Mean Business on North Ganson Street (31 page)

 

XLII

Alyssa and Jules Talk

The nurse escorted Bettinger along a narrow hall, past several computers, and into a bright white room that had numerous partitioned areas and a vaguely floral smell. As the pair strode across the linoleum, they passed an obese redneck, a girl in a wheelchair, and a supine old man who was attached to a turquoise machine that beeped and hissed like a mechanical snake. Manic laughter emanated from behind one of the closed curtains, and it was unclear to the detective if the person was insane or the victim of a malicious tickler.

The nurse guided Bettinger to Dr. Edwards, who was currently washing his hands inside a stainless-steel sink. A grim expression sat upon his face.

“She's gonna lose the eye?” asked the detective.

“Yes. Most of the retina's destroyed.” The optometrist shook excess water from his hands and pulled a paper towel from a dispenser. “Right now, she's getting antibiotics and plasma—I want her as healthy as possible before the anesthesiologist arrives.”

Bettinger was confused. “Why's she going under?”

Dr. Edwards tossed the crumpled towel into a bin. “I need to remove the eye and clean out the area.”

The detective felt queasy. “That can't be done on a local?”

“I want to be thorough. We can't risk an infection in a place like that.”

“What kind of infection?”

“MRSA. Can be fatal if it enters the brain.”

The room tilted, and Bettinger grabbed the nurse's arm, steadying himself. Cold sweat poured down his face.

Dr. Edwards gestured to an empty bed. “Maybe you should lie down for a—”

“No.” The detective released the nurse's bicep. “Let me talk to her so you can do what you need to do.”

“She's on a very strong painkiller, but still lucid. I told her about the surgery, though not anything else that transpired…” The optometrist motioned to a beige curtain in the far corner. “Over there. You've got a few minutes.”

“I put a chair,” added the nurse.

Bettinger walked to the curtain, pulled it aside, and saw Alyssa. Intravenous tubes sprouted from her arms, connecting her to suspended plasma, and the bandages that covered her caramel skin looked like bright white parasites. Next to the thick gauze that covered the left side of her face was a red and staring eye.

“Jules?”

The detective entered the room, closed the curtain, and hugged his wife. Plastic tubes slithered across his face.

“The kids?”

Bettinger pulled Alyssa firmly to his chest. “Gordon was killed. Karen is safe.”

“Gordon was killed?”

“Yes. He was protecting Karen when it happened. He saved her life.” The detective clenched his jaw in order to maintain his composure.

“Gordon's dead?”

“Yes.”

A terrible silence sucked the air from the room, and the detective could not do anything but hold his wife. It felt like they were plummeting through the dark toward the bottom of an impossibly deep canyon.

Alyssa cleared her throat. “But Karen's safe…?” Her voice was tiny.

“She's watching cartoons right now.”

“Okay.”

Bettinger relaxed his embrace, kissed Alyssa on the mouth, and took each of her hands. Navigating tubes and machinery, he sat on the small plastic chair that the nurse had provided for him and looked at his wife. Tears sparkled in her good eye, and the gauze on the left side of her face was damp.

Again, Alyssa cleared her throat. “Does Karen know?”

“About Gordon?”

The woman nodded her head.

“She does, but she's pretending not to.”

“Like the tooth fairy?”

A tidal wave of sadness hit the detective. “Yeah.” Clearing his throat, he motioned to the curtain. “The doctor said that—”

“That was you outside?”

Bettinger was confused.

“Who shot the window?”

“Yeah … it was. Sorry about the glass.”

“You had to—that psycho was gonna kill us all.”

The detective squeezed his wife's hands.

“You killed him?”

“Yes.”

“He deserved it.”

“He deserved much worse.”

Alyssa nodded her head.

Again, Bettinger motioned to the curtain. “The doctor said—”

“Why did he want to kill you? You're … you're from Arizona. We're all—” The woman's voice cracked. Shaking her head, she fought back tears. “We're all from Arizona.”

“He was working for someone in Victory who doesn't like cops.”

“Did you get him too?”

“That's what we're working on right now.”

Alyssa lowered her eye. “Do you need to go back to work?” There was fear in her voice.

Bettinger squeezed his wife's hands. “I want to get this guy—the boss—badly. Desperately. But if you tell me to flush my badge down the toilet, and forget about it, I will. You've suffered too much—for no goddamn reason—and the decision's yours to make.”

A sad smile appeared on the painter's bandaged face.

“I'm serious,” said the detective.

“I know you are.” Alyssa took a deep breath and shook her head. “I don't want you to go to Victory. I'm scared … and … and I don't want something to happen to you. But I can't ask you to walk away from this. For … for you to just sit around and hope that somebody else gets the man who did this to us.”

Bettinger kissed his wife's hands, certain that he had married the single most thoughtful woman in the world. “I'll put Karen in the hospital day care, and we'll move back to Arizona when this is over. I'll get some kind of desk job.”

“I look forward to buying you paperweights.”

“And we'll fly up to Chicago for your show at the gallery.”

Tears filled the woman's eye.

Bettinger knew that Alyssa was thinking about how proud Gordon had been of her upcoming exhibit.

Tubes stirred as the woman wiped her right cheek.

Leaning forward, the detective hugged his wife. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Bettinger?” Dr. Edwards inquired from the other side of the curtain.

“Do I need to go?” asked the detective.

“Please. The anesthesiologist's here.”

“Okay.”

Bettinger kissed Alyssa once more, and as he stood up, the woman wiped her eye.

A lean white fellow with sunken cheeks and short silver hair shuffled into the room, rolling an instrument that looked like a Russian satellite.

The detective placed his wife's neon green cell phone upon the gurney. “Call me when you get out of surgery.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

“I will.”

Bettinger departed before he or his wife had time to crumble.

 

XLIII

Snow from a Violescent Sky

After the detective had completed his paperwork, he deposited his daughter in the day-care facility and his son in the morgue. Each child received a kiss and an apology.

Bettinger left the building and entered a world that was veiled in snow. Violet flakes fell from a sky of the same color as he walked toward his wife's blue compact (which was still illegally parked in the emergency lane). Compressed by the rubber soles of his boots, the inch-thick blanket of petrified precipitation squeaked.

The detective entered the car and drove onto the freeway. Emanating from the speakers was a cloying pop song that seemed morbidly ironic to a man who had just turned his son's body over to a diener.

Bettinger shut off the radio and drove in silence.

The compact rolled east. Although it was half past six, the violescent sky was not any brighter than it had been at five in the morning.

The detective told his partner that he was returning to the suburbs to examine the killer's possessions, but both policemen knew that the real point of the phone call was to prove that they were both still alive. Changing lanes, he heard several shouts through the earplug and concluded that the pained individual was being interrogated by Tackley.

“Getting anything from that one?”

“Some blood, couple teeth.”

“Good luck.”

Bettinger killed the connection. Cars draped in violet blankets drifted along the freeway, and white headlights glared.

The detective thought about his son, whose final act had been a heroic display of love and courage. Gordon had saved Karen's life, and this selfless sacrifice was a sad glimpse of the man who he would have become as an adult. His death was terrible, and Bettinger was further pained by the fact that he would never be able to convey his gratitude to the young hero.

If there were a pill that instilled a belief in Heaven, the bereaved father would have put it in his mouth and swallowed.

The exit sign appeared, and the detective steered onto the snowy off-ramp, where his tires slipped, flung slush, and squeaked. Applying the brakes, he reduced his speed until it compared to that of a bicyclist. The man from Arizona knew that he needed to be careful—he had very little experience driving in the snow, and he did not want a thoughtless accident to get between his hands and Sebastian's throat.

Bettinger entered the suburbs of Stonesburg, drove onto the most familiar street, and slowed the compact. The windshield wipers shoved powder across the glass, revealing the little salmon house. It was an unwelcome sight.

The detective cut the wheel, landed, and exited. Gun in hand, he surveyed the area, which was still, except for the snow that landed upon roofs, lawns, and roads.

Bettinger entered the little salmon house, a place of violence that was no longer his home … if it ever had been.

Exhaling a flower of steam, he strode into the master bedroom. Snow covered the mattress, the carpet, and the legs of the killer.

The detective kicked the upended trash basket from the dead man's head. Two frozen eyes stared up at him from the ground.

Bettinger searched the corpse and found the box cutter, two additional clips of ammunition, and a set of keys, which he pocketed. He discarded the loathsome tool and put the killer's other possessions—including the pair of semiautomatic handguns—into a plastic bag. It was extraordinarily unlikely that a professional hit man would have any traceable hardware, but the weapons might have some other use.

Bettinger stripped the corpse. Nothing remarkable was revealed, except for a tattoo of the letters
E, V,
and
K
on the dead man's left shoulder blade.

The detective snagged the charger for his wife's cell phone and some extra clothes for her and his daughter. Carrying these possessions as well as the plastic bag, he returned to the cold.

Bettinger drove the blue compact to the end of the street, around two corners, and onto the parallel avenue. There, his headlights illuminated the lot where his yellow hatchback sat behind the charcoal gray pickup truck.

The detective parked his wife's car. Surveying the immediate area and the violet environs, he stepped outside and walked across the powder. At the killer's truck, he stopped and examined the flatbed. The only thing that lay inside of it was a corrugated sheet of snow.

Observing a passing (and obviously masochistic) jogger, Bettinger withdrew the killer's keys, slotted the most likely candidate into the driver's side door, and turned his hand.

The lock shot up.

Flinging the door, the detective climbed into the truck, which smelled strongly of lemons. The snow-covered windshield was an opaque swath of dull violet, but the rear glass was clear and allowed a view of the street.

Bettinger slid across the bench and opened the glove compartment, which contained a vehicle registration. Attached to this by a paper clip was a driver's license that had a picture of E.V.K.'s aquiline face. There was no chance that these documents were legitimate, but still, the detective pocketed them. It was possible that the forger was a local person who knew something about the killer or Sebastian or the other hired guns.

Bettinger slid his fingertips along the ceiling (which was made of plush black upholstery) and discovered the edge of a nearly invisible flap, which he then carefully opened. A silencer-equipped semiautomatic handgun like the one that had killed his son lay inside the hidden compartment. The detective removed the weapon and inspected the rest of the shallow enclosure, but found nothing else.

Frustrated, Bettinger snorted steam.

All of this stuff was useless.

The detective climbed out of the truck, looked at the bench seat, and dug his hands into its rear crevice as if he were fishing for lost quarters. His thumb landed upon a metal latch, and he pressed it down.

Something clicked.

Bettinger grabbed the bottom cushion and raised it like the top of a chest. Between the steel supports that held the seat in place was a hollow compartment that housed a red, white, and blue cooler.

Ice rattled as the detective removed the heavy container from the nook. Straining, he lowered the seat cushion and set down his burden.

Bettinger lifted the lid, revealing a pool of ice and water that contained eight six-packs of beer. He dumped this collection of cold, frozen, and canned fluids onto the snow and quickly realized that the cooler weighed far too much for an empty piece of plastic.

Something had been hidden inside of it.

The detective put the container down, opened his utility knife, and stabbed an inner wall. Ghostly vapors leaked from the hole.

Bettinger held his breath, adjusted the angle of his blade, and applied more force. Plastic cracked, and a false bottom popped loose.

The detective discarded the partition and looked into the cooler. Chilled by the frigid emanations of dry ice were six plastic baggies. Each one contained a bloodstained police badge, a few spent cartridges, and a severed penis, though in one collection, there was no male member, but instead, two spotted opalescent masses that resembled oysters.