I pull out a cigarette and light it, letting the smoke trickle out of my nose.
“Here’s the thing,” I say slowly as I stare back into his eyes. “I know your daughter.”
I give him props for remaining perfectly still as he hears this, but his eyes still crease a little more at the corners. He’s breathing a little faster now as well.
“I actually kinda like her, ya know?” I shake my head and smile. “I can’t say I was expecting that. I mean, she’s a hooker and all. Who gets attached to a hooker?”
I laugh.
“Can’t lie. It’s not the first time.” I take a long drag off the smoke. “It gets a little lonely in this business, and it’s good to have someone to rely on. I hope I can rely on her, anyway. I think I can. We’ve talked about it, and I think she’s going to be all right with it.”
I point my cigarette at him.
“We’ve talked, you know—she and I. Not a lot. She hasn’t given me much in the way of details but just enough to get me thinking. There’s always a reason people end up on the street, and it doesn’t usually start off as their fault. I don’t ordinarily expect to hear someone’s own father got her started as a whore before she was even in high school.”
“That’s pretty sick, ya know.” I glare at him. “I know I’m crazy, but that shit is sick—really sick. I couldn’t let that slide.”
Taking another puff, I stand up and crouch down in front of him. I balance carefully just in case he does decide to kick out at me. He can’t really hurt me with his bare feet in the restraints, but I still don’t want to be surprised.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized you probably weren’t just whoring her out. You were using her, too, weren’t you? You were fucking your own daughter and then selling her to anyone else who was interested.”
He shakes his head rapidly.
“Lying sack of shit.” I move the lit end of the cigarette close to his foot, and he moans through the gag. I don’t touch it to his skin –I don’t want that kind of evidence left on his body—but I let him wonder for a moment. “I had a lot of thoughts about how to deal with you. Considered bringing over a few buddies to use your ass until you bled to death from it. Funny thing is, Alina doesn’t want me to do anything. She just wants to leave it all in the past, but I have problems letting go of that kind of shit. I don’t forgive—that’s God’s job.”
I walk around the back of the chair, and he follows me with his eyes. Standing behind him, I take hold of what little hair he has and pull his head back.
“I don’t think God forgives fuckers that rape their own daughters, though. I’m pretty sure they got a special place all ready for you.”
I shove the gun into the back of my jeans and pull out a knife instead. I hold it up to his eyes so he can see it.
“I’ll give you one guess what this is for,” I tell him. “Oh, and here’s a hint—it’s not to cut you out of those ties.”
He tries to talk through the gag, which is pointless. I smack him in the back of the head to shut him up, but he keeps trying until I place the knife at his throat. He stills.
“Good boy,” I say. “You just be nice and quiet. Well, as much as you can. Frankly, I’m going to hurt you, so I don’t begrudge you the odd scream. That’s what the gag is for. You try to take it out, and I’m going to slice off your dick, though.”
He nods ever so slightly, likely afraid the blade will cut him if he moves too much. I’m not going to slice his throat though—that would be far too quick.
“I’m not usually into the torture thing,” I tell him. “I’m more of a distance shooter, you know? Been tortured though. I’ve been tortured a lot. Never told them anything.”
A shiver runs through me, and my skin goes cold in the aftershock. Bile comes up to the back of my throat, and I swallow to get the taste out of my mouth.
“I was close though,” I say quietly. “I never told anyone about that. No one. Ever. There was one day when I nearly cracked. They’d already tried to beat it out of me. Beat me, burned me, left me alone without food or water—none of that would have ever opened my mouth. There was that one day when they thought they’d try something else.”
A wave of nausea threatens, and I have to swallow again. My vision goes a little dark, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. I never think about this—not even in my dreams. I barely remember it at all. I shake my head and pinch my forearm hard to bring myself out of it before I pass out. Crouching in front of Jimmy, I raise the knife up to his eye.
“I know what it’s like to be raped. I know what that does to someone. I nearly cracked as a grown man, and she was just a little girl when you did that to her.”
I lower the knife and cut into his stomach through his shirt. It’s not a mortal wound, by any means, and the knife is sharp. He probably barely feels it. As I shove my fingers in the hole I’ve made and twist upward, he closes his eyes, screaming into the gag. He twists his legs, trying to free himself to kick at me. I pull my hand from his gut and punch him on top of the wound. He doubles over, and I stand in front of him, wiping the blood on the back of his shirt.
“Now that I think about it, I’m surprised Alina doesn’t seem to be as fucked up as she probably could have been from all of that. She’s really pretty put together. Maybe that’s just comparing her to me, though—I’m not a great baseline for that, ya know? Still, she fucks guys for a living and has you to thank for that.”
I walk away from him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s getting off easy, but I want to give the impression of a burglary gone bad, not an execution. I would have preferred to cut him to death. Alina would know it was me for sure if I did that.
“She’s smart, you know. She figures things out really quickly and isn’t afraid to speak her mind. I don’t think she got that from you. Makes me wonder who pulled her out of the gutter and taught her to stand up for herself. Maybe no one did. Maybe that’s all her.”
I start pulling things out of drawers and dumping them out. I find his wallet and remove the few bills that are inside, not bothering to count the measly take before I toss the wallet on the floor. It’s a small apartment, and it’s pretty evident that there’s nothing worth stealing.
“Gone all destitute without a little girl to whore out?”
He doesn’t respond. At this point, he’s just watching me and trying to stay still. Maybe he thinks I’ll forget that he’s there. Maybe he’s going into shock from seeing his own blood soak his shirt.
“Part of me wants to know the details,” I say as I sit back in the chair and light up another cigarette. “I don’t think she’ll ever tell me, but I get that. There’s plenty of shit I’ll never tell her either. Sometimes it has to stay buried. The shrinks tell us we need to talk about all that shit to get it out, but some things are best left untouched.”
“It’s funny that she and I are in each other’s lives, really.” I’m babbling and I know it. I’m not even sure why I’m saying all of this except that I know he’ll never have the chance to repeat it. It’s my own verbal journal, maybe. I’ve had a couple of counselors who wanted me to write shit down in a journal, but I never did it. I don’t need a book of memoirs. “Considering what you did to her, she should be even more screwed up than I am. At least I was at war with the people who fucked me over. You were supposed to be the one protecting her. It’s a wonder she can function at all.”
I get back in his face and tap the edge of the knife against his nose.
“Did you get off on that? Betraying the girl you should have loved and protected the most? Did you get off on making her do all that shit?”
He’s completely still, which is a wise decision.
“Are you even sorry about it?”
Again, he is motionless.
“The worst part was in between deployments.” I sit back in the chair. “Telling family members that the guys you were supposed to protect weren’t coming home. Trying to explain that there was nothing you could do to stop what hap
pened. Then again, maybe you’re more like that woman whose husband was executed right beside me. She was glad he was gone. She was happy to get his death benefits and move on with her life.”
I shake my head.
“That’s more fucked up than I’ll ever be.” I sit back and smoke the rest of the cigarette as Jimmy watches me. There are tears in his eyes, and I’m glad. I’m sure he’s only feeling sorry for himself and not the girl he hurt, but at least he’s scared. “I bet she was scared, too.”
It’s time to end this.
It’s not like the city is going to spend a lot of time or money sending a forensics expert out for a shitbag like James Marino, but I still want to keep things looking like a burglary gone wrong. It’s the little slip ups that get people thinking something is up, and that can lead to a more thorough investigation.
“Hold your hands up near your face.” He follows my instructions slowly, but as I approach him with the knife, he starts to panic and grabs for the gag. I slam the toe of my boot into his shin and tell him to do as he’s told. Tears flow down his face as he cooperates.
I slash his arms up near his wrists, just below the gloves. I make nice, defensive-appearing wounds. He’s trying to scream through the gag now, but it’s pointless. I kick him again and tell him to shut up.
“You do understand that you are going to die for what you did to her, right?” I get in his face and stare into his eyes. “You’re going to die for that. You deserve a lot worse, but I have to stick with my original plan.”
I haul back and hit him as hard as I can. I hear his jaw crack with the blow, and my knuckles sting. I shake my hand out and hit him again. I doubt he’ll be screaming too much now even without the gag.
I stab him twice in the stomach and let him bleed for a minute. The wound won’t be fatal unless he lies here a long time, but it’s enough to weaken him. I’ll have to do a little more damage before I go. I shove him to the floor and let him lie there.
In the meantime, I turn a few things over and shove anything that seems remotely valuable into my duffel. I’ll ditch it all when I get back into the city. There isn’t much to take, so I don’t spend a lot of time at it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Jimmy rolls to his stomach and tries to crawl toward the door. I walk over unhurriedly and kick him in the belly a couple of times as he howls through the gag.
He doesn’t even try to take it out again.
Rolling him over with my foot, I shove the knife between two ribs and the blood really starts to flow. It’s still way too good for him. I watch as he struggles, too weak to roll back over, and his eyes start to glaze over as the dingy area rug soaks up blood.
I sit back in the chair and watch him die. It’s unfulfilling.
The kitchen sink is full of dishes, but I clean up there anyway, removing all traces of blood from my skin. Before leaving, I head to the bedroom in the back of the apartment to check for anything else worth stealing. Any burglar would have gone through the dresser drawers, and I want the cops to just glance over everything, write up their report, and file it under unsolved. I go through the dresser drawers and find a small handgun. There aren’t any bullets in it, so it’s not like it would have protected him from much. Maybe it is just for show. I pocket it and look over to the nightstand.
There’s a photograph of a woman and a young girl on top of it. My stomach quivers a little at the sight.
I can’t help it. I walk over and pick up the photograph.
It’s definitely Alina. She’s young—maybe six or seven years old—and she’s standing next to a woman with a cigarette dangling from her fingers. In the background is the Navy Pier Ferris wheel. The woman next to her is undoubtedly her mother—a very thin and gaunt woman. Alina is right about her mother being a junkie. It’s obvious even in the faded photograph.
My curiosity piqued, I open up a couple of drawers just to see if I can find anything else. When I don’t find much of interest, I check the closets. On the top shelf of a small bedroom, I find a box without a label on the outside. I pull it down and open it up.
There’s a doll on the top of it. One of those Raggedy Ann dolls with button eyes and stringy hair made from red yarn. It’s pretty filthy but not in an unkempt way. It’s a well-loved kind of worn. Beneath the doll are a couple of children’s picture books and a Connect Four game. There are also a bunch of those plastic figures you find in kids’ meals at fast food places.
At the very bottom, there are more photographs.
“Bingo.” I glance up and see Ralph sitting on the bed. I’m a little surprised because I haven’t had an appearance from him in several days. He also hasn’t spoken to me in weeks, but he must feel this is important.
“Just a little voyeuristic glimpse into the past,” I mumble as I pull out the pictures. They must have gotten wet at some point because a lot of them are stuck together and tear when I try to pry them apart.
There are only a couple of Alina as a young teenager. One is obviously a school picture, and her hair is nearly as long as it is now. I’m surprised to see her in a pair of glasses that don’t quite fit right. I wonder if she wears contacts now. I’ve never noticed.
As I start to put everything back in the box, I see a small envelope stuck to the bottom, below where I had found the other pictures. I take it out, noticing the thickness of the contents, and realize there are more pictures inside.
There are only three, and they are upside down as I remove them. As I turn them over, I’m fairly sure my eyes nearly bug right out of my head, and I drop down on my ass and stare down at my hands.
I really didn’t expect to find a picture of myself.
Chapter 17—Beyond Duty
I stare in utter disbelief.
The photograph is from when I was stationed in Saudi Arabia, shortly before heading into Afghanistan. It’s a picture of me and Zach Marshall, my spotter during Desert Shield. We’re dressed in our combat fatigues, and I’ve got my arm swung over Zach’s shoulder. There’s a big smile on my face.
I remember the day it was taken. We were leaving in the morning, and Zach said he needed a good picture to send back to his family. It was early March, and someone in our unit had just received a big box of Girl Scout cookies in the mail. I’d just eaten two entire sleeves of the peanut butter ones by myself. In the picture, Zack’s got a plastic bag of Thin Mints gripped in his hand.
How the hell did this picture end up here?
The other two pictures are solo shots—one of me target shooting while we were still stateside and another of Zach reclining on his bunk. There’s nothing written on the back of them or on the envelope, and there’s no indication as to how they might have ended up in a box in Alina’s father’s closet.
I have no idea what to think.
Taking the pictures, I shove the box back up in the closet. There isn’t anything anyone would want in the bedroom, so I don’t bother looking through the rest of it.
I step over Jimmy’s body as I check around to make sure I haven’t left anything important behind like my cigarette butts or gloves. I’ve collected the zip ties and the knife and removed the gag from his mouth. There’s no reason to leave it there. I toss it into a heap of dirty clothes in the bedroom. I have everything else.
Ralph crouches near the body, apparently checking out my knife work. He looks up at me as I open the door to the apartment and shakes his head slowly.
“Fuck you,” I mutter as I leave. “I don’t need your opinion.”
With my duffel swung over my shoulder, I maneuver around in the shadows until I get back to the Volvo. It’s been a handy thing to keep around, but it’s probably time to get rid of it. It’s already been involved in two major crimes. I drive it to the airport and take the ‘L’ back into the city.
I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Every few minutes, I sit up and look at the pictures again. I can’t seem to help the flood of Zach-related memories that flow through my brain. We’d hit it off instantly. He was probab
ly the first real friend I ever had. We spent eight months shoulder to shoulder before he was killed right beside me.
As much as I want to keep what I’ve done from Alina, I can’t let this go. I need to know why her father would have a picture of me and my dead spotter. As far as I knew, he only sent those pictures to his family, and he definitely wasn’t related to any Marinos. I knew his entire life story. He was from the Chicago area, but the only people back home were his parents and his older brother.
I sleep very little. As soon as I doze off, I dream of Zach. When I wake, my chest is tight and my eyes burn. It’s still early enough that the sun hasn’t appeared, but I get up and shower anyway.
As I make coffee and breakfast for myself, all my thoughts are on those pictures.
Alina isn’t supposed to move in until tomorrow, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to wait. She gave me her phone number, but I’m hesitant to call. I don’t want to push her or give her any reason to back out on me.
It would be best to wait until she is actually here with all her things. That makes it harder to just get up and leave. As I debate, my phone rings. I grab it quickly, hoping it’s her, but it’s not—it’s Jonathan.
“Hey brotha,” he says. “I’m heading to the hospital. Want to go?”
“Yeah.” It will be a good distraction from thinking about Alina, but it isn’t going to help with everything else. I can’t avoid it though.
Jonathan picks me up, and we sit in rush hour traffic with the music from his radio blaring Led Zeppelin. By the time we get to Rinaldo’s room, visiting hours have already begun. Lucia and Becca are there, apparently going over some numbers.
“Evan! I’m glad you’re here.” Rinaldo sits up a little. It has been less than a week since his diagnosis, but he still looks weaker to me. He struggles to get himself upright. “You should hear all this.”
Becca looks at me coldly. I have the feeling she doesn’t like sharing information, but she might as well get used to it. Like it or not, I am going to be the boss after all.