Widow's Run

by TG Wolff

  Everything was nice and calm and so damned polite my teeth ached.

  But I wouldn’t be fooled by a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Ilsa witnessed Buford verbally dressing down an Italian cop. Quili quivered as she spoke about being intimidated by Buford’s loud and over-the-top behavior.

  I needed to talk to the man behind the curtain.

  How to do it. My first instinct was to piss him off. Burn away the smooth front man in a fiery flare of temper. Course if he was pissed at me, he wasn’t likely to talk to me. I needed him pissed at someone else. I needed to be the messenger he not only did not want to kill, but the one he wanted to confide in.

  “I think Jessica Fielding is getting an extended performance.”

  “Who’s Jessica Fielding?”

  I bounded to my feet, sliding the knife out of my ankle sheath and making ready to attack.

  Dix leapt backward. “Whoa! That was fast, Diamond. Like lightning fast. Like blink of an eye fast. Like—”

  “I get it, Dix. I’m fast.” Drawing myself to full height, I let the blade fall against my leg.

  Dix’s long hair swung as he shifted his weight from one foot to another, a ball of pent up energy. “Can you teach me to be fast like you? Because, you know, that was spectacular.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say he’d have to grow out of his puppy phase first. Too much energy, feet too big for his frame. But I didn’t want to crush him. He’d had enough of that in his short life. “We’ll see, Dix. How did the trig final go?”

  “I don’t know. Do you have anything to eat?”

  The boy ate like a mammoth. “I think there’s still cereal left.”

  “Sweet.” And he was gone.

  I followed at a more human pace, then leaned against the door frame as he poured half a box of cereal into a mixing bowl. “Did you know the answers to the questions on the final?”

  “Oh sure. That stuff is easy. I mean, it’s just angles and curves and stuff. And they use those Greek symbols. I like those. I’m thinking about using one to, you know, sign things.”

  “Like a signature?”

  “Yeah. If they couldn’t read, they would sign with an X. I’m thinking of using Ξ, the Greek letter Xi, which this table on the internet said is like the American letter X.”

  “We use the English alphabet. It’s a descendent of the Latin alphabet.”

  Dixon settled at my little table, spoon in one hand and leaning on both elbows. “So the Greeks have a letter that looks like ‘X’ but sounds like ch. And it wouldn’t be very interesting if I signed with an X. It would just look like I couldn’t read, you know?”

  “I suppose. Why Ξ and not Α or Δ? For Andrew or Dixon?”

  A single finger came up, prompting me to wait as he inhaled enough for a baseball team. “Alpha is pretty cool as a lowercase letter, but the capital just looks like a A. Boring, right? Delta is a maybe, the triangle thing is kinda cool but the lowercase one, whew, I’ll never learn to make the squiggly thing. Maybe you should use Δ, for Diamond, right?”

  “I like using C, the symbol for carbon, which is what diamonds are made of. I’m like you, I don’t go for obvious. D for diamond is kindergarten stuff. But C for diamond, that makes you think.”

  “I like it.” He drank the milk, set his empty bowl in the sink, then went back to the refrigerator.

  “You can’t still be hungry.” Maybe I sounded more exasperated than I felt because Dixon suddenly blushed. Really, I was impressed.

  “I was just looking out for dinner. The snack will hold me over for a while.”

  “Let’s take a look through the emails and I’ll take you out to dinner.”

  “Deal.” He blitzed past me, doors bouncing off the walls. And the kid thought he was slow.

  “I’m going to have to buy sugar-free cereal.” But Dixon was good as his word and in his skillful hands, we moved through the emails like a bee in a flower garden.

  “So, here’s what I don’t get.” Dixon shifted in his oversized bean bag chair to face me. “I hear you saying the Doc and Buford didn’t get along but none of these emails are, you know, bad. The ones from his assistant lady, the ones in the ‘Crybaby’ file were worse than Buford’s.”

  “That’s the genius of Buford. The man is slicker than a greased pig.”

  “They’re slippery? I’ve never seen one. Well, I’ve never seen a live pig, except in a zoo, but it wasn’t greased.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Black ice slippery. You know, the kind you can’t see and then wham, you’re on your butt. Buford acts like a cultured cowboy when he really is pig shit.”

  Dixon cocked his head. “You have a thing for pigs, don’t you?”

  “Forget it. The point is, no matter how friendly or professional Buford’s emails are, the man was determined to use Gavriil’s research to line his pockets. With or without Gavriil’s cooperation.”

  We worked well together. I had to explain a few terms to Dixon, a few concepts he hadn’t come across yet in his young life, but he paid attention, and he learned fast.

  Gavriil had become obsessed (like only a scientist can) with quinoa after a trip to Bolivia. The fact it was a five-thousand-year-old food still consumed today blew. His. Mind. Then he found out even back then there were hundreds of varieties of the plant and all parts—roots, leaves, and seeds—were consumable. Zero waste. Quinoa was a complete and balanced protein, and it had antioxidants, and it was a good source of some very important minerals. Gavriil about wet his scientific panties. Then, then came the pièce de résistance…quinoa had a remarkable tolerance to different growing conditions. Thin cold air, hot sun, little rainfall, salty or sandy soil, name your adverse condition, and there was a quinoa varietal to thrive in it.

  Gavriil started growing it in our suburban DC neighborhood. If anyone was foolish enough to ask about it, they were treated to the above lecture on quinoa…the long version. In the beginning, we had quinoa about once a week. As his obsession grew, so did its appearance on my dinner plate. It’s not that I didn’t like quinoa, it’s like this…I went to private school, K to twelve, back in the day when plaid filled a school girl’s wardrobe. I’ve been out of school for over thirteen years and I still won’t wear plaid. Can’t look at the stuff without feeling claustrophobic. I’m the same way with quinoa.

  A guttural cry of a feral cat had me reaching for my knife again. “What the hell is that?”

  Dixon sheepishly examined his oversized feet.

  “Don’t tell me you brought a cat into my house.”

  He blushed. “It was my stomach.”

  The time in the corner of the screen said six o’clock. Time flies when you’re reminiscing about quinoa. “Come on. I know a place.”

  The mom-and-pop Italian restaurant didn’t have a name on the front of the building. The old sign fell apart, leaving just the red and green stripes of the awning to indicate where the best meal in the neighborhood could be found. When lack of a sign didn’t hurt business, Marie and Tony Longo saved the money. Dixon bounced as we walked down the street. The kid acted like he’d never been taken out for a meal. He grinned ear-to-ear, saying hello to anyone brave enough to make eye contact.

  “Table for two?” the pretty young hostess asked.

  “In the window. Can we sit in the window?” Dixon pointed to a dirty table in front of the big picture window. The world outside appeared as if on one huge, high-definition television screen. Of course, Dixon wanted to sit there.

  “Just let me clean it off,” the hostess said with a smile.

  “I can help.”

  I snagged his collar. “Down, boy. Let her work.” The hostess got busy then signaled us over. Dixon bolted forward, his collar snapping from my fingers.

  It was fun being out with Dixon. He had no filter. If he thought it, he said it. If he wondered about it, he asked. If he didn’t agree, he argued. Our conversation started with breadsticks and ended with a slurp of p
asta and the Treaty of Versailles. You can figure out how we got there.

  My phone chimed with a text. “Oh.” My disappointment had been verbal.

  “What’s wrong?” Dixon craned over the table to read the screen.

  “Nothing. Just the airline confirming my flight is on time.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  “Ian Black. He should have called by now.” I checked my texts and messages again. Still no Ian.

  “Yeah, I talked to him the night you came home from Italy. He wanted to talk to you, but you were in the air somewhere. He helped me with some of my things—he knows some really cool shit—but then he had to go. He said he’d call back in ten minutes, but he didn’t.”

  Newsflash. “Ian called looking for me?”

  “Yeah. He said something about phones and numbers and not having time to wait.”

  I leaned forward until I could look in his eyes. “Think hard, Dix. Did he give you any clue to what was going on?”

  Dixon tightened his mouth, his face still with seriousness. “He said he needed to talk to you. He said something about an order, and he’d do what he could to keep you out of it.”

  “Keep me out of it?” Again…dead woman. What was there to keep me out of? Besides hell. “Anything else?”

  Dixon shook his head. “He was interrupted. He said he’d call back—”

  “But hasn’t.” It was out of character for Ian, tripping yellow flags and warning sirens. “We’re going for a ride.”

  The last piece of bread went down Dixon’s gullet while I paid the bill. We walked back to my car, him bouncing like an unleashed puppy, which had me thinking…did I really want to take a seventeen-year-old to Ian Black’s house? I stopped in my tracks, figuring out the fastest route past my building and then into the city.

  Dixon leapt in front of me and planted his big paws on my shoulders. “You are not dumping me.”

  “Dix, you gotta understand, the world Ian and I live in is dangerous. He’s gone off the grid when he wasn’t planning to.”

  “How do you know he wasn’t planning to?”

  “Think. You said he was interrupted, and he would call you back. You didn’t think he meant in a week, did you?”

  His brows pressed down into thinking mode. “I thought, like, maybe fifteen minutes. Soon as he got done bein’ interrupted.”

  “Right. Carlo expected the same thing. If Ian was planning to disappear, he wouldn’t have said anything.”

  “So, let’s go.” He galloped, yes galloped, another two storefronts, then stopped. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Dix, man, I can’t take you with me.” I felt like I was crushing his puppy spirit. His face fell, his eyes went all sad. Then the little shit grabbed the keys out of my hand and ran. “Oh no, you did not!”

  Dixon’s long, loping gait ate up ground faster than he ate pasta. I pumped my legs hard. Those three slices of pizza were working against me, but like hell some snot-nosed twerp was going to beat me. One. Two. Three, and I leapt on his back.

  “Give me my keys.” I locked my legs around his bony hips.

  “Take me with you.” He spun in a circle, my weight carrying him onto a grassy knoll.

  “What are you? Suicidal?” My arm wrapped around his throat. Sleeper hold.

  “I just want to help.” He croaked like a frog as he ran me into a tree.

  I relinquished my grip on his throat, grabbed on to the tree and, using my legs, brought him down. “You wanna help, give me my god damn keys.”

  “Excuse me young man, do you need help?” An octogenarian stood at the very edge of the concrete border curb, a cane in one hand, purse in the other, and a disapproving glare on her face. Next to her was her sister, spry at seventy-five-ish.

  Dixon locked eyes with me and smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I dove for the keys buried in his outstretched hand as a barrage of old-lady whoop ass hailed down. “Damn it. Stop right now.”

  “Leave the young man alone,” sister said with authority. Ex-school teacher? Ex-prison warden?

  “Ouch!” The plastic corner of the pleather purse rang my bell. Self-preservation dictated I abandon the keys and seek shelter immediately. “Stop it!” I rolled to my back and used my feet. The best damn defense was a relentless offense. “Fine. You wanna play?”

  The next swing of the brick-laden purse met my foot. I snagged it, locking it down while I kicked with my other foot. Yeah, I kicked an old lady. “Dixon!”

  He ran while my back was turned. “I’ll get the car and pick you up!”

  I flipped back into a sprinter’s stance, but my legs went out from under me and purses came down hard on my ass.

  “You run, young man. We’ll hold her here!”

  “Dixon!” I glanced up to see him running, roaring with laughter as he reached the parking garage and disappeared.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself. A woman your age chasing a boy. It’s disgraceful.” Elder sister pitched forward from the hips, wagging a finger in my face.

  Younger sister clucked her tongue and took a final, half-hearted swipe. “It’s those feminists! First, they burn their bras, then they straddle boys in a park. Whew. I gotta sit down.”

  On my feet and out of range, I pulled my hair out. “Are you two crazy? You don’t go accosting people with fake designer purses.” I twisted my arm to look at the throbbing spots turning into bruises. “What do you have in those? Bricks?”

  “Bibles,” younger sister said.

  “Never doubt the power of prayer,” the elder added.

  Tires squealed, and my car took the corner out of the garage on two wheels. The car stopped on a dime, ten feet from the sisters. Dixon’s grinning face appeared in the open window. “Need a ride.”

  I pointed to the sisters. “Stay.” I sidestepped to the car, my eyes never straying from the bible whumpers.

  Soon as I closed the door, Dixon leaned out the window. “Thank you.”

  “Are you certain you’re safe with her?” the younger asked.

  “Yeah. She’s not as bad as she thinks she is.”

  Insult! On top of injury! “Just drive. Turn right, head down to the docks.”

  “K, K.” The car rolled past the Italian restaurant to the intersection. “Left here?”

  “Yeah.” We came to a very complete stop in the intersection before turning sharply. The speedometer hovered under the posted speed limit. “Didn’t figure you for a ‘by-the-book’ driver, especially after you peeled out of the garage.”

  Dixon’s gaze flickered to the rearview mirror. “Well, I figured I better be legal on account of I don’t exactly have my driver’s license.”

  Fingers to my twitching eye. “What does ‘don’t exactly’ mean?”

  “I have my learner’s permit. I did all the classwork at school and started on the sixty hours of supervised driving.”

  I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. “How many hours have you completed?”

  “Twenty. Technically.”

  “How many actually?”

  “Four. My dad wouldn’t take me out, but he was drunk and signed off on the others. He thought he was signing up for a jelly-of-the-month club.” He turned those puppy-dog eyes on me. “You’ll sign off on this, right? You qualify as a supervising. Oh! And if it’s dark on the way back, it’ll count toward the ten hours of night driving.”

  And I thought life would be easier when I was dead.

  “So, will you? Sign off?” He looked like a little boy, hoping a friend would come out and play.

  “What the hell.” One of my aliases had to hold a valid driver’s license. “Make the next right and take the on-ramp. Tell me you’ve driven on a highway.”

  “Sure, I have. Well, not technically, but I’ve done it hundreds of times in Grand Theft Auto.”

  Twenty minutes, ten horn blares, and five curse-outs later, we rolled down an industrial street frequented by ra
ts and river vermin. The street was wide to accommodate the daily truck migration. Headlights reflected off the glass fragments pushed against the well-used curbs. The sidewalks on either side floated above the street, broken and dislocated. Beyond were warehouses and flex spaces and reclaimed artists’ pads. Our destination was the dark building on the river side of the street.

  “Pull over here.”

  Dixon put on his turn signal, coasted to our right, and bounced off the curb. “Sorry. It was closer than it looked.” He curled his chest onto the steering wheel. “What are we looking at?”

  “Ian Black’s home. Three floors of reinforced walls and bulletproof glass.” There was a ridiculous amount of square footage in the structure Ian called both home and office. I was jealous the first time I saw it. He had a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the surrounding street and an escape chute off the back to a hidden platform behind his dock. It was a sweet setup and inspired my own takeover of a building.

  “How are we going to get in? Do you have, like, rope and a grappling hook?” Dixon rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re going in the front door.”

  “Oh. Well. Okay.” Disappointed, he got out of the car.

  I chased after him. Again. “Dixon, stop.”

  “Awe, Diamond. Don’t make me wait in the car. I can be helpful. It’s, you know, a big place, right? So, two heads are better than one, right?” His head hung low, his eyes on my shoes. “Pleeeease?”

  I regretted bringing him. I would work faster alone. I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone alone. “The rules are: one, you stay behind me and two, you run like hell if I say to. No waiting for me. No trying to help me. Listen to me Dixon when I tell you I’m trained for this. Are you hearing me?”

  “Yes.” He hopped like a pogo stick. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

  All I could do was shake my head. “Let’s go.”

  Ian’s security system was state of the art. The door’s lock used a passcode. Any breach of the door or windows activated a blow horn of an alarm and flooded the perimeter with lights strong enough for a stadium. The stairs inside were rigged with pressure sensors. Stepping on them without deactivating the system would have you making like Peter Pan across the storage space.