Wheaton’s smile widens, showing stained, crooked teeth. “He’s too good for us, friends. He’s Jesus. Didn’t you hear? Surfer Boy Jesus. Someone help me remember, now—what happened to Jesus?”
With that, they close in from both sides. Noah keeps his fist in tight and pops one of the goons in the mouth, snapping his head back, and then spins to his right and connects with a roundhouse left to the jaw of the thug from the other side. It’s enough to throw the man off balance but not enough to knock him over. Noah will still have to deal with him and with the other two. He turns back to his left for the oncoming rush, but he’s not fast enough; the biggest of the goons barrels into him, three hundred pounds of force, knocking him to the floor. He kicks out his legs and tries to bench-press the man off him before a boot connects with his temple, sending a shock of lightning across his eyes. Then the man on top of him rises up and slams down a fist. Just in time, Noah ducks his head, and the man’s fist hits the floor instead of Noah’s face. He cries out in pain. Noah lunges up at the midsection like a bucking bronco to topple the man off him.
But they are too many, and too big. After the initial burst of action, it simply comes down to numbers. Five on one. Five men kicking and punching Noah, who is pinned down. Blood flies from his mouth and nose with each kick, each punch, until he can no longer hold his head up. Now he is nothing more than a punching bag. He feels his ribs crack with successive kicks, but he can’t offer any response. He is getting the life beaten out of him, and if they want to kill him, he can no longer stop them.
After a while, the pressure comes off his chest, and he is being tugged by all four limbs. Then he is lifted off the ground and thrown down onto one of the large woodworking tables.
“Keep his arms out, boys,” one of them says. Noah is hardly conscious as his arms are spread out, palms up. Men climb onto the table and sit on each of his forearms, while two others sit on his shins. He is completely pinned down.
By the time he feels the prick of the nail on the palm of his hand, he is unable to even cry out. He looks through the fog, through the tiny slits of his eyes, and sees Eric Wheaton poising the nail over his right hand, a hammer raised above his head.
When the hammer comes down on the nail, it’s like a drilling rig finding oil, blood spurting into the air. Noah lets out an animal cry and his eyes go to the ceiling. They do quick work of it, nailing both hands to the wooden tabletop, while Noah focuses on a single thought.
Let me die, he prays.
39
“ALMOST READY, BABE?”
I flip the page, then flip back, reading through police reports and investigation summaries and cross-referencing trial transcripts.
“Babe?”
“Um. Yeah. Almost ready.”
Well, not so much. I’m sitting on the bed, feet up, doing work. But I can get ready fast.
Matty pokes his head into the room. He’s wearing a new Hugo Boss sport coat and cologne of the same label. His hair is freshly slicked back from his shower.
“What are you doing? You haven’t even showered?”
“No, I—sorry,” I say. “Just reading.”
“Reading what? Christ, Murphy, do you ever stop working? And that comes from someone who works on Wall Street.” He walks over to the bed, where I’m sitting with the transcript on my lap. Matty reaches for the stack of paper I’m reading, revealing the solid-gold cuff links on his sleeves.
“This is the guy who killed your uncle? The ‘Surfer Jesus’ guy?”
“Yeah.” I look up at him. “Just checking something.”
“Checking what? That guy went down, what, four months ago? What is there to check?”
I shrug. “There was a shooting at Bridgehampton School a long time ago. Halloween of ninety-five.”
“And that has what to do with what?”
“Noah was arrested for it.”
“Noah,” he says. “Now you’re on a first-name basis with the guy.”
“I pulled the file yesterday,” I say. “Let me run this by you, okay?”
“Hurry.” Now he’s at the bedroom mirror above the dresser, checking himself over, fixing the collar of his new shirt.
“Fifteen people were shot that day in the southern playground,” I say. “Noah was on the east end of the yard, by the trees. Of the fifteen shot, about eight of them were hit within thirty feet of where he was standing with his BB gun.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Another seven were walking up to the school but farther away, farther west.”
“Oh. Okay.” He smoothes his hair, looks himself over once more, and reaches a favorable conclusion.
“They were more like sixty, seventy feet away. One of the kids on the farther west end, a kid named Darryl Friese, took a BB in his eye.”
“Yeah? Wow.”
“His left eye.”
Matty doesn’t answer. He walks into the bathroom and runs the water. When he walks back out, wiping his face with a hand towel, he nods at me.
“You still aren’t in the shower,” he says.
“You’re not listening to me.”
“Sure I am.”