tough guy.”

“He was wearing a vest, wasn’t he?” I whisper, still trying not to make any noise.

“How’d you know?”

“Because he’s a little bitch,” I say, but really I know the reason- because there was no blood. No blood!

“Three days after he crawls out of his grave, he turns himself in. Doesn’t even try to cop a plea. Just wants to share everything he knows about his uncle Tommy-which happens to be a whole lot.”

Why won’t he shut up? Doesn’t he know Kate’s sleeping? For all we know, she’s already sleeping for two. But it’s too late.

The door opens and Kate steps into the hallway in a T-shirt. Her bare feet are six inches from my face, but it might as well be six miles-because I know I’ll never touch her again.

THE HEAVY BOOTS of the day guard echo off the oppressive cinder-block walls that are all around me. A minute later there’s a rattle of keys and a clanging of bolts, and when the footsteps resume I hop off the twenty-four-inch-wide metal cot. When the guard turns the last corner to my cell, I’m already standing by the door.

In the seven months I’ve been locked up in Riverhead-I’m on the same floor where Dante did his time-I haven’t had a visitor, and the only letters I’ve received are from Detective Connie P. Raiborne, Brooklyn Homicide. If Connie wants to pick my criminal brain, I say, pick away.

Since his letters are all I get in the way of human interaction, I do my best to keep him interested, even if I have to make shit up, which, if you haven’t noticed, I’m very good at.

The guard leads me to a fenced-in courtyard for my federally mandated twenty minutes of outdoor exercise a week, unlocking my wrists through a slit in the barbed wire once I’m safely inside.

Across the way, the brothers run up and down the one court they got here, their black skin glistening with sweat even in the anemic December sun.

I still have more than enough game to school those fellas, but no one’s going to let me play hoops in this joint. All I’ve got of freedom is the pock of the bouncing ball and the sun on the back of my neck. As I do my best to enjoy those, there’s a commotion at the far end of the cage, and some inmates are shoved inside.

I’m in solitary, isolated from all the other inmates, since I fucked up that guy in the shower, messed him up so bad they’re still feeding him through a tube. So right away I know what’s happening and so does the whole courtyard, because the basketball stops bouncing and the place goes stone silent. For these sick bastards, this is better than HBO.

I almost feel the same way. I’m scared as hell, but excited-scared. No one ever learns the whole truth about himself, but in a place like this, you find out what you miss, and more than Kate’s skin or smile or the daydream she kept alive, I miss the action, the rush of shaking the dice and letting them roll, and right now they’re bouncing across the caged cement of this prison courtyard.

I stand up and, making a point of taking my time about it, move to the corner near the fence. That way no one can get behind me, and only one of them can get at me at a time.

They sent three people to do the job. There’s a pasty-looking white guy with a full sleeve of green tats on both arms, plus two thickly built black guys.

But I never take my eyes off the white guy, because I know the one in the middle is holding the blade.

They’re halfway across the lot now and closing fast, but I don’t move a muscle, not even in my face. I let them get close, and then everything changes in an instant. I bring my right foot up hard into the kneecap of the brother on the right. There’s a crunch and a scream of pain, and now, despite the four-leaf clover carved on his biceps, Irish boy is not feeling nearly as lucky, is he?

But he’s up next, and he’s got no choice. He pulls his right hand from behind his thigh and lunges at me with the knife.

Like a slow punch, I see it coming all the way. I’ve got all the time I need to turn and grab his wrist and throw him up against the second brother. Now I’m beating the shit out of Shamrock at the same time I’m using his body to shield me from the brother. When he goes limp, I snatch the homemade blade out of his hand, and with the courtyard mob stomping their feet like this is a prizefight, I turn it on the one guy left standing, who, big as he is, freezes, suddenly in no hurry to get closer.

They already got me for three homicides, one more isn’t going to make any difference, but something makes me hesitate-maybe the fact that there’s a little bit of Raiborne in his eyes-and that’s when a fourth guy, the one I never saw because he’s standing outside the cage, sticks his arms in through the mesh. He slices my throat from behind.

“That’s from Macklin,” says the voice behind me.

Once the hot wet comes flooding down my neck, I know it’s over.

I drop to my knees and then onto my back, wondering what’s the last thought I’ll have, the last thing I’ll see. I don’t need a priest or anybody else to hold my hand. I saw Kate stand naked on the beach in the moonlight. I played hoops in the NBA. I got to Paris.

The sun gets brighter and brighter and breaks into a thousand white dots before the dots dissolve and a huge black rectangle fills the sky. From behind it comes a horrifying clamor of metal rubbing against metal, and then the rectangle splits in half and becomes those two huge doors, The Gates of Hell. Then, as the last drops of blood drain out of me, the doors screech open and welcome me home.