Zero at the Bone

by Jane Seville

  “Thank God.”

  “Yeah, we were afraid they’d drag it out, but the judge isn’t having it. He’s presided over a few Dominguez trials before, trials that got cut short when witnesses turned up dead. He’s moving things right along.”

  “You think I’ll be on the stand by the end of the week?”

  “I hope so. You won’t be the first witness, but Brad will try to get you up there as fast as he can. We can’t get you into Witsec until the trial’s over, though, because you could be recalled at any time.” He sighed. “I might be able to get Brad to push up your testimony because of the demonstrable threats against your life.”

  Jack nodded. “You’d think.”

  Churchill drained his iced tea and sat back. He watched Jack for a moment, and then took a deep breath. “Can I ask you about him?”

  Jack was sitting slumped over the table, playing idly with the remnants of his lo mein. “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know. It’s… guys in his line of work, they’re kind of like urban legends. You always hear about them but never see them, or meet them. I guess I’m curious.”

  “He’s just a man.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Jack tossed down his fork and sat back. “Look, if you want to know about D, you’ll have to ask him yourself, since you guys are so tight. I’m not telling you a damn thing about him, because it’s not my place to talk about him to you and, furthermore, I’m not completely sure I trust you.” He seemed to be bracing for an angry response, but Churchill just smiled.

  “Good,” he said. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

  “You’re happy that I just told you I don’t trust you?”

  “Jack, in your position, you can’t afford to trust anyone completely.”

  “I trust D.”

  Churchill nodded. “I know. I guess he’s earned that, hasn’t he?”

  Jack sat staring into space. “Are you married?”

  “Ten years.”

  “You got any kids?”

  “I have two sons.”

  “And you have a house, I bet. And a car, probably more than one, and this job and all this responsibility, and you probably have friends and co-workers and barbecues in the backyard and aunts and siblings and nieces and nephews and college roommates and all that crap, right?”

  Churchill nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Well, I don’t. Not anymore. And once this trial’s over I’ll never have it. D is all I have, Churchill. Don’t expect me to tell you anything about him, or what’s between us, because I can’t. I can’t let it outside myself. Okay?”

  “Okay. I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know you didn’t. It’s just… I’m stuck in this damn room with nothing to do but sit and brood about where he is, or if he’s alive or dead, and wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”

  ~~~~~

  “Churchill.”

  “It’s D.”

  “Good timing. I just left Jack’s… oh wait, you probably know that, don’t you?”

  D chuckled. “Actually, I ain’t watchin’ you or him right now, so I guess that makes it good timin’.”

  “I wish you’d let me tell him you’re here.”

  “It’s bad enough you told him we been talkin’ all summer. He’s probly sore at me.”

  Churchill was silent for a moment. “D, he misses you so much that I don’t think he could be angry about anything you did right now.”

  D stayed quiet, biting the inside of his cheek, until Churchill’s words had passed through his mind and were gone.

  “Have you been able to find this JJ person?” Churchill asked.

  “No. I’m lookin’ under every rock I can think of and as far as I can tell she ain’t even in town yet, although she oughta be. She is more’n capable of hidin’ from me.”

  “I’ll say it again: give me her description and known aliases and I’ll put her on the watch list.”

  “And I’ll say again that I cain’t do that. Brothers cain’t know that someone’s found out about their hits, because if they do they’ll jus’ call ’em off and get somebody else that we won’t know about. You gotta trust me. And I got help a that kind, so it ain’t all on you.”

  “Help? From who?”

  “Cain’t talk ’bout that. Let’s jus’ say I got some friends in high kinda places. They know yet when he’s gonna testify?”

  “Brad’s hoping he can get him on the stand Friday. That’s the first day he’s being called to court, anyway.”

  “So he’s leavin’ that hotel room on Friday mornin’, is what yer tellin’ me?”

  “That’s right. We’ll take him by the tunnels.”

  “Now, if I were JJ, I’d be tryin’ ta hit him before then, or on the way. On the way’d be hard and in the hotel room is hard. What route will ya take between the room and the tunnels?”

  “The secure elevator here goes directly to the tunnels. We won’t ever be exposed.”

  “Good, that’s real good. We’re limitin’ JJ’s options. You watchin’ what he eats ‘n’ drinks?”

  “I got a marshal watching as his food is prepared and then he doesn’t take his eyes off it until it comes into Jack’s room.” Churchill hesitated. “What if she’s poisoned the ingredients before they get to the kitchen?”

  “No, she cain’t risk poisonin’ people apart from Jack; that’d draw too much attention. She don’t dare put nothin’ in the hotel’s air or water fer the same reason.” A thought occurred to D. “What about the cleanin’ supplies? She poisoned somebody once by posin’ as a hotel maid and puttin’ a nerve toxin on the shower nozzle.”

  “We’re not having the hotel staff do any housekeeping. When we need to we’ll have marshals take his laundry away. Actually that’s standard protection, except for the laundry precautions.”

  “Good,” D said, grudgingly impressed with Churchill’s thoroughness.

  “How about you?” Churchill asked. “Any sign that anybody’s followed you here?”

  “Not so far. It’s a real good bet they know I’m here anyway. I ain’t worryin’ ’bout that. They’ll come fer me when they want to. I cain’t do nothin’ ’bout it ’til then, not while I’m lookin’ out fer Jack.” D sighed. “But I got a feelin’ they’ll wait ta come fer me until he’s through this ‘n’ safe in Witsec.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t really know what it is they want from me, if it’s ta kill me or torture me or jus’ make me work for ’em doin’ the kinda work that I normally wouldn’t do, but they’d have a helluva bargaining chip as long as he’s alive ‘n’ safe, ’cause I’d do whatever I hadta do ta make sure he stayed that way.”

  Churchill said nothing for a moment. “You guys are killing me. Both of you. I’m about ready to say to hell with this trial and put you on a plane right this minute with new identities to somewhere remote where nobody’ll ever find you.”

  D sighed. “I wish that was possible, friend.” He flipped his phone shut and was about to put it back in his pocket when it rang again. “D.”

  “It’s Meg. Where are you?”

  “I’m on 83 comin’ back from Towson. What?”

  “Meet me at Mercy downtown. I heard it on the scanner, a woman brought in severely beaten. Her description sounded right so I came down to check it out.” She hesitated. “D, I think it’s JJ.”

  D blinked. “Who the hell beat her?”

  “The police don’t know. They found her in an alley over by Lexington Market.”

  “I’m comin’.”

  ~~~~~

  Megan was waiting for D at the hospital entrance. “Come on; she’s in the ER,” she said, heading off without waiting for him to respond.

  “What makes ya think it’s JJ?”

  “She was carrying several IDs in different names and more cash than you’d expect.” They came through the double doors into the trauma center. Several police officers were lurking about talking to a doctor; Megan flashed her bad
ge and they were waved through.

  D stopped short. The woman in the bed had been beaten to within an inch of her life. Her face was bruised and swollen almost beyond recognition, and one arm was in a cast. “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Is that her?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at the nurse. “Can she talk?”

  “She’s a little groggy, but you can talk to her for a minute.”

  D moved to her bedside, and then glanced back at the nurse and Megan. “Can I, uh….”

  The nurse smiled. “We’ll leave you alone.”

  D leaned over JJ’s still form. “Hey,” he said. “Can you, uh… hear me?” No response. “JJ?” If she could hear him, the use of that name ought to get her attention.

  Her eyes opened immediately. She didn’t appear groggy at all, but her brow furrowed when she saw him. “D?”

  “Yeah, it’s D.”

  She sighed and winced. “Fuck, I shouldn’t be surprised. Well, thanks for saving me the trouble of coming to find you.”

  D was completely lost. “What you talkin’ ’bout find me? Who beat on you?”

  “Some guys I didn’t recognize, but they had a message for you. Said they were letting me live so I could deliver it.”

  “What message?”

  She met his eyes. “They said they weren’t going to let me kill Jack Francisco, because….” She swallowed. “Because that’s your job, and they still expect you to do it.”

  Motherfucker. “Well, they gonna be waitin’ a long time, because I ain’t never gonna kill him.”

  She nodded. “They said you’d say that, and that you’re wrong. You’ll kill him. You may not think so now, but you will.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Megan was on her cell phone. “Uh-huh. And he’s… yeah. Okay.” Pause. “Thanks, Pete. Yeah, call me.” She hung up and looked over to where D was sitting slumped down in an easy chair in her apartment, one of the generic crash pads the Treasury department kept in cities all over the world for the use of operatives like herself. He was wearing all black, as usual, still had his sunglasses on indoors, and looked like a refugee from a Bono lookalike contest. He was drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair and gnawing on his other thumbnail. “Okay, one of the marshals says they’ll probably be ready for Jack to testify after lunch break. The prosecutor’s in talking to him now.”

  He grunted.

  “D, you’ve done all you can.” Another grunt. “You ought to try and relax. Have a sandwich or something. Or take a nap. When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep?” She wagered that it had been the last time he’d slept next to Jack. “There’s nothing we can do until he’s off that witness stand.”

  Grunt the third. “Could go out ta the brothers’ house and start shootin’ people.”

  “Uh… huh. Tempting as that is, I don’t think that’d be the most discreet course of action.”

  “Fuck discreet. I’d rather bust some heads.”

  “That’s it. You’re switching to decaf.” She sighed and sat down on the couch. “There’s nothing we can do to protect Jack while he’s in that courthouse that we haven’t already done, right?”

  “Mmm. Guess not.”

  She watched his profile. She had been watching D for a long time, longer than even he knew. She had long thought that she knew him, as much as a man like him could be known, and had even begun to consider him a friend—a rather strange, one-sided, long-distance friend, but someone who was dependably in her life. But this D, she had never seen. This D who had emotional motives, and who let things affect him, and who showed emotion on his face when he wasn’t paying attention. The D she’d known for years was always paying attention. “You’re still thinking about JJ’s message, aren’t you?”

  He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his nose. “Cain’t help it.”

  “They just did it to throw you off, and look how well it’s working!”

  “Whoever ‘they’ are, anyway.”

  “Well, they clearly couldn’t care less about the brothers.” She leaned forward. “This is about you. They want you to kill Jack.”

  His jaw tightened. “I won’t. I’ll die first.” Words that could have sounded melodramatic from anyone else sounded like proclamations from the mountaintop coming from D.

  “I know. But what’s important now is figuring out who these people are. They blackmailed you into taking the hit on Jack, they kidnapped him… now they’ve followed you here, but haven’t done anything to you although they probably could have.”

  He nodded. “They’re stalkin’ me. And now I given ’em another card ta play.” He pounded his fist on the arm of the chair. “Shoulda kept Jack outta this.”

  “I think that ship sailed the minute you didn’t kill him when you were supposed to.” She cleared her throat and hesitated, considering the right phrasing. “Do you think they, uh… know how you feel about Jack? And how he feels about you?”

  He met her eyes then, his own narrowed and thoughtful. He held her gaze for a few long moments before looking away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device about the size of an iPod. He turned it on and stared at it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m watchin’ him.”

  “What is that?”

  D sighed. “Tracker.”

  “You put a tracker on him?”

  “A course I did! What if he’d gotten kidnapped again or ambushed by the brothers or God knows what else?”

  “When did you have time to do that?”

  “Tracker’s in his gun. Had it there before he took it.”

  “Well, let’s hope he’s got it on him.”

  “He’s sposed ta; Churchill got him a permit ta carry. Anyways, it’s showin’ him at the courthouse, so I guess he’s got it.”

  “They wouldn’t let him wear it into the courthouse, permit or not, unless he was law enforcement.”

  “No, but he’d leave it at the security station and pick it up on his way out, so if it’s there, he’s there.”

  She nodded. “What happens after his testimony is over?”

  D sighed. “Well, usually he’d hafta stay in town ’til the trial was over in case he got recalled, but Churchill’s workin’ on gettin’ him relocated sooner’n that. Get him outta town. They can always bring him back if he’s needed at the trial.”

  She leaned forward. “And you’re really, seriously not going to try and see him before then?”

  He looked at her. “No. I cain’t.”

  “Too risky?”

  “That, and….” He let his head fall back against the chair and shut his eyes. “I jus’ cain’t,” he murmured. “See him again knowin’ I only had a few hours or so before I’d be sayin’ goodbye again, for a real long time. Best jus’ ta let him go and then take up my business.”

  Megan hesitated, then reached out and put her hand on his arm. Touching him, even just a casual handshake or shoulder bump, felt so strange after observing him from a distance for so long. It was like waking up one day and discovering you could reach out and touch the people on TV. D turned his head toward her. “I know how hard all this is for you,” she said, hoping she sounded sympathetic without being too gooey.

  He shrugged. “Don’t matter. Gonna be harder before it gets easier, if it ever does get easier.”

  “But I mean… you’ve never….” She trailed off. “Never mind.”

  “What?” He lifted his head and frowned at her.

  She took a deep breath. “You’ve never loved someone like this before, have you?”

  He looked away. “Who says I—”

  She cut him off. “Don’t. Don’t insult me.”

  He met her eyes again and she nearly recoiled at the rawness in his. “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout this.” He stood up and stalked into the other room, leaving Megan staring at nothing and marveling at the vagaries of the male mind.

  ~~~~~

  Jack had been waiting in the witness’s room for two hours
when Brad Salie entered, looking calm and in control as always. He was a small man with thinning hair and glasses; in fact, he looked like an accountant. But Jack had quickly come to respect him, and his unassuming appearance served him well with juries when they were surprised by his commanding courtroom presence. It helped that he had a deep, booming voice that sounded like it belonged on a man twice his size.

  “Shouldn’t you be in there doing your Perry Mason thing?” Jack asked.

  Brad beckoned him into one of the private consultation rooms and shut the door behind them. “This morning’s witnesses are mostly background; Linda’s questioning them. I’m sorry we haven’t had time to talk this week.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve been terribly busy watching daytime soaps.”

  “Carlisle’s really going to be loaded for bear when you get up there,” Brad said. “You’re one of our most important witnesses.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Since all the forensics and the other witnesses corroborate your testimony, all he can really do is attack your credibility, and the reliability of your statement.”

  “Aren’t those the same thing?”

  “No. Credibility is whether or not you’re lying, and reliability is whether or not what you saw was really what happened. Telling the jury that they should discount a witness’s testimony because they’re a convicted felon with motive to lie goes to their credibility, but telling them that they should discount the testimony because the witness wasn’t wearing his glasses when he saw the defendant fleeing the scene goes to reliability.”

  “Oh.”

  “Attacking your credibility is risky, because you’re a very credible witness who’s risking his life testifying, so going after you too hard just makes him look like a bully, but I suspect he intends to try.”

  “How?”

  Brad sighed. “I think he might drag your sexuality into this somehow.”