She’d been taught how to break joints, gouge eyes, choke, cut with a knife. Hours devoted to this every day, over years and years. All for Janssen, yes, to become what he needed her to be.
Every skill she absorbed, every pound of lean muscle she gained, also served to calm that frightened and brutalized girl inside her.
Militich had only fought for his life with her, she knew this. He hadn’t fought to dominate her, to wear her down so he could touch her in any vile way he wanted. He hadn’t smiled at her, hadn’t said things to her, hadn’t made her say things to him.
Nonetheless, the effect was the same. The girl she had worked hard to put to rest was awake again. Seated on the edge of a strange bed in a postsunset darkness, waiting, she vowed that he would pay for this, and soon.
Men were the prey now, and she was the one with the power.
A little before eight she received a text, assumed it was Janssen informing her that he wasn’t far away and that she should come down and wait for him outside. What it contained, instead, was a set of directions, brief and to the point.
A change in plan.
She tried not to read anything into to this—it was curt, there was no doubt about that—and quickly memorized these new instructions, then returned the phone to her pocket.
She slung the mechanic’s bag over her shoulder, grabbed the Maglite flashlight, and followed its circle of white down the long hallway to ornate stairs, making her way to the ground floor and through the kitchen. Once outside, she switched off the light and paused in the shadow of the building to have a look around.
Without her overcoat—it was buried, along with her disguise, on the edge of that backyard—she was cold, but certainly he would bring her a replacement. Anyway, living the way she had lived these past several days, she was becoming used to such discomforts.
Sensing nothing unusual from her surroundings, she walked to the sedan. In it she rode west, back toward Southampton. Less than twenty-four hours ago, her dress torn and bloodied, she had fled that same town. Of course, the woman who had done that wasn’t Evangeline Amendora—dark-haired, tall, sleek—but instead another woman, one who didn’t resemble her at all: red hair, blue eyes, fuller through the torso, taller still, thanks to high heels. There was for her no reason to fear returning to these streets, no reason to travel them with anything other than confidence.
There were, if anything, things to look forward to.
Whenever he traveled, Janssen stayed only in the best of places, ate only at the finest restaurants—in a town such as this, there had to be plenty for him to choose from. She looked forward to the comforts she had long since grown accustomed to—plush beds, crisp sheets, silky soaps, hot baths. There was work to do, yes, but it wasn’t unreasonable, she believed, to expect they’d share a warm meal first, maybe even go off for a little time alone together. She craved his touch, the way he looked at her, the smell of him. There was no doubt he craved her, too. He required nightly lovemaking, sometimes hours of it. A vital man with complex desires. This was the longest they had gone without each other since the night he had saved her from São Paulo life.
Her destination was a municipal parking lot on the edge of a small park in the heart of that village. Not far at all from the apartment on Meeting House Lane. She wondered if Militich, bleeding and drugged and panicked, had run through here as he made his escape.
Arriving, she saw the black Town Car right away. She steered the sedan to a far corner, where the lot was darkest. Carrying the small duffle with her, she headed toward the waiting vehicle. As she did, the driver, Karl, emerged. He opened the back door for her, and when she saw that the rear seat was empty, she knew something was wrong.
She slowed, then stopped altogether. Karl was a giant of a man. He was wearing a dark, well-tailored suit, had narrow slits for eyes.
“He’s waiting,” he said.
She didn’t bother to ask what was going on. Karl had been with Janssen long before she’d come along. It was Karl, in fact, who had found her, fed her the first real meal she’d had in a long time, then cleaned her up himself and brought her to Janssen. A filthy girl of sixteen back then, malnourished and, in all ways, wild.
It was Karl who had gotten her out of Brazil, whisked her across borders, guarded her as if she were his own as they traveled by car and train and ship. Her first of many long journeys. It was Karl, too, who had taught her so much of what she knew about hunting and killing men.
No point, then, in asking him any questions. She was Janssen’s lover, his prized possession, most valuable asset, but Karl—brutal, ugly Karl, devoted and stoic and merciless—was Janssen’s right arm.
“Come along,” he said. His accent was Russian, his English, though, perfect. “We shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Reaching the Town Car, she threw her bag onto the floor and climbed in after it.
Once Karl was behind the wheel—he all but filled the driver’s seat—he looked back at her in the rearview mirror, studying the marks on her face. “Do you need medical attention?” he said.
“No.”
He nodded, said nothing more as he drove from the lot.
A five-minute ride down a wide boulevard, beyond her window grand mansions standing behind tall hedges. Three long blocks of this, and then, suddenly, at this street’s end, the Atlantic Ocean.
Karl turned into the empty parking lot—more than empty, desolate—and made a wide arc so that when he came to a stop, Eve’s side was facing the water.
She looked at his eyes in the narrow frame of the rearview mirror. He said nothing, simply nodded off to the right, in the direction of the beach, indicating that she should look there.
She saw nothing at first, and then, down by the surf line, she spotted the figure of a lone man.
Despite the distance and the darkness, she recognized him at once.
Exiting the Town Car, she crossed from the pavement onto the soft sand. The noise of the crashing waves got louder as she got nearer to him. When she was halfway he looked over his shoulder and saw her approaching, turned to face her.
He was wearing a long overcoat and scarf, both dark, a black suit and shoes. The finest of materials, of course—wool, silk, cotton, leather. Nothing less than that for him—nothing less than that for them.
He was tall, elegant, regal; he exuded power—more, even, than the giant Russian who came with him everywhere he went. It was a physical power, yes, a promise of remorselessness and malice that showed in the way he stood and the way he looked at you when he spoke—and didn’t speak—but it was also the kind of power that comes with wealth, that belongs to men who always come out on top, would have been dead long ago if they didn’t. Cunning men, men cutting for themselves a trail marked with the broken and the dead.
His hands were deep in the pockets of his overcoat, and he was holding the garment tightly around himself. She knew by this not to expect a lover’s greeting. She knew, too, in an instant, that there would be no invitation back to his expensive hotel room, no warm meal or hot bath, no brief but tender dose of him.
This was business.
As always, once she read his mood, she deferred to it.
“Hello, Evie,” he said. His deep voice easily broke through the sound of the waves crashing behind him.
“Hello.”
He looked her over, taking note of the scratch on her face and the bruise under her eye. The evidence of her failure. She just stood there, let him see her, see through her.
“Things have gotten ... tricky all of a sudden,” he said finally.
She waited, saying nothing.
“The best of plans can fall apart, I realize that,” he said, “but last night’s error has required me to get directly involved. The more directly involved I am, the more I risk exposure. Do you understand this?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to make this right.”
“I will. I promise.”
“My sources tell me that Militich’s friend has be
en taken into protective custody. The kid claims to have no idea where Militich has gone. Of course, I need to know whether that’s true or not.” He paused, glanced up and down the beach, studying their surroundings carefully, then looked at her again and said, “How badly do you think you hurt Militich?”
“I didn’t hit any arteries. There would have been more blood, and he would have bled out in a minute or so. They would have found him out on the street. The closest I came was a cut to his inner thigh. The deepest cut, I think, was across his stomach.”
“Enough to open his gut?”
“No.”
Janssen thought about that for a moment.
“No one with any kind of knife wound has been admitted to the hospital in the past twenty-four hours,” he said. “None of the taxi companies or train personnel have reported seeing a bleeding man. So he has to be somewhere nearby. Very nearby. Someone would’ve had to patch him up. If we’re lucky, he’s still with that someone, too hurt to move.” Janssen paused again, then said, “Are you sure you heard him right?”
“Yes. He said things would go badly for you if he were killed.”
“The bluff of a desperate man?”
“He seemed to believe what he was saying, but it’s possible he was bluffing.”
Janssen thought about that, too. Then he said, “Unless you hear otherwise, the objective is to kill him. The only hope we have right now of finding him is that kid. I want you to go to his place, do a complete search. I want every number on his caller ID, his last outgoing phone call. I want photographs, address books, matchbooks, everything. Are we clear?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“If worse comes to worse, we go in and grab him. They only have one cop watching him. I’d rather it didn’t come to that, of course. I’d rather not start killing cops. We’re supposed to be tying up loose ends here, not creating new ones.”
“I understand.”
“And I’m going to need you to stay at that place till this is over. I need this for two reasons. First, I want you to know what we stand to lose if we don’t find Militich. Second, this just might have to end there, so I want you to set up the basement. Okay?”
Eve nodded again.
“Karl has some things for you. Food, clean clothes, some additional equipment. And he has photographs of the kid.” He looked Eve up and down one last time. “You know your value to me,” he said, “but you cannot fail again. Is that clear?”
“Very.”
Janssen stepped toward her and removed his left hand from his coat pocket. He handed her a piece of paper. “These are directions to where the kid lives. His place has an alarm system, but my contact provided the code. It’s written below the address. The police are on their way there right now. Apparently this Rakowski kid has two women staying with him. You’ll have to give the cops time to clear out. With the kid in custody, you won’t be disturbed, so take your time, be as thorough as you can.”
Eve placed the paper in her pocket. Janssen stepped closer still. Even with the gusts of seaside wind rushing past them, she could smell him now.
Her stomach tightened.
“You have till morning to make this right,” he said.
In the warmth of the Town Car again, the two of them in the dark backseat, together briefly, Karl driving, not once looking back at them in the rearview mirror. Privacy now, so she dared to reach across the seat and take his hand. He accepted the gesture, intertwined his fingers with hers—his hand thick, the brutish hand of a butcher, her fingers long and slender and strong. He kept his eyes forward, but she looked at him, studied his profile.
When they reached the village parking lot, Karl, without looking back, handed over the seat a package wrapped in festive birthday paper. She exited the Town Car, her mechanic’s bag over her shoulder, the box under one arm. Not an unusual sight then, a beautiful woman, bearing a gift, exiting such a car. As the Town Car drove away, she walked to the sedan, got in and drove back to the abandoned hotel, then made her way to her room at the end of the upper hall.
It was there that she removed the wrapping and opened the box.
Inside was a black leather jacket, short-waisted, with a quilted flannel lining; black leather gloves; a few more days’ worth of food, toiletries, and clothing; a lock-picking kit; and a hard plastic box, similar to a handgun case but slightly larger.
She knew what the case contained but opened it anyway, saw the tracking device and small notebook computer and micro satellite dish, checked to make sure everything was there and in working order. She let this task take time because she had time to kill, and because there was no room for failure.
Closing the case, she placed it in her mechanic’s bag, along with the lock-picking kit, then grabbed the jacket and put it on—a perfect fit, of course. Placing the gloves in the pockets, she checked the directions and saw that the place where Militich’s friend lived was actually only a few miles away—not far, in fact, from the train station at which she had arrived all those long nights ago.
She memorized the directions, then tore the paper to pieces and picked up the photographs of the kid, studying them. Surveillance photos, taken by the team that had observed Militich prior to her arrival. On the back of one were notes written in Janssen’s hand.
Rakowski, Adam C. Goes by name Cal. Twenty-two, five-foot-nine, one hundred and fifty pounds. Shorter than she, and only ten pounds heavier. A pup, a pretty boy—no match for her.
When she was done with the photos she tore them up, too, flushed their pieces, along with the pieces of paper that had been the directions, down the toilet. Nothing left then but to let the time pass—an hour, and then another, just to be safe. It took all she had, though, to keep herself still and quiet her mind. Finally, at eleven, she was done with all her waiting. More than that, she felt the return of the one thing that would save her, the only thing that put real distance between herself and that slum child running wild: a purpose, and everything depending on her fulfilling it.
A slow drive past the garage—as sorry-looking as the hotel, easily. It was dark, not a sign of anyone inside or out. She maintained her speed as she passed, didn’t once touch the brake pedal. If you can’t learn to see what you need with a quick look, Karl had once told her, then go back to selling your body for money. A few hundred yards and several turns in the road later, she pulled over and parked, killing the lights and engine. She needed to leave distance between this vehicle and her destination, but not a distance that she couldn’t quickly cross. A trade-off, but that was what this job was, a series of calculated risks, as reasonable a balance as was possible between precautions heeded and precautions ignored.
Carrying her bag, the leather gloves on, she backtracked on foot, walking along the edge of the dark road, careful not to stray from the pavement. Once she reached the building, she paused briefly, sizing it up, determining several routes of escape. Crossing the gravel driveway to the door, she entered the code into the keypad, deactivating the alarm. Using the picklock, she had the door open in less than half a minute.
With her small flashlight she quick-searched the office, conscious always of the fact that not far away was a large window that looked out onto the driveway and the road beyond. There wasn’t much to this room—just a desk and chair, no filing cabinet or safe. Looking through the desk drawers, she found only work orders, names and addresses and phone numbers, makes and years of cars and lists of parts and total hours of labor. She placed the papers in her bag—one of these names and addresses might prove useful—then left the office, moving slowly through three work bays. In each was an old vehicle. Along the wall to her right was a workbench, on top of it several tool chests of varying size. A clean workspace—this kid, like her, took care of his tools. A tidy workshop, maybe, but the place smelled of oil and grease and gasoline, an odor that was both pungent and stale.
In the third bay was a shelf and what looked to her like a motorcycle covered with a canvas tarp. It was there that she saw what she was loo
king for: a set of plank steps leading up.
Climbing them, she felt soft, rotting wood beneath her feet. Just like back at the hotel. At the top was a door that wasn’t any better. She walked through it, into a makeshift kitchen, and from there into a large living room.
On the other side of that living room were two bedrooms divided by a bathroom. She entered the bedroom to the left, began to search through it, smelled instantly a hint of roses; saw, though, none. It was a small room, just big enough for a single bed and bureau. She opened each of the bureau drawers, found that all but one were empty, and in that one only a handful of things. A woman’s things. On the bureau top was a small vial of jasmine rose oil. This explained the smell. So, not this kid’s room, his woman’s room.
She then moved to the other bedroom, found that it, like the first one, was furnished only with a single bed and bureau. Unlike the other room, there was no smell of roses here. She opened the bureau drawers; all but one were empty. What that one contained wasn’t anything that would help her. This room, she realized, had a closet. Opening it, she saw a leather jacket and motorcycle helmet, both hanging on hooks within easy reach. Further in the closet, on a long bar, hung clothes. Above the bar, shelves, upon which were small cardboard boxes. She stepped inside the closet, intending to examine these boxes, felt suddenly one of the planks beneath her feet give slightly.
She paused, shined her light down at it, then knelt.
A loose floorboard.
She was feeling around its edges, looking to pry it up, when she heard a noise coming up from the garage below.
The sound of a door being closed.
She stood, listened again, heard even more noise. Someone was here. She left the closet, then the bedroom, moving as carefully as she could. Finding a window, she looked down at the gravel driveway below, saw, though, no sign of a vehicle. A minute passed, and she heard even more noise coming up from downstairs.
[2010] The Violet Hour Page 13