Hound
I sit outside the hospital in my jeep, watching. I need confirmation from Dean that it was the twins, not that I know what I’ll do with that information. I know that, above all, Mac is a businessman, so perhaps if I can convince him that Dean is going to pay soon, he’ll drop this vendetta and let it rest at that. But it’d have to be a damn lot of money to make him drop his interest in me. I think about the way he’s always looked at me, what I at first mistook for pride. That was my big mistake, thinking the old man was proud of me, and basking in that pride like an excited little kid. I was an excited little kid. I should’ve spit in his face and got the hell out of there the day Dad died. But no, I was too busy puffing up my chest and looking tough and liking it when the guys slapped me on the back.
The night is dark, the moon hid behind a veil of deep black clouds, the stars winking out once or twice before retreating again. I lean back and half-close my eyes, doing the kind of resting I’ve done countless times before, while waiting on countless marks to show their faces. Usually at times like these, my mind will go to my one abiding fantasy: the massive house, the normal life. But whereas before I met Daisy I was always walking around the place alone—in a bathrobe, more relaxed than I could ever be in the city—now I’m walking around with a toddler’s legs on my shoulders, to the sound of Daisy’s voice calling me from the end of the hallway.
When I see her leave the hospital at half two in the morning, I want to go to her, hold her, but I’m not here for that. I need to confirm with Dean so that I can…but it’s difficult to think of plans and scheming with Daisy passing within yards of the car. She walks into the glare of a streetlamp and I see that her eyes are red, her cheeks reflective with tears. I swallow down a pain I barely understand. When she’s out of sight, I climb from the car and enter the hospital. Denton told me Dean’s room number, so I go straight up. The hospital is dead to the world, silent, eerie, the only sounds coughing and rolling over and the occasional scree-scree of bed-wheels. I enter Dean’s room silently, close the door behind me, and then sit close by his Call Nurse button to make sure he doesn’t alert anyone that I’m here.
He wakes with a jolt.
“Ah, Hound—it’s Hound, right?”
“Sir,” I mutter. “I hope I didn’t frighten you too much.”
“I thought you were a bear.” He whispers, since his face is such a mess. “I was dreaming and I thought…It doesn’t matter. Are you here to kill me?”
“No, sir. I’m here to talk to you.”
“Talk?” He laughs, or makes as close to a laughing sound as he can when laid up like that. “You’re not what I expected you to be at all. Do you remember the first few times we met, lad? I guess met is the wrong word, but you know what I’m saying.”
He’s talking about the couple of times I warned him to pay Mac, before that meeting in the alleyway: the meeting that changed my life.
“I remember,” I say. “Don’t like to, though.”
“No? I thought you were pretty fair, as far as collectors go. Don’t look surprised. Do you think you’re the only collector I’ve ever had to deal with? You walked up to me and placed your hand on my shoulder—I could tell you were being gentle, lad, a big man like you, I could tell you were being careful not to hurt me—and told me, as respectful as you please, ‘Sir, you need to pay Mac, or I’m afraid something very bad is going to happen.’ And did I listen! Coward! Coward!” His voice cracks, which confuses me since I don’t think I scared him too much. “No, I just carried on doing what I was doing. Do you remember the second time? You talked to me about books, some book about a married couple in the fifties, if I remember correctly, and then you politely asked me to pay Mac again. It’s only the third time that you threatened violence.”
“I’m not a good man, sir. I may not have hurt you, but I would have.”
“I’m not a good man, either. I’m not going to judge you.”
“Who did this to you, sir? Can you remember? I know you’ve talked to the police, but a man with your background, I’m guessing you haven’t said much to them.”
He smiles tightly. “No, but then, I don’t remember much. The only thing the doctor can tell me is that it looks like I was beaten with knuckle-dusters. Well, they said it might be knuckle-dusters.”
“Makes sense.” I nod. So it was Ripper and Hitter who went in on him, which means it was Mac who gave the order. My blood turns cold at the thought of Mac playing with me like a chess piece, not only because he’s treating me like a kid now, but also because I guess he must’ve done it in the past without me noticing. Big dumb fucking Hound. Big over-excited fucking Hound. “I want you to know I’m doing everything I can to keep you and your daughter safe, sir.”
“My daughter?” Dean grinds his teeth. At first I think it’s in anger, but it’s more like he’s thinking deeply. After a long pause, he says, “You and Daisy…Is that possible? That would explain why you’re not killing me.”
“If she hasn’t told you anything, I don’t think it’s my place.”
His smile is small and almost shy from his over-inflated face. “But I think you already have, lad.”
My shoulders slump. “I guess so. I want to tell you something else, too, but I can’t without revealing something that isn’t mine to—”
“I know that Daisy’s pregnant.”
I sigh. “I’m the father,” I say. I don’t know what prompts me to come out with this. Maybe I just want to see how he’ll react. All my life I’ve been seeking the approval of men like Dean: father-aged men, men who’ll offer me some kind of encouragement to do something good for a change. “I hope you don’t find that too scary. I only learnt about it earlier today. I guess it’d be yesterday now. I just want you to know that I’ll be the best goddamn father I can be. I swear to that, sir.” If Daisy lets me, I add silently. If Daisy keeps it.
“Like I said, I’ve met many debt collectors, too damn many, is the truth. And you’re the only one I’ve ever met who I’d consider son-in-law material. But you have to get out of the life, somehow. I might be able to help with that, but—Things are in motion. I think. I hope.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He shakes his head, but the way he’s swaddled, it’s more like he wiggles his eyes. “I really can’t say. Don’t want to risk it.”
“Alright,” I murmur, wondering if the pain meds are making him speak funny. I have no idea what he’s talking about.
I don’t get a chance to ask, either, because he closes his eyes and starts to snore lightly, drawing in breaths which sound hollow and raspy. The twins really fucked him over, by the sounds of it, but he’ll heal. Which is what Mac wanted: hurt but at no risk of dying, so when he does die, it’s good old obedient Hound who does the job.
I stand up, looking down at this man and wondering if I ever could’ve busted in his face and collected his teeth like I threatened. Could I have just turned off my brain, like I always do, and went to work on him? I’m not sure. I like to think I wouldn’t have. I like to think I wouldn’t have been able to, since he’s old and broken-looking. But I can’t say for definite, and that scares the shit out of me. Sometimes, it’s like I don’t even know who I am.
I’m walking through the hospital’s automatic doors, trying to figure out what exactly I’m going to do—persuade Mac that Dean has some money on the way and then try and raise that money myself is looking like the only real option—when Daisy walks toward me. We both stop, looking at each other over the harsh glare of the outside hospital lights, the concrete lit so that you can see every old stain and scuff mark. She’s holding a takeout bag in one hand and a drink in the other. She slowly removes the straw from her lips.
“What have you done?” she whispers. “What have you done to him!”
“Wait!” I approach her, wincing when she recoils from me. “I haven’t hurt him, Daisy. I swear on it.”
“Then what’re you doing here?” She believes me. That has to count for something.
Without discussing it, we move to one of the benches which sit along the hospital’s perimeter, away from the lights, where we can only make out each other’s faces by the light coming from the hospital windows and the hiding moon. I tell her about talking with him, about Ripper and Hitter, about Mac, all of it.
“He wants you to kill Dad as some kind of a test? He’s a sadist, Hound. How did you ever look up to this man?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t anymore.” I want to reach across and place my hand on her knee. It’s only been a day of this, but it feels like far longer. Two months of being intimate every day, and then this…I’ve never had to deal with that before. When I notice she isn’t wearing her rings, it feels like a punch in the gut, fake marriage or no. “The only thing I can think of is to pay Mac four, five times what Dean owes. But that’s even more than I’ve got saved for the house. Way more, really.”
“How much does he owe?” she asks quietly. She isn’t looking at me. I wish she would look at me.
“Around two-hundred and fifty grand.”
“What!” Daisy jumps up, bringing her hands to her mouth. “How is that even…what! Hound!”
“Mac’s an evil bastard, Daisy. He lets the debts build up over years, let’s them borrow more, all whilst the other debts are gaining their interest. Massive amounts of interest, too. So that when he finally comes to collect, people are forced to mortgage their houses, sell their cars, and he gets a big payout. It doesn’t even matter if a lot of people can’t pay all of it. Even some of it is a fortune. But your dad’s a different case. Mac wants me to kill him, but I reckon he’d take around a million. But I don’t have a million.”
“And neither does Dad.”
I risk moving my hand to her, laying it gently atop her hand. She hesitates, but then flips her hand so that our fingers can interlock.
“I won’t let anything happen to him, Daisy. I’ll die first.”
“It wasn’t you…” She turns to me, the skin under her eyes puffy from crying. She looks vulnerable. All I can think is I want to hold her, shield her from the world, for the rest of my life. But then she slides her hand away from me. “What are we going to do, Hound? I’m going to have to run with him, aren’t I? Me and Dad are going to have to run far, far away.”
“Don’t do that. It’d kill me.” I reach for her again but she stands up.
“What else are we supposed to do?” she snaps.
“I don’t know. But I know one thing: if you left, I’d die. I love you, Daisy.” I’m on my feet, standing close to her, looking down into her face, a face I know as well as my own reflection now, a face I’ve spent hours exploring until I know every valley and peak. A face which would haunt me every day for the rest of my life if it were suddenly to disappear. “I used to think my dream life was just a house, Daisy. A house. Wood. Stone. Appliances. Shit. Whatever. I used to think my dream life was just being out of the life. But you know what these past couple of months have taught me? None of that means anything if I don’t have you, you and our kid. I want to make this work. I want to be somebody else. I don’t want to be—” I cut myself short, suddenly afraid I might cry.
Daisy touches my face. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, not with me.”
“I know.” I lean in for a kiss, but she backs off.
“I don’t know, Hound. This is all such a mess. I haven’t slept. I’m—God, I’m tired.”
“Just promise me you won’t go. Give me a week. Just a week.”
“Will we be safe, though?”
“I have men watching you and your father,” I tell her. “And I’ll talk to Mac and tell him that he’s going to be paid. I’ll lie my ass off.”
“And then what?” Daisy asks, a note of desperation in her voice. “A week isn’t forever.”
“And then we find a way. As a family.”
I don’t know if she’s fully convinced, but she nods before turning back toward the hospital. “A week,” she calls over her shoulder. Then she stops, turns, and looks me dead in the face. “And I love you, too. I think you should know that.”
She paces away before either of us can say anything else.