Orphan X

by Gregg Hurwitz

  A Volvo pulls up alongside them, and as he is prone to do, Evan watches the family inside. The kids are three across in the back, quarreling and coloring and pigging their noses against the windows. The car falls behind them.

  The next block accommodates an elementary school. Parents are dropping off kids with backpacks and crumpled bag lunches and bright-colored thermoses. The students run to and fro and talk in animated cliques.

  Evan wonders what they talk about.

  After the day’s session (mace-spray training—not fun), they return home. Bleary-eyed, Evan stacks firewood by the side of the house, the rough bark scraping his forearms. He hears no rustle behind him, but when he turns, Jack is there in his 501s and flannel shirt with each sleeve cuffed twice, neatly.

  “You need to talk,” Jack tells him.

  Evan thrusts the logs atop the stack, scratches at his arms. “Just me, huh? Alone? Always? That’s how it’ll be?”

  The setting Virginia sun frames Jack’s broad form, bestowing on him a celestial grandeur. “That’s right,” he says.

  “Who said that thing about one twig can break? But a bundle is strong?”

  “It’s attributed to Tecumseh,” Jack says. “But who the hell knows.” He studies Evan, his lips twitching. Evan has come to know that this means he is processing, rooting out the situation beneath the situation. Jack gestures to the brush along the side of the house. “Gather a bunch of twigs.”

  Evan does.

  Jack crouches, unties his shoe, yanks the lace free, and uses it to fasten the bundle. Then he unfolds his pocketknife, thumbs up the blade, and hammers it through the twigs. They crack uniformly at the midpoint. Jack grabs a single twig, lays it on the ground by itself, hands Evan the knife. “Have at it.”

  Evan tries, but the solitary twig pops free from the steel point, scarred yet intact. He stabs and stabs but the twig keeps skittering away, unwilling to be pinned down. Evan finally looks up, defeated. “Okay,” he says. “I get it. But…”

  “Talk.”

  “Won’t it be lonely?”

  “Yes.”

  In his head Evan grasps for something to hold on to, a brass ring he can carry out of today’s journey past the Volvo and the school, through the clouds of mace, into the promise of solitude. In the face of the unknown, as always, he tries to be game. He polishes off one of Papa Z’s old chestnuts: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I guess,” he says.

  Jack’s eyes are as doleful as Evan has ever seen them. “Sometimes,” he says. “But the rest of the time, it just makes you weaker.”

  * * *

  The knocking inside Evan’s head became a knocking in the outside world.

  Someone at the penthouse door.

  Palming sleep from his eyes, he swung his legs over the side of the bed with less effort than he anticipated. Scattered on the floor, various syringes, depleted saline bags, wads of gauze. A glance at the clock showed that it had been two and a half days since he’d stumbled home. Ample time for his spilled blood to be discovered, surveillance footage reviewed, officials alerted.

  He’d healed up quickly, the Epo working its modern medical magic. The shiny skin at the wound’s edge remained tender, and he still felt a nasty sting in his gut when he bent over, but the pain had mostly lifted. He wouldn’t be doing sit-ups anytime soon, but as of this morning he was generally mobile.

  He pulled on a loose T-shirt and a pair of jeans, picked up his Wilson Combat pistol, and trudged up the hall. If it was the cops, he’d keep the front door bolted and rappel gingerly out the window.

  The time had come, perhaps, to leave everything behind.

  The inset surveillance screen showed Hugh Walters bristling in a Fila tracksuit. Evan tucked his pistol into the back of his jeans and opened the door.

  “You have some explaining to do,” Hugh said.

  “I understand,” Evan replied. “Before you do anything, can you just give me—”

  “You precipitously left the HOA meeting before voting was completed. As a result I reviewed your attendance record, and do you know what I found?”

  Midsentence, Evan froze. Poleaxed, he managed to shake his head.

  “Your attendance record falls below the requirements—requirements, not suggestions—of the HOA guidebook.”

  Evan stepped out into the corridor. No blood drops on the carpet, nor finger streaks along the walls. It had been cleaned already? Without Hugh’s finding out?

  “As such,” Hugh said, “you’ll be assessed a fine, per the regs, of six hundred dollars.”

  “A fine,” Evan repeated.

  Their amateur-scientist rapport had clearly evaporated, but that was the least of Evan’s concerns. He needed to find out if he’d been compromised—and by whom.

  With a sigh, Hugh pulled off his black-framed eyeglasses and rubbed his eyes. “Look, Evan. I know this stuff isn’t a priority for you. Believe it or not, it’s not for me either. To be frank, I don’t really give a shit about revamping the carpets or a new noise ordinance.”

  Evan blinked at him.

  “But for a lot of us, a sense of community is important. And here in the big city? For some of us? This is all we have. So just … think about it, okay?”

  Caught off guard by Hugh’s sudden detour, Evan nodded. “I will.”

  A ding down the hall announced the elevator’s arrival. Mia and Peter emerged, Mia with a bag of groceries clutched in her arms, the requisite French loaf poking out of the top.

  “Ah,” Hugh said. “Perhaps I judged too soon.” Offering Evan a sly tip of the head, he moved off down the corridor, acknowledging Mia and Peter as they passed.

  Evan waited in the doorway for them to approach. Peter tugged on the straps of his backpack, seating the weight higher on his shoulders.

  “Can we come in?” Mia asked.

  Evan stepped aside, letting them enter. Peter scooted around the kitchen island, Mia spinning in a slow three-sixty to take in the great room. “Wow. Serious digs.”

  It occurred to Evan that no one had been inside his place socially. Ever.

  “We wanted to bring you this.” She set the grocery bag down on the counter. “And to make sure you’re not … you know. Dead.”

  Peter was leaning with both hands and his forehead against the Sub-Zero, exhaling in an attempt to fog the stainless steel. Mia and Evan moved farther into the condo, edging into a relative privacy. She drifted by the kickboxing station and gave the heavy bag a little poke.

  “So how exactly did you wind up with your stomach…?” Her hands came up. “Wait. I don’t want to know. I can’t know.”

  He walked over, leaned against the opposite side of the heavy bag. “It was you. You cleaned up the blood for me.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why? You didn’t owe me anything. What I did for you and Peter—”

  “It’s not because I owed you, Evan. It’s because I wanted you…” She wet her lips. “Well. Maybe you’ll know what it means to need someone now.”

  A sensation tugged at him, decades old. Something he’d seen in the faces of those kids he used to watch in passing cars. The bundle of sticks, vulnerable to Jack’s knife. Bright thermoses and bag lunches. He thought about that moment in Mia’s bedroom, the softness of her lips, the piano trill that straightened her spine. What makes you happy? How different from Katrin with her passion tattoo and bloodred mouth, all allure and high stakes and porcelain skin, intoxicating right up until the moment she slipped a knife beneath his ribs. What makes you happy? What if that moment with Mia, laced with a hint of lemongrass and scored by “Hymn to Freedom,” had taken a different course? Argue with me. Make it my fault. Get angry.

  “Consider it a parting gift,” she said.

  His face must have shown more than he wanted it to, because her eyes welled and she said, “I’m sorry, Evan. But I—we—can’t have you around. It’s too dangerous.” She reached out, her fingers resting lightly on his chest. “I’d be an irresponsible parent if I�
��”

  “Thank you,” he said. “For what you did.”

  She inhaled, her chest rising. “This is it, then.”

  “Okay,” he said. “This is it.”

  She turned to go, then paused. “Your forehead,” she said. “It’s cut.”

  He lifted his fingers. A nick from the blowback when he’d shot out the window. “It’s nothing.”

  “Nope,” she said, digging in her purse. She came out with a colorful Band-Aid and stripped off the wrapping. Kermit with his gaping grin.

  “Really?” Evan said.

  “’Fraid so.”

  He bent to her, and she smoothed it onto his forehead with her thumbs. She hesitated, then kissed his forehead. “Good-bye, Evan.”

  “Good-bye.”

  He heard her shoes tap over to the kitchen and then two sets of footsteps moving to the front door. It opened and closed.

  For a time he stood there, the ghost of her lips lingering on his face.

  51

  *&^%*!

  The ten RFID fingernails overlay Slatcher’s own, though since the press-ons had been designed for normal-size hands, they looked more like painted stripes. They always made him feel like a girl playing dress-up in a too-small gown. The fully pixelated contact lens, seated on his right eye, scrolled the virtual-messaging session with Top Dog, rendering the texts midway to the dashboard of the purple Scion. He sat in the shoved-back driver’s seat, his fingers tickling the air, giving answers he did not want to give.

  Top Dog was angry, and when Top Dog was angry, you typed faster.

  YOU STILL HAVE NO LEADS ON ORPHAN X. HOSPITALS, ERS, MORGUES.

  Slatcher noted the lacking question mark. Nonetheless he replied. NO.

  The green cursor barely had an instant to blink before TD’s next text sprang up: WHAT IS ORPHAN V’S CONDITION?

  The car hugged the curb on an idyllic suburban street lined with willows. Fallen silver-blue leaves collected on the windshield wipers. Using the back of his hand, Slatcher blotted sweat from his brow. The windows magnified the midday Vegas sun, turning the car desert-hot even in cool December.

  The movement inadvertently rendered some symbols: *&^%*!

  IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE?

  NO. SORRY. TECH MALFUNCTION.

  ORPHAN V?

  HOSPITALIZED. OUT OF COMMISSION. HER BACK LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A CREATURE FEATURE.

  HOW ABOUT “KATRIN WHITE”?

  A drop of sweat trickled down the bridge of Slatcher’s nose, making it itch, but he didn’t dare scratch it. I LET HER GO. SHE SERVED HER PURPOSE. SHE DID RIGHT BY US.

  SHE’LL NEED TO BE CLEANED UP.

  He regretted the implicit order. He preferred to play by fair rules, but Top Dog had no such moral qualms. Slatcher typed: IMMEDIATELY?

  NO. SHE GOT CLOSE TO HIM. I WANT HER WATCHED. ANOTHER LINE IN THE WATER.

  COPY.

  ORPHAN X TOOK OUT ALL YOUR FREELANCERS?

  EXCEPT ONE. BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER. I WILL HANDLE EVERYTHING PERSONALLY FROM HERE ON OUT.

  YOU’D BETTER, TD typed. OR I WILL.

  Another implicit threat. A second drop of sweat forged down Slatcher’s forehead. The itch on his nose grew in intensity. He forced his fingers to type. COPY.

  WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?

  Laughter and shouts carried from the school playground across the street.

  MORENA AGUILAR. SHE’LL LEAD US TO HIM.

  I WANT HER WRAPPED IN SURVEILLANCE. WHATEVER IT TAKES.

  Slatcher lifted his gaze to the little girl sitting on the swings. A teenage girl crouched in front of her, her hands gripping the chains. Almost lost in the sea of playing kids, they spoke closely, intimately.

  THAT’S WHY I’M HERE, Slatcher replied.

  The teenager stood, kissed the younger girl on the cheek, and turned. Watching Morena walk away, Slatcher reminded himself not to reach to turn the ignition key just yet.

  Instead he finished typing: SHE WON’T LEAVE MY SIGHT.

  52

  The Other Guy’s Hand

  On the third day, Evan finally entered the Vault. Within twenty minutes he’d cleaned up the Castle Heights surveillance footage. It was odd watching himself zombie-stumbling through the corridors, smearing charcoal along the walls. An entire seven minutes of his life that he had little memory of, operating unconsciously on the training drilled into his body. He fast-forwarded to find whatever else would need to be deleted. A short while later, Mia appeared in the corridor of the twelfth floor. On various monitors he followed her to the elevator, up to the twenty-first floor, then along his corridor. She paused outside his penthouse. He’d left the front door ajar.

  She entered and moved tentatively toward his bedroom. He was lying on the bed, unconscious. Going quickly to him, she checked his pulse. Then his forehead. For a time she sat beside him and held his hand. He watched the minutes tick by.

  Then she left the penthouse, closing the door firmly behind her. She returned to her condo and emerged a minute later, bucket and brush in hand. It was the middle of a night in which she’d already endured a home invasion. She’d only just gotten her traumatized boy put to bed. And yet there she was, scrubbing the floors, walls, and elevator for nearly two hours.

  Protecting him.

  He was standing to leave when he spotted an icon that an e-mail had arrived, after a long journey of autoforwards around the globe, into the in-box of the.nowhere.man@gmail.com. He couldn’t remember the last one he’d received.

  Two days old, it was from one of Tommy Stojack’s accounts. And the subject line read: “Katrin White.”

  A chill moved through Evan’s stomach, making the scabbed wound tingle.

  He took a moment, then sat down, rolled his chair back to the desk, and read Tommy’s message.

  “Bad news: My hook at Harrah’s left. Good news: He moved over to Caesars. Your girl’s in the databanks over there. They couldn’t pin nuthin on her, but she had a run on a poker table that JDLR.”

  Stojack slang for “just didn’t look right.”

  Evan opened the attachment, an internal report from Caesars. A scanned copy of a gambler rewards card featured a photo. There was that milk-white skin, the emerald gaze, her choppy hipster hairstyle rendered here not in black but a rich auburn. The name beneath: “Danika White.” A header written in party streamers read: “Vegas. Be whoever you want to be.”

  His throat was dry enough that it took some effort to swallow. He read on.

  Danika was a high roller, working the no-limit tables at Caesars and racking up serious debt, which had been mysteriously paid off on December 7. Two days after Evan killed William Chambers and three days before Katrin White had set the meeting at Bottega Louie. Shared intel with other casinos showed arrears all up and down the Strip, similarly wiped off the books two weeks ago.

  The lies compounded. There had been no covert poker circle. No Vegas hit men skinning indebted Japanese businessmen. No trust-baby husband who’d left her in the financial lurch. Danika had simply gotten in over her head gambling too hard for too long. Slatcher—or whoever was behind him—had stepped in and purchased her casino markers; they’d paid their money and bought her outright.

  But they wouldn’t have been able to if she hadn’t been willing to make the deal at the outset. In his sordid career, Evan had seen plays like this dozens of times. Reach out to a desperate mark. Offer her the shot of a lifetime. Then once you own her, tighten the screws.

  By the time Danika White understood the nature of the pact she’d entered, it would have been too late.

  Armed with her real name, Evan’s virtual excavations grew drastically easier. Danika’s parents were alive and well, retired to a planned community in Boca Raton. She had no husband of record and one daughter, twenty years of age.

  Her name was Samantha.

  In his head, Evan replayed Danika’s reaction in the motel when the gunshot had sounded over the phone: Sam! Dad? No. No. No!

  In her state of panic, her fir
st reaction had been a tell. She’d used the proper name of who she’d really thought had been hurt before catching herself.

  As each fabrication toppled, it knocked over the next, a domino chain of deception. Vowing to follow it to the end, Evan breached the DMV’s database. Samantha’s driver’s license showed her to be a beautiful kid, the resemblance to her mother striking. After a two-year stint at Santa Monica City College, Samantha had gotten a financial-aid package at UCLA. Though she held down two work-scholarship jobs, her tuition account showed multiple interest charges for late payments. Evan unearthed a cell-phone number for her and dialed.

  The voice, young and breezy: “Yeah, it’s Sam?”

  In the background Evan heard a bustle of activity, someone calling her name. It sounded like classes letting out, or maybe she was walking through the quad. He exhaled, relieved that she wasn’t being held hostage. A good strategic move on Slatcher’s part—he could get to her readily, so why deal with the complications and risks of detaining her?

  “Hi, Sam,” Evan said. “I’m a friend of your mom’s and—”

  “Wow. Almost ten months this time. Impressive. I thought she’d finally given up for real.”

  “Sorry?”

  “What’s she need now? More money? Like I’m not working enough to pay for my own life? I told her—I don’t want to see her or talk to her. And that includes any lame go-betweens.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just … She stopped returning calls the past few weeks—”

  “Get used to it. Look, dude, I don’t know who you are, but let me save you some years of your life. At the end of the day, when it comes to Danika, all that matters is Danika.”

  Evan approximated a crestfallen tone. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Hey,” Sam said. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m just trying to help so you don’t have to go through what I went through.”

  She hung up.

  Evan cocked back in his chair and closed his eyes, letting the picture resolve more clearly. Danika—probably at Slatcher’s command—had fashioned Katrin from pieces of her true self. She’d kept her last name and her gambling habit. She’d appropriated Sam’s name for her fake dad. Her fictional husband invested in planned communities in Boca Raton, just as her real parents lived in one.