by Jane Seville
It was so seductive. And it would be so easy to give in. But he couldn’t. He had work to do, and he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off his goals. That was how he’d survived more than ten years in a cutthroat business, and how he’d managed to keep his sanity in the meantime. He wouldn’t give it up now.
He glanced down at the tracking monitor and jumped. Jack’s glowing red dot was no longer in the bar. It was around the corner and moving into the alley—the dark, deserted alley. D whipped out his binoculars and peered into the dimness. There was a man. A dark stranger, standing by the rear door to the bar. His cigarette glowed briefly red. D could just make out his face.
He was on his feet and riding the ladder down to the ground before another thought could pass through his mind.
~~~~~
Jack crept slowly along the wall, his dark coat invisible in the shadows. He was pressed against the same wall where the stranger waited, several storefronts down. He watched him for a few moments; the man didn’t move. He crept along the wall until he was about five feet away. He hesitated, sucking in a steadying breath.
Here goes. My first real-life application of all those gun-handling lessons.
He raised the gun to shoulder height, supporting it firmly with both hands. “Don’t move,” he said. He wanted it to sound commanding and confident, but instead it sounded a bit like the kind of squeaky toy you might give a dog to play with.
The man waiting for him went very still, then slowly turned to face him. He had a dark, swarthy face and glittering rattlesnake eyes, and he didn’t seem at all perturbed to have a gun pointed in his face. “Hello, Mr. Francisco,” he said. He calmly reached out and slid the heavy security beam over the bar’s rear entrance.
“That’s Dr. Francisco.”
“So it is. My apologies.”
Jack kept the gun on the man’s face. “Where’s D?”
The stranger sighed. “You didn’t really think we had him, did you?”
Even though Jack had expected this, he felt an untidy mixture of relief, dread, and disappointment. Relief that D was not in danger, dread that he himself most definitely was, and disappointment that he’d screwed up all his courage and come out here for nothing. “No, not really.”
“But you came out anyway,” the stranger said, nodding. “That was very brave. But foolish.” The man took out a lighter and flicked it on.
Jack barely had time to register that this was a signal of some sort before two shapes detached from the shadows and rushed him. His gun was knocked out of his hands. The immediacy of the assault surprised him. Do something! You learned something from all those Krav Maga lessons, didn’t you?
It was all happening too fast. One of them knocked him down, then another hauled him to his feet. He was punched across the face. Jesus God that hurts when it’s for real. The pain exploded over his whole skull and made the world fade white for a moment and his hearing cut out. Shit, D never warned me it’d feel like that.
Another punch was flying through the air when something clicked over in his brain. React. Hurt. Take advantage. Jack stepped toward the man and turned his back quickly, grabbing the punching arm out of the air. He slammed his elbow back into the man’s chest and stomped on his foot as hard as he could, then pushed him over onto his side. He was grabbed from behind and, without thinking, he whipped his head back and rammed it into the nose behind him. It hurt him almost as much as it sounded like it hurt the other guy.
The stranger was just watching all of this, silently, hands in his pockets.
His arms were seized and yanked around behind him. The two men he’d managed to hurt—a little—were back on their feet and at his sides. They dragged him to the center of the alley and held him. Jack struggled, but he was pinned.
The stranger appeared in front of him. “That was… not so bad,” he said. Without warning, he stepped forward and punched Jack again, harder this time. All the air rushed out of Jack’s chest and his knees buckled. The pain was enormous. “I was asked to pass that on by Roderick Carlisle. He’s quite put out, you know. He’ll never live that down, what happened today. Myself, I thought it was funny. He really is an asshole of astonishing magnitude.” He sighed. “We don’t have much time. Your minders are probably already looking for you. I think I ought to sedate you for the ride.”
“Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?” He pulled out a syringe just as someone tried the bar’s back door. Jack heard Churchill’s voice, then the door shuddered on its hinges as it was struck from inside. The stranger sighed. “All right, no time. Bring him.” He was lifted under the armpits but then he heard two quick spits from behind him, and he was abruptly released. It took a moment for him to realize that both of the men holding him were now on the ground at his feet.
The stranger just blinked, holding his syringe aloft in one elegant hand like it was a fancy cocktail in a delicate glass. His eyes slid past Jack’s face to the alley beyond.
Jack turned to see a dark figure approaching, a gun in one raised hand, the dim light glinting off the silencer. It wasn’t Churchill. The figure passed in front of the Exit sign of the neighboring building and was briefly silhouetted by the sign’s red glow.
Jack’s mouth hung open, his injuries forgotten.The pain in his face receded to a dull roar behind the rushing of blood in his ears.
D wasn’t looking at him, but past him to the stranger. Jack swung around and realized he was blocking D’s shot. “Jack, get down,” D said, calm and icy as if he were commenting on the unseasonably cold weather.
Jack lurched out of the way on rubbery legs and D fired, but the stranger had taken advantage of his momentary hesitation and disappeared into the shadows. Jack heard running footsteps but couldn’t see where he’d gone.
He turned back around. “D, what the….” The words were swallowed as fast as they could be uttered.
D was gone too. Jack turned in a circle, hearing sirens approaching, and more running footsteps, wondering if he’d hallucinated it. Had D just been here, or had it been a product of his overstressed brain? No, he’d been here. There were two dead bodies at Jack’s feet who could swear to it. Churchill and the marshals appeared at the mouth of the alley and ran toward him, one of the marshals talking into a radio. “Jack! Are you all right?” Churchill demanded. The marshals were off in separate directions in the alley.
“Yeah, uh… I saw—”
“What the fuck were you thinking, going off by yourself?” Churchill shouted, grabbing Jack by the coat. “You could have been killed! What made you come out here alone?”
“I got… got this note…. D was here.”
Churchill looked at him sharply. “What?”
“D was just here. Right here. These guys had me… this other guy was going to inject me with something…. D shot them. The other guy got away, I guess… guess D went after him….” He snapped out of his daze. “Why the fuck is he here? He’s supposed to be far, far away! That was the whole idea! Me here, him… not here!”
“Jack, I can explain….”
Churchill’s guilty face snapped Jack to a new level of rage. “You KNEW?” he thundered. “You knew he was here and you didn’t tell me?”
“He wouldn’t let me. He—”
“Don’t! I don’t want to hear it!”
“Jack, let’s get you to a hospital; you’re hurt.”
Jack shook him off. “I’m not going anywhere! D!” he shouted, walking off toward were D had vanished. “You come back here so I can kick your ass and don’t you think I won’t! D! I know you can hear me, you….”
Jack’s words were abruptly cut off as he staggered against a wall and bent over, his dinner coming up and splashing onto the dirty pavement. Churchill was at his side, one hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Jack. It’s over.”
“No,” Jack choked, tears streaming from his eyes. “It’ll never be over, it’ll just go on and on and on—”
“Come on, let’s get you out of here. I want you
checked out. I should never have let you come here.”
“My gun,” Jack said, straightening up and wiping his mouth. “Where’s my gun?”
“We’ll find it later—”
“No!” Jack exclaimed. “I’m not leaving without it. D gave me that gun; I’m not going to lose it.”
Churchill pointed. “There it is.” He picked it up and handed it to Jack, who took it with both hands and stared at it.
“I never even fired it,” he said, blinking.
“That’s a good thing.” Jack could only stare at the gun, hypnotized by its shiny, compact efficiency. “Come on, Jack. The police will handle all this. Let’s get you someplace safe.”
Jack nodded and let Churchill lead him away.
~~~~~
“These two each got it once in the back of the head. Looks like a nine mil. Dead center, each one. That’s pretty good shooting in the dark,” the crime scene tech said, the last sentence coming out with sarcasm. It was near superhuman shooting and they both knew it. “No ID.”
“Shocker,” Churchill said, moodily puffing on a cigar. “We’ll run their prints. Betcha they’ve each got close personal friends named Dominguez.”
It had been several hours since the shooting in back of the bar. Churchill had pieced together what had happened, except he couldn’t exactly tell the local police about D’s involvement. He spared barely a thought to the ethics of fabricating a story for them. His priority was the safety of his witness, and somehow that imperative had swelled and expanded until it included protecting D too. There had definitely been a third man in the alley, and it was looking like they were going to pin the shootings of these two on him. They’d been lackeys, and he had killed them to keep them from talking. It was cold-blooded but not unheard of.
The third man’s identity was unknown, except Churchill had a pretty good idea who it had been, but maybe if he didn’t say the name out loud it wouldn’t be true.
Jack had been checked at the hospital, pronounced bruised and battered but okay, and taken back to his hotel room where he was no doubt pacing the floor and muttering to himself.
Churchill could have shot himself in the head for bringing him here. It hadn’t seemed like an unreasonable risk. No on-street exposure, a crowded public place, and a security escort three men strong. But their unnamed friend had devised a way to get Jack out of that safety as efficiently as if he’d been pulling out a splinter. So what had Jack done? Pulled a gun and snuck up on the guy. It had backfired spectacularly, but you had to hand it to the guy: he had stones.
Those minutes when he’d realized that Jack was not, in fact, in the bathroom had been… bad. Searching the bar, the growing realization that he wasn’t there, that barred back door only telling him that his witness might be already dead. He sighed and wandered off. This wasn’t his crime scene. Local PD would handle these guys.
His cell phone vibrated and he pulled it out to find a text message.
Meet across the street by the archway.
He walked down the alley to the cross street. There was a stone arch that led into the courtyard of a nearby building; behind one of the uprights was a shadow a little denser and taller than the others around it. Churchill joined him, barely able to make him out in the dimness. “Why aren’tcha with Jack?”
“I don’t stick to him twenty-four/seven, you know. He’s in his hotel room with marshals at the door. He’s safe.”
“Sorry if I don’t take yer word on that as too trustworthy jus’ now.”
“I know, D. You’re the only one capable of protecting him and the rest of us can all just go drown ourselves, right?”
Silence. “Ya know who that was in the alley, don’tcha?”
“I’m trying to take one thing at a time here.”
“It was Petros.”
“Shit, now you’ve done it. Said the name.” He sighed. “You didn’t catch him, did you?”
“Gave me the slip. That ain’t no mean feat. Fucker’s like mercury, cain’t pick it up, if ya try it just skitters away like a little… skittery thing.” D sounded discouraged. “I’ll get X to have another go at him.”
Churchill stubbed out his cigar on the ground. “I’ll be taking Jack up to Albany on Monday morning.”
“Where ya gonna relocate him?”
“D, you know I can’t tell you that.”
“Ya think I won’t find out?”
“Probably, but that doesn’t mean I can tell you. This isn’t a court of law where you can argue inevitable discovery.”
D nodded. “All right.” He shrugged his coat closer around his shoulders. “Take me to him.”
Churchill blinked. “You… you want to see Jack?”
He was quiet for several beats. “I’d been any later, he’d a been gone. Few seconds is all it takes. I saw it happen, ya know. Minute I realized Petros was in that alley I was runnin’ there, but the whole way I saw it. Getting there and him gone, all a them gone. No idea where.” He stared at the ground. “I gotta see him,” he said, his voice quiet and embarrassed. “I cain’t do this no more. Only way I can be sure he’s safe is if I’m standing beside him.” He lifted his head and met Churchill’s eyes, his barely visible in the dark. “I gotta see him,” he repeated.
Churchill nodded. “It’s about goddamn time.”
~~~~~
Jack paced his hotel room, muttering to himself and trying to ignore his throbbing face. He’d been avoiding looking at himself in the mirror. Once had been enough. The pair of bruises on his cheeks and jaw looked like ink stains. His whole body ached; Churchill said it was from unconsciously tensing up all his muscles during the confrontation.
The confrontation. If he closed his eyes he was back in the alley, grunts and cries, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh, his head breaking a man’s nose… D’s form in the darkness, backlit by the red emergency light like a specter from hell.
D, who had probably been in town this whole time. D who hadn’t told him any of this. D who he wanted to kill. D who he dreaded trying to live without.
There was a knock at the door. “It’s Churchill.”
“Come in.”
Churchill used his key and entered. “Got someone here to see you,” he said.
Jack stopped pacing and turned his head just in time to see D step out from behind Churchill. He just stood there silently, looking… tired, actually. Worn out, as Jack had only seen him once, when he’d been sick from the infection. He didn’t look like he’d been sleeping, or eating. He didn’t look good, or wouldn’t have to anybody else.
Jack found himself nodding, to keep himself from yelling. “Of course. Of course you’re here. And you were in that alley, naturally. You’ve been here the whole time, haven’t you?” D and Churchill exchanged an uneasy glance. “Of course. Did you stow away in the backseat of my cab? Were you hiding under the bench in Baker Park?”
D cleared his throat, his voice raspy like he hadn’t used it in awhile. “Jack, I couldn’t—”
“No. Why would you? Why would you tell me anything, either of you? Jack has to be protected. Jack can’t deal with things like this. Jack doesn’t need to know things that don’t concern him. Jack is fucking spun sugar and might melt or crack into a million pieces if he hears a bad joke!” he shouted.
“It ain’t like that.”
Churchill, looking more and more uncomfortable, interrupted. “I’m going to… uh… leave you guys alone. I’ll, uh… see you later.” He left. Jack barely noticed.
D shrugged out of his topcoat and let it fall, rubbing one hand over his shorn skull. “Jack, I hadta protect you, but I couldn’t let you be thinkin’ ’bout me bein’ out there watchin’. You had other things ta think about.”
“Well, I don’t now. It’s all over.” Jack watched him, his anger rapidly bleeding away and leaving only the sensation of being here in the same room with D, relief that they were both alive, near-giddiness at his mere presence that Jack fought down so he wouldn’t start grinning like an idiot.
D’s eyes ranged over Jack’s face. “Jesus, lookit you. They did a number on you.”
Jack nodded. “Hurts like a sonofabitch.”
He took a step closer. “So… lemme see if I got this right. Yer in the bar. You get a note sayin’ somebody’s got me and you better come out or they kill me.”
“Yeah.”
“And you believed that?”
“Not a word of it.”
“But ya went out there anyway. Just in case they had me.”
Jack was surprised at D’s simple tone. He’d been expecting angry reprimands for his foolhardiness. “Yeah, I did.”
“And then, my favorite part. You didn’t jus’ walk out there like a sucker, oh no. You reconned the area from height, determined the best approach, and tried to creep up on the guy wantin’ ta take ya.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah. I know, it was dumb.”
“Dumb ain’t the word. Crazy’s more like it. Stupid, and foolish, and I thought I’d met some guys in my time who were brave ‘n’ true, but none a them’re anythin’ ta you, doc.”
He looked up and met D’s eyes, standing only a few feet from him now. In them he saw only tenderness, the kind he’d longed to see for so long and which had taken so many weeks to elicit. “Yeah?”
“And when they rushed ya, you broke one a their feet and smashed the other guy’s nose inta his face. And all this after what I’m told was a helluva day in court durin’ which you made their expensive lawyer stand there with egg all over his face.”
Jack felt a slow smile creep over his face. “Yeah.”
D reached out and carefully touched the bruise on Jack’s left temple. “Well, think it’s fair ta say you had one helluva day, Jack.”