Closing Costs

by Bracken MacLeod

  Mack stood and walked out of the bar. As he left, he noted that he couldn’t see a clear emergency exit out the back of the place. There had to be one, but it wasn’t easy to spot. The front door was the only obvious way in or out. If there was a fire here, a whole bunch of sluts in suits might burn to death. The thought made him genuinely smile as he pushed out into the afternoon sun.

  42

  FORTY-FIVE DAYS BEFORE DAY ZERO

  He sat in his car across the highway watching people file in and out of his house through the spotter’s binoculars he’d bought at Red’s Armory up in Nashua. Almost all couples. All greedily looking at the work he’d done, deciding whether to put down money for his labor—and he was going to get none of it.

  A couple came walking down the driveway toward their car dressed up like fucking Halloween. She had a hairdo like some chick from the fifties, short bangs in front and a red bandana wrapped around the back. He looked like a low-rent greaser Elvis. No way they’d have the borrowing power to buy. But then they got in their brand-new hybrid car and pulled out a smartphone the size of a brick. He watched them make a call sitting in the road like they had no idea they’d parked behind a blind curve. They smiled and laughed, and he wished a big dump truck full of road salt would tear around the bend and rear-end their shitty little Prius.

  They ended the call and kissed. He set his binocs down next to his new gun and watched them drive away. He thought about following them, but decided to stay put. If they ended up buying the house, he’d have plenty of time to figure out who they were. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t know where they lived.

  43

  DAY ZERO

  Mack turned the house key over in his fingers, looking at the edges barely starting to wear after only three years of use. And then, what? He had to fucking give it away? The broker had messaged him looking for the key. It went to Eleonora and Evan Pereira’s house now. The Halloween couple. How the hell did a pair of ghouls like that get the money to buy a house? Probably a trust fund like Sam’s, but even bigger. More unearned money. Privileged shits, when he had to work and still lost everything. He thought about them living in the house he’d restored. Eating in the dining room where he’d vaulted the ceiling and built out the breezeway to widen it. Showing their friends his work and being congratulated on it as if they’d done a thing to the place. Sleeping in his bedroom. Fucking in it.

  He set the key down on the table next to the notice he’d gotten in the mail today that the “nisi period” was over and the divorce was final. It was all over. What’s that stupid saying? Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. That makes today what?

  Day Zero.

  Sam was gone. She wouldn’t talk to him. She’d blocked his number and his e-mail address. He hadn’t been careful enough, and she’d even found his fake profile on Facebook and blocked that too. Got a fucking restraining order out on him. Claiming he was stalking her, and she felt in danger. He didn’t even know where she was living. She’d taken the dog just to fuck with him. And now, as of today, it was all gone. The house, his dog, his job, and his wife. All he owned was his tools, his wedding ring, and the Challenger Demon. His unemployment was running out, and without a job, he’d have to stop making insurance payments for the car soon enough. If he got caught driving without insurance, they’d take that too and he’d have nothing left but a restraining order, a worthless gold band, and this house key. It didn’t go to his house anymore. That part stung. Fuck them and everybody like them.

  Last time he’d been there, to pick up some mail to get to know them a little better, they still hadn’t changed the locks. His key worked in the front door. He could let himself in anytime. He hadn’t wanted to test the alarm system to see if they’d reset that yet, but figured they probably were as lazy and stupid about that as they were about the locks.

  He figured he’d pay them a visit soon. He had to go up to New Hampshire first, sell the tools, use the money to pick up some different ones to make his visit more productive. More interesting.

  They’d help him get everything back. With the right incentive.

  XI

  ◆

  Ascending

  44

  TWELVE WEEKS AFTER CLOSING

  The man in front repeated himself. “Where is your wife?”

  Mack blinked hard trying to make sense of what the man was saying. My wife? My wife. She’s not here. She’s . . . I don’t know where. That’s why I’m here. He tried to speak and almost vomited instead. He took another deep breath through his mouth and tried again. “My . . . wife. My—”

  “Where is Eleonora?” The man’s accent and Mack’s throbbing head made it hard to parse what he said. My wife’s name is Sam . . . Sam-an-tha. Not Ell-ee-nora. Who the hell is . . . As it dawned on him what they wanted, Mack almost laughed. His face hurt when a small smile crept up his mouth, and he winced instead. “I’m . . . not . . . I’m not—”

  The man moved with frightening speed, and the brass knuckles impacted solidly against Mack’s sternum. It felt like he was having a heart attack. The pain spread out from the center of him and the lights went out for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, the man said, “You are as original as you are convincing, Mr. Pereira. Don’t think we haven’t heard that before. It took some time to track you and your wife down. But a little virus told us where you were, eventually. A little virus that was in one computer, and then in another, and that led to . . . Well, the whole thing is rather boring. Let’s just say, you are not as good at hiding as the man who originally stole from us. We didn’t know what was missing for a long time. But once we did . . . That you stole from him is no insult, of course. He was a blyad’ kusok der’ma.”

  The Russian with the gun broke in. “Mortvyy kusok der’ma seychas.”

  His partner agreed. “Yes. A dead piece of shit now.” The man continued. “But he did cause our concern quite a significant loss of money and business, and we’re here to recoup on that loss, Mr. Pereira.”

  “Not. Me. I’m not him,” he choked out.

  “This is your house, and you are in it. We are not here to fuck around. You cannot protect her. So tell us, where is your fucking wife?”

  “I’m not—”

  The man backhanded Mack. He fell over, like he’d been trying not to do. Something moved, skipping across his tongue and back into his throat. He choked, and a molar fell out of his mouth, landing on the cushion. Mack looked at the bloody tooth, this piece of him, no longer a part of the whole, and realized they were going to kill him. He knew it before—the gun communicated it clearly enough—but this little piece of him spoke loudest. They’re gonna take you apart until there’s nothing big enough left to call Mack Roarke. Just pieces.

  That had been his intention all along. Get his wife over to the house and show her what he had to show—say his piece—and then call the cops. And when they arrived . . .

  Plans changed.

  A heavy thud from the cellar drifted up to them in the lull. The Russian men didn’t seem to notice. “I’m. Not. Lying.”

  “Who are you if you aren’t the man who lives in this house?”

  Mack pushed himself up on the couch. The tooth rolled off the edge and bounced away on the hardwood floors into a shadow. Gone. “Mack.” It sounded like a cough. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m Malcolm Roarke. We . . . I used to own this place. The Pereiras . . . bought it.”

  The Russian reared back to hit him again, Mack held up his hands and pleaded the best he could. “I can show you. My wallet.” Slowly, Mack reached back to pull out his billfold, expecting the Russian to stop him. But he didn’t. Why would he? Evan was just some guy. A citizen. Well, maybe a thief according to them—he tried to reconcile what they said about Evan and Nelle stealing from them with what he thought he knew about the couple—but not a gangster out doing gangster shit, by any means. Why would he have anything hidden behind him? And of course, the other one still had his gun aimed right in Mack’s face. If
he came back with anything but his wallet, he’d never even get a shot off.

  It hurt to turn even the little bit to reach his wallet. He grunted when he twisted. His heart pounded, and he wanted to take a deep breath, but he just couldn’t get in enough air, no matter how hard he tried. He got his fingers on his wallet and pulled it out. He flipped it open and tried removing his driver’s license. The Russian snatched the entire thing away from him. He looked at the license and back at Mack and then back again before throwing the license and the wallet in the cold fireplace.

  “If you aren’t Evan Pereira, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  He tried to smile again, but couldn’t. He grimaced a kind of rictus and felt a little saliva or blood—probably both—slip out of his mouth. “I’m here for the . . . same reason you . . . are. They . . . stole from me.” He took a breath and said, “They’re in the basement. They’re tied up in the basement.”

  “Tied up. Downstairs.”

  Mack nodded. He brushed at the drool hanging off his chin and wiped the pink smear on the back of his hand onto the sofa.

  The man’s face clouded. He looked at his partner and spoke in Russian again. The man with the gun shook his head and said one of the few words Mack understood. “Nyet.” He wasn’t much of a talker, it seemed. The other one said something else, and his partner nodded. “Da.”

  Another sound drifted up from below. This time the Russians heard it. The one who spoke English returned his attention to Mack. “These people, they stole from you?”

  Mack’s jaw was hurting, and he could feel his face swelling where he’d been hit with the knucks. He didn’t want to speak if he didn’t have to. He nodded.

  “I understand. I am sorry for the confusion.”

  Mack sighed. He raised his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

  “But our debt comes first.” He turned to his partner. “Ubey yego.”

  The black pupil erupted with a bright yellow flash. Mack never saw it.

  45

  Nelle clenched her teeth and made tight fists as the thunderous clamor of Mack’s stomping above their heads sounded like he might be returning to the cellar door. She looked up anxiously, waiting to see him come careening down the stairs, ready to deliver what he’d promised a moment ago, but he didn’t appear. He’d stopped. She couldn’t tell if he was lingering in the bathroom or the front room—not that it mattered. She wondered if he was trying to text his ex again with her phone. I can take everything away from you, he’d said. Except, there was something he wanted from them that he couldn’t just take. Something they had to give willingly: cooperation. When another round of texting didn’t work and he came back downstairs, unable to convince Samantha to come over, that was it.

  The best case she could imagine was a prolonged standoff with the police before he murdered everyone in the house and then himself. Wasn’t that how men like this worked? They started by going to their parents’ or a girlfriend’s house to get warmed up—to work up the taste for it and close off their options behind them—and then they went to the office or a school or a concert. This wasn’t Roarke getting his momentum. What was happening now was just a stall in the plan—a pause while he put the last pieces in place, because his wife wouldn’t take his calls. And like most people these days, she wouldn’t accept a call from an unknown number. When she listened to that voicemail, she sure as hell wasn’t coming over. Samantha’s silence wasn’t the end of the storm, though. It was a lull in the weather. The eye would eventually pass, and the storm would rage harder than ever, until everything was laid waste. Roarke would kill them as soon as he decided that they didn’t have a role in his plan any longer. Whether or not Samantha returned Nelle’s call, the black clouds were in motion. Nelle couldn’t wait for Samantha’s silence to doom them. If they didn’t get out right then, they never would.

  She looked around the cellar for something, anything, she could try to reach to help get free of the tape. An exposed nail head or even just a sharp corner. There wasn’t anything that looked helpful. Nothing stuck out. Everything on the shelves in their bulk store larder was useless. There were boxes of Ziploc baggies, dryer sheets, and a value-size bottle of laundry detergent—canned food, boxes of mac and cheese, Smack Ramen, and condiments. And among all of it there wasn’t a single thing with a sharp edge. In the rest of the cellar were boxes and boxes of books and garbage bags of ill-fitting, out-of-style clothes they couldn’t bear to give up. And the wine rack—minus the bottle that had been smashed against the foundation wall. He’d plucked out an expensive one they’d been saving for a special occasion, and she’d mindlessly thought, No please, not the Stag’s Leap, before it occurred to her that it didn’t matter at all which one he smashed over her head. This was the point at which all there was left to do was hold hands and wait for the end.

  That was it.

  She jerked in her chair, trying to move it. The legs skidded slightly on the concrete floor. Not far, but far enough to encourage her to do it a second and a third time. The tape around her ankles kept her from moving quickly, but it didn’t keep her from moving. She was able to shift the chair an inch or so forward, turning a little left, and then another couple of inches to the right. Making her way bit by bit. The distance between them felt uncrossable. It was only ten or twelve feet, but moving an inch at a time, it seemed like it would take days. That was time she didn’t have. So she worked harder. The chair flexed as she moved. If only the damn thing would break. It held together, but loosened and flexed more with her effort, giving her a little more mobility. Two inches instead of one. She moved double the distance now. A small victory was still a victory.

  Nelle scooted across the floor, thankful for the felt pads she’d stuck on the bottom to keep the inexpensive chair from scratching up the hardwood upstairs. They dragged a little on the rough concrete, making it harder to slide than if the ends of the chair legs were plastic or bare wood. Still, she was moving more or less quietly, instead of scraping. That was good enough. The tape at her midsection kept her from leaning forward and getting up on the balls of her feet, but it didn’t matter; as long as she could twist side to side, she could make it another little bit. And another, until she was halfway there.

  Evan watched her come closer, his eyes darting from her to the stairs and back again. Nelle wanted to look back, to see if he was trying to warn her. He’s right behind me, isn’t he? was a joke they made often. She froze, waiting for the feeling of a heavy hand on her shoulder—the blow to the back of her head. She let out a breath. Evan nodded for her to come closer, flexing his fingers. He’d figured out what she wanted before she had to try to explain it to him. He was her best friend and soul mate, finished her sentences, and always knew what to get her for her birthday. Without her having to tell him, Pull at the tape around my wrists, he knew. She loved him so.

  She scuttered her chair closer and closer still, until she was right next to him, then twisted around so she was facing away and backed up. She stopped when her hand jammed in between the weight bench and the chair. It hurt like hell, but the gag deadened her sob, so she let it out instead of trying to stifle it. It wasn’t any louder than the chair legs on the floor. No louder than Roarke upstairs, doing whatever it was he was up to.

  She felt Evan’s fingers close around hers and squeeze, and for a moment she feared that he hadn’t actually divined her intentions and instead was going to merely hold her hand. It was just a moment’s reassurance, though. He let go, and she felt him starting to pick at the tape. His breathing hastened, and she felt his pulling little by little, loosening the tape the same way she’d crossed the room: by increments. A little bit would eventually become enough, given time.

  The security system chirped. Was Mack leaving? Had he had a change of heart and decided to abandon his plan? No, Nelle told herself. If he was going anywhere, it was only to come back with something worse in mind and hand.

  They heard footsteps overhead. Heavy bodies that made the floorboards above them
groan. Evan stopped pulling, and they both looked at the ceiling with wide, frightened eyes. Nelle imagined policemen, standing resolute in crisp blue uniforms and shining badges. But policemen having responded to . . . what? She could’ve walked out into the front yard and screamed, and the neighbors across the highway wouldn’t notice. No. It was not the police. She hadn’t heard the doorbell ring. Had they knocked and she didn’t hear? Why would he open the door for anyone? If it was a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses or one of those fucking Comcast assholes, they’d never know Mack wasn’t supposed to be the one to answer the door. He could politely say he wasn’t interested—even take a flyer or a copy of the Watchtower—wish them a nice holiday weekend, and shut the door softly, locking it after them, and that would be the end of it. But that would take a minute, wouldn’t it? He had to go open it and say no and shut the door. And it sounded like they were inside. Whoever it was, it gave her and Evan at least a minute more than they had without the interruption. Whoever it was, she hoped they were persistent—kept Roarke’s attention while she and Evan got free. Whether they were religious or secular salespeople, she was thankful they were working on the Saturday of a long weekend. Thank all the gods for capitalism!