The Nameless Ones by John Connolly

Chapter LXIX

Detective Sharon Macy lounged at a table in the Great Lost Bear, sipping a diet soda. Seated around it with her were two detectives from the Portland PD’s Criminal Investigation Division, Tony and Paulie Fulci, Charlie Parker, and Dave Evans. The bomb technicians from the Hazardous Devices Unit had successfully dealt with the IED, the two injured men had been taken under escort to Maine Medical, and the Bear had reopened for business. A brief debate had taken place about whether the bear head used against one of the men should be seized as evidence before it was decided that it was probably just as easy to leave it at the bar. It was now back in its place on the wall, its fur damaged from the impact with either the ground or a Serbian skull. Macy had to concede that Paulie Fulci had quite the pair of throwing arms, because that bear head wasn’t light.

A couple of months had passed since last she’d visited the Great Lost Bear. Macy was trying to drink less as part of a new fitness regimen, which meant she was avoiding bars, most restaurants, and pretty much anywhere else she might have a little fun. It was playing hell with her socializing, not to mention her love life. She’d started going to bed earlier, too, because there wasn’t much else to do when one didn’t drink or go out. This, she decided, was how women ended up in nunneries.

While still a working detective for the Portland PD, Macy also functioned as the liaison between the department, the state police, federal agencies, and the governor’s office, particularly in matters relating to serious crimes. Trying to plant a bomb outside the Great Lost Bear counted as serious in anyone’s book, but it took on an added gravity when Charlie Parker was the target. Any number of people wouldn’t have minded seeing the private detective blown sky high, but even they would probably have preferred it not to happen in the parking lot of one of Portland’s best-loved drinking establishments. That Parker wasn’t already dead was a miracle, if not necessarily the kind that encouraged faith in divine judgment.

The investigation was complicated by the fact that Macy and Parker had dated briefly. They hadn’t managed to get it together – circumstances and timing as much as anything – but there were no hard feelings, so now, as well as being the official point of contact between various branches of law enforcement and state government, Macy was also the unofficial mediator between some of those same agencies and one of the most problematical private investigators in the state, if not the entire country.

Macy and the detectives asked the Fulcis and Dave Evans a few more questions about what they’d witnessed, and clarified the series of events that had led from Dave spotting the first of the Serbians entering the lot on the CCTV to Paulie lobbing a bear head, before telling them they could go. Parker, she asked to stay.

‘So you’re telling me you have no idea why a pair of Serbian hitmen would decide to place a bomb in the wheel well of your car?’ she said.

‘I haven’t annoyed any Serbians,’ said Parker, ‘not that I know of.’

He was a man of slightly above average height and build, with graying hair and eyes that veered between blue and green, depending on the light. He was easy to dismiss at first glance, Macy thought. If you looked harder, though, the lines of grief on his face became more pronounced, and his sense of coiled energy, even violence, grew more perceptible. He had killed; some were deaths of which the police were aware, but others, she felt sure, remained unknown to them. Macy had also taken lives, and the memory of it still troubled her. She did not know if Parker was tormented by a great deal of what he had done. She suspected that, as in the words of the Confiteor, he was haunted more by all he had failed to do.

There were those who felt Parker should be behind bars, including half-a-dozen district attorneys and at least three state attorneys general. That he was not was a matter of frustration, but Parker had luck on his side and some influential protectors both inside and outside the law. Yet he also had a strangeness to him, an element of the preternatural. Even his aftershave smelled of incense.

‘Maybe you upset someone who hired the Serbians to take you out?’ said one of the other detectives, in a tone of voice that suggested such a course of action would have been entirely understandable, even forgivable. His name was Furnish, and he and Parker had crossed paths before. Parker didn’t think highly of him, and the feeling was entirely mutual.

‘I could make a list,’ said Parker, ‘but who has that kind of time?’

‘This is serious,’ said Macy. ‘With the nails and pellets thrown into the mix, that bomb was designed for maximum damage.’

Parker stared at her and spread his arms, as if to ask what more he could offer.

‘If you’re holding back on us,’ said Macy, ‘and I find out—’

‘I’m telling you the truth,’ said Parker. ‘I don’t think I even know any Serbians, and nothing I’m working on right now would attract that kind of attention.’

‘What about an older case?’ asked the third detective, whose name was Elkin. ‘Could someone be holding a grudge against you from a previous investigation?’

‘I think you’ll find they’re all dead,’ said Furnish.

‘Shut the fuck up, Furnish,’ said Macy. ‘Jesus.’

‘I’ll ruminate on it,’ said Parker, ignoring Furnish.

‘Do that,’ said Macy, ‘because who’s to say they won’t try again? The Fulcis won’t always be ready to come to the rescue with a tire iron and a bear head.’

The three detectives departed, leaving Parker alone at the table. He waited until he was sure they were gone before co-opting Dave Evans’s private office to call Louis.

‘Two Serbian button men just tried to blow up my car,’ he said, when Louis answered.

‘Tried?’

‘Tony Fulci busted the skull of one of them with a tire iron. Paulie attacked the other with a bear head, then he and Tony beat the shit out of him.’

‘A bear head?’ said Louis.

‘It was the first weapon that came to hand,’ said Parker. ‘Also, this is Paulie we’re talking about. He’d probably been contemplating using that bear head for a while.’

‘Are the Serbs talking?’

‘After what the Fulcis did to them, they’re likely to be incommunicado for some time, but I don’t see how this one is on me.’

‘The Vuksans?’

‘They could be trying to get at you through me, which means they know who you are. How close are you to finishing this thing?’

‘Getting there.’

‘You think maybe you could speed it up? That bomb was packed with nails and shotgun pellets. It could have done some serious damage to Dave’s bar.’

‘Yikes,’ said Louis.

‘Yeah,’ said Parker, ‘“Yikes” about covers it. My previous offer stands: If you need company, you only have to ask.’

‘I appreciate that, but when it comes to finding people, we’ve learned from the best. And you.’

‘Very funny. Sharon Macy just left here. She wasn’t laughing, though.’

‘Does she still have the hots for you?’

‘She never had the hots for me,’ said Parker.

‘So she only went out with you because the check cleared? Come on.’

‘Well, perhaps she did have the hots a little, but not any longer. And she wasn’t minded to believe that some random Eastern Europeans took it into their heads to blow up a stranger, not even for old times’ sake.’

‘It was a dumb move by the Vuksans,’ said Louis.

‘Only because it failed.’

‘Yeah,’ said Louis. ‘Unfortunately, they don’t always fail. I’ve been meaning to call you, but events got in the way. Hendricksen is dead.’

Under other circumstances, and with any other person, Parker might have been upset at the failure to share such information before now, or with the manner of its imparting, but this was Louis. The less Louis said, the more he felt.

‘How?’

‘He was attacked in his hotel room. They hurt him badly, and he must have talked before he died, because who wouldn’t?’

‘Yeah, who wouldn’t?’ Parker added another name to the list of the lost. He had not met Hendricksen, and knew of him only through Louis, but the Dutchman had stepped up to help when called upon, and both Angel and Louis had respected him. That was enough to make his loss personal. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I think that’s how the Vuksans came after you,’ said Louis. ‘They connected the dots.’

‘A hit on me,’ said Parker, ‘which would bring you back here and give them breathing space.’

‘Leaving no evidence that they were involved, your ledger being heavily in the black when it comes to enemies.’

Parker could now breathe a little easier. The Vuksans had shown their hand and been beaten. They could try to kill half of Portland and it would not dissuade Louis from hunting them. Instead, it would only encourage him.

‘So what now?’ he said.

‘We have a hook buried in the lawyer,’ said Louis. ‘We’re about to test it.’

‘Don’t be gentle on my account.’

‘We won’t. Tell Moxie I said hello.’

‘He’ll be thrilled,’ said Parker. ‘Not. And Louis?’

‘Yes?’

‘Step carefully, okay?’

‘Always do,’ said Louis, ‘occasionally on other people.’

Parker put down his cell phone, closed his eyes, and took a long, deep breath. He didn’t like to think how near he’d come to being torn apart by an IED. It was enough to make a man fearful of leaving the house. When he opened his eyes again, Sharon Macy was standing in the doorway of the office.

‘Can I ask who you just called?’ she said.

‘My mom,’ said Parker. ‘She worries.’

‘Even from the next world? That must be some phone you have. Try again.’

Parker considered telling Macy to mind her own business, but common sense prevailed. A bomb couldn’t simply be dismissed, and Macy would be required to provide answers and assurances, both to the city and to her superiors.

‘What happened today wasn’t about me,’ said Parker. ‘It was supposed to divert someone’s attention and force him to return here, but it failed. Worse, it’s just made him more focused.’

‘You wouldn’t be referring to one of your friends from New York, would you?’

‘That may be more detail than I’m willing to share.’

‘Look at you, all secretive.’

‘It means there won’t be any more trouble, or not of the bomb kind.’

She smiled at him. It wasn’t a sad smile exactly, but sadness was somewhere in the mix.

‘But there’ll be another kind of trouble along soon enough, right?’

‘Trouble follows me,’ said Parker. ‘I think that was the title of a book.’

‘It follows you like a dog,’ said Macy, ‘because you keep feeding it. Speaking of which, have you eaten?’

Parker looked at his watch. He hadn’t realized how late it was, but he wasn’t very hungry. The IED had served to deprive him of his appetite.

Then he looked at Macy and thought again.

‘Were you thinking of getting something?’

‘Maybe Boda.’

‘You buying?’

‘Sure,’ she said, ‘why not?’

Later, as she lay sleeping beside him, Parker watched the stars defy the darkness. She would leave in the morning. Perhaps they would do this again, but it did not matter. It was enough to connect, enough to touch and be touched, if only for a night.

Enough, briefly, to defy the darkness.