Page 15 of Nocturne

14

CALLAHAN

I follow Marco Russo’s Cadillac through the darkening streets of Los Angeles, keeping a careful distance. The sleek black car cuts through traffic like a shark through water, turning onto Sunset Boulevard before heading north into the Hollywood Hills.

My knuckles are still raw from our confrontation at Lena’s apartment earlier today. I can feel the skin pulling tight as I grip the steering wheel, dried blood cracking with each adjustment. The image of Marco’s hands on Lena’s throat keeps flashing through my mind, stoking a rage that refuses to cool.

He threatened her. Threatened both of us.

I don’t take threats lightly.

I hadn’t planned to follow him, but after leaving Lena’s apartment, I found myself circling back, watching from down the street. When I spotted his Cadillac pull up an hour later before deciding to quickly drive off, I knew I couldn’t let it go. He may have not stopped this time, but he said he’d be back to finish her and I believe him.

So here I am, tailing a man who works for Mickey Cohen, one of the most dangerous gangsters in Los Angeles. I tell myself it’s about the case—that Marco might lead me to information about the Europeans, about Short’s murder. About whoever was in Lena’s apartment.

But I’m not fooling myself.

This is personal now.

Maybe it always was.

His car turns off the main road onto a winding street that climbs higher into the hills, eventually pulling into the driveway of a Spanish-style house perched on the edge of a steep slope. The house is modest by Hollywood Hills standards, but the view must be worth a fortune. The perfect hideout for a man who needs to watch who’s coming.

I park my Oldsmobile a hundred yards down the road and kill the engine, watching as Marco exits his car and disappears inside the house. Lights flick on behind gauzy curtains. I should leave. I should turn around and drive back to my office, focus on the case.

Instead, I reach into my glove compartment and remove my.38 revolver, checking that it’s loaded before sliding it back into its holster.

Just a precaution.

My heart hammers against my ribs as I approach the house, keeping to the shadows along the side of the property. The taste of metal floods my mouth—blood from where I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek without realizing it. Through a gap in the curtains, I can see Marco pouring himself a drink, his movements stiff, favoring his left side where I’d cracked his ribs earlier.

Good. I hope it hurts like hell.

I should turn back. I’m crossing a line that I’ve carefully maintained throughout my career. But something drives me forward, a compulsion that feels both foreign and achingly familiar.

Finding the back door unlocked is almost disappointing—I’d been prepared to force my way in. I step into a dimly lit kitchen, the smell of old coffee and cigarettes hanging in the still air. From the other room, I can hear Marco speaking, his voice low and urgent. On the phone, then. Reporting to Cohen, perhaps?

I draw my gun, its weight comforting in my hand, and move toward the sound of his voice.

“No, I understand,” Marco is saying as I approach the doorway to what appears to be a study. “It won’t happen again…yes, I’ll handle both of them.”

Both of them.

Lena and me.

I step into the doorway, gun raised. “Hanging up so soon? I think you and I have unfinished business.”

Marco spins around, the phone receiver still clutched in his hand. The surprise on his face quickly gives way to cold calculation. “I’ll call you back,” he says into the phone before hanging up.

“Breaking and entering,” he observes, eyes flicking to my gun. “That’s a bit beneath a private detective with your reputation, isn’t it, Callahan?”

“So is beating women, but that didn’t stop you.”

A smirk forms on his battered face. “That what this is about? Lena? You think you’re the first guy to get a hard-on for her? She belongs to me. To Mickey. You’re just a temporary distraction.”

The rage that’s been simmering since our encounter at Lena’s apartment boils over. “She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”

Marco laughs, a harsh, ugly sound. “Shows what you know. Lena Reid isn’t what you think she is. She’s?—”

“Shut up.” I take a step closer, my gun steady despite the trembling fury in my veins. “Just shut the fuck up.”

He holds up his hands in mock surrender, but his eyes are calculating, searching for an opening. “What exactly is your plan here, detective? Shoot me? You think Mickey won’t figure out who did it? You think you’ll leave this house alive if you pull that trigger?”

“I’m not planning to shoot you.” I lower the gun slightly. “Just have a conversation about boundaries. About what happens if you ever touch Lena again.”

Marco’s expression shifts, a predatory smile spreading across his face. “You poor bastard. You’re in love with her, aren’t you? Got yourself all worked up over a piece of ginger-curled tail.”

The world goes red at the edges.

“Tell you what,” he continues, reaching slowly for a cigar box on his desk. “I’ll let this little home invasion slide. Hell, I’ll even put in a good word with Mickey. But you stay away from Lena. Find yourself another broad. One who isn’t spoken for.”

“I told you to shut your mouth,” I repeat, but my voice sounds distant, as if I’m hearing myself from underwater.

Marco opens the cigar box, and I tense, expecting a weapon. Instead, he removes a cigar, tapping it against the box before placing it between his lips. “You know what your problem is, Callahan? You think you’re better than the rest of us. Some kind of knight in shining armor.” He strikes a match, the flame illuminating the cruel amusement in his eyes. “But you’re not, are you? There’s something wrong with you. I can see it. Something dark. You’re not a knight at all and your armor ain’t shinin’.”

The pounding in my head increases, my vision tunneling until all I can see is Marco’s smug face, the lit match hovering before his cigar.

God. Not now.

Not now.

“I mean, look at you,” he continues, lighting the cigar and taking a long draw. “Sneaking into my house with a gun. All for a woman who’s been warming my bed for a year. She’s good, isn’t she? The way she makes you feel important. That mouth of hers. The noises she makes when you’re inside her. How she?—”

I don’t remember crossing the room. Don’t remember holstering my gun. One moment I’m standing in the doorway, and the next my hands are around Marco’s throat, squeezing, lifting him off the ground with a strength I didn’t know I possessed.

His eyes bulge, hands clawing at mine, but I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. The rage is consuming me, transforming into something primal.

Something hungry.

Marco’s face turns purple, his struggles weakening. In the back of my mind, a voice screams at me to stop, that this isn’t who I am. But that voice is drowned out by a roaring in my ears, a demand for blood that overwhelms all reason.

Then something changes. My vision sharpens beyond anything I’ve experienced before. I can see every pore on Marco’s skin, the individual capillaries bursting in his eyes. I can hear his heart, frantic but slowing, the rush of blood through his veins. And I can smell him—fear and cologne and beneath it all, the iron-rich scent of his blood.

My mouth waters.

There’s a strange, pulling sensation in my gums, a sharp pain, and then?—

Darkness.

I wake to copper and salt.

For a moment, I can’t remember where I am, my head pounding with the worst hangover of my life. I’m on my knees on a hardwood floor, the world spinning around me. When I try to push myself up, my hands slip on something wet and warm.

Blood. So much blood.

It’s everywhere—pooled on the floor, splattered on the walls, soaking my clothes. The metallic smell of it fills my nostrils, so strong I can taste it at the back of my throat.

That’s when I see Marco.

What’s left of him.

He’s sprawled on his back, throat torn open, chest a mess of deep lacerations. One arm is extended, wrist slashed open to the bone. His eyes stare at the ceiling, frozen in terror.

I scramble backward until my back hits the wall, a sound escaping me that’s half sob, half retch.

What happened? Who did this?

Fragments of memory flash through my mind—following Marco to his house, confronting him, my hands around his throat. But after that, nothing. Just a blank space where minutes—maybe hours—should be.

Did I do this?

Could I have done this?

My stomach heaves, and I vomit onto the floor. Blood. I’m throwing up blood. Am I injured? I frantically check myself for wounds, but find nothing except bruised knuckles from our earlier fight. Unless I’m bleeding internally, which I ain’t ruling out, the blood isn’t mine.

It’s Marco’s.

Oh god. What have I done?

I stagger to my feet, room spinning as I try to piece together what happened. I remember rage—a rage unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I remember wanting to hurt him, to punish him for touching Lena, for threatening her.

But this? This ravenous butchery?

A noise from outside snaps me back to the present—a car passing on the road below. Reality crashes down on me. I’m standing in a murdered man’s study, covered in his blood, with no memory of killing him.

And not just killing him—mauling him.

Like an animal.

I have to clean this up. Have to think.

My gun is still in its holster, unused. The murder weapon—if there was one—is nowhere to be seen. Did I use a knife? My bare hands? I look down at them, trembling and caked with drying blood. They don’t seem capable of tearing a man’s throat open.

Yet here we are.

I force myself to think, to push aside the horror and shock. Marco worked for Mickey Cohen. His absence will be noticed quickly. I need to make it look like he disappeared, left town, anything but this slaughterhouse.

First, I need to dispose of the body.

Fighting waves of nausea, I search the house until I find a tarp in a utility room. I spread it on the floor next to Marco’s remains, then, steeling myself, roll his body onto it. The weight of him, the limpness, the still-warm touch of his skin—it all feels surreal, like something from my nightmares.

I’ve killed men in the war but I’ve never had to do this, I think as I wrap the tarp around him, securing it with rope from the same utility room.

Next, I have to clean. There’s too much blood to remove completely, but I scrub the worst of it with towels from the bathroom, stuffing them into a garbage bag. The splatter patterns on the walls get a quick once-over with a wet rag. I pray nobody looks too closely at this house anytime soon.

I change into clothes I find in Marco’s closet—they’re a bit small, but cleaner than my blood-soaked suit. My own clothes go into the garbage bag with the towels.

By the time I carry Marco’s body to my car, stowing it in the trunk, dawn is approaching. I need to move quickly now. I drive north, toward the isolated canyons where the city gives way to wilderness on Mulholland. My mind races with the implications of what I’ve done.

I’ve killed a man. Not in self-defense, not in war, but in some kind of blackout rage I can’t even remember.

And not just killed—mutilated, torn apart like a wild animal might.

What’s happening to me?

And what will I tell Lena?

The thought of her brings a fresh wave of guilt and confusion. How can I face her after this? How can I admit that I followed her abuser and somehow ended up covered in his blood with no memory of what happened? She’ll think I’m insane.

Or worse, she’ll understand exactly why I did it.

Because I wanted to protect her. Because something about her pulls at me in ways I can’t explain. Because when Marco threatened her, something inside me broke loose—something dark and hungry that I never knew existed.

I find a remote spot off the drive, deep in the brush where hikers rarely venture. The soil is rocky, hard to dig, but I manage to create a shallow grave using a shovel from my trunk. As I lower Marco’s body into the earth, my hands shake uncontrollably.

This isn’t me.

This can’t be me.

But it is.

The sky lightens as I finish covering the grave with rocks and brush. By the time I’m done, my clothes—Marco’s clothes—are soaked with sweat despite the January chill. I drive to the reservoir, throwing the garbage bag of bloody towels and my clothes into the deepest part I can find.

Back in my car, I stare at my reflection in the rearview mirror. Same face. Same dark hair, same blue eyes. But there’s something different now, something haunted in the shadows beneath my eyes.

Something hungry.

What am I going to do?

Go to the police? Confess to a murder I can’t remember committing? They’ll lock me away in an asylum, and the killer who butchered Elizabeth Short and Sylvia Winters will remain free.

Tell Lena? She’d be horrified.

Or relieved…

No. I need to keep this to myself, at least until I understand what’s happening to me. These blackouts, the missing time, the violence I can’t remember—it’s all connected somehow. To the case, to Elizabeth Short, to Lena.

I drive back to my apartment as the city comes to life around me, feeling like a ghost among the living. In my bathroom, I scrub my skin raw, watching Marco’s blood swirl down the drain. But no matter how much I wash, I can’t rid myself of the sensation of being stained, marked by what I’ve done.

As I dress in clean clothes, my mind settles on one certainty: I can’t see Lena again. Not until I know what’s wrong with me.

Not until I can be sure I won’t hurt her the way I hurt Marco.

Because whatever darkness has awakened inside me, whatever caused me to tear a man apart with my bare hands and then forget doing it—it’s still there, lurking beneath the surface. Waiting.

And god help me, part of me is hungry for more.