Pigs Read online

  “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m the one who screwed everything up. Nearly lost you both.” The silence stretched a moment, each second weaving a fine thread of fear through him. He quickly tried to find a lighter note. “I like the new place. It’s very … neighborly,” he said, trying out a grin he might soon be able to impress the suburbanites with at BBQs and such.

  “It is that. I wanted to move while Will was young enough not to lose any good friends or have to change schools. Must be hard for a kid to have their life uprooted.” Maggie exhaled. “I didn’t have to move. I know I was safe, your friends watching out for me.”

  “They owed me.”

  “I think it was a sense of cleansing. A fresh start. Leave the bad stuff behind.”

  “Have I been left behind?” His eyes pleaded.

  Maggie shook her head softly, her black, twisty bangs banded with shimmering moonlight. “No. We can work through this. If I can trust you.”

  “I’ll never lie to you again,” he vowed. “That old life, it’s a closed book.” She sipped her milky coffee and huddled against him beneath the blanket, finding his hand and holding it tight. “I’ll find work. I’ll start looking tomorrow.”

  “I could talk to my dad about maybe getting you a job at the dealership?” Maggie voiced the suggestion with such little enthusiasm it didn’t really warrant an answer.

  Isaac shook his head gently. “Did that sound as bad in your head as it did out loud?”

  She snickered and slapped his chest. “Not really.”

  “I doubt Hank has gotten over what I said to him last time.”

  “That he’s as big a crook as you?” Maggie was utterly deadpan. She could have been reading a transcript.

  Isaac hummed deeply in affirmation. “And then there’s the whole ten years in prison thing. You broke your daddy’s heart when you fell for me. Then I broke yours.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m a big girl and I can make my own choices. He never could understand that, though. I got seduced by your whole bullshit bad-boy charm.”

  “You just didn’t know how bad.”

  Isaac tried to smile at the rosy memory of their younger selves but found it tarnished by blood and deceit. He remembered the first time he’d laid eyes on her at the Rocket, one of those 1950s-themed throwback restaurants which, unfortunately for the owner, was thrown right back by the forces of disinterest and ailing revenue. Before the Rocket went under, Isaac had spent one late morning nursing a hangover and an accidental black eye after celebrating a successful heist with his crew. The BBQ chicken, aspirin and several refills of water had moderated his throbbing skull, but the black-haired waitress with the sparkling hazel eyes and well-fitting pink uniform had been better than any hair of the dog. He never had been one to fall for any of that star-crossed lovers mush, and it later turned out that neither was Maggie, which was a boon—but he always remembered how she practically knocked him out when he first laid eyes on her. His panda eye and dishevelled, beer-reeking clothes provided an easy icebreaker for the pair of them, and as luck would have it, their chemistry clicked. More than that, it burned. And just like that, they became inseparable.

  Isaac had never thought he would want to settle down by the time he was twenty-four, but being around her seemed to fill a yearning emptiness he hadn’t even known was there. An emptiness he had previously filled with bouts of wild drinking and, of course, plotting his next score. She made him want to do better, to be better. And it didn’t require any form of subterfuge or conniving intent on her behalf. On the contrary, it was his splintery edges which had attracted her to him. So she fled the crashing Rocket and landed a job at the Lakeside Bank. And Isaac, he really did try to change his ways for her, wanted to step back from his outlaw friends and lifestyle and find genuine employment. But the rush and his loyalty stayed his hand, causing his good intentions to quickly dissolve within the morally toxic environment he had been raised in. So he continued to be a “bar manager” at his boss’s various establishments. Isaac didn’t think he’d ever stop hating himself for lying to her for so long. Making her feel the fool.

  “You were no saint. And you know I’m not going to bullshit you or mollycoddle you. But you’ve changed.” It wasn’t a question; she trusted him, against all odds. “I know you have. That last job … you tried to stop that monster. Tried to do right.” She rubbed her hand over the old scarring on his stomach. “You’ve done your penance. That’s the whole point of the system. Reformative, right? Now you need to do right by Will.”

  Isaac was prepared to spend his entire life making it up to his son. To be the father he’d never had. “I will, I promise. I’m going to do right by both of you.”

  The motion sensor light popped on, illuminating the bright autumn flowering: borders of starry purple asters and orange heleniums. It lit up a number of clay bird ornaments hanging from tree branches or perched on the rockery. LeConte’s sparrow.

  Isaac wasn’t any wildlife buff—with the exception of a few nature documentaries he’d caught in prison—but he remembered those little sculptures well. “Hey, you kept them?”

  “Course I did.”

  The light went off.

  “I’ll be honest, I mean, I think it’s pretty clear I was pissing myself about getting out and seeing you and Will tonight. It’s hard to tell how much love will be left over after all our time apart. Strain, distance … I wouldn’t have played the pity card if I had found out you had burned everything from our past.”

  The light went on again. Maggie quietly watched the tree branches undulate in the breeze. “Can we go inside yet? It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here.”

  Isaac laughed quietly. “I just needed my fill of fresh air.” He exaggerated an inhalation. “That’s the breath of a free man.”

  Maggie kissed him on the cheek. An intimate moment which seemed to promise more. The light went out. “Does the free man want to do anything else?” She pulled him up off the bench and led him toward the patio doors.

  Rest

  Something wet on his face. And warm, like a summer rain. It jarred Isaac out of the first good night’s sleep he’d had in a long time.

  Stirring and confused, he opened his eyes to Maggie thrashing beside him in the dark, her hands jammed against the savage wound in her throat, eyes wide and beseeching, movements already diminishing their fight. Isaac tasted his wife’s blood; it ran down his face in rivulets. Shocked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, he froze in delirious panic, wanting to act but not knowing how. A nebulous figure obtruded in the darkness to his left, a stab of meagre light catching the bloody butcher’s blade in his hand.

  The knife came down.

  Isaac rolled off the bed as the knife skewered the mattress. In blind survival mode, he threw himself against the dark, featureless attacker, slamming the pair of them into the wardrobe. The intruder was slim but strong, several inches taller than Isaac, and was beginning to get the upper hand in their contest of strength. All Isaac wanted to do was call an ambulance and hold Maggie. He knew she was dying at his back. Scared and alone. Isaac brought his knee up, smashing the attacker’s testicles, and rushed him into the wall opposite the bed, splintering the flat screen TV on the wall. The knifeman, hunched over, arm bleeding from some shallow glass lacerations, sliced toward Isaac, the blade whistling through the dark. Isaac’s eyes adjusted to the soft moonlight spilling through the window, revealing the butcher to him.

  Incredible. After all this time, he had actually returned. Michael Wyndorf. He’d had a haircut and lost the beard, but Isaac could never forget him. There was no mistaking that sick son of a bitch.

  Wyndorf cracked a mean smile. “Welcome home, Isaac.”

  Thunder and lightning struck the room, and both combatants jumped on the spot, startled by the boom. Two wild gunshots had punched through the wall near Wyndorf’s left shoulder. Maggie, in her dying moments, had pulled a small revolver from the nightstand. Isaac had forgotten all about it. He had encouraged�
��no—implored her to get a licence and a piece for this exact scenario, sick to his stomach with worry, knowing that this bastard might crop up and get back at him by hurting her or Will whilst he was trapped in a concrete box miles away.

  Maggie’s arm started to droop, the arterial spray slowing down. She slumped over on the bed. Isaac bolted for her, screaming her name and taking her gently in his arms as he grabbed the Smith & Wesson from her blood-soaked grip. Taking aim across the room, he saw that Wyndorf had fled onto the dark landing. Isaac kissed Maggie on the lips, hoping she had enough consciousness left to experience it, to know he was there at the end with her. He felt something awful happening inside of himself. He could swear he had abandoned his body to this nightmare, his higher thinking locked in blind panic and leaving his anatomy to fend for itself. A frostbitten chill of despair solidifying blood vessel and organ, the gangrene killing him not only physically but spiritually.

  Then a terrible notion entered Isaac’s head, mooring him at the edge of the abyss. Still naked, he raced out of the room onto the carpeted landing, heading straight for Will’s bedroom, six-shooter pointing at shadows. He had to fight his natural urge to sprint to his son for fear of running onto the edge of a sneaky blade, Wyndorf grinning as he sprang out of a dark doorway. Downstairs, the front door bashed against the wall, loud enough to rattle the whole street. He looked over the wooden railing to the shadowed hallway below, seeing only the door reeling back. Wyndorf was gone.

  Isaac rushed into Will’s room, hearing a car engine start up on the quiet street outside and tearing off at a mad clip. The car noise, and that of neighbors slowly opening their windows or front doors, seemed to be coming from a world away. All sound was filtered through a wall of white noise, the pounding of a heart, the surf beneath the skin.

  Isaac remained at the threshold of Will’s room. He didn’t need to go any further. Will was half-in and half-out of bed, sheets splayed and drenched with blood, his staring eyes half-lidded between sleep and death. Isaac wasn’t aware he was moving, but he was. He was padding slowly further into Will’s domain of robots and spaceships, solar systems and aliens, the eradication of innocence and promise.

  The stark white security light snapped on in the garden again, drawing Isaac’s stunned attention to the bedroom window. There, at the rear of the perimeter, stood a wolf in a suit, stock still like he was sniffing for danger or vulnerable meat. Isaac sensed the surreal presence watching him, its giant shadow clawing toward the exposed innards of his destroyed home. The wolf slowly backed away toward several other indiscernible forms concealed in the thick shade beyond tree and bush.

  The light blinked off, and the dark closed in.

  Death on Repeat

  Isaac had been cleaned of the blood but the internal carnage would never be wiped away. The crime scene officers had graciously allowed him to change into some of his old clothing, which Maggie had kept in a drawer. Black socks, underwear, jeans, a faded blue and black plaid shirt, and an old pair of brown Timberland boots. He finished recounting the events of the attack in monotone, flicking the occasional flat look at the female detective opposite him in the diner’s booth. This was an interview, not an interrogation, which apparently was why Detective McGowan had picked this diner to talk in. Isaac hadn’t even caught the name of the place. McGowan had had to guide him, like a beaten dog, toward the brightly lit, red and white chequered locale. A “safe, comfortable and proximate” location, she had explained to Isaac in the back of her car. The place was quiet at this late hour, with only a few white-uniformed staff members, and a couple of dozy night owl types wasting away at the counter, perhaps waiting for something they weren’t sure of to whisk in and change their lives for the better.

  Isaac stared at the booth’s laminated table, his coffee cold and untouched. He felt her studious attention on him, analysing his account, his history and character, specifically the fact that he had just finished a ten year time-out at the Menard Correctional Facility for his part in a crime that had made national news. But he knew the neighbors who had witnessed Wyndorf’s escape would help with any residual doubt Detective McGowan might be filing away. She had remained calm and quiet during his recount, keeping her body language passive and allowing him to talk at his own pace. It was standard technique, and for a detective it was probably as natural and automatic as blinking.

  McGowan switched off her small digital recorder and adjusted her posture. She was in her forties with short auburn hair, sallow-skinned and dogged from working too many nights and being privy to too many reprehensible acts of inhumanity. “Michael Wyndorf.” She spoke as if she was trying the name out. “From what I know, nobody in law enforcement has seen him since—” She half-extended her hand to Isaac. “What transpired at the Jensen place.”

  Isaac thought it was mighty classy of her to bring that up in such a diplomatic manner. “I had hoped life would have done us all a favor and taken care of him by now.” He knew he was mumbling but didn’t have the energy to speak up.

  “Resurfacing after ten years. You’re certain beyond any reasonable doubt it was him?” Isaac rubbed his red eyes, stretching his cheeks gaunt, and nodded. She solemnly accepted this as a hard fact of life. “Some people have long memories,” she added.

  Isaac was vanishing into a great depression, his absent mind oblivious to the actions of his hands and their slow twisting of his wedding band. He nodded. “He’s a proven fucking lunatic and I helped slap a federal bullseye to his back.”

  “DEA are still looking to nail his cousin Cameron Beech, but he’s a ghost too. If Wyndorf is still part of his cousin’s meth network, he might have help. People housing him. Maybe this wolf character you saw.”

  Isaac looked blankly out the window, staring through his sickly reflection at the parking lot.

  McGowan’s fingernail clinked against the ceramic cup. “Mrs Reid and William moved house shortly after your incarceration. Since Wyndorf knew the address, it’s possible he’s been stalking her. Biding his time. Which means he’s likely to be hiding out somewhere within the state lines.”

  “What does this matter?” Isaac finally gave her his undivided attention. McGowan tilted her head a few degrees. “Here, out of state, wherever. The guy’s a fucking dyed-in-the-wool psychopath. He waited ten years for tonight. He’ll try again. Sooner or later.”

  Isaac’s mind was a tangle, venomous thoughts shifting sinuously and seeking out the fresh kill memories of Maggie and Will’s corpses like they were warm-blooded prey. It was pointless to resist these grievances his mind relished harming itself with. His left thumb and index finger had hastened their revolutions of his gold band, now twisting it rapidly, adroitly.

  McGowan might be objective in her duty but she wasn’t about to give any special treatment to an ex-con like him. “Wyndorf is on the database, and then some. I guess you have our gratitude for that. But until forensics confirm the DNA from the blood on the television glass, some of the department will be keeping an eye on you. They won’t be willing to accept your reputable word.”

  Who fucking cares, was all Isaac thought about that. He knew that even when the blood results proved it was Wyndorf, the only likely way he would get caught by the cops or feds would be due to good fucking luck. A lifetime of criminality tended to blunt any unrealistic expectations of the capabilities of the police force.

  I’ll have a better chance of stopping him myself.

  “We’ll notify Mrs Reid’s family.”

  Isaac’s hand slid across the table to halt her. “I should do it. Can I do it?”

  McGowan studied him again, considering his request. Her impenetrable street-tough gaze softened just enough. “You got a phone?”

  Isaac shook his head. He hadn’t even thought about that until now. Fresh off the bus and far removed from the 21st century grid. Detective McGowan produced a few quarters and slid them across the table. Isaac scraped them into his palm, dreading this call, but knowing it was his job to break this to Hank.

&
nbsp; “You got a place to stay tonight?”

  “I’ll find a hotel.” Isaac knew there was no chance of sleep tonight.

  “Stay within the city limits, Mr. Reid.” McGowan slid out of the booth and adjusted her coal black blazer.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” His voice was as dull as the grimy coins.

  “Do I need to warn you about pulling any stupid cowboy vigilante shit?”

  Isaac looked at her without really seeing her, looking far beyond to something else, something bleak.

  Business concluded, the wheels of justice now in motion, the detective marched out of the empty diner. Isaac shuffled toward the phone on the wall, hoping some freak accident might kill him before he made it there. It was solid, retro; it might have offered some comfort if Isaac hadn’t known the voice on the other end was about to peel away his last shreds of self-worth. He held onto the phone for dear life. Recounting the events again was akin to death on repeat.

  Isaac jiggled the loose change and considered ignoring Hank—he didn’t care about the man one way or the other, it was only his daughter who mattered, and now that she was gone he didn’t anticipate any great and wonderful future blossoming between the shattered men. Isaac thought of calling Roach instead, or the main man Ludlow. Warn them that Wyndorf, patient fucking madman that he is, had resurfaced and the years hadn’t calmed him any. They could help Isaac stop him.

  Isaac stuck the receiver to his ear and slid the coin into the slot. His finger fluttered over the keypad, undecided on who would receive the news.

  Father-in-law. Or his friends.

  No. Wyndorf is mine.

  Isaac dialled Hank and braced for another emotional reckoning.

  Lakeside Mourning

  Isaac didn’t know what to do with himself. He had spent most of his life on a clock. The stopwatch of a big heist. The restless wait between scores. And the interminable counting down of days until he was out of prison and with his family. Now, for the first time in his life, time had ceased to matter.