The Heart is a Poor Judge Ch. 08

The car began to move. Miguel cracked his window and was about to close his eyes when a hand reached back. It was Eddie's, and he wanted a high-five--a cruel gesture he had already forced upon Miguel Monday and Tuesday night. Miguel accommodated him a third time with a solid smack. He still thought it was a lame move, but Eddie derived obvious satisfaction from the exchange. It meant things were good between them. It was trust and understanding.

"This song," he said to Eddie, letting the words hang.

"He was the best in the world. That man gave us all a gift."

Warm night air poured into the car through the open windows. Eddie turned up the stereo one or two clicks. Miguel's eyes were now closed. The suspension flexed rhythmically over concrete sections of the avenue. He felt an uncommon sense of peace take him over, and on a longer ride he would certainly have fallen asleep. But then came the predictable tug of brakes as Gabe slowed to turn onto the smaller street abutting the warehouse lot. There was a soft lurch as each axle dipped through the guttered entrance. The car idled smooth as glass across the blacktop.

Eddie's voice returned, different now: "Ease up. Something's off."

Miguel opened his eyes.

A blinding POP-POP-POP shattered Eddie's window. He twisted sideways in an odd way and Miguel saw where he was bleeding from his back. A dark spot quickly expanded across the white cotton of his shirt.

"Get down!" He was trying to reach a gun in the glove compartment but kept himself positioned strangely over the center console. Miguel realized he was using his body to shield Gabe. "Stay the fuck down."

Miguel crammed himself against the footwell. Then came a fourth and fifth POP-POP followed by three more: POP-POP-POP. He felt the warm blood coming off Eddie. Miguel exited through the driver-side rear door. The driver's door gaped a second later as he crouched against the rear tire. Gabe rolled onto the pavement and Eddie slumped halfway out after him. He was covered in blood and it drizzled from his outstretched fingers, down along the ground.

The car rolled forward on its own. Gabe and Miguel anchored themselves into the asphalt, dragging Eddie the rest of the way out as it pulled away. Two men in masks sprinted toward the empty car and threw themselves inside. The engine roared and the front tires scrambled for traction. The car arced in a wide, screaming circle and accelerated straight off the curb, into the street. It was gone.

Eddie lay dying on the ground. A strange wheezing sound came from inside his chest and blood spread from beneath him. Gabe reached for the cell phone inside Eddie's pocket.

Miguel tried in desperation to capture the big man's gaze, to keep him here. Eddie's eyes stared straight up (perhaps he could no longer see) but his dark irises trembled madly. Impossibly, it seemed that Eddie's mind was performing one last frenzied computation.

"Seven...nine...seven," he choked. And then in one quick breath: "OPD."

Miguel watched Gabe's thumbs smear blood into the number pad as gray digits appeared on the backlit screen.

"Miguel." Eddie's voice had shrunk to almost nothing. "Go burn it all. Now."

Miguel yanked the keys from his pocket as he ran, unlocked and ripped open the service door. Back in the office, down in a dusty corner behind cabinets lay an old gallon-sized metal gas can. He tore at the lid, fingers raw before it finally broke loose. Careful not to douse himself, he splashed gasoline over all the sensitive materials in sight. The space filled with an odor like a pungent varnish; the fuel had long gone stale, but it would still combust. It had to--there was no other way.

Out in the main room, he ripped open file cabinet drawers until they began tipping forward. One crashed to the ground. He splashed what was left of the gasoline over the files, then drew Marco's old brass lighter from his pocket. The soaked manilla folders burst into flames so intense, Miguel barely had the time or space to circle back and ignite the office. It, too, exploded into flame. He ran to the front of the warehouse, kicked open the locking pins and heaved the overhead door as high as it would go, in order to feed the fire.

Fluorescent light reached the scene near the center of the lot. Gabe and Eddie had become an indistinguishable mass. The kid lay shaking, slung over Eddie's body, drenched in his blood. Miguel approached slowly, disturbed by the deep, moaning sobs that erupted over and over from Gabe's lungs.

Eddie was dead. His eyes were open toward the sky, face serene and untroubled.

The distant sound of sirens brought Miguel back to the surface. Though Odinberg Police might have been dispatched anyway, the number Eddie supplied would ensure it, placing them at the forefront. As they arrived on the scene that night in a flood of noise and flickering lights, the golden "O" adorning the hoods and doors of their black cruisers signified a relative lack of corrupt affiliation, foretelling an investigation as thorough and impartial as one could hope for in those times.