Skin Game

by Ava Gray

  As it was late morning, Reyes went directly to an apartment building near the opera house where he had rented a studio apartment before. It was white stone with ornate cornices and small balconies beneath each window. Some residents would plant flowers in the springtime. The owners kept small furnished rentals for travelers, offering more privacy and self-sufficiency than a hotel. Budapest was a gorgeous city, and if he hadn’t been so damn tired, he would’ve appreciated it more.

  Reyes knocked on the manager’s door, Istvan Laszlofi, as he recalled. The man came to the door eventually, clad in tan slacks and a white undershirt. His thinning hair was mussed, and by his expression, he’d interrupted a meal. The manager raised bushy brows, coal black in contrast to his silver hair.

  “Nekem bérelnem kell egy szobát.” He wasn’t fluent, but he had enough conversational Hungarian to ask to rent a room.

  “Milyen hosszú?”

  A week ought to do it. If his business didn’t take that long, he’d let the guy keep the extra cash. “Hét nap.”

  The manager named a sum; he paid out the bills and received a key in return. As if he knew Reyes wasn’t fluent, the man spoke slowly in telling him that he had a room upstairs, first door on the right. Reyes nodded in thanks and jogged up the stairs.

  He didn’t have much stuff to stow, but he needed to get some sleep. The studio was small, even by European standards. Technically he supposed one could call it a loft, but there were no stairs, just an actual ladder leading up to a deep ledge where they’d stashed a mattress.

  The downstairs held a small fridge with a white microwave sitting atop it. There was also a black futon, hardwood floors, and a TV. Just one window. The balcony would make it hard to get in. He peered out at the street, which was narrow, lined with trees in clay pots.

  The small bathroom, done in plain white ceramic tile, held a shower stall, an economy toilet, and a pedestal sink. The kitchen was nothing but two burners, four cupboards, and a sink. Most important, it would be impossible to get in here without him noticing. He’d bed down upstairs for better security; there was no way he’d sleep through anyone coming up that ladder. Nobody should know he was here—he hadn’t even confirmed with the client yet—but he hadn’t survived all these years in this line of work by being less than cautious.

  A long nap left him feeling better mentally. Reyes took a quick shower and headed out. As he typically did, he bought a prepaid cell phone to use with this particular client. Once the job was done, he would discard it. He visited an Internet café and sent an e-mail with the number, nothing more. Reyes was sitting in a restaurant eating a hearty bowl of soup when his cell went off.

  “Mack,” he answered.

  “You take job?” The heavily accented voice belonged to the bereaved father.

  Reyes remembered a picture of a young girl, facedown in her own vomit. He’d done the research, no margin for error. “Yes. I’m sending you some numbers. Wire the funds, and I’ll take care of the problem by tomorrow.”

  “Promise to God?” Maybe he didn’t speak the language fluently, but he’d understood yes at least.

  The call completed, Reyes went to a different Internet café. He added instructions in Hungarian to complete the transfers. Two e-mails later, he had an address. His client was smart; he didn’t put anything incriminating in his messages, just the bare details. The grocer knew where to find the skin peddler. He just didn’t have the skills to take him out.

  Not tomorrow. Today. Now. He needed this. Needed to feel clean again by doing something worthwhile, make the world a better place by taking a scumbag out of it. And maybe the expiation would take away some of the pain that throbbed through him as if his whole body had become a rotten tooth.

  Reyes stopped by a pawnshop and bought a knife. They were easier to lay hands on in Europe. He could kill with his bare hands, but it was likely he was walking into heavy artillery. He wasn’t suicidal; he wanted to walk out again. However much he hurt, he wasn’t ready to call it quits. Time would heal this over. He’d get used to being alone. He just needed to immerse himself in routine again. Remember his life without her.

  The club was down by the river, a shoddy building made of crumbling red bricks. Reyes strode through the alley, circling around behind. It was littered with empty cans, broken bottles, and discarded needles. This was how he lived, cleaning out the gutters.

  Two men were unloading a shipment of liquor as he passed by. They didn’t question him, as he strode through the back door as if he owned the place. He passed through a filthy kitchen, where an elderly woman was making soup. The dance floor looked strange and deserted, swimming with shadows. Toward the back, a stage stood empty. Later, some naked woman would wrap herself around the pole. Upstairs, there was a red velvet room, where men pushed little girls to the floor and made them weep, and someone else recorded it.

  This was his world. It had never seemed so strange, so alien, before.

  Only one table was occupied. Four men were playing cards. He recognized Nicolao Vadas from his mug shot: tall and thin with a scar on his left cheek, a beak of a nose, and full lips that he constantly wet with his tongue. He’d been arrested many times, but his lawyers always got him out. Like a cockroach, he’d keep coming back until someone stepped on him hard enough to break him.

  “What are you doing here?” Vadas demanded in Hungarian.

  In answer, Reyes spiked a knife up through his jaw and into his brain.

  His three men scrambled for their weapons. The pistols lay among scattered cards and poker chips. He felt disconnected, as if they could shoot him, and he wouldn’t even feel it. Lightning fast, Reyes grabbed the closest guy’s hand and slammed it to the table. In the same motion, he used the bastard as his personal shield. He took his HK away and leveled it on the thug across the table with his fingers edging toward his gun.

  “I was only paid to kill him,” he said in badly accented Hungarian. “Do you three want to walk away?”

  Whatever they saw in his eyes, they decided not to fight. The other two backed out of the club slowly, showing their hands. They’d just find some other asshole to work for, but until someone else judged them bad enough to put down, he wouldn’t touch them. If he went around killing everyone he thought deserved to die, he’d skip far beyond the thin line that kept him sane. He pocketed the HK.

  Reyes let go of the third guy, who ran, slipping and sliding in his haste, toward the exit. He stared down at Nicolao Vadas, who would never hurt another kid. His dead eyes gazed at nothing. Was there expiation in that filmy look? Drawing a cloth from his jacket, he cleaned the handle, but he left the blade in place. He hadn’t touched it.

  Maybe this would make up for what he’d almost done, the woman he might’ve killed. Maybe in time, the ache would go away.

  He took out his throwaway cell phone and snapped a picture. He’d send this by courier to the grocer as proof of a job well done. Reyes met no opposition as he left the club. If he’d been a different sort of man, he might’ve burned it down.

  Instead he wiped down the phone, and went out into the street, where a light rain had begun to fall. Passing cars splashed him, and a kid in a Citroen flipped him off as he crossed. He walked, head down, one of the few without an umbrella.

  At a small office supply store, he bought a brown envelope, and then went to a third Internet café. He used the web to request a pickup from Kenguru Boy courier service. Choosing immediate and express got him service right away. He’d only been there half an hour when the young man showed up on a motorcycle. Cash changed hands.

  The courier spoke lightly accented English. “Thank you, sir. We will make sure your parcel arrives within two hours. This address is not far.” His eyes said it would’ve been easy for Reyes to deliver it himself.

  Yeah, he knew that, but clients never saw his face.

  Except Serrano at the end, and he took it to his grave.

  Ruthlessly, Reyes pushed the memory down. He didn’t want to remember that job or how it e
nded. He preferred to forget what he’d done to tie up loose ends and the anonymous call he’d made to Sagorski, who was doubtless rubbing his hands together in glee over such a juicy case.

  Now he had only one more task left in Budapest.

  In truth he had no heart for it, but if he didn’t make an example of Monroe, people would think they could get away with crossing him. According to Intel for which he’d paid a premium, Monroe was hiding out in a squat down near the Danube. Unless he’d scrambled since then, this would be quick.

  Reyes rented a motorbike so he could travel fast, weaving in and out of city traffic. Down by the river, it smelled of damp wood and rotten fish. There was a web of warehouses and abandoned buildings in this section, but the one he sought had some unmistakable graffiti on it: a blond woman wearing a red shirt and a mournful look, naked from the waist down.

  He found it on his second circuit. After parking the bike, he pulled the HK out of his pocket and disengaged the safety. He hadn’t come to talk. The gray building had many broken windows. A gate across the doorway was supposed to discourage trespassers, but it was possible to edge it outward enough to slip past.

  Inside it stank of urine. He searched three floors methodically, ignoring the presence of other squatters, who peered at him with starving eyes, their faces withered with hunger and drink. Deep down he’d never doubted he would find Monroe on the top floor, having claimed the best digs even in a place like this.

  Monroe had an ego and a taste for comfort that didn’t echo in his work ethic. Reyes had always found his laissez faire attitude toward life refreshing. Not anymore. It was weakness, pure and simple.

  It became obvious where he was hiding by the shiny new locks. Reyes kicked the door with all his strength; new locks could only do so much good when the door was flimsy and half rotten. When Reyes burst in, Monroe was using his laptop to steal signal from some business nearby. Likely he was working for somebody, stealing info he wasn’t supposed to have, as he’d done so many times for Reyes.

  Monroe had turned an abandoned office into a decent apartment. He had a mattress and some furniture, tables and chairs with hardware set up. At any given time he could be cloning credit cards from stolen receipts, pirating DVDs, or something even less reputable, such as creating incriminating blackmail videos out of personal photos uploaded to private Flickr accounts.

  Reyes had always known the guy wasn’t exactly humanitarian-of-the-year material, but he’d never thought Monroe would roll, not after he’d saved his life in Prague. He’d thought they were friends, or as close as guys like them got. He looked younger than he was, a boyish thirty, with fair hair and blue eyes. If he had to shave once a week, it was a miracle.

  “Shit,” Monroe said, freezing.

  “Weren’t you expecting me?”

  His throat worked, and he clutched his laptop as if it could shield him from what was coming. “Not this fast.”

  “No? See, word got out. That you worked for me, and then you turned. People were eager to give you up. In my line of work, we can’t afford to trust people who turn out to be unreliable.”

  “He threatened to kill me, man. He rousted me in Phoenix. I had him in my house, ice pick in my eye. You know Van Zant; he’s a crazy son of a bitch.” Then he seemed to stop and think. “Was, I guess. Was a crazy son of a bitch. Anyway, I knew you could take him. I’m sorry, but I’m not dying for you, dude. It wasn’t just the money.”

  “But you took it, didn’t you?”

  And Kyra might’ve died because you’re a spineless prick. Because I trusted you. An icy rage took hold of him. This much he could do for her. Would do. He’d make things right, even if she never knew.

  Monroe hunched his shoulders defensively. “Yeah. I needed the cash. It’s getting harder to make a living like this, and security online gets better every day.”

  “Lucky, you don’t have to worry about that anymore.” The numbness threatened again, washing in like fog on a rocky beach. It eclipsed the cold fury. Maybe on some level, it should have bothered him to snip this last loose end. He’d felt something for this guy once. Now he didn’t seem to feel anything at all, as if he were in a boat washing farther and farther from shore.

  His expression became bewildered. “What, online security?”

  “No.” Reyes smiled. “Living.” He picked up a pillow from the mattress, covered the barrel of the HK, and shot Monroe in the head.

  In the future, he’d have to find another hacker, someone else to access classified information. Maybe Apex could step up. Reyes would make sure there were no personal connections, going forward. And he wouldn’t turn to that person when he was in trouble. At least he’d learned a valuable lesson over the past months: you could only ever rely on yourself. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  He wiped the gun and left it on Monroe’s body. It was never smart to carry a murder weapon with you. Reyes retraced his steps through the squat.

  “There’s a bunch of good stuff upstairs,” he said to the homeless in Hungarian.

  Soon Monroe’s stuff would be stolen, including IDs. If he knew anything about such places, all the evidence would be compromised long before the cops were alerted.

  By some miracle, the bike was still where he’d left it. He fired it up and spun away from the last connection to the mess he’d made. There was nothing left to do.

  He stopped at a petrol station just before returning the bike. Gassing up didn’t cost much; the tank was small. Afterward, he went into the restroom and washed his hands, scrubbing diligently. Prolonged immersion with simple soap and water would defeat a gunshot residue test. He knew these things because he was careful and precise. He knew what he needed to do to survive. Now he just had to get back to it.

  It was over. Everything. Over. He’d never see her again. Never go looking. Because that was what she wanted, and the best thing he could do for her was leave. He’d always known it would end that way, no matter how sweet it seemed. Reyes wouldn’t grieve for something that had never belonged to him.

  It was time to get back to work, back to his life. Time to do what he did best. Time to forget there had ever been a woman who held him because she wanted to.

  He had nothing but time, spread out before him like a wasteland.

  CHAPTER 30

  It had been a week since they left Las Vegas.

  And she’d crashed hard once she got them to safety. Mia told her they’d spent a whole day hiding in a hotel off the strip, but she couldn’t remember it. Since then, Mia had been moody and uncommunicative, totally unlike herself. Focusing on her friend’s problems distracted Kyra from thinking about her own, but she didn’t want to push. After leaving the rental house, she’d found Mia shivering outside despite the relative warmness of the air.

  Kyra had taken her hand, despite the pain, and led her to the Marquis. She didn’t want to stick around in case one of the neighbors called the police. The other woman roused only long enough to request they pick up her things, and then she closed her eyes. Kyra had no choice but to hang tough, despite the pain spiking through her brain. She’d overloaded her circuits, and there was no help for it but medication and rest.

  That set the tone for the next several days. They drove in near silence, both nursing private grief.

  In Colorado, she had the Marquis painted white on the off chance anyone was still looking for her. The switched plates should do some good as well, as long as she drove within the speed limits and didn’t attract police attention. Mia huddled against the door, head against the window. Kyra had never seen her like this: so small and scared.

  Just what the hell had happened? But any attempt to find out met with a wall of silence. Her friend wasn’t ready to talk, and Kyra had to respect that.

  A rest stop where they used the bathroom had a small visitor’s center, and Kyra picked up a brochure for a gorgeous hotel called Chateau on the Lake. It promised soothing tranquility set amid pastoral beauty, lush gardens, in-house spa, massage therapy, tennis
courts—pure luxury. Somewhere to rest sounded wonderful.

  As they walked back to the Marquis, she asked, “What do you think?” and passed the flyer to her friend.

  Mia read it over as she climbed into the passenger seat. “I could use it.”

  They didn’t need a vacation as much as a place to lick their wounds. While Kyra didn’t know exactly what had happened between Mia and Foster, she recognized the wreckage in her eyes. God, she felt more or less the same, as if she’d been hit by a car, the scars too deep for anyone else to see.

  She drove. The Marquis responded like a familiar friend, comfortable beneath her hands. Kyra focused on breathing, and tried to tell herself she didn’t hurt. She’d give anything if that wasn’t true of Mia.

  By the end of the seventh day, they reached Branson, Missouri. Mia used her cell to call the hotel on the flyer to find out if they had a room. They did, and she reserved it.

  Chateau on the Lake lay some four miles from the thea ters and eight miles from downtown, but Kyra didn’t imagine they’d want to explore the homey attractions. At least she didn’t. She intended to hole up, order room service, and try to forget.

  The place was every bit as beautiful as the pictures claimed. Nestled amid trees and gardens, the yellow building gleamed in the last rays of the sun, gilding it. She hoped that meant they’d find some respite there. While Mia got her stuff, Kyra pulled the money case out of the floor of the car and tucked it into her duffel bag.

  She didn’t think Reyes would come looking for her, but she didn’t mean to leave the money unattended until then. Her father had died, and she’d suffered for it, so she didn’t mean to let anyone take it.

  Inside, it was positively lavish. Mia took care of check-in because a place like this didn’t work on a cash-only basis. She’d dip into her stash to cover her part of the stay. A bell-man took their luggage—paltry as it was—up to their rooms, and Kyra tipped him.

  The room was every bit as nice as the lobby led her to believe: two full-sized beds with adjustable mattresses, rich mahogany furnishings, echoed in the window treatment. The walls were painted rich ochre, lending a warm air that was echoed in the colorful swirls of the bedspreads. Sateen-covered cushions sat at artful angles on the bed, and there were mints on the pillows.