He leans back, takes another sip of his drink. He stares at me, waiting for me to speak.
I say, “Did someone really buy the code today?”
“This morning, yes. It was done electronically.”
“And the boy?”
“One of my runners.”
“So the entire thing was meant to be a huge waste of time.”
“Not entirely. We still wanted to send you a message.”
“How did you know I would even be here?”
He smiles again. “You can’t even begin to imagine how much I know.”
I glance around at the men watching us. I think about options, possibilities, causes and effects. I think about Nova somewhere downstairs, trying to find me. I think about Philippe somewhere close by too, either outside or in.
“So now what?”
“Now I’m afraid we part ways.” He sets his glass aside, stands up. “It was a pleasure finally meeting you. You are a very attractive woman and I wish we could have met under different circumstances.”
“Yeah,” I say, standing, “like you would ever have a chance.”
“Perhaps.” Xerxes smiles again. “But what you have to remember about men like me, Holly, is that we always get what we want.”
Three men approach. Two of them take my arms, turn me around. They steer me toward the elevator that’s already standing open. They push me into it. The doors slide shut and we start to descend. I think about options again, about possibilities. The men haven’t let go of my arms. Their grip is tight. They may not know my entire background, everything I can do, but they witnessed me take out one of their own so they know I’m capable.
I think about struggling but know it’s not worth it. It would just waste time, burn energy, and right now I want to save up as much strength as I can.
We pass the first floor, continue down to the basement. The doors open, revealing a parking garage. A car is parked in front of us. Reed and Boylan stand beside it. Reed has a Glock 17 in his hand, Boylan a plastic zip tie.
“Thank you, boys,” Reed says. “We’ll take it from here.”
Forty
They force me to put my hands behind my back. Then they put the plastic zip tie around my wrists. Next thing I know I’m being shoved into the backseat next to a large man with a double chin and a cane who smells like cheap cologne.
He doesn’t look at me.
Reed and Boylan get into the car. Reed slides into the driver’s seat, starts the engine, and then we start driving though the garage.
“Boris?” I ask.
He turns his head slightly, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He says nothing.
“Where are you and Rocky and Bullwinkle taking me?”
Still no answer.
“You know, you’re a lot fatter than I pictured.”
He’s much faster than he looks. One moment his hand is on the tip of his cane, the next it flies up to backhand me across the face. Then it’s back on the tip of the cane, like it never moved at all.
Boylan shifts in his seat to glance back at me. “Just shut the fuck up, Holly.”
We drive up the ramp to the exit. Reed pauses for the gate to open.
As it does, I play around with the zip tie. When they placed it around my wrists I’d balled my hands into fists and kept them together. Boylan hadn’t seemed too worried about it because otherwise he would have noticed this gives me more room when I move my hands so the wrists are touching. It doesn’t give me a lot of room, but it gives me some, enough to start working the zip tie.
The gate opened completely, we drive out into the rain.
“So where are we going?”
Nobody answers.
“You seriously don’t think Philippe isn’t going to figure this out?”
Still no answer.
I think about it a moment, then say, “Unless Philippe is in this with you guys, too.”
Then I shake my head, say, “No, he wouldn’t be that corrupt.”
I say, “Philippe is a good guy. A true good guy. Not a poser like you fucks.”
Boris does his lightning-quick handwork again. This time I’m ready for it and turn my head away. His backhand hits me in the ear. And because it hits me in the ear, he grunts with frustration and punches me in the ribs.
We turn down one street, turn down another. I have no idea where they’re taking me. All I know is that when we get there they’re going to kill me.
I keep working at the zip tie behind my back.
“At least tell me what the appeal is. From what I could see, Xerxes isn’t all that charming. Why would you guys want to be in his pocket?”
Reed brings the car to a stop at a traffic light. He flicks the turn signal on.
I stare out my window, at the cars parked along the street, at the lights in the stores. “Abraham and Kenneth. Delano never had anything to do with them. At least, he never had men try to come in and kill you all.”
The light changes. Reed presses his foot down on the gas, bringing us into motion again.
“By that point Delano had already gotten to you. He’d made a deal. Probably offered you money.”
The windshield wipers screech back and forth.
“He probably offered you a lot of money. And maybe you didn’t want to split it between five people. Or maybe you knew Abraham and Kenneth would never go for it in the first place.”
Up in the passenger seat, Boylan tilts his head from the left to the right, from the right to the left. In the heavy silence the pops are like gunshots.
“Yeah, you knew they wouldn’t flip, that they would be good until the end. So you had to take them out. You had to kill them. Yourselves. Except … except Boris and Boylan were shot in the process. And so were Delano’s men … or were they even his men?”
Boris shifts beside me in his seat. I pause in trying to free my wrists, ready for another blow. One doesn’t come.
“So you had men standing in as Delano’s men. You killed them, only after you killed Abraham and Kenneth. And then … what—did you guys draw straws or something to figure out who would get shot and who wouldn’t?”
The windshield wipers: back and forth, back and forth.
“You sick fucks. You did draw straws, didn’t you?”
My wrists working the zip tie: back and forth, back and forth.
“And Reed managed to luck out. He was the one who would walk away without a scratch.”
The windshield wipers and my wrists: back and forth, back and forth.
“All so you could be the ones who ran surveillance on Delano. Philippe doesn’t know. He might suspect, but he doesn’t know. And taking him out of the equation is too risky. Raises too many questions.”
One wrist, almost free.
“So you keep him around. You keep him around because you don’t want to kill him. Or because by killing him you would bring in more people. And right now you guys like it the way it is. You like it just being the three of you and Philippe.”
One wrist, moving back and forth, almost free.
“But one of these days Philippe is going figure it out. And if he doesn’t, someone else will. Because dumb fucks like you always mess up. And while Delano may have liked you, who says Xerxes will feel the same way? Who says he won’t get tired of your bullshit and decide to take you all out instead?”
The zip tie bites into my skin, drawing blood.
I turn to Boris, lean in close.
“What do you think? What do you and your chinny-chin-chins think of that?”
His face scrunches up. He grits his teeth. He grunts as he raises his cane, swings it awkwardly at my head.
But my hands are now free and I grab the cane, twist it out of Boris’s grip. I turn the cane around, so the tip’s pointed at his face, and I jam it right into his eye.
Boylan is already in motion. He has his seat belt flung off, is reaching into his jacket for the Glock.
I pull the cane back out of Boris’s eye, swing it toward Boylan.
>
That’s when the car behind us speeds forward and smacks us in the rear.
Forty-One
Boylan drops the Glock. I drop the cane. Before either of us can try to reach for our respective weapons, the car behind us bumps us again.
Boylan’s gun is knocked forward to the footwell. He turns and bends down, scrambles for the gun, but by the time he comes back up with it I have the cane in my hands again, the bloody tip pointed at his face.
Like I did with Boris, I aim for one of Boylan’s eyes. But Reed swerves the car, trying to outpace the car behind us, and the tip of the cane grazes Boylan’s ear.
He fires wildly, shooting into the roof. Reed swerves the car again. The car behind us comes on faster, tries to bump us a third time. I lean forward and smack the gun out of Boylan’s hand, then I elbow Boylan in the face, one two three times right in the nose.
One hand on the wheel, Reed uses his other hand to reach for his gun. He pulls it out, raises it upside down and starts firing over his shoulder.
I duck down as the rear windshield shatters. A hand reaches for me. At first I think it’s Boylan, but it’s Boris. The Russian is alive despite losing one eye and he’s trying to grab me, strangle me, break my neck, but the car behind us rams us again and our car jerks forward and Reed keeps shooting despite the sudden rocking and his aim gets thrown off, a couple bullets ripping into Boris’s chest.
Up ahead is an intersection and a pileup of cars. Reed drops the gun in his lap, grabs at the wheel with both hands. He veers us into the opposite lane where a truck barrels toward us, flashing its high beams and blaring its horn, and then we’re up over the curb onto the sidewalk, riding it to the end of the block while the few people out in the rain run or dive out of the way.
Boylan regains his composure, regains the Glock. He turns to shoot at me again, but I grab for the gun, grip onto his wrist, try to push it away while he tries to push it toward my face.
The car bounces again as we make it back onto the main street. Only it’s a one-way street and we’re headed in the wrong direction.
Reed doesn’t seem dissuaded by this, though; he grips the steering wheel tight and takes us forward, playing chicken with the oncoming cars that quickly realize they’re dealing with a psychopath and swerve out of the way.
Boylan grits his teeth, says something underneath his breath. He’s still trying to fight me with the gun and decides to let off a couple more rounds. They shatter the rear door window—my window—and the shots are deafening and the stench of cordite is bitter and I swear that it felt like one of those bullets took out the tips of my hair, just a couple, and I grit my own teeth and push his arm again, push it hard, and he fires again just as I push it down and a bullet tears into Reed’s face.
Despite his seat belt, Reed’s body leans forward over the wheel. His foot hasn’t lifted from the gas pedal, has in fact been pushed down harder, and the car begins to accelerate.
The street curves up ahead, cars parked along both sides. I see what’s going to happen next and jump back, grab my seat belt, snap it in.
Boylan doesn’t have a chance.
Three seconds later we smash into a car parked along the street. Boylan, not wearing his seat belt, flies through the windshield. An explosion of glass. I quickly smell smoke, gasoline.
The seat belt kept me secure, but it hurts like a motherfucker. I move slowly at first, making sure nothing’s broken or strained. I unclip the seat belt, glance first at Boris to make sure he’s dead, then try to open my door.
But I can’t, no matter how hard I try. The edges of the door have been crumbled from the crash and I can’t get it open far enough for me to get out.
I decide to escape through the rear windshield. I have to be careful not to cut myself on the shards of glass still sticking up.
The rain feels like it’s coming down even harder, trying to wash away the world.
Drivers have stopped their cars, stepped out into the rain. A woman calls out in French, asking me if I’m okay.
I don’t answer her. I crawl through the window, over the trunk, and down onto the ground.
Off in the distance I can hear the oncoming rush of sirens.
At first I figure I’ll just wait here for them. Philippe is technically still police, so he’ll be able to bail me out.
Then I wonder what if Philippe is in this, too.
What if he’s just as dirty as these three dead bastards?
The sirens are closer now, maybe two or three blocks away. I start walking in one direction but stop when I remember the car that rammed us and figure yes, that was Philippe, coming to my aid, trying to save the damsel in distress.
Wasn’t it?
I start walking.
That same woman calls out again, asking me to stop. Others pick up the chorus.
My walk picks up into a jog.
The sirens are a block away. Their flashing lights reflect off the buildings ahead.
My jog turns into a sprint.
As it’s a one-way street, I can’t help but pass the first police car coming toward me. Out of the corner of my eye I see the two cops inside turn their heads as they try to track where I’m going.
I reach the end of the block by the time the second car arrives. It screeches to a halt, reverses, darts in my direction.
I sprint down one block, down another. The cruiser stays with me.
I spot an alleyway across the street. I keep sprinting on this side of the sidewalk though, pumping my arms and legs, until I’ve reached the end of the block and then I stop, pivot, start sprinting back the way I came.
The cruiser streaks past me, its siren still blaring. It screeches to a halt, starts to reverse just as I cross the street and run into the alleyway.
Which happens to be a dead end.
A dumpster is set up at the end of the alleyway. A few trashcans are scattered about, all of them overflowing.
A fire escape hangs off one of the buildings. I jump for it but the ladder is too high for me to reach.
I grab one of the trashcans, dump it out, place it upside down directly underneath the ladder. I climb up onto the trashcan as the cruiser pulls into the alleyway, its high beams splashing me.
I grip the first rung and pull myself up. Reach for the second rung, then the third.
The cruiser below me has screeched to a halt again. Both doors open. One of the cops shouts in French for me to stop. The other pulls out his gun, aims, and fires at the top of the ladder.
He doesn’t hit me. What he hits is the steel, enough to send a massive vibration to pass into my hands, through my arms, and into the rest of my body.
I let go of the ladder.
The fall is maybe ten feet. Not too high, but enough to knock the wind out of me when I hit the ground. My body has already been dealing with enough pain, it doesn’t need this, and when I try to sit up, try to move, it’s like my body has gone on strike and refuses to do anything before it’s been given a raise.
The two cops approach me. Both have their weapons held at their sides.
One of the cops says in French, “I can’t believe we found her. Just our luck.”
The other says, “What did Xerxes say he wanted done with her?”
“Taken out.”
“Shit.”
“I know.”
There’s a silence, and then the second cop asks, “So how do you want to do this?”
The first cop shrugs. “I don’t know. Nothing was ever said to me about killing.”
“You’re being paid, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. So are you.”
Still lying on the wet ground, showered by rain, trash all around me, I try to move. But my arms, my legs, even my head, don’t want to move.
“All right,” the second cop says. “If you’re too chickenshit to kill her, I’ll do it.”
He steps forward.
I look up, catch only a glimpse of his face.
He grimaces as he raises his gun, aims it at my head.
/>
I don’t close my eyes.
The shots aren’t as deafening as they were in the car, though they echo in the narrow alleyway.
The cop standing over me jerks. His mouth falls open. His fingers relax, dropping the pistol. It clatters to the ground just as he falls to his knees.
The first cop spins around, raising his weapon, but he’s shot, too—bang bang—and then falls to the ground, dead.
The rain keeps falling. It doesn’t let up.
My hair is soaked. My clothes are soaked. My entire being is soaked.
Slowly, so very slowly, I push myself up into a sitting position. It isn’t easy. The pain is intense. Rain drips into my eyes, forcing me to blink them away.
A figure stands behind the police cruiser. The lights keep flashing, playing red and white patterns off his dark overcoat, off his black mask and black fedora.
I can barely see his eyes.
He raises his gun, aims it right in my direction. Even though there are ten yards between us, I know the barrel is centered at my face.
The moment stretches on. The rain continues to fall.
The man keeps the gun aimed for another couple seconds before he lowers it, turns, and hurries away.
I lie back down on the ground. I close my eyes. Raindrops cover my face. Run into my mouth. They taste like tears.
Part Three
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Forty-Two
When I make the turn onto Arbor Drive Monday morning, I notice a black sedan parked across the street from the Haddens’ house. In the car are two men, both sitting in the front. I get only a glimpse, but it’s enough for me to see that one of the men wears a white bandage over his nose.
Inside, Sylvia greets me as she always does, asking if I’d like breakfast. She knows I’ll want coffee and already has a cup waiting, handing it to me with a smile. But the smile is short-lived when she gets a good look at my face, at the bruises that I haven’t been able to conceal. I know she wants to ask if I’m okay, but I just smile and take the cup of coffee with a quiet thank you.
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