Losers Live Longer

Elena had stopped her sobbing, suspended it long enough to strain and listen for his answer.

But his answer was wordless. Matt stuck out his other thumb.

He said, “That’s the lot. See, I told you.”

My chest heaved out a short laugh-sob, like I was gagging on ash.

“Okay, six then,” I said. “But shit, when you’re counting off victims on your fingers and have to move to the other hand, it’s time to admit you got a problem. You may have stopped drinking, Matt, but you’ve turned into a murderaholic.”

As soon as I’d said it, I regretted it. I noticed for the first time a distinct drunken cast to Matt’s expression. Not that I thought for a moment he’d been drinking—I didn’t—but there are such things as dry drunks, who can be just as dangerous and erratic as the regular sort.

Matt said, through a ragged smile, “You may be right, pal. But I can kick it. Same as I did with drinking. Cold turkey. Except maybe…one more for the road?”

He looked down at Elena, on her knees, as he held her by the scruff of the neck, propped up against his thighs.

I said, “You’re overlooking something, Matt.”

I raised my gun and waggled it at him, just to bring it into play. I’d forgotten how heavy it was with a full clip.

He frowned and shook his head.

“What are you going to do? Shoot me?”

“The thought has been trapezing through my mind.”

“You won’t. I know you, Payton.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

“Oh, wanna see how sure I am?”

He was surprisingly fast for such a big guy—or maybe just, as usual, I was too slow. I didn’t even see where it came from, but suddenly he was holding a gun.

Blue metal. It looked like the old .38 he’d always kept in his desk drawer at Metro. I’d only ever seen him crack walnuts with it. But now he cocked it, angled it down at Elena’s head.

“Drop your weapon, Payton,” Matt said.

“Or what, you’ll shoot her? Come on, Matt. How stupid do you think I am? If I drop my gun, you’ll shoot us both. But if you shoot her, I’ll drop you.”

“Then do it. Shoot me now. Go ahead. I told you, that’s your only play, Payton. Anything else is just me fucking talking you into putting your gun down. And I will. Because I know you. Oh yeah. Better than you know yourself.”

“Do you.”

“I know your secret, Payton.”

“I’m really the Green Lantern?”

Matt shook his head sagely.

“You think you’re a detective in a detective story.”

His voice bounced off the dank concrete walls and echoed through the shadows of the parking garage. It sounded more ominous than he probably intended.

I said, “I…”

“Payton, you think you live your life by this sort of code of behavior, but you’re only fucking playing at it. You and guys like Owl have outdated ideas about what’s right and wrong—but him I could forgive, he was a dinosaur, he lived it. You, you’re just aping old movies.”

I’d about had my fill of this reunion.

“You, Matt? You can forgive Owl? You shoved him in front of a car! And why, to stop him from coming to see me? What did you think he wanted to talk to me about? Or tell me? What made you kill him?”

“Actually, I didn’t mean to,” he said absently. “Kill Owl? Nothing I would’ve ever fucking dreamed of doing. He brought me up in this business. I loved him. But you know, shit happens.”

“Shit,” I said.

“After the party where Wales bought it, I picked up Cassidy’s trail. I followed her to Avenue C, waited for her outside Addison’s place, watched that fucking stoop till seven in the goddamn morning, and then who does she come out with but George Rowell? It was like something outta a fucking dream, where you think of an old friend you’ve been dying to see in forever, and there they are. And there he was. But holy fuck was he with the wrong woman.”

“So you followed them to his hotel,” I said. “Only you must’ve been a little clumsy, because he picked up on the fact that he had a tail.”

“I wasn’t clumsy, asswipe. Owl was good.”

“Well, you must’ve been good, too, because he didn’t know it was you following him. That’s what he wanted my help for—flushing out who was tailing him. Nothing more.”

Matt seemed to only half-hear me. When he spoke, it was almost to himself. “He figured it out, y’know. At the end. I tried to fake it when I walked up to him, a big smile, what a surprise. But he wasn’t fooled. I saw it in his eyes. Somehow he’d put it all together, out of nothing, like pulling it out of the air. He really was the best of all of us, just a great fucking detective. But he never really got it. The way life works when the chips are down. I mean, there I am, looking for a car coming fast down the road trying to beat the yellow, and he’s explaining to me the whole time why he has no choice, he’s got to turn me in. Can you believe it? Never saw what was coming.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to see.”

“At least he went out on the job. That’s the way he always wanted to go. Always said so. So he got his wish.”

I said, “You’ve got to listen to yourself.”

“I knew you wouldn’t fucking understand, Payton. You and that poor old fool. I could never make you see it. You don’t know what it’s like for me. Especially now. You don’t know what it’s like to be a father. It changes everything. There was no way I was going to have my family’s future threatened by someone’s principles.”

Like every asshole he’d ever collared, Matt had cooked up a rationale for all his actions, a way of convincing himself he wasn’t just doing what he wanted or what he had to but what was right. And who could argue with it? If it came down to me or his beautiful infant son, who was he supposed to choose? I mean, really, what did I expect?

Matt said, “You asked me before, how much and was it worth it. It came to just under four million dollars. Three million seven hundred eighty thousand. Cash. I’d never seen that much in my lifetime. If I hadn’t done what I’ve done, I wouldn’t have that to pass on to my family. As soon as I saw all that money in the suitcases, I knew I’d done the right thing. It was such a fucking relief, knowing it wasn’t for nothing. Knowing it was worth it. Does that satisfy you, Payton?”

“Not really,” I said. “Like how’d you manage to buy this place, a property this size in Manhattan for less than four million? How’d you ever persuade the previous owner to take less than market value?”

He didn’t say anything, just stared at me with a combination of sheepishness and pride on his face. Then he unrolled one more finger on his freehand.

“You got any other burning questions?” he said.

“Yeh,” I said. “Was it you who sicced Moe Fedel on me after all?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hell.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You had me believing you hadn’t.”

“You wanted to believe, Payton. That’s you in a nutshell. You want to believe.”

“I don’t want to believe you killed all these people.”

“Oh fuck, Payton, throw that in my face.”

“And what are you throwing in my face? What do you expect me to do, Matt? What choice do I have?”