Saints Of New York (64 page)

Karl
watched all of this in silent surprise, as if he couldn't believe that he was
getting precisely what he wanted.

'So,
like I said, there ain't much here on you. Possession maybe, though I figure
that's your service sidearm and you have a right to own it. You got kidnapping,
but like for what? An hour?' Vale smiled. 'That ain't nothing to get excited
about—'

Karl
pointed his gun at Parrish. 'He takes everyone up. You stay down here with me.'

Vale
didn't hesitate. 'Everyone. Up on your feet.' He looked back at Parrish. 'Frank
. . .'

Parrish
nodded, got up, stepped to the edge of the stairwell and indicated that the
hostages should walk right on past him and up the stairs.

The
crowd seemed to hesitate as one, as if they couldn't believe that they were
coming out of the basement alive.

'Go!'
Karl said. 'Get outta here!'

They
hurried then, almost falling into one another.

Parrish
waited until they were all out safely, and then he walked back to the top of
the stairwell.

'What
can you do for me?' Karl asked.

'Up
to the DA,' Vale replied. 'We get you a Public Defender, a good one, we get you
a psych eval, a drug counsellor, the best we can find, and maybe we're looking
at.
. .
you ever been down before?'

'No.'

'Arrested?'

'Aggravated
assault. . . charges were dropped.'

'How
long ago?'

'Five,
six years.'

'And
how long were you in the military?'

'Four
years.'

'You
went overseas?'

'Iraq,'
Karl said. 'Was honorably discharged for medical reasons.'

'Mental
health reasons?'

Karl
hesitated, and then he nodded slowly.

'Then
I think you're gonna walk this, my friend,' Vale said, and for the first moment
since this nightmare began he realized how utterly terrified he had been, and
how he now believed that he might come out of this alive.

'Your
partner up there . . . tell him to get the fuck out the way.'

'Frank?'
Vale called up.

'I'm
here, Mike.'

'Go
on up. We're coming out.'

Vale
looked back at Karl. 'I need the gun,' he said.

'Fuck
you, I'm keeping the gun.'

'You
can't go out there with a gun, Karl. They
see
you with a
gun and they're gonna shoot you.'

'You
get the gun, I keep the grenade or no deal.'

Vale
stood there for a moment. He was out in left field. He didn't know what the
hell he was doing.

'Okay,'
he said, 'but once you're outside you're gonna give that thing to me before
anyone sees it.'

It
was Karl's turn to hesitate, and then he nodded and agreed. 'Okay,' he said.
'Deal.'

Karl
gave Vale the gun and Vale put it on the floor. He kicked it back with the
others and turned to make his way up the stairs.

'Hey,
man,' Karl said.

Vale
turned.

'You
got kids?'

Vale
nodded. 'Three,' he said, 'but older than yours. They're in their teens.'

Karl
nodded, but said nothing.

Michael
Vale went first. He took the stairs slowly, used his body to block any attempt
Karl might make to run. He wanted to get the kid out into the daylight, out
where everyone could see, get that grenade off of him before he put him down on
the floor and cuffed him.

The
door was up ahead, and Vale could see Frank Parrish back near the car. As he
approached the door he realized how many squads and unmarkeds had gathered. The
hostages were nowhere to be seen, but in their place was a small army of police
officers, all of them crouched behind opened car doors, handguns and rifles at
the ready. A tactical bomb unit had been deployed and the oversized white and
blue truck was parked back across the street.

It
was then that Vale saw the girl. She was way back near the car. She had the kid
with her, was holding him in her arms. Vale felt a sense of accomplishment, of
clear-headed resolve, and his heart - triphammering like fury - only then
started to slow down. He knew he would not feel the effects of this for quite
some time. He thought about the weekend upstate. He thought about his wife, his
kids. He thought about everything that could have happened here, and how it had
not.

She
started shouting then. Laney.

'Asshole!
You fucking asshole, Karl! You're a fucking useless asshole, Karl, and I was
gonna give you another chance, but you're such a fucking asshole you don't
deserve it.'

Vale
felt his heart miss a beat. He was aware of Karl behind him.

Vale
raised his hand. Why, he didn't know. She perhaps couldn't even see him, but he
did it anyway.

Shut the fuck up!
he was thinking.
For God's sake, shut the fuck up!

'Bitch,'
he heard Karl say behind him, and it wasn't even a word, it was just a sound,
an expression of vehemence and hatred and jealousy and bitterness.

'Fucking
asshole!' she screamed even as Frank Parrish reached her, tried to hold her,
tried to quieten her down, shut her up.

'You
think you're gonna see Karl Junior again,
well you're
fucking mistaken, my friend! Seriously
fucking mistaken!'

And
Karl said
Bitch
again, and Vale turned, and he
opened his
mouth
to say something, to placate the man, to tell him
that she
was just upset, that she would settle
down, that everything
was
going
to be fine . . .

And
Karl held out his hands, and in one of them was the grenade, and hanging around
his neck was a loop of cord, and attached to the cord was the pin, and Michael
Vale knew then that it was all over.

He
stepped forward and put his arms around Karl Emerson, and he hugged him tight
to limit the breadth of the blast.

Two
and three days later pieces of them were still being found thirty yards away.

Caitlin
came a
while later. Frank
told her they weren't putting chairs on the tables
yet, which she
didn't really understand,
but
she figured it meant that he wasn't
ready to die.

It
was dark outside, and she sat beside his bed, and she reached out and took his
hand.

'You
want some water or something?' she asked.

He
did not answer her question, but he did say, 'Been a long time since there was
anything out in front of me.' He tried
to
smile,
but it just looked like he was hurting more. She told him not to say anything,
to close his eyes and go to sleep again, but
he
shook his head and said, 'Always been a
day late and a dollar short. You know that? That's one thing you can rely on as
far
as
Frank
Parrish is concerned. I'll be one of those people
who stays
the same no matter what happens.' He
closed his eyes.
There were
tears
on his cheeks and Caitlin brushed them away
with the ball
of her thumb. 'You think it's come up on
you quick,'
he said, 'but
it
hasn't. It's been coming for years, an inch at a time.
You don't
notice it until it's right there in
front of you, and you
still think
you've
got a chance to change it but you haven't—'

'Dad
. . . please . . .'

Frank
Parrish squeezed his daughter's hand. He looked at her intently. 'You think I'm
dumb? I'm not dumb, Caitlin. I know what's going on with you and Radick.'

'I
don't think you're dumb, Dad . . .'

'Make
sure he looks after you, okay? He's a
good man . . .
young,
green as grass, but he's a good man.'

'Dad
. . .'

'Tell
Jimmy Radick that if he hurts you I'll kill him . . .'

Caitlin
smiled.

Frank
closed his eyes. He was asleep before she could answer.

Valderas
came the following morning. Parrish asked about Carole Paretski, told him that
under no circumstances did he intend to press charges. Under
no
circumstances. He was somewhere he
shouldn't have been, she had every legal right to be present in the McKee
house, and he was an intruder.

'Did
they get the stuff in the house?' he asked.

'Yes,
Frank, they got the stuff in the house. And had she not been there none of it
would have been admissible.' Valderas shook his head. He sat down on a chair
beside Frank's bed. 'Jesus Christ, Frank, I don't know that you could have done
anything crazier—'

Parrish smiled with difficulty.
'Hell, Tony, I was planning on just shooting the guy in the head and being done
with it.'

'Well, it was good you went with
Plan B then.'

'So what happened?'

'Well, she called
911,
obviously. She'd just fucking stabbed you with a screwdriver - your own
screwdriver, I might add. By the time they got there you were out of it. They
saw the stuff she'd found, they called the PD, and by the time I found out
about it you'd gone and she was under arrest. Anyways, I told the guys there
what the deal was, and they were waiting for McKee when he got back with the
kids. They didn't try and contact him in case he did a runner.'

'And where are the kids now?'

'Ironically, they're with Family
Welfare. Carole Paretski will get them back
today
...
we already figured out how you were
wrong and she was right. Regardless of whether or not you press charges, there
isn't a DA in the country who would take her to court under the circumstances.'

Parrish smiled, and then he
grimaced in pain.

'You need to rest,' Valderas
said.

'I know, I know, I will,' Parrish
replied, and then he looked at Valderas directly and said, 'I'm fucked, aren't
I? That's it now. The car, the break-in, everything. It's completely fucked,
right?'

Valderas hesitated, and then he
slowly nodded his head. 'Yes, Frank, it's completely fucked.'

'But you've got McKee, right?
You've got him.'

'For how many things we don't
know yet, but yes, we've got him. He was shipped over to us as soon as Haversaw
got word of what had happened. The 126th will take the bust.' Valderas smiled
sardonically. 'Despite you and your efforts, Frank, we will take the bust.
Anyway, McKee opened up like a can of worms. He's making noises about giving up
other people who were also involved—'

'What people?'

'This outfit called Absolute
Films. Some other crew of psychos.

Links
to the West Coast, LA, Vegas as well, I think.
He's going to
rat them all out for a deal of some
sort.'

'And
who gets the murders?'

'Oh,
he'll get the murders, at least two of them. He was the one in a whole bunch of
those pictures. The earlier ones we don't know, and right now it looks like
there might be a great deal more Missing Persons cases getting resolved. The
Danny Lange shooting we don't know about yet, but someone's gonna hang for
that one as well. Maybe McKee'll get life instead of the death penalty if he
gives everyone up.'

'It
was a bad, bad scene.'

'And
we touched the edges of it, Frank, just the edges of it. The girls you knew
about were not the only ones. That's something we're sure of now. And it goes
back before Jennifer, most definitely. I mean, shit, the guy worked in Family
Welfare for years. He had names, pictures, addresses, phone numbers. He could
approach these girls without drawing attention to himself in any way. It was
his job to get up close and personal. That's the real thing here, that's the
really sad thing about all of this. They already had two strikes against them,
and then they ran into Richard McKee.'

Parrish
was quiet for a time. He had so many questions, but the pain was making its way
through the wall of painkillers, and he was exhausted.

'So
you're gonna manage to clean up the city without me?' he said eventually.

'No,
Frank, not a fucking prayer. Without you it's all gonna go to hell in a hand
basket.'

Frank
Parrish smiled. 'You better believe it,' he said. He closed his eyes for a
second.

'Hang
in there, Frank. You got one more visitor. A priest.'

'Oh
for Christ's sake—' he started.

Father
Briley appeared back of Valderas. 'I heard that Frank Parrish, and if you don't
stop taking the Lord's name in vain you are going to burn in Hell . . .'