by Sam Sisavath
“The kid,” Joan said.
“What kid?”
“Aaron.”
It took everything Xiao had not to let the surprise show on her face. She willed herself to sit perfectly still and let Aaron’s name enter one ear and go out the other.
A second passed, then three, before she finally said, “What about him?”
“People are saying he’s the one who engineered that attack on the Wilshire over a week ago.”
Xiao couldn’t help herself and cracked a smile. “Engineered, huh? Is that what they’re calling it?”
“Something like that. Are they right?”
“People talk too much. You should take everything with a grain of salt. Especially on the Internets.”
“I do. Just like I don’t believe everything people say about you.”
“And what are people saying about me? And does it involve the words ‘gorgeous,’ ‘statuesque,’ and ‘downright striking?’”
Joan smiled. Unlike the last half dozen attempts, this one didn’t look nearly as forced. “Maybe a couple of those words were mentioned.”
“Good to hear.”
This time it was Xiao’s turn to rest her left arm on the table and lean slightly toward the other woman. She wondered if Joan had noticed she’d yet to reveal her right hand, but given that the other woman hadn’t said anything, probably not.
“Where is he, Joan?” Xiao asked. “Where are they keeping Porter?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Joan said. “You have to remember that. I’m just using information I have access to and cross checking them with what I’ve heard on the boards. That’s what I do for a living. I analyze data for the city.”
“I understand. Tell me where you think he is?”
“Most of it’s just guesswork, but some of it’s backed up with actual data. They’re moving things around, adjusting personnel because of what happened at the Wilshire. It feels like they’re scrambling, trying to rebuild what they lost and not being nearly as careful with covering their tracks as a result.”
Xiao smiled. The thought of the Rhim having to start over from scratch in Houston after what she did to them at the Wilshire filled her with a slight rush of triumph. It wasn’t much, but it was a rare enough thing that she embraced it.
“It was easier to pick up the pieces of their movements in the early days after the Wilshire attack,” Joan continued, “but it’s gotten harder these last few days. Not impossible, just more difficult. I’ve had to take more risks.…”
“What kind of risks?”
“The kind that might get me put on a list.” She sighed, looking around again before continuing. “Before I tell you everything I know, I need to meet him. Aaron.”
Again with the kid, Xiao thought, but said, “Why?”
“That’s how you can prove your identity to me.”
“By meeting Aaron?”
Joan nodded. “I know what he looks like.”
“Are you sure?”
“Tall black kid. Sixteen or seventeen. I’ve seen pictures of him. But I’ve never seen pictures of you. Like I said, I didn’t even know you were Asian.”
“You didn’t get that from my name?”
“People make up all kinds of crazy names online.”
“Fair enough,” Xiao said. Then, “All right.”
“All right?”
“I’ll take you to Aaron.”
“Really?”
“Did you think I’d say no?”
Joan shrugged. “Kind of. I wasn’t really sure how much you’d be willing to go just to satisfy my paranoia.”
Maybe I just need to find out what happened to Porter more than I thought.
“Paranoia’s good for you,” Xiao said instead. “Besides, you don’t know Aaron. He’ll get a kick out of it. Besides, it’s probably better if we do the debriefing in private anyway.”
Joan appeared physically relieved as she sat back in her seat and glanced around the diner again. Finally, she looked back across the table at Xiao. “They’re dangerous, aren’t they? The Rhim?”
“Very.”
“Every time I hear about the things they’ve done…” Joan shivered slightly and stared down at her untouched cup of black coffee. “There are so many stories about them. So many theories about who they are, what they want. I don’t know which ones to believe.”
“It’s confusing, I know. And I’ve been at this longer than you, and I still have a hard time picking out the truths from the lies.”
Joan turned to look out the window, and at that moment she looked so young and Xiao thought, What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in an office cubicle somewhere, hoping for a raise or a promotion instead of meeting with me? Do you know what happens to people who meet with me?
No, of course not. Or you wouldn’t be here.
And I really need to know what happened to Porter…
Xiao did her best to smile at the young woman. “Ready?”
“We’re leaving?” Joan asked.
“Unless you want to finish that coffee.”
Joan made a face. “I think I need a little more sugar than what they put in there.”
“Sugar’s bad for you.”
“Not as bad as whatever that thing is.”
“You’ll grow into it.”
“God, I hope not,” Joan said.
Sudden movement flickered in the corner of Xiao’s left eye as Francine the waitress’s would-be lothario turned around in his stool. Xiao only noticed because it was the first time the man had actually looked in her direction, and as soon as he saw her spying him, he quickly swiveled back to face Francine again. A second later, the waitress picked up a tray and stepped into the aisle.
What’s happening? Xiao thought as Lothario slowly turned around in his stool just as Francine walked past him.
“Joan,” Xiao said, keeping her eyes glued on the suited man and Francine, even as her right hand tugged at the corner of the bag resting on the seat next to her, over the gun.
Joan looked up from tasting her scone. “Hmm?”
“Stay calm.”
“Why?”
Joan must have seen where she was looking—at Francine as she walked down the aisle, the empty round tray in front of her like she was trying to hide something while Lothario began to stand up—because she looked over just as the waitress reached them.
“Get down!” Xiao shouted.
But Joan didn’t get down. Instead, she lunged up from her seat and turned—and crashed right into Francine as she did so. The waitress was surprised by the impact and stumbled back, off balance, and as she did so there was a bang! The tray shattered, but Xiao hardly noticed the flying plastic pieces because she was too busy watching the back of Joan’s head exploding outward, brains and blood and patches of blond hair spraying the booth upholstery and the already slightly stained window farther back.
Oh, motherFUCKER!
Francine’s out-of-control backward stumbling only stopped when she bumped into one of the counter stools and attempted to right herself. There was a look of shock on her face that immediately told Xiao this wasn’t the plan, that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. But plan or not, Francine had pulled the trigger and was now turning, and as she did so she revealed the gun in her hand.
What’s that favorite saying of Porter’s? Right. Something about no plan surviving first contact with the enemy and blah blah blah.
Even as the absurd thoughts popped into her head, Xiao dropped, ordering her legs to crumple underneath her. She let her body go limp until she was sliding down the slick plastic booth seat even as her right hand finished flicking the handbag off to reveal the gun.
A second bang! rocked the diner, and Xiao felt the force of the bullet missing the top of her head by mere inches and slamming into the seat, piercing it and embedding itself into the dirty tiles behind her booth.
Xiao’s butt hadn’t completely touched the very cold floor when she pulled the Glock down, then back u
p and to the left in a sweeping motion, and pulled the trigger once, twice—and watched a pair of legs buckle and stagger backward. Blood pumped out of a shattered kneecap even as—bang! bang!—two rounds punched their way through the table above Xiao’s head but thankfully a few inches to the right of her position.
Wooden splinters from the two fresh shots were flicking at Xiao’s head when Joan’s pale face, frozen in shock, landed with a squishy thwump on the seat across from her. The girl’s eyes were wide open, a thin trail of blood oozing out of the hole in her forehead. For an accidental gun discharge, it had been one hell of a shot placement, and Joan was dead before she even fell back down to the booth.
And you’re going to be just as dead if you don’t pay attention!
Xiao didn’t bother trying to throw her weight into the table above her and upending it in order to escape from her current position on the floor. The furniture itself was constructed of composite wood—most of that plywood—and it wasn’t nearly as strong as actual hardwood (if the two rounds that had sliced through it was any indication), but it was still heavy enough that it would have taken more effort than she could summon to overturn it.
Instead, she relaxed her body even further and rolled out from underneath the booth, ready for anything—
The waitress, struggling to stay on her feet, was clutching one of the stools to keep herself upright—just barely. She saw Xiao coming out from underneath the table and fired—too fast—and missed!
Maybe it was the sight of Xiao moving like some kind of human roll or the fact that Francine was bleeding profusely from her shattered kneecap that threw off her aim. Either way, Xiao could hear the bullet flashing over her and hitting the floor a foot behind her. A tile exploded, pelting her body and the back of her head with tiny shards of ceramic.
She didn’t stop moving until she was just two feet away from the waitress and pulled the trigger on the Glock. She hit the woman once in the chest. Then, as the assassin was sliding down, having lost her grip on the stool, struck her in the side of the throat with a second shot. An arc of blood sprayed through the air as Francine dropped her gun—a small SIG Sauer P227 (Now where the hell had she been hiding that thing? In her friggin’ apron?)—and groped with both hands for her neck.
Xiao was still on her back when Lothario rushed up the aisle, a gun in one hand. Xiao rolled right when he fired, his round dislodging another tile mere inches from her head.
Close one!
She fired back, hitting him both times in the chest, and watched him fall into a lifeless pile.
Then someone was screaming—the woman with the fifties-style haircut—and the bell above the front door was chiming—once, twice, three times.
Xiao was too busy scrambling up from the floor to pay any attention to Francine, who had slumped to the tiles as blood pooled quickly around her as well as covering her coffee-stained uniform.
It took Xiao five seconds to get her bearings as she rose back up to her feet.
The two men in painter’s overalls were gone, and when Xiao glanced over at the door, she caught a glimpse of both men fleeing up the sidewalk. The old man in the fedora had followed suit, though instead of running, he was crawling along the sidewalk for some reason. Coupon Cutter had ducked under her booth’s table, arms flung over her head as she tried in vain to bury her face in the floor. The two truckers had also abandoned their booth and retreated, only to discover no way out after that, and both men were clutching knives and forks and staring back at her. She wasn’t sure if they were scared or too shocked to be afraid.
“Don’t forget to vote,” Xiao said to them before she turned and fled down the aisle toward the door.
She had to jump over Lothario’s still body and a fresh and moving stream of blood on the floor to get to the exit. The bell pinged! as she pushed the door open and burst outside into the cold, chilly air, just as Fedora scampered around a corner up ahead.
“Porter,” the young woman calling herself “Joan” had said before Francine splattered her brains all over the booth. “I think I know where they might be keeping him.”
So close, Xiao thought. So damn close.
Chapter 2
Quinn
The room was much smaller than she remembered, and she found it difficult to believe four people had once spent hours at a time, day after day, in this place. But maybe the fact they were all kids, the oldest being thirteen, had a little something to do with that. She was eleven when she finally left, two days short of her twelfth birthday. There was supposed to be a party—or as much of a “party” as you could throw when no one had any money and the people who ran the place locked the doors at eight, and if you were caught outside, you had to find a spot in the streets to sleep for the night.
Four people, jammed into one room, but it was still better than sleeping out there in the elements with whatever you had on your back. Or whatever you were able to barter for.
Bartering. That’s one way to put it.
Quinn looked for it, remembering the spot even after all these years. There, in the far right corner where her cot had been. The bed was gone, along with the other three that took up most of the space. If she squinted, she could make out where they had left their marks on the floor and rubbed against the walls, even with just the natural sunlight available. The single light fixture dangling from the ceiling had been missing a bulb for who knew how long, but she had been standing inside long enough for her eyes to adjust.
She crouched and didn’t have to look too hard to find them—they stood out against the plain concrete walls that looked more gray than white these days.
Rosario. Kicks. Macy.
And at the end: Q.
She’d carved them into the wall with the dull point of an old pocketknife about a month before she left. If the other girls knew about the names’ existence, no one had said a word to her before or after. Not that she could be sure about the latter—she hadn’t seen any of them again after that.
Eight o’clock. If you weren’t in your room after eight o’clock, the staff locked you out, with the doors reopening the next morning and no sooner. It seemed cruel at the time, but looking back, she understood why they did it. When you were dealing with rebellious teens, there had to be rules.
She sat down on the floor and stared at the names and for a moment was able to shut out the smell coming from the waste and grime (and other things) around her. If she didn’t look up, she could ignore the sad state of the ceiling, which could plunge down on top of her at any second.
So don’t think about it.
Quinn was still looking at the names, wondering what had become of the other girls, when the phone in her jacket pocket vibrated. She fished it out and didn’t bother to look at the cheap black and white screen, because all she would have seen was CALLER UNKNOWN anyway. The candy bar-shaped phone was one of Aaron’s.
“Hey,” she said, her voice echoing slightly off the discolored walls.
“Find what you were looking for?” Aaron asked through the phone.
“Not exactly.”
“Is it even still around? Google Maps stopped updating that area five years ago.”
“It’s still here.” She glanced around and wrinkled her nose against the smell. “Not quite as I remembered it, though.”
“Well, you’re older now. Different perspective, and all that.”
“Not what I meant, but I guess that’s also true.” She stood up and brushed at her backside with one hand. “Did you hear back from Xiao yet?”
“Not yet, but shouldn’t be long now. She’s been gone for a few hours.”
“Is she supposed to call you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly, then, Aaron?”
“She would call if she had something, after the meeting. You know Xiao; even if she has good news, she’s probably making me wait on purpose just to torture me. It’s her thing.”
Quinn gave the room one last look. There had never been very much before�
�four tiny cots for four small girls, a cheap plastic rack for shoes, and a shelf that was kept together by duct tape (or whatever they could find in place of)—but there was even less today. The furniture was gone, either stolen after or taken before the place closed. Why anyone would bother, she had no idea. The cots might have been worth something, but the rest…
Junk. It’s all junk. My childhood. My past. It’s all junk.
So why did I come back here? What did I expect to find?
She stepped through the doorframe, the door of which had been removed some time ago. (Again, she didn’t know why anyone would bother.) The hallway was mostly dark, with only sporadic sprays of light coming from a pair of high windows. The semidarkness was for the best because it kept her from seeing the trash that littered her path and all the graffiti (and liquids, and everything else) that covered the walls to both sides of her in all their glory. There was evidence junkies had turned the place into a nest, and she was surprised she didn’t stumble across any of them during her walkthrough. Her biggest fear was stepping on a used syringe, and that kept Quinn alert as she made her way back to the front door.
God, I used to live here. I can’t believe I used to live here.
“She should have waited for me so I could back her up,” Quinn said into the phone. Her voice was less echoey thanks to the wider-open spaces.
“You want Xiao to wait?” Aaron said. “Are we even talking about the same person here?”
“Did you at least vet the contact?”
“As much as I could.”
“Meaning?”
“You know these SOP boards. Dummies don’t last. The ones who regularly troll the place know better than to use their real names or leave behind trails. This one—calling herself Joan—knew what she was doing. Kinda hard to really vet a fake username on the Web, you know?”
“Are we even sure it’s a woman?”
“Xiao’s pretty sure.”
“How?”
“Girldar, I guess.”
“‘Girldar?’”
“You know, like gaydar.”
“Right. Girldar.”