“Seventy thousand bucks plus free rent and board for him and his girlfriend,” I said. “Pretty generous, Matt. But that’s where things started to unravel. It was just your bad luck his girlfriend was an old friend of George Rowell’s. And that Owl happened to be visiting her when Michael Cassidy showed up at the apartment. She was running scared after that botched attempt on her life by your drug dealer friend. She ran to Addison’s old hideout on Avenue C.”
“Jesus Christ,” Matt said. “Owl made her right away, I’ll bet.”
“More than that—he got her to spill her story about the kind-hearted private investigator who cut her a break, sending her off to rehab instead of letting her get collared with Law Addison. I’m sure you didn’t give her your real name, but somehow he must’ve guessed it was you. Addison was a Metro job after all.”
Matt shook his head. “Can you beat that? The one guy I take in to make it work for me, and ends up his girl knows Owl. That’s fuckin’ New York for ya. What’re the fucking odds?”
“Astronomical. Too bad no one made book, got a little money down on it.”
Matt leaned his head back and stretched his neck with little rotations. “Yeah, well, I did have money down, a load. In fact, I still got a fucking load riding on this.”
“How much, Matt? How much did it all finally come to? What was the tally? I’m curious.”
He brought his head back in line. His gray eyes pinned me.
“You’re curious. You’re curious. You’re curious. Shit, Payton, you don’t need to tell me you’re fucking curious. I get it, already. I know you.”
“Let me rephrase the question,” I said. “How much, and is it worth all that you’ve done to keep it?”
Matt’s eyebrows rose in baffled innocence, furrowing his brow.
“What? What have I done? C’mon, really?”
“You killed eight people.”
“Eight? That can’t be right.”
He started counting them off on the fingers of his left hand. As I watched him, I realized I could raise my gun and shoot him now, that I should shoot him now. But I didn’t. I watched him.
His thumb was Law Addison stuck in the car trunk.
His forefinger was George Rowell, pushed into traffic so he couldn’t put me on the case.
He didn’t count Craig Wales’ O.D., because that had been an accident, the hot bag meant for Michael Cassidy alone. I didn’t argue the point.
His middle finger.
“That guy at the Crystalview.”
He didn’t remember his name.
“Paul Windmann,” I told him.
“Saw his address on your desk, when I was still looking for Cassidy, I thought it was where she was stashed. I only went there to sniff around. But I knock on the door and next thing this guy’s waving a gun in my face. It was over before I even knew what happened. Idiot pulled the trigger, shot himself. I just went over there to ask a few questions and he freaked out and got himself shot.”
“Another accident then?” I asked.
He kept his middle finger up.
I said, “Then there’s the kid you shot over in East River Park, after your play with the drug dealer went bust. Why did he have to die so bad?”
Matt said, “That little cocksucker, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I didn’t believe he had it in him until he fucking showed me. He stopped me when I was coming out of your building. Skidded his skateboard in front of me, then flashed his cell phone up in my face. What’s the picture of, but me with my hands on Owl’s chest, pushin’ as the black car rounds the turn. Before I could grab the fucking phone, he was off in a shot. Like he just wanted me to know what he had on me. I guess he was planning to shake me down. But Homey don’t play that.”
He flicked up his fourth finger, his wedding ring finger.
The pinkie was for Michael Cassidy.
Matt said, “Can’t believe she was over at that hotel all the while. By the time I got there, she was flying so high, she just let me in the room when I knocked. There was a gun on the bed. She made it so…easy. I mean after trying so hard to hide. And then there she was all sort of laid out for me, ready, almost comatose. It should’ve been easy. Just pick up the gun and badabing. But I couldn’t do it at first. Maybe ’cause she was a woman, I don’t know. But then I thought of Jeanne and the baby and what this woman could do to us, and I shot her in the head. Very final, that is. Very final.”
But it wasn’t final at all. It wasn’t over.
I asked, “And where’s Jeff? He went off to meet you more than an hour ago, and here you are, but no Jeff.”
Elena had stopped her sobbing, suspended it long enough to strain and listen for his answer.
But his answer was wordless. Matt stuck out his other thumb.
He said, “That’s the lot. See, I told you.”
My chest heaved out a short laugh-sob, like I was gagging on ash.
“Okay, six then,” I said. “But shit, when you’re counting off victims on your fingers and have to move to the other hand, it’s time to admit you got a problem. You may have stopped drinking, Matt, but you’ve turned into a murderaholic.”
As soon as I’d said it, I regretted it. I noticed for the first time a distinct drunken cast to Matt’s expression. Not that I thought for a moment he’d been drinking—I didn’t—but there are such things as dry drunks, who can be just as dangerous and erratic as the regular sort.
Matt said, through a ragged smile, “You may be right, pal. But I can kick it. Same as I did with drinking. Cold turkey. Except maybe…one more for the road?”
He looked down at Elena, on her knees, as he held her by the scruff of the neck, propped up against his thighs.
I said, “You’re overlooking something, Matt.”
I raised my gun and waggled it at him, just to bring it into play. I’d forgotten how heavy it was with a full clip.
He frowned and shook his head.
“What are you going to do? Shoot me?”
“The thought has been trapezing through my mind.”
“You won’t. I know you, Payton.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.”
“Oh, wanna see how sure I am?”
He was surprisingly fast for such a big guy—or maybe just, as usual, I was too slow. I didn’t even see where it came from, but suddenly he was holding a gun.
Blue metal. It looked like the old .38 he’d always kept in his desk drawer at Metro. I’d only ever seen him crack walnuts with it. But now he cocked it, angled it down at Elena’s head.
“Drop your weapon, Payton,” Matt said.
“Or what, you’ll shoot her? Come on, Matt. How stupid do you think I am? If I drop my gun, you’ll shoot us both. But if you shoot her, I’ll drop you.”
“Then do it. Shoot me now. Go ahead. I told you, that’s your only play, Payton. Anything else is just me fucking talking you into putting your gun down. And I will. Because I know you. Oh yeah. Better than you know yourself.”
“Do you.”
“I know your secret, Payton.”
“I’m really the Green Lantern?”
Matt shook his head sagely.
“You think you’re a detective in a detective story.”
His voice bounced off the dank concrete walls and echoed through the shadows of the parking garage. It sounded more ominous than he probably intended.
I said, “I…”
“Payton, you think you live your life by this sort of code of behavior, but you’re only fucking playing at it. You and guys like Owl have outdated ideas about what’s right and wrong—but him I could forgive, he was a dinosaur, he lived it. You, you’re just aping old movies.”
I’d about had my fill of this reunion.
“You, Matt? You can forgive Owl? You shoved him in front of a car! And why, to stop him from coming to see me? What did you think he wanted to talk to me about? Or tell me? What made you kill him?”