Kim Oh 1: Real Dangerous Girl

by Kim Oh

  He has a good idea of what’s going on down below him, on the top floor of the office tower. The red numbers above the elevator doors blink off. The bodyguard standing there notices, looking up over his shoulder at the dead numbers. He instinctively reaches inside his jacket, grabbing his holstered gun. Anything unusual is not good.

  Cole keeps on working. He needs to reduce some other numbers, namely the amount of people he needs to deal with so he can complete the job. He’s already got his ugly black .357 raised in one hand as he looks over the front edge of the building, down toward where the limo is parked at the curb.

  The bodyguard who had been left stationed down there has relaxed enough to light up a cigarette, while he’s talking with the limo driver sticking his head out the passenger side window.

  It’s a clear shot for Cole, straight down. He wraps both hands around the butt of the gun and fires. The bullet goes right through the top of the bodyguard’s head, dropping him onto his chest, arms splayed out. The lit cigarette rolls down the sidewalk, scattering sparks.

  For a moment, the limo driver gapes stunned at the body lying where his buddy had been standing and talking to him just a second before. In the diminished spectrum from the streetlights, the pool of blood widening below the bodyguard’s head looks black as ink. Stupidly, the limo driver lifts his wide-eyed gaze up toward where the shot had come from. The second bullet from Cole’s .357 catches him right in the face, leaving his corpse hanging out the limo window.

  The bodyguard inside had to have heard the shots, Cole figured, given that they had come from the building roof just above him. He’s already got his own gun out in one hand, and is shouting into his cell phone in his other, trying to get some answer from the guard out on the street about what’s going on. There’s no answer.

  Cole’s not hanging around, waiting. He’s working. He’s tucked the .357 back into his jacket, and he’s pulling the next thing he needs out of the duffel bag. It looks like a brick, only shiny black and with a digital kitchen timer duct-taped to the top. It’s actually a big chunk of something called RDX, which stands for Research Department Explosive, mixed with some plasticizers and a few special ingredients that Cole came up with on his own. A chemist would know the stuff as cyclotrimethylene trinitramine. He’d also know that it’s bad news for anybody unfortunate enough to be standing close to it when it goes off. Cole sets the brick down right where his fancy electronic gear had indicated there were people below. He hits the start button on the timer, grabs the duffel bag by its strap, and sprints for the far edge of the office tower roof. There’s just enough seconds for him to dive over the edge and land on his shoulder on the window-washing platform hanging there –

  Even with the shaped-charge housing he’d stuffed the RDX into, there’s still an impressive explosion that comes roaring up from the roof of the office tower. Across town, in another building, Little Nerd Accountant Girl looks up from her number-crunching, wondering what that funny whoof! sound is, coming from the distance. If the cubbyhole where her boss had shunted her had had a window, she might’ve been able to see the big orange fireball rolling up into the night sky, like the special effects in some Die Hard-type action flick, instead of the sad little soap opera I was starring in back then.

  Most of the explosive’s force goes straight down into the office tower, though, the way Cole had planned it. He’s tucked down safe on the window-washing platform below the roof edge, covering his ears as the fiery wash rolls out above him. It only lasts a couple of seconds. Taking his hands from his ears, he can hear chunks of debris raining back down on the rooftop. Soon as that noise dwindles down to the last few bits thrown up into the air by the blast, he’s pulled himself back up onto the roof and is running toward the gaping hole, ragged and burnt, that the RDX had ripped open. He’s got his gun in hand again, carrying it straight up with its barrel held out away from his head.

  There’s all kinds of chaos down on the top floor of the office tower. Which is just what Cole wants to be going on there. The bodyguard by the elevator doors has been knocked flat by the explosion, hard enough to crush his nose and break his cheekbone against polished tiles. Peering through the smoke rising up from the hole, gun aimed downward now, Cole is just able to see the guard staggering up onto his feet. One quick shot catches the bodyguard in the back of the head, dropping him onto his knees for a moment, before the corpse sprawls on its bloodied face.

  More shouting, coming through the banks of smoke beginning to fill up the space. From out of the conference burst the two remaining bodyguards, guns drawn, scanning across the mess in front of them, looking for whoever’s coming in through the broken roof –

  Which won’t be Cole. He had a whole theory of operations, which he passed on to me. It included the principle that in his line of business – and mine now – you never want to be where people are expecting you to be. So the bodyguards are coughing and fighting their way through the smoke left from the blast, waving their guns around, trying to catch a bead on whoever just fired and took out their buddy by the elevators –

  And Cole has already sprinted back across the roof, away from the plume of black, ashy smoke churning up into the night sky. He’s jumped over the edge of the roof again, back down onto the window-washing platform. He picks up the duffel bag’s shoulder strap in both hands and uses the bag, heavy from all the equipment inside it, as a battering ram against the window glass that the platform is hanging next to. With the second swinging blow, the window shatters, the razor-sharp pieces raining down the side of the building. Cole lifts the bag high enough to brush away any shards that are left hanging at the top of the window frame, then drops the bag on the platform, climbs over its rail, and leaps into the building.

  This is the real action part.

  Cole has his gun out again, and he’s running down the office tower corridor, toward the smoke and the shouting. The bodyguards don’t see him coming. They’re too fixated on where he used to be, up on the office tower roof.

  One of them comes to his senses and remembers his real job, taking care of their bosses. The bodyguard runs back to the conference room, grabs the arms of both the important-looking men, the white-haired one and the larger one, and steers them across the shattered, burning reception area. He slams his palm against the elevator button. Nothing happens. He looks up and can see through the smoke that the little red numbers aren’t lighting up above the elevator doors. It’s dead, no way out using it –

  “Come on!” The bodyguard grabs the two bosses and pulls them toward the door. “Let’s move it –” They follow his commands without protest. He’s the professional, the one in charge now, the one who’ll get them out alive.

  There’s an emergency door at the end of the corridor, with the green EXIT sign just barely visible through the smoke filling up the space. It’ll be a long stumbling run down all the floors to the ground level, but that’s the only way out now.

  Or it would have been if Cole hadn’t already gotten there. The two bosses are stunned by the sharp crack of the gunshot echoing through the corridor. From between the two of them, the bodyguard is lifted off his feet by the bullet slamming into his chest and thrown backward. He’s dead, his chest blossoming red in the smoke-dimmed light, by the time he lands on the floor.

  The white-haired important-looking man is still staring down at the corpse, then turns and looks into the muzzle of the .357 that Cole is holding straight-armed into the boss’s face. That’s the last thing he sees, as Cole pulls the trigger.

  Now there are two corpses on the corridor’s floor, one of them drilled right between the eyes. The other important-looking guy, the taller one, backs up against the wall, his own wide-eyed gaze locked on the gun in Cole’s hand.

  “Don’t worry –” Cole shakes his head. “You’re not on my list. Not tonight, at least.”

  The last of the bodyguards stumbles into the corridor. Cole snaps the .357 up, aiming it straight at this one.

  “Hey, don’t – it’s cool
, man –” The bodyguard tosses away his gun and holds his hands up in the air. “You don’t have to take me out. I’m good –”

  Cole lowers the .357 and watches as the guard comes over and looks at the dead bodies.

  “Damn.” The bodyguard looks up at him. “Why’d you have to step into my shit like this? Do this on my watch and all. You and me used to work together. Remember? These kinds of gigs are hard to get.”

  “So?” Cole shrugs. “They might keep you on.”

  “After this? I doubt it.”

  “You got that right.” The taller, salt-and-pepper-haired man has regained some of his boss-like attitude. He might still be rattled from seeing his white-haired buddy popped right in front of him, but not so much that he can’t ream somebody else out. “What the hell good are you? You’re fired.”

  “See?” The bodyguard scowls at Cole. “Told you.”

  “Not my problem.” Cole waves the thickening smoke away from his face. Flames are starting to flicker out of the reception area door. “See you around.”

  “You just going to leave us here?’ The ex-bodyguard shouts after him. “That’s cold, man.”

  “Don’t worry –” Cole doesn’t even look back over his shoulder as he leaves. “Fire Department’s on its way.”

  He’s right about that. On the soundtrack of this movie, the sirens can be heard wailing in the distance, getting closer and louder.

  The window-washing platform’s as good as an elevator. Cole climbs back out the window he shattered and over the platform rail. He hits the control button and rides the platform all the way down to the surface level. The fire trucks’ red lights are swooping across the front of the building as he picks up his duffel bag, slings it over his shoulder, and walks casually, no hurry, back toward where he left the Bel Air . . .

  * * *

  I’m still working away on the company accounts. I mean that person I used to be.

  Little Nerd Accountant Girl is startled to look up and see Cole standing in the doorway of her tiny, cramped office. He’s done that before; he loves to do the spooky thing of just showing up, sneaking in to places without making any sound to give him away. And he’s good at that sort of thing – it comes with his line of work.

  “Got a check for me?”

  She stares at him, her breath caught in her throat, her heart speeding up. She’s so scared, she’s about ready to wet herself. He’s got that psychotic lopsided smile, and he smells of fire and explosives and general craziness. There’s something spattered across his shirt and his jacket that she’s pretty sure is blood. He’s every kind of bad news in the world, just leaning against the side of the doorway and watching her, all easy and stuff. The only thing is that she loathes him so – or at least I used to – that she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction that would come with showing how scared she was. At least I had that much guts back then.

  “Sure.” She keeps control of herself as she pulls open one of the desk drawers and takes out the check ledger. The check’s already made out – not to Cole personally, but to something called CNS Courier Services, which was just the bogus company he used as a front. She hadn’t wanted to write all that out with him standing there, because she knew she wouldn’t have been able to keep her hand from trembling and messing it up. She pulls the check from the ledger and holds it out. “Here you go.”

  Cole takes the check and looks it over. Even though he doesn’t need to – it’s always for the same amount, no matter the size of the job. It’s a lot, especially by the accountant’s standards. More than she makes in a year. But that’s what McIntyre pays the guy, for services rendered.

  He points to the ledger on the desk in front of her. “You can put down that this is for the Winterhalter job.” He slides the check inside his jacket. “You can tell your boss that he probably won’t need a follow-up on this one.”

  She doesn’t know everything about her boss’s business – except what’s there in the numbers – but she knows that name. One of McIntyre’s competitors, who had been planning on joining forces with another guy like him. If Cole said that the job had been taken care of, though, it meant that hook-up wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  She still glares at him. “You know,” she says, “I had to wait here to pay you.” The clock on the wall shows it’s now past four in the morning. “I’ve got a life, too.”

  “I’m sure you do.” There were plenty of women who would have found his smile charming. She didn’t. “My apologies.”

  When he was gone, she sat there fuming, scowling at the space in the doorway where he’d been. Not mad at him, not anymore, but at herself . . .

  Cole heads back to his place. Where he lives, sort of, but mainly where he keeps all the stuff that he uses to do his job.

  Later on, he told me all about it. About what would be waiting for him back then, when he’d get back from work. So to speak.

  The place is over in the city’s shipping district, out by the wharves. You wouldn’t expect somebody like Cole to live in a normal sort of place.

  He leaves the yellow Bel Air out in front of one of the warehouses – everybody around there knows better than to touch it – and unlocks a little office-type door beside one of the freight docks. Nothing much going on at that hour, except a big container vessel from Japan being off-loaded at the farthest wharf, the big one with the cranes that can pluck whole boxcars out of a ship’s hold. He doesn’t pay it any attention; that’s just the kind of business that goes on around here. Plus his business. Like his car, people know better than to poke their noses into that.

  His girlfriend Monica is sleeping on a mattress on the warehouse floor, a blanket pulled over herself and a half-empty wine bottle a couple feet away. She’s good-looking, in that armor-plated, avaricious way that a guy like him would be attracted to. Three guesses what she worked at, and you’d be right on the first one.

  Cole looks at her for a moment, sleeping there, then takes off his jacket and throws it over to one side, followed by his shirt. They both wind up draped over an automatic rifle leaned against the wall. The place is total gun-nut hell, just full of that kind of thing, and worse. The kind of stuff that Cole uses to do his job. Plus a workbench scattered with tools, a welding tank and torch, some smaller electronics assembly gear – like I already told you, to do the kind of things he does, he needs to build some of the gear.

  Standing there bare-chested, Cole nudges his girlfriend’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. With her eyes still closed, she groggily mutters something about what he can go do with himself. “Leave me alone, will ya?”

  He pokes her again, a little harder. This time, he manages to get her to sit up, holding the blanket up against her breasts. Her long red hair is all tangled and sexy-looking, if that’s the kind of think you like. For Cole, it is.

  Monica knows it, too. She’s awake enough now to smile at him. “How’d it go?”

  “Fine.” He doesn’t need to fill in the details. They’ve been together for a while. “Piece of cake.”

  “I bet.” She fumbles around the mattress, looking for her cigarettes.

  “Got something for you.”

  She glances back over at him and sees that he’s undone his belt, the one with the big enameled Confederate flag emblem for a buckle that he likes to wear, to let people know just how politically incorrect he is. As if that were ever in doubt.

  “So I can see.” She leans forward, unzips his fly, and spreads the front of his trousers. Not what you’re thinking; this is a different sort of movie.

  What she sees there is the check I’d cut for him a little while ago, back at my office. He’s got it tucked in the waistband of his boxer shorts, poking out so the number on it can be read.

  Monica doesn’t say anything more. She just leans even farther forward, bites the top of the check, and pulls it out with her teeth. She’s smiling as she looks up at him.

  That’s just the kind of relationship they had.

  A little while later
, they’re both lying on the mattress; she’s got her head lying on his chest, and is slowly regaining her breath. The check’s somewhere on the warehouse floor, where it had gotten tossed. The wine bottle’s empty now, except for the couple of cigarette butts at the bottom.

  “Nothing’s ever gonna change, baby.” Cole drowsily murmurs, as he runs his hand through her hair. He wasn’t exhausted before, even after all his running and jumping around over at that big office tower – but he is now. “That’s the best part.” He slowly nods, eyes closed. “Nothing’s ever gonna change . . .”

  Just goes to show. Even somebody smart as him. The world’s always capable of taking you by surprise.

  SEVEN

  Good thing for me that the cross-town express bus ran twenty-four hours. The bad thing was that I still had to walk about a dozen creepy, badly lit blocks to get from the bus stop to my apartment building. That late, I didn’t feel safe until I got the front door unlocked, then slammed shut behind me.

  Mr. McIntyre had told me to give Donnie a hug for him, when I got home. So I did that, sitting on the edge of his bed. He’d waited up for me.

  Donnie’s my younger brother. All the family I have.

  “You were there a long time.” He said it with an accusatory tone of voice. Not accusing me, but the whole big world that wasn’t as nice to me as he thought it should be. “It’s practically morning.”

  “It is morning, honey.” I sat there with my shoulders slumped, feeling all worn and weary. “Any time after midnight, it’s morning. Technically.”

  “I mean morning as in time for you to get up and go to work. When the sun comes up.”

  “Yeah . . . I know.”

  “You should go in late. Your boss won’t mind.”

  “Can’t.” I was so tired, I couldn’t even think. Not just from being there so late, but from having to deal with Cole. Even for just the few minutes it took to give him his check. Somehow, that always took it out of me. “I gotta stick it out,” I told Donnie. I put my hand on the chrome arm of his wheelchair and rolled it back and forth a couple of inches. “Just a little while longer. Then things will be different.”