Turning Angel

”He’ll live,“ says Kelly. ”I had time to pick my shot.“

Fear is draining out of me like bad water. ”I’m glad you thought so. Shit.“

Kelly shines his flashlight on his own face. The sight of his grin beneath the blond hair makes me almost giddy with relief.

”Oh, my God,“ Mia cries. ”Oh no.“

When I turn, I see her face illuminated by the faint glow of a cell phone screen.

”Look at this, Penn,“ she whispers. ”Dear Lord.“

I splash over to her and look down.

Kate Townsend is looking up at me from the screen, but her eyes are no more alive than those of a dead fish. Her face is gray, and the orbits of her eyes are dotted with burst blood vessels.

”Is she dead?“ Mia asks.

”Yes,“ says Kelly, leaning over my shoulder.

Mia fiddles with the phone’s buttons, and another photo appears. This one shows Kate from the knees up. She’s lying naked on the sand, spread-eagled to show her vagina. As I stare, my stomach almost comes up. Kate’s head is turned to the side in the photo, and both her nose and mouth lie beneath the surface of the brown water. Her long blond hair trails downstream.

Mia hands me the phone, then falls to her knees and vomits into the bayou. I reach down and hold her hair so that she doesn’t soil it. While she retches and heaves, I hear a sound like a hammer hitting raw meat. I turn in time to see Marko crumple to the ground.

As I help Mia to her feet, Marko curses Kelly in his own language. Marko’s lying flat on his back, as though pinned there by the beam of Kelly’s flashlight. Kelly stands over him with the MP5, covering him with lazy grace, as oblivious to the words as to the barking of a dog. As I watch them, the echo of excited voices comes down the hill, and three flashlights appear in the distance.

”Can I go home?“ Mia asks. ”I don’t want to be part of this anymore.“

I squeeze her arm and look toward Kelly’s flashlight. ”You mind if I take her out of here?“

”Go on,“ he says out of the darkness. ”Get her home. Take Logan’s car. Then swallow one more of those magic pills and do what you set out to do in the beginning.“

”What?“

”Get your buddy out of jail.“

”Thanks, Kelly. For everything.“

”Glad to do it.“

As I lead Mia through the kudzu, Kelly’s voice floats after me.

”Hey, Penn?“

”Yeah?“

”Before those cops get here?“

”Yeah?“

”This guy could make it, or he could be a statistic.“

I stop in my tracks. The flashlights are getting closer.

”You got an opinion?“ Kelly calls.

Mia squeezes my wrist. ”You saw what he did to Kate,“ she says. ”Will he even go to jail?“

”He will. Thanks to you finding that cell phone.“

”Penn?“ Kelly asks again.

I turn back toward the bayou. ”I guess he makes it.“

At first I hear nothing. Then Kelly says, ”No problem. Just wanted to give you the option.“

”I appreciate it. I’ll see you later.“

”Yeah.“

With that I take Mia’s hand and climb carefully out of the darkness.

Chapter 41

Eight hours after Marko was admitted to the hospital, I received the most surprising call of my life. Police Chief Don Logan informed me that Marko Bakic wanted to hire me as his defense attorney. I told Logan that since I had witnessed some of Marko’s illegal acts, I couldn’t act as his legal counsel. Logan said he’d told Marko this, but that the boy wanted to talk to me anyway.

All I had to do was take the elevator up from the first floor, where the ICU was, to the fourth, where patients recovered from surgery. Two cops guarded the door of Marko’s private room. The boy lay in his bed with steel cuffs on his wrists and shackles on his legs. Another chain connected the leg irons to the hospital bed.

Marko laughed when I shuffled into the room.

”Hello, Mr. Cage. You all right?“

I nodded.

”I didn’t know that was you in the stream. I just found out this morning.“

”Why am I here, Marko?“

”I want you to be my lawyer.“

”I can’t do that.“

”That’s what they told me.“

”So why am I here?“

He smiled enthusiastically. ”I think maybe after you hear my story, you decide to be my lawyer after all.“

”It’s not a matter of want. I can’t legally do it. But even if I could represent you, I wouldn’t.“

A look of mock sadness. ”You don’t like me?“

”No.“

”You could have shot me in the stream. But you didn’t.“

”I wanted to make sure you’d be convicted for Kate’s murder.“

”I understand that. But you shouldn’t hate me, man. You never walked in my shoes. You don’t know how I got here.“

”I know you had a tough childhood. So did a lot of other people. They didn’t do the things you’ve done.“

This amused him greatly. ”Not many people had childhood like mine.“

That’s why I’m here,I realized. He wants me to understand him. He wants me to hear his story and tell him he’s not such a bad guy after all. I’ve known a lot of criminals like that. Marko is one of those guys who, no matter what he might do, will never believe it was his fault. It would serve no purpose to hear him out, other than to gratify my curiosity about Kate’s last minutes. But that was reason enough.

”Say what you want to say,“ I told him.

”I need a cigarette.“

”I need a Ferrari.“

Marko burst out laughing. ”That’s good! I like that.“

I looked at my watch. ”You’ve got five minutes.“

”What do you think they’re going to do to me?“

”Not what you deserve, probably.“

”What do I deserve?“

”The Big Sleep.“

”What?“

”It’s a book.“

”I don’t think they’re going to do anything,“ he said, like a gambler assessing the odds of a meaningless game. ”Not after they hear my story. This is America, man. I’ve seen the talk shows. They’re going to make me a cause.“

He’s already got it planned out,I thought. He sees himself on the interview circuit. ”You going to do Larry King or Oprah first?“