by J. L. Fynn
“This is a set up,” I answered for him.
“I guess you're not quite as stupid as Michael led me to believe,” the man said. “Marie was worried you might not show up today. I told you everything would work out, though, didn't I sweetheart.”
“Yes, Mr. Williamson,” Marie said to her hands. The name clanged like a gong inside my head. Williamson. So this was Michael's Northern Traveler connection, and a member of one of the cruelest, most underhanded families I'd ever heard of.
Jim was no stranger to the “Terrible Williamsons” either. “You little bitch.” He took a step toward Marie, but when the left-hand thug reached for his pistol, I put my arm out to bar his way.
Marie finally lifted her face to scowl at us. “It ain't my fault you two were fool enough to believe Michael Sheedy would just hand over a big score to the likes of you. You're a disgrace to our clan. The both of you.”
“That's rich coming from a little whore,” Jim said.
Marie shot out of her seat. “Better a whore than an abomination!”
Jim moved again, and Marie flew forward to meet him. I stepped between them, getting slammed on both sides.
“All right,” Williamson said, coming into the room. His tone was enough to still them both. “Marie, dear, you've done your job brilliantly. Kenny here,” he gestured to the right-hand thug, “will take you to find some breakfast before you leave for the airport.”
Marie glared at Jim and me for a moment before she nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Williamson. That's very kind.” She turned a saccharine smile to him. “And you'll let Michael know you were pleased with my performance? I wouldn't want him second-guessing his decision to take me on as a daughter-in-law.”
“Don't give it a second thought, love. You'll get a glowing recommendation from me, I promise.”
She beamed as she turned to leave the room. Kenny extended a hand, which he pressed to her back once she'd joined him, and guided her through the door. She disappeared without a backward glance, leaving us alone with Williamson and his second guard.
“So what now?” Jim asked.
I could already guess where this was headed, but I looked to Williamson for the answer anyway.
“Now, Michael Sheedy gets what he paid for.” He turned to the remaining guard, my friend from the elevators. “Make it quick, Sean. We have a meeting downtown in less than an hour. I’ll meet you at the car when you’re finished.” Williamson adjusted the knot in his silk tie and headed for the door, but then turned back. “And try not to get any blood on your suit. You won't have time to change before we leave.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
SEAN KEPT HIS weapon trained on us as he loaded us into the private elevator outside Williamson’s office. He got in last and hit a button with his elbow, the doors sliding closed behind him.
“What do you get paid for this kind of wet-work?” Jim asked. “I imagine it’s pretty good.”
Sean shrugged the shoulder not holding a gun. “I do all right.”
“Sure,” Jim said. “But you gotta have the stomach for it, I guess.”
Sean leaned back against the elevator wall, contemplating this. “Gets easier,” he said. “Like anything else you do over and over.”
I almost laughed. It all seemed so absurd, like we were at some conman convention exchanging tips of the trade. Except instead of bag drops and short changes, we were talking about murder. With the guy who was about to get in a little more practice, compliments of Michael Sheedy.
The elevator eased to a stop, and the doors slid open. A dim corridor stretched out in front of us.
“This is our floor, boys,” Sean said. He waved us out into the narrow hall and then stepped out after us. “Let’s move. I don’t have all day.”
“Wouldn’t want you to miss your meeting,” I said. Being a smart ass to the guy with the gun was rarely a good idea, but this wasn’t going to turn in our favor no matter how sweet I was.
We started down the hall: Jim, me, then Sean and his gun, which I could feel aimed straight at my back even though I couldn’t see it. “So, why’d he set us up?” I asked. “Michael, I mean. I know he wants to take over, but having us killed seems a little extreme, don’t you think?”
“Listen, I don’t get involved in all that; I just do my job. You got some beef with your clan leader, that’s none of my business.”
Jim stopped and turned around, bringing our little parade to a halt. “He’s not our clan leader,” Jim said. “My father is. Michael Sheedy is a power-hungry piece of shit, and there’s no way he’s going to get away with this.”
Sean gave an exhausted sigh. “This is exactly why most of us don’t mess with this clan leader bullshit. You fucking hicks got it all backwards down there. You could be making real money for yourselves, but instead you lot can’t wipe your own asses without some old man telling you how and when.” He lifted the gun so it was pointed at Jim’s head. “Now move.”
Jim’s eyes flashed, but he turned and started walking again. When we’d gone about halfway down the hall, there was a break in the long wall that opened into a maintenance room. Two tarps had already been laid out on the floor. You had to admire the guy’s efficiency.
“Who wants to go first?” Sean asked. “I’ll let you pick.”
What a sweetheart. I looked at Jim, who looked back at me. His expression was unreadable, but then, I wasn’t sure what I expected. There were too many thoughts running through my mind for me to process a single one, let alone figure out how I felt about it. We’d been set up. Marie had betrayed us. I’d never see Maggie or my son again. I was about to watch my best friend die. I was about to die. It was too much to make sense of.
Apparently it was too much for Jim too. He buried his face in his hands and his shoulders shook. “Do him first,” he said, though it was hard to make out his words through the sobbing. “Please. I’m not ready yet.”
I was stunned. To be honest, I would have preferred it that way anyway, but to actually hear Jim tell this asshole to kill me first was the last thing I’d expected. I looked from Jim to Sean and back, trying to wrap my head around what was happening.
“Oh Christ. Fine, but knock it off with the crying already. Jesus. Have a little dignity, man.” Sean grabbed my shirt collar and dragged me toward one of the tarps. My feet tangled in each other, and I stumbled forward. “On your knees,” he said.
I sank down as instructed, my mind still scrambling to catch up. I felt the cold muzzle of Sean’s gun press against the base of my skull, and my eyes squeezed shut without any help from me. I couldn’t get control of my breath and it rasped in and out in short bursts. My pulse thrashed so violently I thought my heart might explode before the bullet had a chance to do its work.
“Umph,” Sean grunted.
Suddenly, the gun was gone from my head and clattering across the cement floor. Sean fell into a heap beside me, dazed, but still conscious. We stared at one another for a second, both stunned by this new turn of events. But the shock wore off quickly, and he rolled to his knees and groped for the gun.
“Go,” Jim said, his tone steady and commanding once again. He yanked me to my feet, and we both bolted for the hall.
“Stop!” Sean screamed, still on his hands and knees. “You’re dead.”
I turned toward the elevator, but Jim grabbed my arm and swung me around. “This way!” He shoved me forward, and soon we were running toward the opposite end of the corridor where hints of daylight broke through the edges of what had to be an exterior door at the end of the hall. If it was locked we’d be dead in seconds, but if it was open…
“Stop!” Sean yelled again, but this time the word was accompanied by the crack of a gunshot, deafening despite the suppressor on the end of his pistol.
I ducked my head, running faster now. The bullet imbedded itself in the thick wall to my right and sent a spray of concrete shards down on my head and neck. He fired another shot just as my outstretched hands reached the door and pushed it open. Cold air
whooshed into my lungs as we flew through the door and into an ally behind the hotel.
“The street,” Jim said and took the lead. He sprinted across the ally and squeezed through a metal gate that had been closed with a mercifully loose chain. I dived through it right after him. I heard the door open again and looked back to see Sean burst into the ally. Blood poured from a cut above his eye. Whatever reason he had for killing us before, it was personal now. He took a few steps, his gun drawn and ready to fire off another shot, but then daylight and common sense seemed to catch up with him. He glanced around. Seething, he glared at me and drew the pistol across his neck, then turned back to the hotel.
“We need to find a car,” I said, turning back to see Jim looking down the street one way and then the other. “Look for something easy to hot-wire.”
I turned left and jogged down the sidewalk twenty feet or so, scanning the line of cars parked along the street. When my eyes landed on a little blue Honda Accord, my heart actually skipped a beat. “Jim,” I called. “Down here.”
We ran to the car. I was already half out of my boot by the time I’d reached the driver’s side and Jim had circled around to the passenger’s. I pulled off the boot the rest of the way and put it over my hand. I slammed both into the back window with no results at first. By the third strike, small cracks spider-webbed across the glass, and by the fifth my arm went through. I shook the boot off my hand and pulled it out, not caring that the jagged glass had sliced my forearm to the elbow. I used my shoulder to knock the window in the rest of the way, and reached up to unlock the driver’s door. Once I was in, I opened Jim’s door too, then reached under the dash to pull out a handful of wires. “Knife?”
Jim slid into his seat and dug in his pocket for a second. He grunted with the effort, but soon found what he was looking for. There was blood on his fingers when he put the knife in my hand, and I frowned at him. “What—”
He shook his head and pushed the knife harder into my hand. “Just get this thing started, would you?”
I hesitated for a second, but we didn’t have time to waste. I opened the blade and stripped the ends of two red wires and twisted them together. I pulled a third wire, this one brown, from the tangle and stripped it down to its copper innards, which I twisted around the others. The car sputtered and a few hits of gas brought it rumbling to life. In minutes, we navigated our way down the side street, headed toward the highway and home.
“Thank Christ!” I whooped. “Remind me to light a candle for Saint Jude when we get back. If that wasn’t a hopeless case, I don’t know what is.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to,” Jim said, his voice strained.
I remembered the blood on his fingertips and turned my head, afraid of what I’d find. Jim was hunched in the seat, his arm slung across his abdomen. He held his hand over his side, but the dark blood seeping from the gunshot wound had already spread past his fingers.
CHAPTER FORTY
“WE HAVE TO find a hospital,” I said. I cut the wheel, swerving into the next lane. Ignoring the blaring horn of the driver who had to slam on his breaks to avoid hitting us, I hit the gas again, scanning road signs for anything that might direct us toward medical attention.
“And tell them what? I tripped and landed on a bullet?” Jim started to laugh, but it was cut short by a painful wince. He sucked air through his teeth.
“Who cares what we tell them. They can help you.”
“Pull the car over,” he said.
“What?” I glanced at him, but only for a second before I turned back to the road and my search for a hospital sign. “Jim, we don’t have time.”
“Exactly. We don’t have time. Pull over.”
“I’m not stopping this car unless there’s a big sign that says ‘Emergency Room’ in front of it.”
“Tommy.” His voice was quiet, resigned. “I’m dying. Do you really want to spend the last few minutes I’ve got arguing with me?”
My arms felt like lead, but somehow I managed to steer the car onto a side street and put it in park. I turned to look at my friend. He was pale and sweating, his arm was still braced against his stomach. The blood staining his shirt and hand was almost black. The bullet must’ve hit his liver, and it wouldn’t take much longer for him to lose more blood than his body could stand. “Tell me what to do, Jim. There has to be something I can do.”
“You can listen to me,” he said.
I shook my head. My eyes felt hot, and my throat burned. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant, Tommy boy, but there’s nothing you can do now but listen to what I have to say. You owe me that.”
“I owe you so much, Jim. I’ve been a terrible friend. You saved my life back there, and now I’m just going to sit here and watch you die. My head just wasn’t in this con. All I kept thinking about was myself and Maggie.” My voice broke when I said her name, and hot tears spilled down my face. “Jesus, Jim. Maggie. I’m so sorry about Maggie.”
Jim made a noise that was somewhere between a chuckle and a cough. “For a man who promised to listen, you’re doing an awful lot of yapping.”
Whatever humor he found in the moment was lost on me, but I tried to smile anyway. Still, I couldn’t stop the shuddery sob that seized my chest. I swiped at my cheek and nose with my uninjured forearm. “Sorry,” I said.
He gave another raspy chuckle. “It’s fine, Tommy. All of it. None of it is your fault, especially not this.” He tipped his head down toward his bleeding belly. “This was my own fault. You tried to warn me at least a dozen times, but I was too stubborn to listen.”
“I should have tried harder. I should have made you listen.”
“Tommy, stop,” Jim said. He struggled to turn in his seat and after a few pained grunts and grimaces, was sitting with his back against the door. “Listen to me. You can’t blame yourself for this, or anything else. You’re a good man. You’re the best man I know. It’s why I love you so much, and why I’ve always hated you a little. You’re just so damn…good.”
I could barely see through the tears now. My whole body shook. “Jim, you’re the only family I’ve ever had. You can’t—” the words hitched in my throat. “You can’t.”
“You know how it goes when you tell me I can’t do something.” He tried to smile, but his eyelids were heavy, and he struggled to keep his head up.
“I’m not going to let Michael get away with this, Jim. I’ll kill him myself if I have to, but there’s no way he’s walking away from what he’s done.”
Jim lifted his chin enough to look me in the eye. “No, Tommy, that’s not the way this is going down. Revenge isn’t going to do me any good, and you’ll probably end up getting yourself killed. Michael Sheedy’s life is punishment enough. Even if he worms his way into the top spot, no one will ever love him like they do my dad, and that’ll kill him every damn day.” Jim paused, sucking another sharp breath through his teeth. He coughed, and when his eyes squeezed shut, tears slid down the side of his nose. He sniffed. “You have to get away, Tommy. Take Maggie and Jimmy Boy and run.”
I nodded, my throat too tight to speak. I knew he was right, but I also knew there was no way I could let Michael get away with this.
“There’s a safe in my dad’s office,” he said. “It’s where he keeps the clan’s money. I’m not sure how much is there, but I guarantee it’ll be enough to set you up for a good long time, and my pop’s not going to be around much longer to use it anyway. Give you one guess what the combination is.”
Tears pooled at the corners of my lips when I smiled. “Your mom’s birthday.”
“Bingo,” he said. “Not very safe, if you ask me, since anyone who knows him could guess it.”
“You can’t blame him. He loved her more than life. It’s probably the only number he can think of.”
“I wish I’d had the chance to love someone like that,” Jim said. His voice was barely a whisper now, and his eyes were losing focus. “The way you love Maggie.”
“Jim, I—”
“Promise me you’ll take care of her, Tommy. And our boys. Be the father I couldn’t be. Promise.”
“I promise. And I promise I won’t let them forget you.” I swiped at my face again, hiding a fresh wave of tears behind my arm for a second before I could go on. “I promise Jim.” I reached for his hand. It was limp in mine. “Jim?”
He’d gone still. His eyes stared at nothing, his chest no longer rising. The hand pressed against his wound had fallen to his hip. I draped my arm over the wheel and pressed my face into it. Jim was gone, and I was alone, sobbing into the steering wheel of a stolen car.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
FOR THE SECOND time in a week, I drove at a slow crawl down the paved road that ran through the Village. This time I was determined not to be seen and had even turned the headlights off as soon as I’d passed through the woods that separated us from the main road. I leaned forward, squinting into the dark through the windshield.
There was only one person I wanted to see. But as desperate as I was to get to Maggie, I was also terrified. I had no idea what I’d say. I wasn’t sure if I could say anything at all. My throat was raw, and my head and stomach ached. I hadn’t stopped for more than gas since I’d moved Jim to the back seat at a rest area just outside of Chicago. I’d found a blanket in the trunk to wrap him in, and was so grateful I’d dug out the registration from the dash and made a mental note to send the car’s owner a few grand and an anonymous note of thanks. But that would have to wait. First, I had to tell the woman I loved more than anything in the world that her husband, the man I’d loved like a brother, had gotten himself killed saving my life.
I pulled up to the house and shut the car off. There was a light on inside, but only a soft glow. Probably a small lamp Maggie left on as a kind of beacon to the men who’d left her home and hadn't yet returned. To her husband who’d left and would never come home again. My eyes burned, and my throat tightened, but I didn't have any tears left. I didn't have anything but a dull ache that I wasn't sure would ever go away. I wanted to get out of the car, away from Jim and the metallic smell of blood. But leaving him meant facing her. She’d sent me to Chicago to help Jim, and now he was dead.