“I got a silencer.”
He switched the pistol to his splinted left hand and dug out a four-inch cylinder from a pocket with his right. He began screwing it onto the end of the barrel.
“It’s called a ‘suppressor,’” Tier said.
“I call it a ‘silencer.’”
“Ever done any shooting with it?”
“Yeah. Course.”
“Was it silent—that is, made no sound?”
“Course not.”
“I rest my case. Plus, suppressor or no, if you hit the wrong part of a leg, he can bleed out in less than a minute.” He held up the dart gun. “This is quiet and leaves him alive.”
Poncia grumbled as he shoved his pistol back into his shoulder holster.
“Okay,” Tier said. He’d have much preferred leaving Poncia in the car but knew he’d need a second pair of hands to move Jack once he was down. “Here’s the plan: We sneak around back and wait for him to come out. We shoot him up with a dart, then carry him back here.”
“Then what?”
“Then we take him somewhere private and search him for that safety deposit key. If it’s not on him, we wait till he wakes up and then persuade him to tell us where we can find it. I’ll leave the persuading to you.”
He hoped very much it wouldn’t come to that, but he was throwing Poncia a bone, giving him something to look forward to.
“What’s the matter, Tonto? No stomach for it? I thought you Injuns got off tying white folks to ant hills.”
And that was number… what? He’d lost count. Not that it mattered. As soon as they secured the Bagaq, ridding the world of Albert Poncia would become a priority… an exigent priority.
Yes!
Poncia would never make it back to Roland’s house. Tier would leave his body in a roadside snow drift. Might be a week before he was discovered. If then.
“Let’s go.”
They jumped out and hurried around the rear. Lights across the basin shimmered off its mostly frozen surface. A few spots here and there remained liquid. Salt water was stubborn that way. A bare bulb in a metal cage glowed over the diner’s back door. Snow had drifted against the rear wall, covering the big steel garbage bin, forcing them to walk close to the bulkhead.
When they rounded the corner into the south lot, Tier wanted to cheer. He’d been worried about not finding any cover to take his shot, but a handicapped ramp running up to a side door made a perfect blind. Even better, Jack had backed in to park, putting the driver door less than a dozen feet away.
The downside was they had no view of the front door, so they’d have no warning he was coming until he rounded the corner.
The minutes dragged. Five…ten…fifteen…
“I’m freezing my nuts off.” Poncia said, rubbing his hands together. “What the fuck’s he doing in there?”
Tier had been wondering about that himself, but dared not take a peek.
“Zip it,” he whispered. “He could hear you.”
Poncia glared at him but said nothing more.
What was he doing in there? Waiting for takeout, or chowing down on a three-course meal?
5
Jack sat with his back to the counter and sipped coffee as he watched the deserted Cross Bay Boulevard through the painted front windows. He felt marginally refreshed after washing up as best he could in the men’s room, and the caffeine was perking him up a bit, but overall, this fix was weighing on him like few others.
Where was the solution for David Quinnell? Jack couldn’t blame him for not wanting to return to Plum Island, but he had no place else in the world. He’d made a lot of bad decisions in his life and the system had made him pay for them. He’d made one good decision for his family, and was paying for that as well—a hellish price. Like that old Albert King song: If not for bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.
What would I do if I were Quinnell?
The guy’s situation might be reason enough to choose the final exit. But could Quinnell make that decision? Did his part-wolf brain have the capacity for that?
“Here y’go,” said a voice behind him. The waitress was pushing two paper bags across the counter. “T-bone steak rare and two cheeseburgers.”
Jack checked inside. Foil-wrapped burgers in one, a cardboard like clamshell box in the other.
“The steak?” he said, indicating the box. “No Styrofoam? It’s gonna get cold.”
She shook her head. “Styrofoam’s banned. That’s called bagasse. Made from sugarcane leftovers or something like that. I wrapped the steak in foil inside it.”
The bill came to forty bucks. He left her sixty, figuring she wasn’t going to see many tips tonight.
“Enjoy,” she said as he headed for the door. “Stay warm.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He hurried down the front steps. The snow was definitely tapering off but the wind blew as cold and stiff as ever. As he opened the Jeep’s rear door to place the bag on the floor, he felt a sharp sting in the back of his right thigh, followed by a burning sensation. He twisted to look and—
A dart? That looked like one of his. How the—?
He yanked it out and looked around. Two men emerged from behind the handicapped ramp, moving his way. Fast. He recognized one of them as the stubby, inept bird-dogger. The other was a stranger, taller with ruddy skin and strong, sharp features.
Jack slammed the rear door and reached for the driver door handle but his right leg gave out. Balancing on his left, he pulled the door open and tried to climb in but now his left leg wouldn’t move, and then it wouldn’t hold him, and then he was down in the snow.
As the men grabbed his arms from behind, he tried to fight them, but with the whole lower half of his body dead, with all his major muscles next to useless, he had no leverage. And soon his arms were gone too. He couldn’t use them worth a damn, could barely feel them.
And now they were dragging him through the snow, around to the backside of the diner. Jack tried to call out for help but all he could manage were faint croaks.
“I’m gonna have to borrow your dart gun sometime, Tonto,” one said. “That shit works fast.”
Tonto? That meant the tall one was a Native American?
“Drop him here,” he said. “I want to check his pockets before we get him to the car.”
Jack couldn’t resist him. He ground his teeth in frustration. At least he could still do that.
6
“Well, you’ve led us on a merry chase, haven’t you,” Tier said as he inverted the parka’s pockets.
He was guessing that dart hadn’t contained a tranquilizer, because Jack’s eyes were open and alert but his limbs were like overcooked linguine. Had to be some sort of paralyzer or super muscle relaxer. The guy was totally helpless.
A key ring tumbled out a pocket. He held it up for Poncia to see.
“House keys…they’ll get us into his building quick and quiet.”
Unlikely that the safety deposit box key was among them. If Jack didn’t have it on him they could find it in his apartment. But the keys wouldn’t get them past his apartment door. They’d need the combination to that lock.
Tier rolled him onto his belly and came upon a nice Spyderco folder. He dropped that on the ground. And then a compact Glock. Sweet. That went on the ground too. Pulled the wallet from a rear pocket and went through it. He found a folded piece of paper jammed in with the bills, and within that…
“Here’s the safety box key—with the receipt and everything.”
“So…we got everything we came for?”
“Well, we still don’t have the Bagaq.”
“But if it ain’t in the bank box, it’s in his apartment, right?”
“I think that’s a safe assumption.”
Tier had a feeling where this was going.
Poncia said, “Then what do we need him for?”
“Insurance. It being Christmas Eve, the bank will have limited hours. I’ll be there when it opens in a couple of hours. I have his wallet a
nd all his ID, I have the key and the receipt for the box. With all that I’m ninety percent sure I’ll be able to bluff my way in. But if the Bagaq isn’t in the box, we’ll need him to get into his apartment.”
“We got his keys.”
“He’s got a combo lock on the door. We’ll need to get the combination out of him.”
“Yeah? And where do we stash him while all this is going down?”
“We’ll find a place. Help me lift him.”
They each grabbed him under an arm and hoisted him off the ground. His feet dragged like a marionette’s with its strings cut. Suddenly Poncia cried out in pain and dropped Jack’s arm as he staggered around, clutching his thigh.
“What’s—?” Tier began, then saw the knife sticking out of his thigh. The Spyderco… How—?
“Fucker cut me!”
Somehow Jack had grabbed the Spyderco, thumbed it open, and stabbed Poncia. More a supreme act of will than anything else. Jesus, if the guy could do that in a paralyzed state, what was he like at one hundred percent?
With another hoarse cry of pain, Poncia yanked out the blade, then hurled it out over the basin.
“Fuck this!” he said.
Without warning he grabbed Jack’s arm. The move caught Tier by surprise. In one violent move he wrenched Jack free from his grasp and shoved him over the edge of the bulkhead. But instead of a splash, they heard nothing.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me!” Poncia shouted, standing on the bulkhead. “You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”
Tier joined him at the edge. Just a few feet below them, Jack lay face down in a snowbank on the frozen basin. As usual, Poncia hadn’t been paying attention.
Tier had to laugh. “Can’t you get anything right?”
“Yeah?” He pulled out his pistol. “Let’s see how right this is.”
“Hey, wait—”
But before Tier could stop him, Poncia fired. The suppressor kept the noise down as Jack’s body bucked with the impact of the bullet in his upper back. Then Poncia turned and aimed the pistol at Tier.
“Hey, what?”
He smiled. “Remember when I asked you what we needed Jack for? Same goes for you. We got the safe deposit box key… so whatta we need you for?”
“Whoa! Whoa! Your boss told you to—”
“To what? Take orders from you?” He barked a laugh. “That was just for show, dumbass! In private he told me to let you find what he needed, then take you and Jack outa the picture. He doesn’t want any loose ends. And you, Tonto, are a very loose end. So, this is from Mister Apfel. But even if he hadn’t said a word, I’d be doing this on my—”
Before Poncia could fire, something leaped through the air with a deep growl and buried its fangs in his neck.
With a shocked cry, Tier fell back as the thing shook its head and came away with a piece of Poncia’s throat in its mouth. It promptly spat out the chunk as Poncia dropped the pistol and crumpled, clutching at the pumping ruin of his throat.
Tier recognized it then—the thing from underground. Somehow it had got free of the cuff. He reached for his revolver as the thing came for him but it was too fast. He managed to turn and partially deflect the charge so that its jaws closed on the side of his neck instead of square on his throat, but he couldn’t help crying out at as the teeth pieced and tore.
“Forget him!” said a woman’s voice. “Get Jack.”
The creature left him and leaped off the bulkhead. Tier dropped to his knees and pressed a hand against his bleeding neck. No pumper there, but a lot of blood.
Poncia lay on his back, his hands on his throat, but they’d gone limp. He might have had some life left in him, but what little remained was making a speedy exit.
Nearby stood a dark-haired woman. It took Tier a moment to recognize Madame de Medici. Gone were her Cossack hat and fur coat. Instead she stood bareheaded on the bulkhead wearing a snug leather jacket, jodhpurs, and leather boots. Her gaze was fixed on the basin.
Suddenly Jack appeared, limp as a rag doll, being pushed up from below by the creature.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” she said, turning to Tier, her amber eyes flashing with anger. “Mister Hill! You poisoned him and then you shot him?”
Tier struggled to speak. “Not poison…and I didn’t…”
“This never should have happened. My fault. I am too reckless in my old age. If I’d known it would turn out like this I never….” She seemed to be talking to herself, then she refocused on Tier. “Do you know how important he is? He is the Heir. The Heir! And look what you’ve done! Look what I’ve done!”
Tier had no idea what she was talking about. She’d been so calm and rational in her apartment. Now she’d obviously gone crazy.
“Please,” he rasped. “Call 9-1-1.”
“I’ll deal with you in a minute,” she snapped. “He comes first. Open his shirt,” she told the creature.
Oddly enough, the creature obeyed her. Tier had opened Jack’s parka before, so now the creature ripped open his bloody flannel shirt amid a spray of buttons. A gaping exit wound oozed below his right clavicle. Poncia’s bullet must have passed straight through, puncturing the lung. Was he conscious? Was he even alive? Hard to tell. Whatever had been in that dart had rendered him as limp as a fresh corpse.
Madame reached into her bag and produced a dull bronze-colored lump of metal.
The Bagaq? How…?
She pressed it against Jack’s bloody chest. As Tier watched, it seemed to melt, its metal turning liquid and spreading out over an area the size of a serving platter.
What the—?
As she rose and began to pace, Tier searched for his phone with his free hand. Had to get help.
She deftly kicked it out of his hand. “Do not call anyone. Your turn will come.”
My turn? My turn at what? Dying?
He glanced over the edge of the bulkhead. A red splotch marred the drift where Jack had fallen.
Jack coughed up a spray of bright red blood. Oh, hell. That couldn’t be good. A second cough, dry this time. At least he was still alive. But for how long? That chest wound was—
Wait. Where’d it go? He’d had an oozing hole in his upper chest a moment ago. Now… where was it?
The bronze sheet of the Bagaq began to contract then, scrunching back into that same rough ovoid shape as before. Jack groaned as Madame plucked it from his chest. Briefly he lifted a forearm and let it fall back.
Madame turned the Bagaq this way and that in her hands, examining it.
“It’s not full yet,” she muttered, then turned to Tier. “You… if you had no destiny I’d let you fend for yourself, but it’s not full yet and I need your wounds.”
She was making absolutely no sense.
“Lie back and bare your chest.”
“What? No.”
“Do you want to keep bleeding? This will stop it.”
How? By healing the wound as it had Jack’s? Well, why not? What did he have to lose?
“Why…why help me?”
“Because I despise conflict. I wish to live in peace, so I resolve all conflicts. I need you to resolve this one.”
He lay back, unzipped his coat, and pulled up his sweatshirt. The wind chilled his skin. Inanely he found himself fixating on her jodhpurs… who wore jodhpurs unless they were going horse riding? And what idiot would be riding a horse in this weather? Madame de Medici, that’s who. Had to admit, though, she looked pretty hot in them.
What was he thinking? Had to be the blood loss affecting his brain.
But then she placed the Bagaq on his sternum. As soon as it touched him it grew hot. He watched it melt and form a metallic layer on his chest, like frosting on a cupcake. Then hotter. Too hot.
He tried to lift his hands to peel it off but his arms wouldn’t move. Same for his legs. And then light filled his vision as men and women, all bare chested, all with wounds or sores or growths, floated past. He wanted to scream with the pain but then the heat vanished like flipping
a switch.
He looked down and saw the Bagaq contracting and bunching up as it had on Jack. When it had resumed its former shape, Madame plucked it from his chest and again turned it over and over in her hands. Its color seemed to have darkened.
He checked his neck. The bleeding had stopped and the torn area was now closed over. It didn’t feel like normal skin, but the opening had been sealed. He sat up, still probing his neck. Things like this didn’t happen—couldn’t happen—and yet the wound was gone… healed.
Madame was muttering again. “It’s full. At last it’s full. But at such a price.” She turned to Tier. “Why did you hurt him?”
“I didn’t. I had no intention—but wait-wait-wait! What just happened?”
“How can you ask that? You just experienced it firsthand. Your wound was healed.”
“No, okay, I realize that, but I mean how did it happen?”
“The Bagaq, of course. The word means ‘sponge.’ It absorbs diseases and injuries.”
“Nothing can do that.”
She looked at him with a bemused expression. “And the signals cannot exist, and no one should be able to hear them, right? Listen to yourself! Can you really be saying that?”
“I guess I shouldn’t be. It cures. That’s why Roland sent me for it.”
“Obviously.”
“He’s sick.”
“I know. And you were tasked with finding this for Roland, yes?”
“I was.”
She held out the Bagaq, now a gleaming black. “Then give it to him.”
Tier couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “After all you’ve put us through? We’ve got a dead man there.” He pointed to Poncia—no loss to humanity in his case—then to Jack. “And another over there who would have been dead if you and that… wolf thing hadn’t intervened.”
“He’s not a thing. He was once like you. But I am tired of this. As I told you, I despise conflict. I do not wish to be looking over my shoulder. I cannot live life like that. So here… take it.”
Tier grabbed it from her outstretched hand but felt no sense of victory. “If only you had done this last Friday…”
“Why should I give up what is mine? Thieves stole it from me, and I was angry. I’m still angry, but tell Roland to use it with my blessing and not come looking for me. Tell him he may keep it as long as he lives. But I want it back. When he is on his deathbed, I will show up to reclaim it. Be sure to tell him that.”
The Last Christmas: A Repairman Jack Novel Page 27