‘Hold on a minute,’ Gino said, pulling out his cell, shielding it from the driving rain. He keyed in a number and listened. ‘Pullman’s still not answering,’ he said.
‘Let’s move it,’ Magozzi said. ‘Viegs, cover the perimeter with whatever men you’ve got; we’re going in.’
He and Gino ripped off their rain slickers at the car – too restrictive, too noisy – and started circling the property close to the hedge, heading around the side to where the bushes opened, near the office. The thunder and lightning were easing up – just a flash or two and a distant rumble every few minutes – but the rain was heavy, and the wind was hitting them hard.
Please, please, Magozzi prayed to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in: Let Montgomery not be here, let him be at his apartment, let Langer and McLaren be slapping the cuffs on him right now, and let there be no more bodies in this awful war that never seems to end.
They found Becker in the planting beds a few yards from the office door. He was on his back, eyes closed, rain smacking against the young skin of his face, the entire left side of his head oozing blood. Magozzi didn’t know if Becker was alive or dead. He pressed hard into where the carotid should have beat against his fingers, and felt a pulse that could have been Becker’s, but might have been his own.
Gino was on his feet instantly, cell phone in his hand, racing toward the front of the greenhouse, frantically signaling the officers in the lot with hand gestures he’d learned in the academy and thought he’d forgotten.
Behind him, Magozzi crept closer to the office door alone. Slices of light were leaking out from around the edges.
Jeff Montgomery’s kick had had enough force behind it to push Marty back a few steps, and to break his hand. It hung uselessly at his side now, swollen and throbbing and empty.
‘I’m sorry I had to do that, Mr Pullman. It was the only way I could think of to save your life.’
Jesus, Marty thought, shaking his head, smiling helplessly. Jeff was focusing as much attention on saving Marty’s life as he was on taking Jack’s. It was such a bizarre, twisted sense of honor and right and wrong that for a minute, he couldn’t get it to gel in his head.
And then suddenly, it did, and he realized that he wasn’t just looking at Jeff Montgomery now – he was looking at Morey Gilbert, Rose Kleber, Ben Schuler, and last but certainly not least, Marty Pullman. For the first time in a long time, he felt easy with himself. He was looking at things head-on, seeing them clearly. ‘Listen to me, Jeff. I’ve been where you are; I’ve done what you’re doing; and I am telling you it is not a righteous act.’
Jeff eyed him cynically. ‘You do not understand. Killing in the line of duty isn’t the same thing.’
‘I never killed anyone in the line of duty.’
Now Jeff’s brows peaked with interest, and so did Jack’s ‘Just what exactly did you do, Mr Pullman?’
Marty took a breath and blew it out so the words would have something to float on. ‘I killed the man who killed my wife.’
Jack’s mouth sagged open and he reached back, found the edge of the sofa and eased himself down. ‘You shot Eddie Starr?’ he whispered, and Marty nodded without turning around to look at him.
Jeff was smiling at him beneficently. ‘Then it was a noble kill, Mr Pullman. You had to do it.’
‘I shot an unarmed man when he was sticking a needle in his arm, Jeff, and there was nothing noble about it. It wasn’t justice, it didn’t elevate me, it just made me a killer, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to fix that. But you’ve got a chance that I never had. Walk away from the last one. Make a choice not to kill. Just turn around and walk out that door, and you’ll have that to hang on to for the rest of your life.’
The wind was picking up outside, buffeting the side of the building, rattling the door in its frame.
Jeff was looking at him with pity in his eyes. ‘It’s really too bad, Mr Pullman. You did the right thing, the honorable thing, and you can’t even see it.’ He took a quick step left to get a clear shot at Jack and pulled the trigger, almost before Marty realized the moment was at hand. Almost, but not quite.
In that millisecond before Jeff’s finger tightened on the trigger, Marty had launched himself sideways into the air, feeling right, and good, and suddenly pure as he put himself between the bullet and the only innocent man in the room. The Amazing Flying Gorilla, he thought, and he was smiling as the bullet drilled into his lower chest.
‘Goddamnit!’ Jeff screamed, taking fresh aim at Jack, and then the door flew open, banging against the inside wall, ripping away from its hinges, and Magozzi crouched there in the driving rain and wind, shouting, ‘Drop it! Drop it!’
Jeff spun around fast, shooting wildly because he’d lost control, because everything was going wrong. When wood splintered near his head, Magozzi pulled his own trigger again and again, firing repeatedly into Jeff Montgomery’s chest, hot adrenaline feeding his muscles and skipping his brain so he wouldn’t see the baby-smooth face, the surprised blue eyes of the very young person he was killing.
41
Magozzi rose slowly out of his crouch in the doorway, gun still steady in his hands, pointed at the motionless body of Jeff Montgomery. His eyes darted around the room, taking snapshots: Montgomery off to his left, his chest a ruin; Marty Pullman straight ahead, flat on his back but his eyes still open, even as his shirt turned red; Jack Gilbert vaulting from the sofa to drop to his knees beside Marty. Desk, computer, chair, an empty bottle on its side, dribbling liquid onto the floor.
He allowed himself to breathe then, and let the wind push him into the little office that smelled like booze and cordite and blood. He toed Montgomery’s gun away from the boy’s curled hand, then felt the heavy comfort of Gino’s hand on his shoulder, easing him off to one side. ‘Let me by, buddy. Just let me by.’
Magozzi’s legs trembled beneath him as the adrenaline drained away. He watched Gino bend to press his fingers against Montgomery’s neck, and then rise again, saying, ‘He’s done.’
By the time they took the three steps over to where Marty lay, there were half a dozen cops outside in the rain, flanking the doorway, weapons drawn. ‘Clear?’ one of them hollered in.
‘Clear! We need a bus here right now!’ Gino answered.
‘On its way!’
Jack was ripping open Marty’s shirt, then peeling off his own to press it hard against the wound. Marty grunted and his eyes creased in pain.
‘Christ, Jack, are you trying to kill me?’
‘It doesn’t look so bad, Marty. You’re going to be okay. Just a little hole, we got it under control now, but you bled all over your shirt, you stupid asshole. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of linen?’
Marty closed his eyes and smiled a little, but he looked bad.
‘Let me take that for you, Jack.’ Magozzi laid his hand over Jack’s, waited for him to pull his away, then put some weight on the polo shirt compress, but not too much. He knew damn well that Marty wasn’t bleeding much on the outside because he was bleeding on the inside, and that wasn’t good. He was breathing hard, lungs and heart fighting the pressure, and the blood that seeped into Jack’s polo shirt was bright red – arterial red.
‘Hey, Pullman,’ Gino was up by his head, kneeling in close. ‘Open your eyes, buddy. You think we’re going to write this report on our own, you’re out of your friggin’ mind.’
‘Gino,’ Marty whispered, but he didn’t open his eyes. ‘How bad?’
Gino swallowed hard, making sure his voice would come out light. ‘Are you kidding? You took a slug in the chest, you think that’s going to be a cakewalk? Way I figure, you’ll be flat on your back for about a month, pissing into a tin bowl. Why the hell did you let that asshole shoot you?’