Already Gone

– 23 –



We drive for a long time.

At first I try to follow the turns so I know where we’re going, but it doesn’t take long before I lose track and I’m lost. When we finally stop, everything is quiet except for the wind and the occasional car passing somewhere far away.

I hear the driver’s side door open, then Nolan’s footsteps on loose gravel. They’re close at first, then they move away and I can’t hear them anymore.

The handcuffs are cutting into my wrists, and my fingers are numb. I shift my weight to take some pressure off my hands, but all I do is make it worse.

I don’t know how much time has passed before Nolan’s footsteps come back. They stop next to the car, and I hear a delicate chime of keys. He unlocks the latch and opens the trunk.

I look up at Nolan standing over me.

It’s dark, and behind him a canopy of oak trees sway in the wind. He’s frowning.

“How you feeling?”

There’s a hint of an apology in his voice.

Just a hint.

“Let me out,” I say.

Nolan looks around then reaches in and grabs my arm and pulls me up. I ease my legs over the side, but when I try to stand, everything spins around me. I sit on the edge of the trunk until it stops.

Once I feel steady, I try again.

At first I don’t know where I am, and then I see the marble columns of the park pavilion to my left and the high-rise apartments towering over the trees to the north.

Memorial Park.

“What the hell are we doing here?”

Nolan doesn’t answer.

He takes my arm and walks me around the car to the passenger side and leans me against the door, then goes back to the trunk and pulls out a small black tackle box. He opens it on the ground and says, “I’ve got a saline wash and some gauze we can use to get that blood off.”

“It won’t help. My nose is broken.”

“Maybe not.”

There is no maybe. I’ve had my nose broken before, and I know how it feels. It’s not something you forget. I start to explain this to him, then I decide it really doesn’t matter and stop talking.

I turn and look around the parking lot. There are no other cars, just a scatter of trees and shadows stretching across the empty lawn.

In the moonlight, everything is blue.

The idea of running crosses my mind, but I don’t know why. I don’t want to get away, I want answers, and Nolan is the only person who can give them to me.

It’s not how I planned it, but it’s what I wanted.

“Are you going to explain any of this?” I try to sound tough, but with my nose smashed flat against my face, my voice comes out thin and weak. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Because I was asked to.”

“By who?”

“I think it’s best if you don’t talk.”

“Why?”

Nolan shakes his head, doesn’t look up.

“Why are we out here?” I ask.

Nolan closes the tackle box. He stands in front of me and stares at my nose for a moment, then uncaps the bottle of saline. “Just be thankful I was the one who came for you. Things could’ve been a lot worse.”

“You mean I could’ve lost another finger?”

Nolan ignores me and pours the saline onto a folded strip of gauze. “Keep still.”

I do the best I can, but he makes it tough.

“All I know is you f*cked up,” he says. “You must’ve really pissed someone off.”

“Who?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“You’re working for them.”

Nolan presses the gauze hard against my cheek and I wince. “No,” he says. “I’m not. I don’t know any more than you do.”

I keep quiet until he finishes wiping the blood off my face, then say, “Did you kill Diane?”

“What?”

“My wife. Did you kill her, or did you hire someone to do that for you, too?”

Nolan punches me in the stomach, hard.

I bend forward and try not to throw up.

For a long time, I can’t breathe.

Nolan stands over me, watching. “I’ve never killed anyone, do you understand?” He pauses. “I’m not like you f*cking people.”

When I can, I say, “I know you hired the men who cut off my finger. I talked to them, they told me everything.”

Nolan steps closer. I get ready for him to hit me again, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “What are you talking about?”

I tell him what happened at Gabby’s place, leaving out the names and a lot of the detail. Whatever Nolan’s plans are, I don’t think they include arresting me. Still, I’ve learned not to take chances with cops.

When I finish talking, Nolan walks back to the tackle box on the ground behind the car. He opens the lid and drops the bloody gauze inside.

“They told me you threatened to have them deported if they didn’t do what you asked,” I say. “Is that true?”

“Deported?”

“Is it true?”

Nolan puts the tackle box back in the trunk and slams it shut. He stands for a while, not moving, then leans against the car with his head down.

“All this happened tonight?” he asks.

“Just a couple hours ago.”

“What else did they say? I want to know all of it.”

“Why?”

“Because it might be important.”

There’s something in his voice that stops me from arguing. I start at the beginning, and I go over every detail of the conversation I had with the man in Gabby’s basement.

This time I leave nothing out.

Nolan listens, and when I finish he says, “He told you they were bakers?”

“Was he lying?”

“I don’t know. How many bakers have you met who’ve had their tongues cut out of their mouths?”

I don’t answer him, and for a while neither of us says a word.

“Did he tell you this story before or after your friend did that to his hand?”

“After.”

“And how bad was it?”

I think about the blood covering the table and pooling around the chair, the way it snaked across the floor toward the sunken drain in the middle of the room.

“Bad.”

“And this friend of yours just let them go?”

“He had them dropped off outside the hospital.”

Nolan looks away. “Christ.”

I keep quiet and let the pieces fall into place.

“You didn’t hire them, did you.”

“I didn’t even know they existed until I questioned you about the attack.”

I watch him and try to see if he’s lying.

He sees what I’m doing, and he frowns. “I said I didn’t hire them.”

“Then who are they?”

Nolan shakes his head. “I really don’t know.”