by Rachel Rust
Cute? I clamped my mouth shut, not saying anything about his condescending remark or his plan to dump me at another hotel. I checked to make sure my hair was still secure. The black fabric tied around it was purposeful, and not a style decision. Eddie may have had his plans, but I had one, too. A plan that he would absolutely not like.
But there wasn’t time to worry about that, because Luke was moving to the door. The time had come. I was in a dress. Eddie was armed to the hilt. Somewhere, in the dingy buildings of New York, a big muscular man had a date he wasn’t expecting.
I slipped my feet into my black flats. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Sixteen
The brown car Luke had arranged for us to use was older than me. Older than all of us. Its boxy frame clunked and creaked with every small bump in the road, and smelled like an ashtray. It wasn’t an FBI vehicle, and when asked where he got it, he said he was “borrowing it.” I wasn’t sure where the line was between officially commandeering a vehicle and stealing one, but he had probably crossed it.
We headed east, crossing a bridge at some point, through crowded shopping blocks, then through quiet, dark residential blocks, until things grew bleaker. More bars on windows, more trash on the streets. I don’t think my dad had told me any stories of this part of New York.
Luke steered the car into a narrow alley. “Four doors down on the left. Brown door, one guard. He has a sidearm but that’s it.”
“Got it,” Eddie said, hooking a finger into the door handle.
“Wait.” I grabbed his arm to stop him. He turned to look at me and I could just make out his eyes in the darkness. “Please be careful, and if you can’t do it, just back off. Don’t risk it if things don’t work out right.”
“Stick with Luke,” Eddie said. “Once you pass the message onto Gunnar that you’re there, you leave and Luke will take you to the Hyatt. Promise me you’ll stay there until I come for you or until they give you the all-clear.”
“Promise,” I said with a twinge of guilt, having no intention of being left behind.
Eddie and Luke exchanged a long glance.
“You got this,” Luke said. “We’ll meet at the Hatter Street Garage by midnight.”
Eddie nodded. “Take off if I’m not back by then. Get her to the hotel.”
Luke replied in the affirmative. Eddie then slipped out of the car before I even had a chance to say goodbye. The alley shadows enveloped him in a matter of seconds.
He was gone. Again.
Luke backed out of the alley and parked a couple of blocks away. Although my heart ached at being separated from Eddie, the walk to the club felt good. It was the first time I had been able to stretch my legs all week.
The neighborhood was dim, with sparse streetlamps. The storefronts were dark and most did not have signs over the doors. Commerce was not alive and well in this area. Perhaps it was more residential. But the windows overhead weren’t lit up either, as if entirely empty. I shuddered and quickened my steps to keep up with Luke. No way did I want to fall behind and get lost in the darkness of an unknown New York neighborhood.
I heard the club before I saw it. Shitty techno music thumped through the air with a nonstop rhythm. What was I walking into? A skanky club, at best. My own death, at worst.
I latched onto Luke’s arm. We turned the next corner and found ourselves at the back of a line that was spilling out of the club’s doorway under a tattered red awning.
“Come on,” he said, leading me forward. We bypassed the line of about a dozen or so people and walked up to the bouncer.
I shirked back, letting Luke take the lead. He was young, but clearly of age. Whereas I looked exactly like a college freshman trying to scheme her way into a bar. If I’d had makeup, I could have added a year or two to my face, but my squeaky clean face couldn’t be hidden under the bright neon Club Elite lights.
The bouncer was a big white guy, dressed in black pants and a black t-shirt. His bald head made him look like Mr. Clean. He held up a hand as we approached.
“Back of the line,” he said, sounding as if it was the millionth time he had said it.
Luke pointed at me. “She’s a personal friend of one of your VIP clients.”
Mr. Clean scanned me head to toe. “How old are you?”
My mouth opened, but I didn’t know what to say. I dug my fingernails into Luke’s arm.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Luke said. “She’s a personal friend of a VIP client. Why don’t you go ask Gunnar Rivera himself how old she is?”
Mr. Clean studied Luke’s face, expressionless and bored. “Arms up.” We did as we were told and he moved a small wand around the outlines of our bodies. He stepped to the side. “Go on in.”
We hurried inside before he changed his mind.
The music assaulted my ears, drowning out all external and internal sounds, as though I were drowning in an ocean of bad dance music. We pushed through a small crowd of people in the entry way which had walls of red, appearing like blood in the low lighting.
The space was smaller than I had imagined, with a dance floor to the right taking up the majority of the space. To the left, a bar lined the far wall, and a row of tables and chairs separated the calmer, non-dance area from the lively, dry-humping dancers.
Luke looped my arm around his and I held on tight as he led me to the back of the club. Through a break of colorfully-clad patrons, I spotted a trio of large men all dressed in black suits. They stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking a set of stairs which led up. There were no signs denoting a VIP section, but the men in black certainly did.
Luke pulled me forward, depositing me right in front of them. Eddie’s words rang in my head, loud and clear over the deafening techno beats. Dive in head first.
He was back there somewhere, waiting in the shadows of the club for an opportunity to confront Gunnar, to take him out, to help save us. Eddie needed me just as much as I needed him.
With a deep breath, I leaned in toward the nicest-looking guard, which wasn’t saying much because they all looked like prison escapees donning suits that didn’t belong to them. The man, a barrel-chested black man with more earrings in one ear than I had in my entire jewelry arsenal, tilted his head down to me.
“I’m here to see Gunnar,” I shouted into his ear.
He shook his head.
I motioned with my finger for him to lean down again. He did.
“Can I at least get a message to him?” I topped off my question with a bat of my eyelashes and a, “Pretty please?”
He gave me a once-over. “Fine, what’s the message?”
“Tell him Natalie Mancini is here.”
“Mancini?”
“Yes, Natalie Mancini,” I yelled, enunciating each syllable. I smiled with another bat of my eyelashes.
The flirt worked. He turned and walked up the stairs.
My stomach twisted. Things were now in motion, and Eddie had better be prepared. I glanced at Luke, who stepped up and took my arm.
Just as we turned to leave, another security guard grabbed my upper arm.
“Ow,” I said, though it could barely be heard. I tried yanking myself free, but it didn’t work. Eddie’s lessons hadn’t included what to do when someone grabbed me by the upper arm. It was a trickier, more movement-limiting grab than a wrist grab.
“Hey!” Luke yelled. “Let her go.”
The security guard smirked. “You a cop? You look like a cop.”
“A cop?” Luke shouted back. “Why the fuck would you think that?”
The guard’s fingers uncurled from my arm, and with the same hand he grabbed for his gun, holstered on his side under his jacket.
“Whoa,” Luke said, hands up.
I glanced up the stairs. We were running out of time. The second Eddie took out Gunnar, the entire place was going to go into chaos mode and Luke and I would end up in the midst of it. We had to get out now.
The security guard raised the gun to Luke’s chest.
Before I could even register how bad this situation was, Luke’s left arm shot out, knocking the gun away, just as his right hand launched forward, clocking the guard right in the nose. Blood gushed out from between the man’s fingers as he held both hands up to his face.
The third guard threw himself Luke’s direction, tackling him to the floor. I moved back to avoid becoming entangled in their collision and my foot stepped on something small and solid. The second security guard’s gun. He looked at me, wide-eyed, pale face stained with red.
At the same time, we both dove for the gun. But I got to it first, gripping it tight, pointing it at him. He snarled and kept coming for me.
With my left hand, I pulled back the slide on top, loading the chamber. The sharp sound of lethal metal cut cleanly through the haze of crappy music. The guard stepped back, his hands out in a surrender position as I kept the gun steady, aimed at his chest, praying to anything that would listen that I wouldn’t have to pull the trigger.
Luke hopped to his feet next to me and nudged my arm. I stood alongside him, gun still pointed. The music was going. Dancers were doing their thing. With the level of noise and movement all around, the crowd hadn’t even noticed our little scrape.
Luke and I side-stepped the now-unconscious body of the third guard. How Luke had managed to do that, I didn’t even want to know. Luke was a thin guy and didn’t look like he would know how to throw a punch. But apparently behind his skinny frame lurked a man who was quite dangerous.
Luke grabbed the gun from me, grabbed my hand, and we ran like hell. Through the club, past Mr. Clean, and down the block.
We slowed to a walk once the sound of music faded.
“Give me back my gun,” I said, trying and failing not to pant. I was no runner.
“This isn’t your gun.”
“Well, it’s just like the one Eddie was going to give me, so I know how to use it.”
“There’s a round in the chamber, first let me—”
“I’ll do it, hand it over,” I said. As soon as he placed it in my hand, I hit the mag release button and the magazine fell into my hand. I shoved it under my arm, then racked the slide on top, ejecting the unused bullet from the chamber. After loading the bullet back into the magazine, I reloaded the gun.
“Impressive.”
I shrugged. “I’m a 4.0 student. If there’s one thing I do well it’s remember instructions.”
“Good for you. But using the gun is a whole different thing than being able to load it.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that. And trust me, I’m in no rush to know what it’s like to pull the trigger.”
“Someday you might find yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to fire.”
I nodded and whispered, “I’m aware of that, too.”
We walked the rest of the way to the car in silence. We drove five blocks north and parked just inside a small parking ramp that had no security lights. Blackness surrounded the car. Luke reached under his seat and pulled out a silver handgun, much larger than mine.
“What’s that?”
“A Desert Eagle.”
“Looks heavy.”
“It is.”
I looked down at the smaller Glock in my hand. “It shoots bigger bullets than mine?”
“Much bigger. Fifty caliber.”
“Hmm,” I said with a raise of my eyebrows. I knew next to nothing about bullet calibers, but fifty sounded imposing. But I wasn’t sure why bigger bullets would be needed. A bullet was a bullet was a bullet, I figured.
Luke checked the time on his phone. “Eleven-eleven.”
The next forty-nine minutes crawled by in silence. No more conversation as we waited for signs of Eddie. Signs of a successful mission—or at least of a successful escape on his part. Eddie had gotten himself out of a lot of tight jams, and he’d be able to do it again tonight.
An older homeless man shuffled through the parking garage a few minutes to midnight. Luke’s body didn’t react to his presence, but he watched the old man, unflinchingly, until he disappeared from sight.
Everyone’s a suspect.
Midnight came and went. My optimism faded.
At twelve-ten, Luke started up the car.
“We need to wait a few more minutes,” I said, straining my eyes for any signs of movement in the space around us. Any signs of Eddie.
“He’s not here, we leave. That’s the plan. And Eddie, above all else, is a stickler for a plan.”
“I know, but…” Anguish and fear rose up at the thought of leaving without him. I couldn’t handle being separated from him again. I needed him near me, so that I would know he was alive and well with each passing second. “Please, let’s wait.”
Luke put the car into drive. “No. We have to go.”
We pulled out of the parking garage, without Eddie.
Chapter Seventeen
We took a right out of the garage and stopped at a stop sign at the first intersection. The car crawled forward to move again when a loud pop made me jump—just as the back window of the car shattered into countless pieces. I shrank down, covering my face, but glass sprinkled onto my shoulders and the back of my head like hard bits of jagged confetti.
I took in small, shallow breaths and didn’t move for a while, not wanting to cut myself and unsure had just happened. Had another car hit us?
“Luke,” I whispered. Glass spilled from my shoulders as I looked up and brushed a few strands of hair from my face. The car jolted to a stop and I hadn’t even realized we were still moving. In front of us—right in front of us—was a blue minivan that was parked on the other side of the street. We had rolled through the intersection and ran into it.
To my left, Luke moved.
“What happened?” I asked.
Just as I turned to look at him, his body slumped over, his head falling into my lap.
I screamed.
The back of his head was a matted mess of red hair and blood. I barely had time to process his dead body when another pop made me slump down in my seat. This one didn’t break glass though, it pinged onto the back of the car. A gunshot.
And then another pop, another ping against the back car. Screams and tears flew out of me, a deluge of fear and confusion. More gunfire, more metal pings. They came so quickly, there had to be more than one gun. My entire body clenched, knowing any moment one was going to find me. A bullet would find my body, rip through me, and end me. Pain then blackness. My body shuddered and my cries turned into silent, open-mouthed weeping.
The gunfire continued. The backseat window behind me shattered, sending a fresh new spray of glass against the back of my head. More pings against the rear of the car.
Then it stopped.
I remained curled up, arms wrapped around my head with Luke’s lifeless head lying against my hip. The silence was deafening.
My car door flew open and I screamed, launching my body over Luke’s to get to the driver’s seat, away from the long arm reaching into the car for me. A hand grabbed my leg, pulling me back. I kicked and connected with what felt like a shoulder.
“Ow! Jesus, Natalie, it’s me!”
I spun around and squinted to find visual confirmation of the familiar voice. But only a ski mask with eyes stared back at me, and I shirked away. A hand lifted the mask away, and once Eddie’s face came into focus, I threw myself into his arms. We stumbled out of the car, landing on the cool asphalt. I clung to him as tight as I could, sobbing into his neck.
He twisted out of my grip and launched forward into the car. I watched in horror as he lifted and rearranged Luke’s body—the lifeless body of his friend.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
Eddie spun back around with Luke’s cellphone in his hand—the small black flip phone he had used for his stealthy, non-official communications with Eddie and Krissy. “We can’t let anyone intercept this.”
Eddie said no more as he grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. We darted away from the car, behind the minivan,
and onto the sidewalk. I glanced back at the brown car, with its passenger door swung wide open from where I had just escaped. I couldn’t see Luke anymore and I knew I never would again.
On the far side of the intersection, about thirty feet behind Luke’s car, lay another body—face down, lifeless in a dark jacket, with a handgun still in his hand. I turned my head away as we rushed from the scene. It was too much death for one day … for one life.
Tears flowed down my face and I could barely see the sidewalk in front of me. We ran another block before Eddie shoved me into a small alcove between two businesses. He joined me in the shadows, which smelled like garbage. His arms wrapped around me, his mouth against my ear, whispering that it was okay. But it wasn’t and he knew it. His voice shook, his entire body trembled.
“You made it,” I said, feeling around his back and sides with my hands. “Did you get out of the club okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” He let out a low, steadied breath. “It was a close call, but it’s done.”
“You got Gunnar?”
Eddie paused. “He’s dead, yes, but I didn’t kill him. Just as I reached for my gun, one of his guys eyed me, tried to tackle me. Gunnar was killed in the crossfire by one of his own guys’ bullets.”
Eddie’s jaw clenched, but it was difficult to determine if the reaction was disappointment in not killing Gunnar himself, relief of not having to do it himself—or if it wasn’t about Gunnar at all, but rather Luke’s body that lay a few blocks behind us.
I nodded in the direction we had just run from. “That guy back there, the one who…” killed Luke. “Is he one of Gunnar’s?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, leaning back against the dingy brick wall behind him. His eyes closed and his face tightened once again. I expected tears. Or swear words. But neither came. And when he reopened his eyes, he just stood there, staring into space.
“What do we do now?” I didn’t want to rush him and my own body barely wanted to move, but time was not on our side. Nor was the law. “We can’t stay here. What if more of Gunnar’s men are out there? And the police are going to be here any second. I’m sure someone’s called them.”