by Paula Cox
“Shit, Q. You never stop having fun. Need to take it easy, or you’re gonna end up in a fight one of these days.”
I laugh. It’s the first real life I’ve had in what feels like a hundred years. It feels good to laugh and when I listen in Bolt is laughing on the other end of the line. Then I remember where he is and why he’s there, and I get serious again.
“By the way, how is he?”
“Who? Glass or Miles?”
“Both.”
“Palmer’s fucking indestructible, like always. He was up and around two hours after they dug the slug out. He’s got a hell of a limp, of course, and he hates the crutches. Doctor says he’ll need them at least eight months but I betcha it doesn’t take half that time. Miles is sure as hell taking his sweet time. I wouldn’t count him in.”
“So nothing’s permanently damaged with Palmer?”
“Hardly even temporarily damaged. He’s got skin of steel. Hey—you wanna talk to him? He’s just right in the other room.”
I think hard about it, but I can’t get distracted now. I can’t afford to start thinking that everything’s going to turn out all right. Every second I’m taken out of danger is a second I get weaker. Just think of Maya, and that’s all you need to do.
“Not right now, Bolt. Not until this is over. Right now this is war.”
“Sure as hell sounds like it. Waddya need me to do?”
And I tell him. Round up all and any Stitches he can, young and old, experienced and greenhorn. Numbers, speed, and weapons are our best friends now. I’ve no idea about how much time we’ve got, but in those cases, it’s always best to assume the least, so an hour or two at the most. Everyone to make it out to Sunrise Apartments as soon as possible. Speed limits: fuck ‘em.
“C’mon, Q. You know we’ve already got targets on our backs. You really want a cavalcade of pigs over there stinking up the rescue attempt with you?”
“Quinn?” Theo whispers. I tell Bolt to wait a moment, but Theo is motioning for the phone. I hand it over.
“Yes—hello? Bolt, is it?”
“Sure thing. Who’s this?”
“Theo Butler. I head a local organization known as the Family. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
The silence that comes through the receiver is answer enough. Even if you’ve been living under a rock the last fifty years, you know the name of the Family. They were probably the ones who put you under the rock in the first place.
“Understand: you are executing affairs under my name. This makes you one of my employees, all of whom enjoy a certain privilege with the local police force. Any problems you have, you are to communicate directly to me by this number. This goes for the rest of you, as well. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” Bolt pretty much squeaks back through the receiver.
“Good,” Theo hands me back the phone. “Hello? Hello?” But Bolt had already hung up.
“I think you scared him.”
“A hitman scared by a mob man? I don’t understand that at all.”
“Not a mob man. You.”
Theo doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. I can see the little smile he made, even when he thought I wasn’t looking. So much for not being feared.
It’s not long before I begin to recognize the area we’re in. It’s in a different cast because of the weather. Sadder. Bleaker. Uglier. The eighteenth-century dollhouses don’t look quaint or curious, but sinister, like murder houses out of a horror movie. Then Hammond’s exit. Then, on the right, the green and white sign of the complex.
“This is it,” Theo says.
“This is it.”
“Do we have a plan for what we should do now? Or are we simply going to wait?”
“Go through the gate first.”
We stop at the pavilion. Jerry comes waddling forward, combing his mustache.
“Af’ernoon, folks.”
“Arnie Smith, and Gary.” I indicate to Theo. “Her father. We spoke to you on the phone.”
“That you did. Come to collect her yourself, eh?” He winks.
“We hope so.”
Jerry notes down our names and then raises the bar. “Good luck to you then. And have a fine day.”
“You, too. And—yes, could you show us her address? It’s been a long time since we’ve been here.”
“Not a problem. That’s number eighty-three. Down the way and a bit on your right. Shouldn’t be taking you more than two minutes to get there.”
“Thank you.”
We drive slowly, methodically craning our necks from side to side. Thirty-four. Thirty-nine. Forty-three. Fifty. Sixty-two.
“Stop right here.”
Theo puts the car into park, shimmying it up curbside. He moves to turn the ignition off, but I stop him. “No—turn around.”
“What?”
“Around. Go back to the pavilion.”
He’s confused, but he does what I say and takes us back until we’re facing the exit gate.
“You didn’t tell him we’re expecting other people.”
“He wouldn’t have let them in. Or he’d have called the apartment first to tell them who was coming. I need some rope and a weapon.”
“Jumper cables in the back.”
“Weapon?”
“Glove compartment.”
He’s got a beast of a thing stashed away there. I reach in and take out the thirty-four magnum, its sleek barrel long as a diving board, and gleaming like silver.
“Never even held one of these before.”
“And you’re not going to now, God help us.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is my turn. I’ve been behind a desk giving orders since before you were born. But out in the field—taking matters into my own hands. Doing what I’ve mostly only told others to do—I need to freshen up. Give the gun to me.”
“You’re sure about this?” I hand him the magnum.
“Are you sure about this? You’re about to involve yourself in a matter that goes far beyond the pay grade of a hired bodyguard. You’ve helped me more than anyone else, and I’m grateful, but if you have any misgivings, now is the time to express them. You’ve said so yourself how many men might be in there. Why get killed for a contract’s daughter?”
“It’s not like that. It’s not just that,” I correct myself. “I care about Maya. Like a sister.”
“Kirill’t feed me that.”
“What?”
“I mean don’t feed me that bullshit. Perhaps I didn’t know the extent of it during the beginning, but before long it became too obvious to ignore. Nothing about your relationship has been familial, I can assure you.”
He leans in, snatches the clip, and locks it in.
What the hell do I say? My mouth is shaking. Theo knew? This entire time he knew and said nothing about it?
“To whom my daughter gives her heart is none of my business, provided it does not infringe upon the interests of the Family,” he says. “You served my daughter as she needed to be served. I felt no need to remark upon it, assuming that it would not last longer than was acceptable.”
“So you had us followed? Is that how it was you found out about us?” Curiosity gives way slowly to anger. My fists bunch up. I’m not going to fight, though. Definitely not with a man who has a loaded Item bigger than I am anyway.
“I found out—by her.” He looks at me and what I see in his look is not the anger or the dismissal his words had suggested, but acceptance. Coming from another person other than Theo I would have thought it was gentle.
“Kirill’t make the mistake of believing you’re the only person who knows something about Maya. I knew it by the way she looked at you and even by the way she avoided you when you were in my presence. Oh yes. I knew it all, but through silences and intimations. For a man who may accurately judge the duration of his life by the amount of secrets he keeps and tells, what is communicated by silence is far more valuable than words.”
Theo doesn’t wait to hear anything from me. He
was out the door and fishing through the trunk before I knew it. Surprisingly quick for a man of his age. And then, with the gun secured safely beneath his coat and cables dangling from the hook of his hand, I see him approach the pavilion and disappear inside.
Chapter 30
The minutes chip away and still no sign of Theo. No sounds at all. Not a shout. A scream. There wouldn’t be, I tell myself. Not when they were inside the building, and I was inside the car. Not in general, if Theo is going about doing it right. But silence is much more ominous than sound. It leaves room for so much more that might happen or that you worry will happen, no matter how irrational it seems.
So you go on telling yourself that. That your fears are irrational. That the time you imagine moving extra slowly is really moving at the normal pace and that you’re only just more tuned into it. That everything is all right like you’ve told yourself already over and over again and will keep on being alright but only if you remain calm and do your job. Even if your job is waiting, holed up and useless.
Then, finally, Theo comes out of the pavilion. No jumper cables in his hand. Item hidden back beneath his coat. He’s not walking with a limp, which is something I was sure he’d have when he came back out, though I don’t know why.
“Everything cool?” I say when he gets back into the car.
“No problems at all.” He puts us back into drive. “Your men are to press in a number on the keypad outside the gate, and it will open automatically for them. Your friend, the guard, is unhurt for the most part. Only several very nasty bruises on the front of his head. I misjudged the weight of the gun, you see, otherwise, it would have been only one.”
“What’s that number?”
He tells me, and I text it off to Bolt, and that’s that. Bolt responds instantly.
“Fifteen minutes away. They’re taking these roads like fucking speed-racers.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if they were already here?”
“No. I need to run surveillance first. The fewer guys you got for that, the better. Park here, next to sixty-eight. That road to the left there—that’s the one we want.”
“I see.”
He pulls up and stops abruptly, no skid this time.
“Number eighty-three?”
“That’s what the man said.”
“Okay. I need to get my bearings for the area around: sort out some territory and so on. Number of guards. Entry points. Weapons. I remember some big columns on the porch at the front. I betcha they’ll have someone there for cover. And someone else on either wing of the house, second floor, on the lookout for guys like us.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Kirill’t lose the car. And make sure the guys don’t get any further than this when they come. And if I’m not back in twenty, sound the alarm and give them hell.”
“No—don’t think about it that way. You mustn’t get yourself shot until all this is over. You’re still my employee and no employee of mine dies when I’m still paying for his time.”
“Should I consider that the nicest thing I’ll probably ever hear from you?”
As an answer, Theo hands me the magnum. Then, he leans over my seat, unlocks and opens my door. “Be careful, Quinn.”
“I’ll give it a try, sometime.”
I step out into the cold and squeeze the door tightly shut, careful not to make a slam. So now this is it. Just Oren, me, and a few guards to wade through before getting to Maya. I’m calm, I tell myself. Calm. Calm. Direct your airflow. Good. Steady yourself. Remember that you are invisible and quick. Remember that you already know what the other guy is thinking even before he’s thought it. Remember who you are. Remember what you do.
Then I go.
I run to the end of the street, and the first thing I do is look left to make sure no one’s waiting at the mouth of the entrance for us to stumble through. But the street’s blank. Not a single car along the curb. No one waiting outside with telltale pocket bulges or bulky coats. All these places look untenanted anyway, same as last time. Good. No distractions.
Tucking the magnum in the back of my belt, I jog to the side of the fence of number sixty-nine. It’s a little more than eight feet, but with a running jump I clamp my hands over the top and swing myself over, quick and easy, onto the adjacent lawn. Each of the apartments has got this little segment of a backyard for gardens or a back porch or whatever. There’s a whole vista of them with gates in between to cross from one to another, which makes my job that much easier. No more climbing over big fences. It’s always better going the back way when it’s an option.
I cross through three, four more lawns, careful to keep track of the house numbers so that I don’t stumble in too close by mistake. Seventy-three. Seventy-five. Seven. Nine. Then we’re in the low eighties. Eighty-five.
I stop once I’m in eighty-seven. Maya’s place should be right across the street. And if everything’s gone like we’ve expected it to go, there ought to be a black BMW right smack dab in the front, the same as last time. I crouch down, finding a hole in the wood of the fence through which I can spy to the next side. But I don’t look right away—not before a good long pause to take stock of the situation. This is it. This is where everything we’ve planned and thought through will be proven right or wrong. The make or break moment. Best not to take these things too lightly, or too heavily.
I give it another second before looking. And sure enough, the first thing my eyes are drawn to is that goddamned BMW like a giant, black magnet. That’s it then. That’s where Maya is, and that’s where I’ve got to go.
Having a definite purpose, even if it’s difficult or, hell, even if it’s impossible—it’s still better than a rumor, or nothing at all. Mine’s facing me down across the street: that sure as hell isn’t impossible.
I keep my eye glued to the keyhole and move around to the left to see if I can make out the porch. There’s the first pillar. The second. Then a tree, and my vision through the keyhole cuts out halfway through the porch. Nothing on the right-hand ground-level side, which means they’ve probably got the second story covered. No way to check that and avoid being seen. I’d have eyes trained down on me long before I caught anything with my own. We won’t attack from the right-hand side. Now for the center.
I give the back of the apartment I’m standing in a once-over, which is plenty to determine if you can climb the back or not. Sheer wooden walls you can’t get a foot on, but this one has a little covering over the back porch, with another roof above this and a third—the main, above that—plus railings you can stand on to lift yourself up and swing over.
I shimmy up the first roof, about ten feet from the ground, move a bit down the tiles to give myself leverage for the second roof, and then lift myself up onto this one. One more and I’ve got a view twelve houses down to my left and right, with Theo’s car just barely visible in the distance.
There’s a chimney sprouting up in front of me, a little to my left, which looks like it might provide some cover to get an eyeball down at the center of number eighty-eight. I move to it and peek around. The apartment’s a little smaller than this one. Just two levels, with a wide circular window at the front that has silhouettes cut out in them like patterns from paper, two bulky guys with submachine guns. I look down and see if I can make out anything near the covered porch, but I can’t. Best to assume the worst and plan for it. Three guys, then. And if they’ve got two out in the front, then I’m going to assume two on each side. Seven guys, plus Oren. Plus whoever’s hiding out inside.
I go back down to the lawn and jog back in the direction of Theo’s car, trying to think of the best means of attack. Coming in from behind and we’d have all of three minutes before getting shot to shit by the guys on the sides. That’s not even considering the idea that they’ve got two guys out back with blasters just waiting for that kind of thing. A guy who gets what he wants by kidnapping a girl is sure as hell gonna make sure she’s protected.
So, what then? Run in scre
aming, shooting off rounds like a bunch of cowboys? Hope we can just scare the guys into giving up their territory? But that’s all just variations on a theme of getting yourself mowed down. We need a distraction to direct the line of fire. And then we need a sharpshooter to plug the two out front. Strategy. Big weapons. An army. That’s what it came down to.
I hoist myself back over the fence and stop.
“What the hell?” I actually say it out loud. It was maybe seven minutes ago since I saw Theo’s car. It’d been the only car there. There are seven others now. And milling around the place, no less than twelve Stitches. But that’s not what I’m stopped here for, standing like an idiot with my mouth open.
