"Oh, several," Hobson said seriously, breath wisping from his mouth. "But with a commitment of this magnitude, I want to be perfectly certain of my decision. Do you expect to have more stock soon? Or know others who might be selling? You would, of course, be entitled to a commission."
Kroger shrugged, turning away. "Just got our newest a couple weeks ago. I don't expect more till spring. As for other vendors, selection will be very limited. I'm the only one with a proper lot. At another farm, the only ALPs they'll be looking to part with will be the ones they don't think are good enough for themselves."
"Whereas you possess such abundance it's no matter to part with a piece of it."
"Hit it on the head."
"You've given me much to think about," Hobson said. "May I return after I've had a couple days to process?"
"Take all the time you need."
They shook. Kroger grinned and bobbed his head at Ellie and Dee. His hired man returned with the guns. Ellie donned her snowshoes. The three of them walked east from the park.
"He wasn't there," Dee said.
Gray clouds mounted in the sky. Ellie skidded over a patch of ice. "I know."
"What if he's not here at all? What if he's just getting farther and farther away?"
She turned to look Dee in the eye. "Do you think I'll stop looking?"
Dee's face calmed. "No."
"Then it's not if we find him. It's when."
But she wasn't so confident. Even in the good old days, once you got 48 hours out from the time of kidnapping, it was 50/50 you'd see the victim alive again. These days, with no internet or phones, no FBI or cross-country travel, she had the feeling New York was their last chance to find Quinn before he became lost in the wilderness of the world.
They found an apartment overlooking the park and went to bed early. The next day, they made the rounds, continuing their cover story, going door to door among the farmhouses scattered around the park. Armed with the proper terminology and attitude, Hobson made fewer gaffes than with the unctuous Kroger, but often the doors didn't open to his knock. Twice, they were run off the land by rifle-bearing farmers.
At a log cabin that afternoon, an elderly woman answered the door.
"Good day, madam," Hobson bowed. "My family will soon be moving into the area. I wonder, do you run this farm by yourself?"
She glanced at Ellie and Dee. "I got a couple of boys who pitch in."
"Your sons?" Hobson tried. "Ah, you mean field hands. I was interested in such folk myself."
The woman's eyes flicked past him to Ellie. "This isn't a subject for mixed company."
Hobson turned to Ellie and Dee. "Will you excuse us?"
Ellie smiled and took Dee back up the path. Hobson spoke to the old woman a moment, then jogged awkwardly to join them, snowshoes flapping.
"She is disinclined to speak with me until her husband returns this evening," he said softly. "But get this. She allowed that she'd recently made a new purchase. A 'young buck,' she called him. If I'm up to date on my dog-whistling slang, she might just mean Quinn."
"When can we come back?" Ellie said.
"I, singular, have been invited to dinner. Apparently this is masculine business. Who knew?"
"Do you think that's a good idea?"
"Well, no," he said. "But I think it's a stone worth flipping over."
She didn't like the idea of splitting up. But they were all looking at her: the old woman across the yard in her doorway, disapproving; Hobson, wryly amused by the social niceties surrounding the ownership of other humans; Dee, hopeful and expectant for this new lead. Ellie nodded. Hobson smiled and jogged back to let the old woman know he'd be there.
Around dusk, they returned to the boathouse to check in with Nora.
"The old woman by Turtle Pond," Ellie said. "You know her? House has one of those old fashioned rooster windvanes?"
"Mrs. Talcott?" Nora said. "Why?"
"She's invited the sheriff to dinner. Any reason he should say no?"
The woman tapped her nail against her tea. "She and her husband keep to themselves more than most, but I've never heard a bad word about them. They're getting on in their years, though. I wouldn't be surprised if they've been on the market for a fresh set of hands."
"Which might make the cost to us dear," Hobson said. "Even so, purchasing him cleanly might be less messy than attempting to steal him."
Nora drained her mug. "Got another name for you if that one doesn't pan out. Richard Jimenez. Runs a place just east of Tavern on the Green. He's looking to compete with Kroger and probably gets a look at any new captives."
"Thanks again for your help," Ellie said. "You're the first person we've met who we haven't had to threaten, trick, or shame into talking about this."
She swirled her cup. "My brother made it through the Panhandler with me. I lost him to slavers in Boulder. It just keeps cropping up."
Hobson smiled in sympathy. "To the wrong sort of person, there is nothing cheaper than another man's life."
They waited till dark to leave, and only after Nora's son confirmed the snowy pavement was clear of people. Ellie and Dee walked north with Hobson until their paths diverged.
"I shall see you at the apartment," he said. "With any luck, our next step will be haggling a fair price for Quinn."
He saluted with his cane and headed for the Talcotts' cabin. Ellie had half a mind to drop in on Richard Jimenez—it was barely 5 PM—but the sun was down and she didn't particularly want to expose Dee to another slave-trader until she knew Hobson's lead was a bust. Instead, they walked back to the apartment and dried their feet. Ellie found decks of cards in a closet, but couldn't remember how to play gin rummy, so she and Dee played solitaire next to each other instead.
Hobson had the pocket watch, and with the moon hidden behind a wall of clouds that looked intent to snow, Ellie had no clock but her internal one. By something like eight o'clock, she began to worry. Around a time that might have been ten, she gave up any pretense of playing cards and watched from the window, scanning the park for movement, constantly tricked by the stirring of leaves.
Once she was convinced it was at least midnight—much later than a seventy-year-old couple on winter hours would possibly be awake, much less active enough to entertain the sixty-year-old Hobson—she zipped her coat over her sweater and slung on her gun.
"I'm going, too," Dee said, though they hadn't exchanged a word. "No way I'm letting my mom go in there herself. And if something happened to the sheriff, that means they've got Quinn."
"I was hoping you'd have figured that out," Ellie said. "Now get your gun. We're going to need it."
25
Flames blasted up the face of Sicily. Gunshots popped from the corner, orange strobes that shattered glass and drew screams. Rifles answered from the besieged bar. A machine gun rattled through its entire magazine, hammering the corner of the building across the street into a cloud of stony dust.
Lucy probably ought to go lie down in the tub, but most times there was a shootout, she was in the middle of it. She seldom got the chance to be an impartial observer. With all the lights and noise, it was like watching a fireworks show. One where people were almost certainly bleeding out.
A stray round whacked into the wall two feet from her. She ducked down and waited for the hail of lead to peter out. After the initial outburst of Molotovs and Kalashnikovs, things sputtered down to a halting, sporadic exchange of fire, most of it centered around the bodega across the street Distro was using for a firebase. The Kono tried a charge and two men dropped to the street, motionless. They redoubled their fire, pouring it into the storefront. When they stopped, the night went silent.
A man shouted orders. Troops burst from the bar to overrun the bodega, but Distro was gone.
Lucy opened her window and took a deep breath of spent gunpowder. Men and women ran down the street, giving chase to the raiders. Others knelt by the wounded to check pulses and triage the casualties. Lucy hung around in her room a good
long while, ensuring the skirmish was over. She had a rooting interest in the Kono coming out ahead in this dust-up, but if she got her ass shot off in the street, it wouldn't much matter who hoisted the flag over whose corpse.
Fifteen minutes after the last shot had sounded, she grabbed her umbrella, walked downstairs, exited the south side of the building, and circled through the streets to Sicily. The Kono had dragged away the bodies, but red stains seared the snow. Out front, a line of soldiers crouched behind overturned chairs.
A woman burst sideways from the cover, rifle trained on Lucy. "Stay right there!"
"It's just me," Lucy said. "Came running as soon as I heard the shots."
The woman held her aim steady. Lucy strained for a clearer look at her face. Was she one of Duke's friends? One of the people who'd continued to snub her after Ash's little speech? What if she pulled the trigger, said she'd thought Lucy was a stray Distro?
"Is Ash okay?" She slowly lowered her hands until her umbrella rested against the side of her hip. "Y'all need a hand?"
"Did you see Distro on the way here?" the woman said.
Lucy shook her head. "I was over by the river. Missed the whole thing."
"That might have just been the first wave. Get over here and dig in."
Lucy sighed and knelt in the slush behind the makeshift wooden barricade. She spent the next hour freezing her butt off. Finally, Ash walked out of the bar and flicked the end of a cigar into the snow.
"Frank, Allen, keep watch," he said. "Rest of you come off the lines. Fun's over for tonight."
Lucy stood, stiff in the knees, and headed inside. Gangsters sat at booths, weapons propped beside them, glasses gleaming on their tables. What little talk they engaged in was low and cold.
"Take a seat," Ash told her.
She slid into a booth across from three other troopers. Ash set his narrow backside down beside her.
He lifted a glass, but just stared at it. "You worked with Distro. Got a feel for how their minds work. They treat this city like a game of chess where they've captured the enemy queen. All they have to do is play conservative. Outflank us move by move. Wait for us to screw up—and to make no major mistakes of their own."
"In a nutshell," Lucy said. "Nerve figured he has products you can't get and lower prices on the ones you do have. No way to lose unless you launched an all-out war on his ass."
"Right. Which they did tonight. Why did they finally grow some balls?"
Lucy had veered down a path that led to too many questions. Time to get back on course. "We must have hurt them as bad as we hoped. When you knocked down those aliens, you took out their queen. Now they're on tilt."
"That's poker," Ash said.
"Whatever. Point is, they're desperate. And mad. Tonight was just the beginning."
"Then maybe it's time to steal their strategy. Turtle up and wait for them to fuck themselves."
"How'd that work out for them?" Lucy said. "You think you're the only goons in the city? What happens when a squad in Brooklyn sees you were attacked and didn't have the guts to hit back?"
He narrowed his eyes at his glass, then drained it. "That's what I saw when I started watching Distro. Big fish, no teeth. I've been taking bites out of their hide ever since."
She softened her voice. "How many of us died tonight?"
"Three so far. And if Nelson makes it, I'm having that boy buy me a lottery ticket, because his lungs have more lead in them than a Roman pipe." He beckoned over a passing server and ordered two shots of tequila. "Well, as always, your input into our friends is most appreciated. Now be gone from my sight. I've got brooding to do."
For a moment, Lucy didn't understand he was talking to her. She stood and went to her room. The darkness was welcome. She'd dodged a bullet down there. Ash had been rightly suspicious of Distro's attack—it had been so sudden and certain you might wonder whether someone had told them the Kono were to blame for the destruction of their trade route. Such as in the postscript to a note warning a man to get out of town.
She slept soundly that night.
She didn't see much of Ash for a few days. When she asked, Brian told her he was off meeting with the bosses. She was conscripted for sentry duty, standing guard outside Sicily, patrolling the snowy streets. The next time she saw Ash, she let him know where Distro posted their rooftop watchers, but he brushed her off.
With no attacks in days, she was attached to a small troop dispatched to Central Park. While she stood around in the snow, two men went inside the log cabins and metal shacks and came out with bags and small crates they loaded into a horse-drawn wagon. Some of the farmers spoke in raised voices. They didn't like what was going on outside the park's walls. One man wanted to know why he was paying for security when the Kono seemed intent on burning the whole city down. The gangster acting as his customer service representative smiled thinly and told the man he'd pass along his concerns.
After the previous weeks locked up in her apartment, it was a kick to get outside and into the thick of things, but Lucy's restlessness ran too deep. Each day felt wasted. Tilly was still clapped away in the city's tallest tower. Every day they stuck around the city was one more day they might get shot. Or, in Tilly's case, shoved off a balcony by her psycho-robot boyfriend.
When she got a few hours to herself, Lucy hung around 34th Street, hoping to catch Tilly out by her lonesome. But they were either operating on different schedules or Nerve had given her the Rapunzel treatment, because not once did she see Tilly outside.
A week after the attack, she was down in the bar having her first beer of the afternoon when Ash grabbed her by the collar.
"Come along," he said. "Time to have a little fun."
She scooted off her stool. "Where we headed?"
"Oh, a bit of a walk. You got a gun?"
She held up her umbrella. "Don't worry. It's loaded."
He unstrapped a gun belt from his waist and tossed it at her. "Thank me later. Go wait outside."
Lucy pulled on her coat and walked out. Five others stood in the powder-fine snow drifting from the sky. The streets were dark and still. Ash joined them, rubbing his hands together, and headed east, shoes squeaking in the snow.
It was a long walk and low on conversation. Ash led them south beyond the park, then hooked east a few blocks before resuming his southerly course. Candles flickered from a corner bar. The people outside it went quiet and watched the troopers pass, heads swiveling like spooked deer. A while later, an oncoming pedestrian looked up and swerved for the other side of the street without breaking stride.
"Just how far away is this place?" Lucy said after better than an hour of trudging through the snow.
Ash smirked over his shoulder. "There's no such thing as too far to walk. Not when we're going to the last Indian restaurant in the city!"
As they neared the Empire State Building, he veered to keep several blocks between it and their unit. Not long after, he stopped at the corner of 30th and Lexington. After the faded glitz of Midtown, the surrounding towers looked downright diminutive.
"Barry, why don't you walk on by and take a look?" Ash said. "Don't linger."
A bearded man nodded and continued south. Ash walked back around the corner and leaned against a building. When Lucy tried to ask what they were doing, he shushed her.
Within five minutes, footsteps crunched from up the street. Barry raised his arm in greeting; he'd circled around. "He appears to be enjoying his dinner."
"There'd be something wrong with him if he weren't. Those chefs are fucking magicians." Ash turned to the others and smiled sharply. "Here's the score. Basically, Distro is a bunch of fucking idiots who like to follow their routines until the ruts are too deep to climb out of. We're going in. Do not harm the staff. The last thing I want is the Feds to come down on our ass. And one of the cooks is the guy who tipped me off."
"Who's the target?" Lucy said.
"Don't worry about it. You just make sure that anyone who goes for a gun doesn't have
time to take a shot."
"How heavy can we get?"
"They're Distro," Ash said. "Hurt them as much as you want."
He backtracked a block to Park Avenue, headed downtown for two more blocks, then swung inside what purported to be a jewelry shop, but the only thing it had on display these days was broken glass and empty cases. Ash used a penlight to maneuver around the worst of it. He entered a back door and strode through a series of back rooms and corridors without so much as a pause for a look around. Lucy brooked no doubt that, as spontaneous as this voyage seemed, it had been a long time in the making.
He exited into a courtyard that smelled like pan-fried onions and slow-roasted cardamom. Light flickered in a window of the adjoining building. Ash walked up to a back door and put his finger to his lips.
"Inside is a no-talking zone. If I hear anything besides 'Hands up,' or 'Put the gun down,' then tomorrow's lunch special will be a hot bowl of You Soup. Got it?"
They all nodded. He opened the door. The scent of spice swirled past on a rush of warm, damp air. Ash drew his pistol and crept down a narrow tiled hallway. On the other side of a swinging door with a porthole window, pans clanked and sizzled.
Ash swept it open and spoke in a conversational tone. "Hello and pardon the interruption. FYI, a group of scary people is about to walk through the door. As long as you stay quiet, go about your business, and for the love of God, don't try anything funny, I promise no one will be hurt. No one you care about, anyway. Agreed?"
He was answered by the hiss of cooking. He beckoned the others through the door. The kitchen was tight and steamy; canary-yellow dishes bubbled on the stove in a heady rush of cumin and onion. Five people stood stock still at their stations. The workers' ages ranged from eight to eighty, but every one of them shared the same expression: icy terror.
"Benson, keep an eye on them," Ash said. "Rest of you, walk this way."
One trooper peeled off to watch the restaurant workers. He had a rifle in his hands but didn't point it at anything in particular. Ash crossed the sweaty room, drew his pistol, and booted open the door.
Reapers (Breakers, Book 4) Page 31