Already Gone (11 page)

I walk around to the front of the table.

The big guy’s hand is strapped, palm down, to a thick block of wood that makes me think of a cutting board. His fingers are spread wide and pinned in place by five heavy industrial staples just below his knuckles.

There is blood everywhere.

At first I think Gabby must’ve split the guy’s hand in two, but he didn’t. He did exactly what he’d said.

The man’s middle fingertip is forked in the center, and there is a wooden shim wedging the bone apart, almost to the breaking point.

Even though Gabby told me what to expect, seeing it makes my stomach twist and my mouth fill with water.

I look away and think about Diane.

The more I picture her in my mind, the less any of this bothers me.

I step closer and stare at the man’s face. He doesn’t look as bad as the other one, but he doesn’t look good. His nose is broken, his eyes are closed, and the front of his shirt is covered in blood and dried vomit.

I lean in. “Wake up.”

The man doesn’t move.

I tap the side his face, soft.

His eyes flutter open, distant and unfocused.

I wait.

Eventually, he lifts his head and looks around. It takes a minute before he realizes where he is, and then his lips start to shake.

“What do you want?”

I can’t tell if it’s the accent or damage from the beating, but the words rumble out and blend together, making it hard to understand.

“Do you remember me?”

He turns his head back and forth, scanning as much of the room as possible, ignoring me. I ask him again, and this time when he doesn’t answer, I press my thumb against the shim embedded in his finger.

This gets his attention.

When he calms down, I ask him again.

The man shakes his head. “I don’t know you.”

I show him my left hand with the missing finger, and something changes in his eyes.

“No, no, no,” he says. “Please.”

“Who are you?”

“It was just a job,” he says. “We didn’t want to hurt anyone, not bad, I swear—”

“A job?”

He nods. “Just a job.”

“Who hired you?”

He mumbles something. I lean in close, and he flinches, closes his eyes.

“I want a name. Tell me who hired you.”

He starts mumbling again, and the next time I speak, I have to force myself to keep my voice calm.

“The man who brought you here,” I say. “The one who did this to your hand? He’s waiting outside.”

I hear the man’s breath catch in his throat.

“He wants to see if you’ll tell me what I want to know. If you do, you go home. If you don’t, then he comes back in here.”

The big guy whimpers, says, “I’m just a baker.”

I ignore him. “I can’t tell you what he’ll do, because he’s capable of absolutely anything.”

The man shakes his head. There are tears now.

I reach down and touch the shim. He twitches and makes a high whining sound in the base of his throat.

“Tell me who hired you.”

“We wanted to open a bakery, we didn’t mean—”

“Who is we?

“My brother,” he says. “We came here, we had to leave, they would’ve killed him if we stayed.”

“Leave where?”

“St. Petersburg. They hung him in the street, in front of our mother. They left him to die.”

I look past him to the man in the corner.

He looks back, unafraid.

“Someone hired you to cut off my finger?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” He coughs, and blood sprays across the table. “We were told where you’d be and what we were supposed to do. He was very specific.”

The man looks down and starts whispering to himself about starting over, about not living this kind of life. As he talks, a long trail of blood and saliva runs out of his mouth onto his shirt.

I bend down and say, “I want a name.”

The man shakes his head.

“You give me a name and you and your brother can go. But this is the last time I’m going to ask. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to leave, and then my friend—”

“No, please.”

“—will come back.”

“I only saw him one time.”

“Last chance.”

“He was a cop.”

I stop talking.

“He told us we’d be deported and sent home unless we agreed to help.” He looks at me, his eyes pleading. “We can’t go back. They’ll kill us both.”

“Who was he?”

“He gave us money. It was just a job, I swear.”

“What was his name?”

“I only saw him once.”

I reach for his hand, fast. He jerks back in the chair and screams.

“Give me a goddamn name!”

“I don’t—” He hesitates. “Nolan. Dan Nolan.”

I don’t say anything right away. I can’t. My throat closes, and the floor under me seems too far away.

I bend down, eye level, and ask him to tell me again.

“His name was Nolan. I swear on the mother of Christ that’s all I know. Please.”

The air tastes stale in my throat.

“I want you to be sure.”

“I don’t know anything else, I don’t.”

“The name, are you sure about the name?”

The man nods.

“You saw a badge? He was a detective?”

“Yes, I think, I don’t know. Please, you said we could go.”

I push myself to my feet and follow the line of blood toward the drain. There are no thoughts in my head, just questions and rage.

“Did he hire you to kill my wife?”

The man looks at me, and I see the confusion on his face. “No.” He shakes his head. “Your finger, that’s all.”

Every muscle in my body aches. I don’t want to be down here anymore, and I don’t want to hear anything else. But I have to be sure.

I walk back to the table and press hard on the shim.

The man doesn’t scream this time, but he feels it.

“Was it you?” I ask. “Did Nolan—”

“I don’t—”

“Did you kill her?”

“No,” he says. “I killed no one.”

He keeps giving me the same answer, and I keep working the shim back and forth until I’m sure he’s telling me the truth. Then I grab both sides and tear it out.

He screams.

I turn the bloody shim over in my hand, then set it on the table in front of him and say, “Nothing personal, okay?”

The man looks at the shim, then up at me.

His eyes are distant, tired.

A moment later he drops his head, his shoulders shake, and he begins to cry.

Gabby motions toward the hallway. “Second door down. The light switch is by the mirror.”

I follow his directions, focusing on each step.

When I get to the bathroom, I turn on the light, then lock the door behind me. My head is spinning. I lean over the sink and wait for it to pass. Once it does, I run my hands under the water and start to wash away the blood.

I try to stay calm and plan my next move, but I can feel every muscle in my body straining, ready to snap. My breath is heavy, and I realize I’m rocking back and forth, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

I can’t think clearly.

Every time I close my eyes, all I see is Nolan in my house the day I found my finger in the mail. I remember the way he looked at me and the accusing tone in his voice. It burns inside me.

My mind wanders.

I start thinking about the .38 I keep in my closet at home, how I can go back and grab it tonight. I could call Nolan’s cell number and tell him to meet me.

Then I could ask my own questions.

I turn the water to cold then wash my face and run my hands through my hair. When I look up, I lean against the sink and stare at myself in the mirror.

I don’t like what I see.

I know what I’m considering is crazy, but I can’t stop thinking about Nolan. I have to know the truth, and I have to hear it from him, no matter what it takes.

My thoughts keep going back to the gun.

I never told Diane about it. She made it clear she never wanted one in the house. I’d never lived anywhere without a gun, but she didn’t care.

So, it became my secret.

Old habits.

Someone knocks. I hear Gabby’s voice, muted through the door. “You okay in there, Jake?”

I open the door. Gabby looks at me, then past me toward the blood in the sink.

“I’ll clean it.”

He points over his shoulder. “Come on out so we can talk. You can take care of that later.”

“Give me a minute?”

Gabby taps his watch. “Clock’s ticking, Jake. Make it fast.”

Gabby is at the top of the stairs talking to Kevin.

I sit on the couch and wait.

There is a white ceramic dove on the coffee table. It looks cheap, like something you’d buy off the television in the middle of the night, but when I pick it up there’s weight to it. I turn it over in my hands and trace the long curved outline of the wings with my finger.

Behind me, I hear the door close and Kevin’s footsteps trail off down the stairs.

Gabby takes a pack of cigarettes off one of the bookshelves and sits across from me on a worn leather chair. He taps a cigarette out of the pack and uses it to point at the ceramic dove in my hand.

“Your dad gave me that before he died.”

“Is that right?” I set it back on the table.

“It’s yours if you want it,” Gabby says. “I’m sure he would’ve wanted you to have it anyway.”

I almost laugh.

Gabby lights his cigarette. “Kevin’s taking those two over to Central Hospital. He’ll drop them out front. They should be fine.”

“We’re done with them?”

“Didn’t you get what you wanted?”

I don’t say anything.

Gabby watches me. “Tell me about this cop,” he says. “What do you know about him?”

“He’s the detective assigned to my case. He took me to ID Diane’s body.”

“He took you?”

I go over the details of the drive to Fairplay and our meeting with the coroner. As I talk, the look on Gabby’s face changes.

“What’s wrong?”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“It’s what happened.”

Gabby gets up and grabs an ashtray off one of the bookshelves. He taps his cigarette over it as he sits back on the chair.

“I’ve never heard of a coroner doing anything like that. Those guys are meticulous. They do everything by the book.”

“What are you saying?”

Gabby shrugs the question away, but I don’t give up.

I ask again.

“It’s strange, that’s all.” He opens his mouth to say something else, hesitates, then says, “Do you think this cop had something to do with your wife’s death?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

“How?”

I think about my .38 at home, but I keep that to myself. I know exactly how Gabby would respond. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Gabby watches, trying to see if I’m lying.

After a while, the quiet gets to be too much and I say, “What would you do if you were me?”

“That doesn’t matter,” he says. “All that matters is what you’re
not
going to do.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re not going to do anything stupid.”

I laugh.

“Something funny?”

“Diane told me the same thing when I talked to her about calling you.”

“Maybe she was right.” Gabby crushes his cigarette in the ashtray, then sets it on the coffee table next to the ceramic dove. “You’ve got a flight booked for Phoenix in the morning, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Good. I’ll make a couple calls while you’re gone, see what we can find out about this cop.”

“I’m not going to Phoenix. Not now.”

Gabby ignores me. “When you get back, I’ll know more about the situation. We can go from there.”

I tell him again, “I’m not going to Phoenix.”

Gabby eases back in his chair and brushes his hand over his knee and says, “Why not?”

“Because Nolan is here.”

“He’ll still be here when you get back.”

I start to argue, but Gabby holds up his hand, stopping me. “What do you think you’re going to do? Pull a cop off the street? You’re smarter than that, Jake.”

“I have to do something.”

“Not that,” Gabby says. “And not with my help. I won’t go after a cop.”

“You’ve done it before.”

There’s a flash of anger in Gabby’s eyes, enough to turn everything inside me cold.

“That was a long time ago,” he says. “Things were different back then. I was different.”

We’re both quiet for a while, and then Gabby leans forward. “We can’t rush this one. All I’m asking is for you to be patient. Give me a couple days to check it out, lay the groundwork, find out who’s involved.”

“We know who’s involved.”

“No, we don’t,” Gabby says. “I don’t think this cop is the one we’re after.”

I point to the door leading downstairs and say, “If you think he lied to me, why are you letting them go?”

“Nolan might’ve hired them, but someone else hired Nolan. That’s how these cops work, unless he had a personal reason to come after you.”

“He didn’t.”

“Then that means someone else is out there pulling the strings. Someone else hired Nolan.”

“So, we find Nolan and ask him.”

Gabby looks down at the floor then rubs the sides of his head with his fingertips and says, “Do you know why I’ve never been to prison?”

I shake my head.

“Because I’m patient. I never make a move without thinking it through and waiting for the exact right time.” He looks up at me. “You, on the other hand, are not patient. You’re impulsive, just like your dad, and that makes you dangerous.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’m thinking about me,” he says. “Your head is a mess, and that makes you someone I don’t need around, especially since we’re dealing with cops.”

“I’m not going to walk away. I can’t.”

“I don’t want you here, Jake.” There’s an edge to Gabby’s voice. “If you want my help, you’ll go to Phoenix and clear your fucking head.”

I don’t push.

I know better.

Gabby watches me for a while, then reaches for the pack of cigarettes. “Why don’t you head home and get some rest? Tomorrow, get on that plane. Find out whatever it is you want to find out, and I’ll take care of things here.”

I don’t like it, but the decision’s been made.

We get up and walk to the door.

Gabby stops at the top of the stairs and tells me to call him when I get to Phoenix. “I want a number where I can reach you if I need to.”

“It’s killing me to walk away like this.”

“You’re not walking away.”

“Diane’s dead, and all the answers I need are right here. If I’m not walking away, then what the hell am I doing?”

Gabby pauses, says, “You’re saying good-bye to your wife.”