“You’re good with the ladies, then?”
One more shrug. A check of his cellphone screen for the time or the incoming text that hadn’t arrived yet. She couldn’t tell. She watched him press the side button to turn off the phone’s screen. What little light it cast up to the dark cab’s roof went dead.
“We’re letting you go in alone,” she said.
“Thanks. A guy always appreciates the privacy.” He swiveled his head to face her halfway. “Even if you don’t think I should go in solo.”
She tapped him on the wrist, relieved when he didn’t flinch or recoil. “You’re never really solo. In this business, no man ever is.”
“You shouldn’t worry so much.” Something in his eye flickered.
Cynthia tried to not let it give her the wrong impression. No, he wasn’t actually reassuring her. Certainly not because he cared about her or what she thought.
“Glad to hear that, Martin. Very glad, actually.”
That something in his eye fired up in intensity. “Good.”
There it was again. It was real, one part of her said. These last two weeks, as she tutored him on how to bring Sasha in, she’d sensed it. She’d pushed it aside, too. Even if they were developing more than a cat—her—and cornered mouse—him—relationship, she couldn’t pursue it. Besides, she was probably imagining it. Or it was nothing more than an artifact of working through a close, tense situation—an artifact that would fizzle into a puff of nothing once real life reasserted itself. No, she shouldn’t delude herself.
His cellphone’s screen lit up.
“OK,” he said. “She says she’s five minutes out.”
Cynthia tapped him on the wrist again. At the last tap, she let her hand rest there. He tensed up. At the situation, at her touch, at all of it. She couldn’t tell.
“Just stick to the plan,” she said. “Nice and easy. We have a job for you, Sasha. You’ll be taken care of, Sasha. I’ll see to it myself, Sasha. And so on. You’re her lifeline. You’re her hope for a prosperous life doing the very thing she loves.” She paused. “Just like you are. Tell it like you believe it.”
She regretted that last phrase. It cast a foggy shadow over Martin’s commitment to this whole thing. Everyone and his whole profile said he had turned all the way. No reason to fear the boy. He’d taken the straight and narrow, and was now headed toward his slice of the American dream. He was properly incentivized. Remorseful, even.
Cynthia had bought all that, on paper, until she met him. Especially when the topic of Sasha came up, Cynthia sensed something more. Her gut fluttered with foreboding of what that might represent—what it might mean for him, for her, for them.
“With conviction,” she added, as much to rectify her slip of the tongue as to convince herself of it. Of the conviction that Martin was playing for the home team, all the way, without reservations. Yes, with conviction.
Cynthia withdrew her hand from his wrist. “All right. Here we go.” She opened the door and climbed out. She hadn’t planned it, but bent down to look him in the eye one more time. “You’ll do great, Martin.”
She held his gaze for a few more seconds. Then she straightened up and shut the door. The taxi’s engine whirred its electric whisper as it pulled away. She watched its tail lights brighten red when it reached the corner. She looked on with a mixture of trepidation and regret as it turned right to disappear out of view.
Martin got another text from Sasha after he got out of the cab. The timing smacked of perfection, like she’d seen him. Another five minutes, she said. From that, he figured she was making sure he’d come alone, like she’d insisted as a precondition to their meeting.
He texted back, “Not feeling stood up yet… but close.” He hesitated before adding a smiley face and pressing send.
“Never,” with double smile and tongue face, she texted back in a matter of seconds.
Martin smiled inwardly. This would turn out OK. He had nothing to fear. A guy and a cute girl getting together for dinner, what could go wrong? His lips tingled with the answer. Everything.
He tried to breathe even and steady as he stepped into the restaurant. “Six o’clock reservation for Martin Spencer,” he said to the wafer-thin girl behind the restaurant’s reception podium.
“Hmm.” She looked down to browse through the touchscreen embedded in the podium’s lectern. “Party of two?” She raised her gaze. Her eyes darted left and right.
“Ah… She’ll get here in a few minutes.” He raised his phone, as if that offered her proof enough.
“Sure. We’ll wait till she arrives to have you seated.”
Martin shrugged and looked around for a place to sit. Only now did he notice the crowded waiting area. Some spy he was. Yeah, great situational awareness, or SA, as they liked to say in the biz. He felt himself tense up as he recalled Cynthia’s admonition to “maintain SA.” Don’t overdo it, but do be aware of your surroundings. Notice any unusual people or activity. She’d even had him walk into a room full of people, look around, and come out two minutes later to recite all he’d noticed. She’d had him do it in a crowded park, too. He hadn’t done terribly well then, but he’d blown it to bits now, hadn’t he?
Anyway, he didn’t see any dangerous people waiting for a fancy table at this snooty place. Cynthia had suggested this restaurant, too. Martin wished he’d gone with something simpler. California Pizza Kitchen, to go, maybe. Instead here he stood, wearing his best dress shoes and a “smart blazer and slacks ensemble,” as Cynthia had described it. To distract himself, he smiled inwardly. She’d seemed to enjoy dressing him up, hadn’t she? Perhaps a bit more than a professional situation required?
He found himself shrugging it off. For sure he was reading too much into it. That Cynthia, she was one cold, calculating girl. The kind that didn’t need to wear a “stay the hell away” sign, but you better heed the warning all the same.
With hands stuffed into his pant pockets, he stepped to the side, or as far away from the center of the room as he could manage. Still, he felt all eyes on him, even if no one gave a flip what he was doing there, or that his date hadn’t arrived, or that he’d come to “recruit an asset.”
His phone buzzed, and he took it out. Just around the corner. There in one minute.
Sure enough, she walked in no more than a minute later. He stepped up to greet her, and they exchanged a faux air kiss, complete with awkward sideways hug. He felt himself bombing this date already.
This time the girl at the podium dropped the snooty air. Smiling mostly at Sasha, she extracted two dinner menus and a wine list, and with a flick of her head signaled for them to follow. She ushered them to one of two rooms, the darkest of the two, by Martin’s estimation, no doubt to encourage a romantic ambiance. At the moment he could only think that if Cynthia asked him to recount the room’s occupants and what they wore, the poor lighting would provide him ample excuse to flub the whole thing.
“This is nice,” Sasha said.
Martin slid her chair back and slid it back under her as she sat down.
“Very nice, actually,” she added. “Best place you’ve taken me, unless I’m forgetting something.” Her smile curled below glimmering, playful eyes.
“I have a real job now.”
“Ooh, tell me more.” Her smile remained playful, but with a darker edge to it. Or maybe the dim overhead lighting gave that impression. Martin couldn’t tell.
He felt the urge to go for it, tell her all about why she should come in. In code of course, like he was offering her a job at his place of employment, per the cover he should maintain throughout their conversation. But Cynthia had said, keep it social, don’t go right to business.
He pulled up the wine list and opened it. “This is supposed to be a great steak house. So… I’m thinking maybe a bottle of CS to go with it?”
“CS?”
“Cabernet Sauvignon. Sorry.” He looked up from the menu. “I’m an acronym nerd. I admit it.”
“A Cab would be ni
ce, though I’m not so sure I’d go with steak.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been trying to keep it lean, you know? Fish, chicken. Mostly fish actually.” She scanned her menu. “They have a Chilean seabass plate. Maybe I’ll go for that.”
“Hmm.” Martin rescanned the wine list. This threatened to exhaust his wine knowledge. “I’d still like a red, but the Cab won’t go well with fish.”
“Yeah. Too full bodied, huh.”
“Maybe a Merlot?”
“Still too heavy. A Pinot would match better, though I’d prefer a Chardonnay. How about we order separate glasses?”
“Nah. Maybe I’ll go for fish, too.” He looked up to grin at her. “I can’t let you out-health me.”
He’d intended that as playful repartee. But in her expression he found nothing even close to playfulness. Her demeanor had switched. Something he’d said?
“Everything OK?” he asked.
She smiled, but he could tell. Fake. Forced. “I need to visit the ladies room.” She got up and came over to him. She bent down until her mouth breathed into his ear. “How about you wait thirty seconds or so, then come back to join me there.”
Her whisper made him tingle, at first with arousal. But apprehension overtook him. No, she wasn’t propositioning him for a quickie in the ladies’ room. Why then did she want him to join her there? Her eyes said it as she straightened.
“Just give me a minute, OK?” She winked at him, but even that conveyed more than a flirtatious come hither. But she walked off, not giving him a chance to ask.
Martin dropped his gaze back to the wine list. The lettering turned into a blur. He let his eyes dart here and there, above the wine menu, to the left, to the right. Had she detected some danger? What had he missed?
“Hi.” The waiter was standing to Martin’s left—one more thing he’d missed.
“Oh, hi.” Martin thumbed behind him. “My date’s gone to powder her nose.”
“Want me to come back?”
“Yeah, just give us a few.”
“OK, let me go get your bread and crackers basket, then.”
The waiter left. How long had that taken? Enough to consume thirty seconds, no doubt. Probably a lot more. Not knowing the exact answer flustered him. Maybe the extra wait had caused Sasha to bolt. God, he was really flubbing this.
Martin closed the wine list, set it on top of his plate, and got up to go to the bathroom. He tried keeping his steps even, uneventful, nothing more than a stroll to the little boys’ room.
The sign for the restrooms took him down a corridor that went by the entrance into the kitchen. The men’s restroom door stood farthest, at the end of the hall. The woman’s restroom entrance came first. Martin stood by it. Really? She wanted him to go in? He knocked.
She parted the door. Instead of pulling him in, she stepped out and took him by the hand. “We go out through the kitchen.”
“What?” He held his ground, even when she took a half step away and pulled on his arm.
“Martin. No time to explain. We need to go.”
He swallowed. What was this all about? Was she taking him away from danger, or into a trap?
She tugged on his arm again, and this time he gave way. They stepped into a steamy kitchen. Cooks and dishwashers and waiters gave them puzzled looks. Sasha kept pulling him along. Before anyone could object, they’d gone halfway down what appeared as the main walkway among prep tables and fired up stoves. They turned right around a shiny metal table.
From a knife block, Sasha pulled two paring knives.
“Hey!” someone shouted behind them.
They kept moving. A blast of cool evening air greeted them when she snapped open the back door. They stepped through it and into the night.
“This way,” Sasha said, his wrist in one hand, and two knives in the other.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re finding my car.”
They got to the end of the alley, and she stopped. Martin pressed against her right shoulder. She let go of his wrist and scanned left and right.
“Let’s go,” she said, and they were moving again. “There.”
With the knives she pointed at a Mini Cooper. With her right hand, she took out her keys. The car beeped. Its inside light came on. Martin got in the driver side without her having to tell him so. At least he got that right. He was still clutching for the seat belt when the engine roared to life. A second later, before he could engage the seatbelt’s latch, she was speeding away.
“What’s going on?”
“I didn’t like that place.” She screeched around a corner and scanned her mirrors. “Gave me the wrong vibe.”
“Why?”
She screeched around another corner. Martin took that as all the answer she would give. His gaze darted around, to the back, through the side passenger side mirror. He couldn’t see any cars giving chase. Then again, what did he know about this type of situation?
“Can we slow down?” he said.
“Not at the moment.”
His gaze dropped down to the center console and the two paring knifes she’d deposited there.
16» T-Boned
She’d have to tell him. Sasha couldn’t see any way around it. Martin had done well enough, asking only the occasional “where are we going?” He hadn’t panicked. Good on him. They’d trained him well, she guessed, even if she could see the edges of his bravado frayed with each sharp turn she took.
“Can we talk?” he said. His voice wavered between a reasoned request and the fear that bubbled underneath it.
She slowed down. No sense in getting away from them, only to get stopped by a cop.
“Come on, Sasha. Maybe I can help?”
She stopped short of snickering at that. Still, he was right. She needed help. They’d come into the restaurant. No matter how much care she’d taken to ensure neither the Americans nor anyone else had the place under surveillance, how could she really tell that, all by herself? Maybe she should call Chana. Like she should’ve done before she agreed to meet Martin.
“It’s OK,” she said.
Martin pointed at the knives. “And those? Gift set for me?”
She tried to grin back. “It’s a fetish of sorts. I’m a klepto when it comes to professional grade knives.”
Her quip didn’t have the desired effect. “Can we be serious for a second, Sasha?”
“You started it.” She nodded at the knives.
“I wasn’t kidding.”
She weighed her words. How much should she tell him? “It’s not your issue, OK?”
“It’s my issue if I’m riding along with my hair on fire.”
“Fair.” She sniffled and wrinkled her nose. “Let’s just say some ugly guys got wind of my little stock market thing, OK?”
“Uh-huh. And?”
“I think I saw one of them at the restaurant.”
“One of them?”
“Might have been two, in the lobby.” She tried to make light of it with a smile. “I overheard them say they had no reservations.”
“And they didn’t care because it’s not like they were there for a nice steak and a glass of wine.”
Sasha did her best to uphold her smile. “No, they weren’t there for that.”
“So what do they want?”
“What else? What everyone wants these days.”
She left it at that, and was glad to see Martin leave it at that, too, with nothing more than a shake of the head. They drove on for a few minutes along the 10 Freeway, headed west away from Downtown LA and approaching the 405 interchange. Once there, she headed north, passed Wilshire, and got off at the second exit.
“UCLA is around here,” she said. “I’d give you a tour if it were a different time of day.”
Sasha turned to see him struggling to piece together the significance of what she’d said.
“It’s where I did my undergrad, remember?” she added.
“Oh, yeah.”
Sure,
he remembered it all. Like she was sure he remembered all about the first and last time they made love. Like he had space in that brain of his for anything other than computer code.
“So… is your place around here?” he asked.
Total newbie question, too. Last thing you’d do if you thought the bad guys were after you is go to your known place of residence.
“I’m checking in on a friend’s house.”
“Uh-huh. Nice neighborhood. What does your friend do to afford a place around here?”
“Oh, you know. Imports and exports. Or something like it.”
Martin shook his head again.
“The family is out of town. Asked me to look after their place. House-sitting without the sitting.”
“Right.”
They came to an intersection where their direction of travel did not have stop signs. Sasha slowed and rolled through at even speed.
She saw it too late. With headlights off, a tall front grill aimed straight at her. Her eyes widened at the approaching hunk of metal, and she punched the accelerator. Her reaction managed to avoid a full-on T-bone strike. But the careening front grill still caught the backend of her car, driver side. The crunching of thin metal and shattering of tempered glass came an instant later.
And they were spinning and spinning, until the front passenger tire rose up a slanted curb to smash against a telephone pole.
When he came to, Martin’s gaze landed on the center console. Where had the knives gone? That’s the first thing he thought as his mind struggled to make sense of the airbag pressing against his face, and the sharp pain he felt on the right side of his head. Where had the knives gone? That seemed to matter to him more than anything else, even the throbbing that pulsated along his skull.
Sasha. She was gone, too. With the knives, perhaps.
Why would he jump to that conclusion, though? The car. It had spun and spun after the initial hit. The knives could have flown anywhere. He felt around his abdomen. Maybe he’d find them sticking into his side. No. Not there. He felt his head. A trickle of blood flowed over and around his right ear. He turned toward the door. His eyes traced a radiating crack that stretched out from the top right corner of the window, where his head had struck, he realized now.
Feral: An Our Cyber World Prequel Page 10