The Evil That Men Do Read online

  “The headlights!” his mother screamed. “Oh my God!”

  “Hold her down,” one of the nurses said to the other. “Wait,” Donne said.

  They both turned toward him, his mother still screaming about headlights.

  “Who are you?” the blond nurse asked. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

  “Please, let me talk to her. I want to calm her down.”

  The brunette looked at the blonde. They both had bodies like they worked out. But it didn’t help the bags of exhaustion under their eyes.

  “Sir, you really shouldn’t be in here.”

  “THE HEADLIGHTS! They’re coming right for me.”

  Panic laced his mother’s voice. In all his years living with her, he’d never heard fear like that.

  “Mom,” he said. “Mom, listen to me. It’s okay.” His mother stopped screaming. For a second. “Daddy! Help me!”

  “Mom! Mom, it’s me, Jackson. You need to listen to me.”

  She paused again. She turned her head in his direction, and again he noticed the dark, heavy wrinkles around her face. The skin hung from her skull. She was no longer human, her soul barely holding to her body. He needed to talk to her before it left her completely. “Jackson,” she said. There was a speck of her left. “My dad. My dad wanted to hurt me. He put me in front of the headlights. I was going to die. I don’t want to die.”

  The force of her words cut through his skin. She didn’t want to die. He didn’t want her to either. The realization gave him pause for a moment. Susan did. Donne clenched his fists. How could she imagine killing her own mother? How could he then promise to help her? Susan was crazy.

  He gathered himself and stepped through the two nurses and took his mother’s hand. He gave it a squeeze and felt her return the pressure.

  “Mom, you’re not going to die.”

  Yes, she is. Don’t lie to your mother.

  “But you have to tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “Cars. It’s so loud.”

  “Mom,” I said. “Mom. Come on, Mom.”

  “Oh my God! HELP ME!”

  There was nothing more to say. She wasn’t responding to his voice. He turned to the nurses.

  “Give her the sedative.”

  “Connor O’Neill says hello,” his mother screamed. Then she looked directly at Jackson. “We never wanted to tell you he was arrested. And it was Daddy’s fault.”

  The blonde nodded, slowly, as if she was commiserating with him. As if she knew what he was feeling. His mother knew something, he was sure of it.

  But he doubted if he would ever know what it was.

  The blond nurse injected her with something and the screaming stopped immediately. The brunette shushed her, cooed her.

  ***

  What it came down to was listening to your son. Delshawn Butler thought he was a good father. He’d listened to Damon tell stories of chillin’ with Carlos down by Rutt’s Hut.

  After hanging up with Hackett, all this had come rushing back to Delshawn. It made sense; he was nervous and worried about fucking up, and he always worked best under pressure.

  Delshawn took the Escalade down Delawanna Avenue toward River Road. It was only about a mile from where he had dumped the gun a few days earlier. Delshawn was pissed he didn’t think of it sooner.

  After ten minutes of circling the area, he thought he recognized a kid waiting to cross the street. Delshawn pulled the Escalade to the curb in front of the kid. The boy looked like a fake. Shape-up, long white tee, baggy-ass jeans, and untied Tims.

  “Yo, Mister Butler, what the fuck?” the kid said, holding his hand out toward the window.

  Delshawn grabbed it, gave it a shake, then a fist bump. “Carlos?” he asked.

  “Yeah, yo. This is a nice ride.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yeah. I saw one the other day, just like this. I was tellin’ your son about it.”

  Damon. Delshawn hadn’t thought how this would affect his own kid. Having a friend die so young. It’d fuck him up and there was no way around it. And hell no, he wasn’t gonna pay for no therapist.

  Carlos still went on. “Dude dropped this motherfuckin’ nine out the window and it got caught in the mud. So like I brought it to the cops and shit.”

  “Yeah,” Delshawn said. Maybe he should let Carlos go. He was just a kid. It was a fucking mistake. He even thought he was doing the right thing. Just let the kid walk away.

  “Man, that fuckin’ car looked just like this. It was hot. And the black dude who was hanging out the window. He had on a white do-rag. Yo, it was just like—”

  Shit, Delshawn thought, realizing he had the do-rag on still. “Yo,” Carlos shouted, holding the word out. “That shit was you, wasn’t it? Oh man, that is fuckin’ hot!”

  Delshawn reached into his console and wrapped his hand around his newest gun. A Glock nine, newer than the one Carlos found. New silencer and everything. Shiny as hell.

  Just shut up and I’ll let you go. Delshawn found himself rooting for the kid.

  “Man, wait until I tell everybody. Your son is gonna think this is so fuckin’ cool. Motherfuck, yo, I know a stone-cold killah. You gangsta, Mister Butler. You gangsta.”

  Delshawn nearly rolled his eyes.

  He felt bad for Damon. He was going to lose a friend. But it would also teach him a lesson. Don’t fuck around with this crowd. Don’t fuck around with guns. Go to college. Get a job.

  He leveled the gun at Carlos.

  “Yo,” Carlos said. “You got another one. This one is even—”

  Delshawn pulled the trigger twice.

  1938

  Joe Tenant and Mikey Sops sat in the rowboat, letting the current take them back to the dock. There was no need to do anything other than an occasional stroke to specify their direction. Tenant’s eyes were heavy and he just wanted to get home and get to sleep. He’d been going nonstop since Maxwell Carter’s funeral.

  But as he tied the boat to the dock, he knew he wasn’t going to get the sleep his body craved. A man stood on the dock watching them. He was thin and tall, dressed in slacks and a thick jacket. The wind was cold coming off the river. The man folded his arms, relaxed and confident.

  “You know this guy?” Sops whispered.

  “No, but I think I’m gonna find out who he is.”

  Sops nodded, finishing the knot. Tenant stepped out of the boat and walked toward the man, realizing that as tall as the guy looked from the boat, Joe still had him beat.

  “Mr. Tenant?”

  It was the man from the car that first night, the same Irish brogue. His face was pale, with thick lips and icy green eyes. His hair was parted to the side, like the senator’s, but it was blond and held less Brylcreem.

  “You know it’s me.”

  “Right, boyo. Well, I’m here just to give you some information. After your little stunt with Mr. O’Neill yesterday, we wanted to send a message.”

  Tenant’s muscles tensed. He waited for a weapon and knew Sops was at his back.

  “How is Isabelle?” the Irishman asked.

  Now his muscles went limp and his nerves tingled. Everything was suddenly cold, like he’d just stepped outside for the first time on a winter morning.

  “What did you do to my daughter?”

  The Irishman winked. “I didn’t do anything to her. Last time I saw her—” He gestured to the large metal bridge off in the distance. “She was wandering on the Pulaski Skyway. Not a good place for a kid to walk by herself.”

  Joe Tenant didn’t even bother to fight this time. Didn’t stick around to hear the rest of what the Irishman had to say. He ran to his car only to find Mikey Sops right beside him.

  When Joe started the car, he turned to tell Sops to leave him alone.

  Sops just put a hand on Tenant’s shoulder. “Let’s go get her,” Sops said.

  ***

  They pulled onto the skyway ten minutes later, Tenant hoping it wasn’t too late. Cars were traveling slowly. The h
eadlights moving in their direction kept blinking. But Joe didn’t see any ambulances and traffic wasn’t stopped.

  The skyway was a long metal bridge that towered over Jersey City and Newark, with barely a shoulder. It had opened five or six years before, and Tenant thanked God that they had kept the promise of arresting any truck driver who took the skyway.

  When it was windy, like it was tonight, the cars on the skyway rattled back and forth, and even at the slow crawl of traffic, he felt his clunker shimmy.

  After five minutes of crawling forward, his stomach couldn’t take it anymore. He stopped the car, jumped out, Sops yelling after him. Horns blared and he heard people swearing at him.

  To hell with them.

  His legs pumped hard up the hill, staying in between traffic, on the white-dotted lines. He could hear the sound of train wheels clanking against the metal tracks, their whistles cutting through the night air, and water sloshing. Off in the distance a foghorn blew. Tenant didn’t like noticing these things. He wanted to ignore everything but getting to the top of the bridge.

  Ignore the fact that his legs ached. Ignore his lungs begging for more air.

  Focus on the process of running, like when he used to box. He could do six miles up hills.

  Focus on Isabelle. He pleaded with God to keep her alive.

  The hill crested and he could see ahead. The right lane was clear. It was clouded in shadow, the sun rising behind him reflecting off the iron girders. He couldn’t see Isabelle.

  He kept pumping his legs. After each step his thighs tightened a little more. They felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds each. He struggled to lift them.

  She wasn’t there. He was closer and he couldn’t see her.

  Tenant’s mind flashed to four years ago. Isabelle had fallen. She was playing in the backyard while he washed the car. Every few minutes, he’d look up and give her a reassuring smile. She’d wave back at him. At one point, between rinses, she started balancing on the wall between their house and the Simpsons. She lost her balance, fell, and cried as if the sky was falling. Tenant dropped the hose and rushed toward her. When he got to her, he kissed her knee, reminded her how the bear reacted when he scraped his knee in the book they’d read together the day before. She nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes. She would be okay, she said.

  Now she could be gone. Dead. His own daughter. No! He wouldn’t give up that quickly. Still he ran, everything getting closer, everything more in focus. His body pleaded to stop, the muscles in his legs almost too tight to go on. His calves cramped and loosened each time his feet pounded the pavement.

  And then he saw her outline. A small girl clinging to the barrier overlooking the city. The body was motionless.

  Another ten feet and he’d be there. “Isabelle!” he screamed.

  The head of the body looked up, peeling itself away from the barrier. She was alive!

  He covered the last few feet in seconds. Isabelle recognized him and yelled, “Daddy!”

  Wrapping her up in his arms, he peeled her away from the girder. He hugged her. His baby was alive.

  “Oh, Daddy,” the girl said. “I’m so scared.”

  “It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.”

  He lifted her off the ground and began to carry her back to the car. He’d promised himself, that day she was born, he’d be there for her. That he’d be her hero, never be weak in front of her.

  But he couldn’t fight it. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Daddy?”

  “It’s okay, baby. We’re going home now.”

  “They told me to tell you something.”

  Horns honked. People applauded. He was her hero. “What did they say?”

  “They said to tell you ‘Connor O’Neill says hello.’ ”

  PART THREE

  BRYAN HACKETT

  Chapter 26

  Seventeen hours

  Franklin Carter was barely conscious. And with the lights off in the basement, he wasn’t even sure if his eyes were open. He could smell his own piss. He had to let it out about an hour ago, felt the warmth run down his leg. And now he sat in it, soaking in his own waste.

  Christ, he hoped he didn’t have to shit.

  The funny thing was, as miserable as this all was—the piss, the pain his face was in, being unable to move in the chair—it meant he was alive. And if he was alive, there was still a chance he could talk Hackett into letting him go.

  “Hackett!” he yelled, and not for the first time since his last beating. “Hackett!”

  But there wasn’t an answer. Nothing. No sounds except for some ambient noises in the basement. He listened to water trickle. He was pretty sure he heard something scurry across the ground.

  At one point—his mind wasn’t working well with chronology—at one point he had struggled against his bindings, only to feel the ropes dig into his wrists. Blood from that wound now congealed on his fingertips.

  Franklin could talk Hackett out of this shit. He knew it. Just like he knew this all could have been avoided years ago. But now he was going to have to rely on his ability to negotiate. He had to rely on Hackett being logical. Franklin knew logic would work. He’d seen it work before.

  If only the man would come back downstairs and talk.

  “Hackett!”

  Nothing.

  He started rubbing his arms up and down, trying to get some friction from the chair against his binds. Skin seemed to peel away from his wrists as he did. Blood dripped down along his fingertips, crusting at his nails. He gritted his teeth and kept going. The ropes were getting looser. He was sure of it.

  Carter kept scraping. No one else was in the building. If there was a time to get out, this was it.

  Things were going to break his way. He knew it. The John Mayer songs were finally out of his head.

  The first ropes gave way on his left side. Franklin pulled his arm away from the chair and flexed the muscles to loosen them. His eyes had long adjusted to the dark, and he could see the scratches and cuts along his wrists. Blood still dripped from them. And his wrist hurt like hell.

  But that was okay. He was almost free now.

  He rubbed his right arm up and down with even more force now. Just a matter of time.

  Franklin Carter was going to get the hell out of here.

  ***

  Donne pulled up to his sister’s house and saw Iapicca’s car parked in the driveway. When he got out of the car, he felt his neck and back crack simultaneously, the muscles straining against his skin.

  Inside, he smelled coffee brewing and heard Susan talking to herself in the kitchen. It brought back memories. Whenever Susan had a difficult exam ahead in high school, she’d lock herself in her room. Mom and he would always hear her talking to herself. The thought that his mother couldn’t remember those moments anymore slowed his step.

  Iapicca stood in the living room holding a mug. He caught Donne’s eye and crooked his neck toward the glass sliding door that led to the backyard. Donne followed him silently.

  When Donne shut the door, Iapicca said, “Get anything from your mother?”

  “She was talking about headlights. I have no idea what she meant. Who’s Connor O’Neill?”

  Iapicca shrugged. “Sounds familiar. Why?”

  “My mother said he was arrested because of my grandfather.” Iapicca nodded and was quiet for a moment.

  “Your sister and I talked too,” he said.

  Somewhere a cricket chirped in the huge backyard. Donne leaned against the deck railing, smelling the freshly cut grass and feeling a bit of condensation on his skin, as if the humidity was becoming liquid as they spoke.

  “What did she tell you?” he asked.

  “Not too much. She said whoever called her to tell her about Franklin’s ransom had a very familiar voice. She was certain she’d heard it before, but she couldn’t place it. She said it sounded like the voice was missing something, like an accent.”

  Something tickled at the back of Donne’s brain too when Iapicca said tha
t. Some lost memory trying to fight its way back to the surface. Again he wondered if this was how Mom felt anytime someone visited. That feeling like something was on the tip of her tongue, that she should know it but couldn’t place it.

  “She didn’t want me to tell you,” Iapicca said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she thinks she’s grasping at straws, some kind of hope that isn’t there. She’s about to give up, Jackson. She doesn’t want any false hope.”

  “I don’t think she’s grasping at straws.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, déjà vu? Something about the accent struck a chord with me. I can’t put my finger on it. Connor O’Neill too.”

  Iapicca nodded. “It’ll come.”

  “I know. We don’t have time to wait for it, though.” Iapicca looked at his watch. “Less than seventeen.”

  “Shit.”

  “I’m calling in the cops, the feds, whoever. You need help on this.”

  “No.”

  “It’s the right thing to do. They’re professionals. They’ll help. They’ll bring Franklin home.”

  “Whoever this is finds out there’s a cop involved and Franklin’s dead.”

  “You ever work a kidnapping when you were a cop? No, you were Narcotics. Franklin stays alive. Without Franklin, this guy has no collateral.”

  “He’ll kill him.”

  “Jackson, I could lose my job. I have to do this.”

  “Eight hours. Just give me eight hours.”

  “You trying to make up for something?”

  Donne didn’t say anything. He’d abandoned his family. Just like his father had.

  Iapicca nodded. “Eight hours. Because I like your sister. Then I call it in. Things get too heavy before that, I call it in.”

  Behind them the door slid open. Donne turned as Susan stepped through the doorway. She handed him a cup of coffee. Cream and sugar. She remembered. Not that it was hard to remember, but somehow it meant something. Like she’d thought of him. The feeling surprised him, and he wondered why he suddenly cared.

  Perhaps he was making too much of things.