Urge to Kill

“That hurts me. I’m gonna offer you a trade. You don’t want it, then we can do the lawyer thing and you can talk or go mum or whatever, but the deal will be off the table.”

“That legal?”

“For Christ’s sake, I’m a cop.”

“Yeah, that’s what I be thinkin’.”

Quinn held the Bible out flat in his left hand and rested his right palm on it. “I’m gonna tell you this, and I’m swearing to it on the Bible. You tell us what we want to know about Galin, and…well, I can’t guarantee you won’t do some time on the charges against you, but I can and do guarantee, on this good book and by all I hold holy, that you won’t serve more than eighteen months.” He handed the Bible over for Pearl to hold. “Now, we can go that way, or we can do this by another book. You can call your lawyer in and we’ll go through the usual bullshit, and maybe you’ll do okay and only get fifteen to twenty years, but this offer will be off the table.”

Lake closed his eyes, thinking about it.

Fedderman walked over and pretended to gaze out the window. Pearl held the Bible and looked at Quinn, standing there with his arms crossed, staring down at Lake. Beneath the medicinal minty scent in the room was the stench of Lake sweating under the white sheet that covered his lower body. Perspiration gleamed on his muscular chest and shoulders, on his broad forehead.

Lake, still with his eyes closed, said, “You can really do this?”

“I can do this.”

“Guarantee me an eighteen-month cap?”

“Eighteen months or less, and you’ll be out,” Quinn assured him.

Pearl felt a queasiness, watching Quinn telling the truth yet misleading a dying man like this. Hard, hard bastard, Quinn. Believable as an emissary from God.

“We got us a deal,” Lake said, opening his eyes. “But you best be tellin’ me the truth.”

“You’ll know soon enough that I am,” Quinn said. He didn’t shake Lake’s hand, but he reached down near the steel cuffs and touched it. Lake replied with a wriggle of his fingers.

The man in the bed sighed. He was going to unload. Quinn had pulled it off. Pearl felt a guilty elation.

“Galin was dirty,” Lake said. “I paid him once a month to lay off my dealin’s an’ to let me know if somethin’ heavy was movin’ my direction. I do gotta say, he kep’ to the deal.”

“How much did you pay him?” Quinn asked.

“Ten thousand a month, then later on he wanted fifteen.”

“He get it?”

Lake snorted a kind of laugh that hurt him and made him wince. “I paid. He be worth it.”

“This go on till he retired?”

“No. Till six, seven years ago, when I went in for a short stretch. Nothin’ to do with Galin, though. Got stopped for a traffic violation, had a trunk fulla product. Shitty luck, was all it was. What it usually is. When I got out, I knew Galin was gonna retire soon.” He smiled. “An’ of course I wasn’t dealin’ then anyways.”

“No need to get into that,” Quinn said.

“I wasn’t surprised when I heard Galin was shot,” Lake said.

“Why’s that?”

“I always had the feelin’ I wasn’t the only one payin’ him. I’d give you the other names if I knew ’em.”

Quinn thought Lake might be lying, but he didn’t want to push it. “You’ve told us what we wanted to know.”

“I gotta ask again,” the doomed Lake said, “you bein’ straight with me? I can count on less’n eighteen months behind walls?”

Quinn took the Bible from Pearl, then gripped it tightly and held it out toward Lake, above the bed.

Pearl thought he looked like a faith healer ready to cast his spell. Was Lake going to rise up from the bed and walk, his handcuffs miraculously opened and dangling from his wrists?

“If you’ve been truthful to me,” Quinn said, “I promise that you’ll be free, Vernon. Within eighteen months, you’ll be free.”

“I been truthful. I swear to God I have.”

“I believe you, son.”

When they left the room, Quinn returned the Bible to Butterfield, who carried it back toward the nurse’s station.

In the elevator going down, the three of them were alone.

Pearl said, “Sometimes you frighten me, Quinn.”

“Vernon Lake’s an asshole who killed his share of people,” Fedderman said. “He knew something that could help us save lives. Quinn didn’t actually lie to the man.”

“That’s what frightens me. And makes me a little queasy.”

“Grow up, Pearl.” Fedderman said.

“Yeah. Grow up, grow old, then die. Makes being born not seem worthwhile.”

“Every right thing you do,” Quinn said, “you don’t feel good about it afterward.”

26

Black Lake, Missouri, 1985

The bitter November air was sharp and full of scent. It froze the hair in Marty’s nostrils and caught like a blade in his throat.

Eleven-year-old Marty Hawk stayed well to the side and slightly behind his father as they trudged up the snow-crusted rise toward the ridge of trees lined like silhouetted Halloween shapes against the gray sky. When the wind blew, it rattled the ice in the branches. Marty’s breath fogged out ahead of him.

He held his rifle cradled in his arm, pointed at the ground as instructed. Marty had shot the rifle before, but not with the high-velocity rounds that were in its breach and magazine now.