Don't Say a Word

  Aggie looked at him. The police looked at him without moving.

  And then the door of the brownstone began to open again.

  It swung out in stages this time, a little bit and then a little more. Everywhere on the bright street, the policemen tensed. They raised their guns again, trained their guns again on the door. The door opened a little more, a little wider. Aggie lifted her eyes to it, shaking her head, uncomprehending.

  The door jerked open wider, and a battered little man staggered through it into the night.

  Aggie didn’t recognize him at first. The bottom half of his face had been shattered. His mouth was a ragged hole, his nose was flattened. His eyes stared dull and white through a mask of blood; forehead to chin, he was all blood. And his shirt and his pants were dark and rusty with it: it was their only color.

  “Aiieee … ?”

  His voice came to her. It was deep and hollow. It seemed to echo up from the bottom of him.

  “Aiieee … ?”

  He stared blindly into the beam of the spotlight. He lifted one hand as if feeling his way. His other arm dangled crooked at his side.

  “Aiieee …,” he called again.

  And now Agatha’s hand left her belly, reached out trembling in front of her. Her lips parted.

  “Aiieee …”

  “Nathan?” she cried out wildly. “Nathan, I’m here!”

  “Aiieee …”

  “I’m here, Nathan! Oh, Jesus!”

  She took a stumbling step forward.

  Suddenly, all around her, there were other shouts: guttural barks from one cop to another. Above them all, she heard D’Annunzio screaming, a hoarse basso:

  “Put ’em up, put your guns up, for Christ’s, he’s got her, put up your, don’t shoot, hold your fire, hold your fire …”

  Then he had grabbed the bullhorn from Calvin. His voice was booming over them as if from everywhere:

  “Hold your fire, hold your fire, he’s got the kid, put ’em up everywhere …”

  With her lips parted, her hand, reaching out, Aggie looked down and saw the small figure by Nathan’s side. The child was clinging to his bloody pants with her fingers, pressing close to his pants, her cheek to his leg; looking out into the bright lights with dazzled eyes.

  “Jessie?” Agatha whispered. “Jessie?” She started moving forward more quickly. “Jessie?” she called.

  The child blinked. Her mouth pursed, small and trembling, she leaned forward a little. “Mommy?”

  Agatha rushed between the cars. Past the men.

  “Jessie!” she cried out, her voice breaking.

  Clinging to her father’s pants with one hand, the little girl reached out into the bright lights with the other.

  “Mommy!”

  Aggie ran toward her.

  What Conrad Remembered

  Later, they would ask Conrad about the end of it. D’Annunzio, sitting by his hospital bed with a notepad open in his pudgy paw, would ask him several times: How did it happen, what exactly did you do? So would other detectives from the district attorney’s office; lawyers, too; and the hospital doctors—to get a sense of his injuries, at first; then later, Conrad felt, just to satisfy their own curiosity. Even Frank Saperstein, an old friend and the doctor who was to put him more or less back together, insisted he try to remember those final moments. And he did try. He tried hard. But they were gone; blacked out. Pain and shock had erased them. His mind had filed them away as secrets from itself.

  “What I want to know,” Saperstein would say later, “is where you come up with the strength at that point to drive a broom handle into a man’s kidney.”

  “Wha’ I wanna know,” Conrad answered, speaking with his jaw wired shut, “is how I wemembuh wheah da kidney is.”

  Saperstein laughed. “You can take the boy out of med school … ,” he said.

  And Conrad simply nodded, trying not to smile too much. That was all he had to say on the subject. He had forgotten everything.

  Or not everything. Not exactly. There was one small moment that he did remember, that he would always remember.

  In the end, in the room with Maxwell, he had been beyond thinking. What he considered thinking anyway—he was no longer capable of that. He had simply lain unconscious where Maxwell had thrown him and felt his daughter dying. He felt it inside him. It was like a sort of antipregnancy: something in the belly—something he loved—being slowly squeezed into nothing, into lifelessness. He had had to stop it, to try to stop it. It hurt so much, too much. So Conrad had gotten up one more time.

  He did not realize that he’d been thrown into the room’s far corner—where the broom handle also lay. He touched the handle though as he shifted on the floor, and then it was in his hand. He strained upward against the crying weakness of his one good arm and his stiffened legs. He thought he would drop to the floor again, but the dying of his daughter inside him seemed to lift him. He just seemed to keep rising after his physical strength had failed.

  All the same, he barely made it to his feet. Just close enough. Just close enough to stagger forward, bent double, across the little room. If Maxwell had been standing then, he could not have attacked him effectively. But the giant was on his knees, stretched out over the mattress, clutching Jessica’s leg in one hand, reaching out to strangle her with the other. Conrad simply fell on top of him. He lifted the stake into the air like a dagger. And he drove it home with surgical precision.

  Maxwell should have dropped right then. The blow should have killed him outright. Instead, he rose off the bed like a wave, roaring. Conrad rolled off him onto the mattress. He groped for his daughter, found her, held on to her …

  … baby … baby …

  … while Maxwell towered and raged above them. Jessica was not screaming anymore. She was leaning against her father’s chest, staring up at the spectacle and crying.

  Maxwell beat his hands back and forth in the air as if to shoo away the thing that had him. He lifted his face to the ceiling and cried out, foam and spittle flying from his lips. Finally, he reached around in back of him. Conrad heard a wet, sucking sound. Maxwell retched with pain as he drew the broom handle out of his flesh.

  … die … , Conrad thought.

  Maxwell had to die then. There was no way he could survive anymore, not with the stake pulled free. Conrad wrapped his good arm tight around his daughter, held her close against his chest …

  … baby …

  … and stared up at the raging man.

  … die …

  And still, the man stood. He hurled the broom handle at the wall. He growled after it. He looked down at the bloody figure on the mattress at his feet: the bloody figure and the little girl cowering under his arm.

  … baby …, Conrad thought, holding her close, staring up at Maxwell.

  Maxwell looked down at him and shook his head sadly. And then he turned. Silently, he lumbered away from them. His feet shuffling, he moved to the door.

  Conrad and Jessica lay on the mattress and watched him go. They saw the dark blood spreading up through his shirt, down over the seat of his pants. Maxwell reached the door and pulled it open. Ducking his head, he went through, out into the hall. And he was gone.

  Conrad didn’t know how he got the tape off his daughter’s wrists and ankles. How he got out of the room, down the hall, out the front door. He just knew he had to get out, get away, get Jessica out and away. Find Aggie. He had to find his wife, that was it.

  … wife …

  She would help them. She would take care of them.

  He stumbled down the hall with the child clinging to his pants leg, with his bloody hand touching her hair, pressing her face close to his hip. Then, all at once, he was out on the stoop, and there were lights everywhere. Bright white light and flashing red lights that seemed to blend in with the red clouds floating and dancing before him.

  … wife … , Conrad thought, standing on the stoop.

  He was calling her then, but he didn’t know it. He only knew he
had to keep standing. Stay on his feet. Keep moving until he got Jessica away, until he found Aggie.

  … wife …, he thought.

  “I’m here, Nathan!”

  … wife …

  “Mommy!”

  Nathan closed his eyes, shook his head. He felt the world swaying around him.

  … have to …

  Stand. He had to stay on his feet, keep standing. He pried his eyes open and stared into the light. Stared down the steps. He saw now: Maxwell’s body lying there. Maxwell’s body and …

  … wife …

  Aggie. Aggie was there running toward them, reaching out. And then the child, the girl, was gone from beside him, was running down the stairs, running past the great body of the dead man. She ran to the edge of the sidewalk, where Aggie met her, where Aggie fell to her knees in front of her, wrapped her arms around her, pulled her close …

  Conrad, swaying precariously on the stoop, nodded slowly.

  … wife … , he thought … baby … wife …

  And it was over. He knew he could let go. He knew he could go down.

  He released himself into the darkness at his feet. He let himself spill into it. But he did not fall then. His body did not drop. There were people around him. People holding him. Holding his arm. Shouting into his ear.

  “You’re all right. We got you, pal. You’re gonna be all right.”

  … man …, Conrad thought … fat, smelly man …

  The fat, smelly man’s growly voice kept booming in his ear. “You’re gonna make it, buddy. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay now, hang on.”

  And that was the moment that Conrad remembered—just then. Just as he began finally to sink into the pool of darkness around him. There was one sudden moment then of comprehension, of bright, crystal understanding.

  He saw everything: the policemen running toward him, the cars in the street, the lights everywhere, the dead man underneath him on the steps, his wife holding on to his daughter on the sidewalk below. He saw everything etched in finest detail upon the night.

  And he thought: I’m going to live.

  With perfect clarity, he thought: I’m going to live to see my grandchildren.

  The End

  “Is Daddy going to be all right?”

  “I hope so,” said Mommy. Mommy was crying. “I think so, sweetheart.”

  They had taken Daddy away to the hospital in an ambulance. Now she had to go to the hospital too, but she was going with Mommy. Mommy held her by the shoulder. They walked together across the street. There was an old navy-blue car on the far side of the street. They were going to drive in that.

  Jessica felt strange. She felt dizzy and faraway. Her stomach hurt and her feet were cold and tingling. She wished she didn’t have to go to the hospital. She wished she could go home and go to bed.

  “Will Dr. Saperstein be at the hospital?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said her mother. She wiped her eyes.

  “He never has lollipops.”

  Mommy laughed even though she was crying. “I’ll get you a lollipop later, sweetheart. I promise.”

  As they walked, Jessica saw a policeman move to the navy-blue car. He opened the door and a woman stepped out. She was a beautiful woman. Her face was as beautiful as a princess’s face. Her hair was dirty though. And she was wearing one of Mommy’s old dresses—the one with the purple flowers on it. It didn’t fit her very well: she was too tall and thin.

  The policeman held the woman by the arm. He walked with her to one of the police cars nearby. He helped her get into the backseat, then closed the door. Then the policeman got in the front door and sat behind the wheel.

  The woman in the backseat turned and looked out the window. She looked directly at Jessica’s Mommy. She lifted her hand to the window, pressed it to the glass.

  Agatha stopped walking. She raised her hand and waved back. Then, just before the car drove away, the beautiful woman looked at Jessica too. She looked right at her with the strangest look. It was a kind of a sad look, but a soft look too. It was the way Jessica looked at something like Gabrielle’s dollhouse, or Lauren’s kitten—something she wanted really badly but couldn’t have.

  Then, while the woman was still looking at her, the police car backed up. It swung around and went down the street to the corner. It turned the corner and the beautiful woman was gone.

  “Who was that, Mommy?” Jessica asked.

  Mommy shook her head. “Just a girl. One of Daddy’s patients.”

  Jessica knew about Daddy’s patients. “Is she sad?”

  “Yes. Yes, she is.”

  “But Daddy will help her?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. He’ll try.”

  Jessica thought about it. They started walking to the car again.

  “Daddy fought with the bad man,” Jessica said finally.

  “I know,” said her mother. Her voice sounded strange—she was crying again.

  “The bad man was a giant,” Jessie said.

  “Yes, he was. Almost a giant.”

  “Did Daddy kill him, Mommy?”

  “Yes, sweetheart.”

  “Because he had to.”

  “Yes.”

  They reached the car. Jessica’s mother stopped and looked around her.

  “Is Daddy the strongest man in the whole world, Mommy?” Jessica asked her.

  Mommy laughed. “I don’t know.” She made a gesture in the air. Then she nodded and laughed. “Probably,” she said. She wiped her nose with her hand.

  Jessie stood beside her mother and looked around too. Many of the cars in the street were beginning to pull away now, to move down to the corner, to turn and move out of sight. Some of them—some of the police cars—still had their red lights spinning on top of them.

  “Why aren’t we going?” Jessica asked.

  “We have to wait for the detective,” her Mommy said. She pointed to him. “He’s going to drive us.”

  “That fat man?”

  “Ssh, sweetie. Yes.”

  Jessica watched the fat detective. He was leaning down next to a nearby police car. In another moment, he stood up. He walked over to them. He looked down at the little girl.

  “Hello there,” he said to her.

  Jessica moved closer to her mother’s leg. The fat detective smiled. He had a gravelly face. It looked strange when he smiled. He looked up at Agatha.

  “Well … ,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Agatha started to say—but she couldn’t finish it. She bowed her head, crying hard.

  The fat man’s smile grew even wider. “Well, whattaya know, huh?” he said. “Whattaya know?”

  The nearby police car was backing up now. It was turning around. As it turned, it pulled forward. It stopped right in front of Jessica. Jessica’s eyes went wide.

  “Mommy!” she said.

  She pulled even closer to her mother’s leg. She stared at the window of the police car. The window was open, and there, staring out of it, was the bad man, the man called Sport. He was looking out the window and right at her.

  “What?” said Jessica’s mother.

  “Look. Mommy,” Jessica said. “That’s the bad man.”

  “Oh …” Her Mommy held her more tightly. “It’s all right,” she said. “He’s going to jail now. He can’t hurt you. Come on.”

  She tried to pull Jessica toward the navy-blue car. But Jessica hung back. She looked up at the fat detective’s gravelly face.

  “He’s the one who told everyone else what to do,” Jessie said.

  The fat detective inclined his head. Then he turned and gave a big grin to the bad man. “Well, that’s very interesting,” he growled. “You and me are going to have a long talk about that, okay?”

  “Okay,” Jessica said uncertainly.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” said her mother again. “Get in our car and we’ll go see Daddy.”

  Her mother turned to open the car door, but again, for another moment, Jessie remained where she was. She st
ood very still and looked at the face of the bad man called Sport.

  The man called Sport looked back at her. His lip curled up. He snorted.

  The little girl shook her head at him almost sadly. “I told you,” she said. “I told you he’d come.”

  BOOKS BY ANDREW KLAVAN

  Don’t Say A Word*

  The Animal Hour

  True Crime

  Corruption

  The Uncanny

  Hunting Down Amanda

  Man and Wife*

  *denotes a Forge® book

  Praise for Andrew Klavan’s

  Don’t Say A Word

  “Breathtaking …. Your heart will be pumping and your brow will be sweating and you’ll feel tense all over, all without doing anything more strenuous than turning pages … . The pacing is terrific, making the reader turn pages even when he’s afraid what might be next.”

  —Albuquerque Journal

  “How often are you hooked by a book’s very first sentence? Try this one … outstanding … the suspense is exquisite.”

  —Arizona Daily Star

  “Intensely gripping and suspenseful …. Peopled with rich characters … worthy of Hitchcock at his best.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Taut, superbly plotted …. Klavan interweaves Dr. Conrad’s disparate worlds to riveting effect … and the reader roots for Dr. Conrad all the way to this brisk novel’s heart-stopping conclusion.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Hide the welcome mat, pull the blinds and take the phone off the hook, because you’ll be dead to the world from the very first page of Don’t Say A Word.”

  —New York Daily News

  “Relentless pacing and tersely graphic prose … ice-pick sharp … the perfect page turner.”

  —Village Voice Literary Supplement

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in New York City, Andrew Klavan was a radio and newspaper journalist before turning to fiction full-time. Twice given the Edgar Award for mystery writing, he is the author of the bestselling novels True Crime, recently a film starring Clint Eastwood, and Don’t Say A Word, a major motion picture from Twentieth Century Fox starring Michael Douglas. After living in London for many years, he has now settled in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife, Ellen, and their two children, Faith and Spencer.