She shook her head a little, bobbing her curls the way she did when she was too upset to speak. “Was he planning on telling us?”
“Eventually?”
Maggie took a deep breath and stood up. “I’m done with this. Come on, Casey. We’re leaving.”
“I think I’m going to stay,” he said, his voice nowhere near forceful enough to be used in defiance of his mother. For a second they looked at each other, a look that had twenty-five years of history behind it, and Maggie shook her head again, leaving the room in silence.
Casey slumped into a chair with a sigh like he’d been holding his breath for an hour and a half before having someone punch him in the gut. Gideon reassuringly touched Casey’s shoulder and asked me to call a cab on his way after his wife. I did what I was told even though Frank wouldn’t approve of a cab coming to the house, and I offered the driver an extra hundred if he got them out of here quickly. Maggie and Gideon were on their way to the airport in twenty minutes during which time nobody spoke.
They didn’t let Deaglan share their cab. They should have.
Casey was sitting with his head in his hands, having obviously just made the hardest decision of his life. I felt borderline responsible, but I knew I’d be forgiven. I was cute.
“You should’ve gone with your mother,” Deaglan said, choosing the worst possible moment to open his big fat mouth. Just like yours truly.
For a second nothing happened, but I could feel the change in the air. Before I could grab him, Casey was on the defensive, shoving Deaglan hard but not nearly hard enough. Deaglan went right for the face in retaliation.
I would’ve thought Deaglan was a dirty fighter, the type to get a man down for the sole purpose of kicking him. But he somehow restrained himself, his opponent obviously no match for him, huddled on the ground with his hand pressed against his eye like he was trying to keep it from falling out. “You’d better thank your leprechaun lucky charms that Frank didn’t see that,” I said.
“Or Bella,” came her growling brogue from the doorway.
Casey looked up, his hand over his already purpling eye. He’d had a lifetime of experience with pissed off women thanks to his mother, but he and Deaglan both looked like they were sterilized with fear. Deaglan stood his ground. Barely.
“You fucking idiot,” she said. It wasn’t clear who she was referring to, if not both of them. “Vincent, put some ice on his face.”
“Where’s Frank?”
She set her jaw and shot me a look complete with perfumed bullets.
“Probably outside,” I said meekly, knowing that getting Casey ice would likely be a Frank command anyway. “Come on, killer,” I said, hauling him off the ground and into the kitchen. Casey looked more embarrassed than hurt, but for someone who’d never been hit before that was still some serious mortification.
When I saw the car outside I dropped the full tray of ice to the floor. It was in really bad shape. The worst of the damage was the fact that it was a red Maserati, and not my blue Ferrari. “Put some ice on your face,” I said as I darted back to the library. Deaglan was on the floor holding his eye just like Casey had been. Maybe she liked that look on men. “Where’s Frank?”
She grabbed a book off the shelf and threw it at Deaglan’s head. For a girl, she had quite the arm. “He’s following in his car,” she said with gritted teeth. “I told you to get fucking ice!”
“It’s my car,” I muttered, and slinked back out of the room.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Casey admired his face in one of Bella’s compacts. It really hurt, but he had no idea bruises could be so colorful! “That’s fantastic! Seriously.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
“I know.” He felt like an idiot. “Look right here, in the soft fleshy part…that’s Deaglan’s eye color. How weird is that?”
She shook her head and threw another coat on the floor. More than half the clothes she’d forced him to haul inside were to be thrown out.
“No, I mean it. It’s like, exact!” The powder blue was an amazing contrast with Deaglan's dark hair, and his skin nearly as white as Bella's. “He’s really pretty, you know?”
“Aye.”
He set down the compact. She was much calmer now that she’d spent some time buried in couture. She’d been pretty frazzled when she first got home, and had definitely not been ready to have a serious discussion. “You know how Frank told you to watch me?”
She glanced up at him from a dress that looked like a school of radioactive goldfish. “Aye.”
“Nice dress.”
“Can we get on with it?”
“Did you ever…um, not?”
“Maybe. Briefly. Why?”
“This is the good news.” He handed her his sketches of Silva with a pained grimace on his face. “He commissioned me.”
Bella’s normally pale skin faded to the shade of watered down skim milk, then her cheeks flushed almost as bright as her hair. “That motherfucker!” She was taking it well. “Frankie’s gonna fucking kill him!”
“That’s the bad news,” he said. Maybe he was a bit hard on Vincent after all. Breaking news wasn’t as easy as it looked. “Apparently he wanted Frank to…kinda like mercy, I guess.”
Her eyes glittered with tears. “Frankie did it?”
“Silva sent me a note. He thought I could help you forgive Frank.”
She sniffled and carefully flipped through the rest of the sketches in stunned silence.
“You can have those.”
“Frankie’ll want one.”
“Speaking of, shouldn’t he be back by now?”
She gritted her teeth and scowled at the drawings. “Maybe he’s hiding from me.”
“Maybe something happened,” he said fretfully. Frank was invincible in his eyes, but that had never stopped Casey from worrying about him. He knew that Frank used to teeter on the edge of darkness, of madness, and if anyone were to cause Frank harm it would be Frank himself. But he was happy now. He had no reason to be a danger to himself anymore. So where was he?
“Frankie can take care of himself. And just about anyone else. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about him. He’ll come home when he’s good and fucking ready.”
She threw her fish dress in the pile to keep. That made him smile, despite worrying his pretty little head about Frank. And Vincent. The poor kid had been staring at the driveway all day with an intensity he normally reserved for soap operas or his own reflection, waiting for Frank to magically appear.
“Fucking men!” Bella said suddenly, and tore a lavender blouse in two. “If Silva wanted to die he should’ve fucking asked me. They think I can’t do anything because I’m a fucking girl!”
“I’m sure that’s not why.” Casey made a mental note not to mention the dowry.
“Fuck them. I know what I’m capable of. I killed that motherfucker that came looking for me at Alan’s gallery and Frankie didn’t even know who he fucking was.”
“You killed him?” Casey asked in horror. Sure the guy was creepy, but he didn’t actually hurt anyone. He was just an old man. He must’ve had one or two good years left in him. Or at least a couple of months.
“Oh, aye. Made him fucking suffer, too.”
“But I found my sketchbook…well, Alan found it. It was at the gallery the whole time. That guy didn’t…he wasn’t…”
“Casey, it’s not your fault. Anyway, he was a threat. With our without your sketchbook. And he was a bad man. He killed puppies for a laugh. Kittens, too. And paintings.”
“Can you do me a favor and not tell me about that stuff?”
She grabbed his hair and pulled him close for a kiss. “Don’t you ever fucking change. Do you hear me?”
“Okay.”
“And quit getting into fights.”
“Yeah, that won’t happen again. I was just upset. My mom left after she found out there wasn’t really a hit, and—”
Her face went slack. “What?”
He smiled. “That’s the other good news. Silva made up the hit so you would come and stay with Frank!”
She tore another blouse. Then threw a shoe. And the other shoe.
“Bell.”
Another two pairs of shoes. A purse that looked like a rocket ship. At least it looked that way when it was flying.
“Bell.”
She stopped to calmly set aside a pair of literal glass slippers before continuing her rampage. He picked up the sketches from the bed before she could do something she’d possibly regret and left her to it. She was obviously well in control.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Frank wasn’t answering his cell phone. Just a generic female machine voice telling me to leave a message, s’il vous plaît. He didn’t even know how to check them.
Something must’ve happened. Not even Frank drove that slowly. He should’ve been back by now. The only logical explanation was that he was dead, and life as I knew it was over. I couldn’t live without him. I wouldn’t. But I didn’t have the bravery of my husband; to stick a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. It would be a fucked up little downward spiral, taking me right back to where he’d found me: blowjobs and the musical mattress game.
I could just see it now, like the news ticker on the bottom of CNN: Vincent Sullivan, former assassin, found dead at the age of twenty. Suicide by choking on dick, or Beaten to death after slutting it up with too many straight guys. AIDS.
It was a good thing Gideon had left. He’d be my first choice: older, professional, wealthy. Married. It was no wonder I found myself drawn outside to Deaglan, who at least fit the age category.
Deaglan was sitting on the front porch with his head down. Bella had done a number on him. Then he’d kicked himself outside for the night like a bad dog. “Fucking lucky charms,” he grumbled when he saw me. As cold as it was tonight, Deaglan didn’t even need to bother with ice. I found myself worrying whether Frank was warm enough wherever he was, when I should’ve been worrying about whether he was alive enough.
I slumped beside Deaglan on the steps. I didn’t actually want his company, but he was the only legitimately older male in the house so I may as well start practicing my downfall. And anyway, being the third wheel with Bella and Casey made me feel like a child again, wanting desperately for my parents to stop paying attention to each other and start paying attention to me. Neglect had driven me to befriend a corpse when I was a little boy, and now that I knew how to make corpses my loneliness would assuredly end badly for someone. “I won’t tell Frank about the car. There’s no point in him killing you twice.”
“Thanks.”
I nodded although Deaglan wouldn’t even be killed once, because I knew Frank wasn’t coming back. I turned my face away so he wouldn’t see me cry. Of all the people to cry in front of, Deaglan was the most humiliating. Everyone else had seen me cry already, even Bella, who tore the tears from my eye with her makeup pencil.
He was silent for a few seconds, until he groaned “Aw, fuck” and I knew he was on to me.
“He’s not coming home,” I squeaked.
“Why’s that?”
I wiped tears and snot onto my sleeve. Frank's sleeve. “I dunno. He’s gonna get killed. He’s probably already been killed. Where is he?”
“You know what Frankie was like before?”
“What?”
“He was fucking miserable. You could see it on his face. Someone who is just so unhappy. My father got killed during The Troubles. After he died, that’s the way my mother looked. Like she wanted to join him. He doesn’t look like that anymore. He’ll come home.”
I knew Frank would die for me, had already killed for me, so I supposed it wasn’t such a stretch to say he’d turn zombie and come back to life for me. “You think so?”
He shrugged. “We Irish are all about hope.”
“I guess.”
“You want me to drive you there?”
“Fuck no.” I’d rather take a ride with Karl.
“Better get hoping then. Light at the end of the rainbow and all that.”
“Tunnel.”
“Fucking lucky charms,” he said again. “Stacey started it.”
“Casey.”
“Can I have that other bedroom now that your mum’s gone? Your dog’s a bit too friendly, if you know what I mean. Hogs the covers and all.”
If I had the option of being across the hall from my ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend or sleeping with a dog, I would’ve chosen Hugo. But at least he was treating me like the man of the house, and he had actually made me feel better. “Yeah, okay,” I said, and led the way.
Now that the big secret was out and I’d done about as much damage to our familial relations as I possibly could, I had little left to do. The house was sparkling clean from Maggie being here, laundry washed and folded and put away. It only took a few minutes a day to go online and remotely fast forward through the video from our security camera at the apartment, still with no sign of Malkolm or his friends. I could’ve worked on Bella’s car, or the Peugeot, but it was just too fucking cold out. And watching French TV would’ve made me even more depressed.
The library smelled the most of Frank, so I left my remaining houseguests tucked in upstairs and took over the first floor. I had the dogs to talk to, and with Deaglan behind closed doors Hugo was back to being my best friend. I glanced at the cabinet, which Frank kept locked because he liked hiding shit, even if it was shit I already knew about. Instead of going upstairs to get the key I went and grabbed my screwdriver from the toolbox in the wine cellar. It still had Frank’s blood on it. I jammed it in the lock until the wood splintered, then pulled the cabinet door open.
Cigarettes. Guns and bullets. Stack of cash. A couple of presents for me that I already knew he bought. Stupid old book. Then I recognized it. This wasn’t just any stupid old book. It was Silva’s journal!
I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the cabinet and flipped through, scrambled letters and symbols in very tiny, very precise handwriting. Halfway through the book there were some blank pages, then the characters continued upside down until the end. Two words were underlined, one in each section. I flipped back to the beginning.
Why would Frank take Silva’s notebook? Paranoia. He didn’t like people talking about him, I could only imagine how he’d feel when someone wrote about him. This could very well be the holy grail of information.
I shoved it in my back pocket and went rummaging through Casey’s art supplies. Scratch paper. Check. Highlighter. Check. The awfulness of French television. Triple check. At least I’d have something to do.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Frank waited for Joe’s recovery, moving constantly, unable to sleep and in no mood to eat. He could feel the fatigue gnawing at his sanity, nibbling away bit by bit until there were moments of delirium where time faded. That part of him that had lived after his mother’s death began to return, bringing a lucidity of thought in which his awareness heightened as his consciousness dulled. The pain in his foot kept his mind sharp. Another couple of days without sleep and his body would shut down. Another couple of days and it would all be finished.
He thought of Vincent constantly during his time at that house, seeing him as he had been in that first moment, pale from blood loss and the extreme cold, like a spirit calling Frank to the grave. He could feel V’s breath on his skin. Could sense him.
Joe refused to leave with the doctor when he was finally able, as if Frank couldn’t be trusted by himself. Frank threatened to shoot him again if he stayed. That was enough to convince him. There was one more thing that Frank had to take care of. Time slowed as he thought of Vincent yet again. I’m coming home.
The fire was started in Malkolm’s room. Even in his current state, Frank could appreciate the humor in it. He stood watching with the torch in his hand until Malkolm’s bed was utterly consumed by flame, then he backed out of the room, trailing the fire along with him like a cat toying with a piece of string. He limped
through the hallways with the flames at his heels, the warmth of it bringing him back to life. Frank could sense that he was alone in the house, truly alone in that place for the first time, and he wanted to lie down in it, to sink into the foundation like the blood of so many traitors seeping deep into the carpet.
He dragged the torch behind him down the final staircase, the flames tearing across the plush carpet and racing up the bare, pillaged walls. The marble flooring would not light, but Frank set fire to the remaining furniture, then opened the front door and lit that on fire as well.
It was glacial outside away from the flames, so cold his breath caught in his chest and he had to brace himself before continuing around the building. Silva’s purported assassin had fallen from his perch at the window, and was frozen solid on the grass below along with the other bodies that Frank had dragged outside earlier in the week. He briefly dug through the pockets of a man he’d never met, where he’d hidden a bottle of scotch before Bella could get her hands on it. He splashed it across the pile of corpses, then paused with his torch nearly touching flesh when he spotted the marble bust. The impact from hitting the ground had split it clean in two, and Frank picked up both pieces, Silva’s blood still imbedded within Voltaire’s hair. “Bookends,” he said happily to himself, and carefully placed the pieces in his pockets before lighting the pyre.
He limped back across the lawn to the garage, wiping his fingerprints from the end of the torch and tossing it aside. Then he sat for a moment in the Ferrari, the heater as high as it would go. He was exhausted, and having a ten hour drive ahead of him was daunting.
Frank ran his hand over his face, a week’s worth of stubble rough against his palm. He had made a further journey in worse shape, once driving through four countries with a dislocated shoulder, busted nose, and five broken ribs, only to pass out the second Bella opened her door. He had woken up fifteen hours later exactly where he had fallen, with Bella standing over him, her hands on her narrow hips, asking “Did you expect me to catch you?”
Les Recidivists (Chance Assassin Book 2) Page 34