Parallax

by Jon F. Merz

  That wasn't good.

  Stahl should have simply killed him.

  But what fun would that be?

  He shook his head. This wasn't about being fun, he chided himself. It was for Alois. His son. He sighed. How could he forget that fact?

  But what aboutÉ?

  He shook his head. The images that had been there disappeared and Stahl found himself back in the restaurant. The waiter had returned bearing soup and the soda. He looked at Stahl funny and then walked away. Stahl heard him mutter something in Cantonese about stupid white guys and smirked.

  I am being stupid.

  Do the job.

  Finish it.

  Go home.

  That was it. Simple and clean. The hell with everything else.

  What about Karen?

  He could take her with him. They could maybe live together.

  Stupid. What if it didn't work out? What then? Was he going to kill her, too?

  The realization hit him hard. He would. If he needed to. But a bigger part of him didn't want to. He liked having her around, as much as he hated admitting it.

  And the American?

  That was a different story. Stahl wasn't so sure he enjoyed having him around. Although the whole psychic link, for one reason or another, absolutely amazed and intrigued him. Killing the American would no doubt sever that link completely. That would end all of Stahl's idle scientific curiosity.

  Unless the link extended into the after life.

  Or the American killed him.

  Stahl slurped some soup. That wasn't going to happen. Stahl would not fail in his mission. Failure meant Alois would never have his operation and he would die. That wasn't an option for Stahl.

  He would kill the American and Karen ten times before he would allow his son to die at the hands of fate.

  The soup tasted good and soon enough the beef chow foon appeared. Stahl bit into the tender sirloin and allowed the thick noodles to slide over his palette. The restaurant, while a bit short on ambience, served great food.

  Stahl glanced around the restaurant again. There were under a dozen diners here now. Several parties had finished and left. Stahl wasn't worried about the hour. This place stayed open until 4 in the morning. He wondered how this section of Boston had worked its magic to stay open so late when the rest of town buttoned up by two in the morning.

  A phone hung on the far wall. It was one of those models ubiquitous in every mom-and-pop store in the area. The good thing about them was the fact that they weren't likely to have been bugged by the government.

  Stahl stood and walked to the phone. He dumped enough change in it to call the moon and pressed out the international number. A voice answered at the other end. Curt.

  "Any news?"

  The voice in his ear must have belonged to a hired hand. It didn't matter to Stahl as long as the information was correct.

  "Your son grows weaker."

  Stahl felt his blood boil. "I didn't call to discuss my son."

  "I was told to relay the information to you. Just in case you have forgotten about your mission."

  "Relay this: don't ever mention my son again."

  There was a pause. Maybe the hired help was writing it down. Good. After a moment the voice returned. "Your target will be in your area in forty-eight hours."

  Stahl frowned. Was two days enough time to prepare? It would have to be. Whether or not he was fully charged or not.

  "I understand."

  "You haven't activated your contact yet."

  It was a statement not a question. Stahl frowned. What did they care? "I'm using an outside source."

  "I will relay that. Do you have any questions?"

  "No." Stahl hung the phone up and turned back to his table.

  Karen sat there with her back to him.

  Stahl grinned and came over. "Surprise surprise."

  She looked up. "You weren't planning on skipping town were you?"

  "I'm not done here yet."

  She nodded and pointed at the chow foon. "You mind? I'm famished for some strange reason."

  Stahl grinned. "For some reason, yeah." He scooped out some of the dish on to her plate and she dug in with the plastic chopsticks. After a few minutes she looked up.

  "What?"

  Stahl was staring at her. "How'd you find me?"

  She shrugged. "You always used to get the munchies after sex. There's not a lot of choice in Boston after midnight. I figured Chinatown. Then it was just a matter of peering into windows while fighting off sexual propositions until I found you."

  "You fended off solicitors?"

  "I told them I'd already been bedded today."

  "How colorful."

  She nodded. "I try." She pointed over her shoulder at the phone. "You making a Trans-Atlantic call?"

  Stahl narrowed his eyes. "Yes."

  "How's your son?"

  He relaxed. "Not him."

  "Oh." She looked at Stahl. "So?"

  "So what?"

  "What's the news?"

  Stahl looked at her. This was it. The make or break time. She was calling him on his agreement to have her help. If he played it close, she'd walk out of his life and he'd be forced to kill her as a potential liability. She must have known that. Maybe that was why she'd stopped eating. Her eyes seemed a little moist.

  Stahl inhaled and then blew out a long release of pent-up emotion. He couldn't kill her. He wanted her around.

  He smiled instead. "Forty-eight hours."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Frank woke up feeling like crap.

  That was nothing entirely new. For the past few days he'd been waking up the same way: restless, tired, and grumpy. Today he was able to add another trait to that list: a sense of impending violence.

  He didn't know quite how to explain it. At some point while he'd slept last night, he'd suddenly gotten an acute impression of something big happening in the near future. He figured it had to do with the German. The man he was supposed to kill was coming and Frank was willing to bet that the timeline had suddenly accelerated on it.

  That meant he had even less time to disrupt his plans.

  He rolled out of bed and padded into the kitchen. Gia stood in front of the coffee maker trying to figure it out. Frank shook his head.

  "It's only got two buttons."

  She turned. "Well, look who's up. Good morning, sleepyhead."

  He plopped down on the couch and resisted the urge to go for a run and the paper. No sense starting off the day dead.

  Gia finally got the coffee machine working and came over, sitting next to him on the deep cushion. "You don't look so good."

  "Tired."

  "I figured that. Didn't you sleep?"

  He sighed. May as well tell her. "Something changed last night."

  "What do you mean?"

  "With the German. With ourÉlink. I got the sense that things are going to snowball soon. The waiting period is almost over."

  "And you're still going to try and stop him."

  Frank said nothing. Gia got up off the couch. "I can't believe you, Frank. What do you owe this guy, whoever he is, that you'd lay down your own life for someone you've never met? I mean, here we are - cooped up in this place - unable to even go out, and you're talking about saving someone you know nothing about."

  "And you think I should be saving us. Is that it?"

  She frowned. "It's always been a real problem with you, hasn't it? You get this idea in your head, some sort of weird fantasy. It's those damned books of yours. Those private eye novels." She sighed. "You think you're Sam Spade or Mike Hammer or some other gumshoe hero, don't you?"

  "No."

  "No. You're not. You're a stone cold killer, Frank. You kill people for a living. And so does this German guy. You aren't heroes. You're what most people fear. You're the antithesis of a hero. You ever think of that?"

  Helluva way to wake up, thought Frank.

  "Did you ever think," said Gia. "That maybe, just maybe, th
is guy the German's going to kill actually deserves to die? That by stopping him, you'd actually be causing more harm than good?"

  Frank eyed her. "A lot of people deserve to die, Gia."

  She stopped. "What the hell does that mean?"

  He shrugged. "Take it however you want. All I'm saying is that some of them don't. And I can't help thinking this target doesn't deserve to die. He shouldn't die. I can't explain it, it's just the way I feel."

  "This from a guy who never got in touch with his feelings before." Gia sighed. "Figures."

  "I'm not asking you to like it. I'm simply telling you what to expect."

  "I don't have any damned choice anyway, do I? If I step out of this place those hired guns'll find me. And then I'll be in the shit."

  Frank nodded. "You're upset. It's understandable."

  "Oh goodie."

  Frank got up and went searching for some orange juice. What he really wanted was a cigarette. Suck in some serious nicotine and let them that relax him. It always used to help when Gia got bitchy. "Maybe you should have thought about your future before you agreed to help the Feds out, huh?"

  "You're saying I didn't think things through enough?"

  "I'm not saying anything. All I'm offering up is that our actions have consequences. Your actions, in particular, are having some serious implications."

  She aimed a finger at him. "Your actions, too."

  Frank found the juice and poured himself a glass. "Yeah. I could have simply shot you dead. Put two hot bullets into your skull and watched all your gray matter explode out the back of your head. You'd have been dead. It would have been done. And none of this would be happening." He looked at her. "Is that what you wanted me to say?"

  Gia ran to the sink and threw up. She swirled some water around the stainless steel and sucked some down. After a moment she stood, but leaned against the counter.

  "You bastard."

  Frank shrugged. "Sometimes it helps to have things established in the proper context."

  She dabbed her forehead with a towel. "Yeah, well, that was just plain mean. You didn't have to say it like that."

  "Has anyone ever told you you're a real bitch?"

  She almost looked shocked. "No."

  "First for everything, huh?" He enjoyed watching the shock seep over her face. "Do me a favor. Try to remember I'm not a scratching post for you anymore. You need to think carefully about what you say around me. After all, just because Patrisi's dead, that doesn't mean I can't fulfill the contract."

  "You wouldn't kill me, Frank."

  "The way I'm feeling, it's probably a better and safer bet not to try and guess what I'm capable of."

  Gia said nothing for a moment. Then her voice got quieter. "They'd still hunt you."

  "So what? I've been hunted before. I know how to deal with it. And the thing is, it's a whole lot easier to travel as one person than two." He downed the juice and set the glass on the counter. "They'd hunt me, yeah. But I know enough places and ways to stay hidden."

  "For how long? You can't hide away for ever."

  "Why not? I don't exactly have anything tying me down to this place. All my family's dead and buried. Got no strings. No employer either." He folded his arms. "I can stay hidden as long as it takes. Moe didn't raise a fool."

  "Fuck Moe." Gia walked back to the couch and dropped into it. She put her feet up and closed her eyes. Frank watched her for a moment, almost unsure of what to say.

  Part of him wanted to yell at her for cussing out Moe.

  Part of him wanted to shoot her.

  Part of him wanted to love her.

  Like he'd never stopped loving her.

  A beep from behind him made him turn. "Coffee's done."

  "Black please."

  He glanced back with a frown. Gia was out of it. He shook his head and got her a mug of the hot black liquid and set it down in front of her. "Here's your coffee. But I don't spoon-feed you the drink, so you'd better sit on up and have some of it."

  She opened her eyes. "Surprised you got it for me."

  "After the way you spoke to me, you didn't deserve it. And the things you said about Moe." He sighed and allowed the words to hang there a minute. "Guess I'm a sucker for a bitchy broad."

  "You always were." She almost smiled. "Jesus Christ, Frank. What the hell are we going to do here?"

  He watched her drink a little of the coffee and then set the mug down. He leaned back. "I don't really know."

  "That's not what I wanted to hear."

  "It's the truth, though." He sighed. "I'm due to meet the German again today."

  "Is that a smart move?"

  "Maybe. Maybe not. I need to know what he's up to, though. Part of me thinks I can actually talk to this guy. Yesterday it was weird. Seeing him was almost like seeing an old friend. Of sorts. It was like we knew what the other was thinking and doing. Seems weird, huh?"

  "Yeah. Sure does." Gia drank more of the coffee. "But why would he listen to you? He doesn't owe you a damned thing."

  "Professional respect."

  She sniffed. "Is that going to keep him from shooting you, instead of sitting down for tea and biscuits?"

  "I hope so," said Frank. He glanced at his watch. Almost eleven. He wanted to be in position at least ninety minutes ahead of time. The German would probably do the same. Frank just had to make sure that he backtracked and lost any surveillance he might have had. It was rude showing up to meetings with a gaggle of hired guns tagging along like unwanted guests.

  "I have to go."

  Gia looked up. "So soon?"

  Frank stood and walked toward the bathroom. "Sooner's always better than arriving late. There's advantage in arriving early."

  Gia grabbed his hand. Frank looked back. She smiled up at him and gave his wrist a hard squeeze. "Good luck."

  Frank looked at her a minute longer and then pulled free. "The longer I stay in this game, the more I realize luck has almost nothing to do with anything."

  "Well, I said it anyway."

  Frank nodded. "Yeah. You did."

  And he supposed that was something.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Stahl rode the MBTA Green Line C Train out to Coolidge Corner only after first verifying that he didn't have surveillance on him by transferring from train to bus to foot several times. Such precautions made him realize that certain aspects of this work did not appeal to him. It was a royal pain to have to constantly backtrack and waste time trying to lose potential pursuers.

  Still, he reminded himself, this was for Alois. All of it.

  Well, maybe except for the cheap thrills. That was for him.

  Throngs of people surged along the sidewalk as the sun came out and helped thaw some of the cold out of the air. Overhead, the blue skies almost made winter seem like a memory.

  Almost.

  Stahl got off the train and waited for the light to change before crossing the street. He moved in a tight pack of people all walking faster than Stahl would normally have preferred. He stayed with them anyway, using them as cover until he could reach the reasonably protected sidewalk. He hated crossing streets in the open where anyone with a cheap sporting rifle could pick him off from a rooftop.

  The fear stemmed from an incident in London back when Stahl had first gotten involved in the business. He was over in Piccadilly on an assignment to meet with a courier. Enroute, someone had shot at him as he crossed the square. The shot missed, but it was the first time Stahl had realized how incredibly exposed he'd been out in the open.

  It also made him wonder about the loyalties of those he worked for. While corruption wasn't exactly commonplace in the circles he moved in, there were a number of people who had their own agendas. Downing a pint of Guiness soon after his brush with death, Stahl had resolved to never be so open to attack again - be it from a would-be sniper or internal machinations.

  He'd been pretty successful.

  He walked past the bookstore and used the plate windows to scan the area immediat
ely behind him. It was a cheap tactic, the kind Hollywood liked to pan on unknowing theatergoers, but Stahl had found it useful on occasion.

  Just then, the only people he could make out were the Brookline traffic cops enjoying the relatively warm weather.

  The American certainly wouldn't let himself be spotted like this. Would he?

  Stahl frowned. He's probably already at the coffee shop.

  He grinned. No. Not this one. Someone else, yes. Maybe. But not this one. Someone very skilled at their work had trained him. The American would honor those principles in the same way Stahl did - even if neither man cared for such elaborate rituals.

  He turned away from the bookstore and turned right on the next street. He passed a Jewish youth center on his left and marveled at how he'd changed. There'd been a time when he would have considered such a location a wonderful target of opportunity. There'd been a time when Stahl had considered all Palestinians his brothers-in-arms.

  Rather than the sick terrorists they actually were.

  Had the years granted him some measure of wisdom?

  Stahl doubted it. After all, he was still doing jobs for the thing that had caused him to rebel in the first place: money.

  Not exactly the altruistic idealist anymore, are you? He smiled and shrugged off the internal philosophizing. He could do that after the job was done. When Alois was on the mend and they were some place warm and tropical. Relaxing on the beach somewhere south of the equator.

  Where no one would find them.

  No one.

  At the next intersection he turned right again, following the map he'd memorized from the Internet cafŽ in Copley Square. Sam's sat a few doors down. Stahl used his peripheral vision to check out the surroundings and smiled. The American had chosen well.

  Across the street was a warehouse with a single heavy steel door. The wall facing the coffee shop had no windows. And the roof was almost too high for a shooter to get a decent shot off without exposing himself at the same time. Further down the street, the buildings in view didn't offer much chance for staging a hit, either. Parking was already full. No one sat in any of the cars or trucks. And the foot traffic would be a hindrance to a hit team trying to stage something.