It was only ten o’clock, but he was antsy and troubled, and he didn’t want to sit in his room, though the files he’d brought with him hadn’t been thoroughly scoured. He would do that after Ness filled him in with whatever couldn’t be said on the phone.
He decided he would walk for a bit, but not before locking the files in his car. The last thing he needed was for Margaret to see the photos of severed limbs and run to the Kos women. He would have to set some boundaries on her help; he didn’t want her with unlimited access to his room. But he didn’t want to deal with it now. He needed air, and he needed activity.
At the sandwich shop that butted up against the doctor’s office on the corner of Broadway and Pershing, he ordered enough sandwiches to feed a small army. He didn’t know what the women liked but figured it wouldn’t matter all that much. If they were like the rest of the city—the rest of the whole country—what they didn’t eat for lunch they’d save for tomorrow. Dani had delivered his breakfast, so he felt compelled to deliver her lunch. He always kept the scales balanced. It was something he was religious about.
He left the sandwiches on the counter in the shop and managed to get back out the front door without being subjected to conversation. Dani darted from a back room as he ducked out the jangling front door, and he just waved and called, “I brought lunch for later,” before striding down the walk and continuing on his way.
Turning south, he walked along Broadway toward East Fifty-Fifth, where he could buy a few things and acclimate himself to the area. The two main thoroughfares came together on a well-dressed intersection. A theater, a grocery, a bank, and a library, all brick and edged in arches and quoins, anchored the corners with no setback from the streets. Just behind the theater on Fifty-Fifth was the Fifth Precinct—good to know—but he wandered south a block and found Our Lady of Lourdes Church and slipped in the back ahead of midday Mass.
He wasn’t especially religious, though he supposed he might seem so on the surface, but he clung to the order of his faith, to the anchor it gave his feet upon a path. He needed it. He needed the rules and the rituals. He needed the quiet in his head and the unburdening in the confessional.
He always felt better when he walked out than when he went in. Not because the church had all the answers, but because it had better answers than he did. It kept him from blowing his head off. He’d come close a time or two. The day he met Dani Flanagan, fifteen years ago, he’d even had a plan.
He’d cleaned his weapon before his shift. It usually calmed him, taking his gun apart and putting it back together. But that day it didn’t. That day it called to him instead. It would be so easy, and he wasn’t afraid. He wouldn’t feel anything, he knew that, and not feeling a damn thing sounded peaceful. It sounded right. Pull the trigger, and he’d be gone.
The thought had filled him with euphoria.
His affairs were in order. Irene would get his army stipend and a small payout from the police union. And she still lived with her parents. She was an only child and they doted on her. They’d doted on Mary too. When he’d come back from France, they’d even doted on him. He’d wanted their own place—a little home for his tiny family—but it had never happened. Life had gotten in the way, and Irene’s parents had insisted there was plenty of room and plenty of time.
It turned out there wasn’t nearly enough of either.
Still, when they were gone, Irene would get their house, three houses down from Molly and Sean, where he’d been living for the last two months. Irene would be looked after. His presence was not required.
So he went to work knowing it was his last time. Reveling in it. He’d ignored Murphy all shift, letting his partner’s attitude roll off his back. Murphy wouldn’t matter in mere hours. He would never have to look the other way or listen to Murphy’s fat mouth again. Malone managed to be cheerful right up until they got the assignment at the end of their shift. A domestic situation on Dearborn; nearest intersection, Chicago Avenue.
They’d arrived after it was all over. Murphy wasn’t even surprised. He’d known it was going down. He’d driven right to the home, pulled up, and went straight to the neighbor next door before going inside and seeing if there was anyone hurt or in need of assistance. The neighbor gave Murphy exactly what he wanted. An eyewitness account and plenty of bad blood to make it clean.
Malone had just wanted to go home. He’d just wanted to be done. He didn’t want to care. But then Murphy had put him in charge of the kid. That poor little girl. And he’d cared. He’d cared enough that he’d changed his plan.
He postponed it. Just until he picked up a kitten named Charlie. Then he postponed it again. Just until he got back from taking a train, a kid, and a cat to Ohio.
But Dani Flanagan had looked into his eyes and said, “If you don’t do it, who will?” And his plan had dissolved for good, leaving an odd, new purpose in its wake. Dani Flanagan didn’t know it, but she’d saved his life.
5
Malone was waiting at the end of the driveway for Ness at exactly one o’clock on Friday. Eliot was punctual. Malone had always liked that about him. When he pulled up in front of the house in a nondescript black car, Malone climbed in and slammed the door, and Ness pulled away again, veering back into the traffic along Broadway without a hitch.
Malone pointed at the dashboard and the radio setup mounted like spaceship controls to the right of the wheel. “We goin’ to another galaxy?”