Mystic River

The faceless creature reached up another rung in the fence, and then his energy left him. He fell back down and tilted to his right, ended up sitting against the fence, his legs splayed, his faceless face watching Dave come.

"No," he whispered. "No."

But Dave could tell he didn't mean it. He was as exhausted with who he'd become as Dave was.

The Boy knelt in front of the guy and placed the wrapped-up ball of flannel shirt against his torso, just above the abdomen, Dave floating above them now, watching.

"Please," the guy croaked.

"Sssh," Dave said, and the Boy pulled the trigger.

The faceless creature's body jerked hard enough to kick Dave in the armpit, and then the air left it with the whistle of a kettle.

And the Boy said, Good.

It was only once he'd manhandled the guy into the Honda's trunk that Dave realized he should have used the guy's Cadillac. He'd already rolled up its windows and shut off the engine and then wiped down the front seat and everything he'd touched with the flannel shirt. But what was the point of riding around in his Honda with the guy in the trunk, trying to find a place to dump him, when the answer was right in front of him?

So Dave backed his car in beside the Caddy, his eyes on the side door of the bar, no one having come out for a while. He popped his trunk, then popped the Caddy's trunk, and pulled the body from one car to the other. He shut the two trunks and wrapped the switchblade and his gun in the flannel shirt, tossed it on the Honda's front seat, and got the hell out of there.

He threw the shirt and knife and the gun off the Roseclair Street Bridge and into the Penitentiary Channel, realizing only later that as he'd been doing that, Katie Marcus was probably in the process of dying herself in the park below. And then he'd driven home, certain that any minute someone would find the car and the body in the trunk.

He'd driven by the Last Drop late Sunday, and there was a car parked beside the Caddy, the lot otherwise empty. But he recognized the other car as belonging to Reggie Damone, one of the bartenders. The Caddy looked innocent, forgotten. Later that same day, he'd gone back, and felt like he was having a heart attack when he saw an empty slot where the Caddy used to be. He realized he couldn't ask about it, even casually, like, "Hey, Reggie, you guys tow if a car's in your lot too long?" and then he realized whatever had happened to it, there was nothing to connect it to him anymore.

Nothing but the red-haired kid.

But as time had passed, it occurred to him that even though the kid had been scared, he'd been pleased, too, excited. He was on Dave's side. He wasn't anything to worry about.

And now the cops had nothing. They didn't have a witness. They didn't have the evidence from Dave's car, not the kind they could use in court anyway. So Dave could relax. He could talk to Celeste and come clean and let the chips fall where they may, offer himself up to his wife and hope she'd accept him as flawed but trying to change. As a good man who'd done a bad thing for a good reason. As a man who was trying his damnedest to slay the vampire in his soul.

I will quit driving by parks and public swimming pools, Dave told himself as he drained his third beer. He held up the empty can. I will quit this, too.

But not today. Today he was already three beers in and, what the hell, Celeste didn't look like she'd be coming home soon. Maybe tomorrow. That'd be good. Give them both some space, time to heal and repair. She'd come home to a new man, an improved Dave with no more secrets.

"Because secrets are poison," he said aloud in the kitchen where he'd last made love to his wife. "Secrets are walls." And then with a smile: "And I'm all out of beer."

He felt good, jaunty almost, as he left the house to walk up to Eagle Liquors. It was a gorgeous day, the sun flooding the street. When they'd been kids, the el tracks used to run down here, splitting Crescent in the center and piling it with soot and blotting out the sky. It only added to the sense one got of the Flats as a place cloaked from the rest of the world, tucked under it like a banished tribe, free to live any way it chose as long as it did so in exile.

Once they'd removed the tracks, the Flats had risen into the light, and for a while they'd thought that was a good thing. So much less soot, so much more sun, skin looked healthier. But without the cloak, everyone could look in on them, appreciate their brick row houses and view of the Penitentiary Channel and proximity to downtown. Suddenly they weren't an underground tribe. They were prime real estate.

Dave would have to think about how that had happened when he got back home, formulate a theory with his twelve-pack. Or he could find a cool bar, sit in the dark on a bright day and order a burger, chat with the bartender, see if the two of them together could figure out when the Flats had started slipping away, when the whole world had started revolving past them.

Maybe that's what he'd do. Sure! Take a leather seat at a mahogany bar and while away the afternoon. He'd plan his future. He'd plan his family's future. He'd figure out each and every way in which he could atone. It was amazing how friendly three beers could be after a long, hard day. They were taking Dave by the hand as he walked up the hill toward Buckingham Avenue. They were saying, Hey, ain't it great to be us? Ain't it just the flat-out balls to be turning a new leaf, shedding yourself of soiled secrets, ready to renew your vows to your loved ones and become the man you always knew you could be? Why, it's just terrific.

And look who we have ahead of us, idling at the corner in his shiny sports car. He's smiling at us. That's Val Savage, smiling away, waving us over! Come on. Let's go say hi.

"Dandy Dave Boyle," Val said as Dave approached the car. "How they hanging, brother?"

"Always to the left," Dave said, and squatted down by the car. He rested his elbows on the slot where the window had descended into the door and peered in at Val. "What're you up to?"

Val shrugged. "Not much, man. Was looking for someone to grab a beer with, maybe a bite to eat."

Dave couldn't believe this. Here he'd been thinking the same thing. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You could go for a few pops, maybe a game of pool, right, Dave?"

"Sure."

Dave was a bit surprised, actually. He got along with Jimmy and Val's brother Kevin, even sometimes with Chuck, but he never remembered Val showing anything but complete apathy in his presence. It must be Katie, he figured. In death, she was bringing them all together. They were united in their loss, forging bonds through the sharing of tragedy.

"Hop in," Val said. "We'll hit a place I know across town. Good bar. A buddy of mine owns it."