by Abbott, Jeff
‘Yes, but I’ve kept it safe for you.’
‘That’s a piss-poor interpretation of the situation,’ Mouser said.
‘I know where the money’s hidden. I’d like to trade that information.’
‘Fine. Trade it for your continued breathing. Where’s our money?’
Eric made no answer - there was only the creaking of the building, its bones settling and stirring, the outside hum of traffic, the distant murmur of voices. Luke could feel Aubrey’s breath against his shoulder.
‘Let’s make a deal,’ Eric said after a deep breath. ‘If I give you the money, then you let me walk away. Because I’m done with the Night Road. I want out.’
Mouser’s voice devolved into a low hiss. ‘We’re not negotiating. You tell me where the money is. Or you die. Five. Four. Three.’
‘Okay. Here’s the deal. Immunity for me and my girlfriend, from Henry, from the Night Road. All I did was cause a hiccup in the plan, just to get my girlfriend back. I give you the money. We walk away from each other. I just want out, free and clear.’
‘Except I need more than the money.’
‘What?’
‘This British woman, this Jane. She’s the Night Road’s enemy,’ Mouser said. ‘We need to find her, find out how she knows about us. Because that’s the ticket - ain’t nobody supposed to know about us, about what we’re planning, about Hellfire.’
‘I have no idea who she is. All I can give you is the money.’ And then the knife twisted. ‘Luke Dantry knows. He’s figured out you’re the people he found for his stepfather. He won’t stay quiet.’
‘We’ll call Henry, we’ll talk to him on the phone together.’
Between the pipes Luke saw Eric sag in relief.
‘Except.’ The word hung in the air like a sword ready to slash. ‘I would like to know a couple of details.’
‘What?’
‘You and your lady friend were on a flight manifest to Thailand. Now. How the hell did that happen if you didn’t get on the plane?’
Eric was silent.
‘You buy a ticket?’
‘Yes. But we didn’t use the tickets.’
‘But you don’t get on the manifest unless you use the ticket. How did you get on that list?’
‘I don’t know. Clerical error. What does it matter?’ A panicky edge touched Eric’s voice.
‘It matters. Somebody’s trying very hard to protect you, Eric. Somebody with the rather impressive power to alter a flight manifest. Tell me who’s protecting you, Eric.’
The silence from Eric told Luke that Mouser had hit a nerve, had seen the key in Eric’s deceptions. Finally Eric said, hoarse: ‘No one’s trying to protect me.’
‘You cut a deal with someone else. Maybe with someone powerful who’d hide you if you betrayed the Night Road, whispered all our secrets in their ear. Maybe let you keep a chunk of our fifty million.’
‘No.’ But Eric, pushed to the limit, sounded as though he were about to cry.
‘Did that same someone powerful offer a deal to Luke Dantry? Does Luke know where the money is?’
‘No.’
‘I want a name, Eric. Who is protecting you?’
‘No one.’
Luke peered through the pipes and saw Mouser toss an object to Eric. Eric caught it deftly in one hand.
‘What’s this?’ Eric asked.
‘PDA with internet capability. I’m assuming you aren’t hauling around fifty million in tens and twenties. You’ve got the money parked in an account somewhere. Prove it to me that you’ve got it, show me the account balance online, and we can deal. Show me the money, bud.’
Eric held the phone, looked at the screen. ‘I … I …’
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I’m not going to show it to you.’
‘I need proof that you’ve still got the whole fifty million.’
Eric didn’t look over toward Luke but he raised his head with a slow dignity. A decision made. He tossed the phone back to Mouser, who caught it one-handed. ‘I’ve got it all, but I’m not showing you the accounts. I have no reason to lie.’
The sound of the shot was a hard slap in the close air of the basement. Under his hand, clamping over her mouth, Luke felt Aubrey choke down a scream.
‘Not any more,’ Mouser said as a soft eulogy.
Luke did not risk peering through the pipes. He tried to breathe silently, through his mouth. Mouser had killed Eric. Just ten feet away from them.
He heard footsteps. A clanking of metal - the unused basement door. The cool night crept into the basement.
Aubrey pressed her face into her elbow, curled on the concrete.
The door clanged shut. Mouser was in the alley.
The gun. Eric still had his gun. In his jacket.
Luke moved from the web of pipes and didn’t even glance behind at Aubrey.
Eric lay dead on his back, a Rorschach of blood on his forehead. Slackening astonishment on his face.
Luke glanced at the door. It began to push open again. Too soon to be anyone but Mouser.
Luke ran and shoved the door hard, kicking his heels against the concrete floor.
A bullet tore through the thin metal, ricocheting into the air an inch from Luke’s scalp.
He slammed the door fully shut, slid the deadbolt.
Luke was running now, yelling for Aubrey. She crouched, shivering over Eric’s body, her mouth trembling, her skin pale as moonlight. He knelt, grabbed the gun from the jacket, a sheaf of papers, a key ring and cell phone from the pocket. A miniature basketball on the key ring bounced against his palm. Luke grabbed it all, put the gun under his own coat.
Luke and Aubrey ran up the stairs, into the small crowd in the lobby, out into the cool of the wind-blown street. They took a hard left and ran onto the busy sidewalk. Cars zoomed past, headlights painting them in whites.
It would only be a minute before Mouser was on the street.
People crammed the sidewalks, thronging from the restaurants and stores. Luke and Aubrey ran and he looked ahead and to the left, at the upcoming intersection, and he saw Mouser scanning the street, suddenly raising his hand. Running after them. They dashed out onto Armitage Avenue. Mouser closed fast on them.
In the street they were caught in a wash of lights, a roaring peal of brakes. A Chicago Transit Authority bus honked, veering to avoid Luke and Aubrey. He saw the lighted windows of the bus, commuters standing and sitting, just wanting to get home to their safe cocoons, frightened and gripping the seats and each other as the bus driver hammered its brakes, spun, crunched into cars parked along the avenue.
For a moment Luke thought the bus would either topple on them in its skid or simply run straight over them. But they ran out of its path, Luke glancing back, seeing Mouser vanishing as the bus blocked Luke’s view. A car rammed into the side of the bus.
They ran. Luke heard the squealing of brakes from a truck trying to avoid them. Aubrey grabbed his arm and they ran down a side street. Luke glanced back, didn’t see Mouser in the chaos of the braked cars, didn’t hear another crack of gunshot.
They ran back toward the elevated train station. They fed their cards into the ticket reader and hurried up the staircase.
They stood at the end of the platform, waiting for the rumble of the rails. Aubrey leaned against him, panting. If Mouser made it up the steps …
‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go to the police.’
She looked at him and a toughness in her that he had not seen before settled in her eyes. ‘I’m not sure the police can protect me from people who can kill the power grid. You took his keys?’
‘Yes.’
A train, bound for the Loop, rumbled into the Armitage station. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.
They stepped onto the train. The crowd mixed, doing the dodge-you-first dance, jockeying for seats and stands near the door. The train was less crowded than he thought it would be. Businessmen, rough looking kids, a group of women chattering in Spanish. Luke and Aubrey sat down, as far
from everyone else as they could.
Aubrey huddled close to him and shivered. ‘I might be sick.’
Awkwardly he put a calming hand on her back. She breathed hard. ‘Oh God. Oh God. He did it to save us.’
‘To save you. He was definitely not trying to save me. He painted a goddamn target on my back.’
She looked up at him; her eyes were wet but she blinked hard as though unwilling to risk a trickle of tears. He saw the strength in her face. ‘He was wrong to do that.’
Luke watched the train speed past the lit buildings, a mist starting to fall, the light smeared and dreamy.
This money was the key, to stopping the Night Road and perhaps finding out who Jane was - the architect of his destruction. They had to find where Eric had hidden it.
‘Where’s Eric’s apartment?’
‘Near downtown, River West area.’
The train huffed into the station. People shuffled on and off. A trio of homeless men boarded, along with an elderly man in a neat suit, with a frown on his face and a newspaper tucked under his arm.
‘How many more stations?’ Luke did not like sitting still, where someone could study and remember his face from television. ‘Where should we get off?’
The homeless men laughed at a private joke among themselves. The elderly man sitting across from Luke and Aubrey inspected them as though measuring them on a finely tuned secret balance. He opened and began to read a newspaper.
Luke saw his own face - the image captured on the ATM camera - on the front page. A headline read SUSPECT IN BIZARRE KILLING MARKED BY TRAGEDY. Probably an account of his father’s death in a bizarre plane crash and his mother’s death in a car crash. The twin blots of sorrow in his life.
Aubrey saw the headline and touched Luke’s hand. She pulled on his sleeve and he stood, getting away from the newspaper, following her toward the homeless guys, who had staked out the center of the car as a temporary turf. The rest of the passengers gave the trio plenty of space.
Luke and Aubrey stood near the door. Luke kept his face toward the window. The great city lay beyond the glass. He wished he could enjoy the view.
He glanced back at the man.
The elderly man had turned to the first page of the paper. It lay folded on his lap, Luke’s picture above the crease.
24
Mouser watched the train arrive to sweep them away - no way he could reach them in time. So he stopped running.
Eric had lied. He was sure they’d been the ones to lock him out of the basement. Which meant Eric died shielding them. So they must know where the money is. It was the only reasonable explanation.
He turned and headed back to his car, parked at a pay slot. A slow heat warmed his skin. His phone rang as soon as he reached the car.
‘Did you get them?’ Snow sounded tired.
‘Not all. Just Eric. Luke is with Eric’s woman. I think Eric’s told them where the money is. He wanted to save that girl something fierce.’
‘I can help. Where are you going now?’
‘Don’t you worry. I’ll be back at the motel soon. It’s going to be okay.’
‘I can meet you. I have a car.’
‘You have a car.’
‘I did not like that doctor. I borrowed her car when she came over to check on me.’ Then a hint of crossness in her voice. ‘She shouldn’t have tried to stop me.’
‘What did you do?’
‘It’s not like she was a real doctor.’
He did not feel a shudder or coldness to her announcement of murder; just a disappointment. ‘You don’t treat assets that way.’
‘She’d seen our faces.’
He didn’t want to argue with her. ‘Just find a motel. Check in. Rest. Call me later. Do not hurt anyone else.’
‘We got to stick together.’
‘Help me by doing what I’m asking. I will find them.’
‘Please, meet me somewhere.’
He couldn’t have her wandering Chicago so he told her to meet him at Navy Pier, on Lake Michigan; it was an easy landmark for her to find, with its giant Ferris wheel. He hung up. He was annoyed and it did not occur to him that being wounded, she might be frightened and afraid of being alone. He thought only of the mission. The phone rang again. It was Henry.
‘How is Snow?’
‘She’ll be okay. Eric’s dead. Luke got away. I am going to put some hurt on him. Don’t tell me not to. He deserves it. You know it, I know it.’
Henry heaved a long, broken sigh. ‘Do you have the money?’
‘No.’
‘What about Eric’s girlfriend?’
‘She’s with Luke. I believe they might have the information on where the money’s hidden.’ A misery crept into his flesh, his mouth.
‘Odd Eric would offer help, since he kidnapped Luke.’
‘They must have made an alliance.’
‘Mouser, tell me why I shouldn’t unleash the Night Road against you for failing. I have a long list here of people who might do a better job than you in finding our funds.’
‘Because admitting failure shows you don’t have control of this situation. Of their money. Which might make them all quite nervous about you running the show. You could be replaced.’ He knew from the silence that he’d scored a hit. ‘Let me and Snow finish. They have to still be in Chicago.’
The only sound Mouser could hear through the phone was a ticking of clocks.
Henry said, ‘You aren’t just failing me, but failing the entire Night Road.’
Mouser didn’t care much about what other people wanted, but the rest of the Night Road could be useful to him. ‘If they will help me - I won’t fail them.’ He decided this was the most diplomatic thing he could say.
‘Then the Night Road will help you. As long as we don’t give them details on the current difficulties. I don’t want the rest of the network to panic or to decide to leave us.’ Henry was offering a truce between them; they would not alert the rest of the network to the problems they faced.
‘I agree,’ Mouser said. ‘The first step is to find a way to track Aubrey Perrault. Maybe her car has GPS. They took off on the train but she must have a car. And we need an eye inside Eric’s bank. Trace where he moved the money, because he had to have stashed it where he could get it quickly.’
A pause. ‘Luke. He was all right?’
‘I saw him running. He appeared fine.’ He shot Snow, he wanted to say, who cares how he is?
‘You didn’t hurt him.’
‘No.’ Only because I didn’t get the chance, he thought. Henry’s concern for Luke enraged him. The mission, the mission, one could not be distracted from the mission. Henry was becoming a liability. But he remained silent.
‘Oh, how was that doctor for Snow?’ Henry asked.
‘Fine. Just fine,’ Mouser said.
The elderly man stared right at Luke. Luke glanced at the grime on the window. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the old man unfold a cell phone from a pocket, dial it, and speak into it. His calm - his certainty - was somehow more frightening than if he had produced a gun or a knife.
‘We’re almost to the next station,’ Aubrey whispered in Luke’s ear. He kept his face neutral, calm, seemingly uninterested in what the elderly man was doing.
‘He’s the kid in the paper,’ the man announced to the train. He closed the cell phone. ‘The Houston kid who killed the homeless guy.’ He tapped the paper.
‘You’re nuts,’ Aubrey said. ‘Leave my brother alone.’ She was a quick liar.
‘I called the police.’ A smugness filled his voice. ‘Killed a homeless guy,’ he said to the trio of street guys.
One of the homeless men - gaunt, fortyish - reached out and grabbed Luke’s arm.
Aubrey pulled the homeless man’s arm from Luke. ‘I said to leave him alone.’
‘Don’t let them get away.’ The elderly man raised the folded paper like an accusing finger.
They all swayed as the train braked to a stop and suddenly two o
f the homeless men hammered Luke into the wall. They smelled of wine and of sweat fermenting too long in wool and, as the doors whooshed open, Aubrey and Luke fell out onto the platform in a tackle of legs and arms. Luke threw a hard punch, drove into the matted beard of one of the men. His fist scraped dirty teeth and rubbery lip.
Aubrey grabbed the other man’s greasy hair with a twisting yank, started to scream for help.
The other men grabbed Luke’s arms, hauled him and slammed him into a concrete column.
‘Stop it!’ Aubrey yelled.
And now the crowd moved, three young men rallying to their defense, grabbing at the ragtag accusers. Aubrey seized Luke and they ran. They stopped running at the bottom of the stairs as a policeman hurried past them.
They vanished into the mist.
25
‘Where would he have hidden the money?’ Luke and Aubrey walked the streets of a quiet neighborhood, north of downtown. Aubrey kept glancing over her shoulder. Keep moving, Luke thought. ‘He worked for a bank … wherever he put the money, he was willing to die to keep it a secret.’
‘Which means he could have hidden it anywhere,’ she said. ‘But I’m guessing he stashed it in another account, probably another bank, that wouldn’t be so obviously tied to him.’ Her voice broke. And he could sense her drawing away from him.
‘I know you cared about him. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’
‘Are you?’ She studied the sidewalk. ‘He’s the reason you’re in this mess.’
‘No. He was a pawn, just like me, just like you. Even the people chasing us aren’t much more than pawns. The king on the chessboard is my stepfather. The queen is this Jane bitch. She has to be crazy, trying to extort money from terrorists.’
‘I don’t like chess and I don’t like being a pawn.’ She raised her head, looked at him with a mix of defiance and grief. ‘It makes me mad.’
‘Mad is good. Mad might help us stay alive.’
She started to walk again and he fell in step with her. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead. He was just so desperate to convince me he was on the side of right. He just kept talking about all he’d done for me, risked for me …’