Gone, Baby, Gone (Kenzie & Gennaro 4)

“A baby,” he said eventually, his voice almost a whisper now, “stuck to a mattress by his own bedsores and fecal matter. Left in a room for three days, crying his head off. And nobody cares.” He held out his bloody left hand, let it drop to the gravel. “Nobody cares,” he repeated softly.

I placed my gun on my lap, glanced over at the city skyline. Maybe Broussard was right. A whole city of Nobody Cares. A whole state. A whole country, maybe.

“So I took him home with me. I knew enough guys who’d forged fake identities in their time, and I paid one off. My son has a birth certificate with my surname on it. The records of my wife’s tubal ligation were destroyed and a new one was created, showing she consented to the procedure after the birth of our son, Nicholas. And all I had to do was get through these last few months and retire, and we’d move out of state and I’d get some lame security consultant job and raise my child. And I’d have been very, very happy.”

I hung my head for a moment, looked at my shoes on the gravel.

“She never even filed a missing person’s report,” Broussard said.

“Who?”

“The skaghead who gave birth to my son. She never even looked for him. I know who she is, and for a long time I thought of just blowing her head off for the fuck of it. But I didn’t. And she never looked for her child.”

I raised my head, looked into his face. It was proud and angry and profoundly saddened by the depths of the worlds he’d seen.

“I just want Amanda,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s my job, Remy. It’s what I was hired to do.”

“And I was hired to protect and serve, you dumb-ass. You know what that means? That’s an oath. To protect and serve. I’ve done that. I’ve protected several children. I’ve served them. I’ve given them good homes.”

“How many?” I asked. “How many have there been?”

He wagged a bloody finger at me. “No, no, no.”

His head shot back suddenly, and his whole body stiffened against the vent. His left heel kicked off the gravel and his mouth opened wide into a soundless scream.

I dropped to my knees by him, but all I could do was watch.

After a few moments, his body relaxed and his eyes drooped, and I could hear oxygen entering and leaving his body.

“Remy.”

He opened one weary eye. “Still here,” he slurred. He raised that finger to me. “You know you’re lucky, Kenzie. One lucky bastard.”

“Why’s that?”

He smiled. “You didn’t hear?”

“What?”

“Eugene Torrel died last week.”

“Who’s…?” I leaned back from him and his smile broadened as I realized: Eugene, the kid who’d seen us kill Marion Socia.

“Got himself stabbed in Brockton over a woman.” Broussard closed his eyes again and his grin softened, slid to the side of his face. “You’re very lucky. Got nothing on you now but a worthless deposition from a dead loser.”

“Remy.”

His eyes flickered open and the gun fell from his hand into the gravel. He tilted his head toward it, but left his hand on his lap.

“Come on, man. Do something right before you die. You got a lot of blood on your hands.”

“I know,” he slurred. “Kimmie and David. You didn’t even figure me for that one.”

“It was gnawing at the back of my brain the last twenty-four hours,” I said. “You and Poole?”

He gave his head a half shake against the vent. “Not Poole. Pasquale. Poole was never a shooter. That’s where he drew the line. Don’t debase his mem’ry.”

“But Pasquale wasn’t at the quarries that night.”

“He was nearby. Who do you think cranked Rogowski in Cunningham Park?”

“But that still wouldn’t have given Pasquale the time to reach the other side of the quarries and kill Mullen and Gutierrez.”

Broussard shrugged.

“Why didn’t Pasquale just kill Bubba by the way?”

Broussard frowned. “Man, we never killed anyone wasn’t a direct threat to us. Rogowski didn’t know shit, so we let him live. You, too. You think I couldn’t have hit you from the other side of the quarry that night? No, Mullen and Gutierrez were direct threats. So was Wee David, Likanski, and, unfortunately, Kimmie.”

“Let’s not forget Lionel.”

The frown deepened. “I never wanted to hit Lionel. I thought it was a bad play. Someone got scared.”

“Who?”

He gave me a short harsh laugh that left a fine spray of blood on his lips and closed his eyes tight against the pain. “Just remember—Poole wasn’t a shooter. Let the man’s death have dignity.”

He could have been bullshitting me, but I didn’t see the point, really. If Poole hadn’t killed Pharaoh Gutierrez and Chris Mullen, I’d have to refigure some things.

“The doll.” I tapped his hand and he opened one eye. “Amanda’s shirt fragment stuck to the quarry wall?”

“Me.” He smacked his lips, closed his eye. “Me, me, me. All me.”

“You’re not that good. Hell, you’re not that smart.”

He shook his head. “Really?”

“Really,” I said.

He snapped his eyes open, and there was a bright, hard awareness in them. “Move to your left, Kenzie. Let me see the city.”

I moved and he stared out at the skyline, smiled at the lights flickering in the squares, the red pulse of the weather beacons and radio transmitters.

“’S pretty,” he said. “You know something?”

“What?”

“I love children.” He said it so simply, so softly.

His right hand slid into mine and squeezed, and we looked off over the water to the heart of the city and its shimmer, the dark velvet promise that lived in those lights, the hint of glamorous lives, of sleek, well-fed, well-tended existences cushioned behind glass and privilege, behind redbrick and iron and steel, curving staircases, and moonlit views of water, always water, flowing gently around the islands and peninsulas that made up our metropolis, buffeted it against ugliness and pain.

“Wow,” Remy Broussard whispered, and then his hand fell from mine.

34

“...at which point the man later identified as Detective Pasquale responded, ‘We have to do this. We have orders. Do it now.’” Assistant District Attorney Lyn Campbell removed her glasses and pinched the flesh between her eyes. “Is that accurate, Mr. Kenzie?”