by Brad Meltzer
“He took seven lives, Dino! Innocent lives!” Zig hissed with a guttural roar, spit flying from his lips.
Dino went silent, knowing that tone in his friend’s voice—a tone last heard on that night when Zig made the poor choice of taking on a six-foot-four Marine who was screaming in the parking lot and gripping the arm of his sobbing girlfriend. When Zig jumped in, even the girlfriend turned on Zig, shouting that he should mind his own damn business. The Marine did far more damage, fracturing Zig’s eye socket. Still, Zig wouldn’t stop swinging, even as the blood turned the sclera of his eye completely red. Only later, in the emergency room, did Dino realize it was the night of what would’ve been Zig’s twentieth wedding anniversary.
“Ziggy, you’re picking the wrong fight here. Let me call the cops.”
Zig barely heard the words. Reaching for the door handle of the car, he looked outside and—
“Mothertrucker,” Zig muttered.
Down the street, a new person got out of their own car as Houdini entered the insurance place. Her head was down, but even under whatever baseball cap she was wearing, there was no mistaking her stark white hair.
“Nola,” Zig blurted.
“Nola? Where?” Dino asked though the phone. “She’s there?”
“Mhmm,” Zig said, his hand still on the door handle. Staring through the windshield, he felt like he was watching her on TV. Her head was down and her back was to Zig, so she couldn’t see him. But the way she was moving, like the best soldiers on a sneak—small steps, each one slow and careful—she knew exactly where she was going.
She wasn’t the only one.
In a single smooth movement, Nola pulled open the door and stepped into the insurance place. Yet as the door swung shut, a brand-new figure stepped out of the crowd. Just outside the Safeway, across from the coffee shop.
Another woman. Native American. Wore a hunting jacket, a black one with loads of pockets. Even from here, her walk stood out—the same slow and careful steps. Military training for sure.
“What the crap is going on?” Zig whispered. He had no idea she was called The Curtain. But he knew a threat when he saw one.
The woman stopped near the corner, still a block and a half away. Zig squinted through the dark. Unlike Nola, who was small and compact, this woman was wide-shouldered.
“Ziggy, tell me what the hell is happening!” Dino insisted.
“I’m still trying to figure it out.”
Taking her time as she crossed the street, the big Native American woman looked around, scanning every inch of the grid that soldiers are trained to examine.
Zig leaned forward even more in his seat, squinting as she crossed the street and made her way toward the insurance agency. No question, her posture was perfect—but the way her left shoulder looked higher than her right one… She was carrying something under her field coat.
“She’s wearing a strap. For a gun. Or something worse,” Zig blurted.
“You don’t know that.”
The woman approached the front door of the insurance agency. Unlike Nola, she paused, standing there in the cold, scanning the block one final time. Then she disappeared inside.
“They’re ambushing her!” Zig said.
“This isn’t your fight. Don’t do something stupid!”
Kicking open the car door, Zig hopped outside. The wind was cold, scratching at his face.
“Ziggy, I’m calling the cops! They’ll be there in minutes!”
“She’ll be dead by then,” Zig barked, already across the street. He stuffed his phone in his pocket, though he didn’t hang up. If things went upside down, at least Dino could be a witness.
“Ziggy, you haven’t seen this girl for years!” Dino shouted, though Zig couldn’t hear it.
Running full speed, Zig darted for the insurance shop. Get a Piece of the Rock with Benjamin R. Powell, he read to himself as he caught his breath.
His right hand gripped the knife in his pocket. His left gripped the door handle.
Swallowing hard, Zig gave the door a tug and stepped inside.
55
Six minutes ago
Houdini hated it here. Hated the way the whole insurance agency reeked of stale cigarettes, Carpet Fresh, and mediocrity, but hated even more that it reminded him of his grandparents’ place.
“Evening, darlin’. How can I—?” the middle-aged receptionist called out, cutting herself off. She had braces, and a tattoo that read Cha-Cha vertically down her forearm. Looking up from her cell phone, she spotted Houdini, then looked right back down. Just like she was paid to.
“You got scissors?” Houdini asked, approaching her desk.
“P-Pardon?”
“Scissors? You know…scissors?”
From a neon orange pencil cup, the woman pulled out a pair of scissors, keeping her eyes down as she handed it over.
“Muchas gracias,” Houdini said, standing there and chewing his gum for an extra half a second, as if he were waiting for her to say something back. She knew better than that.
Picking up speed as he headed for the back of the office, Houdini made a quick left, then right, navigating a small hub of cubicles, all of them empty.
For months now, after each package pickup, Houdini came here—to the back of Powell Insurance—to this frosted glass door and its big eighties-era half-moon door handle that looked like a frown. Yanking it open, he revealed a wide conference room with a Formica oval table at the center and a built-in kitchen along the left-hand wall. The refrigerator door was propped open; it was clearly unplugged, filled with file boxes.
On the oval table were two dirty ashtrays as well as the most valuable thing in this entire shithole: an ancient corded telephone.
Time to tell the man in charge.
In the current world of high-tech surveillance, where the government can access everything from your Internet-connected doorbell to the microphone in your Wi-Fi-enabled cable box, it’s not that hard to trace a cell phone. So the safest way to make a private call these days is to use the one technology even the government doesn’t have the manpower to check anymore: a plain, old-fashioned landline.
“Malvina, I dial a nine first, then a one?” Houdini shouted at the wall, which was covered with awful landscape paintings in gaudy gold frames. At the head of the table were four wall clocks, all in a row, labeled London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, though they were all now stopped, showing four incorrect times.
“Nine, then one,” the receptionist shouted back.
Letting the phone ring, Houdini tossed the briefcase on the conference table. The padlock was still in place; the zipper wouldn’t budge. Time to find out what was inside.
Cradling the receiver with his chin, Houdini gripped the scissors like a knife and plunged it into the side of the soft leather briefcase. Slicing down, he made the hole wider and wider until—
Click.
Someone picked up.
“Talk,” a man with a woodchipper of a voice insisted through the phone.
Houdini rolled his eyes. “I’m not hired help.”
“You sure about that?”
“You’re a dick.”
“Spit your gum out. Makes you sound like a child.”
Houdini made a ptooo noise, though he didn’t spit the gum out. “Our magician friend,” he finally said, referring to The Amazing Caesar, “is not feeling so good.”
“What about the most recent present?”
“He’s a clueless old dinosaur—had no idea where it came from. But I’m telling you, someone’s stepping in our shit. We need to—ruhhhh,” Houdini said, wedging his fingers into the side of the cheap leather briefcase and tearing the small hole wider.
Inside, as always, was money. Bundles of cash. But instead of being green, it looked…royal blue, almost purple. Across the front was a picture of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. These weren’t dollars. They were…
“Rupees,” Houdini said.
“Pakistani money?”
It made no sense. Their deliveries were always in US dollars, one or two times in Iraqi dinars. If someone was sending new currency—
“Bitch of a bitch,” Houdini blurted, pulling out a stack of cash and flipping through it. A 1,000 Pakistani rupee bill was on top, but the rest of the pile was… All of it was blank. “It’s blue construction paper,” Houdini said. He flipped through the rest. All three stacks were the same. All of it worthless. This wasn’t a delivery. It was a trap.
“You need to get out of there.”
Houdini glanced over his shoulder. Through the frosted glass, the secretary went to stand up, then sat back down. Like she was talking to someone who just arrived.
“You need to get out of there,” the man repeated.
“Lemme just—”
“Get out of there. Now.”
Houdini slammed the receiver down, but just as he turned—
Phoom.
The glass door flew open.
Nola stormed inside, her gun pointed at Houdini’s head. “You must be Rowan.”
“Whoawhoawhoa. You have the wrong—”
“They call you Houdini. Your real name is Rowan Johansson. You’re from Scottsbluff, Nebraska.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking abou—”
Nola pulled back the hammer on her gun, aiming it at his forehead. “I’m now going to shoot you in your face. You have three seconds to prevent it. Your boss—”
“I don’t have a boss.”
“Call him whatever you want. You’re too stupid to do this yourself—so that person you were just talking to,” she said, her finger tightening around the trigger. “Tell me where he is.”
56
He was too calm. That was Nola’s first thought.
“Take a breath. I’m not your enemy,” Houdini said, chewing his gum, his hands raised casually in the air.
He wasn’t sweating. Seemed unafraid. Maybe just dumb.
“You know who I am?” Nola challenged, her gun still pointed at his face.
“Nola. The one who died.”
“The one you tried to kill.”
“Not me. Wrong guy,” Houdini said, lowering his chin and offering a conspiratorial grin, like they were on the same side.
He was a charmer, a natural salesman—like a lawyer but with less polish. She eyed his gum chewing. More street-smart than book-smart. He wasn’t a dummy, though. Deep crow’s-feet were in the corner of his right eye; his left eye was clean. That’s his aiming eye. A hunter. Definitely right-handed.
He chewed some more, short quick bites. Impatient? Annoyed? Anxious? No. He kept on chewing, his grin never leaving his eyes. In control. Like he knew what was coming.
Nola glanced over her shoulder, turning toward the door. Too late.
“Gkkk.”
She never saw the person behind her. An arm wrapped around her neck as four metal blades—like a metal paw—pressed hard against her throat.
“Your day’s about to take a noticeable turn for the worse,” the tall Native American woman whispered.
“Nola Brown…” Houdini said, still chewing his gum as he stood there on the carpet/linoleum border between the conference room and kitchenette. “I want you to meet our dear friend, The Cur—”
In a burst, the glass door to the conference room shattered, bits of aqua shards spraying everywhere. A metal rolling chair was still in midair, thrown through the door by—
Zig raced into the room as the metal chair somersaulted, colliding into The Curtain, catching her off-balance.
“Don’t move—she goes down, you go down!” Zig shouted, jamming the tip of his knife into the back of The Curtain’s neck. She started to turn, but he wedged it in there, through her black field jacket. “This is your C7,” he told her, pushing his knife between her sixth and seventh vertebrae. “That’s what protects your spinal cord. If you ever want to move your arms, or walk again, you need to let go of her.”
“Tell Nola to drop her gun,” The Curtain challenged, her claw weapon still at Nola’s throat.
Nola didn’t budge, her gun still aimed at Houdini.
“Everyone, take a breath,” Zig said.
“Nola, listen to the man,” Houdini warned, amping up the charm as he backed up a few steps into the kitchenette. “Put your gun down, or you’re gonna get your throat slit.”
“No one’s slitting anyone’s throat!” Zig insisted.
“Put the gun down, Nola,” Houdini repeated, chewing his—
Blam.
Nola pulled the trigger, shooting Houdini directly in the throat.
57
Homestead, Florida
Ten years ago
This was Nola when she was sixteen.
“What’s wrong?” Nola asked, clearly anxious.
Ms. Sable laughed. “Can you just close your eyes and stop worrying?”
Sitting across from Ms. Sable at the wide art table, Nola closed her eyes, but she couldn’t stop worrying. Not after that night a few years back when Royall covered her eyes.
“They closed?” Ms. Sable asked.
Nola nodded, hearing her teacher rummage through her purse.
Fwap.
Something hit the wooden table.
“Open.”
Nola opened her eyes, staring down at a rectangular box, the size of a brick. It was covered in Muppet wrapping paper that featured Fozzie, Miss Piggy, and of course Kermit, in the middle of a celebratory Kermit-flail. A present.
“I’m a crappy wrapper. The paper is all we had left. From when Dominic was little,” Ms. Sable explained, referring to her son.
Nola looked at it like someone took a dump on the desk. Why would—? “What’s this for?”
“This weekend was your birthday, wasn’t it? I believe that entitles some of us to say, Happy birthday.”
Nola fidgeted with the cuffs on the jean jacket she’d bought at Goodwill on Ms. Sable’s recommendation. Girls shouldn’t be walking around in wifebeater tank tops. Nola still wore the tank underneath. But every day, she wore the jacket.
“Ms. Sable—”
“When someone gives you a present, say thank you.”
“But you—”
“Try it, okay? Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Nola repeated, unable to look up at her teacher. Ms. Sable opened her mouth, ready to lecture her about eye contact, but it was her birthday.
Tearing at the wrapping paper and opening the narrow box, Nola was hit by the smell first—her favorite smell over these past few months. Freshly sharpened…
“Pencils. Cool,” Nola said, revealing half a dozen professional-quality pencils, each in its own pristine plastic case.
“It’s not much. Teacher’s salary,” Ms. Sable said. “But y’know…for sketching.”
Nola nodded, flashing a hint of the ruined smile that always broke Ms. Sable’s heart. Like Nola was afraid to commit to a full grin, or didn’t know how. “They’re all different,” Nola said.
“That’s the point. As you know, the number on the side is their lead grade, and a 4B is softer than a 2B. Each has a different touch, like a different brush. When I bought Dominic his first baseball mitt, this handsome guy at the Sports Authority told me it all started with the right equipment. That’s how he got me wasting fifty bucks for a glove for a kid who hated baseball. Anyway, there you go. Now you have it. The right equipment.”
For the rest of her life, Nola would come back to this moment, relishing it, thinking about it, replaying it in her head. In the next few months, when Nola’s life imploded and her soul was ripped to shreds, she’d need this day more than ever.
Leaning down toward the box, she’d never seen anything so…beautiful. She hesitated on the word, but that was the right one. Beautiful. Over and over, she reread the names of all the different pencils.
Mongol, Faber, Staedtler, Ticonderoga, and Swan.
“Just you wait. You haven’t even seen Part Two yet,” Ms. Sable said, darting to her office, a small closet in the
back corner of the art room. She ran like an athlete, Nola thought, realizing for the very first time how little she knew about Ms. Sable’s life outside of school.
There was some whispering, like Ms. Sable was talking to someone.
“Close your eyes!” Ms. Sable called out.
This time, Nola didn’t hesitate.
“Nola, just so you know, this is a potential gift. You don’t have to take it, okay? Only if your dad says it’s fine.”
Nola nodded, eyes still shut and so excited, she didn’t even hear the mention of Royall.
“Okay. Open. Look.”
On the art table was a cardboard box, big enough that it could hold an old computer monitor. The box wasn’t wrapped, wasn’t even closed. Something moved inside, scratching wildly. Something alive.
“I’m warning you, you don’t have to take this. It’s my son’s, and he’s leaving for— He enlisted in the Army, God bless him. They’re gonna pay for his college. He says he’ll eventually ask to be stationed at the base here,” she said, referring to the nearby Homestead Air Reserve Base. “Anyway, he’s my different one, never on the conventional path. So when he said he couldn’t take pets with him, well…Happy Birthday Part Two,” Ms. Sable said, quickly adding, “if you want it.”
Nola lunged forward, ruined smile on her face.
“Here, let me introduce you,” Ms. Sable said, reaching into the box and pulling out… It had elegant black fur and a red bow taped to its collar. It looked like a cat, but as the light hit it—
“A skunk?”
“Before you judge, it’s been de-scented,” Ms. Sable explained. “So no stink bombs, no rotten smell. Don’t ask how we got him; my son’s idea. But he’s been with us for four years now. They act like cats, though. Eat cat food, use a litter box, they just look like, well…like this.”
Nola stared at the skunk as it gracefully prowled across the art desk, cocking its head sideways at Nola. A skunk. Even Nola knew this was weird. Another thing for her classmates to point at. Another thing to make fun of. Another thing to make her different.
“Does she have a name?”
“El Duque—I think it’s the name of an old baseball player—though we call him Dooch. She’s a he.”
