by Barry Eisler
Something had happened there, though I doubted he’d tell me what. Knowing Larison, it was probably something dark. I decided not to press.
“The tapes,” I said. “Are you in them?”
We started walking again, in silence. Finally he said, “I’m not proud of everything I’ve done. Are you?”
I found myself considering the question. Considering it carefully.
“There are…things,” I said. “Things that weigh on me. What a friend of mine calls ‘the cost of it.’ You know what I’m talking about?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“I don’t know about you, but when I look back, and I’m being honest with myself, which mostly I try to do, it occurs to me that I’ve done more bad in the world than I’ve ever done good.”
I wondered why I’d said that to him. I’d never thought it before. At least not in those words. Was it what Horton had said to me over breakfast that morning?
I thought he was going to blow it off. Instead, he said, “I have…dreams. Really bad ones. Related to some of the shit I’ve done, the shit that’s on those tapes. I couldn’t tell you the last time I lay down at night without dreading what I would face in my sleep. Or the last time I slept through the night without waking up covered in sweat and going for the weapon on the bedstand next to me. The truth is…”
In the dark, I saw his teeth gleam in a smile that faltered into a grimace.
“The truth is,” he went on, “I’m pretty fucked up. But what can you do? A shark has to keep swimming, or it dies.”
I thought of Midori, the mother of my son. “You know, I once said the same thing to a woman I was trying to explain myself to.”
“Yeah? Did she understand?”
I remembered the last time I’d seen her, in New York, and what she’d tried to do just beforehand.
“That would be a no,” I said, and we both laughed.
My phone buzzed. Dox. I picked up and said, “What’s the status?”
“Our diners have just left the restaurant. A nice familial hug goodnight, and our guy is currently on his way to your position alone and on foot, ETA ten minutes. Guess you were right about the clubbing.”
“Good. Have—”
“Already done. Our friend on the scooter is zigzagging the street near you. He’ll see the diner when he’s one minute out. When you get a buzz from scooter man, it’s a one-minute ETA. And I’ll move in close but not too close in case you need me. Good luck.”
“Okay, good.” I clicked off and said to Larison, “Less than ten minutes. Let’s get in position.”
We headed toward the hotel. As we neared the end of Sonnenfels-gasse, just two blocks away, a uniformed cop turned the corner, heading toward us. I wasn’t unduly alarmed—there was no reason for him to pay any particular attention to us, and Larison and I had already established that “inebriated drinking companions” would be our cover for action in case we were stopped. I retracted into my harmless Japanese persona and prepared to just walk on by in the shadows.
But a few meters away, he called out, “Hey.” Larison, I realized, and that damn danger aura he put out. The cop must have keyed on it, consciously or unconsciously.
I gave him a small, unsteady wave and moved to go around, but he stopped and put up his hand to indicate we should do the same. Shit.
The cop said, “Wo gehen Sie so Spät noch hin?” I shook my head. Even if I’d understood his words, and I didn’t, I would have pretended not to. The less basis we had for engagement, the more likely he would be to give up in frustration, or otherwise to lose interest and move on.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he said, and this I did understand. Do you speak German?
Larison answered in slurred Spanish: “Solamente espanol, y un poco de ingles.” Only Spanish, and a little English—close enough to the Portuguese I spoke from my time in Brazil to be easily comprehensible.
The cop looked at me. I said, “Mit Schlag?”
I was hoping he would smile at that and move on, but he didn’t. He said, in English now, “You are at hotel? Here?”
This was going south fast. Our cover was solid and we hadn’t committed any crimes, but I didn’t want a cop taking a close look at any of us. And if he detained us much longer, we wouldn’t be in position in time to intercept Finch at the hotel.
“Hotel?” he said again. “Here?”
I shook my head and said in Japanese-accented English, “The Sacher Vien.” It was a famous hotel in the center of the city, though not, of course, one where any of us was actually staying.
Larison said, “Voy a vomitar.” I’m going to vomit.
I glanced over at him to see where he was going with this. He clamped a hand over his mouth as though trying to dam a rising tide of puke.
No, I thought. Don’t take out the cop. If we do, we can’t do Finch…
Larison groaned through his fingers. The cop said, “Was zum Teufel?”
Larison’s body convulsed, his head shooting forward, his ass jerking back. Vomit spewed from his mouth all over his shoes.
The cop jumped back and cried out, “Verdammt nochmal!”
Larison straightened, gasping, his cheeks puffing, his hands massaging his stomach. A perfect pantomime of a drunken man about to blow for the second time in as many seconds.
“Hotel!” the cop said, pointing in the direction we’d been walking. “Go to hotel. Jetzt! Now!”
“Yes,” I said, thinking, thank God. “Hotel.”
Larison groaned again. The cop stepped to the side and again gestured angrily in the direction we’d been walking. I took Larison’s arm and led him past. From behind us, I heard the cop muttering something disgustedly. I imagined it was along the lines of asshole was lucky he didn’t puke on my shoes.
“Nice going,” I said, when we had turned the corner. “What did you do, finger in your throat?”
“Yeah. While I was clutching my face.” He coughed and spat.
“For a minute there, I thought you were gearing up to drop him. Which would have been a mistake.”
“No, I just wanted to dare him to pull me into his cruiser with puke all over my shoes. I had a feeling he’d realize he had more important things to do.”
“Where did you learn your Spanish?”
“Ops. Latin America.” It was a sufficiently vague description to make clear he didn’t want to talk about it more. Not that we had time.
“We still have a few minutes,” I said. “Quick, knock the puke off your shoes. We don’t want to track anything into the hotel.”
He whacked his feet against the side of a building a few times, then stamped and scraped his soles along the ground. Between that and the two hundred meters we still had to walk, we’d be fine.
Treven buzzed my mobile just as we arrived at the hotel entrance. ETA one minute. Cutting it a little close, but still manageable. Larison stayed outside, hunkering down between two parked cars just a few meters from the doorway, as I pulled on my gloves and went in. The corridor was still satisfyingly quiet. I quickly slipped into one of the coveralls that had been left on the tarp. They were a little large, but not excessively so. I grabbed a can of paint and a paintbrush and the length of plastic sheeting I’d cut, put the paint can on the floor next to the interior hotel entranceway, and started running the brush up and down the wall like a painter on the midnight shift. The whole thing was sufficiently incongruous to give Finch pause while he tried to sort it through, but by the time he had figured out what was wrong with this picture, it would already be too late.
A moment later, I heard the exterior door open. I glanced right and saw Finch on his way in, then looked back to the work I was ostensibly engaged in, not wanting to alarm him by paying him undue attention. In my peripheral vision, I watched him come closer. Five meters. Four. Three.
He slowed, perhaps in concern at what the hell a workman was doing here, alone and this late at night. But then the exterior door opened behind him. I glanced right again and saw Larison comi
ng in, looking formidable, purposeful, and deadly. Finch turned and I knew that for the next half second, his mind would be fully occupied with trying to place Larison’s face; realizing he’d seen it earlier, in Café Prückel; weighing whether this could be happenstance or whether he should be concerned; deciding that the man he’d just made twice was too dangerous-looking to be merely a coincidence; combining that datapoint with the incongruous presence of a “workman” who was now behind him…
I set down the brush and headed in, taking hold of both ends of the length of plastic sheeting, palms up and thumbs out, turning my hands over and crossing my arms as I moved to create an isosceles triangle with my forearms as the long lines and the plastic as the base. Finch must have heard me coming because he started to turn, but too late. I dropped the plastic over his head and levered my forearms against the back of his skull, molding the plastic across his face, dragging him backward to ruin his balance. He clawed at what was covering his eyes and nose and mouth, but his fingers couldn’t penetrate the thick plastic. He got off a single, muffled cry, but then couldn’t draw breath for another. He tried to turn and I let him, staying with him, steering him toward the dark of the stairs, keeping him disoriented and off balance. He groped behind for me and I put a knee in his lower back, bending him over it, keeping my face well clear of his flailing arms. He tried scratching at my hands and forearms, but was stymied by the gloves and the same kind of wrist tape I had used in Las Vegas.
I knew his oxygen was getting used up rapidly and it was only a matter of seconds before his brain started to shut down. I glanced up and saw Larison, wearing his own gloves, his head turned to watch us, holding closed the exterior door against the small possibility of a late arriving hotel guest or apartment dweller. In a moment, Finch would be still, and at that point, even if someone came through the interior door, they would likely turn left toward the exterior door and key on Larison, remaining oblivious to the silent tableau in the dark behind them. And if anyone happened to come down the stairs, I would switch to Samaritan mode, talking to Finch’s body as though trying to rouse a drunken acquaintance. Not a great detail for someone to remember, especially after our earlier encounter with the cop, but not necessarily fatal, either.
Finch’s legs sagged and he went to his knees, his chest bucking and jerking as his lungs desperately tried to suck air, his hands again clawing, feebly now, against the plastic sealed across his face. And then, in extremis, some lingering, rational part of his brain must have asserted itself, because his right hand stopped clawing at his face and dropped to his front pants pocket. My mind flashed knife! and I shot my knee into his elbow to disrupt him—a second time, again. But the angle was awkward and the blow attenuated and he managed to get his hand into his pocket. I was about to change my grip to cover the plastic over his nose and mouth with my left hand while I grabbed the wrist of his knife hand with my right, but Larison had seen what was happening and came charging back from the exterior door, seizing Finch’s hand just as it came free, a gravity-assisted folding knife popping open en route. Larison started to twist Finch’s hand to make him drop the knife, and I whispered urgently, “No! No damage!” Finch’s arm shook and he tried to turn the knife to cut Larison’s hands, but Larison had too secure a grip, and whatever reserves Finch had drawn upon to access the weapon had been his last. His body went limp, the knife clattered to the floor, and he collapsed back into me.
“Get back to the door,” I said. “Fast.” Only a small chance anyone would come in at exactly that moment, but Murphy’s Law had a way of turning small chances into inevitable events, and this was the one moment there would be nothing we could do to conceal what was happening. Larison dashed back to the door while I dragged Finch to the stairs. “Two minutes,” I said, to let Larison know that’s how long I wanted to keep the plastic in place, to be certain Finch was done.
I counted off the time and, when I was satisfied, eased the plastic away and laid Finch out at the foot of the stairs. I examined his face for damage and noted none. I took the paint can and brush and replaced them as I had found them. Then I scanned the tile floor, looking for any scuff marks Finch’s heels might have left. Yes, there they were, two sets of about a meter each from when I had dragged him. I grabbed a cloth from where the painting equipment was placed, and rubbed them away. Larison glanced back but he must have understood what I was doing because he said nothing.
I recovered the knife and placed it back in Finch’s pocket. Hard to imagine anyone would be in a position to note its absence if we took it, but it’s best to doctor a crime scene as little as possible. The coveralls, though, I would keep. If they were missed at all, anything could explain their absence, and I didn’t want to chance leaving behind something that might be contaminated with my hair or clothing fibers. For the same reason, I kept the cloth I’d just used, which might be examined and found to contain some of the material from Finch’s heels.
I took a quick look around the hallway and saw nothing out of place. Well, Finch’s body on the stairs, of course, but that looked like what it was supposed to be: a man in sudden distress, perhaps respiratory, perhaps cardiac, staggers over to the stairs to sit, stumbles, and collapses. The manner of his death might have left some minor petechiae—ruptured capillaries—in his face and eyes, but I expected this would be minimal and of little forensic note under the circumstances. The truly suspicious might wonder at the coincidence of his being stricken in the very hotel where he had a reservation and where he might therefore be anticipated, but like car accidents, which happen mostly in a driver’s own neighborhood simply because that’s where he most often drives, the coincidence of the location of Finch’s collapse was also easily explained, and therefore, also, easily dismissed.
I nodded to Larison and we headed out, splitting up immediately. Larison went right; I went straight, crossing the street and cutting through a small shopping arcade, currently closed and dark. I would have gone left and therefore more directly away from Larison, but that was the direction in which we’d encountered the cop, and I didn’t want to risk bumping into him again.
I wondered about the knife. It had been a near thing and I realized I’d been complacent because Finch didn’t look the type. Plus, how the hell had he gotten it through security on his flights? Maybe he had a checked bag. Or maybe there was some sort of special dispensation for government officials. There usually is.
Twenty minutes later, after discarding in various refuse containers the coveralls and the plastic sheeting I had used to kill Finch, I called Dox. Larison would be doing the same with Treven. “It’s done,” I told him.
“No trouble?”
“A little,” I said, thinking about the cop. “But we handled it.”
“Good to hear. You’re okay?”
“Fine.”
“You want to meet and brief?”
“Better to do it on the other side of the pond. No sense being seen together here unless there’s a good reason.”
“Other than my fine company. But don’t worry, it’s okay.”
I wondered for a moment whether I’d hurt his feelings. Did he really want to just…get together? Celebrate, or something?
But he quickly disabused me with a laugh. “Just kidding. Actually, since there are no more trains at this hour, I was thinking I might find a companion more closely suited to my proclivities, as you like to call them.”
“Sure, knock yourself out. Just check for the Adam’s Apple, okay?”
Once, in Bangkok, Dox was all set to go off with a gorgeous lady boy when at the last moment I had taken pity and warned him. But saving him from an embarrassing mistake and letting him live it down were two different things.
He laughed. “Yes, sir, I have learned my lesson. Anyway, I’m looking forward to an evening on the town. Don’t forget, this was a nice payday. Though I feel like you’ve done most of the heavy lifting.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it under the circumstances if you didn’t have my back
.”
There was a pause, then he said, “I appreciate that, man. Thank you.”
I thought of the way he’d carried me, as I was bleeding out, over a giant shoulder in Hong Kong, of the transfusion he’d saved me with afterward. “It’s just the truth.”
“You’re not going to get all sentimental on me, though, are you?”
I smiled. “Never.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not getting together tonight. I’d probably give you a big hug, and you might embarrass yourself by hugging me back.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. I appreciate it.”
He laughed. “Okay, then. Gonna party like a rock star and I’ll see you soon.”
I clicked off and walked alone through Vienna.
I thought about everything Larison had said earlier. I told myself, just one more.
The mantra of many an alcoholic.
Larison walked slowly back to the hotel, trying to avoid civilians, keeping to the shadows. His mind was racing and his emotions were roiling and he knew when he was feeling like this the people around him could sense it, like some weird disturbance in an urban force field. A prostitute trolling at the edge of a park he passed started to smile at him with practiced professionalism, and then the smile faltered. A cloud passed across her face and she took a step away, half turning as though preparing to run. In a more superstitious culture, he knew, she might have crossed herself.
He walked on, his head tracking left and right, checking hot spots, logging his surroundings. How could Rain be so stupid about what he was up against with Hort? With Treven, he understood the psychology—the attachment to the unit, the command structure, the blessing of higher authority. But Rain, obviously, didn’t need that kind of support network, and had long lived outside it. Then what was making the man hesitate? If his motives were purely mercenary, the diamonds were the obvious play. Was this really about doing something good in the world? The notion was vaguely seductive, but come on. All Larison wanted, the best he could hope for, was to eliminate the threat, get back the diamonds, and live out the rest of his days somewhere quiet with Nico, someplace with a beach and the sound of the ocean and no memories, a place where the dreams might eventually slacken and abate. Beyond that didn’t matter. If death were really the end, then everything Larison had done, and all the torments it caused him, would die with him. If there were a hell, it would be his new address. Whatever he might do in whatever time he might have left would have no impact on any of it, one way or the other, and to imagine otherwise was nothing but a childish fantasy.
