Play Nice

by Gemma Halliday

  Four blocks and several turns later Anna dared to let out the breath she’d been holding. She looked over at Dade. His skin was a garish white under the glow of the streetlamps, sweat beading on his forehead and cheeks.

  “We need to pull over,” she said, her voice low and calm, trying her best at sounding commanding.

  She was surprised when he didn’t argue, instead nodding in compliance and pulling the SUV over to the side of the road on a quiet residential street.

  “Take your shirt off so I can look at the wound,” Anna instructed.

  Dade paused. Clearly he was not used to be given orders. But, considering the circumstances, he complied, wincing as he lifted his right arm out of the T-shirt, exposing his hit shoulder.

  Anna bit her lip as she inspected the wound. She couldn’t tell how deep it was, but it was large, covering at least three square inches of flesh, digging a neat pathway out across his skin.

  “You need stitches,” she said.

  Dade nodded. “I can do that.”

  “It’s on your shoulder. There’s no way you can stitch yourself one handed. I’ll do it for you.”

  “Right. Like I’m gonna trust you.”

  “You don’t have much choice, now, do you?” she asked.

  He grinned, the movement costing him some effort, she could tell. “Touché.” He looked from her to the blood oozing down his arm.

  “I’m serious,” she said quietly. “You need help.”

  “Fine,” he finally relented. Though she could tell it was because he saw the logic in her argument, and not that he did, in fact, trust her. As witnessed by the fact his left hand still had the M9 clutched in a vice grip.

  “We need to get to a drugstore. I need some supplies,” Anna said.

  Dade nodded, then moved to turn the car on again.

  “And I think I should drive,” Anna said slowly.

  “No.”

  “You’re half unconscious,” Anna pointed out.

  Dade shot her a look. “I’ll let the conscious half drive, then.”

  Anna bit her lip. “Look you can point the gun on me the entire way, okay? Shoot me if I make a wrong turn. But shut up and get in the passenger seat before you bleed to death, please?”

  Dade blinked, taking longer than Anna would have liked to open his eyes again. His mouth quirked upward. “Fine. You win,” he said, his voice low. Too low. He really was losing a lot of blood.

  “Move over,” she said, pulling him out of the seat. He did, shifting into the passenger seat as she got out of the car and rounded to the driver’s side.

  Anna turned the key in the ignition, pointing the car toward Van Ness, driving through the night until she saw the lights of an all-night drug store. She pulled around the back, into a small lot and cut the engine. She glanced over at Dade.

  His brow was covered in sweat, his breath coming slow and deep. The gun hung limply in his hand. He looked more pathetic than threatening at this point, the large red stain on his shoulder dripping down his arm.

  Go. Run. He’d never catch you like this.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  He nodded slowly, shutting his eyes.

  A sure sign he was in trouble. He never would have agreed to let her go into the store alone if he’d been thinking clearly.

  She left Lenny in the backseat as a guard dog and quickly jogged into the market. She grabbed a hand basket and scanned the aisles for makeshift medical supplies. Aspirin, gauze pads—lots of them—Betadine to clean the wound, Krazy Glue. She grabbed a couple of items from the pet aisle, then a couple of packs of trail mix and Gatorade, and a clean T-shirt for Dade from a souvenir rack by the door.

  She quickly paid for it all with her credit card, wincing at the fact she’d used the same number twice in a row now. But taking the time to reassign her number was something she couldn’t afford at the moment. Once the clerk bagged it all together, she jogged back to the car, half expecting to find Dade either unconscious or gone.

  But he was just as she’d left him, breathing heavily in the front seat, a lose grasp on the gun in his lap.

  “You okay?” she asked, as she slipped into the driver’s seat again.

  “Peachy,” he breathed out.

  She quickly put the car in gear, pulling out of the lot and driving south. Two blocks down, she found a Presbyterian church. She pulled around the two-story building, parking in the rear in the spot reserved for clergy. A dim light peeked out from the street lamp on the other side of the church building, creating a shadow over much of the lot. But it was enough light for what she needed.

  “Get in the backseat,” she told him, switching seats with Lenny herself.

  Dade managed to slip out the passenger side door, then collapsed into the back.

  The car smelled like leather, sweat, and the salty fog filtering in off the bay, ripe with ebbing seaweed. Dade’s eyes were closed, his head lulling backward against the seat. He could have been sleeping, were it not for the rapid in and out of breath from his nostrils as she worked.

  She tried to move quickly, not only to close the wound before he lost too much blood, but also to minimize the pain. While he was a silent patient, his breath came harder when her fingers hit the wounded flesh, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

  She started by crushing up two tabs of aspirin into a powdery mix, the applied the paste to the wound. It was a poor substitute for local anesthetic, but it would have to do for now. Thankfully, it looked as though the bullet had grazed his shoulder rather than lodging there. A good thing. If it had been there, she would have taken him to the hospital no matter how much he protested. Despite the heroics shown on TV cop shows, digging into someone’s flesh to pull out a bullet usually resulted in ruptured arteries, nerve damage, or other internal bleeding. All of which she was ill prepared to deal with.

  She soaked a gauze pad with Betadine, then applied it to his shoulder. He winced, but didn’t move. Next she pulled out the tube of styptic powder that she’d bought in the pet care section.

  Dade looked down at the picture of a dog on the tube.

  “What’s that?”

  “Styptic powder.”

  “Which is?”

  “It helps clotting. You use it on overtrimmed nails.”

  “There’s a picture of a poodle on it.”

  “It’s for dogs’ nails.”

  “You’re giving me dog medicine?”

  “It’s not medicine. And it’ll work for you, too.”

  She grabbed the tube of Krazy Glue, and applied it to the sides of the wound, leaving a small opening at the top, where she applied more of the powder. Closing it entirely left no room for drainage to avoid an abscess. This way the wound might weep a little, but it would heal faster.

  She worked quietly, holding the side of the wound together for several seconds, willing the glue to take. Dade’s skin felt warm underneath her fingers. She hoped it was the strain and not a fever brewing.

  “You almost done?” he breathed out. His eyes were closed again, his head leaning back on the seat. The gun was completely abandoned at this point, shoved somewhere in his pants. His hands were limp. His arms lax.

  “Almost.” She removed the pressure from his shoulder and was glad to see the skin holding together. She finished off by applying more Betadine to the outside, then taping a gauze bandage over the top. It wouldn’t heal pretty, but it would heal. And it avoided the hospital.

  She sat back, using gauze to clean his blood off her hands, and realized she, too, had been sweating.

  Dade opened his eyes. He looked down at the white square on his shoulder.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She met his eyes, softer now, spent with the energy of forced vulnerability. She nodded, and handed him a Gatorade. “You’re welcome. Drink this.”

  He complied, taking small sips from the bottle. She could feel him watching her as she gathered the used gauze into a plastic bag, cleaning up their make-shift operating room. Lenny b
arked in the front seat, sniffing at the steering wheel.

  “The dog,” Dade said. “You named him Lenny?”

  Anna nodded. “After Sugar Ray Leonard. They’re both boxers.”

  Dade grinned. “Cute.”

  Anna shifted in her seat, not sure how she felt about that assessment. “How long have you been in the business?” she asked, taking his chatty mood as an opportunity to learn what she could about him.

  He shook his head. “Long enough.”

  “You’re American? You were trained here?”

  He nodded silently.

  “Military?” she asked, even though she knew the dog tags in his bag had proven that.

  “Marines.”

  “How long did you serve?”

  He took a long breath, and she wasn’t sure he was going to answer.

  “Ten years.”

  “What made you leave?”

  He rolled his head to the side, pinning her with a long look. Not information he was willing to share.

  “So, now you’re in the private sector?” she pressed.

  “Yes.”

  “Why turn private?”

  “Politics.” He closed his eyes again, leaning on the seat. “Politics dictated my every move. I was tired of seeing the bad guys get away because they had good friends.”

  “So now you hunt the bad guys yourself?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Bad guys like me,” she said, her voice low.

  He opened his eyes. “Christ, what do you want me to say? Have you read your file?”

  The comment made him angry, color pinking his cheeks. Good. That honestly scared her less than the listless Dade.

  She nodded. “I can imagine what’s in it.” She paused. “How old were you when you went in the military?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “I was thirteen.”

  He turned his head her way. “Seriously? Shit.”

  “My parents died when I was too young to remember them. I grew up in a group home near the city center. One day a man from the government office came and gave us each a written test. I guess I did well, because he said he had somewhere special for me to go. From then on, Petrovich basically raised me.”

  “Your handler?” he asked.

  She nodded. “He taught me everything I needed to survive in the KOS.”

  “How old were you when you made your first kill?” Dade asked, his voice softer. Something flickered behind his eyes. If she had to guess, it was pity. She hated pity.

  “Old enough to know right from wrong.”

  “But young enough to do it anyway.”

  “I had orders to follow. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  “You always have a choice,” he countered.

  “So I deserve this? Being hunted down now is my ill-earned fate?”

  “Is it?” he asked, his eyes boring into her.

  That was a loaded question. Had she killed people? Yes. Definitely. Had they deserved it? Probably. Maybe? Did anyone really deserve to be killed? Justice had been served at her hand, she was sure of it. But so had the personal interests of her sponsors. She’d been too young to be able to distinguish one from the other at the time, but in hindsight she had no idea how many innocent people had been given to her as targets that threatened some unscrupulous person’s way of life. And Dade was after her now. Did that make him an instrument of justice?

  She realized she had no answer to that question any more than she had one to his.

  She shrugged. “We’re all bad. We’re all good.”

  “That was a cop-out.”

  She smiled at him. “Yes, it was.”

  She could see something warring behind his eyes. If she had to guess, he was trying to decide how much of what she’d told him was truth and how much was designed to sway him. She wasn’t sure what he finally settled on, but he nodded, and asked, “What made you leave the KOS?”

  “I wanted a life.”

  “Have you had one?”

  She shook her head slowly side to side. And that was the raw truth. Deep down she had always known this day would come, and she’d have to run, to start again. Living with that knowledge was no more a way to live than being in the KOS had been.

  “We should go,” he said. “As long as we keep moving we make it harder for them to find us.”

  She nodded. “Do you want me to drive?”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  He didn’t look fine, but the conversation had put some of the color back into his face. So she didn’t protest, instead slipping from the backseat, switching seats with Lenny again, and sliding into the passenger side of the SUV.

  Dade got behind the wheel. But before he started the engine, he slid something across the console toward her.

  She looked down.

  It was her Glock. She glanced up, sending him the silent question.

  “You’re going to need it when we find them,” he said.

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  Anna slipped the gun into her waistband. It felt heavy, comforting. Like an old friend. It was easy to wear, felt secure against her body. She leaned back against the seat, feeling more of the old Anya come back to her than she ever thought she’d see again.

  And hoped she wouldn’t have to use the gun on the man beside her.

  CHAPTER 12

  They spent the night driving the City, up and down winding roads, some empty as their inhabitants slept, some filled with the nightlife spilling from bars, clubs, and all-night diners. Around dawn, Dade pulled into the parking lot of a Denny’s where they ate breakfast and walked Lenny around the back of the building to do his business. Anya fed him a bottle of water, then walked him up and down the block to stretch his legs.

  Dade leaned against the car, watching her. With his good arm, he pulled his cell from his back pocket and dialed. His contact answered on the third ring.

  “The job done?” was his clipped greeting.

  “No,” Dade said.

  There was a pause. “When?”

  “I need to speak to our employer,” Dade countered.

  “You know that’s not possible.”

  “He better make it possible. There’s been a change of plans.”

  Dade could feel the man on the other end tense. “What kind of change?”

  Dade took a deep breath. He’d never done this before, and he wasn’t entirely sure it was the right thing to do now.

  “I’m not finishing the job.”

  The silence on the other end did nothing to reassure him.

  “Did you hear me?” Dade asked.

  The man’s voice came slowly, deliberately. “Not finishing isn’t an option.”

  Dade knew. These weren’t the kind of people who let bygones be bygones. When they made a contract, it was honored. One way or another.

  “I’m not doing it,” Dade told the man. “Tell our employer the deal’s off. The deposit will be returned to the account it was wired from.”

  Again the silence on the other end stretched far longer than comfort would have dictated. Finally the man sighed. “Our employer will not be happy. We were told you were supposed to be professional.”

  “I was supposed to be the only one on the job. It was supposed to be clean and simple. Our employer should have given me all the facts, not just the ones he wanted me to believe.”

  “You had what facts you needed to do the job you were hired to do.”

  “Look, I’m not doing anything until I know who else is after Anya, why, and which side I’m on.”

  “You’re on the side of the man who paid you.”

  “He doesn’t own me!” Dade shot back.

  The man sighed. “He won’t be happy.”

  “Tell him to join the club,” Dade said, then stabbed the OFF button.

  He exhaled deeply, running a hand through his hair, knowing he had just painted a target on his own head the same size as Anya’s.

  He watched as she approached, the dog
ambling along on the end of her lead. Her eyes were shielded from the sun by a pair of cheap sunglasses, her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, blowing in the early morning breeze.

  She’d had the opportunity to run last night. She could have easily left, let him bleed out, fend for himself. She’d stayed. He didn’t know what to make of that. Some sort of strategy on her part? Did she need his protection? He didn’t know. What he did know was that there were two people out there who wanted her dead. Somehow, she was a danger, a threat to them.

  What he’d said to Anya last night had been true. He’d entered into this line of work as a sort of extension of what he did in the military. Fixing what was unfixable through the bureaucracy of government channels. Of course, he wasn’t all altruistic heroics, taking a hefty fee for his services, but he chose his jobs carefully. And it bothered him that he’d chosen incorrectly in her case. Bothered him enough that he wasn’t ready to walk away just yet.

  At least, not until he knew what he was walking away from.

  * * *

  When Anna finally dragged Lenny back to the SUV, she found Dade at the rear of the car, the back door raised. A laptop, printer and a couple other small black boxes filled the trunk. If pressed, she’d guess at least one was a police scanner.

  “Nice toys,” she commented.

  Dade shot her a look over his shoulder. “I think so.” He had the laptop on, typing a sequence of numbers onto a black screen.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have a sudden shortage of funds. I’m securing more.”

  “Stealing?” She craned her neck to get a better look at the screen, but the numbers meant nothing to her.

  “Borrowing.”

  “From?”

  He didn’t respond, eyes intent on the screen, fingers flying over the keyboard, but Anna had her answer soon enough as he opened a Web browser and pulled up the California Lottery homepage.

  Anna raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to steal from the lottery?”

  “Borrow.”

  “So, you’ll be giving it back?”

  He nodded. “Eventually.”

  She wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not, but let it go. “Won’t they notice the money missing?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not going to go missing. It’s going to be paid out to a winner.” He moved to the SuperLotto page, eyes scanning the list of winning numbers for the previous day.