Now he was thinking about her. Would she come back? Would she just use him like the others? His blood was seeping into the mattress, the stain spreading around him. No, she would come back, he thought. He could hear her outside, stepping through the grass. Eddie would get what he needed. Eddie always got what he needed.
I stayed on the streets, jogging at an even pace down the center, reading the signs at each intersection and recalling the way Richards and I had come the night of our zone tour. I could find the blockhouse again and that gave me an advantage over McCane. I had to figure Eddie Baines would not be armed. If the girl had told the truth he'd tossed the Brown Man's gun. And in not one of the rapes or killings had a gun been used.
I hoped he was injured, but not dead. We needed him to talk, not to die. If he had killed Billy's women, he could make the case against Marshack. With that we could string the payoff evidence to McCane. With that they could go after the insurance investors. "Not dead," I said out loud.
When I got to Thirteenth Street I saw the open stretch of darkness and recognized the field. There was no spotlight this time, but the night eyes I'd developed on my river would help me find the dull glow of concrete far in the back of the lot.
I tried to move quietly through the high grass but each step was like shaking a half-filled paper bag.
Ten feet away I could hear him breathing, the inhalations like a big, laboring beast but with a low gurgling sound at the end. He was mumbling with each exhalation but I couldn't make out the words.
Three long, careful steps more and the cinder block was cool against my hands. The window was around the corner on the wall to my right, the door around the one on my left.
I moved to the door and crouched for several seconds, listening, and heard him mutter, "She'll come back." I stayed low when I breached the doorway and looked high, thinking of his size. He saw me first from his position down on the mattress but in the dim light his face seemed to hold more disappointment than surprise.
Then he scrambled, digging his heels into the mattress and pushing his way up the wall to gain his feet.
"Easy, Eddie. Easy," I said, standing up with my hands out, palms showing but ready to clinch. "I'm a cop, Eddie. I'm a cop. Nobody's here to hurt you, big man."
He rocked his back against the wall and the dull light from the window next to him glistened on the stain covering his side.
"I knows lots of police," he said in a low mumble, and I could hear a bubbling deep in his throat.
"I know you do, Eddie. I know. You know Dr. Marshack, right? He works with the police."
I could read the recognition in his face, but his eyes quickly covered it.
"I do not know," he said and shifted his left foot forward.
I took a balanced stance. I'd sparred with big men, knew the dip they often took before lunging or throwing a punch, and I watched for it.
"Sure you do, Eddie," I said. "Dr. Harold Marshack, the one who helped you in jail, the one who gives you the money and the names of the old women."
Again his eyes changed and he seemed to start to say something when I saw the dip to the right. I shot out a jab, snapping it into his hand as he reached out to grab me. I pivoted away. He stood his ground.
It was not a boxing ring and far too cramped to dance away. He was not a slow man, despite his size and the bullet wound. When I'd hit his hand hard with my fist it felt like hitting a thick bag of rolled coins, and he hadn't flinched. I couldn't let him get a hold of me. I knew what his hands had already done.
"Come on, Eddie," I tried again. "Why don't we just settle down here and we'll go talk with Dr. Marshack. You trust him, don't you?"
"I do not know," he repeated.
I was trying to get him to think of something besides crushing me, but I saw him dip again. This time he charged, and I ducked and sidestepped to my right and felt his thick fingers drag across the left side of my neck. He crashed hard against the wall, but then spun.
Now I was in the corner, away from the door and any chance of escape. Jesus, I thought, how smart is this guy? Now I had my fists up, in a boxer's stance. The questioning was over.
He took another, slower swipe with his open left hand and again I punched at it, feeling my fist snap a bone in one of his fingers. He shuffled, but never winced. He was testing me. Watching. Learning.
I took a step to the right, toward the window, and he moved that way, too. I saw him dip and I reacted by sliding to my left, but he had faked me and when my foot lost purchase on a pile of greasy paper he charged. I tried to spin away but he snatched my left forearm in his grip and pulled me to him as his back slammed into the wall. I felt the muscle in my arm flatten and roll under the pressure of his fingers and an electric pain shot up into my shoulder as he tightened the grip and my vision started to spark.
"It was their time," he bellowed and slung me into the opposite wall. "It was their time. Mr. Harold said it was their time." He hesitated with the words, his eyes seeming to blink at their meaning like he'd made a mistake, and it was enough for me to gain my balance. I set my right foot and pounded my free fist into the big man's bloodied side with as much leverage as I could find. This time he winced and a stench of breath popped from his mouth and I landed another blow, and another, and now my eyes were closed and I was back in O'Hara's gym and my father's face was showing his disgust, and I landed another, and another…
I was still punching when I felt the presence behind me. When I turned, McCane's girth had filled the doorway. Light caught the brushed metal of the 9mm in his hand.
"Don't stop on account of me, bud," he said.
Eddie lay unconscious in the corner and when I looked down at my hand, his blood was glistening on my fist and up to my forearm.
"Is this what you wanted, McCane?" I said, turning back to the investigator, trying to see his eyes. His face was shrouded in the dark and I could not register his reaction.
"Hell, Freeman. I'm just helpin' you out. Like partners, right?" he said, moving from the doorway to the window and taking a quick look outside. "And it does look like you found our man."
A sound like a low boil in a deep cave came from down in the corner and I felt one of Eddie's boots shift against my pant leg.
"Course, it's not gonna do either of us any good if this boy lives now, is it, Freeman?"
"He said enough already, McCane. Enough to tie him in with Marshack. And it'll be a short jump to put Marshack with you."
"Yeah, I heard him," McCane said, reaching back into his waist band with his free hand and coming out with a small, tape-handled.38.
"You ever carry a throw-down piece when you worked Philly, Freeman?"
He was looking at the gun, his other hand still flexing on the 9mm at his side.
"Now this little shit piece is just the kind that a boy like this might be carryin'. Just the kind he might use when some P.I. tries to arrest him out here in the dark," he said, waving the short barrel at Eddie.
McCane moved a step forward. His face was dark and I could still not see his eyes, and he could not see the flash of gunmetal come through the window behind him. My recognition started to turn him when the barrel of Richards's Glock found the spot just behind the curve of his ear.
"Freeze it up, asshole!" she yelled.
McCane did not flinch, but only chuckled at the sound of her voice.
"Now, missy. Ya'll sound real tough when you use them movie words. But I don't suspect you ever pulled that trigger on a real man," he said, as he subtly shifted the aim of the.38 from Eddie's chest to mine.
I could see the skin tighten around Richards's eyes and I was just about to warn her of the 9mm still in McCane's other hand when the explosion of noise filled the room and stole the air from my chest.