The peak of the law. In the shadow of the observatory. Looking out across the city.
Where David Burns proposed to his wife.
Maybe he was being sentimental. Hoping the good memories would soften the blow of what he had to tell her. Either way, he felt it was a significant place for all of this to end. Looking out over the city he loved with the woman he loved. Accepting the inevitable change that came with age.
In some ways, this was his funeral.
Death. Prison. For a man like Burns, they weren’t too far removed.
Mary was there, with Susan. Given everything she had been through, Mary looked good. A little shaky. Still hadn’t had the chance to change out of the clothes she’d been wearing when we were abducted by the man who may or may not have been Zsomobor Bako.
Susan’s eyes met mine as we approached on foot. A few times on the footpath, I’d felt the urge to reach out and steady the old man. He hadn’t been lying about feeling old. This was the beginning of the end for him. He’d achieved everything he’d set out to do. The last few decades had been about pride, holding on to what he was because he didn’t know what else to do. Now he looked ready to simply let go and move on.
Dead man walking.
Their embrace was simple and momentary. But you could feel the connection between them. Susan and I were separated by the couple, and I found that I couldn’t meet her eyes across them.
‘I’m sorry,’ Burns said, when he stepped back. ‘For everything, But especially, this … you were never supposed to be …’
‘It was always the risk.’
‘There were rules. Unspoken rules, but …’
‘Young people don’t have time for rules,’ she said, and smiled. ‘You never did.’
He nodded. She was the only person who could tell him he was wrong. It was strange to think of the old man having any kind of human connection. Even his children had tried to distance themselves from the family name and reputation. But Mary had stuck by him. The only person to ever see beyond the bluff and bluster to the human being underneath.
And he was human. Much as I – and so many others – had demonized him, the old man was as human and flawed as anyone else.
‘This is sweet,’ a voice said. Slight accent. But the mockery coming through clear. ‘Very sweet. Beautiful. A romantic ending. I do like a romantic ending.’
I turned to see a woman step out from the shadows. Dressed in an A-line skirt and a red cardigan worn over a dark blouse. It was hard to read her expression. Her features had a natural sternness to them. The same expression I had seen on her face when she whispered into the ear of the man we had believed to be Zsomobor Bako.
But there was no Bako. I knew that, now. Maybe there never had been.
Two men flanked her. Built like tanks. I recognized one of them from the building where myself and Mary had been taken. The second was new to me, but I figured if he ever spoke, he’d have a European accent.
‘Ms Bako,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Very smart. You are smart, Mr McNee.’
‘How long has your brother been dead?’
‘My fiancé,’ she said. ‘So maybe not that smart. A long time. We had … mutual interests. It was only natural that someone fill his place.’
‘But no one would accept a woman as the Zombie?’
‘Feminism is a dirty word in some circles. Even today. In these enlightened times.’
Burns laughed. Loud and long. ‘A woman?’
‘You see what I am saying.’
‘Oh, lass, if I’d known …’
‘Precisely. But you did not know. Now you will die knowing that a woman bested you. That a woman won the war men have been fighting for years.’ She was holding a gun. Small. Compact. Looked like a Sig. But what did that matter, when it would kill you just the same?
The two thugs carried Walther P7s. But of course. I knew the feel of the guns, knew that they would make these men feel powerful. The same style of gun I had used to kill a man what felt like a lifetime ago.
I let my hands go to my jacket pocket. Felt the weight in there of the gun I had carried five years ago. Was it heavier now that it had a man’s blood on it?
Hard to say.
I looked at Burns.
He shook his head. Saying, ‘no’? Or, ‘not yet’?
He looked back at the woman. ‘No one has won anything, lass. Except the bastard police. Your wee scapegoat is locked up. Your business partners are dead. And as for me, fuck all of this. I’m done. I’m out.’ He looked at Susan. ‘My name is David Burns and I am guilty of everything you care to accuse me of. I’ve been a bad bastard. I’ve killed men. And I’ve had men killed. I’ve been a drug runner. I’ve run illicit gambling dens, derived money through prostitution, organized corruption and—’
‘Enough! This ends tonight, Mr Burns. You will die. Your enterprises will be little more than an afterthought. A fond memory of the days when criminals played by rules. But this is a new world, Mr Burns. Without order. Without rules. The twenty-first century. No more borders. No more limits. Those who killed my fiancé, they taught me that. The rules are whatever is best for you. If you even once think about other people, you lose. No room for sentiment. No room for weakness.’
I looked at Burns again.
What was I waiting for? Permission?
He stepped forward, in front of his wife, between her and the people with guns. Showing them his sentiment. He got to his knees. ‘This is it, then,’ he said. ‘Kill me, then, you bitch.’
She smiled, nodded to one of the thugs. The big man moved forward.
Burns turned his head to look at me. Winked.
Did anyone else see it?
The heavens opened. The rain fell thick and fast. Its roar filled the space around us; an enveloping noise with a physicality all of its own. A cocoon of sound that sealed us off from the rest of the world. The rain pressed down, each drop a tiny knife pricking against my skin.
Burns adjusted his jacket. His hand slipped inside.
The knife.
He moved fast, the old energy back, as he forced the knife upwards, stabbed the thug straight in the balls. The man screamed and dropped his weapon.
I pulled the gun from my jacket and raised it. Flicked the safety with my thumb. Squeezed with my trigger finger.
The noise was deadened by the rain, but the blowback still shook my body; a deep and penetrating vibration.
The second thug had started to react, as I drew on him. He was halfway through spinning to look at me when he threw his head back and reached for his neck before collapsing to the muddy ground. Blood diluted in the rain. His eyes fluttered.
The woman raised her gun, but with at least two targets, she hesitated for just a moment. Burns was on his feet, strode forward and pressed the gun he took from the fallen thug to her head. He didn’t say anything. No final words. No punchlines. This wasn’t the movies or some cheap detective novel. He pulled the trigger.
As the sound of gunshots dissipated, we were left with the white noise of the rain and the low moans of the thug whose genitals had been ripped open by the old man’s knife.
Burns dropped his weapon.
I held on to mine. Staring at him. Unable to believe the brutality of what I had witnessed despite everything that I knew about him.
The old man kneels before me. He spreads his arms and lowers his head …