No Show of Remorse (31 page)

“Really,” I said, knowing his answers made no sense. “If you walked, how come your pants and shoes weren't wet?”

“Are you kidding? They're soaked.”

But he was lying, and I didn't say anything.

Nobody said anything. I stood there, feeling the weight of Kilgallon's guns in the pockets of his coat, then took out the Sig-Sauer. I'd have preferred my Beretta. But making my unloaded weapon available to whichever one most wanted me dead had seemed a good idea, at the time. Besides, what people say about the Sig proved true. It felt good in my hand; balanced, comfortable, efficient even without firing it. It was loaded, too. I'd checked that back in the kitchen.

“Frankel,” I finally called out, “listen to me. Don't trust him. He's dirty. There's no phone tap. Kilgallon told him about our meeting and he was hiding in the restaurant all along.”

“Forget him, Arthur,” Theodosian said. “He's crazy.”

“Not crazy,” I said. “He and Kilgallon obviously planned to kill me—and you, too. Because we know what happened that night. Remember what Kilgallon said? ‘We,' he said. ‘
We
get you out of
our
way.' But he lost his head and things didn't go the way Theodosian wanted them to.”

“That's crazy talk, Arthur,” Theodosian said. “Paranoid. The talk of a man who murdered a supreme court judge.” He paused, then added, “You can either believe
him,
Arthur, or you can let me do my job. I'll arrest you and you get a lawyer and you'll do okay.” But he wasn't coming any nearer to me now, and I suddenly realized he must have stopped very close to Frankel. “What about it, Arthur?” he said.

“Frankel!” I yelled. “Don't say
anything!
”

But he didn't listen to me. Maybe no one would have. “I … I just don't know,” he said. “But answer Foley's question. Did you—”

A
chug-chugging
sound cut short his sentence; the terrible, frightening sound of an automatic being fired through a silencer. And the simultaneous sound of splintering wood. Then a brief silence, followed at once by more
chug-chugging,
and I looked around my wall and saw the flashes from Theodosian's automatic as, carefully and methodically, he fired up through the wooden floor … at where he knew Frankel must be.

The muzzle flashes, like the sound, were minimized by the silencer on his weapon. As far as I could tell from the sounds, the bullets all pierced right through the old, dry wood. He stopped once to reload, but in just seconds was firing again. And then, finally, Frankel screamed. The shooting stopped, but the screams went on, and through it all the rain pounded down on the metal roof like the hooves of a thousand horses. Then the screams died into moans, and then, finally, there was one more muffled gunshot.

And after that only the trampling rain, and some thunder I hadn't heard earlier.

I hid behind my wall and leaned my back against the wood and breathed deeply, in and out, to gain control. When I looked out again, I couldn't place Theodosian in the darkness. “Hey!” I called.

“Yeah?” I could tell then that he'd climbed up to the second level. He must have been right beside Frankel's body.

“I guess you're gonna tell me he's like Kilgallon, huh? ‘He's hurtin' a little right now, but he'll survive,' right?”

“He's as dead as Kilgallon is—or as Kilgallon
will
be once he's finished bleeding to death, unless you come with me right away and we get him some help. Kilgallon tried to kill me, you saw that. Just like Frankel tried to. Sonovabitch fired at me, from above.”

“Really.”

“Uh-huh.” There was a gunshot then, and another; these two from what I guessed was a small-caliber weapon, one without a silencer. “You didn't hear it?” Theodosian called. “He shot at me twice … with a cheap little .22. It's right here, in his hand.” He paused, then added, “Malachy?” He got the name right this time.

“Yeah?”

“Those big doors at each end of this barn? They're locked, with padlocks. From outside. I checked that out this afternoon.”

“So much for the phone tap bullshit,” I said, “and the parking and walking in the rain.”

“The point is, I'll be arresting you now, and taking you in.”

“But that's not the plan. The plan is to kill me.”

“Only if I'm wrong, and if you
are
a desperate killer. I mean, like, if you resisted arrest I'd have to do whatever I have to do. But let me do my job, Malachy.” His voice had the same calm, reassuring tone he'd used with Frankel. “You'll prove you haven't done anything wrong, and you'll be fine.” I couldn't see him, but by his voice I knew he was climbing down a ladder. “Why would I shoot an unarmed man?”

I realized then that he actually thought there was a chance I'd believe him. He'd gone all the way over and was that crazy. He intended to gun me down, for sure, and if he came after me I'd have to shoot him, maybe kill him. And what then? Explain how he, the cop, was the madman; while I, the murder suspect, was sane? And that I'd shot him in self-defense? That explanation, and my outstanding résumé, would get me life without parole—and maybe a lethal injection, once Illinois got over its scruples and went back to executing people, even if about half the time they weren't guilty.

“Unarmed?” I called out. “Not to worry. Did you see that leather coat I took with me from the dining room? It was Kilgallon's coat. His gun was in the pocket.”

“You're lying.” He was on ground level now.

“I guess I could be. Maybe I really have
two
guns, or
three.
” I didn't have to work very hard to sound desperate … or crazy. “Why don't you come down here and find out?”

CHAPTER

48

“Y
OU'RE LYING
.” Theodosian said it a second time, but the suggestion that I had Kilgallon's gun seemed to have stopped him from moving any farther down the shed my way.

Crouched near the floor again, I leaned out from behind my wall. I couldn't spot him, but I aimed the Sig toward the upper level—where I was sure he wasn't—closed my eyes against the muzzle flash, and squeezed the trigger. Unlike his silenced weapon, the sound of mine exploded through the building. Even so, it was nearly lost in the roar of the rain crashing down on the roof. And there were long rolls of thunder now, too; and wind that shook and rattled the walls when it gusted, and threatened to lift the roof right off.

“Does that change your opinion?” I called. I was back behind my wall.

He didn't shoot back, and he didn't answer. More significantly, even though he had me trapped with no way out, he didn't turn around right then and go for help. So if I'd needed more proof—which I didn't—that he wasn't about to let me live to tell what I knew, that was it.

He might have been creeping my way through the darkness right then, for all I knew. Except I couldn't make out any movement, so maybe he was waiting me out, thinking I'd break before he did. But break for where? The big outside doors at my end were locked, for sure, and I had no reason to think those at the other end weren't. Besides, he was positioned between me and them. He was between me and the door back into the kitchen, too; and if there was some other way out, I'd never find it in the dark.

He had another advantage. He'd have seen the flash from the Sig and knew exactly where I was, and that I'd gone as far as I could go. I was in the last storage stall near the outside doors. The ladder up to the second level on my side was just a few feet away, but I'd have to step out into the open to get to it. I pulled the ski cap down over my face and took a deep breath. Then I leaned around the wall and fired once for cover, stepped out and fired twice, and went up the ladder as fast as I could.

I hadn't closed my eyes and the flashes from the Sig blinded me, so I had to feel my way to the top. I lay on the wooden floor, ten or twelve feet up, getting my breath back. I'd heard no slugs ripping into the walls around me and I hadn't been hit, so he must not have heard me over the wind and the pounding rain, or seen me climbing up. I slid sideways, stuck my head out over the edge of the floor, and looked down. I couldn't see him.

I pulled back and made my way along the floor. Inch by inch, no sound, flat on my belly. I wondered how long it would take me to get to the other end of the shed at that rate, and whether I'd find a ladder when I got there. Every few feet I eased over to the edge to look down. Finally, maybe about halfway to the other end, I was able to make him out.

He'd found a good place to wait in the dark and watch. Down below and across the open space from me, he was probably a little less than halfway down the building from where he obviously thought I still was. He stood—as still as death—behind the wall of a storage stall, a wall that had a board broken out at about eye level.

Moving more slowly than I thought I could, I eased up into a standing position and backed away from the guardrail along the edge of the balcony. I stood in silence and stared down at him. Even if he heard me he'd have to turn around, and I could drop him before he got a shot off. He didn't move, though.

I could end it right now. I raised the Sig-Sauer and pointed it down at him. No way I could shoot him in the back. I knew that. But I didn't have to kill him. I could fire down into his legs and put him on the floor.

Uh-huh. And then what? Call for help and turn myself in? I didn't think so.

Or leave him there, maybe to bleed to death? Like he'd left Kilgallon? First, though, I'd have to go through his pockets to see if he had the unloaded Beretta, which was registered in my name. And if he didn't have it, I'd have to look around for it in this dark shed, or maybe back in the dining room. And then sneak away and hope no one saw me. And hope I'd left no prints, no strands of hair, no bits of skin or fingernail. And then wait, and wonder how long it would take them to tie me to—

I heard something.

Or rather, I
didn't
hear something. And what I didn't hear anymore were the sheets of rain, pounding down on the roof. They were scattered drops now, pinging against the metal above my head. No thunder, either; and no screeching wind. The storm had finally blown through and gone, taking the rain with it. The night was suddenly very still, very quiet. And I didn't even know quite how long ago that had happened.

Theodosian was still frozen in place. But then—maybe because the new silence made him as uneasy as it made me, maybe because he sensed someone's eyes on him—he moved. First just a rolling of his shoulders, then a stretch of his neck. He turned and glanced behind him. I tensed, but he didn't look up—and might not have seen me in the darkness if he had.

And finally he couldn't take it anymore. “Hey!” he yelled. “Foley!”

I didn't answer. He had to be wondering whether I was still down there at the end. He made an odd movement, and I realized he was sticking his weapon into his shoulder holster. He slipped out of his sport coat and crouched to the floor, where he picked up something I couldn't see. Maybe a scrap of lumber, a two-by-four or something. He hung the jacket on it and eased it out into the open. When there was no response he started waving it around.

Nothing happened, of course, and by then, even though it was dark, he must have known something was wrong. He took a quick look around him in every direction, including up toward me. But I was in deep darkness, with Kilgallon's black coat on and my ski cap over my face, and I could tell he hadn't seen me.

He stepped out into the open, his gun back in his hand, stretched chest-high in front of him, and called again, “Foley! You sonovabitch. I'm coming after you!”

When no answer came, he made a big mistake. He should have turned around and headed back toward the kitchen door. But he didn't. Something compelled him to see if I was still hiding behind my wall. So he went that way, walking fast, and I lost him in the darkness. I went the other way, but turned sideways to keep an eye out for him, or at least in his direction.

We'd probably both have gotten to our respective ends of the building at pretty much the same time, but I hadn't yet gotten even with the door into the kitchen when my left foot went through a hole in the floor where a board must have rotted through. My ankle bent the wrong way and I groaned without meaning to, lost my balance, and fell hard against the guardrail. The rail creaked and gave a little—but didn't break.

Knowing he must have heard me, I ran a few more steps as well as I could on a badly sprained ankle, no longer worried about noise. There must have been a ladder down to the floor at that end, too, but I couldn't see it and didn't have time to look around in the dark. Jamming the Sig under my belt, I climbed over the railing and dropped to the concrete below. I meant to land mostly on my right foot, but my left foot hit first, half-on and half-off what felt like a large brick, or a rock. The ankle twisted a second time, in a different wrong direction, and this time there was a definite
crack.
Pain shot up my leg and into my lower back, and I went down, hard, on my side.

I got to my knees and the pain was so sharp and so high up that for an instant I thought I'd been shot. I could hear footsteps running my way. Maybe he
had
shot at me, using the silencer. No one can run and aim at the same time, though, and by then I was up and dragging my useless foot across the open space toward the door to the kitchen. I'd have fired in his direction to slow him down as I went, but God only knew where the Sig was—because I sure didn't have it anymore.

I made it to the door and yanked it open. “Come through here,” I yelled, “and you're a dead man!”

I pulled the door shut behind me, and had to close my eyes against the bright kitchen light. I still had Kilgallon's .38 snub nose in his coat pocket. It was a Smith & Wesson revolver and carried just five rounds. Theodosian might have been thinking by then that I probably didn't want to shoot him. But how could he be sure what I'd do? He'd think twice about bursting through the door after me, which gave me time to drag my broken ankle around to the other side of the stainless-steel counter.