building.
He worries enough to take the steps two at a time as he races up to Spinner’s floor.
He worries enough to draw his gun and kick open Spinner’s door without even bothering to knock.
And then he stops worrying. Because Spinner is there in his apartment, sitting on his wooden chair facing Doyle. Wearing a big smile.
A red smile.
On his neck.
Worrying won’t help him now.
FIFTEEN
There’s a lot of blood. A hell of a lot of blood. But that’s not the worst of it. .
Spinner’s head is tilted back and his eyes are open, staring at a spot above the doorway like he has a crick in his neck. The gash in his throat stretches almost from ear to ear, gaping and glistening. His clothes are sopping and sticky with his own blood. The dining table has been dragged from its usual position and set directly in front of Spinner. On it there’s a tape recorder and a microphone. And a hammer.
Spinner’s hand, his good hand, rests next to the recorder. Two six-inch nails have been driven through it, holding it firmly to the table’s surface. All the fingers of the hand have been smashed with the hammer, crushing and flattening them into a single useless bloody mass. Like raw hamburger.
It must have been the ultimate torture for a man like Spinner. For a boxer of such promise to lose the use of one precious hand was devastating enough. To lose the second, there in front of his eyes, would have destroyed any spirit left in the man. Had his persecutor not finished him off, Spinner would probably have done it himself.
Doyle can almost hear the screams, see the agony and pleading in Spinner’s eyes as the hammer crashes down time and time again, destroying his fingers, destroying his hope.
Doyle wants to cry over the waste of it, to rage at the stomach-churning cruelty of it. But what rips at him most is his own culpability.
‘Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,’ Doyle whispers to his friend. ‘I’m so sorry.’
It’s some time before he can put his mind back in order. He knows what he should do now. He should back out of the room, put in a call to Central. Get the experts down here while he protects the crime scene.
What the fuck. He’s in enough trouble as it is. What’s one more transgression going to add to his load?
And so he steps across the sodden carpet. Checks that the rest of the apartment is empty before returning to the body.
He looks again at the tape recorder. Taking a pen from his pocket, he uses it to press the eject button. The player’s door springs open, but there’s no cassette inside.
He frowns, then turns his attention back to Spinner. He leans in for a closer look, and that’s when he sees it. Shiny and wet, it’s tucked deep into Spinner’s throat wound. Doyle takes his pen and pokes it gently into the fleshy chasm, pressing it against the foreign object. Whatever’s in there, it’s wrapped in some kind of plastic material.
Trying to apply the minimum of force, he teases the object out, farther and farther until it’s protruding from Spinner’s throat like some distorted second tongue. He goes off to the bathroom, and comes back with a wad of tissue. He wraps the tissue around his fingers, then uses it to grasp the edge of the object and pull it all the way out. As it comes free, a bubble of blood distends from Spinner’s trachea and pops softly.
With great care, Doyle unrolls the plastic bag. He puts it down on the table and props it open with his pen, then reaches inside with some fresh tissue between his fingers.
What he brings out is a cassette tape. The words ‘Detective Doyle’ are written in pen on its label. The handwriting is Spinner’s.
Doyle slides the tape into the recorder, snaps the lid closed, then presses the play button.
At first he’s not sure what he’s listening to. Some heavy rock music is playing really loudly, but beneath that is also the sound of faint sobbing. Doyle gradually realizes that the killer had turned on the stereo and ramped up the volume to mask what was happening here in the apartment. The crying is Spinner’s.
And then: ‘No. No. I won’t do it.’
Doyle wonders what it is he’s refusing to do, but he doesn’t have long to ponder it. The next sound he hears is a bang like a gunshot, followed by a howl of excruciating pain that causes Doyle to leap away from the table and put his hands to his ears.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ Doyle yells to drown out the screams. ‘Sweet fucking Jesus.’
When he can bring himself to listen again, the music has been turned right down and Spinner is talking to him.
‘Cal? It’s me, buddy. I have to read something to you, okay? I have to read this, so here goes.’ There’s a pause, then a slight rustle of paper, and then Spinner talking through his tears again. ‘ “Detective Doyle. You did this to me. You were warned, but you didn’t listen. You were supposed to stay away from everyone you know, but you didn’t. You came to see me. You are the reason I’m going through this right now. It’s all your fault. When will you ever learn?” ’
There is another faint crackle of paper, then the sound of footsteps retreating. Doyle waits for the tape to go dead, but suddenly Spinner pipes up again. His words come out in a rush, like he knows he has little time left.
‘Cal, I’m sorry, man. I let you down. I didn’t want to-’
It’s as far as he gets, and Doyle thinks the recorder’s stop button must have been pressed while he was in mid-sentence. But he’s wrong. There is still sound. A gurgling, choking sound. The sound of a man who’s just had his throat opened up.
Doyle stands in the chaotic, blood-soaked apartment, looking down at his old friend from the Bronx. Listening to his death throes.
He stands there until the tape reaches its end.
And he weeps.
He’s hardly flavor of the month when the crowd arrives. Holden and LeBlanc are okay: the worst they give him are pitying looks and shoulder shrugs that say,
The Crime Scene detectives, and especially the photographer, are a different matter. They’re kind of upset that a precinct detective decided it would be okay to go tramping through the apartment, moving stuff around before they’ve had a chance to record the scene and look for clues and shit. They’re funny that way.
Norman Chin takes it to another level again. Anything to do with a dead body, and especially
And so when Lieutenant Franklin arrives on the scene, the furrows on his face already spelling out the word ‘grim’, and finds that everyone and his brother are united in a ‘we-hate-Doyle’ campaign, it comes as no surprise to Doyle that his boss feels the need to join in.
‘Go outside,’ Franklin orders, his eyes glowering at Doyle.
‘Mo, can we talk about this?’
‘Outside, Detective. Now.’
The use of his job title is a sure signal to Doyle that to protest further would not be the most prudent course of action. With feet-dragging reluctance, he turns his back on the scene and heads out of the apartment.
On the stoop outside, two uniformed cops stare at him as he walks by. He steps down to the sidewalk, huddling into his leather jacket as he stares at the flashing roof lights of the radio cars. Five minutes later, Franklin joins him.
‘Not one of your better days,’ Franklin says.
Doyle glances at his boss. ‘You could say that. You pissed at me?’
