by Jane Seville
~~~~~
The sight of that face in the folder, a face that had for years been his only reliable point of human contact…D thought crazily about standing on a beach, the tide swirling in around his ankles, the sand shifting beneath him and letting him sink deeper with each wave. His head was spinning, his mind busily rewriting the entire history of the last ten years as it unraveled and re-knitted into a new shape with this new information. He barely felt Jack’s hand on his arm, Megan and Churchill’s eyes on him. Megan had surely known who this Catherine Baldwin was before handing him the photo; she had to have seen Josey in all the years she’d been spying on him.
They were saying things to him but D wasn’t hearing them. “D,” Jack finally said, shaking his arm.
“Huh? Sorry…I’m jus…fuckin’ Christ, I cain’t believe this.”
“So it had to be her who blackmailed you,” Churchill said.
D shook his head. “Seems that way. Went so far as t’have herself beat up ta make it look good too. That’s some kinda dedication.” He sighed. “But I killed her father and I guess she wants ta eat my heart or somethin’.”
“Do you think she knows you’ve been working with the FBI?” Jack asked.
“I dunno,” D said, looking over at Megan. “You dig up anything on her finances?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“She got enough?”
“No,” Megan said, shaking her head.
“Then she knows.”
“That’s what I figured too.”
Jack put a hand up. “You guys lost me.”
D got up and started pacing. He couldn’t sit still. “She’s got a lotta help with this anti-me operation she’s runnin’. That kinda help’s expensive just to pay fer their time, not to mention the costs like motels ‘n’ food ‘n’ such. Real expensive, ‘specially over time. If she’s just on a personal vendetta she’d hafta pay everybody and she don’t got that kinda bankroll. But if she knows I been workin’ with the Feds, well…most guys would help her take me down fer greatly reduced rates, or even fer free.”
“They are keeping this really quiet,” Megan said. “I keep my ear to the ground and I know you do too, and there’s been nothing about you except Jack’s contract and the fact that you killed Sig back in L.A. She must have a small core group and is keeping everything well under wraps.”
“I don’t think she hired contractors, jus’ muscle. They don’t ask as many questions.”
“Seems that way.”
D handed the file back to her, rubbing at his eyes. His head was starting to pound. “Jesus. I cain’t wrap my fuckin’ brain round this. She’s known since last spring?” He thought a moment. “Come ta think of it…that’s when she started showin’ me witness contracts even though she knew I didn’t take em. Kept at it, each one worth more’n the last one. Guess she got sick a tryin’ ta make the jobs sweet enough and just strongarmed me inta takin’ Jack’s hit. Why’s she so fired-up ta get me ta kill a witness?”
“It’s a capital crime in most states,” Jack murmured. “Isn’t it? Murder of a witness?”
“He’s right,” Churchill said. “If you killed a witness in almost any state with the death penalty you’d get a needle in your arm.”
“Guess she liked the irony,” D said. “Never did think too much a my rules fer what jobs I’d take. Maybe she wants it ta be all poetic justice when I get executed fer killin’ a witness.” He shook his head. “She couldn’ta been prepared fer it ta go on this long, though. Why’s she still draggin’ it out? She’s here in town, she had JJ give me that message…she could jus take me out.” He sat down again, reaching blindly for Jack’s hand. “She don’t wanna jus kill me no more. She wants ta hurt me, bad as she can, fer as long as she can.”
“What are you going to do?” Jack murmured, gripping D’s fingers with reassuring strength.
His mind was a blank. Shock had washed it clean of ideas and strategies. “I got no fuckin’ idea.”
“Well…here’s what I propose,” Churchill said, speaking for the first time in awhile. “I’m taking Jack to Albany on Monday. If she wants to hurt you, she could try and do it through Jack, so I think you both ought to stay in this room until we’re ready to take him up north. After that, D, you can deal with this Josey situation without having to worry about Jack’s safety.”
D nodded. “Yeah. That’s good.”
“I think we should move them,” Megan said. “She has to know where they are.”
“I disagree. She knows and hasn’t tried to get to them. They’re very well guarded here, she probably knows it’d be futile. Moving them would only expose them, and it’d be very difficult to make sure we weren’t followed to some new location on short notice like this.”
“I think we oughta stay here,” D said. “She ain’t gonna try nothin’. Like as not she assumes Jack’s gonna hafta stay in town fer the whole trial, like we thought he’d hafta do. We can get him out on Monday before she realizes what’s goin’ on and I can go underground ta try ‘n’ sort out this mess.”
Megan nodded. “All right. That makes sense.” She met his eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to find out if Petros is working for Josey, or the brothers. Or both. I got a feelin’ he’s playin both sides a the coin on this job. Can ya snoop around and watch him?”
“I’ll try. He’s pretty slippery.”
“Keep an eye out fer Josey too.”
“Naturally.”
Everyone fell silent. There didn’t seem to be much more to say, but no one seemed to want to leave. An air of doom hovered in the air between them, for no good reason D could discern, but he felt it, and he knew Jack did too, by the way he was squeezing D’s hand.
Finally Churchill rose. “Well, I guess…” he began, then trailed off.
“We’d better be going,” Megan finished, getting to her feet.
Churchill came and shook D’s hand. “I’ll be in touch. Best of luck.”
“You too,” D said. This feels like goodbye. Why we sayin goodbye?
He moved on to Jack. “Call me on my cell if you need anything. I might stop by tomorrow but I’ve got a lot of paperwork to do for your new identity.”
“Right.”
Megan touched D’s shoulder. “I’ll call you later.” He just nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. She faced Jack. “I hope I see you again, Jack,” she said.
He just stood there for a moment, then suddenly hugged her. “Me too,” he said. D watched as Jack let her go and she followed Churchill to the door. Jack trailed along after, closing and locking the door after them, pausing first to wave to the two marshals outside. He drifted back into the room and for a few beats of silence, they just stood there.
“You okay?” Jack asked.
D shrugged. “Compared ta what? Jus one more fucked-up thing ta deal with. Honest, I cain’t hardly think bout that right now. Ain’t like I can do nothin’ till Monday.”
Jack nodded, staring at the floor, working the toes of one bare foot into the carpet. “This is it, isn’t it?” he whispered.
“What?”
“This weekend. This is all we’re going to have. Ever.”
“Jack…”
“Don’t bullshit me, D. Don’t softpedal it like I’m a little kid who can’t handle it.” He lifted his head and their gazes found each other and locked like magnets. “This is it. Monday I’m going away, and after that one of us is going to die. Maybe both. It’s too much. There’s too many people who want it and they’re too determined.” He took a step closer. “This is it for us, isn’t it?”
The idea worked like an iron fist around D’s heart. He wanted to deny it. No, Jack. This ain’t it cause I won’t let it be. I won’t let that happen, ta you or ta me. But he couldn’t, not now when they were right up against it. “Probly,” he said, almost too low to hear.
Jack’s eyes fell closed and he exhaled slowly. He almost looked relieved. “D?”
“Yeah?”
~~~~~
They stayed in bed most of the day.
Jack dressed to get the room service inside, then undressed again. They left the cart by the bed and grabbed whatever they touched first.
“What would it have been like?” Jack whispered. Lying on their sides, face to face, just staring at each other for what felt like hours, drifting off and waking again.
D sighed, tucking his hands underneath his head. “Maybe…get a house. Never had no house a my own.”
“With a garden.”
“Yeah. So’s you could come inside smellin’ like sunshine after weedin.”
“Would we have had a dog?”
“Hmm. Ain’t never had a dog.”
“I had one in med school. A Cairn terrier. Sweet little guy who thought he was a Rottweiler.”
“Coulda walked him at night. Round the neighborhood.” He hesitated. “You oughta get one. After.”
Jack shook his head. “This isn’t about that.”
“I know.”
His eyes roamed D’s face. He knew it so well by now, he felt like he could have drawn every freckle from memory. “Would have been a sweet life,” he whispered.
D met his eyes. “Yeah. Woulda been.”
Chapter Twenty-six
They sleep hard, long and deep, some part of them always touching. At times wrapped together like siblings in the womb, at other times just a foot grazing a leg. They stir and make love, communion silent, and drift off again still joined. They lay awake in each other’s arms, not speaking, sometimes looking toward, sometimes looking away. They let the darkness take them together and lay dead to the world as the sun rises outside their window.
She circles the house like a cat, and just as silent. House, more of an estate. Security like the White House, but she knows a few tricks. He is inside, somewhere. She has followed his trail here, she has seen his car slink inside like a kid coming home after curfew. Petros, perhaps standing at a window and looking out, wondering who might be looking in.
He sits at his desk long into the night in front of a computer. Social Security number gone, a new one with a new name in its place. Fingerprints, erased. Bank accounts, deleted and money transferred into a holding account. Driver’s license, deleted and a new one created. Jack Davies, welcome to the world.
She sits in a darkened room, listening to her own thoughts. There’s no more time. She can’t put it off anymore. She must act now, or it’ll be too late. Soon she’ll have him before her again, and she won’t hesitate.
Today. It happens today.
~~~~~
Megan crept back to her car through several acres of wild brush that bordered the Dominguez estate. She needed a new plan. Petros might be in there, he might not be. Lurking on the periphery with high-powered binocs wasn’t the most efficient way to determine this.
She’d left her car in a parking lot that served a nearby bike trail; when she returned, there were a few other cars around but no one in sight. She was unlocking the driver’s door when she realized she wasn’t alone a fraction of a second too late to do anything about it.
His arm was across her neck, a blade at her carotid. “You are sneaky,” he whispered in her ear.
“So are you,” she choked out.
“I’ve been trying to follow you for days.”
“Same here.”
“Make a move and I’ll slit your throat.”
She swallowed hard, jacking up her visible signs of fear. She knew he’d get off on it. “What are you going to do with me?”
A pause. “Keep you out of the way.”
A sliver of real fear slipped down her spine. “Something’s happening.”
“Soon.” He leaned closer. “Get in the car.”
~~~~~
Jack opened his eyes. D was lying on his back, his head turned to the window, but Jack could tell he was awake. He slid closer to D’s side, leaning in to kiss his neck. D’s outstretched arm came around Jack’s shoulders and his chest rose and fell in a sigh. “What are my chances of getting some morning sex?” Jack murmured in his ear.
D chuckled, a low rumbling in his chest. “Better’n average,” he said, turning into Jack’s embrace and rolling him to his back. Jack exhaled in satisfaction as D’s weight settled over him, his hips between Jack’s legs. He’d never had a clear preference for bottom or top, but he knew that he loved the feeling of D on top of him.
But now, D wasn’t making use of his position, he was just staring down at him; Jack’s smile slowly bled off his lips as reality came sneaking back in just when he’d thought he was rid of it. “It’s Sunday,” he said.
D nodded. “Yeah.”
Jack shook his head. “I hate Sunday. It’s the day before Monday.”
“Amen ta that.”
For a long moment Jack just stared, letting his eyes slide over every surface of D’s face. If I can just memorize every detail, maybe I’ll never lose him. “I think we ought to get out of this room. Just for a little while.”
D frowned. “We ain’t s’posed ta leave.”
“Churchill lets me go to the restaurant inside the hotel as long as the marshals come with. Let’s get some breakfast.” He sighed. “I feel like shit, D. But I’ll feel better if I can shower and get dressed and have some waffles or something.”
D nodded, smirking a little. “Waffles sound good.”
“And then we can come back here and have sex all day.”
“You jus’ fulla plans, ain’tcha?”
“Plans for you, maybe,” Jack said, sliding one hand down to cup D’s ass. “C’mon, let me up.”
Jack showered, making quick work of it. Without D sharing the stall with him there was little reason to delay and every reason to get it over with, even though the hot water felt soothing. D came into the bathroom as he was drying off; they shared a long, slow kiss as they swapped places. Jack dressed in clean clothes and combed his hair. He thought about calling Churchill, but decided against it. If he talked to Churchill, he’d probably tell Jack all about the preparations, and want to give him specifics for tomorrow’s itinerary, and specifics felt like Jack’s enemy just now. They’d make everything real.
He hadn’t really realized how long he’d been sitting on the bed staring out the window until he heard D come out of the bathroom. “Whatcha doin’?” he asked. “Looks like some heavy thinkin’.”
Jack started a bit. “Oh… no. No heavier than usual, anyway.” He watched D pull on his jeans, T-shirt, and jacket, sad to see his skin disappear beneath the layers. “Want to give the marshals a heads-up?”
“Y’all right,” D said. He went to the door and poked his head out.
There was a beat of silence. Jack jumped up. Later, he’d think that it was as if he’d been waiting for it, as if he knew somehow.
“Jack, c’mere,” D said, not loudly but firmly.
Jack was already halfway there. He stepped into the alcove outside his room, which shielded his door and the hallway nearby from casual glance. Both the marshals were slumped in their chairs, unconscious. Cups of coffee were sitting at their feet. He crouched in front of one and put two fingers to his carotid artery.
“They dead?” D said, looking up and down the hallway.
“No,” Jack said, lifting the man’s eyelid. “They’ve been drugged. Some kind of barbiturate.” He looked up and met D’s eyes. There was no surprise in their glance, just resignation.
“Back inside,” D said. He seemed to have heard enough. He bolted the door and paced, one hand running through his hair. Jack watched him, anxious. D seemed uncertain, like he didn’t know what to do, and Jack had never seen him like that.
“What now?” he asked, afraid of the answer.
D met his eyes. “She is comin’ ta get us, Jack.”
“That seems really insane and risky.”
“Damn straight it is, but she don’t got no choice. Musta got wind that yer bein’ taken away tomorrow and if she wants us b
oth, it’s now or never.”
“Well, we can’t leave this room,” Jack said.
“Why not?”
“Because,” Jack snapped, surprised D wasn’t ahead of him on this, “the elevator’s to the right and the stairs are to the left, but we won’t know which one they’re using so we have a fifty-fifty chance of meeting them coming up if we try to go down!”
D was nodding by the time Jack was halfway through his statement. He watched Jack loading his gun, the weapon’s heft reassuring in his hands. “You okay?” he asked.
Jack glanced up at him. “Compared to what?”
“I’m askin’ ’cause the best thing fer us ta do is wait here fer them ta come in, then take ’em out so we can leave before anyone realizes what happened.”
Jack nodded. “Okay.”
“That means you gonna hafta fight. Maybe kill. I don’t wanna put you in that position but tryin’ ta sneak out before they get here’s too risky, ’cause they could be on us before we can get out and this is a more defensible position here.”
“I said I’m okay.” Jack had a sudden thought. “I have an idea,” he said, hauling his doctor’s bag out from the closet. It had traveled so far with him, it felt familiar and reassuring. It made him feel like he might still be a doctor. He drew out a small ampoule of sedative and two disposable syringes. “It’s quieter than bullets,” he said.
D smiled grimly. “Good thinkin’, doc. Now you get on over here with me and we’ll wait fer our visitors.” Jack went across the room; he and D pressed themselves against the wall around the corner from the entryway. D had his gun held up near his jaw; Jack kept his down at his side, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it.
“Hope they don’t take long,” he whispered.
“They won’t. They cain’t chance leavin’ them marshals there too long.” They both heard the elevator ding from outside, then footsteps approaching. “All right,” D murmured. “Be ready.”