Beaten Down
Mercer St
Manhattan
9:15 pm Wednesday 22 November 2006
Regan saw the sunburst of light behind her eyes before she felt the blow. Stunned, she staggered forward on rubbery legs. The next blow was glancing but hard enough to knock her off balance and she sprawled to the sidewalk.
Her body seemed a very long way away through the fog that was descending over her consciousness but Regan made it move, arms and legs scrabbling against the gritty cement as she lurched to her feet. Give up and you're gone, an old man's voice told her. For a moment Regan couldn't tell if she was in a cold New York night or behind the well-house at Gran-Da's place. Stay up. Keep moving. Nobody gonna give you quarter 'cause you quit, girl.
She got herself up and turned around in time to see another fist coming at her and she jerked her head sideways and heard the blow crunch into the wall and a man swear.
Then her mind cleared enough to register the face she was looking at and it was Edward Walters and Regan opened her mouth to scream and he grabbed her by the throat. He was on her and pushing her against the wall and his hand cut off her air. Blood hummed in her ears. Regan clawed at his eyes and his grip loosened. She pulled free and staggered away, the street rocking beneath her feet – half from the blow, half from the five tequilas she'd tossed back in the bar.
She managed to get out a brief yelp before Walters grabbed her again, fist tangled in her hair. He swung her around and slammed her face first into the wall. Regan kicked backwards and felt her heel make contact, but not hard enough to make Walters let her go. He cursed her, leaned his weight against her head, grinding her face into the bricks. Regan felt skin tear. Pain bloomed across her cheek and mouth.
Walters spun her around and swung at her. Regan blocked the first blow, the second, but she was slow, slower than she would have been sober, and the third got past her. Her nose exploded with pain. She saw stars.
After the fourth punch she saw only darkness.
"So then Mary said, let me get this right, she said – " Abbie Carmichael told Olivia. "'Well, your honour, if the defence gives me a banana, I have no choice but to make daiquiris'."
Olivia snorted. "She did not."
"I was there," Don Cragen said. "She said it. I nearly swallowed my tongue."
"And then what happened?"
"She won the case," Abbie said. "And afterwards, she and I drank banana daiquiris at that little place three blocks from the courthouse, the one with the fake palm trees? I have never been so sick." She looked at her watch. "It's gone nine – I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. Hey, has anyone seen Jack? I should say goodbye."
"I think he left," Olivia said. She looked around. "Yeah, I think he's gone."
Abbie raised her eyebrows. "Already? That's not like the Jack McCoy I know. He can usually drink the bar dry after he wins a case."
"It wasn't exactly a win, though, was it," Olivia said.
Abbie looked at her hard. "They don't all end up the way you'd like them to," she said. "Doesn't mean Jack and Casey didn't do their best."
Olivia gave a bitter little laugh. " Mr McCoy did his worst." she said. "I don't know – I said to Casey, I don't know how you lawyers do it. I've never seen anything so cold-blooded."
Abbie frowned. "Have you ever discharged your weapon in the line, Olivia?" When the detective nodded, Abbie shrugged. "I don't know how you do it. I mean, capital cases, sure, I have no problem asking for the death penalty. And I have a gun at home. But use it? I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Stand in front of another human being and take their life – end it?" She shook her head. "I don't know if I could."
"I didn't enjoy it," Olivia protested. "I had no other options, no choice about it!"
"I know," Abbie said. "But Olivia, next time you're wondering how an ADA makes a decision you don't agree with, does something you don't like – try to remember that it's not just with a gun in your hand that you can find yourself without any options." She shrugged and reached for her coat. "We all do what the job demands. We all do what we have to."
Darkness.
Regan couldn't breathe in the dark. It was the familiar dream, the light gone, her chest burning, such a crushing weight. Air. I need air. There's no air.
It was the familiar dream, but with a sudden lurch of horror Regan realised she wasn't dreaming. She was awake.
And she couldn't breathe.
Her mouth was sealed, a painful band across her mouth and around her head. Nose. Breathe through your nose. She tried to, but her nose was mostly full of blood and snot and only a trickle of air at a time made it to her straining lungs.
For a few seconds that panic completely filled her and obliterated everything else, but then Regan tried to move her hands to get whatever it was off her mouth and she couldn't, tried to move her feet and the effort suddenly constricted her throat. She panicked again, froze, body screaming for oxygen and mind just screaming in blind terror. Dying, her body said. Dying. You're dying.
Her mind agreed.
"Don't try moving," Walters told her. "You'll pull the noose tighter."
The images of Mary Firienze bound and gagged on the floor of the garbage room flashed through Regan's mind, followed by the case file on Annie Levy. Oh god oh god oh god. She was bound and gagged and hogtied with a rope around her neck tied to her ankles and if she struggled she'd strangle herself. Oh god oh god oh god oh god.
Gran-Da, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do, oh god, help me, help me, what do I do?
Tears ran down her face and stung the abraded skin on her cheeks. Oh god, don't cry don't cry. If she started crying in earnest her nose would block up completely and that would be the end of her.
It's going to be the end of me anyway.
No, no, don't die, don't die, fight, find a way to fight. She tried to see around her. There was next to no light but she could see trash cans and a wall. Alley. She was in an alley. And what could she do with that?
Nothing. Oh god oh god oh god.
"I better make a move," Van Buren said. She reached for her bag. "It's half past nine, and I got my husband waiting for me at home."
"See you tomorrow, Lieu," Briscoe said.
Van Buren leaned past a couple of SVU cops to put her hand on Abbie Carmichael's shoulder. "Do you need a lift, Abbie?" she asked. "I'm parked a block away."
"No, I'm fine," Abbie said. "I'm around the corner."
"All right," Van Buren said. She pulled on her coat and turned to the door, threading her way through the familiar faces still dancing and drinking. A scrap of conversation came to her, something about Mary Firienze and a case she'd been trying … It would be a while before the police and prosecutors really recovered from the loss of one of their own, but tonight was a start. Tonight was where they came together and started remaking their professional world without Mary in it.
Van Buren sighed as she pushed the door open. It wasn't the first time she'd seen it; it wouldn't be the last. Usually it was cops who died in the line. This year, twice, it had been prosecutors. Nobody saw it coming the first time, forget about the second.
You lose too many too fast and you get all bent out of shape. Briscoe had had a partner like that, Mike Logan, over in major crimes now. Good cop, Van Buren thought, hot-head but a good cop. Two partners shot – it had nearly been the end of him.
At least Jack seems to be coming out of it, Van Buren thought, starting down the street to her car, hurrying against the cold. He had me worried for a while. Smart man like that, still too stupid to know when he needs a friend, or maybe just too proud to admit it.
But he'll be okay. The worst has gotta be over. He made it through the case. He'll mend.
Thank god my husband is in hardware, she thought as she started down the street to her car.
Walters knelt beside Regan. "You know," he said, "this is even more fun with you knowing what I'm going to do to you. And you do know, don't you? I saw you in court. I've got my knife here, Ms Markham, you fucking bitch. And I'm going to cut you with it. That's for starters."
There was no room in Regan for anything but panic. There was not enough air. Her chest was filling up with blood and she was so cold and there was not enough air – no. That's not now. Now was a cord around the neck tied to her ankles, her legs bent up behind her, tape over her mouth, now was face down in an alley in New York with maybe an hour left to live.
I'm going to die, I'm going to die I'm dying I'm dying …
What do I do Gran-Da, what do I do?
She could hear Walters panting, could hear clothing rustling. He was getting himself excited while he told her what he was going to do to her, how he was going to cut her, and then how many times he was going to rape her…
With a sudden bound of hope Regan realised Walters would have to untie her feet in order to rape her. Just as quickly as it came, the hope was crushed with the realisation that he didn't need her to be conscious or even alive at that point.
The thought almost loosed her last tenuous grip on her self-control.
Two in the belly and one in the head, knocks a man down and kills him stone dead … but she's not shot in the head, is she, she's taken three in the belly and one in the chest and she's still upright. What do I do, Gran-Da?
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe because there was a bullet in her lung and her chest is full of blood.
No. She couldn't breathe because of the tape over her mouth and the cord around her neck.
She couldn't breathe and nobody is coming to help her, nobody is coming because they're all dead, she can see their bodies through the fog descending over her sight, and nobody will come, nobody will ever come –
And maybe this is how it goes. Maybe this is how it ends for her, how it should have ended already, maybe cheating death last time hearing the whistle and bubble as she fights to breathe and fights to breathe and fights again to breathe was only a delay. Maybe this is how she goes, suffocating, slowly, like Mary, with no-one coming, trying to breathe, and trying again to breathe, like Mary, like Alex –
As Regan squirmed, trying to find a little play in the ropes that bound her, something in her jacket pocket dug into her side. Sharp metal edges bit through fabric. The tiny prick of pain focused her mind. She remembered –
Remembered McCoy's face as the cuff link slipped from his grasp.
Remembered his face, pale and etched with grief, as he raged "Don't try to tell me you know what it's like to know a young woman who looks to you is missing somewhere being beaten and dying and waiting for you to find her while she chokes in her own blood and vomit .."
They'll find me tomorrow. Like they found Alex. Like they found Mary
Because that's who gets found. The ones who are lost. And I'm going to be lost.
And then Jack will be.
And no-one's going to find Jack. He's gonna be back in the woods in the dark and there'll be no partner coming to get him.
Regan didn't fool herself that she was as important to Jack McCoy as Mary Firienze or Alex Borgia. But still, the knowledge that she was going to die in this alley was nowhere near as horrifying to her as the thought of Jack McCoy's face as he stood over her body.
McCoy might only be close to a partner, but as Regan listened to Walters panting as he listed every place on her body he was going to violate, as she struggled to breathe, she realised that McCoy was close enough.
This might be what's supposed to happen to me. I'm damned if I'll let it be what happens to him
Out in the street she could hear steps coming closer, a woman's heels tapping on the sidewalk. Regan would have preferred a man's footsteps, some big guy who could scare Walters off, but beggars can't be choosers, can they.
Regan began to suck air like a swimmer preparing to go underwater, hyperventilating as much as she could. Walters laughed at her, no doubt thinking she was panicking. The sound of her sobbing breath snuffling through her blocked nose hid the approaching footsteps, from Regan and from Walters as well. Then she saw a shadow across the alley entrance.
Now or fucking never.
Regan kicked out hard.
The noose tightened around her neck as her legs straightened but she managed to thrash out enough to kick the trashcans. One fell against another with a clatter.
"Stupid bitch," Walters said. "You want to fucking kill yourself, save me the effort?" Regan could barely hear him over the humming blood in her ears. She bent her knees again to relieve the pressure on her neck but the noose didn't loosen much.
Can't – breathe – can't – breathe …
Dimly, she heard the sweetest words in the world.
"Police! Hands where I can see them!"
It was Anita Van Buren's voice.
Ed Green was offering to take Ana Cordova down to Atlantic City – it wasn't that late, he was telling her, not quite even quarter to ten – when his pager started humming. He pulled it out of his pocket, realising as he did that all around him hands were digging in handbags, reaching into jacket pockets.
The bar was full of cops. And every cop was getting beeped.
Green read the code. Officer needs assistance. Then he read the address.
" Jesus H," Captain Cragen said next to him, also looking at his pager. "That's down the street."
Green was already drawing his gun.
The bar emptied fast, cops spilling out into the street. Green crossed the road, Detective Stabler from the 16th right behind him, both with guns out and held low. Benson and Tutuola were on the other side of the street, crouched behind the parked cars, all of them running fast and quiet. Other officers strung out behind them. Green glanced over his shoulder and thought that he'd never seen so many officers responding to one call.
Officer needs assistance.
And only then did Green put it together. The LT left a couple of minutes ago.
Officer needs assistance.
She could take care of herself, Green knew. She was one tough cop.
And if she's – hurt – or worse –
I will kill the sonofabitch, and I won't need a gun to do it.
There was an alleyway up ahead – Green checked the sign and it was the same as the name he'd read off the pager. He signalled to Stabler and then ducked quickly across the alley entrance. Benson and Tutuola were across the street, covering them.
Green exchanged a glance with Stabler and the SVU detective nodded. One, two, three –
They both turned at the same instant, following their guns into the alley.
"Police! Show me your hands!"
Regan heard Walters stand up. Lock him down, Lieutenant. Lock him down.
I got no air left. I got no time.
The world was a pinprick now and Regan had only the dimmest awareness of what was happening. She could hear Van Buren calling for backup, but her voice was almost drowned out by every cell in Regan's body screaming for oxygen. She struggled against the rope, vaguely aware that she was making things worse but no longer able to make rational choices. She was a trapped animal, trapped and dying, stripped down to desperation and terror.
"Regan!" Anita Van Buren's voice penetrated the haze. "Regan, listen to me! You hear? Hold still! Bend your knees and hold still!"
It was an order, issued in the irresistible voice of command, and Regan obeyed it. She had been drilled and drilled to obedience, and there was enough of her rational mind left to respond to the authority in Van Buren's voice. She bent her knees. She held still.
"You hold still, Regan, I'm coming. You, on the wall. On the wall!"
Walters didn't move.
"On the wall!" Van Buren said again.
Regan fought to hold still against every instinct screaming at her to fight. She heard Van Buren, heard Walters say something, saw him move, saw his hand move to his waist and –
A man draws down on you –
A single gunshot roared through the alley. Regan saw the muzzle flash blaze through the darkness clouding her eyes.
Put him in the ground.
Then or later.
Then firm hands were on her, fingers pulling at the rope around her neck. Someone was speaking to her.
Someone was alive. Someone was dead. Regan wasn't sure which of the two was true about her. The rope got tighter. He's going to kill me. I'm dying. I'm dead.
The rope loosened. Regan got a tiny gasp of air. Not enough. But enough to let her hear the voice talking to her. "Hang on, Regan, hang on, I gotcha, I gotcha." Walters would never say that. Walters would not sound so warm and reassuring.
It was Anita Van Buren's voice, Anita Van Buren's fingers pulling at the tape around her face. Then she stopped.
"Regan, I can't pull this off, you're bleeding. I'm going to cut it. Hold still. Hold real still."
Van Buren braced Regan's head against her knee. Regan felt Van Buren's fingers on the tape over her mouth and then she felt cold metal. The tape between her lips parted.
And then, at last, there was enough air. Regan gasped and coughed and spat bile. She heard Van Buren talking into her radio.
"Officer involved shooting, be advised, plain clothes officer on the scene. I need a rush bus."
"Police! Show me your hands!" a voice barked from the mouth of the alley.
"I'm a police officer," Van Buren called calmly, but Regan could feel the tension in her. This was always a point when things could go badly wrong, too many guns, too many cops keyed too tightly – a moment of panic, of indecision.
"LT?" the voice called. Not this time.
"That's right, Ed," Van Buren said. "The perp is down – over there. Check him."
Regan rested against Van Buren's leg and concentrated on breathing. A sudden wave of nausea swept over her and for a moment she panicked, trying to spit past the tape and breathe and convinced she was going to suffocate now, now for Chrissakes, after all that -
"I gotcha, I gotcha," Van Buren soothed, clearing Regan's mouth with her fingers. "I gotcha. You're okay. It's okay now, you're okay. Someone get these ropes off her, will you?"
"Oh my god," Olivia Benson said from a little distance away. "This is Edward Walters."
"Is he dead?" Van Buren asked.
"Oh yeah," Stabler said. "You shoot him?"
"I had to," Van Buren said.
"One shot stop," Stabler said. "You must put in quite a lot of range time, ma'am."
Regan felt tugging on the ropes that bound her and then they suddenly loosened. Gentle hands straightened her legs and eased her arms from behind her back. Returning blood brought stringing pain and she couldn't hold back a whimper.
"It's okay, it's okay," Olivia Benson said softly.
Somewhere past Olivia, Captain Cragen was talking. Van Buren eased Regan into Olivia's supporting arms and stood up. Cragen was saying something about needing someone's gun, about setting up a perimeter. Regan tried to follow it but her head was spinning. Olivia cradled her. "You're going to be okay, Regan, the ambulance will be here soon."
Regan blinked hard and saw Anita Van Buren talking to Cragen, cops all around them, cops, everywhere. Safety.
"I'm okay," she said, or tried to with the shredded tape still stuck to her lips and face. Her throat ached and she coughed and coughed again. "I can go – in a patrol. I don't need a bus. No fuss."
Olivia stroked her hair. "Yeah, we all know you're tough. But Regan – Anita has more than one or two enemies among the brass. If it looks to anyone like you might've walked away from this – well. This has gotta be a good shoot."
"It was," Regan gasped. "It was. He was going to – he would have – she had to. She had to do it." Another fit of coughing wracked her. "She had to do it. A man draws down on you, you gotta – you gotta – you gotta put him in the ground." She tried to get her feet under her and get up.
"Lie still," Olivia said. "Shh, shh, lie still. The bus is coming."
"No," Regan gasped, fighting to get up, fighting against Olivia's restraining hands. "Gotta tell – she saved my life. Gotta tell – good shoot, it's a clean shoot."
"Okay," Olivia said, giving in. "Okay, here we go."
Helped to her feet, Regan leaned against Olivia as shooting pains went through her abused legs. "Who's running the scene?" She had to strain to speak above a whisper, and the effort made her cough again, doubling over. Her chest ached, ached like it had with a bullet in her lung ..no, that was gone, that was the past ... Or maybe this was ? Has it happened? Is it going to happen?
Where the hell is Marco? I'm his partner. He should be here. I'd be here if it was him who'd been shot – no, not shot. I'm not shot. Focus, Regan, dammit, head in the game!
Where's my partner? Where is he? Why am I alone?
" Captain Cragen has taken charge of the scene," Olivia said. Regan blinked and blinked again and made herself look at Cragen, in the here-and-now, the here-and-now where she is not shot and where she has no partner.
"I have to talk to him," Regan said. She staggered forward, Olivia holding her up. Stabler appeared at her other side, supporting her as well. They helped her towards Captain Cragen. "Captain," Regan told him hoarsely, "she saved my life." Cragen nodded, but Regan wasn't satisfied. She grabbed his arm. "She saved my life. She saved my life. It was a good shoot. She didn't have a choice. It was a righteous shoot."
"Okay," Cragen said. "I understand."
"It was a good shoot," Regan insisted in a cracked whisper. "Don't jam her up. She was righteous."
"You need to sit down," Cragen told her gently.
"Come on," Olivia said. "Come and sit in a radio car until the bus gets here. Come on."
"It was a good shoot," Regan whispered.
"I gotcha," Stabler said, and picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child. He carried her in his arms out of the alley to where the street was already filling with patrol cars and uniformed cops. He put her in the backseat of one of the patrol cars. "There you go. We'll get you out of here soon. Can you tell me what happened?"
Regan nodded. The movement made her nauseous again and she swallowed hard. "He – grabbed me – hit me – I blacked out – then I was tied up. I couldn't – he gagged me, he tied me. I couldn't – move – I couldn't – " A spasm of coughing bent her double, hard enough to leave her retching. "I was – he – I – " She stopped, swallowed hard, and then the words slipped out without her meaning to say them. "I didn't anybody would come." She lowered her head to her hands. If she couldn't stop the tears, at least she could hide them.
To her surprise, it was Elliot Stabler who hunkered down beside her, one big hand on her arm, the other cupping the nape of her neck. "We'll always come," he said. "Do you hear me, honey? We'll always come."
Regan didn't say the words that hung between them. No-one came for Mary. She just nodded and snuffled and tried not to cough too much.
They put her in the ambulance not long after that, Olivia climbing in beside the stretcher. Regan greyed out for a while on the ride, let the arrival at the hospital all go past her in a blur of people in different coloured scrubs moving her and handling her. She let them do what they wanted and tried to remember that she was in New York and she hadn't been shot, not today. Still, she stared every time the door opened. My partner should be here. Regan didn't want to see Marco coming through that door, because of what came after Marco, but she kept expecting him. He's my partner. He should be here. Where's my partner? Where's my goddamn partner?
You got no partner. Not here. Not anymore.
Someone looked at the tape on her face and told her something about abrasions and waiting. Someone else put a mask over her mouth and nose and told her to breathe slowly.
The mask smelt of plastic and Regan had to concentrate hard to keep her breathing slow and even. Plastic air. Hospital smell.
Any minute now her partner would come through that door and someone would ask him about her next-of-kin and he would say –
"Regan, can you hear me, I need you to breathe slowly. Try to be calm. Can you try to be calm for me?"
Regan nodded for the doctor, squeezing down the panic, trying to be here and not elsewhere, trying to work out where here was.
Her clothes were cut away from her and put in plastic bags. Olivia Benson held her hand while a doctor did a sexual assault exam. Regan tried to tell them it would be negative, but Olivia reminded her gently that she had been unconscious, so Regan lay there while they probed her, tears stinging the grazes on her cheeks.
"Take the evidence to the lab," Regan told Olivia when they were done.
"It's okay," Olivia said. "I can wait with you."
"No," Regan said. "By the book. For Anita Van Buren. I don't want any fucking questions about any of this, do you understand? She saved my life." Raising her voice made her cough again and she doubled over. The mask tasted of plastic. The whole hospital tasted of plastic. Tasted of hiss, thump stale air – her head spun and Regan closed her eyes.
When she opened them again Olivia was gone and there was a doctor there. "Let's get this tape off you, okay?" he said gently. "I'm going to numb your face with some lidocaine and then use a solvent on the glue. We don't want to take off any more skin than we need to."
Regan nodded. Just yank it off, she thought desperately, almost ready to yank it off herself and flee the E.R, regardless of the fact that she had no shoes and no coat and was only dressed in a hospital gown flapping open at the back. Hiss, thump.
It's not that time. It's not that place.
It was all that time and place and always would be. Regan was bathed in cold sweat and her heart was pounding.
"Just hold still now," the doctor said.
A noise at the door made them both turn.
Jack McCoy stood there.
Of all the unbearable things that had happened to Regan that day, the expression on Jack McCoy's face as he stood in the hospital doorway looking at her was by far the worst.
.oOo.
