November 19 - 5:22 pm

Find What You Find

Swirling faces in the blue and red light, some I recognize, many I don’t. Michael Masliah, Sergeant Kuhl. EMTs swarm over me like flies. Masliah gazes down at me with sad-eyed pity before he gently leads Luellen and Danny to his car. Kuhl looks like he wants to spit on me, as if a button in the belly is less than I deserve. Maybe he’s right. The pain in my stomach is so great I feel nothing when they insert the IV. I do feel something when the first compress is packed into my wound. “Can you hear me, sir? Can you hear me?” Jesus, yes. “Can you hear me?” Yes, goddammit. But I’m talking only in my head. “Sir, sir?” A light flashes in my eyes. “What? I you.” Then there’s Susan. I don’t see her arrive. “Okay, sir, we’re going to lift you, okay?” She’s just there, materialized like a phantom, stalking at the perimeter of the scene, scowling at the bodies. She doesn’t even know who these people are yet, Myra the tweaker, George the Flea. Only the name Big Ed Gillespie will mean anything to her, though knowing it won’t help her frame of mind. But her expression softens when she gets to Luellen, who sits clutching Danny against her chest in the back of Masliah’s car.

Then she sees me.

The EMTs heave me onto a gurney. I want to scream, hold it back. They’re prepping me for transport. Straps and tubes, blood pressure cuff on my arm. I hear a sound, beeping, and wonder about Mitch. Somewhere inside I know there’s little time to waste. I tell them I need to talk to Susan. “Sir, there’s no time. We need to get you moving.” Susan steps forward, promises to make it quick. One of them argues but I cut him short. “If I die en route to the hospital, I’ll be really pissed if you didn’t let me talk to the lieutenant.” I think they’ve given me something for the pain, or maybe Susan is surrounded by some locus of lucidity.

“Take too long and you will die.”

I believe him. My legs are cold and my hands tingling. I don’t care. “Susan, you need to understand something. Luellen was only thinking about Danny. Okay? It was all about making sure Danny was safe.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” Her voice is cold and far away.

“Just believe her when you talk to her, okay?”

“Believe her? What about you? You’re Batman now? What the hell were you thinking?”

The beep continues, all in one ear. Blue and red light flashes to my right. Alcohol vapor stings my nostrils. I don’t have time, or energy, to explain about finding Danny in the yard, about Big Ed’s appearance. “It all went sideways. I did my best.”

She’s pressing her lips tight against her teeth. Her hair is damp with rain. “We found Eager.”

“Is he—?”

“Yes.” She shakes her head. “Jesus, Skin.”

“I would have called you if I could. Check my back deck. You’ll find my phone, smashed. Big Ed’s doing.”

“What would I find if I had Justin Marcille check you for gunshot residue?”

There’s no good answer for a question like that. The fact she’s asking at all tells me she knows exactly what she’d find. “A lot of crazy shit was going down. I guess you’ll find what you find.”

“How about the gun? Will I ever find that?”

Not something I’d want to bet on, either way. If the man with the hole in his head gets away, maybe not. But someone in his condition? Maybe a uniform will come across him, or his body, halfway down the hill or halfway across the state, gun in hand, roaming eye rolling.

She retrieves a pack of Marlboros from her coat pocket. Sometime during the day she crossed a line. Will the cigarettes make it home with her, or will she do what I did for months before I finally quit—buy a pack, smoke one, toss the rest with a pledge to never buy another? Expensive. She throws a sour, defensive look my way as she lights up and jets smoke upward like she wants to obscure the sky. “What are the chances I’ll ever find out what happened up here?”

“A young woman recovered her child, unharmed, from a would-be kidnapper. A psychotic tweaker and a couple of brutal thugs are dead. Fuck it. It’s a win all around for the good guys.”

She’s not happy. In her shoes I wouldn’t be either. The way things developed today, everything that could go wrong for her has. Just as well I’m one foot in the grave. It’s no matter to me enough confusion was wrought even Mitch Bronstein—a man who drew down on a street full of cops—may walk without ever being charged. To the extent justice has been served here atop Mount Tabor, it’s vigilante justice—something no good cop ever wants. A bunch of bad guys are dead and a mother and child are safe, and that’s all well and good, but the whole situation stinks from Susan’s perspective. And me in the middle of it. Former cop, former partner. Batman indeed. I’m supposed to know better than to get hip deep in the shit. But even Susan had to admit sometimes you take what you can get, be it verdict reached at trial or fondue fork in the eye.

I hear her sigh. The energy required for thought is suddenly more than I have. I close my eyes, against my will. I feel myself moving. “Susan?” I turn my head and blink, but she isn’t there. I look from side to side, see only grim-faced paramedics. Hear the tip-tap of the rain. And Charm. Charm Gillespie. Hutchison. Whatever her name is. There she is, rising up out of the darkness into the red and blue light of the patrol cars and the ambulances. When did I speak to her husband? Six hours earlier? She must have driven like her ass was on fire to get here in that time.

She heads right toward me, indifferent to the tubes in my arms and the blood on my shirt. “Where’s my son?”

One of the paramedics tries to front her. I lift my head, the weight of a stone.

“Mrs. Gillespie—”

An arm appears and slows Charm’s advance. “Susan ...” I can’t remember why I should feel grateful she would try to protect me. But Susan isn’t interested in me. I don’t even know if she can see me. “Mrs. Gillespie, you need to understand—”

Charm throws off Susan’s arm. “Damn it, bitch, I know he’s dead. I don’t need any soft focus bullshit out of you. Just take me to him.”

Susan’s shoulders drop, a capitulation built of weariness. I’m sorry for my part in it. She gestures toward the trees rising on the north slope. Charm diverts mid-stride, Susan beside her. Before either take more than a few steps, I croak Charm’s name, try to wave with my IV-stabbed arm. The EMTs are pissed, but I croak again and Charm turns and looks at me.

“Charm.”

Her expression is the familiar sneer she’s worn as long as I’ve known her. “You gonna die too, Detective?”

Probably. It hurts too much to shrug. “How’d you know to come here?”

She just shakes her head like I’m a fucking idiot. “Where the hell else would he be?”