The Collection

by Lance Charnes

  Carson’s breathing like a bull gearing up for a matador. I’m glad I can’t see her face. She growls out a string of the most violent curses I’ve heard from her, which is saying something.

  “What is this?” I whisper.

  “Trafficked.” She spits out the word. “Future street whores. Take ‘em somewhere, beat ‘em, rape ‘em, hook ‘em on drugs, make ‘em earn their fix on their backs.” Carson shakes her head. “Someone’s gonna pay for this.”

  I’m about to say this isn’t our fight when I glance at the women again. Hope’s replaced fear on some of those pale, dirty faces. Can we just leave them like this? Knowing what’s going to happen to them if we do? “Call the cops. Let’s get out of here.”

  A hinge creaks behind me. The corner of my right eye catches a spill of light from the office door. Before I can turn, Carson shoves me into the conex. There’s a gunshot. The steel door rings like a hammer hit it. Carson’s disappeared.

  Footsteps come closer. I push myself off my knees and flatten against the still-closed conex door. It’s the first place he’ll look, but what else can I do? All I can see of the women is a faint glow where I know their faces are. A couple whimper as the footsteps come closer.

  The feet trot by, skid to a stop, then scrape and stop again. Right outside the open door.

  A flashlight beam pins the women against the back wall. I throw all my telepathic powers at them. Don’t rat me out, ladies. Look straight ahead or down. Don’t look at me. I’m not one of the bad guys. Um, not one of these bad guys…

  Then there’s a watermelon-on-concrete noise. The light tumbles away. The sound of somebody flogging a rolled-up carpet almost covers the women’s gasps.

  Carson’s using what looks like a thin, two-foot-long black pipe to beat on a guy in jeans and a black-and-blue Inter Milan tee shirt. There’s already more blood on the floor than I need to see. I bolt from the container, wrap my arms around her waist and haul her away from him, which is like dragging a steel barrel full of mountain lions. I yell “All right! All right! That’s enough!” while she calls me things I’ve never heard of and screams at what’s left of the guard.

  After a lot of wrestling and an elbow in my ribs, she calms down enough for me to let her go. She pants loud and hard as she stalks a tight circle a few feet from me. I kick the guard’s gun the other direction. Carson does not need firepower right now.

  “I’m calling the cops,” I say once Carson stops swearing. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not leaving them here.” Her voice is a pit-bull growl.

  “What’re we gonna do, put ‘em in the trunk? Let the cops do their thing. This isn’t—”

  The front door rattles.

  We both freeze. Night watchman? A gust of wind? No, I don’t believe it either.

  Carson grabs the guard’s ankles and drags him behind the container. I’m concentrating so hard on the door that I almost miss the clunk of corrugated iron bending behind me. The shed roof. I peek around the container and see the silhouette of somebody crawling toward the open jalousie. Shit shit shit…

  “Carson!” I stage-whisper. “The roof!” It’s the only thing my brain can put together for my mouth to say. A Carson-shaped shadow sprints across the warehouse toward some stacked crates. I can take a hint.

  She shoves a short pry bar into my hands the moment I flop down next to her. Then she pulls a black cylinder as thick as her thumb out of her purse. It snicks open when she flicks her wrist, and suddenly it’s that steel stick she had a few moments ago.

  “What’s that?”

  “Baton. Shut up.”

  I peek around a crate, see a head sticking through the jalousie, then duck back under cover. By now my hands are shaking—I clamp down on the pry bar to keep them still—and sweat’s dripping into my eyes. I don’t want to die in a warehouse.

  The front door clangs open. Two or three pairs of feet shuffle across the slab. Flashlight beams flit across the cinder-block wall. Carson’s biceps flex against my side. Is she preparing to die or getting ready to go medieval on the guards again? I can’t decide which is scarier.

  Now she does the peek-and-hide thing, then flashes me some complicated hand signals. “What’s that mean?” I whisper.

  “Three down here, one on overwatch.”

  “Overwatch” must be the guy on the shed roof. He can see the whole floor.

  We’re pinned like butterflies on felt.

  The new guys mutter snippets of Italian to each other. Something crackles under a boot. There’s a whispered conference near the container. Hushed footsteps and clinking metal tell when they’re on the move, which is almost constantly.

  Carson glances into the twilight. She shoves her purse with her feet across the couple yards of open floor to the next stack of crates, then rolls silently after it. Don’t go! I want to scream. I may not trust her much, but I’d rather have her here than way over there.

  A blue-white flash catches the corner of my right eye. I risk moving my head a fraction and see a dark shape—it’s almost night in here—swing a rifle-mounted spotlight behind the clot of boxes nearest the front door. The light doesn’t stop. It dances around the first stack, then behind the second. In moments the gunman and his light are next door, just a few feet away on the other side of my crates. I wipe my palms on my jeans, choke up on the pry bar, and try to stop gasping for breath.

  Something pings on the other side of the warehouse, like a coin hitting concrete.

  The gunman swivels his rifle to aim at the noise. The other guys’ shouting fills the room.

  Pure stupidity or pure panic grabs me by the throat and yanks. I clutch the pry bar against the hammering in my chest and roll to the crates the gunman just checked. An instant later, he pivots and inspects the place I’d left. Way too close.

  The light sideslips to the next stack, where Carson’s hiding.

  If they catch her, they’ll find me. That coin-drop sound must’ve been her. She’s gotta still be here and there aren’t many places left to hide.

  Off in the distance, a two-tone siren’s getting louder.

  I scramble to the next bunch of crates, set my work phone to ring, then slide it toward the conex. It scrapes along the concrete, but there’s enough of that going on that nobody seems to notice. Then I take a deep breath and call my work phone from the burner.

  An old-fashioned telephone ringer screams in the middle of the floor.

  Yelling, running, a shot, loud as hell in this echo chamber. A flicker of movement off to my left: one human shape turning into two turning into one again. I cut the call before it rolls to voicemail, then turn off my ringer in case the bad guys are bright enough to try to call back.

  Back where the gunman was, a figure and the light sweep the rest of the crates. Carson, or a bad guy? What exactly did I see when everyone was chasing my phone?

  The siren’s a lot louder.

  One of the other gunmen barks out an order. I risk a look and see two shapes rush toward the front door. The jalousie’s empty. A third figure heads for the back, then disappears in the murk. The only sounds left are my heart pounding and the siren growing closer.

  Where’s Carson?

  I race to the last place I saw her. There’s only empty floor. I walk a circle until my foot plows into a body. I jump back, swearing like Carson. Man up, dude. Using my personal phone as a flashlight, I creep up to the body, hoping it’s not Carson with a cut throat.

  It’s a guy. His head’s all bloody and his hands are in plastic handcuffs. His rifle’s gone and his pistol holster’s empty. He’s not available for comment.

  “Carson?” It sounds like yelling even though it’s not much more than a loud whisper. Nothing. “Carson!” More nothing.

  Two possibilities: she’s dead on the floor, or she’s left me here. I do a quick sweep of the north half of the warehouse and don’t find her corpse. I’m not sure whether I should be relieved or furious, so I try for bo
th. I check the container: no Carson, just a dozen freaked-out-crying-moaning girls a long way from home. What do I do with them?

  Flashing blue lights bounce off the front clerestories, giving the room a nightclub vibe. Another siren closes in from the other direction. The cops’ll come in soon, and I don’t need that kind of company, not standing in a warehouse full of kidnapped women and two half-dead guys. “Sorry, ladies,” I tell them, not that I expect them to understand. “Police. Home. Good luck.”

  As I reach the back door, I remember: my phone. Did they take it? I call it from my burner but don’t hear the ringtone. I’ve lost both my partner and my work phone. Outstanding.

  The back alley’s deserted. I slither to the street, wait for a cop car to go by, then pull off my mask and stroll to Anca, using the trees to shield me. The blue lights cast weird shadows and make everything look undead, even the walls.

  The car’s gone.

  Carson’s gone.

  God damn it.

  Chapter 21

  It’s almost eleven before I climb out of the Duomo Metro station. I’d waited over an hour for Carson to come back (she didn’t), then the transit system crapped out. The more time that passes, the more the warehouse seems like a cosmic fuckup. I’m sure Olivia’s reported what I told her by now. It’ll probably get me fired, and maybe Carson too. Will Allyson write it off like a bad debt, or will I have to pay her back for the expenses? Or do people Allyson fires survive long enough to put her on their resumes?

  I sag onto the step at the base of Victor Emanuel II’s big equestrian statue and stare at the Duomo’s uplit façade. It looks like a fairy-tale palace, all spires and shadows and glowing stained glass and La Madonnina glinting in her own spotlight at the tip of the tallest pinnacle.

  I take one more long look at the Duomo. At least I got to see this. Then I lurch off the step and trudge back to the hotel.

  I expect to see a flashing red message light on my room’s desk phone. Maybe a note on the carpet, slid under the door.

  Instead, I get Allyson herself.

  She’s sitting on the bench under the window, legs crossed, poking at the tablet resting on her thigh. Watery diagonal stripes of cobalt and charcoal streak her sleeveless, pearl-gray silk shell; the black leather skirt’s slid a couple inches above her knee. The two wall lamps flanking the window light her face from above and slightly behind, accenting her cheekbones.

  Allyson. In my room. I’ve dreamed about this a zillion times, a thousand different ways, but not like this. This is bad. All the air goes out of me in a sigh.

  She glances up, then returns to her tablet. “You took your time.”

  “The train broke down on the way back from Fiera Milano.” I finally close the door behind me and scrape together something non-pathetic to say. “If I knew you were coming, I’d’ve ordered—”

  “I hadn’t planned this trip.”

  Ouch. That line had teeth. “I’m going to need a drink for this. Want anything?”

  She waves toward a half-finished glass of white wine on the polished ebony pedestal table to her left.

  The minibar’s under the bathroom sink. I carry two Stoli miniatures and a glass out to the gold-upholstered armchair next to Allyson’s table. I settle as well as I can and pour both bottles. I’m too tired to shake or even feel anything. “Hope you didn’t have to come far.”

  “I was in Prague.” She clicks off her tablet, slides it into her purse, then folds her hands on her lap. “Tell me what’s happened. Start with Luxembourg.”

  “You haven’t seen our reports?”

  “I want you to tell me.”

  I try to lay it out as even and straight as I can, but it seems like we haven’t accomplished much over the past ten days. The quicksand slides farther up my legs with every word. Allyson interrupts only to ask questions or to clarify things. I concentrate as hard as I can on her face, but I can’t read her, which scares me more than anything else… except maybe imagining her naked and blowing what little composure I have left.

  When I’m done, she takes a deep breath and examines her hands. Then she finishes the dregs of her wine. “You were doing well until now.”

  Shit. I’m painfully aware I don’t have a company phone anymore. That phone feels like an anchor. If I have it, I’m still employed. If I don’t…

  Allyson asks, “Have you been in contact with Ms. Carson since?”

  “I texted, but she didn’t answer. Have you heard from her?”

  “Yes.” At least she’s still alive. “Why didn’t you ring her?”

  “I didn’t want to blow her cover if she was in some kind of situation. Where did she go?”

  Allyson pins me with her eyes, but says nothing.

  I need to say something, anything to fill the tense silence, so I grab the first thing that floats by. “At least the cops have those women now. That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Very commendable. Unfortunately, they’re neither your project nor your concern.”

  That’s cold, I don’t say. “Still, something good came out of this.”

  “I don’t give out extra-credit points, Mr. Friedrich.”

  I stifle a sigh she’ll misread. “Well, we’ve got something more on Belknap.”

  “Such as?”

  “He has heavy friends here. Maybe dangerous friends. My Albanian contact told me Belknap’s protected, and now we have proof.” Not that we really needed it. “Did you know?”

  “Did I know what, exactly?”

  “About Belknap and me, who he is. Is that why you hired me?”

  She spends a few uncomfortable moments examining me. “If I did and I kept it from you, how would it benefit me?” Her tone is very careful, like she’s checking every word.

  Maybe I should be just as careful, but I’m not feeling it. It was me who was Bambi in deer season a couple hours ago, not her. “I have no idea why you do things. I haven’t since the day we met. But I’m sure if you had a reason, you’d do it.”

  Allyson smiles—amusement, not happiness. “I see you’ve discovered that a healthy case of paranoia is an asset in this work. It can get the best of you, though.”

  I did figure that out. I also know she hasn’t answered the question.

  The semi-smile fades away. “Was finding this information worth being shot?”

  Her tone is more like you had to scratch the company car for this? than my God, you could’ve been killed. “Given how little we started with, any information’s worth a risk.”

  She pulls back her head like I took a swing at her. “You have everything I’m allowed to release.”

  “It’s all about the paintings, not where they came from or why the client thinks there’s more of them.”

  Allyson’s lips are getting thinner by the minute. “I’m satisfied the client is correct.”

  “So you know more than you’ve told us?”

  “I believe I warned you about this in your interview.”

  Goddamn it! I bolt from the chair and start pacing tight circles before she notices I’ve moved from scared to angry. She’s fucking with me and it’s going to cost me money—or my life—before we’re done. “Look, Belknap’s a fence. Those five canvases could’ve come from five different sources. He’s too smart to collect the damn things.” I let this seep in. “I don’t care who the client is or what he wants. If he’s got proof this cache exists, I need it, especially if I have to find it in the next ten days. Unless you want us taking more stupid chances.”

  Allyson’s face has turned hard. She probably didn’t expect this from me. Then again, neither did I. I should probably be begging for my job back, but I don’t like being manipulated. And what little I’ve learned about Allyson tells me she responds to strength, not begging.

  She stares across the room for a while. After drumming her fingertips on her knee long enough, she takes a deep breath. “I’ll discuss this with the client.”

  A small win. I’
m not toast yet.

  Allyson focuses on me. “Please answer honestly: can you continue to work with Ms. Carson?”

  I’ve been wanting to dump Carson since that first meeting in Brussels. But just before I say “no,” I hear but… in the back of my head. We actually make a decent team as long as we don’t have to talk to each other. Our skill sets don’t overlap. And when things go to hell—like today, or worse—I need somebody like her to keep me from being fed to hogs. As long as that somebody sticks around.

  “Mr. Friedrich?”

  “That’s not a simple question.” Seriously? I’m thinking of keeping her?

  Allyson re-crosses her legs and folds her hands on her knee. “Why?”

  I try to organize my thoughts, without a lot of success. “We do okay when we’re working. But Carson’s got her own agenda. I don’t know if she’s on my side or hers.”

  Allyson nods. “Her project depends on the success of yours, but it has its own end-state. As with everything else she does, she’s very determined to succeed.”

  I must look like Scooby-Doo: head tilt. Rar-roo? “So she does have another job.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “Because I told her not to.” We’re both getting louder now.

  You bitch!

  “If you knew, you might carry out your project differently, which could put hers at risk. I won’t give you details, but I can assure you she’s very invested in your success.”

  “Sure. Did you tell her to dump me and run off, too?”

  Allyson springs off the bench and slashes the air with a finger. “My instructions to Ms. Carson aren’t your concern. You should–”

  “They are when they land me in the shit.”

  She flinches. Good.

  “Can she take over my project? Do whatever she wants with it? Is that what you told her?”

  She takes another two steps closer. Her cheeks are warming up—I’ve finally made her mad. “That’s your worry? You’ll not be paid?”