“Is he hurt?”
“He looked okay. He was walking,” Boyboy says.
We sit in silence for a few moments, watching the tent, trying to think what to do. Something, anything. I look hard at the camp. What can we use? Along with the tents for Michael and Omoko, there are others for cooking and storage. I count two flatbed trucks and three off-road motorcycles. There are drums that might be full of water, or more likely petrol for the vehicles. Plenty of weapons to go around. Including . . .
“RPGs,” I say. “That’s what he’s going to use to blow up Mr. Greyhill’s helicopter once they take off. Maybe we can sabotage them somehow.”
“Role-playing games?” Boyboy asks, frowning.
I nod toward several newish-looking wooden crates. “Rocket-propelled grenades, nerd.”
Slowly, Boyboy sits up straighter. “Omoko brought those. And I’m pretty sure the head militia guy gave him a backpack full of gold in return. Either that or a sack of rocks.”
“Omoko’s trading with the militias,” I say slowly. “That’s not Goonda work. He’s getting back into the gold-buying business.” I wonder if he’s the comptoir Mr. Greyhill came to check on. I shake my head. “That doesn’t matter right now. Let’s focus on making sure he doesn’t kill any Greyhills.”
“Getting rid of the grenade launchers won’t help,” Boyboy says. “He’ll just find some other weapon.”
He’s right. I push the gears in my brain to crank to life and think harder.
Just then there’s a shout and we look over to see two bodies swinging at each other, then falling in a heap. The tension between the Goondas and the militia dudes has just boiled over.
“Come closer,” I whisper to Boyboy. “I think I can reach your hands.”
Boyboy looks around, but everyone is now watching the fight. He scoots closer, and I stretch to feel the metal biting against his skin and the stickiness of his blood. “They shouldn’t have tied us up together,” I say.
“Ketchup has never been the brightest,” Boyboy replies. “But those are zip ties. Metal ones. They’re impossible to undo.”
“You forget you’re talking to a master thief.”
“Thief, not Houdini.”
“And Ketchup forgets that Bug Eye taught me a few tricks.”
The ties around our wrists are tight, but after investigating with my fingers, I think all I need is a tiny, flat piece of metal. Luckily, I can still feel a bobby pin tucked in my hair where it can’t be seen. Good old bobby pins. They never let me down.
Unluckily, I need my hands to get it.
“Boyboy, you’re going to have to get the pin that’s in my hair.”
“A what? A bobby pin? How am I supposed to do that?”
I look up at the melee. “Bite it out.”
“Are you crazy? You think no one’s going to notice me chewing on your head?”
“They’re busy. It’s around the back. Hurry, while they’re still distracted.”
“Oh my God, this is wrong on so many levels,” Boyboy mutters, but he shifts around and soon I feel his nose burrowing through my hair. “I hate you so much right now,” he grunts into my scalp.
“And you need to bite the end off while you have it in your mouth. The little plastic part.”
He mumbles something unintelligible, and a second later I feel a sharp tug. He pulls back with a grimace, metal between his teeth. Just then I see one of the militia look over at us. Boyboy closes his lips over the pin and sits back quickly. He looks guilty as hell, but the militia guy just glares at us for a few seconds. Beads of sweat creep down my spine. Finally the guy seems satisfied that we’re not going anywhere and turns back to the entertainment.
Boyboy leans back and spits the pin out onto the ground near my fingers, where I grab it. I keep my eyes on the fight, like I’m just as interested as everyone else, and scoot as close to Boyboy as I can. Slowly, I wedge the shim between the wire tie and the clasp. It’s not easy, between my sweating fingers and the unfamiliar bindings, and for a second I think the pin is too thick. But then finally I hear Boyboy gasp with relief when he feels the ties loosen.
“Move your hands over here so I can get yours,” Boyboy says.
I start to, then hesitate. I look from the tent where Michael is being kept, to the petrol drums, to the motorcycles, to Ketchup. An idea begins to take shape in my mind.
I pull my hands back and tuck the bobby pin into my pocket, unused. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Listen to me, and don’t interrupt. Keep watching those boneheads fight. I think I have a plan.”
THIRTY-NINE
Rule 16: Don’t stop.
• • •
Bug Eye taught me how to fight. If he told me once, he told me a hundred times: Stop wilding out, kijana. Elbows in, head down, and focus. You may be smaller, but you’re faster and you’re smarter. Here’s what counts, he said: You find an edge. Just a tiny crack in the foundation. Remember what I said about finding weaknesses? That’s what you do. Then you dig in and, listen to me, you just don’t stop. Fight until you’re beyond exhaustion. Even if you can see the end in front of you. Even if it seems hopeless. Don’t stop.
Not ever.
He took me to a dogfight and told me to watch this brindled pit bull. She was smaller than the others, wiry and delicate. I’ll admit, I was dubious when they paired her up against this big white male covered in scars. But the starting bell hadn’t even stopped ringing before she was hanging on that other dog’s neck, and when they slammed each other to the ground, she clung to him. As the fight wore on, his white neck turned scarlet, and then black with dirt, and then the dog’s owner rushed the ring before she could kill him, and it was over. And I just remember standing there, watching the little dog lick her wounds with her pink tongue like she had already shaken the fight off.
See that? Bug Eye said. Grab on and don’t let go. Hit him. And then hit him again, again, again, bam, bam, bam, bam, till he can’t see straight and he falls down at your feet like Goliath before David.
• • •
Boyboy listens to my plan. His frown gets deeper by the second. “I don’t like it. It’s too risky.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“And what if the phone battery is dead? That screws everything.”
“A little confidence, Boyboy.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “And what if Bug Eye won’t do it?”
“He’ll do it,” I say firmly, to myself as much as Boyboy. “Besides, what other way is there?”
He thinks for a second, then shakes his head.
I take a couple of deep breaths, twist out the kinks in my back, try to tell myself this is going to be just like any other job. Get in, get the prize, get out. Don’t leave traces.
The fight is over, the Goondas having been outnumbered and shouted down into a small, angry huddle. They occasionally give the militia guys foul looks over their shoulders. The loser, Toofoh-or-Toto, is holding a wet pack of leaves to his swollen eye.
I raise my head until I can see Ketchup’s face, and whistle two notes softly. It’s a familiar Goonda signal, and five sets of eyes dart to me. I look directly at Ketchup, and when he sees me mouthing for him to come over, the scowl he’s wearing slowly turns to a sneer. He says something to the other guys that makes them laugh, and then saunters over, a panga and a satellite phone dangling from his belt. He has a gun stuck down the front of his pants too, and it’s a wonder they’re still clinging to his bony hips. His T-shirt reads WAYNESVILLE SOFTBALL CHAMPIONS 1998, and is stained with sweat.
“Oh God, Tiny, be careful,” Boyboy says under his breath. “He’s already angry.”
Ketchup stops when he’s standing directly above me. His crotch and gun are at my eye level and he knows it.
“I have to pee,” I say q
uietly, trying to avoid looking up.
His grin gets bigger. “You need me to take you to the ladies’?” he asks. “You gonna say please?”
I finally look at him. “Please, Ketchup.”
He scratches absently at his stomach, still staring down at me. Finally he crouches to reach my hands. He comes in way closer than he needs to, so close that I can see which of his tattoos are fading on his puny biceps. Notably, the naked woman riding a roaring lion. I manage to keep my revulsion in check long enough to breathe in. I want to make sure I can still smell the sour vapors of white liquor on him.
He doesn’t disappoint me.
Ketchup fumbles but finally gets me loose from the tree. My hands are still tightly bound behind me. Boyboy’s wide eyes dart back and forth between the two of us.
Ketchup turns his attention to him. “You want to watch?”
Boyboy sucks in a horrified breath.
I don’t look at Ketchup’s face, afraid that what I’ll see there will leave me weak-kneed. I know what he’s considering doing to me. And he wants me to know. He jerks his chin toward a gap leading into the forest.
Swallowing the fear that is threatening to turn to bile in my throat, I step into the dense foliage. I still haven’t got any shoes on, but I’m starting to get used to it. The ground is soft and wet underfoot. Ketchup stays on my heels, his panga in his fist.
“Your little boyfriend doesn’t look so cute anymore after what I did to his face,” he says.
I shoulder through the undergrowth, limbs catching at my face and arms.
“Maybe if you’re nice I’ll let you kiss his ugly face good-bye.” Ketchup makes a gross sucking sound. It turns into drunk laughter. “That’s far enough,” he says.
“I’m going just there, behind that tree. I can still see the camp.”
“You think you got something they haven’t seen before?” Ketchup asks. “Okay, there. That’s far enough.”
I turn around to face him, and make a production of trying to get my arms around to undo my trousers. “You’re going to have to untie my hands,” I say, in exasperation.
He regards me.
“You want me to pee my pants?” I demand, feeling sweat running down the sides of my face.
Finally, Ketchup comes toward me, and I think he’s going to reach around to undo my ties, but instead he grabs the waist of my jeans, undoes the fly, and yanks them down.
For a moment I am frozen, totally naked in front of him from the waist down. I pulse with hot and cold embarrassment. I feel a trembling mix of fury and terror churning in me.
Ketchup stares at the place between my legs. “Well?”
My cheeks burning, I back up to a tree and squat behind it. I’m trying desperately to figure out what to do next, but the look on Ketchup’s face has me so shaken that I have to scream at myself to think. For an awful second I’m back in the forest as a five-year-old, squatting when the men came and I had to hide myself. I think of my mother. This is what it was like for her when she was captured.
What made me think this was going to work? It seemed reasonable back in the clearing that Ketchup would undo my wrists to let me pee. And once he did, I’d thrash him, like I had all those times sparring in the Goonda gym. I would tie him up and take his gun and phone. But it suddenly occurs to me that maybe he remembers our fights too. Shonde. Can I just try to wriggle out of the wires now, or is that too obvious? I make an effort to pee, just for the sake of authenticity.
I’m almost finished when he jumps me.
He’s come around the tree while I’m off balance, and then he’s pushing my chest, flattening me on the ground, surprising me with his strength and how much he weighs. Everything goes white-hot and time slows down into slashes, and then I can feel his hand wrestling at his pants, hear him growling at me to hold still. His wet, sour breath is all over my face.
“Don’t!” I gasp. “Omoko will kill you!”
“Screw Omoko!”
He’s too drunk and wound up to listen. I writhe, trying to break free, but Ketchup has all the leverage, his arm across my windpipe. He’s going to do this, a disembodied voice in my head says. I’m not going to be able to get away. Choking, I tilt my head back, looking for any sort of help at all.
And it’s then that I see her.
Everything but her goes completely still.
She walks toward me, upside down in my vision, and crouches next to me.
I can see the sweat beading on Ketchup’s neck. I can see the tomato tattoo on his hand. I can see dust motes rising in the air on a ray of light. I can’t see her face, but in that moment, I feel her hand brush my forehead, and my mother whispers in my ear:
Break the breaking wheel.
And I blink, and time speeds up, and there’s no time to think—I do just what she says.
I rear my head back and slam it straight into Ketchup’s nose.
There’s a sickening crunch, followed by Ketchup howling. He pulls back, hand to his nose, and I scream at myself to keep moving, and roll to the side. Then I’m hauling my legs through the loop of my arms, kicking out at him, gasping for breath, while Ketchup is getting his bearings. He’s drunk and hurt, but he’s still fast, and it’s not long before his hands have somehow found my throat; they’re squeezing little stars into my vision.
“I’m going to kill you!” he says, spittle and blood running down his chin. “And then I’m going to find your sister—”
I haul my knee up and make contact with his groin, and as he grunts and clutches in pain, I shove him to the side.
I roll onto my knees and scramble to my feet, yanking my pants back up so I can run for the sharpened panga he’s dropped. As I’m lunging for it, I feel his arms at my calves, and I go down hard, a shock shuddering through my leg as my knee cracks on a loose rock. I grab the fist-sized stone, twist around, and bring it hard against his temple while he’s rearing up over me with the panga.
The rock cracks against his face.
“Guuh,” he says.
His eyes roll back. Then he stumbles sideways. The big knife slips from his hand. I spring up after him, get on top of his chest, and smash the rock against his head once, twice, pull back to hit him again, and suddenly see what I’m doing.
I am a picture of horror with blood and dirt and urine all over me, holding a rock, ready to pound this boy’s skull in.
Ketchup’s eyes flutter, his body contorts, and then as I hold the rock over him in a shaking hand, he goes still. A sob heaves out of me, and the stone falls out of my bloody grip.
For a few seconds I kneel there, staring at him, gasping for breath. His chest is moving, but he’s out cold. The birds around us are silent.
Move, Tina, the voice in my head is screaming, and so I do.
I button my pants. I use my bobby pin to undo the wires around my wrists. I stuff them, along with Ketchup’s phone and gun, into my pockets and waistband. There’s a half-fallen tree a few meters away, and I grab Ketchup’s wrists and drag him to it. Boyboy will help me carry him farther soon, but for now this is the best I can do. I’ll tuck him into the space under the tree and pull branches and leaves over his body. Someone can go unnoticed like that for days if they need to. I should know.
Before I cover him I take the satellite phone and snap a photo of Ketchup’s bruised face. For a second, I can’t look away. He looks fragile. Young. The impulse to be sick washes over me again, and I allow myself to heave what little is left in my stomach into the leaves next to him, out here where no one is watching. I keep staring at Ketchup until I’m sure he’s still breathing. I wonder if I’ve cracked his skull.
I hope not. I need him.
FORTY
Rule 17: Let them fall on their spears.
• • •
You have to know your enemies’ weaknesses, Bug Eye says. That much is obvious. What he also ta
ught me, though, and what thieves and thugs and kings have figured out—the good ones, anyway—is that your enemies’ strengths can also be their weaknesses. Take my roof, for example. It’s a fortress. I feel safe there. Too safe. Surround it, and it becomes a cage.
So when I think about what the king of the Goondas’ strength is, well, number one, he’s got about a million thugs at his disposal.
And there is his weakness: his thugs.
Specifically, one thug in particular.
Maybe I have one more friend who’ll help me. Or if not a friend, at least someone I can trust to have his own particular weakness.
• • •
I don’t like how far I have to go to get a satellite connection for the phone, but the tree cover is dense. When I finally have network, I dial the number I know by heart with shaking fingers. It goes through immediately.
“Ketchup.”
“Not Ketchup,” I say.
A pause. “Tiny? Does Mr. Omoko know you’re calling me?”
“Don’t hang up.”
“I can’t talk to you, kijana.”
“Wait, Bug Eye.”
His voice sounds tired. “Look, I know why you’re calling, but there’s nothing I can do. I don’t like this either. But your sister is fine. Just . . . do what Omoko wants.”
“I can’t, Bug Eye.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“No! Listen, I want to make a deal with you.”
“You haven’t got anything I want.”
“I do.” The phone is slick in my sweating hands. It’s a strain to keep my voice from breaking, but I know I can’t let him know how shaken and frightened I am. This could all backfire if I don’t lay things out exactly right. I’m playing a long game here. I can’t put all my cards on the table at once. “Omoko’s my father. Did you know that?”
Bug Eye doesn’t answer.
“He raped my mother. Tortured her. Killed her. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to steal his crown for you.”
City of Saints & Thieves Page 26
