Pops the seatbelt. Throws open the door. Sprints.
Keenan is on the ground throwing up, sand scattered over him but seemingly unscathed. A short distance away is the gunman’s mangled body, splayed at grotesque angles.
Tyron slides onto his knees and checks Keenan for injuries. Keenan keeps retching, even though all he brings up is clear fluid, and that gives way to dry heaving. Tyron holds his hands to Keenan’s head, his neck, his jaw, shoulders, arms, torso, legs. Tyron realizes, while he is at work, that he is bleeding from his own cheek. He lifts his shirt up from the collar and presses it against the wound, then continues his examination of Keenan.
“This bump from now?” he asks, returning to the large lump at the back of Keenan’s head.
Keenan’s heaving has been replaced by huge, heavy breaths. At the end of an exhale, he gasps, “From last night.”
Tyron lifts him onto his knees. “You’re okay,” he says with a weary smile.
Keenan nods, eyelids drooping almost closed. He falls forward into Tyron’s arms.
Tyron embraces his friend. Holds him. Supports him. “I thought I’d lost you, brother.”
Keenan, still huffing like he hasn’t taken a breath in a month, says in a raspy voice, “Me too.”
“You okay to stand?”
“I think so. Just . . . just stay close.”
Tyron helps Keenan to his feet and keeps an arm around his shoulders.
“Naomi’s leaving me.” Keenan shakes his head. “Don’t know why I’d say that now.”
Tyron stares at his friend. “I’m sorry, man.”
Keenan looks at him, his eyes open now. They fill with tears. “You saved my life, Ty.” Tears streak down his face. “After everything I’ve done. You still saved my life.”
Tyron embraces him again. “Always, brother.”
When he feels that Keenan can stand on his own, he says, “Let me get these cuffs off. Think the keys are on him?”
“I don’t know.”
Together they appraise the sprawled, pulpy body.
“He killed your parents,” Keenan says.
“Him?”
“He told me in the car.”
“He say why?”
“It was political. They were —” Keenan sighs. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell you everything in a minute. I should call my dad. Make sure he’s okay. Let him know that Antoine’s not after him.”
Tyron studies the corpse in the dirt. He thinks a revelation like this should have him shocked and bewildered, his parents’ killer before him, but he is in operation mode. The new intel is stored away to be dealt with at a later date. For now, complete the mission.
He approaches the body and crouches to search its pockets. His hands on a corpse is nothing new for him. As he finds the keys, he takes note of the pistol cast a few feet away. He won’t touch it: best to leave the crime scene as is, and he definitely won’t be putting his fingerprints on the gun.
He walks back to Keenan. The cuffs come off. Keenan pulls his hands in front of him, massages his wrists and rotates each of them. Then he turns and hobbles to the unmarked police cruiser. He searches the dead man’s suit jacket on the passenger seat. Comes back with a phone in his hands.
Tyron looks up at the sun-scorched peaks above them. Looks back at Keenan holding the phone to his ear. Watches as relief washes over his face.
“Dad. Thank God,” says Keenan.
10:49 a.m.
Antoine watches the alley behind the sports bar from the passenger seat of a grey compact with tinted windows. Carlos sits behind the wheel. They don’t talk. Every so often Antoine’s eyes flick down to his phone. One of his people is inside.
Antoine is a legend in the Latin Knights now. Not only did he raise the profile of the gang by shocking the boxing world and assassinating the most powerful man in Las Vegas, he pushed for them to wager as much capital as they could raise on him winning the fight. The gang made a fortune. So did he. Every dollar he owned, every dollar he could borrow, every dollar he was paid upfront for the fight — and he negotiated less money but a larger advance — he had Carlos bet for him. He determined that either he beat Konitsyn and got his shot at Bashinsky, or he failed in his life’s purpose. Since he didn’t plan on failing, he risked everything that he would succeed.
He will have enough to live like a king in Venezuela. Or Bolivia. Not that he cares about living like a king. Not that he cares even about getting south of the border, where he will fly from Mexico City to Caracas. They can catch him. They can lock him up or kill him. He doesn’t care so long as he finishes what he started. It’s all he has. And he’s almost there.
But he will make it out of this country — this country that has never been a home to him despite living his entire life within its borders. He has no doubt he will make it out. His people know what they are doing, and they will lay their lives down for him now.
His phone flashes with a text. Ahora, the message reads.
He glances up at Carlos, who nods. Antoine gets out of the car.
He walks stiffly across the street to the alley, a baseball cap pulled low on his brow, his shades hiding his swollen, blackened, and bloodshot eyes. He wears a starched white shirt and black pants, and except for his battered knuckles, he could be any other Latino man on his way to bus tables, wash dishes, mop floors. The locked back door of the sports bar opens from the inside and his associate, Tulio, leans out, a large, serious man with buzzed hair and a goatee. Antoine slips inside without a word. Tulio closes the door behind him.
Antoine takes off his shades, which saves him from having to adjust his eyes from the desert sun to the darkened passage. He passes the door to a storage room and hears the bustle of the kitchen up ahead, but it is only a few steps from the back door to the men’s washroom and he makes them quickly. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Tulio returning up the corridor to the bar floor.
The dimly lit washroom, with four urinals and two stalls, is empty, scouted already. He crosses the filthy tiled floor to the far stall. Locks the door, lowers the lid, and sits on it. He pulls up his pant leg and pulls his knife from the sheath at his ankle. He rolls the linen back down over the top of his shoe. He takes his phone from his pocket and holds it in his left hand, his knife in his right. He waits.
There are no nerves. They have been burned out of him over the past twenty-four hours, his adrenaline drained empty.
His phone flashes. Vienen 2. No es el.
Half a minute later Antoine hears the door whine open. Footsteps of two men entering. The splash of their urine. A few mumbled words between them and some chuckling. One of them farts. The door whines again, then shushes to a close.
He waits.
He wonders if he could have done things differently. Not today, or last night — he has executed his plan perfectly — but twenty years ago. Could he have done things differently twenty years ago? Could he have picked a different path through life?
But how could I have survived without such a purpose? he thinks. I would’ve been broken a thousand times over.
He supposes it makes no difference. He has become what he has become. The past won’t return.
But there were times he tried to do things differently. Even after Terrence and Viola Shaw were killed, he tried. He wanted a normal life. He was ready to relinquish his mission.
Viene otro. No es el.
But normality never wanted him. No one wanted him. Not until he had crafted himself into something they could benefit from. A soldier for a gang. A prizefighter for businessmen. A wallet for women. And by then it was too late. No turning from the path then.
The door opens. New footsteps. The customer opens the door to the stall beside him. Sits down with a heavy sigh. Antoine sees beneath the divider brown shoes and slacks bunched over them. He listens to the man’s bowels at work. Smells what they have to offer
. The man keeps sighing, as though he is in the midst of great exertion.
Hurry up, hombre. I don’t like witnesses.
The man’s stench is so foul, and his strained sighing so annoying, that Antoine hopes his mark has to relieve himself before this pendejo is finished. Such a humiliating way to die. Worthy of a bitch like this.
The man finally does finish, before anyone else comes inside. The door whines open and shushes closed.
Antoine waits.
What does it matter if people care about you when you’re an asset to them? It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. They still don’t care about you. Only what you can do. And they’ll dump you as soon as you’re no longer of service to them.
I made the right choice.
Ya viene. Solo.
His grip tightens around the knife handle. Relaxes and tightens again. He slips his phone back in his pocket. Stretches the fingers of his left hand.
The door whines open. Heavy steps on the tiles. Antoine silently rises. Slides the lock open. Hears a stream of piss hitting the urinal. He slowly pulls the stall door inward, not a sound from the door or his feet.
In the mirror he sees the tall man standing over the urinal, his head down. His piss still streaming.
Antoine takes his time. The man has drunk much beer.
A boxer’s feet must be light. A murderer’s feet must be lighter. Silent as a python slithering out of a tree, he creeps behind the tall man.
The piss slows to a trickle.
Antoine wrenches the man’s head back. Jabs the knife into his throat. Rips it across his gullet. Blood spatters the graffiti above the urinal.
Antoine pulls the knife free and stabs his victim four, five, six times in the stomach. The man gurgles and feebly reaches for his severed throat and his punctured intestines. Antoine lowers him to the ground. He stands above him. Watches the puddle of blood grow into a pool.
The man’s eyes are bugged halfway out of their sockets. Antoine stares into them. Sees the recognition. The shock. The horror before death.
The eyes turn glassy. The blood keeps flowing.
Antoine drops the knife and washes his hands. Scrubbing, he hears a phone ring. He turns. It’s coming from the body. Half the floor is awash in blood now. Antoine steps into it and crouches to retrieve the ringing phone from the man’s pocket.
He stares at the screen. Keenan, it reads.
He stands. Slides his thumb across the screen to answer the call. Holds it to his ear as he walks to the door.
“Dad. Thank God.”
His associate is standing on guard in the corridor. He leads the way to the exit, and Antoine glides after him.
“Dad. Dad, you there?”
Tulio pushes open the door. Sunlight streams in. Carlos has the car pulled up in the alley outside. Antoine and Tulio get in. Carlos pulls away.
“Dad! Dad!”
“He can’t make it to the phone.”
10:55 a.m.
Naomi drives fast down the wide, quiet boulevards. She has to find Craig.
When she left Rosie at the hotel, she didn’t know where she was headed. She feared for Keenan, not knowing what he’d gotten himself into, but she knew that Fitz was with him. Fitz could do more for him right now than she could.
But she’s not going to be a bystander in all this while a hurricane rips her people apart. Keenan wanted to look for his father, but he can’t now that he’s in police custody. So she will look for his father. She’ll track him down, make sure he’s safe. She doesn’t think Antoine is actually after Craig, but she wants to put Keenan’s mind at ease. She cares for him, regardless of anything else.
What a day it’s been. She faintly remembers giving that speech to her girls in the locker room after the game. Was that really yesterday? Not a month ago? A year? Perhaps another lifetime because everything has changed since then. She used to dream about the four of them being back in town together again, never thinking they were each combustible ingredients in a fireball that would scorch the city. And the day isn’t even over. It keeps on rolling. Rolling over each of them, crushing them beneath its wheels. She wonders what new surprise is lurking around the next bend.
The first place she checked was Craig and Rosie’s house. No sign that anyone had been there since they left earlier that morning. She then remembered a sports bar where she and Keenan had watched games with Craig on Sunday afternoons during football season. They always had pretty waitresses in skimpy clothes. Craig was positively giddy when he flirted with them. And the servers, they humoured him. He was a regular, and it is Vegas.
She wonders if Craig, stressed and looking for comfort, would gravitate there by force of habit, even if it isn’t football season. And so she drives rapidly and smoothly to the bar.
She pulls up on the street in a no-parking zone right in front of the doors. Gets out into a blast of hot air and jogs inside to a blast of air conditioning. It’s a large space, with numerous flat-screen TVs all tuned to sports, and busy enough, with people loading up on breakfast: heaps of eggs, sausages, bacon, ham, home fries, washed down with pints of beer.
“I’m looking for Craig, tall, middle-aged guy, have you seen him?” she says to the hostess, who shrugs and looks about the place ineffectively. Naomi strides past her.
She scans every table but doesn’t see him. She accosts one of the bartenders: “You seen a guy this tall, greying hair, Craig, he been here?”
The bartender nods. “He was sitting over there,” she says, pointing to a stool at the bar with a half-finished mug of beer in front of it. “I think he went to the bathroom.”
Naomi takes off to the back of the bar, turns right down a dim hall, at the end of which someone is leaving out a back exit. The shaft of light through the closing door is dazzling, and it silhouettes the exiting figure, who has a phone to his ear. The door swings shut and clicks closed. Naomi pauses. It was only a glimpse from behind with the light coming from the wrong direction, but it looked like . . .
She sprints to the men’s washroom. Bursts through. Takes two long steps and halts in her tracks. She gasps. The floor is awash with blood. She steps back from the edge of the crimson liquid. Craig’s eyes, utterly vacant, are still open. Blood bubbles out of his throat and leaks from his torso. Tears spring from her eyes like someone has cracked a water main. So much blood. She has never seen anything like it.
She has one more moment of shock and then registers that it was Antoine in the doorway. Making his getaway. She bolts, grabbing for Keenan’s handgun, which she has holstered at the small of her back, beneath her shirt. Out one door, dashing down the hall, out the other, into a flood of heat and light. She is blinded for a moment, and then the alley comes into focus; at the end of it a car is turning right into a back street.
She runs, pistol in hand, tears up the alley like she’s on a breakaway. She hits the street in a flash, but the car is already a block away, turning onto a main street. She plants her feet and points the gun with both hands. Her finger presses the trigger but doesn’t pull. The car is too far away, and a second later it is gone from view. She lowers the gun. Clicks the safety back on.
My God, Antoine. She stares at the ground. What have you done?
12
11:00 a.m.
Keenan stumbles on a rock in the dirt. His head spins. The mountains swirl.
“Antoine?”
“Yes. It’s me.”
“Where’s my father?”
He glances at Tyron, who is staring at him, looking like he wants to save him from this too. Keenan turns away, to the dry, scraggy slopes before him.
“Antoine. Where is he?”
“He’s gone.”
“No.” Keenan shakes his head. His eyes sting. “No, no, no, no, no. Where is he?”
“He’s dead. I made sure of it.”
Keenan’s eyes flood. He blink
s and tears stream. “It wasn’t him.” He gulps back a sob. “It wasn’t him. It was Miles.”
His face contorts. “You hear me, you fuck!” The mountains echo his words back to him. “It wasn’t him! Miles confessed to me, you worthless punk! He did it! Not my dad! He killed your father!”
“Miles confessed to you?”
Keenan folds to his knees. “Oh God. Oh fuck. You bastard. You piece of shit, Antoine.”
“Where’s Miles?”
“He’s dead! Tyron killed him. You psychopath . . . My father . . . it wasn’t him.” His tears overwhelm him. “It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t . . .”
“I know.”
Keenan wipes at his eyes. Takes deep breaths. “You got the wrong man. It wasn’t him. You got the wrong man.”
“I know.”
Keenan hears crunching footsteps and looks up to see that Tyron has joined him. He looks away, unable to face his friend. “What?”
“I know about Miles. I know it was him.”
Keenan gets to his feet. “What?”
“Miles killed my father. With Monk. At Bashinsky’s orders. My foster parents too. I know.”
“You know?” Keenan strides up the mountainside. “You sick, fucking — I don’t even know what to call you. I don’t know what you are. Why? Why my father, then?”
“You could’ve saved him, Keenan.”
“Fuck you.”
“You could’ve saved him when we were sixteen.”
“You’re insane. When we were sixteen — listen to yourself — what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You took in Tyron, my only family, and you turned me away. Your father turned me away. You turned me away. I know you had a choice, Keenan. You made the wrong one.”
Keenan screams. His entire body contracts. The mountains echo. “I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna kill you, you fuck.”
“You’ll never see me again.”
“You pathetic, worthless shit. You give Miles a pass and you kill my father.”
“I’ve had a team at Miles’s house since last night. As soon as he went home he was gone. But thank you . . . you and Tyron . . . for doing my work for me. Goodbye, Keenan. You see what life is like without a father.”
Undercard Page 22
