Zero at the Bone

by Jane Seville

  She crossed her arms on the tabletop. “I know what your situation is. Maybe more than you do. But you must have questions about me.”

  “You sayin’ you gonna answer all a my questions?”

  “Well… maybe not all. As many as I’m able.”

  “Yer Secret Service.”

  “Yep.”

  “But you ain’t no agent.”

  “Nope.” She sighed. “I’m one of those people that don’t exist.”

  “Well, we got that in common.”

  “Yeah. Let’s just say I go do the jobs that don’t get put in the annual report or itemized in the budget. Things that don’t officially happen.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Last ten years I been on anti-assassination. I pretty much roam around following up on tips and intelligence, some of which I’m given, some of which I gather myself. You ought to know that I sometimes pose as somebody in your line of work.”

  He frowned. “Under what name?”

  “Shelby.”

  He snorted. “That was you?”

  “Yep. I know, I stole that Tempe job from you.”

  “No, ya didn’t. I wanted you to take it. Change a heart. Leaked the contact info and ramped back on my bid so somebody’d swoop in and steal it. Thanks for obligin’.”

  “You played me!” she exclaimed. “Asshole!”

  He shrugged. “Look who’s talkin’.”

  She nodded, chuckling. “Anyway. The nature of my job made it easy for me to move around and, uh… look after you.”

  D was silent for a moment. “You gonna tell me why? Finally?”

  “You saved my life.”

  “Still don’t know how.”

  “That’s a conversation for a later time.”

  He nodded. He’d suspected as much. “Okay. Then there’s only one thing ta talk ’bout.”

  “Who’s got these two contracts on Jack?”

  “First hit went to a guy called Carver. Know him?”

  “Yeah, he’s a lightweight.”

  “Well, I ain’t countin’ him out, but he don’t worry me as much as JJ. I figure I’ll tail him when he gets into town and persuade him to take his business elsewhere.”

  She nodded. “I’ll make some discreet inquiries on Carver's known aliases, see if I can find how he's arriving or where he's staying.”

  “That’d be good. Then there’s JJ.”

  “I’m not familiar with him.”

  “Her. And I’m a lot more nervous about her than Carver.”

  “Why? Is she tough?”

  D shot her a wry grin. “JJ is a sixty-eight-year-old woman who’s about five-two and no more’n ninety pounds soakin’ wet.”

  Meg snorted. “Seriously?”

  “Yep. Nobody ever looks at her twice. I seen her a couple a times off the job and she looked like a Park Avenue mama, all high-heeled and white-haired and with them sunglasses. But on the job? She curls her hair and puts on these sweatshirts with teddy bears on ’em and looks like anyone’s grandma.”

  “Someone no one would ever suspect.”

  “Or even remember. But damn, she gets the job done.”

  “How?”

  “She is the fuckin’ master a chemical assassination. Poisons, nerve agents, injections. It could be in his food, or on the car’s door handle, or in the ventilation system, or in the fuckin’ water.”

  “Damn. That’s not going to be easy to protect him against.”

  “You ain’t kiddin’. Best hope is ta intervene before she puts her plan in place. She ain’t no bonehead like Carver, though. She’ll be tough ta find. I’m still thinkin’ on that. But she drew the close hit, so she only moves if Carver fails, so as long as I can put off Carver’s attempt, she won’t do nothin’ ’til real close ta the trial.” He sighed. “But them two are jus’ the beginnin’ a my problems.”

  Meg nodded. “Petros.”

  “Oh, ya heard?”

  “It’s all over the place. You’d think the guy was Keyser Soze for all the rumors that run around about him. You know, it’s often occurred to me that criminal enterprise would run a lot more smoothly if all the criminals could keep their damn mouths shut, which they seem pathologically incapable of doing.”

  “Mmm. Makes it easier fer us, though.”

  “You were never one to flap your lips.”

  “Why I’m still around.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” She leaned forward. “I’ll deal with Petros, if you want. So you can concentrate on Carver and JJ.”

  D regarded her, thinking. Did he trust her enough for that? Did he think she could handle it? He only needed a few moments’ contemplation to decide that the answers were yes and yes. “Okay. Be easier if I knew what he was gonna do.”

  “Has it occurred to you that he could be here for you?”

  “Cain’t be. He works fer the brothers, it’s gotta be ’bout Jack. It ain’t the brothers on my personal ass but somebody else who’s yet ta show their face. I’m bettin’ they got him inta town in case Jack makes it ta the stand and inta Witsec. That is one a his special talents.”

  Meg seemed to consider this, then let it drop. “What’s your plan for after? Assuming no one gets to Jack.”

  “Well, he’ll be goin inta Witsec.”

  “I can’t believe you’re content to just leave it there.”

  D smirked, a hard little half-smile. “Hell, no. I’m gonna fix it so he don’t hafta stay in Witsec. Can get his own name back, be a surgeon again.”

  “That’ll be a neat trick. How are you going to pull that one off?”

  “I got some ideas.”

  She seemed to get the message that he had no intention of discussing those ideas just now. They sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking their coffee. When Megan spoke again, her voice was quiet. “And what about after, for you and Jack?” she said. “Have you thought about that?”

  D stared down at his coffee. “I thought about it.” She was waiting for him to go on, but D wasn’t about to talk about his plans for a future with Jack, not even to her. Even if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t, speaking it aloud seemed like a risk, like he’d curse his hopes if he voiced them and made them real.

  The truth was, he hardly dared think about that future in any kind of detail. Jack had talked about a house and dogs and a garden. D hadn’t gotten that far. All he could bear to think about was some undefined future time when he’d see Jack again, and about not having to leave him forever. Past that, everything was vague and cloudy, because he couldn’t stand to make it distinct. If he did, and it didn’t happen, then he’d have outlines and details floating around inside his head to torment him with what he couldn’t have. It was bad enough that his mind kept insisting on reminding him that it was very possible—even probable—that Jack would die, and that all D would have of him would be a grave somewhere.

  A grave D would never visit, because if the worst happened, all he could imagine doing was vanishing into the night, cutting all ties to the world, and floating through his existence like a specter, touching nothing or nobody ever again.

  ~~~~~

  Jack blinked awake and rolled over. The bed was ridiculously comfortable. He’d gotten used to the lumpy mattress at the Redding house, and after that a week’s worth of anonymous fleabag motels, but this… this was heaven. Even so, he hadn’t slept all that well, and he blamed his solitude. He hadn’t slept alone in some time, and it felt wrong not to have D’s weight in the bed next to him, his body heat reminding Jack of his presence even when they weren’t touching. The bed felt cold with only himself to warm it.

  He smiled when his eyes lit on the little box of chocolate-covered cherries on the nightstand, but not for long. Cherries were a poor substitute.

  He turned over and stretched an arm across the empty, cold space where D ought to have been but wasn’t, and likely wouldn’t be for a long time. The day stretched out endless before him, a day trapped in this hotel room with nothing to do but brood and really relish the
depression that he felt lurking in the corner, waiting to pounce.

  He put his hands over his face. Goddamn. It’s all gone. My life, my job, my home, my city, my friends. He’d done his best through this never-ending ordeal not to think about how much he’d lost and how profoundly his life had changed, and for the most part he’d succeeded, but now there was nothing to distract him from it.

  At least I had him. For awhile, I had him. But now he’s gone too.

  He punched the pillow and pulled another one over his head. Wake me up when it’s time to testify. Maybe when I’m done I’ll just walk out of the courthouse and yell for the hit men to come and get me, but make it quick and painless.

  ~~~~~

  Following Carver’s car from BWI was not difficult, because he’d rented a red Corvette. D sniffed in derision when he saw the flashy thing pull out of the lot. Carver was new enough at this that he was still getting off on the so-called glamour of being an outlaw with bucketloads of cash. Usually the ones that drove fancy cars and bought jewelry and houses in the south of France didn’t last long. Carver wouldn’t either, if D had anything to say about it.

  His cell phone trilled. “D.”

  “Okay,” Megan said, without preamble. “Car was rented under a different name than he flew under, so he probably used that one for his lodging so it’d match.”

  “What name’s he usin’ fer the car?”

  “Brace yourself. Slade Thorndike.”

  D shook his head. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”

  “As I live and breathe.”

  “He get that off a soap opera?”

  “Sounds like. Anyway I found a townhouse rental under that name on Thames Street.”

  D’s stomach dropped. “Thames Street?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit, that’s in Fells Point. That’s real near where we were last night.”

  “Well, the courthouse is only a block from the hotel. He could have picked it because of that.”

  “Maybe, but it’s safest t’assume he knows where Jack is. I’ll tail him ta the townhouse ‘n’ deal with it there.”

  Meg was quiet for a moment. “Are you going to kill him?”

  D clenched his teeth. “If he makes me. Gimme that address.” D pulled away from the Corvette and passed it, his jaw grinding.

  ~~~~~

  The townhouse, more of a duplex, was generic in the way of a temporary rental. The security system was a joke; D got in easily through the garage. He made a quick check; he didn’t have much time. Carver was no more than ten minutes behind him, perhaps a few minutes more if he was unfamiliar with the neighborhood.

  He found a corner near the dining room where he could see both the front door and the door into the garage, so whichever way Carver entered he’d have it covered.

  He stood there, still and silent, barely breathing, a SIG Sauer with a silencer screwed into the barrel in one gloved hand inside the pocket of his pea coat. His mind wanted to run back toward Jack. Think about him, what he was doing, how he was feeling. He couldn’t let it. That was a distraction he couldn’t afford.

  He shut his eyes and tried to get back to that place. That place of D, that place where he’d lived for so long, his vault shut up nice and tight, everything smooth and shiny and featureless, not a scratch or a blemish on the surface of his arid desert mind.

  Shut it off. Shut it all off. You remember. It’s easy.

  It was hard to get back there when part of him stubbornly insisted on wondering if that place even existed anymore. Far from being clean and smooth, he was now righteously messy and turned over like soil in a garden just before planting. The vault door hung wide open, askew and half off its hinges, all the secrets it had contained floating around free.

  He heard the garage door and took a step back into the shadows. A car door slammed, keys in the lock, the door opening into the kitchen. Carver was making enough noise to wake the dead.

  He let his bag fall, oblivious, and walked straight toward D, hand out for the light switch. Before he could reach it, D moved smoothly out of his hiding place, grasped Carver’s wrist, spun him around and yanked the arm up between his shoulder blades, pressing his chest against the wall and the muzzle of his gun to his temple. “Quiet, now,” he hissed.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Carver choked out. He tried to struggle but D had his knee socked right up between his legs and his whole weight leaning on Carver’s twisted arm. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You don’t need ta know. Now, you listen close ta me and maybe you walk outta here, you got it?” Carver nodded. “You here to do a hit on Jack Francisco, that right? On behalf a the Dominguez brothers?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “If you think I’m a cop then yer even dumber’n ya look. Answer my question.” He twisted Carver’s arm again.

  “Yeah. Francisco.”

  “When was you gonna do it?”

  “Who the fuck’s askin’?”

  D weighed this for a moment. It was true that his name carried a certain reputation behind it. If Carver knew who he was dealing with, he’d probably present his belly like a good little boy, especially since it seemed to be common knowledge that D had already killed a colleague. But if D told Carver who he was, the odds of it staying a secret were small. He just wasn’t sure how much it mattered if Carver blabbed all over town that D was in the house. There was no price on his head at the moment, and like Frost, many professionals would shy away from them even if they existed. The only danger to him was that knowledge of his whereabouts would get back to whoever was after him so specifically… and it was likely they already knew. They surely knew that he’d been protecting Jack for months, and it wasn’t too likely they’d believe that he would have left Jack here in Baltimore unprotected. They had to be already assuming he was in town. Part of him even wanted them to know, so he could get it over with. The sooner they came for him, the sooner it would be resolved, one way or another, and he could concentrate on Jack’s issues with the brothers. The thing that worried him most was that they’d come after him before Jack was safely in Witsec, and he’d have to parse his time between protecting Jack and protecting himself. But he had a feeling they wouldn’t do that.

  Ya know, you could jus’ kill him once he tells ya what he had planned. Problem solved.

  That was certainly true, except… he didn’t want to kill the man.

  You don’t wanna kill him because Jack wouldn’t want ya to.

  So?

  So, who’s runnin’ this show, you or Jack?

  D didn’t know the answer to that, but in the two seconds it took all these considerations to run through his mind, he’d decided what to tell Carver. He was doing all this for Jack, and he wanted to do it as himself. Not as Lincoln, or some other alias, but as….

  As the man Jack loves. He loves me. It’s crazy and it’s hard, and I can’t hardly believe it and I sure as hell don’t deserve it, but he said it so he musta meant it. He’s somewhere in this city right now, with no idea what I’m doin’ or why, and he loves me, and that is damn near all I got in the world.

  He leaned close and growled in Carver’s ear. “My name is D,” he said. He felt Carver tense up. “I see it’s known ta you.”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” He heard the trill of fear inside Carver’s voice, and knew he had him.

  “I’m askin’ the questions. When was you gonna take Francisco out?”

  “You want the hit? Buy it off me.”

  D lowered the gun and pressed it to Carver’s leg. “Kneecap,” he hissed.

  Carver tried to shy away from the gun but didn’t have far to go. “All right, goddamnit. I was going to do him long-range from a perch as he went into the courthouse.”

  D was so amazed that it took him a second to gather his thoughts. “Jesus. I knew you was new at this but I didn’t think you was a fuckin’ moron.”

  “Huh?”

  “In what universe do they take a witn
ess in a mob trial into the courthouse out in the open? They’ll take him in through the tunnels, you fuckin’ idiot.”

  Carver said nothing for a moment. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Christ almighty. All right, I ain’t got time fer yer sorry ass. Now. I’m gonna knock you out here in a minute. When you wake up, I be gone. You pick up yer little bags, get back in that flashy red cop magnet yer drivin’ and head on outta town. I don’t care where ya go, but the further you go, the better. You keep your fee on this job.”

  “But… you don’t want the fee?”

  “Nope.”

  “Who’s gonna do the job?”

  “Nobody.”

  Carver snorted. “The brothers’ll have my head if I skip town with their money and don’t do the job.”

  “If they make a stink I’ll arrange fer yer fee ta get returned outta my own pocket, but they gonna have bigger problems than that real soon.”

  “Why you doin’ this?”

  “We got a deal?”

  Carver was quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”

  D jerked on his arm again, getting a pained grunt in return. “You listen ta me,” he said, low into Carver’s ear. “You get gone, and you stay gone. I’ll be watchin’. I get so much as a whiff a the salami you ate fer lunch and you won’t get the chance ta be sorry ’bout it. You keep yer trap shut about seein’ me here. You got it?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I got it.”

  D shook his head. “You oughta get outta this business. You ain’t got the stones.” He stepped back and swung the butt of his gun against the back of Carver’s head. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. D patted him down and took his guns, then took the rifle he’d brought and his extra firearms, and made himself scarce.

  ~~~~~

  “I think they’ll be able to finish the voir dire today,” Churchill said. He’d come by to have lunch with Jack in his room. It was Wednesday, and Jack was beginning to go stir-crazy. Churchill was doing his best to keep him company, but there was only so much you could do for someone stuck in a hotel room.