A Dark and Broken Heart (46 page)

“Sure I remember him.”

“I know him as a gambler who owes me a great deal of money, but how do you know him?”

“Same as you. He’s just a smalltime crook, a thief, a scam artist. He’s little fish.”

“Is he also a CI, Vincent?”

Madigan shrugged. “Maybe.”

“For Bryant? He’s a CI for Bryant?”

“He could be, yes. That’s the thing about CIs. Often you don’t even know who other officers keep as CIs.”

“So Bernie Tomczak could be Bryant’s CI, and you might not know about it?”

“Sure.”

“So Bryant says he is in possession of two hundred grand of my money because he is paying a debt for Bernie Tomczak.”

“And why the hell would he be doing that?”

“The details are unimportant, Vincent. I need to know if there is any truth in this. I need to know if you are aware of this arrangement.”

“How the fuck would I know anything about a deal Bryant had made with his CI?”

Sandià just looked at Madigan. Madigan held his gaze.

“I want to know if you know where Bryant got this money from.”

“He got it from your nephew, Dario. Bryant is your fourth man. He was the one at the house. He was the one who whacked those three guys in the storage unit. How the hell else would he have your money?”

“And how did you find out he was the fourth man, Vincent?”

“From a guy called Richard Moran, a good friend of Larry Fulton’s, and Fulton was one of the guys who did the job with Bryant. Fulton was also one of the three people that Bryant killed in the storage unit.”

“Well, Bryant says he had nothing to do with the robbery, and that he didn’t kill those three men. He says that you can help him explain everything.”

“Me?”

“Sure, you.”

“Well, I think maybe he’s spinning you a serious line of bullshit, Dario. Seems to me he’s saying whatever he can think of to get out of the hole he’s dug for himself.” Madigan hesitated, and then he
smiled. “Hey, hold up a moment here. You’re not considering the possibility that I am actually involved in some sort of deal with Al Bryant, are you?”

“I don’t know, Vincent . . . Am I?”

“So you’re gonna listen to him over me? You’re gonna take his word over mine?”

Sandià sighed. “There are too many things that don’t make sense, Vincent, and too many questions that don’t have answers.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t have any more answers for you.” Madigan didn’t know whether he was as convincing as Bernie had been with Bryant back at the motel, but he was trying. Oh Lord, he was trying.

“Like I said, Bryant is telling me that he is not the fourth man, Vincent.”

“Well, of course he’s gonna say that. Jesus, what else is he going to say? Where the hell is he? Bring him out here. Bring him out and let’s find out what the hell is going on.”

“He’s in the bathroom.”

Madigan got up from his chair. “Well, I’ll go get him out of the fucking bathroom.”

“I don’t think he’s coming out,” Sandià said. “I think we have to go visit him.”

Sandià got up, started toward the bathroom door.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s go find out what is really going on here . . .”

Sandià allowed Madigan to go first.

Madigan prepared himself to be shocked by Bryant’s presence, just the mere fact that he was there in Sandià’s bathroom. But he need not have worried too much about the credibility of his performance.

Bryant—the way he looked, what had already been done to him—was shock enough.

Bryant was taped to a chair. The chair sat in the bathtub. His wrists were behind him, his ankles bound to the legs. His mouth was also taped, the heavy-duty silver duct tape covering much of the lower half of his face. A thick line of blood had traveled from his left nostril and down the tape to his chin. His right eye was closed. The swelling was almost black, the size of a ping-pong ball, and through his left he squinted at both Madigan and Sandià.

Recognition was immediate and desperate. Bryant was terrified. His hands wrestled against the tape. His left eye darted back and
forth—Madigan, Sandià, back to Madigan—and in that desperate and petrified agitation Madigan saw everything that must have been going through Bryant’s mind.

Bryant knew that if Madigan didn’t step up, then he was dead.

But Madigan had known Bryant was dead in the moment he’d seen that nondescript sedan pull up to the curb the day before. He’d known it when he saw Bryant exit that very same sedan and walk toward Sandià’s building. He’d known it as he’d taken pictures of Bryant with his cellphone, as he’d tried to come to terms with the fact that his own squad sergeant—a man he had known and trusted for many years—was the second man in Sandià’s employ.

“Bryant is telling me something I find hard to believe,” Sandià said.

Madigan noticed that the top of Bryant’s left ear was torn, almost separated from his scalp. On the edge of the tub lay a pair of pliers. Sandià had tried to rip the guy’s ear off.

Patches of the man’s hair was missing, and blood had seeped through the skin beneath.

His right shoe and sock had been removed. His toes were stubs of flesh. The bottom of the tub was smeared with a great deal of blood.

This had been personal for Sandià, just like Valderas.

“I found it so hard to believe that I had to insist he tell me the truth. I applied a little persuasion . . .”

Sandià took a step closer to Bryant and leaned toward him.

“Didn’t I, Sergeant Bryant?”

Bryant’s left eye closed, opened, widened—that desperate, hunted look.

“So we talked. Didn’t we, Mr. Bryant?” Sandià went on. “And you told me that Vincent here would be able to help you explain where this money came from?”

Bryant nodded furiously. He looked unerringly at Madigan with his one good eye, and he tried to speak from behind the thick band of tape that covered his mouth.

“What?” Madigan said. “What is this? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Bryant stopped nodding. His left eye widened. Madigan could sense his terror increase a hundredfold.

Madigan was denying knowledge of the money.

Madigan was signing Bryant’s death warrant, and Bryant knew it.

“And so it seems that Vincent here thinks you are full of shit, Al . . . And so, as it happens, do I.”

Sandià picked up the pliers from the edge of the tub. He held them tight, and then jabbed at Bryant’s temple repeatedly.

Madigan felt sick. He looked at the eye, the blood from the scalp, the smashed toes, the way Bryant just wrestled relentlessly yet hopelessly against the tape that bound him to the chair.

The smell of ammonia grew even stronger as Bryant pissed himself once again.

Sandià stopped jabbing Bryant in the head.

Using the pliers, he gripped the edge of the tape across Bryant’s mouth. He tried to tear the tape free in one swift motion, but he lost his grip halfway over.

Bryant screamed from one side of his mouth.

Sandià backhanded him.

“Shut the fuck up!” he said. “Enough of this bullshit!”

He tugged the remaining tape away, and Bryant gasped for air. He coughed, spluttered, started pleading with Sandià.

“Enough!” Bryant screamed. “Enough . . . Vincent, tell him . . . Jesus fucking Christ, tell him where the money came from . . .”

Sandià turned and looked at Madigan.

Madigan shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what the hell you think is going on here—”

“Jesus Christ, Vincent, noooo . . .”

Sandià backhanded Bryant once again.

Bryant was silenced. His head dropped suddenly, his chin to his chest, and when he raised it there was blood flowing freely from both nostrils.

“Vincent . . .” he gasped. “Vincent, for Christ’s s-sake . . .”

Madigan took a step forward. His face demonstrated nothing but anger and dismay. “What the living fuck are you talking about, Bryant? What are you saying here? You’re using me to get out of some deep hole of shit you’ve dug for yourself? I cannot believe you are trying to implicate me in whatever the hell is going on here . . .”

Bryant’s left eye widened once more. “Vincent . . . Jesus fucking Christ . . .”

“Enough,” Sandià said. “I believe Vincent, of course. Vincent and I have been working together a lot longer than you and I. This
ends here. You tell me where this money came from, or it is finished.”

Al Bryant knew it was finished. He’d known it was finished the moment Madigan denied any knowledge of the money.

Bryant opened his mouth to speak.

“You were the fourth man, right?” Madigan interjected before Bryant had a chance to speak.

“You were the fourth man. You took this money from that house last week, and you killed his nephew, and then you killed those three guys in that storage unit . . .”

Bryant shook his head furiously. “I didn’t . . . didn’t ha-have any-anything . . .”

“You were the fourth fucking man,” Madigan repeated. “Jesus Christ, I don’t fucking believe it . . .”

Bryant tried to speak again. He coughed, spat up blood, and was breathing too heavily to make himself understood.

“And where is the rest of the fucking money?” Madigan asked.

“I have people searching the rest of his house now,” Sandià said. “But I imagine it has gone. Who the hell knows what he owed, and who he’s had to pay off.”

Bryant’s left eye was centered on Madigan. He knew there was no purpose in saying anything. Perhaps he was reconciled to his fate. The end was coming. Maybe all he could now hope for was that it would be swift and final. He could stand no more pain.

Sandià left the bathroom.

Madigan could not look at Bryant. He turned away.

“Vincent . . .” Bryant gasped.

Madigan turned back. “You brought this on yourself, my friend. We make our own justice, right? That’s the truth. We all pay for our sins . . . eventually . . .”

“But . . . but, Vin—”

“But nothing, Sarge. It’s over. We’re done. You were in this as deep as me. We’re both going to hell . . . You’re just gonna wind up there first . . .”

Sandià came back into the bathroom. He held a .38 in his hand.

“Wh-what the fuck . . .” Bryant started.

Sandià raised the gun and pressed it to Bryant’s forehead. “Enough,” he said.

Bryant’s face creased. He started to heave and sob. He couldn’t breathe. He was trying desperately to speak. There was nothing but blood and spittle coming from his lips.

Sandià cocked the hammer, and then he turned and looked at Madigan.

“He has to die,” Sandià said. “An eye for an eye, right? He killed my nephew. He took my money, and then he tries to tell me that you were involved . . .”

Madigan said nothing.

“Vincent . . . you see he has to die?”

Madigan looked at Sandià. “No question.”

Madigan didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. His heart had slowed down. His stomach was in his chest. His hands were running with sweat.

Sandià lowered the gun, and then turned toward Madigan. “You do it,” he said.

“What?”

“You do it,” Sandià repeated. “You shoot this lying son of a bitch murdering bastard in the fucking head. He tried to make you guilty for his crimes. He tried to implicate you. He was ready to trade your life for his own. Now you get to take vengeance . . .”

Madigan looked at Bryant. He looked at the .38 in Sandià’s hand. He looked back at Bryant.

Bryant was in shock. He was no longer capable of speaking.

“Do it, Vincent,” Sandià said. “I believe you, of course. Now you show me how much I can trust you. Do it. Kill this asshole . . .”

Madigan closed his eyes.

He saw everything behind him. He saw Bernie, he saw the blood and chaos of the house robbery, he saw Larry Fulton and Bobby Landry and Chuck Williams, he saw Melissa Arias lying in a hospital bed, he saw Isabella, the way she closed herself against him and made him feel like the worst human being ever to walk the face of the earth . . .

He reached out and took the gun.

If he killed Bryant then it all ended here.

He was out.

He was free.

He hesitated. He considered the possibility of killing them both, of shooting Bryant, and then Sandià, of undoing the tape, of dealing with Sandià’s people, of trying to explain to them that Bryant had managed to get the gun, that he had shot Sandià, that he had then wrestled the gun from Bryant and killed him . . .

It was hopeless.

There were people merely ten or fifteen feet away. With the sound of the first gunshot they would be inside.

Madigan felt the weight of the revolver in his hand.

He
had
to do it. It had come this far, and now there was no choice.

The motion was swift. He did not give himself time to think again. He gripped the gun, steadied himself, turned and aimed and fired.

Click!

There was nothing. No deafening roar. No spray of blood as the back of Bryant’s head exploded against the bathroom wall.

Bryant screamed.

Madigan was stunned.

Sandià was laughing. “Now I see who to trust, who is my friend, who is my ally,” he said. He took the gun from Madigan. He gripped his shoulder. “You never disappointed me, Vincent, and you never will.”

From his pocket he took a single bullet, chambered it, cocked the hammer once more, aimed, and fired.

The noise was so familiar, and yet so
real
and sudden.

Madigan believed his ears had burst.

The carnage against the rear wall above the tub was sickening. As if someone had hosed the tiles with blood and matter.

Bryant just sat there, his mouth agape, his left eye wide open, looking right back at Madigan, the hole above the bridge of his nose dark and depthless and black.

A faint ghost of smoke rose from the barrel of the revolver.

There was a commotion in the room behind them. Two men had come through, just as Madigan had predicted, both of them wielding semiautomatic weapons. They saw Sandià through the open bathroom doorway. The guns were lowered. They backed up and left.

Sandià sighed and shook his head. “The fourth man,” he said. “Clever, but not clever enough.”

Madigan stood motionless for just a second, and then he turned and left the room.