Hush Hush

by Erik Carter

  While the fronts of the townhouses were unique, the unified backside of the connected homes was a long stretch of sameness—pure white broken up by windows and backdoors with stairs.

  Silence ran up a set of steps, climbed to a door beneath a portico.

  The sound of the passenger door shutting. Jonah’s voice behind him. “Brett!”

  Silence tried the door. Locked. With no time for anything subtler, he kicked. Hard. The doorframe splintered violently, loudly, spiky fingers of freshly shorn wood fanning out from the impact. The door smacked into the interior wall.

  “Holy shit,” Jonah uttered.

  Inside, down the long central hallway to Beasley’s body in the foyer. Silence went to the console table that ran along the staircase, pointed at Beasley.

  “Check him.”

  “For what? Dude’s dead.”

  “Cellular phone.”

  And when Jonah hesitated, Silence added, “Do it.”

  Silence would leave that task to Jonah. There was a more daunting one for Silence to consider.

  The console table had a phone, a little glass lamp, a small drawer. But no notepad, no sticky notes, no paper of any sort.

  He went down the hall, his footfalls pounding against the hardwood floor, the wail of the sirens insistent between each footstep.

  The sirens were louder, closer.

  And Jonah had heard them. “They’re gonna be here any minute!” he called from the other end of the hall.

  Silence threw open one of the white panel doors. A little bathroom. Reeked of potpourri and cleaner.

  Next door. This was it, what he was looking for. The office—stately wooden desk, bookshelves, a filing cabinet.

  He fell into the overstuffed leather chair.

  The sirens rang in his ears.

  Nothing on the surface of the desk, which was covered by a sheet of glass.

  Jonah walked up behind him, hands empty, no cellular phone. “Hurry up, man!”

  Top drawer. Pens, pencils. Two pads of sticky notes. He thumbed through both of them. Blank. Letters addressed to Beasley—electric and water bills.

  He opened a side drawer. Tape. Stamps. A box of envelopes.

  The sirens screamed down the hall.

  Right outside.

  Jonah bounced on his feet beside him.

  Another drawer. A small notebook. Silence flipped it open. A couple pages of handwriting, numbers, some simple math, possibly figuring out his bills. A grocery list.

  He flipped the page. And saw something.

  Something so significant it made his fingers fan wide in response.

  Beasley had written:

  - come alone

  - be ready to tell all

  - 941 Falconer Street

  - Carlton will be there

  Carlton…

  So, Beasley had recently contacted Carlton Stokes.

  And yet he’d been out of touch with Carlton and the rest of C11 for years, even changed his name.

  Why were they talking now?

  Jonah smacked his back. “Come on!”

  The sirens wailed outside.

  And stopped.

  Shouting. Footsteps. The cops were charging into the house.

  Silence grabbed the notepad.

  They sprinted from the room, down the hall, and through the back door, which squealed on its ravaged hinges.

  As he ran down the steps to the Fiero, Silence heard more shouting from the house as the cops found Beasley.

  “Sir! Sir, can you hear us!??”

  No, folks, Silence thought, he certainly can’t hear you.

  Into the Fiero. Silence threw the stick into first, and they pulled off.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Damn, Finley hated this place.

  The shantytown at the overpass on Falconer Street at Blair. The place literally smelled like shit, and the bums that inhabited it reminded Finley of the life from which he’d worked so hard to break free. Yet to escape these people’s fate, he had to spend a considerable amount of time around them, given how often he had to come to the unassuming old building that served as the Well’s headquarters.

  He wasn’t sure if that was irony, but whatever it was, he didn’t like it.

  Traversing through this disgusting trashcan of human existence was something he had to do to maintain this second chance he’d been given. Finley was a very fortunate man. He reminded himself regularly. It got him through the times he had to visit this shithole.

  He had Kim by the arm, and since they’d gotten out of the car, her whining had intensified. She was also turning a lot of the bums’ heads. They leered at her, wicked smiles full of rotten teeth. There were catcalls. And some vulgarities.

  Finley had to admit that Kim’s trim figure, nicely curved hips, pleasant breasts, and pouty lips weren’t bad on the eyes. She was attractive in a mopey, my-parents-didn’t-give-me-everything-I-wanted-so-I’m-gonna-get-back-at-them-by-being-a-literal-whore sort of way.

  Ahead, Shaw was at his station, leaning against the column closest to the building, and as Finley and Kim drew nearer, he pushed off the column, held his head up professionally, straightened his bright green sweatshirt as one would a suit jacket. Pathetic. Like all the other low-level workers in the Well. Finley was proud of how quickly he’d climbed the ranks, but the competition wasn’t exactly stiff.

  Finley knew more about Shaw than Shaw would have wanted him to, more than he probably even thought possible. Finley knew Shaw had been in and out of prison for most of his twenties. B&Es. Grand larceny. Forged credit cards. Finley also knew that Shaw was apprehended after a murder in District C11, and while the police report stated that Shaw was simply in the area, Finley knew the reality—that Shaw had been seen hovering over the body with a bloody knife. Shaw was never tried, never even arrested, and now he was muscle for the Well, like Finley, except at a much lower station.

  Shaw was a piece of shit. Fat and hairy. Smelly. The kind of guy you imagine watching TV all day, eating Cheetos and ice cream and getting high in three different ways. Finley wagered he was a pervert, one with a small, sweaty dick.

  A disgusting waste of humanity.

  Shaw gave another tug to his oil-stained green sweatshirt and waddled up to Finley. “We got trouble.”

  Finley didn’t respond, just brought Kim to a halt and looked at Shaw, waited for him to continue. He wasn’t wasting any breath on a man like Shaw.

  “This guy came here,” Shaw continued, “looking for some refined.” He held up his walkie-talkie. “They just phoned me, told me to watch the door.” He looked over his shoulder. “Something’s going down. They think the guy’s a private detective.”

  Finley glanced at the building.

  “Shit.”

  People didn’t come directly to the Well’s office looking for refined. Something was going down.

  It couldn’t be the big guy or Jonah Lund. Finley had come here directly from Beasley’s neighborhood; they couldn’t have beaten him here. And anyway, how would they know about this place?

  But this had to somehow be related to them…

  Or Kim.

  He turned to her—the bitch who’d been following Jonah Lund and his associate, the bitch who’d contacted them twice.

  He pointed to the building. “Who is it, Kim? Another friend of yours?”

  She shook her head with that pathetic, scared look on her face.

  “Right…” Finley said.

  He gave things another moment of consideration. Then pulled Kim’s arm, shoving her to Shaw. She yelped.

  “Get her to the van,” Finley said. “And keep her there. Zip-tie her. Knock her ass out if you have to. The Well has been compromised. I’m gonna get her to the boss.”

  Shaw hesitated. It wasn’t a moment of insubordination—Shaw wouldn’t dare stand up to Finley—but a moment of stunned confusion.

  Then he nodded and tugged Kim away.

  Finley started toward the building.

  A sharp, loud noise c
racked through the overpass, making several of the bums cry out in surprise. Glass. Something shattering. Something big.

  One of the building’s windows.

  Finley went into a full sprint.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Gavin crashed through the window.

  A sudden change in environment. One moment he was struggling with the thugs in the shitty little office—and impressed with himself for how well he’d fought them off—and the next moment, after letting his guard down briefly, after an electric jolt of pain as his head crashed through the glass, he was outside. Halfway. To his waist. Out in the slum again. The smell of burning paper, garbage. Screams from several of the homeless.

  Tugging on his shirt. A jolt of momentum. And he was back in the office.

  More screaming. Not from the homeless but from the high-class hookers cowering behind the desk.

  The black guy had Gavin by the legs. The suited white guy had him by the shoulders. Gavin’s face was tight and burning from the blows he’d received.

  The three of them tumbled to the thin, rough carpeting, a tangle of legs and grasping arms.

  Something glistened. A shard of glass, still connected to a chunk of the window frame. Gavin grabbed it by the wooden section, swung in a broad arch, catching the white guy across the face.

  The man screamed. A trail of blood slung onto the wall. One of the women screeched.

  Gavin shook the black guy off his legs, got behind the man’s knees, twisted, and threw him into a rolling pile, sending him to the opposite wall.

  And there it was.

  His gun, the Bodyguard, still in its holster a few feet away.

  When the two men had first converged on Gavin, he’d been able to wrench the black guy’s pistol from his hands, sending it through the open doorway and into the hall. In the ensuing scuffle, his own gun, the Bodyguard, had fallen from the man’s pocket and skittered to the side.

  All through the exchange of blows, the three men had stolen anxious glances at the Bodyguard, just out of reach on the other side of the room. Someone was going to grab it, and when he did, that man would have the power.

  It was a few feet away, by the wall, on the other side of the room. Gavin dove for it.

  But he stopped short, abruptly, his flight suddenly halted. Something had grabbed him from behind. He crashed to the floor hard, sending a jolt through his ribs.

  He looked back. The black guy had him by the ankles, his face covered with sweat and twisting in fury.

  The Bodyguard was tantalizingly close.

  Inches away.

  Gavin reached out; his fingers touched it.

  Then he heard something.

  Beside him. At the doorway.

  He looked up.

  A man stood over him, someone he hadn’t yet seen.

  Blond curly hair, parted in the middle.

  He pointed a pistol at Gavin’s face.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jonah struggled to keep up with Brett’s long strides as they ventured farther into an area of homeless people, the address from Beasley’s notes, some sort of ragtag community of tents and cardboard boxes, blankets and old mattresses. The smell was overpowering, a mixture of human filth, bonfires, and industrial waste.

  Brett led them to a building in the back, something dilapidated yet clearly important. Boards covered the windows. A dark rectangular area on the wall beside the main door had evidently held a sign at one point in time. Beneath that was a cross, hanging askew.

  There was a shout from the left. “Hey!”

  A fat guy in a bright green sweatshirt standing beside a white panel van at the cross street. He slid the van’s side door shut with a thunk, then waved his hands, looking right at Jonah and Brett. The driver's side door was open, and he shut and locked it before lumbering over at a slow jog, dodging tents and huddled forms.

  When the guy reached them, he put his hands on his waist, chest heaving, head angled back, sucking in air.

  “Shop’s closed for the day,” the man said between breaths.

  Jonah turned to see Brett’s reaction. Which was a non-reaction. Brett just pivoted and started for the building again.

  The man grabbed Brett’s arm, and in a blur, the hand was gone. Brett had swiped it away so fast, Jonah had hardly seen the motion.

  Another one of Brett’s bizarre skills that seemed to materialize out of nowhere, skills that made Jonah realize Brett was a lot more than what he had originally taken him for.

  Again, Jonah wondered if he was some sort of government operative.

  Open-mouth wonder replaced the sloppy man’s anger, and it took him a moment to regain his courage.

  “I said, shop’s closed. Your buddy’s already been here, the guy with the beard.”

  Brett looked at Jonah then.

  “Gavin…” Jonah said.

  Brett nodded. He turned back to the guy in the sweatshirt. “When was he here?”

  “Man, piss off. Get out of here.”

  Brett jabbed him in the throat.

  Once more, the movement was so fast that Jonah hardly perceived it.

  Efficient and flawless. Yet brutal. Violence that leaves an echo.

  The man wheezed, bent over.

  “Talk,” Brett growled.

  The man’s hands were on his knees. “He’s…” Wheeze. “He’s still here.”

  The man pointed to the boarded-up building with the crooked cross.

  Brett started toward the building again, this time running. Jonah sprinted after him.

  And as they ran, Brett reached beneath his jacket and retrieved a black pistol. A moment later, he took out a small tube of metal. A silencer. He screwed it onto the end of the pistol.

  Holy shit…

  They were to the building.

  “Stay outside,” Brett said.

  Brett kicked in the door as he had at Beasley’s. No hesitation. Effortlessly powerful. The decaying doorframe exploded. The door flew in.

  Beyond the entrance was a hallway.

  And in that hallway, a staggering sight.

  Gavin Stokes. Bloodied. Surrounded by three other men.

  Including the blond-headed man, who had a gun aimed at Gavin.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Four men in the hallway in front of Silence. Centered in the group, a gun to his head, was Gavin Stokes.

  Silence’s thoughts slowed.

  An engine powering down. The last bit of steam whistling out of a kettle. A baseball rolling to a stop in thick grass.

  Things became quiet.

  C.C. had always told Silence that his mind was chaotic, and she helped him with methods of sorting his thoughts, calming the anxieties, soothing the storm of activity within his brain. Things like mind mapping, meditation, deep breathing. The techniques had become a toolbox from which he could grab the necessary piece of mental equipment for a specific application.

  Through the years, the constant use of those C.C. teachings had led to a cumulative effect, one that came out when adrenaline was flowing the fastest, an immediate internal response to chaos in the external. In moments like these, time slowed, his reactions became molecularly precise, he saw and heard everything, he existed in a vacuum of time, a vortex of space, and all was still.

  When paired with the brutal coaching he’d received from Nakiri, his trainer when he was first conscripted into the Watchers, the stillness that had developed from C.C.’s Zen-filled teachings took on a whole new function.

  It became a lethal weapon.

  The curly-haired man, Mr. Accord, in front of Gavin, a Heckler & Koch P9S in his hand, pointed at Gavin’s face.

  Gavin, head arched back, tendons bulging from his neck.

  Two other guys. Behind Gavin. One with a long gash across his cheek, blood pouring onto a baggy blue suit.

  The other in a gray T-shirt, jeans, grabbing Gavin from behind, fingers yanking his hair.

  Mr. Accord’s eyes had found Silence’s in the fraction of sluggish time when the door
had burst open, a look of recognition, confusion, dread.

  Mr. Accord kept his pistol on Gavin, but in that sliver of a moment, Silence sensed danger from the man’s associates, two electric blips in the quiet nothingness.

  They both leveled guns in Silence’s direction.

  Silence’s arm raised, going to the left.

  He fired.

  Striking the suited one, through the shoulder.

  The Beretta shifted six inches to the right. Fired.

  The round cut through the other man’s neck. An explosion of blood. A wet scream.

  Mr. Accord had pulled Gavin in front of him. A human shield. He moved toward the side door.

  The bodies fell.

  First the suited one. Then the one in the gray T-shirt.

  Gavin, too, fell. To his knees. A flash behind him, and Mr. Accord vanished.

  Two steps. Silence was beside Gavin, aiming the Beretta downward, at the enemy who was still alive, the suited one.

  Another round through the center of the forehead. The man’s eyes remained open, mouth as well.

  The Beretta swept to the side. To the other man. The throat wound was catastrophic. He was very much dead.

  Silence put a round through his forehead anyway.

  A delayed double tap.

  You can never be too sure.

  Sounds seemed louder. The air felt warmer, more real. Time returned to him.

  It had all happened in a couple seconds.

  He leapt over Gavin, pressed himself against the wall, threw open the side door, swept his gun across the threshold.

  No curly-headed bastard. But an infinite number of nooks and crannies for him to have disappeared into—tents and boxes and shopping carts and dozens of homeless people.

  Mr. Accord was gone.

  Silence returned to Gavin, who stared in disbelief at the bodies lying next to him. “Holy shit, man! Shit! Holy shit! What are you?”

  Silence offered his hand, pulled him to his feet.

  The roar of a gunshot.

  An explosion beside them, at the floor, inches away from Gavin’s foot.

  Chunks of wood, strips of carpet shot to the ceiling.