“Time to wake up, Toby.”
Groggy from the knockout, dazed from the slap, his lover struggles violently against his restraints, screams muffled curses at him through the tape on his mouth.
“Shhh. Shhhh.”
Keller holds the knife an inch away from Toby’s eye, and Toby stiffens.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck me.”
Over and over, they do the same dance.
“Schillinger wants you dead. That’s no secret, right?”
He lures him in. He breaks him down.
“I told him I would do it. Ask me why.”
He loses ground.
“Why?”
He gains it back.
“To keep you alive.”
Lather, rinse, repeat.
“I’ve been pretending to be Schillinger’s butt buddy to keep you safe.”
It never gets old.
“I concocted this whole goddamn thing just to convince you I’m on the up and up.”
And he never loses.
“All I really want is for you to love me again.”
Only the last time, he miscalculated.
“I kill because I have to. I kill what stands in my way.”
The last time, he lost everything, forever.
“Beecher, don’t!”
But for whatever reason, he gets another chance.
“It’ll all be over soon.”
And for whatever reason, he fucks that up too.
“You wake the fuck up, Toby.”
And this time, it really is forever.
“I am a piece of shit. I am worthless. As bad as they come.”
---
“Tobias is dead, isn’t he?”
Keller starts at the voice, turns around. Rebadow is sitting up in bed, watching him.
“You can see me?” Keller asks cautiously.
Rebadow shakes his head. “No.” Upon closer inspection, Keller notices his eyes are fixed on the wall near him. “But I know you’re there. All of you.”
“Jesus.” Keller drifts over to the old man, waves a hand in front of his face – no reaction. “Why didn’t you say nothing?”
Rebadow smiles slightly. “What would I have said? And to who? It’s bad enough that I talk to God. Adding ghosts to the mix would get me a one-way ticket to the loony bin. No. I’m comfortable here.”
“Comfortable.” Keller snorts. “Right.”
“I can sense that you don’t believe me. Well, it’s true. I’ve had plenty of time to accept my fate. I’ll live out the rest of my days here, in Emerald City. And when it’s my time to go, I won’t be sticking around.” He pauses. “That’s what happened to Beecher, too. Am I right?”
Keller doesn’t respond. Rebadow sighs. “You’re angry.”
“Of course I’m fucking angry.”
“You don’t understand why it didn’t work. Why he didn’t stay.”
“Of course I don’t fucking understand.”
“Tobias loved you. You’re right about that. But what you were wrong about is how far he was willing to take that love. He didn’t have your temperament. Your capacity for hate. You embraced damnation. He chased salvation. And in the end, that’s what he got.” Rebadow shifts his gaze, and his eyes almost meet Keller’s. “And what you got, as well.”
“That ain’t true,” Keller whispers.
“It is, unfortunately. And the sooner you accept it, the closer you might get to some salvation of your own.” He lays back down. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to try and get some more sleep.”
“Wait,” Keller says. “What about O’Reily?”
Rebadow lays silent for a moment, then replies, “I don’t know, for sure. But I suspect I won’t be seeing him in the morning. And I suspect you won’t see him when you leave this cell, either.”
“Which one did he get? Salvation or damnation?”
“Neither. Both.” Rebadow shrugs. “It isn’t an exact metaphor.” He rolls over to face the wall, and says no more.
---
Keller passes through walls, through cells, circling the empty quad. It’s quieter than normal. A lot of ghosts have passed on, tonight.
Finally, he finds who he’s looking for. One of them, anyway.
“Hey.”
Torquemada sits on the floor of Guerra’s cell, staring at nothing. He doesn’t look up.
“What happened to Alvarez?”
“He’s in solitary.” The words drip with acid. Keller tuts.
“Sucks.”
“I should have stopped you.”
“You couldn’t have.”
“Should have tried.”
“Don’t get soft on me, candy cane.” Keller drops to the floor to sit beside him; Torquemada moves away ever so slightly. Don’t worry. I don’t want a fucking repeat performance either. “Besides, we both know why you didn’t.”
Torquemada’s good eye slides over. “Oh, do we now?”
“You wanted to see if it would work. If you could get Miguel over here too.”
No reply.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Bullshit. You’re a bad liar.”
“I’m a fantastic liar, baby.”
“See? There’s the Alonzo I know and hate.”
A barely perceptible twitch of the lips. “Feeling’s mutual, sweetheart.”
They watch Guerra in silence for a minute or two. He’s not sleeping, just staring at the ceiling – presumably, like Rebadow, woken up by the commotion; unlike Rebadow, unable to return to his dreams so easily. Keller remembers how Toby looked when he first entered the cell, and supresses a shiver, buries the grief down deep.
“We could try killing him,” he suggests. “Maybe it’ll work this time.”
“Why on earth would I want to do that.”
Keller shrugs. “Blow off some steam.”
“And have my assassin follow me around for eternity? No thank you. Besides,” Torquemada points out, “killing the little lawyer worked fine. It’s the rest that failed to meet expectations.”
“Would you have done it?”
“Done what?”
“Gone ahead with Alvarez. If it had worked.”
Torquemada says nothing for a moment, then, “I don’t know.” He looks down at his nails, polish slightly chipped forever. “Probably. Eventually. Against my better judgement.”
“You knocking my judgement?”
“Told you in the laundry room. Thought it was a bad idea. Don’t disagree with that statement.”
“But you’d do it.”
“I said I don’t know. It depends.”
“On what?”
Torquemada’s voice changes, exaggerated self-mocking. “On whether or not I really love him.”
Keller laughs. “Jesus. Yeah. Hey, I know this guy in here, prays 5 times a day, wears a silly hat. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”
Torquemada rolls his eyes. “Maybe he’s not as much of an idiot as I thought.” He pushes himself up off the floor, approaches Guerra’s bunk. “Really, though, it’s a shame he was so against the idea. He would have a better chance of success than either of us.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
Torquemada casts Keller a condescending look. “Please. You don’t have to pay attention as much as I do to notice how they looked at each other when they were both alive – or how Kareem looks at him now.” He smiles. “What name Arif mumbles in his sleep.”
“You watching him sleep?” Keller gets up himself. “Better not let the minister find out.”
“You can tell him yourself, if you like.” Torquemada drags a ghostly finger along Guerra’s face, from the crown of his head, down his nose, over and under his chin. “I think I’ve done enough here. Or not enough, as it were,” he adds dryly.
Keller stares at him. “You serious?”
“And don’t call me Shirley.” Torquemada glances back at him. “Tell her I said hello, by the way. Darling woman.”
“Man, where haven’t you been.”
“Nowhere, in a moment.” He leans in. “Take care of him, pendejo,” he whispers in Guerra’s ear, and the latter shivers. Torquemada flicks his cheek, then straightens, casts Keller one last look. “See you at the end of the road, baby.”
And suddenly Keller is alone.
---
He passes through walls, through cells, circling the empty quad. He finds who he’s looking for, the other one.
“Hey.”
Said lays on the bunk with Arif, his back to Keller, body half-overlapped with that of his living counterpart. He doesn’t turn around.
“Where’s Omar?”
“I don’t know.” Said’s voice is impassive. “He left the cell shortly after you.”
“Passed on?”
“I doubt it.”
“Yeah, that’d be too easy on you.” Said doesn’t reply. Keller settles into the chair at the desk in the corner. “Torquemada’s gone, by the way.”
Said turns slightly, not all the way, then returns his attention back to Arif. “I see.”
“Not curious why?”
“No.” And then, “I can guess.”
“You can guess. Right.” It had been easy to ignore his feelings while talking to Torquemada – they were (or, had been) similar in that way, surface level banter that merely skirts around the real issues. Not so with Said. Something about the minister’s manner, closed off yet leaking contempt, brings everything Keller had been pushing down back up again like vomit. “You’re better than us, of course. Got everything all figured out.”
“I’m not responsible for you feeling aggrieved by your own actions.”
“Not responsible for anything, it seems like. Just here to pass judgement on everyone but yourself.”
Said chuckles wryly. “Oh, trust me, Keller, I pass as much judgement on myself as anyone else.” He turns finally, gets up off the bunk. “What are you here for? Hmm?” His eyes flash with anger. “What could you possibly have left to say?”
“Came to say that I know why it didn’t work.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“You.”
Said laughs. “Me.” He shakes his head bitterly. “If it had been up to me, Beecher would still be alive.”
“But you couldn’t keep him alive, could you? Not with the numbers we had. Not 13 against 4.” Or 3. “So you did the next best thing.” Said is glaring at him. Keller continues.
“You sabotaged us.”
It had been a stupid, pointless play, Keller had thought at the time. Sheer defiance on Said’s part. So he hadn’t paid it any attention, just focused on what he had to do. It wasn’t until after talking to Rebadow that the pieces had fallen into place.
He chased salvation. And in the end, that’s what he got.
“You weren’t focusing on trying to stop us, in there. You were focusing with us. Only you were playing a different angle.”
You can still stop this.
“You convinced Toby to give up, at the end. You put him at peace.”
Keller. It’s over.
“He was going to die no matter what you did. So you made sure he didn’t stick around.” Keller can tell by the look in Said’s eyes that he has him dead to rights. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
Keller laughs mirthlessly. “You’re a bad fucking liar.” Said says nothing. “What I didn’t get at first was why. You liked Beecher. Surely even if you didn’t agree with my methods, you would have rather he stuck around in some way than disappear forever. But,” Keller gets up, walks towards Said, who takes a very slight step back, “then I talked to Torquemada, and I figured it out.”
He smiles, shark-like.
“If he’d stuck around, you might have seen him come round on me again. If he’d stuck around, you might have had to watch me get the happy ending you pretend you don’t want.”
“That isn’t true,” Said says quietly.
“Temptation, minister. Hell of a drug. And it would have worn you down, in the long run.”
“Get out.”
“Why don’t you pass on? You got nothing to stay for. Idzik’s dead. McManus has plenty of problems, doesn’t need you to haunt his stupid ass. Omar’s only here because you are. Nah.” Keller glances down at Arif’s sleeping form, nods at the bed. “You stay for him, and only him. And you fucked up my plans so you wouldn’t have to face that your love is just as fucked up as mine.”
Said’s swaying slightly, eyes wide with righteous indignation. Keller moves in close, almost touching him. “Go ahead,” he says softly. “Put your fist in me again. I’ll step right into it. Let’s go to hell together.”
They stand like that for what feels like an eternity, neither breaking eye contact. Finally, Said steps away. “Get out,” he repeats.
Keller raises his hands. “I’m out.” He moves towards the exit, then pauses at the door. “See you in the morning, minister. Unless you’re gonna follow Torquemada’s lead?”
Said says nothing, just stares down at Arif. Keller grins.
“Yeah. Didn’t think so.”
---
He passes through walls, through cells, circling the empty quad. Not looking for anyone. His business is finished here.
Toby, I love you.
He goes through his library of tapes, pressing play and rewind over and over again.
I couldn’t face the rest of my life living in here without you.
By the time he reaches the gates of Emerald City, he’s made his decision.
The only thing that matters is you and me.