by K. A. Tucker
But I can’t stay, not now. “Actually, I need to get going.” I tug my shirt on. “I have some errands to run.”
“Really?” She glances at the clock—it’s almost nine—and then shakes her head. “ ’Kay. Well, it was nice hanging out.” She lifts her kit. “And thanks for all the help around the shop and the house.”
She thinks I’m ditching her now that I’ve gotten what I wanted.
The thing is, I should be ditching her, and it has nothing to do with fucking her and everything to do with the tape lying under the bed. Once Bentley has it my assignment is over. I could be back in Santorini by Sunday, and that’s for the best, for everyone. As much as I’ve enjoyed these last few days with Ivy, my lifestyle is a solitary one; it doesn’t yield to anyone else’s needs or questions.
But handing that video over to Bentley is not going to resolve the potential issue of Scalero. Ivy is still a witness in a double murder that he committed. Will he simply leave her alone? From our conversation today, I’m guessing not.
I can’t just leave her here, unprotected, waiting to be plucked off once he’s given the chance.
Cupping the back of her neck with my hand, I lean down to steal a last deep kiss from her. “I’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow.”
“I can drive myself now that I have—”
“I’ll pick you up. Ten a.m. Sharp. You still have a lot to clean up.” I let my voice drop an octave and grow softer. “Let me help you.”
She purses her lips. “Fine. The real estate agent is meeting me there at ten thirty.”
She’s already written me off as not coming back. I know there’s no point trying to convince her otherwise, I’ll just have to prove it to her. I let her go, ducking in to use the bathroom. When I step out, she’s gone, and so is her case.
Sliding the tape out from beneath the bed, I crack open the window and stick it in the bush butting up against the house. There’s no way I can hide something that bulky under my thin T-shirt.
Ivy’s already setting up on the table in the living room when I come out, clearing the space and lining up the soap spray and gloves. She’s meticulous about her space and her process. Music pumps through the tiny speaker next to her. The woman loves her music.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh.” She shoots a quick smile over her shoulder at me, her freshly fucked glowing cheeks a thing of beauty. Telling me that she’s not angry about the bang-and-run. Or at least I think that’s what that is. Fuck, I don’t know how to deal with this kind of shit. I can read a person’s motives and evil intentions like they’re painted on a wall, but this?
Dakota steps into the house, her limbs relaxed and eyelids slightly lazy, the smell of her recently enjoyed weed wafting toward me.
Something else I haven’t done since my teenage years.
“Are you leaving already?” Dakota’s lips curl in a pout, and she looks genuinely upset. She’s an odd one, and I can’t understand what attracts the two of them to each other. Dakota’s acceptance of others, maybe. Because, as much as I like Ivy, you have to be a pretty open-minded person to understand—and tolerate—her.
I offer her a smile. “I am. Thank you for dinner.”
Dakota peels off her light sweater, revealing several feminine tattoo designs already decorating her arms, back, and shoulders. “My pleasure. I’m making kimbap for dinner tomorrow. You’ll love it.”
She’s not asking if I’ll be back for dinner tomorrow. There’s no doubt in her voice that I will be. And, if I’m honest, the idea sounds more appealing to me than it should. Even if she’s making another seaweed dish. I’ve spent enough time in South Korea to recognize the name.
Ivy’s head shoots up to glare at her, but Dakota ignores it, smiling broadly, first at me then at Jono, who wanders in from the patio, his eyes narrow slits. “Is this the design?” He lifts a sheet of paper, and Ivy’s glare shifts to him, sharpening to razors. “You gonna do it freehand?”
“Yup,” she replies curtly.
“Right on. Dakota’s got a lot of trust in you. You must be really good.” Rubbing his beard, he taps his shoulder and mumbles, “I’ve got this surfer emblem I’ve always wanted to—”
“I’m four-hundred-bucks-an-hour good,” Ivy throws out, ending his attempts to mooch a free tattoo off her.
I leave chuckling, and with a glance around to make sure no one’s watching, I swing past the window to retrieve the tape, a shadow of disappointment trailing me. Seaweed dinner, idiot company and all, that was . . . fun. I wish I could stay.
I wonder how long I can pretend to be this version of Sebastian and get away with it.
Would I even have to, with a girl like Ivy? If I opened up to her, told her what I really do—the kinds of contracts I take on for Bentley, the number of people I’ve killed in the name of saving many more lives—would she be able to accept that?
But then I’d have to come clean with why I’m here in the first place and I’d be fucking delusional if I thought she’d ever be okay with that.
I need to get this videotape into Bentley’s hands, get a handle on Mario, help her clean up the mess in her house like I promised her I would, and move on. Let Ivy move on.
I crank the engine. But before I pull out, I weigh the tape that has Bentley and Scalero so rattled, that got Royce and Ivy’s uncle killed, in my hand. What exactly did Royce accuse Scalero of doing in that tattoo shop? Even if it was a bunch of lies, the allegations were clearly serious, if Ivy’s uncle thought he could get money out of Alliance for it.
And increasingly, I can’t help but think that perhaps Royce was telling the truth.
I toss the thing onto the passenger seat. I don’t do this. I don’t ask questions. I trust Bentley and I do my job. But I’ve also learned not to question my gut, and none of my other assignments have left my gut feeling unsettled like this.
I’m ready to call Bentley and tell him I have the videotape and the assignment was successful, but I pause and stare at the tape for a moment longer. That will tell me if what Royce and Scalero and who knows who else did over there was worth the end goal.
If people really needed to die over this.
If it’s worth Ivy spending the rest of her life with no answers, no closure to her uncle’s death.
I’ll know why I’m here, in San Francisco. It’ll prove to me that what I do matters for the greater good.
A white corner of paper peeks out of the case. I shake the tape out, and a folded note tumbles out along with it. A man’s scratched handwriting fills the page.
Ivy-If something should happen to me, send this video to Dorris Maclean at NBC. People need to know about this. And don’t tell anyone you have it. ~N.
I need to look up this Dorris Maclean, but my guess is she’s an investigative reporter. So at least Ivy’s uncle had some idea that what he was doing might be risky. Which likely means that he was desperate for the cash he presumed this blackmail scheme was going to get him. He must have already been under threat from whomever he owed money to.
People need to know about this.
What exactly did Ned think people need to know about?
If I phone Bentley now, I have exactly an hour and a half—the time it will take to drive to his Napa home—to produce the tape before he grows suspicious.
And then answers to any questions will be lost to me.
I stare long and hard at the tape.
I can’t believe they still sell these fucking things, but thank God they do.
I push the tape into the machine and cross my fingers that the cables the department store sales guy said would work on this shitbox motel television actually do. At first, all I see is static and I curse the idiot for being wrong. But after jogging the wires a few times, the screen wobbles, then clears, and the inside of the tattoo shop appears.
At the bottom of the screen is a time stamp of 4:00 p.m., October 21 of this year. About three weeks ago now. A Willie Nelson wannabe—Ivy’s uncle, from the pictures that I�
��ve seen—is hunched over a woman’s arm with his tattoo gun, working away quietly.
I grin as Ivy saunters past the camera with her case in hand, her narrow hips swinging casually. “You want me to come by with dinner for you later, Ned?”
“Nah. I’ll call Fez.” He has a deep, guttural voice. Not the most friendly-sounding guy.
“I thought he drove you nuts.”
“Ya see . . . Me and Fez, we have an understandin’.” Now he glances over his shoulder at her, and I can just make out the crinkles around his eyes, telling me he’s smiling at her. “He don’t talk and I like ’im.”
She laughs. “I wish I could figure out how to get him to do that for me.”
“You gonna be home later tonight, girl?”
“At some point.”
With a sigh and shake of his head, he mutters, “Stay out of trouble,” as she pushes through the front door.
He continues working in silence. There’s nothing valuable here, from what I can see, so I begin fast-forwarding through, watching the customer pay and leave, Ivy’s uncle clean up his area and reset it, the pizza delivery guy to show up—I slow down for that, to see that the uncle’s not lying; Fez says nothing but hello and goodbye and “That’ll be six forty-two, sir.” There’s a good two-hour time lapse of Ned Marshall sitting in his desk chair with his feet up as the sun goes down outside. I’m beginning to wonder if this is the right tape after all.
Finally, the door pushes open and Dylan Royce marches through. I recognize him immediately from the newspaper clipping.
This is definitely what Bentley is after.
I slow the tape in time to see Ned reach out and shake his hand. “Royce! How’s the arm?” he asks.
Royce holds out his arm to display the partially finished sleeve. Some parts are outlined, others are completely filled in. I’m guessing Ivy’s uncle had been working on it over a few sessions. He and Royce had probably gotten pretty chummy.
I watch the screen as the two men go through the usual bullshit niceties and paperwork. It’s nice to have audio. A lot of surveillance videos that I’ve watched don’t have it. Then again, Bentley did say that it’s the conversation he’s after.
“Okay, we’re all set.” Ivy’s uncle pulls out a transfer he must have prepared earlier. Royce pulls his shirt off to reveal a hardened body that’s seen plenty of hours in the gym, and likely some war-inflicted injuries, from the small scars across his rib cage. He’s a big guy, bigger than Scalero. But Scalero had a gun and I’m guessing he didn’t waste time using it on his former comrade’s head.
Royce settles into the chair that I just helped pitch the other day and positions his arm. I turn the volume up to catch their words, which are surprisingly clear for that retro surveillance system. He tips his head back, giving the camera a good angle of his eyes, glossed over. He’s high, I’m guessing. Bentley did say he had a problem with both Vicodin and smoking pot. It would make sense that he’d do it before sitting under a needle for hours.
I sip away on my coffee—caffeine is one of my few vices, and a godsend at the moment, given how tired I am—and listen to them talk. All this Medal of Honor recipient seems to do is complain: about his asshole neighbor’s annoying dog that he wants to poison because it keeps shitting on the sidewalk in front of his house; about his mother, who won’t let up on him about his breakup with his cheating cunt of a girlfriend who was fucking some guy on the side while he was away. About the Marine Corps, and how he misses those years and wishes he had stayed, hadn’t been swayed by the opportunity to make more money.
About the private military company where he worked until four months ago, and how they’re a bunch of money-hungry dicks who should be bowing down to him for what he’s done for them, but instead fired him for some lame-ass excuse about violating company policy with drug use.
The Vicodin is legit, he swears. To help manage the ongoing pain in his shoulder from a bullet wound that never healed properly. And it’s the stress of that job that made him start smoking. Never touched the stuff before and then he goes into Afghanistan as contracted arms for Alliance and comes out needing a spliff every night just to fall asleep, and sometimes to get through the day, when he’s especially anxious. That’s another aftereffect of the job, he says. Severe anxiety. But if he violated company policy, why’d they also make him sign a gag order and give him a bunch of money to make sure he kept his mouth shut? And why’d all this happen a month after he put a formal complaint in about his coworkers?
They paid him off to keep quiet about things, but not nearly fucking enough, according to him.
“Alliance, you say?” Ned murmurs, his head down and focused on the new outline on Royce’s forearm. “I think I heard of ’em.”
“Probably.” Royce tips his head back and closes his eyes, his voice nasally and annoying. “They were big in the news two months ago over a civilian shooting near Kandahar.”
“Thought that war was over.”
The expression that takes over Royce’s face is one I recognize well. In his mind, he’s drifting back into it. He can’t help himself. It happens to the best of us. “As long as American troops are there, that war will never be over. And bad shit will keep happening to good people.”
“I guess that’s war, though, right?” I can’t tell if Ned is actually interested in this conversation or just going through the motions because Royce is his customer.
Royce chuckles—a wicked, bitter sound. “Have you ever been in a war, Ned?”
“Nope. Glad to say I was too young for Nam.”
“Well, let me tell you something about war. It can last forever, if there’s enough money to keep it going. As long as war is profitable for companies like Alliance, they’ll be there, front and center. You know our government gave Alliance a billion dollars in contracts to go over there?”
Ned lets out a low whistle.
“Exactly. They handed them that much money and sent them over to basically govern themselves. It’s a privately owned company. No one knows what’s going on inside because nothing’s released. No one’s checking on them. No one’s telling them what they can and can’t do. There’s an actual legit immunity law that protects them. With that kind of money, they’re above the law over there. Or at least they act like they are. They’re a bunch of fucking mercenaries is what they are.”
“What are they supposed to be doin’?”
“ ‘Maintaining security.’ Which means all kinds of things. Protecting American diplomats, training troops, guarding prisoners.” He pauses, his voice growing softer. “Questioning insurgents. That’s what I was there to do.”
Ned sits up for a moment, stretches his arms, twists his neck as if he has a kink, and then hunkers down over Royce’s arm once again. “Sounds rough.”
Royce takes a deep breath. “They were some of the longest, worst days of my life.”
Silence hangs through the shop as Ned works to the subdued tune of Willie Nelson and Royce stares up at the ceiling, facing down his demons, I’m sure. I’ve been in his place.
“You heard of Adeeb Al-Naseer?” Royce suddenly asks.
“Probably. Can’t keep those foreign names straight, though.”
“He was the leader of the terrorist cell that bombed that office building in Seattle seven years back.”
“Oh, yeah . . . I sure remember that one.”
“I helped catch him, you know.” Royce’s eyes flicker to Ned’s furrowed brow. “A battalion brought in a guy with cryptic messages written out on paper and taped to his body. They couldn’t get him to talk, so they told us to have a go at him. See what he’d tell us.” He hesitates. “So we did. And he talked, all right. By the time we were done with him, he told us everything we needed to know.”
Ned pauses to peer up at his customer for a brief moment, before ducking back down. “What does that mean? What’d you do to him?”
“You name it. Slapped him around, electric shock, hung him from his wrists, grabbed his balls and gave them
a good twist,” the hand on Royce’s free arm clenches. “Broke his leg, his arms . . .” He goes on, listing techniques that have been used more times than anyone cares to admit.
Some that I’ve used to get people to talk.
I’ve never enjoyed a second of it, never reveled in scaring another human being, of causing pain. But I’ve done all I had to in order to get the answers, and justice, that I needed. And I’ve felt the weight of it on my shoulders afterward.
I have no doubts that what Royce is admitting to doing right now is the cold, harsh truth.
And, by the disgusted look on his face, he didn’t enjoy a second of it either.
“Jesus,” Ned mutters. “What finally broke him?”
Royce hesitates, swallows. “The two guys I was working with went out and found the man’s fourteen-year-old daughter and took turns raping her in front of him. That’s what broke him,” he says quietly.
Ned is silent.
“These two other former Marines that I was stationed there with, they were something else. I don’t know where Alliance found them, but they should never have been hired. One of them, this guy Mario, he was seriously fucked in the head. He’d always be the first one in line to interrogate, to start smacking someone around. He loved to take on guard duties and go into the city. I think it was just so he could hold his gun to people’s heads and make them piss their pants.”
“Sounds like a real asshole,” Ned murmurs.
“He’s sadistic.”
“Sounds like it.” I can hear a distinct shift in Ned’s voice, from indifference to at least mild concern.
Royce’s jaw clenches. “That girl they raped? She wasn’t the only one. One night I caught him and Ricky in an interrogation room with a fifteen-year-old girl who’d been brought in on suspicion of aiding in a terrorist plot. She died the next day. Found out later that she was completely innocent.”
I hit Pause on the VCR as my stomach sinks. Bentley said that everything Royce was claiming was pure lies. But I’ve met Mario, and my ten-second gut read is that he’s a nutcase, and someone I don’t trust. He went against Bentley’s orders just by approaching me, and he seems hell-bent on not being tied to any crime, either overseas or here. Plus, he basically admitted to what’s on the tape as being true. And if that’s the case . . .