No Safe House

by Linwood Barclay

When he was less than two feet away, Vince raised the cushion, pushed the barrel of the gun into it, and fired. It still made a noise, no question. All Vince cared about was that it not be heard outside the apartment, and on that score he thought he was reasonably safe.

  The bullet caught Eldon below the right shoulder blade. He fell forward onto the bed.

  “Shit!” he yelled.

  Vince moved quickly. He forced himself on top of the man, held the pillow over his head, and fired a second time. Eldon thrashed briefly, then stopped.

  “You’re wrong,” Vince whispered. “I am sorry. More than you could know.”

  Vince crawled off, breathing heavily as he did so. He put the gun back into his jacket. His joints felt stiff and his gut was sore. There was something warm and damp on his leg. He worried, for half a second, that somehow he’d shot himself. There was a dark spot on his upper thigh, just below his crotch.

  All the sudden physical activity had caused his bag to leak. The tape that held it in place had come loose.

  “Goddamn it,” he said under his breath.

  He went into the bathroom to tend to himself as best he could. When he was done, he washed his hands and looked wearily at his reflection over the sink. He hadn’t shaved since the day before, hadn’t slept all night.

  Had to do it, he told himself.

  He was tucking his shirt back into his pants and zipping up when he heard someone rapping sharply on the apartment door.

  “Hello?”

  A man’s voice, muffled, coming through the glass.

  Vince froze, worried any move he made might be heard.

  “Hello! Is Stuart home? I’m looking for Stuart Koch!”

  Carefully, Vince moved his head around the corner of the door far enough to get one eye on the entrance to the apartment. The blinds weren’t closed, and the man had put his face tight to the glass, cupped his hands around his eyes to see into the apartment.

  Vince was able to make out who it was.

  Some people just don’t listen.

  Vince was confident the man at the door would not be able to see into Eldon’s bedroom from that vantage point. But then the man did something that could change all that. He was trying the door to see whether it was locked.

  Which it was not.

  Vince watched the doorknob slowly turn, and reached into his jacket again for his gun.

  THIRTY-ONE

  TERRY

  FUCK Vince Fleming.

  It wasn’t a point of view I’d come to right away. It grew on me. After Grace stated, quite clearly, that she had to know what happened, I had to make a decision about whose interests were more important.

  I chose Grace.

  I chose Grace because I loved her, of course, but also because, at that moment, I realized how brave she was. She wasn’t going to crawl into bed and pull the covers up over her head. She was willing to face the consequences, and in the few short hours since this mess had begun, I’d started to feel it was the only way we were going to get through this.

  It might also be the only way to save her. If Grace was perceived by someone out there to be a witness, getting to the bottom of this mess might expose who that person was.

  But still.

  Vince was formidable, and going against him was not going to be easy. I’d have to watch my back, try to find out as much as I could without his knowing it. And I didn’t exactly have a plan for dealing with whatever it was I might learn.

  “You going to be okay here if I go out and ask a few questions?” I asked Grace. She was in the bathroom, door open, brushing her teeth.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll phone work and book off sick. You don’t have to do it. I’ll do my best sick voice. I know I’ll do something really stupid in the kitchen if I go in. Set someone on fire, drop a pot of lobsters, something, because I won’t be able to concentrate.”

  “And I may need to talk to you,” I said. “Best that you’re here.” I hit my forehead with the heel of my hand, remembering that this was the day the cleaning lady came. “Shit, Teresa.”

  “When does she usually show up?” Grace asked.

  “In the mornings. Usually no one’s home and she just lets herself in. If you want, I can call and cancel her.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s okay.”

  I asked Grace if she had continued to try reaching Stuart on his cell phone.

  “Yeah, and I texted him, too. Nothing.”

  I decided I’d start with Milford Hospital. It was going to be the first place we would have checked last night after leaving the Cummings house, so it seemed like the logical place to begin this morning.

  I gave Grace a kiss good-bye and headed out, but not before going over the new rules. She didn’t answer the door for anyone she didn’t know. She left the alarm on. She’d stay off all her social sites. No chatting with anyone.

  “Got it,” she said, and saluted.

  The hospital is right downtown and getting to it took less time than finding a place to park there. I went in the main entrance and approached reception, where a woman was tapping away on a keyboard.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for someone who might have been admitted last night,” I said. “I wanted to see how he was doing.”

  “Name?”

  “Stuart Koch.” I spelled the last name for her.

  She entered the name and studied the monitor. She asked me for the spelling of Stuart, which I knew because he had once been my student. If I’d had to guess, I’d have spelled it with an “ew” in the middle.

  She frowned. “I don’t see anything. When would this have been?”

  “Last night around ten. Maybe closer to eleven.”

  “And what was he brought in for?”

  I hesitated. I almost said he’d been shot. But if it turned out Stuart wasn’t here, a comment like that was going to open a can of worms, maybe prompt this woman to call the police.

  So I said, “I think it was some kind of head injury. Tripped or something.”

  She reached for her phone, waited a few seconds, then said, “D’you guys treat a patient named Koch last night? Would have come in after ten, possible head injury? Yeah, well, just double-check. Okay, then.”

  She hung up the phone and gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got no one by that name. Are you sure he was brought here?”

  “I thought so,” I said.

  “I’d tell you to check with the walk-in clinic, but they close up at seven thirty. If your friend got hurt later than that, I don’t know where else he would have gone but here.”

  “Thanks for your time,” I said.

  On the way back to the car I phoned Grace.

  “No luck at the hospital. You heard anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. You know where Stuart lives?”

  “I’ve never been there, but I can look it up. Can you hang on?”

  I said I could. I could hear her typing away, looking up an address.

  “I found it,” she said. She gave me an address. “Let me just check it on Whirl360.” The Web site that gave you an actual image of any location. Some more clicking. “Okay, he told me he lived on top of some kind of repair shop or something and I’m looking at it right now. It’s called Dietrich’s Appliance Repair. There’s stairs on the side of the building. I think they go up to his apartment.”

  I was pretty sure I knew the place. I’d driven past it many times. “Can you see Stuart’s car there, on the computer?” I asked.

  “Dad,” Grace said wearily, “it’s not a live shot. Duh.”

  “Right, okay. I’ll get back to you.”

  I got back into the Escape and headed for Naugatuck Avenue. It didn’t take long to find Dietrich’s. I parked across the street, got out, and surveyed the surroundings. It was a stretch of residences and businesses. There was a parking lot next to Dietrich’s that served a short stretch of stores on the other side. The lot was nearly empty. An old
VW Golf, a pickup truck, but no huge Buick from decades past.

  It was, after all, still very early. The odd car that drove past held someone going to work or school. A lot of people probably weren’t even up yet. I hated to bang on someone’s door at this hour, but this was one of those times when not all niceties could be observed.

  I crossed the street and mounted the open-backed stairs that ran up the side of the building, not unlike the steps up to the second floor of Vince’s beach house on East Broadway. When I got to the top, I rapped on the door.

  “Hello?”

  I waited a few seconds, then tried again.

  “Hello! Is Stuart home? I’m looking for Stuart Koch!”

  Blinds hung over the window, but they weren’t turned shut. I put my face to the glass and shielded my eyes with my hands to keep out the sun.

  The kitchen and living area made up the room that I could see. Two doors on the far wall that were probably bedrooms or a bathroom. No sign of anyone, but Stuart or his father could still be here asleep.

  Maybe they couldn’t hear me shouting through the door.

  I decided it wouldn’t exactly be breaking and entering if all I did was open the door and stick my head in.

  If the door was unlocked.

  I tried the knob, and it turned. So I opened it about a foot and leaned my head into the apartment.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Anyone home?”

  No response.

  “Stuart?”

  I knew, from experience, that it could take a lot of noise to wake a sleeping teenager. Someone had to be here. People didn’t head off for the day without locking the door.

  So I opened the door wider, and stepped inside.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “WHAT’D you end up doing last night?” Bryce Withers asked as he walked naked from the bed into the bathroom.

  Jane Scavullo mumbled something into her pillow.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  She forced herself to roll over, taking a tangle of covers with her, so he could hear her. “Just stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Yeah. Nothin’ much. How’d it go last night?”

  “This is working into a good gig,” Bryce said. “So many bars these days, they don’t even want to pay the band. But they’re giving us five hundred a night, so that’s a hundred bucks apiece. And all the drinks we want.” He chuckled. “The other guys, I think they’d still do it just for the drinks, but we deserve to get paid. I told you about that other place? They got in touch, invited us to play on Friday and Saturday nights, and I said how much and they said two hundred. And I said, man, we can’t afford to play a gig for two hundred bucks, have to split that five ways, and the guy says no, no, he was going to charge us two hundred to play there. Said it would be good exposure for us, we’d end up getting other gigs through him. If he’d been standing in front of me, I’d’ve kicked his fucking teeth in, I swear to God. The whole world’s turning fucking upside down, thinks the talent should always work for nothing.”

  “Hmm,” Jane said without enthusiasm.

  “I got in around two and you were, like, totally comatose. So you did nothing? You weren’t here all night, were you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “What’d you do?”

  “Saw Vince.” Soon as she said it, she regretted it.

  “That son of a bitch?” Bryce said. “I thought you weren’t talking to him.”

  “I don’t want to go over this again. And don’t talk about him like that. It’s okay for me to do it but not you.”

  “I’m just saying. He wasn’t there for your mother when she was, you know, when all that shit was going down with her. And then you got screwed over on the house you thought she was leaving to you. He’s an asshole—that’s all I’m trying to say.”

  He came back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed on Jane’s side. He put a hand on her head, stroked her hair.

  “I just want you to know I’m looking out for you. If he’s not going to give a shit, I am.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Jane said.

  “So why’d you go and see him anyway?”

  “He had a problem he wanted me to help him with.”

  Bryce twitched. “What kind of problem?”

  “Just . . . something to do with his work. And this girl, a friend of mine. She ran into some trouble and it’s sort of connected to Vince. So I ended up at his place.”

  Bryce twitched again and said, “What girl?”

  “It’s a long story, Bryce. I just need some sleep.”

  “I’m just curious. Was it Melanie? That one who got in touch with you?”

  “No, not Melanie. Her name was Grace. Grace Archer. Her dad used to be my teacher, long time ago.”

  “Oh yeah,” Bryce said. “You’ve mentioned him. The one who was nice to you. Isn’t he the one whose wife had all that weird shit happen to her back when she was a kid or something?”

  “Please stop talking.” Jane tried to fold the edges of the pillow over her ears.

  “Why’d this Grace chick want to talk to you? What was her problem and what did it have to do with Vince?”

  Jane opened her eyes wide, threw her arms down on the bed, and said, “How come you’re Mr. Twenty Questions this morning? Jesus.”

  He pulled his hand away from stroking her hair. “You don’t have to bite my fucking head off. I’m just trying to be interested.”

  “Since when?” Jane asked. “You hardly ever ask me anything, except when it has to do with Vince and how you think he’s fucked me over. Well, that’s my problem and not yours, so you can stop worrying about it.”

  “I know he doesn’t like me,” Bryce said. “He got something against musicians? Is that it?”

  “The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, you know,” she said.

  He stood. “Fine. Let me know when you’re not all PMSing and maybe we can have a normal conversation.”

  “Oh, good one,” she said. “Every time I get pissed with you it’s because of that and not because you’re being a total asshole.”

  He went back into the bathroom and closed the door. Seconds later, she heard water running in the shower.

  It was going so well for a while there, she thought. But ever since they’d moved in together, Bryce had started evolving into a total douche.

  Always asking her about Vince. What he did, how he made his money, whether he’d ever actually killed anybody. Did what Vince did freak him out, or at some level did he think it was kind of cool?

  She looked at the clock. Nearly eight. She was supposed to be at her job at nine thirty.

  God. A lot to accomplish in the next hour and a half.

  Maybe, if she lay here for just another five minutes, she wouldn’t feel so terrible. She hadn’t had much sleep. The events of the previous evening had left her unnerved.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a low-level buzz. She’d muted her phone, but it was still on vibrate, and sitting on her bedside table, it still made enough noise to be heard.

  A text or an e-mail. Probably from work.

  She reached over for the phone, looked at the screen.

  Nothing.

  She rolled over in bed, saw that Bryce had left his phone on the table on his side of the bed.

  She wasn’t feeling particularly kindly toward him at this moment. Not kindly enough to let him know he had a message.

  But then again, it might be something important, so she worked her way across to the other side of the king bed and reached for the phone.

  It was a text message.

  It had been sent by Bryce’s friend Hartley, one of the other members of the band, which was called Energy Drink.

  If there was a worse name for a band, Jane couldn’t think what it might be. She worked in advertising now and had a feel for this kind of thing. But would Bryce listen?

  She read the text.

  It said: GIG WENT GOOD. SORRY U HAD TO BAIL. HOPE YOUR
FEELING BETTER. LET US KNOW ASAP IF YOU CANT MAKE IT TONITE.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “I think it’ll all come together before the day’s over, Unk.”

  “You’re the best, Reggie. You’re the only one I should ever have talked to about this. You’re the only one I can admit to what a fool I’ve been. Trusting that boy. Eli. I gave him work, helped him out. His roommates, they threw him out, you know. But I saw something of myself in that boy.”

  “He was no boy, Unk. He was a man.”

  “I suppose, but . . . I don’t know. He was a kid who’d gotten the short end of the stick all his life. Parents never gave a shit about him. He’d had to fend for himself for a long time.”

  “A little too well, you ask me.”

  “You’re right. I know that. But I never thought, giving him some work, helping him out, that he would turn against me. Me and Eli, we’d sit and talk in the evening. I ended up telling him all about her. All these stories I’ve told you. Too damn much. One night, I guess I had a little too much to drink, and I told him what I’d done. Stupid, I was just stupid.”

  “He paid for his betrayal, Unk. He got what he deserved.”

  “Other than him, the only person I’ve ever confided in, is you. You know my secrets.”

  “And you know mine, Unk.”

  “You should have told me sooner. Just how much of a monster my brother was. At first I thought, after your mom died, raising you on his own would make him a better man, a good father.”

  “A good father doesn’t expect his daughter to fulfill all the responsibilities of a wife. You’ve been the father I was meant to have, ever since you took me in when I was fourteen.”

  “I’ve never told a soul, you know.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. There was a fire in the barn. The man died. End of story.”

  “About Eli, do you think he told Quayle it was me? When he tried to make the deal with him?”

  “He told us no. If Eli had told Quayle everything, you’d have heard from him by now. I guarantee it.”

  “I hate that man. There are no words. I hate him with every fiber of my being.”