The Darkness Inside: Writer's Cut (32 page)

“So Cody had something like that in mind.”

“No, this was all before, in the past. Happy memories, I guess,” Billy said. “He’d talk about some guy like he was his dad, or an older brother. Y’know, someone who’d taken care of him, who he’d looked up to.”

“What did he say about this guy?”

“Nothing very specific. He’d only really talk about it to himself, almost. Comforting, I suppose. Something about living in some place in the mountains. About doing stuff together. About teaching.”

“The guy was a teacher?”

Billy shook his head. “No, like, how your dad would teach you to ride a bike. That kind of thing. Not schools. And I remember Cody had these scars on his back. I asked them about them once and he said something about a mistake, doing something… or not doing something… or not doing it right… Shit, I don’t remember how he got them.”

“You don’t know what it was he’d done, or he was supposed to have done?”

“How the fuck should I know? They could’ve been going fishing or… raping a… a busload of nuns for all I know. He never said. That’s all I remember.”

“He never said the guy’s name?”

“No.”

I frowned. “Didn’t that seem odd?”

“Cody was a goddamn nutcase with a thing for little girls. How much fucking odder do you want?”

“Did he say which mountains, or where he was when all this happened?”

“He never said. Catskills, Green Mountains, White Mountains. Could’ve been any of them.”
 

I waited for a moment, just in case Billy was going to add anything more that had floated up from the depth of memory, but he stayed quiet.

“That’s everything?”

“Cross my heart.” Billy stood and waved a hand at the door. “You should be going, Mr Rourke. I’m an honest citizen these days, and you’re trouble. Get going and leave me alone.”

I wasn't keen on staying long in a place where my identity was known anyway. Anonymity was almost the only protection I had, and the urge to crawl back into hiding was a powerful one. I wedged my hands in my pockets and stepped back out into the rain. Billy’s door slammed shut behind me.

Two blocks away and closing, I saw blue flashing lights.

For a second, I stood and watched the cars approach. Streamers of rain streaked the air, like looking through a field of grey grass stalks. Three vehicles, one unmarked, scythed through them.

I sprinted across the street and into a narrow alleyway between houses while they were still too far off to see me. Some way inside this cramped shelter, I hunkered down behind a trashcan and watched as the cars screeched to a halt outside Billy’s home.

The girlfriend had the door open before the two guys in trench coats had even finished crossing the front yard from the unmarked car. She must’ve been the one that called them; I saw that their arrival wasn’t coming as a surprise to her, and they weren’t treating her like someone potentially harboring a fugitive.

The two detectives formed a little and large pairing. One was taller and blond, maybe in his early thirties. Pointed jaw, face to match. A serious scowl. The second was shorter and fat, with a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once and probably more than that. He had maybe five years on his partner.

Detectives Perigo and Morton, I presumed.

They talked with the girlfriend for a moment, and I saw the tall one swearing. Billy came to join them in the doorway. They spoke to him, and he shrugged, shook his head.

I was about to leave my hiding place when the tall cop turned to look in my direction while his partner asked a final couple of questions. He ran his gaze over the street, the houses either side of me, and the alley itself. For a second I could almost believe our eyes locked, and suddenly the shadow of the buildings and the cover offered by the trash was stripped away and I was helpless, trapped in his stare. Certain I’d been spotted. That it was all over.

Then he looked back and called to his partner, and the feeling passed. As they walked towards the cars to pass orders to the uniforms to search the area, I retreated further into the alleyway until I judged it safe to turn and run.

 I didn’t stop for two blocks, then did my best to vanish into a shopping mall for an hour or so, grabbed a coffee and a bagel like a normal citizen, then took a cab back to a spot a few blocks from the hotel. I was wondering whether or not I should switch places. Wondering how long it’d be before someone identified me.

Then I wondered if I moved, would the manager at the next place identify me straight away? I might be better off staying put. Hunkering down. Doing nothing. And, in the end, I knew the impulse was just a panic reaction. Twice now I’d nearly been caught. It was just the adrenaline wearing off.
 

On the bed was a copy of the newspaper I’d bought that morning. No mention of Heller’s death at all, but it was open to the brief story inside about Rob. Apparently, unidentified intruders had attacked him when he’d come home from work the day before. Teresa found him in a pool of blood. They’d beaten him badly enough that he’d needed six hours in an operating theatre last night, and according to the paper he was still in a critical condition. Normally, they’d have said, “critical but stable” and I wish they were now. I also wished there was something I could do about it.

The cops were looking for two men, no descriptions given. Taken the number from forensics, maybe, or the vague recollections of a neighbor who’d seen them leave. Nothing had been taken from the house, and they didn’t have a motive as yet. At least, not one they were talking about. It had to be the two guys who came to the office, ‘Harvey’ and ‘Andrew’. Again I considered calling Teresa or Sophie to find out how Rob was doing, but I didn’t dare.

Out there were cops and psychos and Goddard or Anderson or whatever the fuck his name was and Holly and I wanted all of it, all of them, to stop.
 

I wanted to find her and be done, just so I could rest. Once she was safe and sound and no longer out there, in danger, none of the rest mattered. It would be over. I was just afraid it’d never happen.

Then, the next morning, they came for me at the hotel.

49.

Multiple car engines, running fast, in the street outside. I looked through the window to see the blue and red flashes of the strobes, saw the cars screaming to a stop in front of the hotel, Perigo and Morton in the lead. The manager had seen me on the news and squealed. Some eagle-eyed beat cop spotted the company car. It didn’t matter how they’d come to be calling on me.

I had to get the hell out of there.

Grabbed my bag, left packed for just this eventuality, and ran down the corridor to the stairs. From the bottom of the stairwell I could already hear pounding footsteps and cop voices.

I ran up, taking the steps two at a time. My only hope of getting away relied on not being seen. You couldn’t outrun the radio, or the cruisers below. Anyone spotted me while I was running and the trap would close ahead of me. It always did.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

At the top of the stairs, my prayers were answered. As I’d hoped, there was a door marked ‘Roof — Maintenance ONLY’. Given the state of the hotel, I doubt it saw much use. I tried it first — locked — then leaned back ready to kick it in. Waited for a second until I heard the crash as the cops plowed out of the stairwell five floors below and rushed towards my room. Hoping the echoes would mask my own noise, I kicked the door to the roof with all my strength.

The wood around the lock splintered and snapped, and it flew open.

I wasn't a Catholic — wasn’t a believer of any stripe — but I still felt the urge to cross myself.

The roof was a flat expanse of galvanized metal sheeting, slippery in the continued rain, peppered here and there by odd protuberances. Bumps and vents for air conditioning, drains and aerials. I sprinted down to the far end, trying to use these lumps to break line of sight to the door behind me. A couple of times I came close to losing my footing entirely.
 

There was a gap of about ten feet over a narrow alleyway to the adjacent building, and a drop of about the same from the hotel roof to the that. It was doable, but it’d hurt on landing. I had no choice, and no time to mess around. I threw my bag over, gave myself a decent run up, and hurled myself out over thin air. Gravity tugged me downwards and I had a sudden moment of panic.
 

I wasn't going to make it.
 

I was going to fall eighty feet onto solid concrete.

Then my feet hit the rooftop, all the air was knocked from my lungs and I rolled to a halt with every joint aching and my head spinning.

I expected at any moment to hear someone shout my name, running feet behind me, a gunshot, anything. I picked myself up and ran along to the far end of the building and looked for a fire escape.

It took forever to reach street level, and I dropped the last ten feet onto a dumpster, but there was still no pursuit. Trying to look as normal as possible, I headed out onto the street beyond and did my best to lose myself in the city, to burrow in like a worm into an apple, vanishing into the anonymous mass of humanity.

50.

The boardwalk looking out over Fort Point Channel was almost deserted in the constant rain. I risked buying hot dogs and a Coke from a street vendor and ate them looking across the water at the airport.

I was running out of options. I had no idea where Goddard was, and no obvious way of finding him unless I could somehow tempt him out of hiding. I’d left the agency’s car near Perry’s address and I had to assume that, since the cops had found where I was staying, there was a reasonable chance they knew to watch for the vehicle too. My cash wouldn’t last forever, and I was exhausted and battered from jumping around on the roof.
 

And there was nothing else I could do but keep trying for Holly’s sake.

I still wasn’t at all sure about him, but I called Kris from a payphone. Said, “The cops raided the hotel. I need a place to stay.”

“Sure. I’ll pick you up.”

Kris was driving a blue Acura. I didn’t ask him where he got it; I didn’t want to know. Judging by the minimal amount of trash on the floor and back seats compared to his old ride, he hadn’t had it long or done much with it yet.
 

The trip was calm and he hardly said a word. There was no trace of whatever emotion had overtaken him after killing Heller.

He was living in an apartment in Brookline. A low, cramped beige limbo that even the city’s rats were ignoring, figuring they deserved something better. It wasn’t as bad as Frank’s alcoholic hovel, but the pair of them had obviously both gone to the same school of housekeeping.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I thanked him when he pointed me in the direction of the couch.

“You need anything?” he said. “There’s a store down the block. How much did you leave for the cops?”

“Some soap, dirty socks, and a load of trash. I kept everything else in the bag.”

“Nothing that could tie you to anything?” The flash from his eyes made it clear he meant ‘tie you to me’.

“Nothing.”

“Good. They didn’t track you from the hotel?”

“If they went up to the roof it was long after I was gone.”

Kris nodded and some mental gear shifted deep inside. “I’ll get food, smokes. I’m going to the store.”

“Sure.”

He let himself out, leaving me alone. From the state of the apartment, I could almost believe he was using it for a stakeout rather than living in it. Don’t worry about clearing out the trash, don’t make it your space any more than you need to. You were just inhabiting the place while you worked.
 

Here until you left.

On the windowsill were a couple of oily rags and some boxes of ammunition. A small toolbox on the floor beneath. A pair of greasy pizza boxes wedged behind the sole armchair. Muddy shoe prints everywhere.

There were a good three or four empty quart bottles of orange juice waiting next to a refuse sack in the kitchen. A fridge with the remains of a dozen different types of snack food and candy.
 

And on top of it, a plastic baggy containing pure white pills.

I wasn't certain what they were, but at best guess my only ally was wired on amphetamines, maybe something worse.

Jesus fucking Christ.
 

How much of what he’d told me was magnified by speed paranoia? Was this what lay behind his weird moods, or were they something else entirely?

I heard the key turn in the apartment door. Put the baggy back on top of the fridge.

“Hey,” Kris said, coming into the kitchen with a brown grocery bag. “Looking for something?”

“Coffee,” I said. “I could use a pick-me-up.”

“Cupboard above the kettle. I don’t have any milk.”

 When evening came, I told him I was going out for a while to check some things, and went to find myself an internet connection. First I looked up Lieutenant Craig Warren, NYPD. I got a slew of old news stories.

Police hero slain in own home.

Hero cop murder.

One of NYPD’s finest brutally beaten and shot in his own home. No apparent motive. Police suspected a revenge slaying.