“No, sir.”
“Then shut up. I will allow the priest to defend his honor and fight those who have so recklessly and gratuitously hurt Peter. The boy was abused, and however much that might disturb me, he was guilty of the same, so justice is served. As the book says, an eye for an eye. But death is a different matter. Just because God slays the wicked doesn’t mean you may. Our aim is to rehabilitate, not kill, and one of these five men killed Peter. So now it only follows that the priest kills one of them.”
He was speaking to the whole room, but his eyes stayed on Danny. No one seemed to be aware that Pape was contradicting himself, speaking of rehabilitation and retribution in the same sentence.
“If he can.”
Danny stood at the epicenter of the grand stage, surrounded by opponents he could not fear, did not fear. Not because they couldn’t kill him—a single mistake and they would, and might even if he made no errors. He could not and did not fear them because he’d been trained not to. Respect, yes. Fear, no.
But Danny feared himself.
If he extracted justice now he would be lost, pulled back into an ideology that had once ruined him.
Do it to me, he’d said to Slane. But if Danny struck back…To what end? More dead bodies for his graveyard?
An image of Peter bowed in prayer pleaded with him. Danny’s eyes rested on Slane, the one who’d surely enjoyed Peter’s abuse the most. And there he saw a man. A hellion, a beast, but one with pretty blue eyes.
“What do you say, Danny?” the warden said. “Will you rise up to your calling?”
And there was Randell as well, belligerent, once abused by a priest. Now he would be killed by one?
Danny felt the muscles in his shoulders begin to ease. He let his fingers relax. There was Brandon Kearney, face stark with hope, eager to see Danny extract revenge. There stood tall Tracy Banner, with a scar on his cheek, watching with some wonder. Down the row, John Wilkins’s lost expression begged for answers.
Here stood the whole world. They all wanted to see justice. They all wanted him to spill blood. How much was enough?
“In my sanctuary, I am God, boy,” the warden bit off. Danny looked at him and saw that his face had gone flat. He knew.
“Vengeance is mine. When I say march, you march. When I say kill, you will kill. Or, my friend…I swear I will send you to that hole down there that they call hell. And this time your wailing will be heard for miles.”
“No.”
Pape’s eyes briefly narrowed. “No?”
“I was wrong. You’re right, I could hurt these men.” He glanced at Randell, who looked confused. “I could snap Randell’s neck before he landed one blow.” Slane. “I could break Slane over my knees like he deserves. That might be fair. But fairness has failed the world.”
The hard yard sat in perfect quiet.
“Why did you come?” The warden’s voice was tight.
“I came to kill Randell.”
“Then you will kill him.”
“I was wrong.”
“And so you’ll let them kill you?”
Danny took a deep breath, knowing already what he would do, what he must do. This wasn’t just about him, it was about Renee. He could not die.
“No.”
Marshall Pape looked at Randell, then the other four. “Kill him!” he said.
26
“SEVEN BULLETS LEFT,’’ I said, staring at the bloodied tapestry under the judge’s chair. He was being stubborn and I’d felt compelled to put a second bullet through his other foot, into the subfloor beneath the thick green carpet. They were hard jackets and passed through cleanly without making too much of a mess.
But none of that lessened the judge’s pain.
Keith gave up trying to break the door down after the second shot, when I’d taken a moment to explain what I was doing.
I sat in the chair, unable to steady my trembling hands. “The nice thing about losing toes is that you can cover them up with good shoes. With good therapy no one but you will even know someone shot them off. But I hear it’s hard to walk if you lose too many, especially the big toes.”
He was sweating and his face was flushed. Tears of pain leaked down his cheeks.
“You’re done,” he growled through clenched teeth.
“Not really. Because if I still can’t get you to talk, I’m going for the biggest toe.” I gave his crotch a significant glance. “I really don’t want to do that, but I hope you understand now that I can’t control myself. This is something I have to do.”
“You can’t get away with this.”
“But you did, didn’t you? You put your son back on the street, and he went back and killed that poor boy. You don’t have to confess that. I just want to know how you’re connected to Basal. That’s all. Think about it. I’m not going to incriminate you. I’d go to prison if what I’ve done here ever came out. I’d have to spill all the beans and there’d be a full investigation into both of us. We’re in the same boat, so we have to keep this all private—me and my crazy DNA and you with your secret. Just tell me and we’ll leave. I’m not going to kill you, even though that’s what we were sent to do. I’m not a violent person.”
He was looking at me as if I was a complete nut, and that was fine by me. The crazier he thought I was, the better.
I kept telling myself it was okay. That I had to do this, that I’d already gone too far to turn back, that this man did hold the key to Danny’s life, that in some ways Danny was in prison because this man had pushed Danny beyond the brink when he’d cut his son loose. But I didn’t really know if any of that was true, and I was feeling nauseated.
The judge sat in his chair, chest rising and falling as he tried to control his agony.
“So I have to use another bullet?” I asked.
“This is absurd.” The last word was a snarl.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
He only glared at me. So I stood up, leaned over, and pressed the gun to the tip of his right shoe. I was just starting to squeeze the trigger when he spit in my hair. Dirty germy spit.
My crazed DNA reasserted itself. I jerked the gun up and shoved it into his crotch.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “I know what your son did. You think Danny killed him and now you’re after Danny. Tell me what you know about Basal or I’m going to pull this trigger.”
He swore.
“You don’t think I’ll do it? Like son, like father.”
His jowls were trembling, and for a moment I felt sorry for the man. What if I was wrong about him?
“You have three seconds. Two. One…”
“Okay,” he blurted. “I’ll tell you!”
“Tell me!”
27
“KILL HIM!’’ THE warden’s order echoed through the hard yard.
The first to come wasn’t Randell. The big man had heard something that made him hesitate. The first was one of the heavily tattooed men behind Danny, and he came like a bull, rushing at full speed as if this were a street fight and he could simply overwhelm Danny by force.
Without turning, Danny waited, using the sound of the man’s feet slapping on the concrete to judge his distance. The other tattooed member joined the rush, to the right and slightly behind the first man.
By not turning, Danny offered his attacker the false perception that victory was imminent, that if he only moved faster and reached Danny before he could turn, he would be able to break his back from behind. This belief drew the man into a final headlong rush.
Slane was now on the move as well. That made three coming in, no contact.
Danny spun to his right when the tattooed man was only one step away. Hooked his arm behind the man’s back, and shoved hard. The off-balance attacker flew forward and collided head-on with Slane.