Shadow Season (27 page)

Even when she sticks the S&W .38 in his face, glaring at him, on the verge of tears, he’s thinking about how lucky he is that she’s stayed with him for twelve years.

She says nothing. Neither does Finn.

He planned to take her out tonight to their favorite restaurant down in SoHo. Ritzy but not too ritzy, with a violinist who travels table to table and knows how to break your heart with Bach and Haydn. Danielle touches his brow with the barrel of the gun, taps him twice. She draws breath in through her teeth.

“Are you fucking that bimbo nurse?” she asks.

He’s more stunned by the question than by the fact that she’s drawing down on him in his own kitchen. She knew he was going to make love to her on the tiles so she had the gun planted right there in the drawer. She knows him that well but hasn’t figured out yet that he’d never cheat on her?

“No,” he says.

“You lie to me and I’ll kill you.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Dani.”

“Don’t feed me that, lover.”

“It’s the truth and you know it is.”

He’s been spending too much time with Roz and visiting Ray, rushing off when he gets calls at midnight. But as a cop he’s inured to the usual drama most couples go through. All that sobbing, screaming, throwing shit around the room, he’s dealt with a thousand domestic quarrels like that, and Dani knows it. She’s going for the
grand statement here, trying to get through his hard shell.

He’s had plenty of guns pointed in his face too, but never by his wife after making love on their anniversary, so her ploy works. It does perk him up, even if it doesn’t scare him the way it’s meant to. It kills him that she doesn’t have complete faith in him, but he can’t really blame her. It’s almost impossible to have faith in anyone or anything nowadays.

“I’m not screwing around.”

“I told you once what would happen if you did.”

“I know you did.”

“Do you remember?”

“I remember, Danielle.”

And he does. At the tail end of some bullshit romantic comedy about cheating couples, he leaned over to her and said, “You pull any of that shit on me and I might have to put a contract out on you.”

She responded, “You do it to me and I won’t farm out the hit, I’ll put one right between your eyes.”

It was a good comeback. Now he thinks maybe it wasn’t just witty repartee. “Dani, that’s enough. I haven’t done anything.”

“I have doubts.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I have significant doubts.”

“Then you don’t know shit about your husband.”

“That’s what worries me.”

She pulls the trigger.

The hammer falls on an empty chamber.

The click is as loud as if the gun had actually fired. They both jump a little. The tile floor is no longer cold
under Finn’s back. It’s like white-hot steel against his flesh. He’s lathered in icy sweat like he’s been trudging through waist-high drifts of snow.

“You never pull the trigger on a gun,” he tells her, “not even an empty one, not even if you’ve checked it twenty times. You never do it. Not unless you want to kill somebody.”

Tears flow down her cheeks, pool around the edges of her mouth, and then run off the end of her chin. They strike his forehead like Chinese water torture.

Danielle drops onto him and he wraps his arms around her. He figures his cock would’ve shriveled up into the center of his fucking chest, but no, he’s still hard and still inside her. She starts to ride him. It’s over in seconds.

She says, “You stupid goddamn prick, you’re the love of my life.”

JESSE WHIMPERS AND HER BLOOD DRIPS
down her neck, pattering onto her blouse. Finn shrugs out of his coat and lets it fall from his shoulders. He draws the carving knife from his belt.

The situation doesn’t call for a blade. It was dumb to bring it. He realizes that now. With a snarl of disgust he flips it aside and listens to it hit the wall and then clang on the floor.

He’s still not sure who or what Rack is. A mental deficient like his brother? A sociopath? Full-throttle psycho? A working stiff who’s cooked crank for so long that his brain is misfiring? Can he really have caused all of this for money?

Jesse blurts, “Ow! Ow! He’s cutting me. He doesn’t want you coming near him. I think he wants you to get rid of your cane too.”

“Is that right, Rack? You don’t want me near? I thought that was the whole point. How else am I going to pay you?”

Finn steps forward. He pulls out his wallet and opens it. He’s got about $150 in cash. The bills fall from his hands. Whatever else he is, Rack is a punk drug dealer stiffed out of a payoff.

“You still want your money, Rack? Or are we beyond that now? It’s yours if you want it. I swear. I’ll bump it up some too. Fifteen grand. You’ll have it after the holiday, as soon as the banks open. Will that do it? Will you leave now?”

There aren’t any choices left, and Finn’s glad for it. He’s used up his options long ago. There’s something liberating about being taken away by the ocean. He stops fighting and allows himself the luxury of simply traveling where the world wants to take him.

Jesse screams, “He’s grabbing my breast, Mr. Finn! He’s squeezing! He’s hurting me!”

Finn’s shadow is squeezing Jesse’s breast, its mouth open against the sun.

Finn hisses, “Stop it.”

He raps his cane and can feel in his bones where Rack stands. He allows himself a moment to process the information.

Then he hauls his arm back and hurls his cane. He imagines that the stick turns over twice in the air and strikes Rack in the face. Even as he’s charging forward, Finn shouts, “Jesse, move!”

It’s all very proactive. No need to go to your death lying down. He figures there’s no out for him, and he’s not looking for one. The blade will enter his belly, probably low, nearer to the groin, and if he doesn’t die on the spot, and despite the doctors’ best efforts, he’ll croak of sepsis before a month goes by. That doesn’t bother him. Just so long as he gets his three weeks and the chance to meet with Ray again.

Blundering ahead, Finn lowers his shoulders and goes in for the tackle. The fury of Howie has always
been with him, waiting almost twenty years to be released this very second. Finn hears Jesse tumble to the floor as he grapples with Rack.

His mind, as usual, feels fragmented and seems to hover outside of his body. It’s like he can still experience life through the bone, blood, and brain matter that flew out of his head the moment of the incident.

He hopes Jesse’s all right, imagines Violet’s body downstairs spasming toward rigor. He sees Roz without her coat, vomit-strewn and wearing an expression of awful acceptance. Duchess tonguing her busted crown, Judith with her mouth mangled. Words and phrases assail him in the dark. He hears “fear,” “erratic pulse,” “dissuade,” “fierce proponent for justice,” and “haunting lyricism of the damned.”

Finn strikes and connects with Rack’s shoulder. He tries again and hits nothing. Then there’s slashing pain across his belly. Rack is aiming higher than expected. The point of the blade enters a good inch and Finn sucks in his stomach and contorts away. He brings his forearm around and down, trying to catch Rack’s elbow. He misses and kicks out, definitely strikes Rack’s knee.

But the guy doesn’t make any sound. It’s difficult to home in. Finn feels breath against his ear, turns, and strikes for the ribs. There’s nothing but a huff of air. Rack leaps on him and Finn twists before falling. He’s on top of the holler madman, on the floor. The two of them flop around and scramble for purchase. The knife scrapes the back of his neck, draws blood but nothing bad. Finn brings his elbow back, hoping to hit bone. He hammers Rack’s knee, doing more damage.

The blade must be coming for him again.

Finn snakes aside and a thick trail of agony opens across his ribs. He gauges where Rack’s face must be and throws an uppercut. It’s a beautiful move, everything working right, sweet Jesus let it hit. He hears Rack’s jaws slam together. It’s an exquisite sound, a sharp contrast to his own rasping.

He pictures his shadow wheeling now, climbing to its knees, hoping to stab down with the knife. He’s time-traveling, one second ahead. Finn blocks the blow with his left arm, gets to his own knees, throws two uppercuts that shave Rack’s chin. He tries again with a third and connects once more, hears teeth crack.

Rack tries to slash but only manages to scrape Finn’s back. Finn sees this is just some bizarre show-and-tell being performed in front of his class. The girls take copious notes. Caitlin Jones calls his performance “spurious.” There’s modest applause. He viciously chops at where he hopes Rack’s wrist is. The connection is pure and solid. The blade goes skittering. Finn whips his arm back and tries to snap it across Rack’s nose. There’s no real way to shove shards of cartilage into somebody’s brain, but the thought propels him. It’s a wasted effort, and he misses wildly. The motion causes him to hyper-extend and he feels his shoulder blade pop, his rotor cuff on the point of tearing.

This isn’t a time of knives.

The two of them tumble over each other and fall to the floor again.

Rack grabs Finn by the throat. It’s all right. This is a good thing. Finn faces him, manages to lock his hands on Rack’s throat too.

The moment lengthens. Rack tightens his hold. It’s excruciating but Finn lets out a choked gurgle of laughter. His grip is strong. His fists close. Blood slurps across the floor.

Shadow meets flesh.

AS DANIELLE SHIFTS ON TOP OF
him, pulling away so that her breasts draw against his chest and his semen drips from her onto his legs, Finn sees a boy standing behind her in the kitchen holding a popgun .22.

He recognizes the kid from the courtroom. It’s Carlyle’s even younger son, Freddy. Freddy’s got more tears in his eyes than Dani does. Jesus Christ, all three of them having a good old-fashioned crying jag together.

The boy’s what, seventeen maybe. His hands are shaking badly. It doesn’t look like he’s ever held a gun before. Freddy’s not in this to make his bones. Clearly he’s been driven out of his head by grief. He wants revenge for Donny’s death. His chin is as smooth and perfect as a woman’s. A razor’s never even touched his face.

Danielle gasps and looks at the boy, flings an arm up to cover her tits. The kid growls something about his brother. He trips over his tongue and repeats himself, the same unintelligible snarl of pain. It’s an honest and human sound, something you don’t hear much from someone with a gun in his hand.

Dani is still gripping the empty .38 and Finn snatches it from her and holds it on Freddy, hoping it’ll
be enough of a bluff. Freddy doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t seem to notice anything.

Finn doesn’t waste time trying to talk Freddy down. Instead he flips Dani off of his lap, rolls to his feet, and cracks Freddy across the temple with the barrel of the .38.

It should be enough to put him down but it’s not. The kid’s so heartbroken that he barely registers being smacked in the head. Blood pours down the side of his face and Freddy suddenly snaps to and remembers why he’s here in the first place. His wet eyes focus.

Finn’s eyes are a little dewy too, and he hates having to brawl with his crank hanging out, but he chops Freddy again, missing his head and slashing him along the neck with the .38’s sight. Behind him, Dani is looking for something on the counter to fight with. She throws aside the spatula, the broken eggshells, and knocks over the maple syrup.

He wants to say, Honey, listen, I got this. Go put something on, will you?

She goes for the knife drawer.

Finn’s in control. He’s got Freddy by forty pounds of muscle and he knows how to fight. But the kid is fucking insane and won’t give up the gun. Finn can’t break his grip. That’s it, enough of this. Finn shifts his feet, getting ready to hook Freddy under the heart.

You’ve got to give the kid some credit, he does the unexpected and shrieks like a teenage girl having her ass squeezed.

The sound of it sort of spooks Finn and he takes a step back, his fist no longer moving forward at all.

Freddy snaps up the pistol. It’s pointed directly at Finn’s belly button.