After the Rain

by Chuck Logan

  She dug through her go-bag, found a pair of loose-fitting shorts, a tank top, and Chacos. Out of habit her hand went to her pistol belt.

  Nah. Clothes were all wrong. And anyway…

  Then she took a moment to study Broker, who was strangled in a twisted sheet, spread out, hogging the bed, as usual. And she remembered how, asleep, all the care lifted off his face. Except for the bushy eyebrows, he looked like a young boy. She smiled. A rough young boy who’d read too much Robert Louis Stevenson…

  We will have to talk, she reminded herself. She kissed the tip of her finger and touched him on the forehead. She wrote a note and left it on the table. “Went out for coffee with Janey. Be back soon.” Quietly, she started to slip out the door. Then, on impulse she returned, dug in her cosmetic bag, found the lipstick, and applied it. She went back to the note and blotted her lips, leaving a full, open-mouth impression of a kiss.

  That’ll mess with his mind.

  She grabbed her purse, eased out the door, gently closed it behind her, and walked down the stairs, through the lobby, and outside. Whoa. She squinted her eyes and took a step back.

  After living for a week in half-shadow, the sun was doing double time and had turned the sky into one vast blue flame. She looked around. No Janey yet. So she ducked back in the lobby, flipped open her cell, and called Broker’s folks in Minnesota. His dad, Mike, picked up.

  “Hi, Mike, it’s Nina.”

  “Hey, kiddo, how you doing?”

  Nina scrubbed her knuckles in her hair, blinked several times. “Looks like I’ll have some leave. I wanted to tell Kit I’ll be coming home.”

  “Home?” Mike Broker said.

  “Yeah. Is Kit there?”

  “Irene took her down to the beach to pick cobbles. They’re set up to paint them. If you wait…”

  “No, let ’em go. I’ll call back after breakfast.”

  “Okay. Ah, Nina—what’s my kid up to?”

  Nina thought about it and said, “Tell Kit her dad and I will be coming home together.”

  After a moment of thoughtful silence, Mike said quietly, “We look forward to seeing you both.”

  Nina ended the call and went back outside as Janey pulled the Volvo in front, looking like someone hiding a hangover behind Ray-Bans. Nina came around and got in. Janey wore an old baggy Take Back The Night T-shirt, gray shorts, and sandals.

  “Where’d you get the shirt?” Nina said.

  “I found it in the trunk, washed and folded in a Goodwill bag. So I figured, what the hell, goes with the car.”

  Nina fished a pack of American Spirit filters from her purse. “I gotta start working on quitting,” she said, reaching for the lighter in the dashboard.

  “Why? You thinking of taking up a different line of work?”

  “I thought maybe counterterrorism analyst for Fox or CNN,” Nina said.

  “Not housewife?” Janey looked pointedly at the motel.

  “Hey, fuck you.” Nina gave her the finger.

  “I wish. But then you’d never go back to him,” Janey said with a coy smile. “Okay,” she said, shifting back to work mode. “There’s the place by City Hall or the one back down the road.”

  Nina blew a stream of smoke. The taste of nicotine reminded her of something. On impulse, she said, “I’m going back to the bar. Just for a second. I need to tell Ace something.”

  “Not smart.”

  “C’mon. Two minutes.”

  “You sure?” Janey said.

  Nina nodded her head. “Look, you don’t have to come. I’ll drop you off, you order breakfast. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Jane put the car in gear, steered onto the highway, and headed west. “No way. I go along to keep you out of trouble.”

  Dale’s eyes were red from lack of sleep as he stood in the office of Shuster and Sons and kept looking out the window, across the street at the Missile Park. He could feel Joe’s equally tired eyes burning a hole in his back. They had passed a fitful night in the office, grabbing snatches of sleep punctuated by arguments. Joe had been on his cell regularly to George. George had started out pleased as could be over last night’s successful diversion. His self-congratulations fizzled, however, when Dale refused to budge from Langdon. Now George was stuck at the abandoned gas station at Camp’s Crossing. He’d waited there all night. And George didn’t like waiting. Dale didn’t care how pissed they were; he’d made up his mind: he wasn’t leaving without her.

  He turned to glance at Joe, then returned to the window. Joe and his gun didn’t scare him that much anymore. Not after Gordy. He continued to stare across the road. Where was she?

  “Hey,” Joe said, shoving the phone in Dale’s face for the third time in as many hours, “talk to George.”

  Dale took the phone. As usual, George remained calm; even without his morning coffee. “She’s gone, Dale. I saw her last night. They all got in a helicopter and flew away.”

  Dale didn’t believe that. He could just tell. He knew things. So he told George, “I’m going to give it another hour.”

  “Okay. An hour.” Patient George, teacher, mentor, puppet master. He chided gently, “Did you make the follow-up call to Irv Fuller? It’s very important to make that call.”

  “I know, give him my Social Security number,” Dale said. “I’ll call him when we’re through talking.”

  “Good,” George said. “An hour.”

  Dale got off with George, then dutifully reached Irv Fuller, on his cell.

  “Yeah?” Irv said, guarded.

  Dale smiled. Old Irv was nervous, worried that Dale would harass him for the balance owed on the machines. Instead Dale said, “Just checking if that Deere is giving you any trouble.”

  “Well, one of the boys says that loader is riding kind of hard.”

  “Tell you what,” Dale said reasonably, “I’m passing your way later today, thought I might drop by and give her a look. Maybe see the job. Say around four or five this afternoon.”

  “No problem,” Irv said, sounding relieved that Dale didn’t mention money. “Just need your Social Security number. They’ll run a quick background check to get you by the gate.”

  “Sure thing,” Dale said. He gave Irv his Social Security number and said goodbye. He turned to Joe. “See. Easy.”

  Joe seemed a bit relieved. He thrust out his hands, palms up, fingers spread in a plea.

  Dale stood his ground and continued staring across the road.

  “Forget it,” Joe said. “Like Ace told you last night. She’s gone.”

  Gone. Dale shook his head. He had not told Joe about Gordy and the information was a source of power. But he wasn’t strong enough to get what he wanted alone, not just yet. He needed Joe and his gun. “Just before the sun came up we took a drive through town and saw her husband’s car at the motel, remember? She could be there,” Dale said.

  Joe was adamant. He shook his head. “Even if she’s at the motel, there’s too many people around. Can’t be done. Let it go. Dale, we’re too close. Let’s not fuck it up.”

  Dale stared at him hard. Joe was different from him. Joe’s gifts were practical, tactical. He was not inspired. Dale, who was inspired, couldn’t let it go. He’d prepared a place for her. It was meant to be. He knew it.

  And then he knew it for sure.

  “Look! Look!” he shouted, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Joe rushed to the window and actually slapped his hand to his forehead. How had they allowed themselves to become so dependent on this nutcase?

  The answer came easily. For the money. For the access.

  So Joe watched it come together like a swarming nightmare he was powerless to escape. He watched the red Volvo pull off the highway and come to a stop in front of the bar. He watched the woman with the red hair get out from the passenger side. The one Dale wanted. He watched her walk to the front door of the bar.

  “Now we’re cooking with gas!” Dale shouted as he went toward the door.

  Joe watched his spreading nightmar
e crowd out the day as Dale grabbed his yellow backpack—that little kid’s pack with the butterfly on it—and headed out the door.

  Joe shifted from foot to foot at the window as Dale strode confidently across the road. “There goes my life,” he said, shaking his head. “My whole fucking life…” He had no choice. He was chained to the nightmare rails and could only follow and make Dale’s fantasy come true. Everything depended on it.

  “Zarba.”

  He grabbed the compact gym bag at his feet and walked stiffly out the door.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Jane stayed in the car as Nina went to the front door and tried the doorknob. Locked. So she banged on it. Once, twice, three times. Nothing happened. She turned to Jane and shrugged. But then, as she was starting to think about going around the back and trying the warehouse entrance, she heard someone cough inside, then a shuffle of feet. The doorknob turned.

  The Ace Shuster who opened the door was badly in need of a shave; eyes red, his breath smelled like a whiskey blowtorch. He stared at her without expression, blinked, looked up and down the empty highway, and then said, “Don’t know where Gordy is. That’s why the door was locked.” He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun and managed a wasted wolfish grin.

  “What?” she said.

  “Never had a look at you in real daylight, as it were,” he said.

  God, she thought, even now, the guy can’t help trying to connect. “Look. I’ll make this quick,” she said. “I can’t give you an explanation. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions. But this whole mess could have been a lot uglier. The other thing is, some of what you said made a difference.”

  “Oh yeah?” He cocked his head.

  “Yeah. I’ll be going back to spend some time with Broker and Kit.”

  Nina stopped talking when she saw Ace’s eyes move off her face and look behind her. She turned as he asked, “Now what do they want?”

  At the same time Jane picked them up in her rearview mirror: two men, one big and sloppy but moving at a fast shuffle, the other darker, his face all wrong, and he walked with a slight limp. The way they moved got her attention. Her hand snapped to her face and tossed off the sunglasses. So much for a leisurely morning. They were coming across the road into the parking lot at a brisk pace. The big one carried some kind of yellow backpack, but tiny. The darker one had a gym bag in his hand. That would be Ace’s brother and the brother’s sidekick, the Indian, Joe Reed, the guy Nina had noticed.

  Dale climbed the porch steps. Ace moved to block him and said firmly. “Can’t this wait? I’m busy.”

  “You seen Gordy?” Dale asked with a broad smile. Then, not waiting for an answer, he said, “Aw, fuck Gordy, he was just one of the little people.” He grinned at Nina. “See? I knew you’d be back. I just knew.” He shouldered on past Ace, went through the door and into the dark interior of the bar.

  Ace had never seen his brother so positive, so happy, so pushy and sure of himself. A little amazed and curious, he was dragged into Dale’s gravity field and followed him inside. Nina, too, was swept along. She had been interrupted and was not quite finished. Jane was out of the car now, fully alert. And irritated. She’d thought that this drive-by farewell was a lapse of common sense on Nina’s part, and now it was getting complicated. At first she picked up no hostile vibes off Joe; he just stood at the door, shifting from foot to foot, waiting. But when she came closer she felt his cold eyes.

  I’m gonna watch you, fella, Jane thought as she went through the door and stepped to the side so her back was to the wall. Her right hand shook out, just in case. A Beretta nine in a breakaway hideout holster lay across the small of her back, under her shirt. But Joe stayed out on the porch. She moved deeper into the room, where her back was secure and she could monitor him through the window. Her eyes tracked from Joe on the porch to the awkward scene percolating between Ace, Nina, and Dale.

  Finally Ace said, gently, “Whatever it is, Dale, this is not the time.”

  Dale’s round face was swelling up, about to burst, like a kid at the Christmas pageant getting set to deliver his one big line. “Ain’t it funny, Ace? My whole life, people always notice you and never me.” He bared his teeth to his handsome brother.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Ace said, his patience worn hangover-thin.

  “What I’m talking about is—It’s me!”

  Ace stared at Dale, slowly shaking his head.

  Dale went on triumphantly. “She didn’t come to town to look for you, she came for me.” He was speaking to Ace, but he was looking at Nina.

  And Nina saw enough resentment and malevolence surface in Dale’s eyes to kill a whole high school. Along with a leer of sheer physical lust that made her skin crawl. But then she realized that Dale wasn’t speaking in some kind of sibling code to his brother…

  Jesus. That means…

  Oh shit!

  And she got caught in one of those expanding fractions of a second that inform enlightenment—except this was gonna be very bad.

  Like Broker, she was a natural fighter. Physically and psychologically, she adapted to conflict. The Pentagon spent a lot of time and money trying to train people to acquire the sort of reflexes she had naturally. She could anticipate a threat and move to disrupt it, step inside other people’s physical time, second-guess their intentions. She did this without thinking.

  “Janey.” Her voice rose to a dangerous treble.

  “I’m here, girl,” Janey said, tensed forward, her right hand sweeping behind her back, her left hand reaching out, sensing like a rangefinder. Then she spun to check the porch, to locate Joe. Her Beretta coming up, her free hand meeting it to form a two-handed brace on the grip.

  “What the hell?” Ace said, starting to react himself. And Dale just went on grinning except now his hand was reaching into his foolish little pack.

  And that’s when Nina got stuck on the slo-mo glide path. Powerless, all she could do was watch. A fraction of a second stretched out long like a colonnade, pillars going on and on, endless. She distinctly saw her .45 in its holster—on the table in the motel room where Broker lay peacefully sleeping. The note next to it with her lipstick smear…

  She was moving now, toward Dale. Good. Janey bringing the Beretta up as she came around from looking out the window.

  Then not so good.

  Janey’s eyes ran wild because Joe Reed appeared at the other end of the room, in the doorway to the stairs, the one that led to the rear entry. And she was still coming around in the turn.

  Fucker came in through the back.

  Came in hot with a big Browning held rigid in a professional two-handed grip, arms extended, on target, taking small quartering steps. Both eyes open. Not aiming like an amateur. Pointing like a pro.

  Jesus! Rashid had not lied.

  They had gone after the wrong Shuster.

  Nina stretched out for Dale, pushing past Ace, who had jumped in front of her, his arms spread protectively. Had to stop Dale’s hand in the pack. If she got her hands on him she could disable him. Bet on it. And if Janey could…

  But it was like competitive swimming. Hundredths of a second decided…

  Joe squeezed the trigger while Janey was still cementing her grip around the nine and—crack crack—Joe Reed shot her twice in the chest at a distance of ten yards. Janey Singer went down and Joe came on another two steps—crack—and put that one in her head.

  Nina saw Janey jerk with each impact but all that registered in the moment was the need to dive across the floor and get her hands on Janey’s gun. As she hit the floor, seizing the pistol from Janey’s motionless hand and rolling over, Joe Reed wheeled the Browning on her.

  “No!” Dale yelled. “She’s mine!”

  But Joe was on automatic, operating on pure survival reflexes as his pistol centered on Nina’s chest.

  Ace was in midair. And Nina would have occasion to remember his remark about playing ball: You stand around a lot, but then sometimes you got
ta move fast to make a play.

  Like now.

  He dived as Joe fired and put his body between the bullets and Nina’s heart and took two in the back. She felt his body collide with her, still alive, bounce once, and what he’d lived in flopped on top of her in a messy lifeless embrace.

  Dale’s boot stomped down on Nina’s right hand and she lost the Beretta. His hand came around, held something—yellow, a knife? No, more like a stubby pen. There was a needle in the end. He plunged it into her thigh.

  Calmer now, more in control, Joe came forward, covering her as Dale grabbed the body of his brother by a limp arm and dragged it aside. “Now look what you went and did,” Dale said. Not to Joe, but to the corpse. And Nina, who felt the first lift of a rearing narcotic wave, noted the homicidal marker of not owning the motivation of one’s violence, of assigning it to others.

  She was being swept away. Out of herself completely. She’d mourn Ace and Janey later. Right now gotta work on having a later.

  Deadly efficient, Joe covered her.

  “No need,” Dale said. “She going in the K-hole. Be a couple minutes.”

  Nina going slack, shook words from the fog enveloping her: “Not Ojibwa…” Joe just smiled. She tried again. “Where did you train?”

  The smile broadened. He shrugged. “In the Bekáa Valley.”

  “Not Afghanistan?”

  “Fuck Afghanistan and their religious bullshit,” Joe said.

  That was all. The last thing she saw was the contempt in Joe’s chilly eyes. And blood, Ace’s blood, on her chest. Then Dale roughly grabbed her hair and jerked her head back in a gesture of acquisition.

  The thought that she’d never see her daughter again…

  Her eyes rolled up. A soft nothing rose up on a flutter of euphoric wings and banished the dread.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Joe stood at the window talking on his cell to George as he nervously kept checking the road and motioning with his free hand for Dale to be quiet. But Dale had a very different reaction to the shootings, and the capture of Nina. He couldn’t keep still. Stepping in the blood, tracking it around. “Look,” he said, “it’s okay. Nobody heard. We can just leave the bodies. We plan to disappear, right? We won’t be coming back.”