I sit back down and wait for a few minutes, thinking about what he’s said, trying to decide whether the police could help me if I told them the truth, or whether they would crucify me. When I get up, I have to hold on to the desk again while I get my balance. In that time I come to the conclusion that Landry doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about—none of these people do—and that they should just leave me the hell alone.
From every cubicle and every corner of the fourth floor somebody is staring at me. I make my way to the elevator. Two years ago I was part of this atmosphere. I was one of the team, doing what I could to try to repair the broken bits of this city, to fight back the tides of surging violence in what was, and still is, a losing battle. Then things changed. The world changed. I handed in my resignation because I knew the department was going to ask for it. I didn’t want to stay and didn’t know what I was going to do once I left. The day I walked out of here, I had people coming up to me and patting me on the shoulder or shaking my hand and telling me that whatever happened to the missing Quentin James was something he deserved. Nobody came right out and said they knew I had killed him, because nobody knew and, more importantly, they didn’t want to know. They all had suspicions, and they were all on my side, but if any proof had come along they’d have locked me up without remorse.
Now these same people stare at me. Nobody approaches. They look me up and down; they study my wrinkled clothes and my unshaven face, and they wonder what shitty thing could happen in their lives to turn them into me. They’re wondering just how far away I am from drinking myself to death, whether the booze will get me or whether I’ll end up sucking back the barrel of a shotgun. Hell, we’re all wondering the same damn thing. I feel like shouting out to them that I don’t care anymore, and that I don’t want their pity.
I reach the elevator and before the doors can close Landry slips through. He has a packet of cigarettes in his hand.
The elevator starts its descent. I can feel it in my stomach, as if we’re falling at a hundred kilometers an hour. I hold on to the wall. Whatever conversation Landry is planning has to be short.
“I know you killed them,” he says. “Alderman and James.”
He turns toward me and lightly pushes me against the back of the elevator. He holds his palm on my chest and keeps his arm straight, as if holding back a bad smell.
“This Quentin James asshole, I don’t care that you killed him. Hell, it’s one thing we have in common, because sometimes, sometimes, I think I’m capable of doing the same thing. But that’s the difference, right? I haven’t had to cross the line because I haven’t lost what you’ve lost. And who knows? Maybe any one of us here would’ve done the same thing. This job, Tate, it’s a mission—but now you’re on the wrong side of it. See, we could forgive you with Quentin James. But not anymore. Whatever you’re doing now, it’s my job to find out. It’s not because I hate you, you know that. It’s because it’s part of the mission. You would have understood that once. You might be willing to let your world fall apart, but think of your wife. Are you really that prepared to let her waste away—”
I push him away and take a swing at him. He ducks, pushes my arm in the direction it’s going, and slams me into the adjoining mirrored wall. My face presses up against it and the view isn’t good. There are red, razor-thin lines running through my eyes, tying my pain to the surface for all to see. My breath forms a misty patch on the mirror.
“You done?” he asks.
“I’m done.”
The doors open and he lets me go. I walk out and he follows. He taps his cigarettes in his hands and walks off in a different direction. I do my best to hold a straight line, but it’s impossible. I use the ground-floor toilet before heading outside.
The cold air makes me feel sick, just as almost everything seems to now. The chill stirs up fragments of the conversations with Landry. The bourbon floating in my system doesn’t keep any of them at bay. I hail a taxi, and when I’m home I hover in the hallway in case I have to dash into the toilet to throw up. Then I stagger down to my bed. I crash on top of it and fall asleep for the rest of the morning and into the middle of the afternoon.