Breakfall (34 page)

“Three more minutes.”

“One minute.”

“Go.”

Sean walked out the door. His feet felt weightless as he made his way down the stairs—so weightless he needed to trace the surface of the stairwell wall with his gloved fingers to keep his head up and his feet down—and it was forever before he reached the wooden front door with its opaque glass window.

He opened it.

A blast of cold air woke his almost hypnotized senses. Stepping out onto the stoop, he looked up and down the street in both directions. His right hand was still in his jacket pocket, his index finger resting on the pepper spray guard. The street echoed with emptiness.

Once Sean shut the house door against the cold nighttime air, his sense of scent picked up snow on the air once again. Weather was moving in from the east, the briny tang of the Atlantic almost discernible in his nostrils, on his tongue. He descended the three steps to the sidewalk, past the foundation bushes, and crossed the street.

His plain actions seemed too ordinary for the way he felt. His body told him to run—to sprint to the appointed intersection, just to get the waiting over with.

He felt Asbjorn’s eyes follow him from their living room window, and for his sake, he relaxed into his usual strolling gate, pretending this was just one of many ordinary nights.

He did not look back.

T
HE
WEIGHT
of Asbjorn’s gaze on his shoulders felt different than those times when he could have sworn Frank Pettel had him in his sights. He gathered the feeling around himself like a warm cocoon of protection and enjoyed it for as long as it lasted.

He knew to cross the street and make a left, traversing a number of cross-streets in a neighborhood full of taller apartment buildings and single-family homes. Then he’d make a right turn onto Walnut Street, go down a block, then make a left onto Bass Street. The neighborhood had both street lighting and large trees that provided shade and concealment, which is why both Sean and his adversary agreed to it as their meeting place.

Older, colonial houses sat on interconnected properties where azaleas and rhododendrons would bloom come spring and where lawn care was taken seriously. All of that didn’t matter now. The snow that covered the pristine lawns was compacted and grainy with an icy crust that glistened in the eerie gleam of the streetlights.

Sean refrained from checking his watch. Either the cops were in place, or they weren’t. It didn’t matter. He would meet Frank Pettel and look him in the eyes, see what made him tick. He would ask him why he did what he did. He’d ask him why he chose to be called Joe Green. He would determine what manner of a man made so many others suffer as Sean had suffered.

He’d get close and encourage Frank Pettel to put his strong arm around his shoulders. He’d put his right hand on top of Frank Pettel’s hand and turn under his arm, twist his wrist, lift him to his toes with the intense pain that would shoot up the man’s arm from his abused wrist. Then, with a snap of his hips, Sean would rend the already stretched tendons in his elbow asunder and hear him scream as Sean had screamed.

Burrows-sensei had said the elbow joint is the most difficult one to fix.

Unrepairable.

Irreplaceable.

If the police weren’t there, Sean would employ those interesting, effective choke-out techniques he’d been practicing. The ones Nell said could be lethal.

He hoped the police would show up just a few minutes too late. Sean leaned into the bitter, frigid wind as the cadence of his footsteps increased in his effort to get there first.

Revenge was a dish best served cold.

A
SBJORN
CONTINUED
to pace, his eyes glancing at the diving watch he synchronized with Mark’s chronometer.

“He should be there just about—
now
.” He looked at Colleen. The officer looked like a delinquent girl-child, pretending at play with her concealed gun and her police-issue radio. She sat in silence, a focused frown on her freckled face.

“Well?” he insisted.

“He got there two minutes early. Settle down, will ya? What’s making ya so nervous? It’s not like he’s yer girlfriend or something!”

Asbjorn sprung, crossing the space between the window and the small policewoman. His large hands grabbed her diminutive arms as he moved her out of the chair and lifted her face to his eye level. His glacial stare, now directed at the woman, used to shake up the most obstreperous recruits.

“It just so happens I’m his partner, sister. And if you don’t wanna pull desk duty, you better not make any more derogatory remarks about our relationship.”

“Put me down.” She met his stare as an equal. Then she kicked him in the shin.

He felt as though a bucket of cold water was dumped over his shoulders. Coming to his senses, he lowered her back to her chair, careful not to drop her out of spite.

“Sorry, Officer.”

She pointed her nose at him, beady eyes piercing in the dim light of the living room.

“Nobody told me. Sorry. Just… stop pacing, Mr. Lund.”

Asbjorn strode to the kitchen and opened the liquor cabinet. The bottles of whiskey and gin and promises of sweet relief. He closed the cabinet door.

He had to maintain his edge.

Whatever it takes.

He sat next to Officer Colleen. His fingers began to twitch.

The sound of drumming fingers soon permeated the small room.

“Hey… go pace if you want. It sure beats the drumming,” Colleen said, her eyes defocused as she tweaked the volume on her earbud.

S
EAN
STOPPED
on the corner of Walnut and Bass and peered down the hill. He was standing under a streetlight. There was a promising pool of darkness farther down the street, right beneath an old sycamore tree.

Nothing moved.

He waited. He tried not to look at parked cars to see if they were occupied. He forced his gaze away from the thick rhododendron bush down the street and to his right. No way would the cops hide in the bushes—too cliché.

A movement in the dark caught his eye.

“Sean?”

Sean couldn’t quite see him. Just a shadow in the dark. He wasn’t sure of his voice, either, and he needed a positive ID. “Joe Green?” he asked in a midtone, making his voice carry.

“Come down here.”

“No way. You come up here.”

“You’re standing under the light, Sean.”

“And you’re in the dark.”

Stalemate.

“How about we meet at the edge of the shadow?” Sean suggested. He moved down the hill a little bit, just halfway down somebody’s yard.

A van rumbled up the street, and Frank Pettel jumped back into the concealing darkness.

Sean took a deep breath. He needed to lure him out and ID him and break his elbow. In that order.

“Joe? You still there?”

A few moments of silence passed. “Yeah.”

“Well, come out. We have to talk.” Sean saw the moving shadow again, its shade darker than the salt-stained asphalt of the street.

“You come down here too.”

Sean centered himself, and in small, careful steps, he proceeded down the middle of the street, staying away from the icy sidewalk and its uneven footing.

He stopped at the interface of light and shadow. The crooked limbs of the trees were outlined on the street surface in jagged lines, and as his eyesight adjusted to the dim light, he discerned a man-shaped pool of darkness near the tree trunk.

“I’m not coming any closer. You’re the one who wanted to apologize.”

The shadow moved closer still. “I just wanna be sure we’re alone, Sean.”

“We’re alone.”

“Didya see that van?”

“What van?”

“A dark van passed us twice already.”

Sean saw only one dark van. He shrugged. “They’re probably looking for somebody’s house.”

“Then there was another car that passed by here.”

“Oh yeah? What kind?”

“Toyota sedan.”

“A pretty normal car.”

“With two guys in it?”

Sean shrugged, exasperated. “Look, if you don’t feel good about this, you can go home and I can go home and we don’t have to be freezing our asses out here.”

The man’s build was just about right. There was no bandanna and no earring, but his eyes were the right distance apart and he recognized Sean. Moreover, his voice was eerily familiar.

This was him, all right.

Sean took off his baseball cap.

“So, are we talking, or not?” The shadow that was both Joe Green and Frank Pettel moved closer, and closer, and closer.

C
OLLEEN
SNAPPED
her fingers at Asbjorn, signaling him to stop pacing. “He’s got positive ID.”

Asbjorn nodded, his jaw clenched. Trying to remain still, he assumed a parade rest position.

“Damn.” Colleen spat.

“What?” Asbjorn moved closer and dropped to one knee as though he were pleading for more information.

“Your partner’s getting closer to the suspect than desirable.”

Asbjorn straightened and turned, ready to head for his winter boots and jacket.

“Before you get there, it’ll be over one way or another. Just sit tight and trust ’em. They’re good. I don’t even know how they fit all those cops in such a small residential area.”

Asbjorn exhaled. He met the little woman’s piercing eyes. “Were you part of that first action tonight?” he asked.

“You know about that?”

“No—just that something was going down somewhere. Were you there?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it good?”

“You bet. A clean bust, too.”

“Okay.” Asbjorn settled into the chair next to Colleen, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his forehead in his hands. He focused on his breathing. Something was going on just a few blocks from where he was sitting right now, but his place was behind the lines. He was support this time around.

Whatever it takes, Sunshine.

C’
MON
. J
UST
a bit more.

Sean ached for action. Frank Pettel was ten feet away—too far to perform his desired technique. Yet Sean couldn’t attack first. It had to be self-defense one way or another. He jutted his hip, standing in a languid contrapposto. His gloved hand ran through his mess of frozen hair as he looked at his attacker—no, his
uke
—from underneath his eyelashes.

He saw the man’s gaze scan over him, moving a bit closer.

Yes! Just like that.

Sean turned some thirty degrees away from his uke, presenting a less frontal, less threatening posture. His body language invited Frank Pettel in.

He didn’t need him to wrap his arms around his shoulder. Even if he just reached his hand toward him, that would do.

A torn, dislocated wrist was better than nothing at all.

Frank Pettel inched closer, almost within arm’s reach, his hand toward Sean and his almost downcast eyes.

A van passed them, slowly crawling up the hill.

“It’s the same van! You set me up!” The taller man flinched away in alarm.

“Joe? We’re just two guys, hanging out. It’s no big deal.”

Sean was about to take a step toward his intended victim when a short blond white-clad bullet darted from behind the large rhododendron bush by the side of the building, heading for Frank Pettel in a straight line.

“No!” The quarry’s narrow-set eyes widened in alarm as he spun around to flee between Sean and the intervening third party.

Sean drew the pepper spray out of his pocket, flicked its safety guard down, aimed, and sprayed.

The perp stumbled with hands to his face just as Mark flew through the air in a flying tackle. Mark’s arms wrapped around Frank Pettel’s knees.

Before they even had a chance to get a good fight going, two police cruisers screeched to the curb. One angled into the driveway where the two bodies rolled around on an abrasive mixture of gravel and icy snow.

“Stop! You’re under arrest!” Mark’s partner, Sergeant Hastings, launched out of the unmarked car. His tall, lithe form moved with unexpected speed as his knees landed on Frank Pettel’s back with a thud. His gun was out, slide pulled back in mid-draw. The cold muzzle pressed the bottom of Frank Pettel’s skull as he forced his face into the gravel and the snow.

“Just give me one excuse, punk. Just one excuse!”

Hastings’s index finger was on the trigger. The air was so tense, Sean could barely breathe. He steeled himself for the crack of a gunshot.

“Hey, Hastings. I got ’im cuffed. It’s okay.” Mark’s voice was calm and melodious, his hand carefully not touching his superior.

“Hastings, man. He ain’t worth it.”

A moment passed, stretching forever.

Sean saw Hastings fight for breath, his tense, bunched muscles slacking in forced relaxation. His ragged breathing was becoming almost regular.

Breathing exercises. He’s doing breathing exercises.

Ever so slowly, with great deliberation, Hastings slid his gloved finger from within the trigger guard and stood up. He pointed the gun at an empty spot on the ground as he pushed the lock, releasing the still-loaded magazine into his waiting hand. He uncocked the hammer and moved the slide back again, watching the round in the chamber eject. The brass cartridge embedded itself in the snow by his feet. Hastings bent over, picked it up, and slipped it into his pocket along with the magazine. He holstered his weapon.