“Did you kill the kid?”
“Yeah,” he said, as if he were telling me the time.
I was glad I hadn’t run when he gave me the chance. He would have shot me. I could see where this was headed. Brightman would kill Katy and Barto would kill me. It was to be a neat and tidy little package of revenge.
“The other kid, the one really named Patrick, are you going to kill him too?”
“You know, Prager, that’s pretty good. How did you know there was two of them?”
“I wasn’t sure until earlier today. The tattoo artist confirmed that wasn’t her work on the autopsy photos of John James that my man showed her. But I think I had doubts the night I found the kid’s body. He just didn’t look quite right and I could never figure out why the kid would’ve lied to me about his name when there was nothing to gain by it. I guess Patrick is the one that looks more like Katy’s brother.”
“I don’t know. They looked the same to me. Maybe it’s the one eye thing. You ask me, it was a lot of trouble to go through because of a grudge, but I’m not paying the freight.”
“You think Connie Geary knows what she’s been paying for?” I asked.
“Moe, you figured a lot of this shit out. I’m impressed. I gotta hand it to you, you’re pretty fucking smart.”
“Yeah, just not smart enough. I’m the one walking with the gun stuck in his back. So, Ralph, you didn’t answer me. Are you going to kill the other kid?”
“Nah.”
“No!”
“No. He’s already dead. Brightman killed him in front of your wife. Wanted to give her some closure after all we put her through. It was the least we could do.” Barto snickered as he had on the phone, his true nature showing itself.
That did it. I lost control and spun around swinging. I caught Barto off guard, but I wasn’t quite quick enough. I got in one good punch, but it glanced off his jaw. He simply stepped back, letting my momentum and gravity pull me down.
“Nice try,” he said. “I’m gonna enjoy killing you. Let’s go!”
I ignored the threat and tried to regain my equilibrium. I couldn’t let him get to me anymore. I started talking.
“What about Martello?”
“That asshole, what about him? Truth is, it took you a lot longer to get to him than we figured. We thought you’d interview him right away, but you never was very conventional in the way you did things. I suppose if you were, I’d still have my left eye, you’d have your gold shield, and Brightman’d be president. You shoulda just left things alone back then, Moe. What did finding the truth get you anyway?” Barto coughed and spit. “Fucking bugs keep getting in my throat.”
“That’s why you picked a pewter Yukon, because Martello drove one!”
“Right. Good thing he liked a roomy ride. It would’ve been hell for me if he drove a Miata. I’d look pretty stupid driving them kids around behind the wheel of one of those little things. Woulda looked like the clown car at the circus. Let me tell you something about that guy Martello, Moe, he mighta come after you one day on his own. He fucking hated you.”
“When you told Ray what you had in mind for him, did he feel any better about you sacrificing his life in a just cause? I mean, you did drug him up, stick the murder weapon in his pocket, and force him to run into the traffic on Ocean Parkway.”
Barto snickered again. “You shoulda seen him bounce and skid, man. It was pretty cool.”
We had nearly reached the crest of the hill. Just a hundred feet ahead and down the hill, in a small glen was where the workers’ quarters had been. I had no doubt that was where Brightman and Katy were waiting. Only a few yards before the crest, Barto ordered me to stop.
“Turn around!”
When I turned, I saw Barto raising his weapon at me. What the fuck are you doing? This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen, asshole. I opened my mouth to say something, but found I was so angry I couldn’t speak. He ordered me to back up to the crest. When I stopped, he put twenty or thirty shots at my feet and above my head. I didn’t have time to react. He shook his head at me.
“Nah, you ain’t a puker,” he said, regarding me with a sick kind of admiration. “You look more pissed off than scared.”
“Can I ask you one thing before we go?”
“Sure.”
“Do you really think you’re going to get away with this?”
“Me, I am gonna get away with it. As for Brightman…I don’t think he gives a shit whether he will or not. I think he’s sorta beyond that. Now, let’s go.”
When we came over the crest, I saw the little campsite set up where I remembered the foundation had been. There was a sizeable fire going, a pretty big tent, and not another thing in sight. This was no place for a Brooklyn boy to die. Still, any place was better than a hospital, I thought. As we approached, the tent flap opened and Brightman emerged. Katy was nowhere to be seen. That wasn’t good for a lot of reasons. While I was still confident he hadn’t killed her, I had no hope of saving her if I didn’t know where she was to be saved.
“Hello, Moe. Still not feeling very smug, are you?”
“Where’s Katy?”
“She’s close enough.”
“Where’s Katy?”
“Ralph, please teach our guest some manners.”
I clenched in anticipation of the blow, but it didn’t come.
“Cut the shit, Brightman,” Barto said, “and let’s get this over with.”
“Where’s Katy?”
“Goodness, Moe, you sound like a broken record.”
“CD.”
“What?”
“There are no records anymore, Brightman. It’s CDs and soon there won’t be any of those. That’s your problem, you’re living too much in the past.”
“Oh, yeah, do you think so? I’ll show you what your problem is.”
He went back into the tent and came out dragging Katy by her hair. She didn’t struggle. That scared me. She was trussed up, hands to ankles behind her, a strip of duct tape across her mouth. He pulled her up onto her knees. She wasn’t bleeding and there were no obvious cuts or bruises on her, but her eyes were impassive. I hoped it was just shock, but I knew it was more, much more. The last month had plunged her into a deep well with slick and
very steep walls. Brightman had an automatic in his waistband, but asked Barto for my 38.
“ This is your problem, Moe,” he said, pulling back the hammer of my. 38 and pressing the short barrel to Katy’s temple. He didn’t pull the trigger. It wasn’t time. He hadn’t gone through all of this to shoot her within two minutes of my arrival. That was good. The longer he took, the better our chances of getting out of this, if not unscathed, then alive.
“I’m not playing, Brightman.”
“Yeah,” Barto seconded, “shoot the bitch so I can kill this asshole. Let’s get outta here.”
“Quiet! I want to savor this. Once she’s dead, I don’t care what you do to him. That’s the deal.”
“Whatever,” Barto said.
Brightman got on his knees next to Katy and wrapped his free arm around her shoulder. “I just want you to know that this is all your ex-husband’s doing. Did he ever tell you about what really happened between us? Shake your head yes or no.”
Katy, her eyes still impassive, shook no.
“I didn’t think so. Moe does like his secrets, doesn’t he?”
Silent tears began rolling down Katy’s cheeks and I nearly collapsed. Secrets, the gifts that keep on giving. The pain my silence had caused seemed endless. In a voice barely above a whisper, Brightman explained to Katy how instead of accepting my gold detective’s shield and living happily ever after, I had reopened the investigation into Moira Heaton’s murder. He told her how I had backtracked and discovered that he, Brightman, not Ivan Alfonseca, had murdered Moira.
“Moira knew too much,” he said. “She knew that I had killed a neighborhood boy when I was a kid. I hadn’t meant to kill him, not really, but what do intentions ever have to do with anything, especially in the face of murder?”
The flow of tears was much heavier now and Katy’s body shook, the tape muffling her sobs.
“But did your husband go to the police with the truth? No, he didn’t. Moe, tell Katy what you did.”