She does it, just like he said to.
He folds his thumb and fingers together with a dull snap of plastic . . . then slides right through her grip.
His hand, folded into a space just under the size of his wrist.
Snaps his fingers back into place.
Voila, baby.
“Plecto-carbon alloy. It’s a high-tensile plastic. My shin bones were also replaced. I get through airport metal detectors without a second look, along with my gun.”
She almost can’t believe it. But it has to be true.
Christ fucking God. He really did make it rain in my car.
Then she remembers.
The most important thing.
She goes in her pocket and finds it there. Brings it out and holds it up so he can see. “What about this?” she says.
He sees the plastic ring. Smiles sadly. “What about it?” he says.
“Did you really find this in a gumball machine when you were sixteen, Mark? Did you really search all your life for someone like me? Or was that all bullshit, too?”
“All that was true. Except the part about the gumball machine. It was a prize in a box of cereal, actually. But that doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Why did you tell me it came out of a gumball machine?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it sounded better. Made me seem more like a normal person. I never even saw a gumball machine until I was twenty-five.”
“Maybe you’re just used to lying.”
“Maybe.”
She looks at the ring in her hand. Looks hard.
Mark stares at his feet. “Do you want to give it back to me, Jollie?”
“Part of me does.”
But she puts it back in her pocket. Looks at him for a very long time, searching.
Until Mark’s phone finally rings.
• • •
In the next two hours, the sun comes up and a lot goes down.
By 8:30 am, a million people are sitting in Austin rush-hour traffic. It’s a hustle and a workday. Homeless scavengers panhandle college kids and rip each other off. At the intersection of 25th and Guadalupe, there are six teenage burnouts at a bus stop, dressed in strange rags, scatting some weird hip-hop jumble that sounds like poetry-code in a halfway-human configuration. And just five feet from them are three dead bodies, hidden under the street, put there six weeks ago by men disguised as subterranean construction workers. The bodies are well stashed in their concrete mass grave, treated with special chemicals and acids so that the smell of decomposed flesh never really reaches the surface—and even if it did, no one would notice.
Nobody ever finds a body hidden by Darian Stanwell.
Ever.
By half past six, Darian stands in front of Eddie Darling in his office, smiling.
And Eddie says: “What the hell are you smiling about?”
• • •
“I was thinking about how much easier this all would have been if it had happened last week.”
“And you think that’s funny, Darian?”
“Everything’s funny. When you look at it the right way.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I want you to make me happy, Darian. So that I can laugh and feel good about it. I like feeling good when I laugh.”
Eddie’s voice is big and black, like the rest of him. Not big street, like the bangers. Big educated, big tough: deep syllables crashing in a canyon made of ebony concrete, no trace of a Southern accent—not because he hates rednecks (and he does), but because that’s just the way it is in this town. He sounds like Doctor fucking King.
Darian is not afraid of it. He peels a stick of strawberry gum and pops it in his mouth. Chews slowly, thinking. Then says: “You’ll be happy. I have the boy. Razzle Schaeffer’s son.”
“You brought him here?”
“He’s in the OR now. They’re prepping him for surgery. I have to operate soon or he won’t make it.”
“What about the hospital? How many dead?”
“Quite a few. But the less you know the better. My guys are handling it right now.”
“It’s broad daylight right now, Darian.”
“Not to my guys. They’re underground.”
“I want you to listen to me, Darian. Listen really good so I’m one hundred percent clear. This is the end of the world we’re sitting on here. If I go down, everybody goes with me. The sky falls, Christmas is over. All that shit. Do you read me?”
“I understand how serious the situation is. That’s why such extreme measures were taken. I just wish this had happened last week.”
“Well, it didn’t, Darian.”
“I have to operate now.”
“Then don’t waste any more time talking to me.”
Darian’s turns around to leave, his smile holding.
Then he stops.
Looks over one shoulder, back at Eddie: “We’re going to settle up soon. For my brother.”
Eddie leans on his desk and glares: “You think it’s my fault he’s dead?”
“Someone has to pay.”
“Someone will. But not me. Get that through your head, kiddo. I made you. I made this whole thing. I’m the boss, Darian.”
“When the new boss comes along, he’ll be the same as the old boss.”
“Oh, man. If you were anybody else . . .”
“But I’m not anybody else, Eddie. You should get that through your head.”
“When it all comes down, Mister Stanwell, we’ll both be happy. You’ll get what you want and I’ll get what I want. There’s no need for fighting.”
“Who said anything about fighting? I’m just talking about settling up.”
“You should listen to yourself, Darian. That shit-for-brains brother of yours was what held you back all along. You never saw that. You should have cut him loose years ago, all on your own. Family is family . . . but you’ve got the magic, Darian. You could have been ten times as far by now. Think about that.”
“I’ve always thought about that.”
“Okay, so think about this. The next time you threaten me, be ready to bring something with it. Because your hall passes are just about used up.”
“Are we finished?”
“I don’t know, Darian. Are we?”
“Yes. We’re finished.”
For now.
Darian turns and leaves, smiling again.
Eddie watches him, still smelling that strawberry gum.
Not smiling at all.
• • •
Monsters, all of us.
That’s what Darian’s father said to him, before he died. And he’s believing it more and more, as the minutes tick off. As he arranges the knives and needles and clamps and trocars on the tray.
Marnie. You idiot. You could have had it all. You could have been here with me. I would have taken your hand and delivered you to the Promised Land.
A tear squeezes from his right eye, the undamaged one, and rolls down his scarred face, dripping into his mouth, salty and bitter, like the years that brought his brother to such a sorry fate. Like the promises that were made and broken. Like Darian’s heart, shuddering. He holds it back, inside his body, as the two parts of himself war for supremacy, just like they always did. He chooses only to hear his father’s long-gone voice in this moment. Because it is a primal comfort, something he needs now. That, and love for his work.
And for the boys.
We are all monsters, son. All of us. We have to be.
He pops another stick of strawberry gum in his mouth and gets to work.
• • •
“We’ll be lucky if they just kill us for this.”
Her voice is absolute Deep South, every syllable sho
t through with the backwoods jam. They did a real job on her, and she’s a true piece of work. As indigenous as they get. She’s older and unattractive, her hair a jagged bedheaded mess, her face a pockmarked landscape of acne scars and grease. She’s fat too, stuffed into a jogging suit that doesn’t fit, but that’s no real surprise. Most of his contacts have been overweight. His superiors like it like that. Nobody ever sees a secret agent in a room filled with halfway beautiful people when she looks like a redneck mama in cheap clothes.
And her perfume.
Man, it’s bad.
Gaudy-pungent, like waves of cherry opium smothered in oil.
Mark tries to ignore it, leans forward and gets conspiratorial with her. “You don’t really think they’ll kill us, do you? These people aren’t stupid. They’ve never been in the habit of blowing off valuable resources.”
“Who says we’re valuable to them now, kiddo? This is a major operation, and we’ve blown it big time. There’s cops crawling all over the city, looking for your dumb ass. You and your friends. The guy in charge of the investigation is Jake Mudd.”
“He’s one of Eddie Darling’s guys. That means Razzle really was fronting for the Monster Squad.”
“You figured that out all by yourself?”
“If you people would tell me stuff, I wouldn’t have to do so much guessing.”
“If you did your job and left the guessing to us, we wouldn’t be in this shit pickle.”
Mark takes a look around at the almost-empty Denny’s, and a chill spikes his blood. They did it just like they tell you to in basic training: Selected a nice public place, sat in full view of everyone, right against the window. Mark noticed she pulled up in a beat-to-hell Fiat—late-nineties model, of course, right off Sam’s Hot Car Lot. Probably bought it herself for less than a grand. She fits the role like she was born to it.
There are two couples in the dining area proper. One sits in a booth on the other side of the room, eating pancakes and reading newspapers—they look like musician types, working through hangovers after a gig. You can’t ever be too sure about that, so you run scans on everybody in the joint when you walk in. The average human being leaves one hundred fingerprints and DNA traces on a tabletop surface within a minute of sitting down to open a menu at a restaurant. All you need is a way to look over their shoulder and see those traces. They have robots in space with infrared eyes for that.
The couple is clean. Ordinary fucking people.
The other couple is Jollie and Andy, sitting at the breakfast bar.
Mark’s contact knows all their stats too.
“Tell me about why our operation was blown,” she says, reaching for her coffee. “Make me understand, Mark. We don’t have much time here and we have to get our story straight for when we come in. There’s gonna be questions on questions, even if they don’t kill us.”
“They’re not gonna kill us. It’s too expensive to do that.”
“Look, just because you might have been hot shit inside the company when you were coming up, that don’t mean there’s not a dozen more just like you. And a thousand more coming up as we speak, honey. You know how long I’ve been doing this? You know how many operatives like you I keep watch on every single day? You know how many screwups I have on file at the head office?”
“Everybody screws up. They know that.”
“Even if they go easy on us—and believe me, baby, they won’t—your friends are a shitfire different story.”
“The girl is smart. She’s an activist. She helped organize a filibuster. They could use someone like her.”
“Listen to yourself. That’s nothing but wishing out loud, baby. You know how these people operate. They might just shoot the old gal for knowing your real name.”
“They wouldn’t if you made the recommendation.”
“They might if I made the recommendation—but who says I want those fuckin’ hassles in my life?”
“I say you do.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s why I have insurance.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The package. I still have it hidden.”
“You said on the phone that you were bringing it in.”
“I had to say that.”
“Are you trying to say you’re gonna blackmail me? Are you out of your fuckin’ mind, kiddo?”
“I’m not blackmailing anybody. I just want assurances.”
“So your plan is cut a deal, and then hand over the shit?”
“Something like that. I want Jollie and Andy protected.”
The woman sighs hard. Looks sideways at the two kids at the bar. “Why the hell did you do this, honey? Why are you putting your neck out for those two? Start believing the lie a little too much? Get in too deep with the cool kids?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Don’t expect the company to understand either. Expect a world of shit to come down on your dumb ass.”
“I’m not discussing it with you anymore. What I wanna know about right now is how you plan to bring us in. I need to talk with someone in charge and I need to do it right now—before Eddie Darling gets his shit together to come after us.”
Another big sigh from the lady.
Then she hits the phone again.
“If you didn’t leave any big clues back at your house, we should be okay for twenty-four hours at least. But you do need to keep moving. There’s a safe house near Austin. I’ll have to make a few calls. It’s gonna be rough going.”
“You said that already. You said it a million times and I don’t wanna hear it anymore. Am I making myself loud and clear?”
“Tough guy. Really sexy. You’re gonna be the death of me, honey.”
Mark shrugs, keeping his game face on.
A wave of the lady’s perfume washes in again. Cherry opium oil. Reminds him weirdly of movie stars slumming in a trailer park.
All part of her disguise, he thinks, rumpling his nose.
She gets deeper into her smartphone, shaking her head. Things go beep in the machine, screens flash up and recede into oblivion. She makes three text messages happen, hits the robot in outer space again, double checking the identities of the hungover couple sitting near them, and looking up the fastest route to the safe house.
Then she looks at the couple at the bar and nods to Mark.
“Okay, then. Send the girl over here first. You go back to the bar and leave us alone. This is girl talk.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. I mean really don’t mention it. Let’s just get this fuckin’ shit over with.”
• • •
Darian Stanwell is the first thing Jackie sees when he wakes up again.
Jackie was really hoping it wouldn’t be that way.
The room is dark and he’s on his back. He smells the sharp tang of artificially flavored strawberries in the air. Darian sits next to him, no longer washed in blood, not the way he was before, when they were still at the hospital. He’s wearing different clothes now. A white suit.
“The present is often tense,” Darian says, then lets silence settle over the room. He almost looks offended when the kid doesn’t laugh. “That’s a little joke.”
Jackie still doesn’t laugh.
Darian gets a little closer now, smiling. “I always liked you, child. Especially when you were younger. Your dad really believed in you. But he’s gone now, and you and I, we have a responsibility to the company he left behind. We have a legacy to honor.”
“Please, Darian . . . I’m cold.”
“The lights will warm you up in a bit. We’re going to speak like civilized people. I won’t do anything bad if you just talk to me. I’ll even fix you up real nice. They weren’t doing a very good job back there, you know. ER doctors are hacks. They just patched your ho
les and pumped you full of painkillers. Did you know that Saint Apollonia’s Medical Center was founded by a gangster in 1976? Sold to a politician in 1980, co-opted by a nonprofit religious group, renamed after a saint—the patron saint of toothaches, no less—then turned over to the state when they couldn’t pay their own taxes. You think the current administration cares at all about the welfare of its patients at a hospital named after the Tooth Fairy?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“Well, they don’t. Otherwise they wouldn’t allow half-drunk first-year medical students to patch up gunshot wounds at one in the morning. People get killed that way, child. If it was up to me, I’d fire the whole company and start over. Like what we’re doing now, you and I. Now that Razzle’s gone.”
Christ. This can’t be happening.
“Yes, child . . . you heard me. We’re reorganizing. We’re sending the message loud and clear, right now. We will start by finding the gentleman who killed your father and my brother and making him an example. Nobody will have any further illusions. Everyone will know the new management means business. You know the gentleman who killed my brother, don’t you? I know you know him. Jake told me some names and an address but I think you know a lot more than he did—even if you don’t know you know. So we’re going to sit here and talk. And we’re really going to talk, Jackie—not just move our mouths and wait for our turns to make noise. We’re going to have an exchange of ideas. Get to know each other. Form a new alliance.”
Darian gets right up close now, his strawberry breath so awful.
“Meet the new boss, child. He’s the same as the old boss. Only better.”
Jackie tries to move.
Tries and can’t.
He’s paralyzed from the neck down.
“I told Jake everything. I told him everything, Darian.”
“I know, Jackie. I know you did. But let’s pretend you still have a secret . . .”
Darian pulls back the sheet.
“. . . and let’s pretend you won’t tell me what it is.”
6
penelope
The first interview is devastating.
It goes like this:
“State your full name and occupation.”
“Jollie Malian Meeker. Self-employed.”
Metro Page 13