by Tia Lewis
“Oh, my…”
“Tell me,” I said.
Dory smiled with satisfaction.
“She was around sixteen, all grown up, and we were at the library together. I didn’t read like Tess, not even close, but I liked my crime thrillers and my romances. I liked to sink my teeth into a book. So we were at the local library together. She was doing what she always did in libraries: scan every single book title, from start to finish, shelf to shelf. It took a long time, but I didn’t mind. I had bingo that evening, but nothing else. I had time to spare.
“Then I hear Tess talking in a quick, angry tone. She wasn’t shouting, but she was furious. I could hear it in her voice. Tess had too much respect for libraries to shout in one. She was lecturing.
“I go to her and watch as she lectures this middle-aged man, a banker-looking type. He wears a suit with an earpiece. He has a small boy with him, looking with eyes full of admiration up at Tess.
“Then Tess says: ‘Why would you do that?’ Why would you do that to him? He’s trying to read. Do you understand? That’s massive, for a kid his age. Who knows where it could lead? Who knows what doors it could open for him? And you growl at him and tell him not to be a sissy? How are you a sissy to expand your mind? How are you a sissy to hunger for knowledge?’”
Tess was blushing bright red now. “I sound bloody crazy.”
“Oh, and was it crazy when the little boy took the book from the shelf and told you he liked you very much?”
“No,” Tess admitted. “That felt pretty good.”
“It turns out,” Dory said, “that the banker was one of the librarian’s boyfriends. And the child was her child, not his. She came over to us and apologized for him, which I thought was a bit much, considering Tess had already put him in his place.”
We finished our hot chocolates in silence, apart from a few small-talk-type words, and then Tess asked Dory how her health is doing. Dory was ill, suffering from respiratory problems for a long time.
“Oh, yes, that’s the funny thing,” Dory said, handing me her empty mug. I took it and place it on the nearby table. “The doctor has put me on a new type of inhaler and preventer. It’s working wonders. It’ll never be better—I’m too old for that—but it’s much, much better.”
“That’s great to hear.” Tess’ voice seems shaky. When I look at her, I see that she was crying, her eyes watery, her cheeks glimmering. When she saw Dory and I looking at her, she sniffled out a laugh. “Oh, don’t mind me. It’s just—I’m so happy that you’re better, Grandma. And I’m so happy to see you. You have no idea. I really feel like I’ve come home, now.”
A fresh wave of tears took her. She sobbed for around half a minute and then wiped her eyes.
“Do you still have the locket I gave you Tess when you were a little girl?”
“Of course, grandma.” Tess nodded. “I couldn’t live without it.”
A half and hour later, Tess and I were getting ready to leave. The nurse came in and informed us, in a discreet tone, that Dory gets tired and has multiple naps per day. I moved the chairs to the edge of the room and helped Dory to her bed. Then I moved her wooden chair to the window, where it was when we came in.
I lean down to the bed and give Dory a hug.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you better, Mrs. McGreevy,” I said.
“Who?” Dory asked.
“I’m sorry, Dory.” I blushed. “Just a dear friend of mine who’s longer with us.”
Dory smiled.
Then I said, on an impulse which I stood one hundred percent behind: “You know, you could live with us, Dory. It’d be no inconvenience. You know, so you can be around family.”
When I stood up, Tess was standing beside me. Together, we looked down on Dory in her bed.
“Live with you?” Dory said. “Oh, no, don’t you two worry about me. You’re young and in love, aren’t you? Go and be love birds! I’m happy enough here, with my friends!”
We all laughed at that, even the nurse as she came in to collect the chairs and the mugs. Dory brought her hand to her forehead as she laughed, giggling like a schoolgirl.
“Well, we’ll be sure to visit you more often.” I said. “How about that?”
“I love that idea.” Tess smiled at me. “How about everyday, grandma?”
“Everyday?” Dory laughed, but then starting coughing. “I’m a busy gal! I have game night on Tuesdays, my talk show comes on Thursdays…”
Dory coughed some more. A dry hacking sound.
“Okay, Dory. Let’s get you some rest.” The nurse interrupted.
“We’ll see you soon, grandma. Merry Christmas.”
Tess bent down and kissed Dory on the forehead and I did the same.
“Merry Christmas, Dory.” I repeated.
“Merry Christmas, you two.” Dory smiled, closed her eyes and faded to sleep.
“You were amazing in there, you know,” she said in the car.
“It wasn’t difficult,” I replied. “I loved hearing Dory tell me about you when you were growing up.”
Tess laughed. “So, embarrassing!”
“Oh come on, Tess,” I shot back, smirking at her. “Did you really think I didn’t know you were a nerd? Give me more credit than that.”
She stared at me, trying to be mean, but then a laugh escaped her lips. She fell into me, laughing into my chest. I kiss her blonde hair and take in the scent of her, my fiancé, the woman who will soon be my wife, the woman I will be with forever.
28
I couldn’t sleep. I laid awake beside the love of my life, the woman I risked everything for, the woman I came through it all for. I stared at the ceiling as the moonlight slants across it, twin blue beams which light up brilliantly. Something is nudging at my mind, chewing on it like a dog that got its teeth into a bone, chomping and chomping. So much happened back in the States—South Boston. I need to remember, need to think. But my mind was so full of happiness these days that thinking was getting harder and harder. Love and happiness has given me so much; it has also made the cold thinking I was used to do impossible.
I turned onto my side and faced Tess, staring at her face shrouded in darkness. She snored cutely, little breaths in and out, her lips turned into a small smile, her face somehow lit up despite the darkness. My chest ached for her, even now. I remember all the men I killed, all the anger I felt, all the panic that wrecked me when I was searching for her, in the nightclub, in Zharkov’s penthouse. I remember the pain I felt…
No!
I jolted upright in bed, chest rising and falling like crazy. It was now coming back to me.
If all else fails and the light turns to darkness….
Mr. McGreevy’s note.
How could I’ve forgotten? As soon as the memory returned to me, I knew that it was what’s been keeping me up at night, lurking at the edge of my mind like a predator at the edge of a pond, ready to leap in and thrash about, disturbing everything.
All else fails? What did the he mean by that? All else did fail for him, didn’t it? That fucking bastard Boss ordered a hit on Mr. McGreevy. But I got my revenge. Now, Boss had to live in pain and suffering with limbs. Killing would have been too easy. I wouldn’t had give me that satisfaction. So all else did fail, but then Mrs. McGreevy said the note was left for me, didn’t she?
All else fails? Light turns to darkness?
Was Mr. McGreevy talking about my situation with Boss, with the men at the Drunk Harpy? Was he talking about the hitman life? Did he somehow know that one day all of this would go away, and I would be left with nothing but what I’d been able to salvage from my previous life?
I forced myself to take a deep breath. I was jumping to conclusions. Of course, I was. It was just a strange code, with a strange note and a strange address, left by a dead man. But Hampstead, London, is in the United Kingdom, and I am in the United Kingdom. If ever there was a better chance to check on this, it was now.
I was about to hop to my feet when I remembered the code at
the start of the message. It was a strange mishmash of letters and numbers, as I recalled, random lettering that looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Numbers and numbers and accented letters. I closed my eyes and pondered. I thought hard, trying to bring the code to the forefront of my mind. I succeeded in bringing something to the forefront. Whether or not it’s the code, only going to the address will tell.
I looked one last time down at Tess. She was sleeping soundly, smiling softly. I didn’t have the heart to wake her. I needed to figure this shit out myself.
I jumped to my feet and started pulling my clothes on, buttoning a black T-shirt and pulling my jeans up, tying my boots. I’m tying the laces on my last boot when Tess muttered, “Hey. Is something wrong?”
“Everything’s fine, baby,” I told her. “Just go back to sleep. Sorry, I woke you.”
I laced up the boot, stood up, and headed for the door.
“Wait a second, mister!” Tess called out, when my hand was on the bedroom door handle.
I couldn’t help but grin to myself when she called me mister. It made me feel like a normal, everyday man. After all, that was my new life now. Being a normal man, making a honest living and enjoying life with my fiancé.
“It’s fine,” I said, turning to face her. She leaned up on her arm, tilting her head at me, biting her lip so sweetly I wanted to jump on the bed and take her again, right now. But the code and the message and the address—429 Finchley Road in Hampstead, London—echoed in my head and wouldn’t leave it. “I just need to check something out.”
Tess threw her head up and addressed the ceiling. “You hear that, everyone? He just needs to sneak out in the middle of the night to check something. So there’s nothing strange about it at all. No, it’s completely normal. What a normal, understandable thing to do.” She lowered her gaze and stopped addressing the make-believe audience. “No, Liam, tell me what you’re up to.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I saw that!” Tess snapped, giggling to take the sting out of it.
I rolled them again, exaggerating the movement. “There’s something I need to do. It’ll probably lead to nothing, but I can’t get it out of my head which is why I haven’t been able to sleep for the past weeks. The sooner I check on it, the sooner I can forget about it, and the sooner I’ll be back. So, you see…”
“I’ll come with you, then.”
“I can handle it.”
“I don’t believe I asked a question,” Tess grinned, springing out of bed and pacing to the closet. She began to take out clothes and throw them on. In less than two minutes she was wearing jeans, thick socks, boots, and a hoodie. She puts her hand on her hip and stood with one leg slightly forward, looking like a cocky teenager. “If we go anywhere in the middle of the night, we go together. I thought you would’ve learned that by now.”
I shook my head. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
“Yes, your soon-to-be wife is impossible.” She smirked. “Shall we get going, then? Get going to wherever this mystery place is.”
“Come on, then, my lady. You wouldn’t want to miss the ball,” I joked.
We grabbed our winter coats, left the house and headed to the car—my classic beauty, a black 1970 Chevy Chevelle. My car was finally repaired and restored when it was involved in a shootout and ended up decorated with bullet holes back in South Boston.
About a month ago, I called to check on Tommy Green and to catch up and I asked if he knew a way to transport my car across country. Sure enough, if he did. This time it only cost me five grand. He gave me a discount. We’ve became closer so much so that I no longer had to call Pirate Mini-Golf Adventure Land Supreme and listen to that God awful elevator music. I could now call him directly.
The windows were iced over and when I turned the engine, it coughs as if it has a cold. The seats were cold to the touch and cut through our clothes.
“Turn the heating on,” Tess pleaded, her breath spreading around her like fog. “I think I’m going to freeze to death.”
I cranked the heating up and turned on the windshield wipers. Nothing happened; they just smack against the ice.
“Need to wait for it to thaw,” I muttered
Tess blew into her cupped hands.
“This is a good time to tell me what the hell is going on, then?”
I laughed, embarrassed. Suddenly, I realized what I have done. I have pulled my woman from bed in the middle of the night just to drive to Hampstead, London and check on a note which will most likely lead nowhere.
And on Christmas night.
I looked around the neighborhood as I waited for the windshield to melt. The street was pitch-dark apart from the small haloes of light the streetlights made, the sky is full of clouds which now hide the moon.
“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year,” Tess singed, before leaning across the car and nudging me in the shoulder. “Is this a surprise Christmas present? Is that why you won’t tell me?”
“No,” I laughed.
“Then what’s going on, Liam?”
“Okay, so do you remember the code Mr. McGreevy left for me? On a note?”
“The one with the address? The one that looked like gibberish?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“For some reason, I need to check it out. Can’t say why, but I do. Bad. It’s playing with my mind, and I can’t let it go. So my plan is to drive to wherever 429 Finchley Road in Hampstead, London is and check it out. I know it’s a warehouse but to what? Anyway, when it comes to nothing, I’ll drive back.”
Tess hide a laugh behind her hand.
“What?” I demanded, smiling. I couldn’t help but smile when she laughs.
“Hampstead, London is the other side of the bloody country,” she said. “It’s almost four hours away!”
“Four hours is nothing, Tess.”
“In this weather it is.”
“Do you have directions to get there?”
“You have your cell phone on you, right?”
“Oh, my God. You’re so unprepared.” Tess shook her head. “Hang on, let me check my phone.”
She took her phone from the pocket of her hoodie and opened the GPS. Then she types in some text. A moment later, a loading icon appeared. A moment after that, a jagged line appeared on a map, along with some numbers at the bottom of the screen.
“Okay, I have the directions here,” she said.
“Then let’s go.”
I flicked the switch for the wipers. This time, the ice has melted enough for them to wipe it clean. I put the car into gear and pressed down on the pedal. Tess reads directions from her phone, and in less than twenty minutes we are zooming down a dead highway, a lone car blasting through the night on Christmas. I went fast, but not once does Tess ask me to stop. After all, she’s as dangerous and crazy as I am, when she wants to be.
“Why the sudden interest in the code from Mr. McGreevy?” Tess asked me, as the engine growled, rumbling, thunder.
“No idea,” I said. “Sometimes, things just play on your mind, you know? Tonight, this was it. Just nagging at me. If I don’t check it out, I’ll never be able to forget it.”
“He was killed by the Russians,” Tess musds. “Any enemy of the Russians is a friend to me.”
“Mr. McGreevy wasn’t exactly killed by the Russians. Boss ordered a hit on him and the Russians carried it out.”
“Bloody bastards.” Tess snarled.
“But none of that matters now. All that matters is us.” I gripped the steering wheel hard, my knuckles turning white. For a second, I am back in the States, in South Boston, on my way to a job. My heart beated madly.
“You’re damn right,” Tess said, reaching across and rubbing my shoulders. “Oh, and going on wild goose hunts, right?”
I coughed out a chuckle. “Right,” I agreed.
We drove and drove through the
night until London rised up before us, its towers glowing in the night, shining out like beacons. Then we were in the city and Tess was barking at me, “Left, left, left, right, right, left.” The turns were overwhelming. The complexity of the city were overwhelming. It got me questioning how I ever knew Boston so well, how each brick was marked with a memory and I could walk it blindfolded.
Finally, a few hours later we cruised past a residential estate to a large warehouse.
“Hey! 429 Finchley Road,” Tess pointed out.
The windows of the warehouse were smashed, intermittent moonlight glinting on the jagged edges. The walls were covered with old paint that was once white but has now turned a dark brown from weather and time. It was chipping away, too, revealing the gray bricks beneath it. I parked the Chevy Chevelle in a nearby alley, in which an overturned trashcan lied, spilling out trash, stinking the air bring back memories of South Boston.
“Lovely,” Tess comments, as we stepped from the car. “Is this your idea of a Christmas date, Liam?”
I clenched my jaw as I looked over to the warehouse. It was dark and abandoned, exactly the kind of place men go when they, too, are dark and abandoned. And dark and abandoned men will think nothing of attacking two strangers in the night. I ducked into the car, reached to the glove compartment and took out my pistol.
Tess gasped across the car at me, but there’s a slight curve to her lip, telling me some part of her, at least, likes it.
“I thought you were done with that hitman stuff,” she said. “I thought you were going to be a functioning member of society, with a mortgage and car insurance who goes to cafes on the weekend.”
“Oh, I am,” I said. “But look at this place.”
“Oh, so…”
I bring my finger to my lips. “Shh!” I interrupted her. “Follow close behind me.”
I raised my pistol toward the warehouse, and that seemed to make Tess realize how serious I wasbeing. She creeped around the Chevy Chevelle and stood close behind me, gripping the back of my shirt. When I stepped forward, she stepped forward, so that when I move she moves directly behind me, in complete unison. I led her around the side to an old rusted metal door. I nudged the door with the toe of my boot, and it swung open.
