As I’m cleaning up, the phone rings, and Laurie answers it. Her “hello” is soon followed with, “Great! I’m doing great! It’s so nice to hear from you.”
What follows is a three-or four-minute conversation, mostly about Laurie’s condition, job status, and immediate plans. There are long pauses in which she listens to apparently lengthy replies. It all ultimately ends with, “He’s right here, Marcus. I’ll put him on.”
As she hands me the phone, I say, “You’ve been having that conversation with Marcus? My Marcus?” The longest conversation he and I have ever had consisted of six grunts and a nod. The way this one sounded, Laurie could have been talking to Henry Kissinger.
I take the phone and Marcus says, “Got him.”
“Who? Childs?”
“Yuh. Bergen Street.”
“Where on Bergen Street?”
“Elevator.”
I was once present when Marcus questioned someone in a dilapidated old warehouse at the end of Bergen Street near the Passaic River, hanging him out over a sixth-floor elevator shaft to encourage his truthful responses. It was vintage Marcus, and I think that he’s now telling me he has Childs at the same place.
“You got questions?” he asks.
“For him? Absolutely. Should I come down there?”
“Now,” he says, and hangs up.
I get up and tell Laurie and Willie about the conversation. Willie insists on going with me, an idea that Laurie encourages. That area can be dangerous at night, and in Childs we are talking about a hired killer, albeit one whom Marcus apparently has under control.
I’d certainly like to bring Willie along, since I’m generally afraid of being alone in my bedroom if it gets too dark. He also shares Laurie’s ability to understand Marcus’s unique way of speaking. I’m reluctant to leave Laurie alone for an extended time, but she points out that her assailant is obviously not available at the moment to come after her.
Willie and I drive down to the designated meeting place, which if anything is more run-down than it was last time. Marcus signals to us from a window on the sixth floor, and we start trudging up the steps. When we’re on the third-floor landing, a rat runs across the floor in front of us, causing me to jump so high I almost fall back down the steps.
“I’ve got to make some changes in my life,” I say, once I’ve recovered.
By the time we get to the sixth floor, I am gasping for air, or dust, or anything else I can take in. Willie, on the other hand, looks like he could go another fifty or sixty stories.
We enter a large room, lit only by moonlight through the window and a large flashlight that Marcus has rested on a table. He is sitting calmly in a chair, while a man I have never seen before sits on the floor, tied to a radiator. Even in the sitting position, it is obvious he is very large, maybe four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Marcus. He looks none the worse for wear; Marcus apparently got him into this position without resorting to violence.
“What you want to know?” he asks.
“Well, to start, whether he shot Laurie.”
Before Marcus answers, an obviously unrepentant Childs laughs. “Of course I shot her, I’m just sorry I didn’t kill the bitch.”
Maybe I’ve felt more anger and disgust in my life, but I can’t remember when. I try to control myself and talk calmly to Marcus. “I want to know who paid him, and why.”
Marcus looks at me, expressionless. “S’all?”
“Saul?” I ask. “Who is Saul?” As always, talking to Marcus is leaving me frustrated, so I turn to Willie. “Who the hell is Saul?”
“Marcus is asking if that’s all you want to know,” he says.
“Oh, sorry.” I turn back to Marcus. “Anything you can find out is fine, but that’s basically it.”
Marcus nods. “Take his gun.” He points to a gun on top of the table, which I didn’t see before.
I try to talk softly, so Childs can’t hear me. “Marcus, I’m not going to shoot anyone, not even him.”
“Take the gun,” Marcus repeats, and then takes his own gun out of his pocket. “And this.”
“Marcus, can you tell me what’s going on?”
Willie decides to intervene at this point, and walks over to Marcus. They talk for about a minute or so, with Willie nodding the whole time.
Willie turns to me and talks loud enough for Childs to hear. “Marcus got the drop on this asshole and brought him here. The guy thinks he can take Marcus, so Marcus is going to give him a chance. It will also give Marcus a chance to ask some questions.”
Childs laughs when he hears this; his lack of fear of Marcus is giving me the creeps.
I whisper to Willie: “Can’t we stay here, with you holding the guns, just in case?”
“I suggested that, but Marcus said no.”
“What’s he going to do to him?” I whisper.
“The guy shot Laurie,” Willie says. “Laurie is just about Marcus’s favorite person in the world. I don’t think you’d want to sell him life insurance, you know?”
“Willie, are we talking about murder?”
“No, you’re talking about murder. Me and Marcus… we’re talking about self-defense. You’re a lawyer; you don’t know the difference?”
I’ve got a bit of a dilemma here. If I just leave and don’t try to exercise any influence over the situation, one of these guys might wind up dead. Also, Childs looks every bit as tough as Pete described him, so I cannot be sure if Marcus’s confidence, in addition to Willie’s, is misplaced.
Even if Marcus prevails, it represents vigilante justice of a kind that I ordinarily do not condone. There is no question but that the proper thing is to turn Childs over to the police. Still, if anyone deserves swift and deadly justice it’s Childs, a piece of garbage who admitted to shooting Laurie and vowed to do it again.
The other factor to consider is that there is a far greater chance that Marcus can get Childs to talk than the police could.
I walk over to Marcus. “Marcus, are you sure about this?” “Yuh.”
“This guy is very dangerous. Will you be really careful?” “Yuh.”
“And you’ll try your best to avoid killing him?”
“Yuh.”
I wish I could let that be the final word.
AS SOON AS WILLIE AND I leave the room, I grab his arm.
“What’s the matter?” he asks.
“Sshhh,” I say softly, putting my fingers to my mouth to emphasize that I want him to be quiet. I look around, trying to find a vantage point from which I can watch what happens in the room.
Fortunately, there are literally holes in the wall, and I find one that lets me see Marcus and Childs clearly, yet it is small enough that they’re unlikely to know I’m there. “I can’t just leave him like this,” I whisper to Willie. “If something went wrong, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Marcus will be really pissed,” he says.
“Only if you tell him.”
“What are you going to do if Marcus is losing? Shoot Childs?”
I shake my head. “I could never do that. It’s still a human life we’re talking about. You can shoot him.”
Willie just shakes his head in disapproval, but he quickly finds another place from which he can see as well. I also notice that he has one of the guns out and ready.
We watch as Marcus goes over to Childs and starts to untie him.
As he does so, Childs laughs and says, “You’re a bigger asshole than I thought.”
Marcus doesn’t answer; he just continues freeing Childs from the bonds. At the moment he is free, Childs
