Blood Men Read online

  chapter thirty-seven

  Jesus, it’s bad. Real bad. A dead officer out here and who knows how many dead people inside. Blood all over the inside of the patrol car. There should have been two cops watching tonight, hell, should have been four of them, but the budget didn’t allow for the man-hours required, and nobody wanted to pull that shift on Christmas Eve, and damn it, goddamn it, he should have done more because this officer’s blood is on his hands and so is the blood of anybody dead inside. His training tells him to wait for backup, but his instinct is to go inside, into the unknown. Either way, now he knows he has to as he sees Edward limping toward the front door.

  “Get back in the car,” Schroder yells, but Edward is ignoring him. He breaks into a run and grabs Edward at the front door.

  “Get back in the car!” Schroder orders again. He tries to lift his cell phone to his ear while keeping Edward under control. He gets the phone about halfway up when Edward spins around and grabs it out of his hand.

  “What the hell?” he says, but doesn’t say anything else before the phone is snapped in half and tossed onto the ground. “Jesus, Eddie, what the hell?” he asks, and he shoves him against the side of the house.

  “Sam isn’t in there,” Edward says.

  “How do you know that? We haven’t searched the house yet,” Schroder asks as he presses Edward against the front door. “How would you know that?”

  “They called me and told me. And they sounded impatient!”

  “We need all the help we can get,” Schroder says. Something isn’t right, but he can see the fear in Edward’s eyes and knows he’s telling the truth.

  He lets Edward go and opens the front door. All the lights are off. He goes inside and turns toward the living room. Edward follows him but there’s nobody else here. He keeps flicking light switches and nothing appears out of place.

  “The cop outside,” Edward asks. “Where is he?”

  “Dead,” Schroder says. “Why’d you break the cell phone? Who called you?” he asks.

  Edward doesn’t answer. Schroder opens the hallway door. The only light on down there is coming from the bathroom. “Stay behind me,” he says.

  The bathtub is full of water. On the surface is a plastic tray, floating there, one corner nudged up against the side of the tub. On top of the tray is a brick of cash. Schroder steps into the bathroom and looks down at it, and he knows, he immediately knows he’s made a mistake, a very costly one, and before he can try to rectify it he hears a shotgun being primed.

  Schroder doesn’t move. He keeps facing the bath and his face scrunches up, waiting for the gunshot. He wonders if he’ll outlive that blast by a few seconds and will get to see the front of his chest spraying across the tile wall. When nothing happens, he slowly raises his hands and turns around. A solid man with tattoos on his hands and a thick black jersey covering the ones that probably continue up his arms is pointing a shotgun that covers both him and Edward.

  “What do you want?” Schroder asks.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Edward asks.

  “Where’s the money?” the gunman asks.

  “What?” Edward replies.

  “The money you stole last night.”

  “What are you talking about?” Edward asks.

  “I’m talking about the cash you took from Kingsly.”

  “What?” Edward asks, and he sounds genuinely confused.

  “Don’t bullshit me, boy. You answered the phone. Only way you could have got the phone was if you took it from Kingsly. So you took the money too. You return it, and we return your daughter.”

  “Wait, wait a moment,” Schroder says. “The money, we took the money into evidence this morning. Edward didn’t take it.”

  “No. What you took was a couple of thousand dollars. I’m talking about the four hundred thousand.”

  “Edward. .,” Schroder says.

  “I didn’t take it,” Edward says.

  “Turn around and get on your knees.”

  “Why?” Edward asks.

  “Not you. You, cop, get on your fucking knees and put your hands behind your head.”

  “Look, we can. .”

  “Now, asshole!”

  It’s the last thing Schroder wants to do, but he can’t see an alternative. There’s no way he can jump forward and battle for the shotgun. That’s certain death. Turning around and putting his hands on his head suggests death, but at the moment it’s all he has. He turns around and kneels down.

  “Take his cuffs and use them on him.”

  Edward reaches into Schroder’s pockets and finds the cuffs and latches them around Schroder’s wrists.

  “Drown him.”

  “What?” Edward says, and Schroder is thinking the same thing.

  “Put his head in the bath and drown him.”

  “Wait,” both Schroder and Edward say in unison.

  “You heard me. Drown him or your daughter doesn’t see tomorrow.”

  Schroder tries to get up but doesn’t get far before his chest hits the edge of the bathtub. All of Edward’s weight goes on top of him, pushing his face right down to the water.

  “I can’t,” Edward says.

  “Now. Do it. Do it now!” Tattoo Man says.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can if you want to save your daughter.”

  “Edward. .,” Schroder says, but he doesn’t know how to follow it up. There’s nothing. He knows what’s coming and he takes a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry,” Edward whispers before pushing his head into the water.

  chapter thirty-eight

  Schroder’s cuffed arms make it impossible for him to fight his way out, though he seems to think differently. If I were any lighter he’d probably make it too. His head bangs against the bottom of the tub and the water turns a very pale shade of red. I pull more of his body from outside the tub and stuff it under the water. I hold him by the back of his neck, pushing hard, his muscles tightening-it’s like holding down a mechanical bull. His feet thrash against the floor, the tips of his shoes draw black lines across the tiles. Water is splashing all up the walls and I’m already half soaked. The bandage on my hand is waterlogged and starts slipping off. I try to imagine that I’m drowning a dog, not a person-that mangy mutt from twenty years back-and imagining that actually helps, not much, but enough to stop me from letting him up. Schroder slows down. His feet stop hitting the floor. More of him slides into the tub.

  “Keep holding him.”

  I keep holding him. A couple of bubbles break the surface. Schroder’s legs stop moving but he’s still moving his head, still fighting, still desperate to survive. The seconds keep ticking away. Five more. Another five. The bubbles stop. There is one final shudder and then Schroder no longer struggles. I let go of him and he stays in the water, makes no effort to get up. I turn around. My hands are shaking and I drop to my knees and start to dry-retch.

  “No time for this shit,” the man says. “Get me the money.”

  I cough like I’m the one with lungs full of water. “Where, where are they? My, my daughter and in-laws?”

  “The money,” he says. “Then we talk.”

  “The money is here.”

  “Where?”

  One more cough and I’m done. I slowly get to my feet, holding on to the side of the bath, careful not to touch Schroder. The guy with the gun isn’t wearing a balaclava. He looks like he did this afternoon. He probably hasn’t changed his clothes, or his gun. I doubt he’s used it tonight because it’s too noisy. I bet the policeman outside was killed a different way. I wonder how badly he wants to avoid using it.

  “You’ll kill me once you have it.”

  “You got this all wrong, boy. I am going to kill you. What you’re doing now is you’re buying your daughter’s life.”

  “How do I know you’ll let her go?”

  “She doesn’t know who we are. We got no reason to keep her. Now where’s the goddamn money?”

  “Living room,” I say.r />
  “Lead the way,” he says, and he backs out of the bathroom.

  I lead him down the hallway. We reach the living room. “At the end of the couch,” I say, “against the wall.”

  “Grab it.”

  I reach down and grab the bag, trying to keep my injured leg as straight as I can. The bag is full of crayons and coloring pencils and some drawing books for Sam and is nowhere near big enough to hold all the money I saw last night. As usual it’s open. I zip it closed, pick it up, and toss it at his feet.

  “What the. .?” he says, and he looks down at it and. .

  Now. Now! Now!

  We step forward, my monster and me, only this time I don’t even need him, I’m so mad. I swing my arm upwards, entering Tattoo Man’s line of sight from below, the pencil pointing straight up. He must see it coming, but he can’t avoid it, can’t even scream. He snaps his head upward as the pencil drives deep through his eye and, like a sneeze, thick, clear residue splashes all over my hand. He stands up as straight as a board. One hand releases the shotgun, which hangs by his other side for a moment before hitting the floor. He stays standing, staring at me, one eye bright and wide, the other a liquid mess with half a pencil behind it and half of that same pencil out in front. He doesn’t fall while I wipe the eye juice and blood off my hand; he saves it until I crouch down and grab the shotgun. He falls the way a dead man falls, without a care in the world, without any conviction or fear, his face hitting the armrest of the couch and driving the pencil home before snapping it off. He ends up on his side, a jagged finger of wood in his eye, looking at me but not watching as I race toward the bathroom.

  chapter thirty-nine

  What are you doing?

  I’m trying to save him.

  Why?

  I need him alive.

  Why?

  Shut up.

  Only thing you should be doing right now is to enjoying the rush. God, that was a thing of beauty! Come on, Eddie, the way you drove that pencil home-sweet Jesus, that’s a real winner of a memory-a real keeper-much better than Fido. Bet you a hundred to one that’s the way your father felt when he took his knife and. .

  “I said shut up,” I say, then breathe more air into Schroder. His chest rises when I breathe in and drops when I take my mouth away. There is no pulse. His body is limp and heavy. I figure he’s been in the water three minutes tops.

  I push at his chest. I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing. The last first-aid course I took was ten years ago and Schroder sure as hell feels a lot different from a dummy made of rubber and steel. I could be saving him, or I could be cracking his ribs and driving them into his lungs.

  I breathe into him. Compress his chest ten times. Should it be ten? Twelve? Breathe into him again. How long do I give this? He’s been dead close to four minutes. What’s the cutoff before there’s a serious risk of brain damage? Isn’t it around four minutes? Only thing I can remember about the first-aid course was the instructor. She kept looking at me as though I were the reason the dummy wasn’t breathing anymore.

  Schroder convulses under me and a low roaring comes from his lungs. He begins coughing, his body almost doubling up. I roll him onto his side and he coughs out mouthful after mouthful of bathwater. Then he collapses onto his front, his forehead on his arm, breathing heavily into the floor, his body rising and falling seemingly more than need be as though he’s putting on a show. Other than the show, he doesn’t do anything else. Doesn’t jump up to see if he’s still in danger. Nothing. I’ve removed the handcuffs from one wrist, but they’re still dangling from the other.

  “Hessus,” he mutters, but can’t add anything else.

  “I’m-”

  “Hessus woo. .,” he says, and raises a hand up to his face and cups his eyes. He coughs again, then tries to sit himself up and lean against the bath but can’t make it.

  “Come on,” I say, and help him. He pulls his knees up against his chest and rests his head on them. The bandage on my hand is loose. I pull it off and dump it on the floor.

  “Wash,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate for a few seconds, until “Wash hash,” and then he begins coughing again.

  “Wait here,” I say, and I leave him.

  I check the bedrooms. It’s a three-bedroom house, built in the peak of the townhouse era and painted in showroom colors that are as boring as hell but managed to stay in style longer because of it. The first bedroom, the smallest of the three, has been set up for Sam. There’s a single bed and kit-set furniture and toys and posters and nobody fought for their life in there. The next bedroom has been turned into an office, with a desk and computer against one wall and a treadmill adjacent to the other.

  It leaves one room unchecked, and I walk into it praying that it’ll be empty. I open the door. The air is warm and stale and feels like the room has been unearthed from the back of a very deep cave. Nat and Diana are both lying on the floor, their eyes wide open, staring right at me. I move over to them and crouch down and Nat lifts his head but can’t do much more because he’s been hog-tied, and so has Diana. I rush back down to the kitchen and grab a knife and a moment later they’re free and rubbing their wrists.

  “Jesus, Eddie, what’s going on?” Nat asks. “Where’s Sam?”

  “I don’t know. I think they have her.”

  “They have her? Who? Who has her?”

  “I don’t know. The men from the bank, I think.”

  “The ones who killed Jodie? Why the hell would they take Sam?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” he repeats, getting louder now. “You don’t know? What the hell does that mean? You must know! You have to know!”

  “I’m going to get her back.”

  “Oh, I know you will. For your sake. I’m pretty convinced you brought these men into our house. What have you done, Eddie?”

  “I haven’t done a goddamn thing,” I say.

  “They think you did,” Diana is sobbing now. “And now they’ve taken our little Sam.”

  “If you’ve caused this, Eddie, if something happens to her,” Nat says, “I swear I’ll kill you. I will goddamn kill you.”

  I go back into the bathroom. Schroder doesn’t have the strength to be angry or thankful. “You drowned me,” he says.

  “I saved you.”

  “You drowned me.”

  “I had no choice. If I hadn’t, he’d have shot you. We’d both be dead. Now, listen, you-”

  “You drowned me,” he repeats.

  With Nat’s help, we get him to his feet, lead him into the dining room, and sit him down. My leg is bleeding and I try taking the weight off it as we walk. “You need to focus here,” I say on the way. “This isn’t about you. It’s about my daughter.”

  “What?”

  “You owe me, okay? You owe me your goddamn life. Tell me you understand that. Don’t make me throw you back in the water. You owe me because if you’d done your job and caught the people responsible none of this would have happened. If you’d put more than one goddamn man on duty my daughter would still be here.”

  “Where is he? The man with the gun?”

  “I took care of him.”

  “Same way you’ve been taking care of everybody else?”

  “Not quite,” I say. “The guy I ran over, that was an accident.”

  “Jesus, Eddie, what’s going on?” Nat asks. “Do you know where Sam is?”

  “And Kingsly?” Schroder asks. “Was he an accident too?”

  “I was never there.”

  “He said you had Kingsly’s cell phone. Plus you knew his name.”

  “There was a cell phone in the stolen car,” I say, feeling nothing at how seamless the lies are coming now. “One of the paramedics must have thought it was mine and put it with my stuff. I didn’t even know it was there.”

  He nods. “Okay, Edward, fine, we’ll go with that for now.”

  “Maybe the man who tried killing us is the one who killed Kingsly.”

  “I’
m not following any of this,” Nat says. “Where’s Sam?”

  “Yeah, maybe. But he’d have taken the money with him, right?” Schroder answers.

  “I don’t have any money. If I did I’d have given it to him to get my daughter back.”

  “Now that I really do believe.”

  Nat helps me check through the rest of the house in case Sam’s hidden here somewhere, in a cupboard or under a bed. He takes one look at the dead guy on the floor and doesn’t say a word. I check the playhouse outside-it’s empty. It’s what the men have been telling me-they have her, and I have to pay to get her back.

  In the living room Diana is taking care of Schroder. She’s brought him some dry clothes and probably offered to make him coffee in the way that anybody over sixty always has to offer something, no matter what the situation. Schroder’s taken the other cuff off his wrist.

  “We have to go,” I say.

  “We need to call for backup.”

  “We have to get the hell out of here first.” I grab him by the collar and help him to his feet. “They have Sam. We have to do what it takes to get her back. Come on, you’ve got to help me.”

  “You all need to get out of here,” Schroder says to my in-laws.

  “To hell with what you want,” Nat says, “we’re helping you find Sam.”

  “No, no you’re not,” I say. “You’ll only get in the way.”

  “Settle down,” Schroder says. “Nobody is doing anything here except me. I’m calling for backup, and you’re going to let the police take care of it.”

  “The same way you’ve taken care of finding the men who killed my daughter?” Diana asks.

  “Look, we’re doing-”

  “What you can,” Nat finishes. “To hell with that.”

  “So what, you and your wife are going to come along, is that what you think?”

  “I’d like to,” Nat says, “but I know my limitations. That’s important in a man; and one thing we’ve learned since Jodie got shot is your limitations, Detective. This is why you’re taking Eddie. He got us into this mess, and he knows what it takes to get us out of it. Like it or not, Detective, he’s certainly done more to find these men than you ever have, and if he’s responsible for what happened here, then I’ll deal with him when this is over. But right now I have more faith in him finding my granddaughter than you. Call for backup. We’ll deal with whoever you send here and help in any way we can, but right now you and Eddie need to get your asses out there and find Sam.”