Maybe Motorcycle Man had come up the other side and was aiming at the farthest sneery kid.
Goddamn...
A standoff.
Now would come the demand to toss down their weapons. Negotiations would begin to figure out some way to let those in the cabin get away safe.
Jon Merritt, though, had a different solution. In a calm voice, not a whisper, he said to Ryan, “I was just thinking about you, Dom. That there’s no worse sin than betrayal.”
Then fired a shotgun load into his throat.
Racking another shell, he swung the muzzle toward Moll’s blood-flecked face.
88
His plan would have been good if, like he’d told his daughter, the only hostiles were the two triggermen.
Jon Merritt supposed he should have figured they’d bring in more people. Though he’d never guess one of them would be the snake Dominic Ryan.
After shooting the mob boss, there was immediate return fire from along the ridge, and Merritt had had to crouch fast, missing the chance to take out the big man in the black suit. He had flung himself into the bushes beside Ryan’s body and, though Merritt had fired, the load of pellets had missed.
He had slid and tumbled and run then slid some more down the hill, and when he hit level ground, he scrabbled back to the car.
There, crouching beside the driver’s door, he assessed. He had eighteen shotgun shells. The tweaker’s revolver had six in the cylinder. The other pistol — the one he’d bought from Ryan’s man — had five in the wheel and he had fifteen .38s the man had “generously” thrown in for free.
Of course, fighting an enemy in a forest in the dark? Well, obviously a scattergun was the best tool for the job.
He gave a chuckle, thinking, Don’t I sound like a combat veteran? Yet in his whole career as a police officer, even in the tough precincts of Ferrington, he’d fired his weapon but two times.
Not counting Beacon Hill.
They would regroup on the hilltop, trying to figure out the best way to come at him — well, them, since it seemed none of them had been tipped to the exodus by Allison, Hannah and Shaw.
They could easily flank him here. So he opened the door, which put on the dome light, and, staying down, pumped the accelerator by hand, the car now in neutral.
With their attention on the sedan, Merritt hustled back to the cabin, shotgun in one hand, backpack in the other, the pistols tucked into his belt like a righteous pirate. He eased through the front door. The maneuver sent another jolt of pain radiating through his body from the rubber-bullet-bruised regions. Another as welclass="underline" from the scar of the bullet hole where he’d shot himself. The toughened circle of flesh throbbed on occasion. He sometimes felt it was God’s way of reminding him of his sin.
He closed the door and wedged the chair under the knob.
Inside, the cabin was almost completely dark now but he recalled the location of every window and the back door.
He peered out. He thought he saw some forms moving cautiously through the forest toward the car.
Not worth the twelve-gauge pellets yet.
Merritt reached into the backpack and extracted the bourbon. He stared at it. Then, with a laugh, he ripped off the plastic seal, uncorked the bottle and took a sip, actually coughing, just like he did the first time he stole some of his father’s bourbon, hoping the sting in his mouth would relieve the sting of the welts on his buttocks.
Another drink.
The second mouthful went down smoother.
Gripping the shotgun, looking out the right front window for a target.
Where were they?
A breeze came through the window, fragrant with some herbal smell. He’d learned something about horticulture helping his daughter in biology. He and Hannah were going to start another project. The water clock was for history. The new one would be for biology: hydroponic gardening.
One more sip.
And another after that.
“Nineteen, really?” Then Dr. Evans looks at the clock that is not the Water Clock; these hands never stop moving. And then back to Merritt. “Ah, but I see our time is up, Jon. Hold on to that memory. It might be a good one to explore.”
Without a thought, Merritt snaps like a tensioned wire. He rises fast and grabs his chair and flings it against the wall. He lunges forward, well within the doctor’s sphere of personness, and leans toward him screaming, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”
And Jon Merritt realizes he’s about to find out what happens when the panic button gets slapped.
But the man doesn’t summon help.
Dr. Tuna Sandwich is actually smiling. “But we’re not going to worry about the clock today. Let’s keep going. All right with you?”
Breathing hard, Jon stares.
Dr. Evans walks to the tossed chair, picks it up and replaces it. He gestures for his patient to sit.
He does.
“There’s a famous psychiatrist. He had this theory I like. He said that everybody has a prime disconnect. He means a constant and essential problem. Most of our unhappiness flows from that. We’ve talked for months now. You’re intelligent, fair, responsible... But you, like everybody else, have a prime disconnect. Yours is an addiction.”
“The drinking, sure, well—”
“No, not the drinking.”
This gets Jon’s full attention.
“You were a police officer. You run drug cases?”
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“Then you know about precursor.”
“Chemicals used in the early stages of cooking drugs.”
“You have a precursor too. Alcohol. You’re not addicted to that. You’re addicted to what alcohol cooks.”
“Which is?”
“Anger.”
Jon gives one of his humorless laughs. “I’m addicted to anger? What does that mean?”
“We’re addicted to behaviors that numb us from uneasiness, depression, anxiety. Lashing out does that for you. But you hold back, it builds up, builds up... And you start drinking. Then the barriers come down.
“Now that we know that, we have to look at where the anger comes from. That’ll take some time to answer. Your father has something to do with it. A belt? At nineteen? Because you were working overtime? His reaction, his behavior were inexcusable. You were furious... But you didn’t say anything.”
“No.”
“Because you were afraid he’d go away from you.”
Jon says nothing.
“I think that’s true. And something to think about. But that’s only part of your disconnect. I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot.”
Answering the persistent question: the doctor is an obsessive wrestler for his inmate patients, and not a morose-housewife daydreamer.
“I looked at your PD record. Not a single disciplinary problem in your career. No citizen complaints. Not one.”
A certain resident of 8248 Homewood in Beacon Hill might have a say about that, but she’s no longer able to fill out the paperwork.
“You saw terrible things in your job and you couldn’t react. Abuse, murder, predators, cruelty, right?”
A shrug.
“Tell me about some.”