The Blade Itself (13 page)

That memory burned brightest, the muscles of his shoulders cutting clean lines against the streetlight. She’d been certain she would see him advancing, his hands unfastening his belt. She shook her head, the two images, one real, one imagined, overlaid in her mind. Danny was staring at her, the weirdest expression on his face.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘He just let you go?’

‘Yeah. Well, first he said something.’ She laughed
nervously. ‘He told me that Chicago was dangerous for a woman.’

‘He… what?’

She repeated herself, wondering what was going on in his head, why he looked so spooked. Danny sat quiet for a moment.

‘Did you get a look at him?’

‘Not really. I mean, I saw him in the club, but only barely, and it was dark in the alley. He was a bit taller than you. Really strong. Curly hair. He had gloves on.’ She paused, remembering. ‘They smelled like cigarettes.’

‘Christ.’ He stood up suddenly, hesitated, and then went to the counter for the bottle of scotch. Grabbed her glass and one for him. She could see that his mind was working, flying over something, but he focused on pouring, the amber liquid splashing up to the mark for doubles.

‘What is it?’

‘Huh?’ He looked up, his expression startled. ‘Oh, nothing, baby. I’m just so glad you’re okay.’

‘You sure that’s all?’

‘Yeah.’ He set the bottle on the table, and sat down himself. For a moment, it seemed like a thought was playing in his mind, like he had something to tell her. But she could see the moment pass, and when he caught her staring at him, he smiled softly, concern and resolve in his eyes. ‘I guess I’m just getting scared after the fact. You know, the way your mom used to get when she’d find out you’d done something stupid years ago. That’s all.’

There was more, but she didn’t care. Not right now. He pushed the drink toward her. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘It’ll help you sleep.’

She picked up the glass, not really wanting it, but hating the thought of lying awake till dawn. The burn pushed away
all other sensations, and that she did want. ‘I think I’m going to take a shower.’

He nodded.

‘Will you –’ She paused, feeling self-conscious. ‘Will you come sit with me? I don’t want to be alone.’

‘Of course.’ His smile wrapped her up safe as a blanket in fall. ‘And, baby – I promise. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Whatever I have to do to protect you, I will.’ His voice firm.

Like he had made up his mind about something.

Evan tossed the butt out the window while he waited for the light to change. A kid in a fluorescent T-shirt stopped asking passersby if they had a moment for Greenpeace long enough to glare at him. Evan stared back, and the kid quickly looked away.

When red turned green he floored it, the Mustang roaring like it’d been kicked. He was finally out of the stretch of yuppie boutiques on Halsted, but on his way into Boys-town, home to most of the city’s fags and the corner where Danny wanted to meet. He powered past a drugstore, a liquor warehouse, and across Belmont before the traffic stopped again. On the sidewalk two stacked guys, one white, one black, walked with their hands in each other’s back pocket. Funny to see. Inside it was different. Not like TV, or mostly not. Die-hard queers aside, in prison going gay was almost a way to pass the time. Another way the place humiliated you. Guys blowing each other just to break the monotony. Except you had to wonder, you spend long enough sucking off your cellie, at some point how different were you from the guys on the street here?

Evan had broken the nose of the first asshole who’d tried his luck, and stuck to jerking off.

Two blocks up, the car still creeping, he spotted Danny kicking back at a bus stop, his arms up on the bench’s back. He had the newspaper in his lap, but wasn’t reading it, keeping his eyes up and moving, scanning the traffic. Danny Carter, always too smart for his own good. He’d spotted Evan, but waited until the Mustang pulled in front of the
bench before standing up slow and walking to the car. Evan leaned over to flip the lock. ‘Hey, partner.’

Danny shot him a cold look as he climbed in. ‘Drive, asshole. Take Lakeshore north.’

Evan chuckled, turned off Halsted onto a residential street, cut through an alley, and wound back toward the lake. Decided to ignore Danny’s expression now that it looked like he might be doing the right thing. The guy had reached out to him, after all, calling Murphy’s and leaving a message with the bartender. That made it his move. What would it be? Play the hard case, tell him if he ever laid a hand on Karen again, blah blah blah? It didn’t seem his style, but as he kept being reminded, this wasn’t the guy he’d grown up with.

They merged onto Lakeshore, the Mustang purring as it muscled past a CTA bus with an ad for some computer thing on the side. They were two miles up, Evan thinking about turning on the radio, when Danny spoke.

‘Get off here.’

Evan squinted at him, decided to go along, and exited at Montrose. Danny gestured to the east, toward the lake, and Evan pulled into a parking lot. Maybe thirty cars, most of them pretty hot, Beemers and Benzes.

‘Kill it. Let’s take a walk.’

The lakefront was crowded with people biking and Rollerblading, a few jogging. A couple of old white dudes messed around on their sailboats in the marina, playing Jimmy Buffet, pretending they were in Margaritaville in June instead of Chicago a week before Halloween. In the summer the bike path was mobbed with chicks in bikinis, but now everybody wore a sweatshirt. Danny walked ahead, steering them past the marina, out to a point that jutted into the lake. It was a quiet spot, thin grass tapering to rocks at the water’s edge. Danny stepped up on a boulder and stared out to the
horizon like he was looking for answers. The air was still, the water calm.

Evan took out his smokes, tapped one free. Flicked the wheel on the silver Zippo, lit the cigarette, and held the flame a moment longer than necessary, looking at the lake through the flame, like he was setting it on fire. ‘So we’re here. Now what? You want to cuddle, watch the sunset?’

Danny didn’t turn. ‘Let’s talk about the rules.’

‘Rules?’

‘The rules of the job.’

Look at that. Been trying to make a point to the man for two weeks, and he’d finally gotten through. Apparently Karen was the lever to move Danny’s world. Worth remembering. ‘So you’re in.’

‘Not much choice, right? I got your point.’

‘Good.’ He kept his tone light, with just a hint of steel in it.

‘You want my help, though, there are three rules.’

‘Yeah?’ Just like Danny, to be talking rules instead of thinking about how much they stood to score. More worry than joy.

‘First off, nobody gets hurt. Not a scratch, you hear? Especially not Tommy.’

‘Who the fuck is Tommy?’

Danny sighed, glanced over his shoulder. ‘Tommy’s the boy, Evan. The one you want to kidnap. What, were you going to call his father and say, “I’ve got that kid that hangs out in your house”’?

Evan made quick fists to pop his knuckles, then forced a smile. As long as Danny played along, he’d handle him gently.

‘Next,’ Danny continued, his eyes once again on the rolling gray of the lake, ‘is that you listen to me. You want my help? Fine. My way. No messing about on the job. All right?’

He nodded, thinking,
Now how you going to control that, Danny-boy?
But all he said was, ‘The third?’

‘The third rule is that this squares us. We do this, I never see you again. If I do, even once, I say to hell with the consequences and call the cops, and we go down together. You and I,’ his tone still even, no anger in it, ‘we’re done.’

Evan kept his mouth shut. His hopes of brotherhood had died just before Patrick did. The guy with him now was only an angle to be played.

‘All right.’ Evan raised the smoke to his lips, stared at the horizon himself, wondering what Danny saw out there that was so damn fascinating.

‘One more thing.’

The tone should have warned him, but he’d already dropped his guard. Danny swung around faster than Evan could get his arm up. The fist caught him square on the chin, snapping the cigarette, the world did that quick bounce-and-settle thing, and then, shit, his foot slipped on the wet grass. He fell, arms flailing. Hitting the ground smacked the wind out of him, and he felt the rage taking hold, all you had sometimes, the animal readiness to kill or be killed.

But Danny didn’t press the attack. He stepped back to the boulder’s edge, shaking out his hand. ‘That’s for Karen, motherfucker.’

Even before he’d gotten his breath back, Evan had his hand on the pistol tucked in his waistband. He started to draw. And then remembered where they were. Lincoln Park. Probably two hundred witnesses, and nowhere to hide.

Evan let go of the gun, took a breath. Now he knew why they’d come here. Propping himself up on an elbow, he laughed. He’d been outplayed. Old school, the way the Danny he used to know might have done it.

Forget it. This time.

Danny stepped forward, holding out one hand, and Evan took it to pull himself up.

‘Let’s go to work.’ Danny’s tone all business.

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

As they pulled into Evanston the gloomy humidity had finally given way to one of those noiseless October rains that soaked the hell out of everything. Rotting leaves tattooed the asphalt orange and brown. The bossman’s house – Richard, it turned out his name was – looked cheery, porch lights glowing on either side of the carved oak door.

‘Don’t turn off the engine.’ Danny stared out the window. Some of the confidence was gone from his voice, like seeing the actual house had taken something out of him.

‘Why not?’

‘We’re not staying. This neighborhood pays for a security service to patrol, and we don’t want them stopping by.’

Evan nodded. Rich cunts never failed. The more money they had, the higher the walls, the brighter the lights. Like hanging a target around their neck – just made it easier to spot a score. He rubbed at his chin. It was a little sore, but not likely to show a bruise. ‘So what are we doing?’

‘Looking at the house. Where do you want to go in?’

‘Right now?’ He was surprised, but game.

‘Of course not.’ Danny looked over at him. ‘We don’t even know who’s inside.’

Evan pretended he’d been testing Danny. ‘That’s what I thought. So how about knocking on the front door sometime when we know the kid is alone? Grab him when he answers it?’

‘Walk up with masks on? We look a little old for trick-or-treaters.’ Danny sat silent for a moment, then said, ‘We’ll go in the back, break in.’

‘House like this, there’s got to be an alarm system.’

‘There is, but Maria – Richard’s maid – kept setting it off. They only use it at night now.’

Evan nodded. ‘When?’

‘Next week. We’ll do it one day after school.’

‘Do we need to worry about the maid?’

‘I know when she comes.’ Danny turned from the window. ‘Let’s go, before a friendly neighbor notices us.’

Evan put the car in drive and rolled forward, tires whisking on the pavement. He cracked the window to listen to the rain. ‘Most alarms have a panic button, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How do we make sure the kid doesn’t get to it first?’

‘Or for that matter dial 911? I’ll think about it.’ Danny turned around to glance behind them.

‘You do that. Meanwhile, I got a question for you.’ Evan smiled.

‘Yeah?’

‘You hungry?’

It turned out to be beer they both wanted. Four or five bottles of Old Style apiece smoothed the rough edges between them to a tolerable level. They had the place to themselves, just a couple of Mexicans behind the counter paying them no mind. Evan finished the last bite of his second chili dog, crumpling the wax paper and dropping it on the counter.

‘I love beer in the afternoon.’ He smiled. ‘Remember ditching school with Marty and the Jimmy brothers and smuggling beer into the soccer games?’

Danny smiled, too, it seemed like in spite of himself. ‘The bleachers at St Mary’s Academy. All those girls in shorts.’

‘Yeah. And Marty down on the sidelines, offering sports massages.’

They both laughed, tipped their bottles back. Halfway through the swallow, though, Evan saw a little catch in Danny’s face. Like he’d realized he shouldn’t be enjoying himself. They sat in silence for a moment, Danny spinning his beer bottle on its base, his eyes far away.

‘We’ll need somewhere to stow him,’ Evan said. ‘The kid.’

Danny looked around, like he wanted to confirm nobody else was listening. Nervous as ever. ‘Yeah.’

‘Someplace quiet. Where even if something goes wrong’ – that got Danny’s attention – ‘and he makes some noise, it won’t trip us up.’

Danny nodded, didn’t say anything.

Evan took another sip of beer. ‘I’m thinking an even million.’

‘Too much.’

‘Bullshit. You see that house?’

‘It’s a five-bedroom, not the Playboy Mansion. Man doesn’t have stacks of hundreds in a suitcase.’

‘How many bedrooms you have growing up?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Bullshit.’ Evan put the bottle down hard, and Danny looked up at him. ‘That’s exactly the point. Don’t you remember how it works? Guys like that, they make sure that the rest of us stay where we are. They hire us to work shitty jobs at minimum wage so we can rent one-bedroom tract houses with no windows. Tell us the world needs ditchdiggers, but bundle their kids off to private school. And they build jails for when we get upset about being on the shit side of that bargain. Fuck that. I’ll play it my way. You used to, too, before you started pretending to be somebody else.’

Danny snorted. ‘What, because I have a job I’m supposed to vote Republican? Fuck you, man. It doesn’t work that way.’

‘How does it work, then?’

‘It doesn’t work.’ Danny leaned back. ‘Your way. It doesn’t work. You think putting window dressing on it makes it okay? You’re a thief, Evan. Blame society, or the cops, or your father, that’s all fine, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a criminal. And at the end of the day, criminals get caught.’

Evan felt the vein in his temple throb, the purr and rush of blood. He fought to keep his voice cool. ‘My father was an asshole. This has nothing to do with him.’