Shadow Season (25 page)

Murph goes, “For fook’s sake, man—” Sure, for fook’s sake.

Finn clamps his mouth shut and the need to laugh is instantly gone. He snakes his hand out and grips Duchess’s throat. He draws her close until their noses touch.

“How long?” he asks.

“About three months.”

Since the beginning of the semester, when the trouble first started with Vi. Maybe Roz thought she was helping herself out, building a nest egg in case he got booted from the academy in disgrace. She was covering her bases should he decide to run away with the girl.

“Am I right about Ray?”

Duchess is motherly love incarnate. She is soothing him, warming him, keeping him alive. Her words are clipped and rushed. They land on him with real weight.

“Yes.”

That prick. That motherless motherfucker prick. “That prick.”

“Roz suggested we work with him. He had connections in prison and on the street. He had a couple of guards on his payroll. No fuss or anything. She’d go for a visit and just hand it over, and Ray would sell on the inside and give her our pay.”

Most cops, they were terrified of the joint. But a dirty cop, he was king of the castle. He’d still have his street connections, his CIs, the skels and mooks on the
corner, a list of the other dirty cops on the force. He’d have nothing to fear.

“Who cares about any of this shite now?” Murph says. “The two of you shut the fook up.”

They get Finn on his feet. The three of them start into the corridor, heading for the stairway. The Christmas tunes are blasting.

“Nothing out of place here,” Murph says. “The ear-bleeding music, it’s still playing above.”

“The deal,” Finn says. “Tell me about your deal.”

“She came to me after I told her about my Ruby. She needed someone to cover for her at times.”

Finn grins. It’s Ray’s grin, he knows. “All that talk … about working the rehab—”

“Don’t you judge me, Finn. Don’t you do that.”

“Take the girl out of the street but never the street out of the girl.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth.”

The piano hums its harmful intent. The low C fills the lobby, fills Finn’s chest, makes him ache even worse. The piano is asking for the truth. The music demands that he speak.

“Roz is dead,” he says. “Vi too, she’s dead.”

“Oh my sweet Jesus—”

“Shite this,” says Murphy. “Shite this all. Come on.”

They begin to rush up the stairwell together. Finn feels like he’s in the lead, but Duchess drags him along by the left hand and Murph holds him up on the right.

He says, “You went into business with two lunatics.”

“You think you’re gonna find some trustworthy hustlers to hook up with?” Duchess’s voice is full of tears. “They’re all crazy. No different here than in the Bronx.
Not like you could choose honest folks to go into crime with.”

“What happened?”

“She visited Ray and he put out the word, somehow connected with them Moon boys.”

Ray’s got an even wider circuit than Finn suspected.

“Why do they think I’m involved?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the way of their minds, those two fools. They probably figured women could only be working for a man.”

Finn doesn’t buy it. It doesn’t make sense, not even for two mental backwoods meth cookers.

He thinks, Ray told the Moon boys. Ray got me involved. Ray set this up. He’ll be out of Sing Sing in a few weeks and he knows I’ll be coming for him.

“Keep going,” he says.

“Who fookin’ cares, you two!”

They round the landing and continue up the stairs. Duchess says, “The last load, Ray didn’t pay Roz. He ripped her.”

Finn feels stronger. The knives continue easing up out of Duchess’s pocket, wiggling their shiny asses at him, his face bright in the glowing stainless steel. The sight of his own features disgusts him.

“How much cash?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want, Duchess.”

“Nine thousand.”

Of course Ray would rip them off the last batch. Ray gets out of prison soon. There’s no reason to pay. He was done with the deal and grabbed everything he could. What was anybody going to do? Arrest him?

With his disability checks, the sale of the house, and what he’s saved up over the years living in the cottage, Finn’s got close to two hundred grand in the bank. What’s he going to spend it on? No kids to put through college. Blindness cuts down on your book buying and movie-ticket purchases. No need for a plasma TV or high definition DVD player. Not being able to see cuts down on your choice of hobbies. Even this New Year’s visit to the city was only for Roz. What the fuck’s he care about the Plaza?

“Why didn’t you just ask me for the goddamn money?”

“She wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t let me. She didn’t want you knowing—”

Knowing that she was doing the same stupid shit that got her hooked up with Ray in the first place. It was definitely escape-strategy cash. She figured Finn would get iced if he really did plan to go through with facing down Ray when he was released from prison.

Or maybe she just wanted to be Ray’s girl again. Maybe she’d always been Ray’s girl at heart.

On the third floor, Murphy breaks loose and starts down the hallway at a clip. His voice is weak as he calls, “Judith.” It finds assertion. “Judith!”

Finn feels the sorrow struggling up from his depths. A couple of grunts slip past his lips before he clamps down on the crazy urge to howl.

He says, “Knife.”

Duchess hands him one, handle first. It’s got a sweet balance to it, a nice cutting blade maybe five inches long. It’ll do.

They move along after Murph, toward the girls. His
heart is hammering, his body hot, and the icy sweat pours off him.

He shrugs free from her and says, “What else did she tell you about Ray?”

“That you’ve been waiting five years to kill him.”

THE ROCK AND ROLL CHRISTMAS CLASSICS
are still playing, much louder than before. Finn imagines blood everywhere, sees himself moving among the dead. He rushes along on his own. Duchess is behind him, telling him to slow down, but he hears Murph ahead. Saying what, what the hell is he saying?

Finn calls, “Murphy!” He stumbles into the communal suite and kicks a cushion in his path. He holds the knife out before him, low so he can slash upwards and disembowel Rack. He wishes Pudge were here too. He wants a chance to kill Pudge all over again.

Moving deeper into the room, he concentrates beyond the music and can hear one of the girls. Who is it? He’s never felt quite so helpless.

He shouts, “Who’s here! Murphy! Rack!”

“Hey, Mr. Finn,” Suzy Smyth says, and the girl with the soft-ice-cream cone and the sunscreen smudged on her forehead steps close to him, colorful sprinkles on her lips. “What’s up with the butcher knife? You drunk? Where’s your glasses? You’re a mess. What the hell happened to you? This what single malt does? I’m glad we didn’t let you get the liquor.”

“And your cane. Where’s your cane?” Sally Smyth,
also carrying a cone, also smudged with sunscreen, her copper ponytail swinging back and forth, sounds spooked. “That’s a knife. What’s with the knife?”

“And you’re bleeding!”

“Mr. Finn, you all right? You been slugging it out with somebody? Why you holding a knife? What’s going on?”

“Where is everybody?” he asks, putting the knife away in his pocket. “I need a phone.”

Lea Grant says, “We told you.” Carlyle’s mistress, her mouth gleaming with a hint of lipstick, sleepy-eyed, protected. “We told you he was acting off.”

“It’s because the Lord requires sacrifice,” Caitlin tells the rest of them. He’s turning, turning, trying to get a bead on each girl as she addresses him. The room is full of body heat and making him drowsy. “Even in the face of celebration. Why wouldn’t he be frightened? He should be. We all should be.”

“You two freaks have cooked your brains,” Sally says.

He hears the snap of a cell phone. Suzy presses buttons. “Nothing, as usual.”

Sally tries hers. “One bar. No good. We need to go up to the roof. Sometimes it’s better. Who are we calling? It’s damn cold up there.”

“Stay off the roof, the weather’s too vicious.”

Murphy slips in from some corner. He’s found the beer stash and he’s sucking at a bottle. He knocks it back in a couple of loud pulls. He’s not sure what he should say in front of the girls. He grabs Finn’s arm and yanks him aside. It’s the sort of thing he knows better than to do, but he can’t help himself.

Murph leans in to Finn’s ear, lowers his voice.

“Judith isn’t here. Neither is that other child, the one who’s all elbows and knees.”

“Jesse.”

The music dies. After a few seconds, it starts up again.

“Electric’s hobbling along.”

Duchess moves in from behind, a guard watching their backs. Her gravity and girth are comforting in a way words never are. “Shhh, shhhh.” She’s a hell of a shusher and dampens the tension in the room, quiets them all. She orders the music to be turned down. It is. Finn can almost think again.

Duchess says, “Girls, listen to me now, and you listen good. Where’s Mrs. Perry? And Jesse?”

“Mrs. Perry went to look for you all,” Sally says. “She was worried because everybody just split. Where the heck did you all go? Jesse hung around for a little while, but, let’s face it, she’s a sweet kid, but she’s just not happening, you know? She’s got no cool. All she wants to talk about are books. Who wants to talk books on vacation? Or even when you’re not on vacation. So she bored us and she left too. I think she went to find Vi. And look, Mr. Finn—” She moves in close to him as well. “—Caitlin and Lea… Mr. Finn, gotta tell you the truth here. Those two, we never liked them. They’re a drag on our good time, you know?”

And Suzy joining in, to nail the point home. “We made a promise and stuck to it.” She pauses. “Mr. Finn, seriously, Nurse Martell should give you a look-see. Really. You’re one messy cat.”

“You’re fucked-up, Mr. Finn, you need some help. Daddy-o, what—”

“When did they leave?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think! When?”

“Who knows?”

Lea pipes up, her voice cutting through the room as well as Finn’s head. “Odd that no one’s asked about Vi.”

“Or indeed Nurse Martell,” Caitlin notes. “And yet they’re not here among us. Where might they be?”

“On an altar, stretched out?”

“In the woodland, surrounded by priests of blood?”

“Why else would anyone be carrying knives?”

Finn really wants to smack them in the teeth. Duchess and Murphy huddle around and draw him into the other room. Suzy tries to follow and Duchess shouts, “Get back in there!”

“Whoa, what’d I do?”

“Go on, girl!”

Suzy leaves. Murph asks, “The hell do we do now? Where are they? Not the Carriage House. The Main House?”

“Yes,” Finn says. “Judith went to find you, and Jesse went to look for Violet.”

“Jaysus. I feel like I might shite myself.”

Duchess’s voice is laden with guilt. “This is all my fault. Mine and Roz’s. I’m going to have to pay for this.”

“She’s already paid.”

He wants to grab her. He wants to throttle her doughy neck, get a nice Indian burn going as flesh tightens against flesh. The rage feeds on his love, all of his lost loves and half loves. Finn’s muscles dance. It forgets that this is all his fault too.

“In the movies the heroes are supposed to be more
clever and outwit the bad lads,” Murph says. “But I’m not clever, I’m a fookin’ idjit in most things. Tell me what to do. The only time I ever fight is in pubs, and I always lose. I’m a happy drunk no matter what bollix is after me. It always ends with me on my back in an alley offering to buy a round. These pricks … what they’ve done … lovely Violet, and Roz, God’s mercy. Judith. She’ll mouth off to them. She’ll mouth off and give them a good lashing. She’ll call the wrath down.”

“Any chance you have a gun?” Finn asks.

“No.”

“What kind of a bank robber doesn’t keep a gun around?”

“You believed that load of shite I was passing off? You think if I knew how to rob a bank I’d be mowing lawns and shoveling parking lots for a living in this rotted burg?”

“I’m going to go cut somebody,” Duchess says.

Finn’s hands snake out and each one grabs a wrist, Duchess’s left and Murphy’s right. They gasp. It’s an easy trick, the way they always gesticulate, waving, talking with their hands. He needs contact.

He needs for them to realize this is another significant moment in a chain of crucial events that started long before today.

“You two are going to stay here,” he says.

“What’s this?” Murph asks.

“Like fuck,” Duchess says.

“Watch over the girls.”

“And the hell are you going to do? Och, in case you’ve forgotten, man, you’re not a cop anymore, and you’re beaten, frozen, and fookin’ blind.”

“I haven’t forgotten. It’s my fight.”

“What can you do alone, you damn fool?” Duchess asks, and the girls, who’ve all been listening in at the doorway, are instilled with that silence and stillness of real fear. “I’m going over there and I’m gonna cut those motherfuckers.”