Eyes Wide Open

“Ancient history, doc. What we oughta be a bit more focused on is what’s going to happen to you.”

“And Evan,” I said, glaring into his dull, animal eyes.

At that, he sort of chuckled and shrugged impassively. “Let’s face it, doc, it wasn’t like we were robbing the world of a future Nobel Prize winner, don’t you think? But we did think it might get a rise out of his old man.”

A last wave of anger went off in me, and I lunged for his throat. He hit me in the face with the blunt end of the blade and his fist, darkness rolling in front of my eyes. When I opened them again, he had the blade under my chin.

“You know the score here… I give this blade a little twist into your carotid artery, you last what, ten, fifteen seconds, before irreversible brain damage begins to occur? Thirty, maybe, at the most, before you bleed out.”

Yes, those were about the numbers.

“Now this may hurt a little, doc…” He laughed. “You know, I bet you’ve probably said that to people a thousand times.”

He seized me by the collar. I was listing in and out of consciousness, trying to will myself not to give in.

“Your brother and his wife are going to be dead soon.”

His words reverberated through my brain like far-off echoes, echoes that filled me with remorse that I couldn’t do anything about it. And dread.

And sadness. For Kathy and Maxie and Sophie. Knowing I would never see any of them again. Thinking of the agonizing way they were going to hear of how I died. Probably believing I’d lost my mind out here.

“Oh, and one last thing. You better listen closely, doc…” He raised my face, so close to his I could almost feel his smile, the intensity of his eyes.

And as I passed out, he said the words that turned my last nightmare into an even greater hell.

Chapter Seventy

O fficer Tim Riesdorfer had been on the job only a little more than a year now, but that was long enough to know he hadn’t been handed the plum assignment that night.

He sat in his patrol car down the block from 609 Division Street, watching the ground floor apartment on the other side of the courtyard.

Maybe he’d pissed off his sarge by being a little overzealous with that tourist in town the other night, catching him making an illegal turn and not liking the guy’s attitude and all-and showing him who was boss by slapping on the cuffs and threatening to throw his ass in jail.

Okay, he knew he got a little jumpy now and then. I mean, he’d spent eighteen months in ’Stan, and if that didn’t make you jumpy, nothing would. But being pulled off his regular assignment and told to sit here all night by the tracks and watch over this rat trap… As what? A favor for some coroner’s detective. Not even a real cop.

All he was told to do was watch out for this car-and if he saw it, to radio in.

Not even go for the arrest!

He glanced at the two APBs on the passenger seat. One was for the car: navy Kia wagon with the license plate 657 E4G.

The other was for a woman, Susan Jane Pollack. A photo from DMV. She looked like she was around fifty. Short, light brown hair. Not pretty. So far he hadn’t seen anyone down here but two teenagers, winding their way into the woods, most likely on their way to get high.

By all means, light one up on me!

Suddenly something caught his attention. A vehicle turning into the building, into the carport.

He rolled down the window, focusing on the model and the plates. Nah, it was a Honda. A person stepped out. One motherfucking, heavyset Latino, not a woman at all, who went around the car and opened the hatch. He watched the dude head into the courtyard with an armful of groceries, climb the outside stairs to his second-floor apartment.

Hot shit, Timmy boy.

He heard Dispatch send out a call for an officer to be sent to 407 Hilltop. A domestic dispute. He was only a couple of blocks away. He could be on the scene in seconds.

Anything was better than this.

He went to ask permission to investigate when suddenly there was a rapping on his passenger window.

It was a woman. Dark glasses and a kind of baseball cap down over her eyes. Her short hair barely peeking through. She was trying to ask him something, indicating for him to lower his window.

He did, just slightly, leaning forward. “Sorry, I’m off duty, ma’am…”

She asked, “Do you know where 730 Division would be?”

That was just down the street, in the other direction, which Tim Riesdorfer was about to tell her when his eye went from her face to the photo on the seat, and he felt his whole body jolt like when his convoy was ambushed as he noticed the slightest resemblance in her eyes.

Instinctively he reached for his gun, leaning toward her, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was “ Hey…”

The initial shot burst through his jaw and out the side of his neck, blood suddenly all over his chest. No pain, no panic, just this sense that he was really, really confused, and he turned toward his lowered window in the direction of the shooter…

The second shot was only a bright yellow spark that made his world colorless forever.