Just this one is all I need.
He opened the front cover and started to read, not letting himself be distracted by the unfamiliar terminology. It didn’t matter how weird it seemed; surely Portuguese had been weird at first, too.
The room went gray.
Then, at once, back to color.
He checked the book on his lap, which was now opened to the last page: “Suggestions for further reading.”
No, I think that’ll do.
He put the book on the front hall table. Then he rode the elevator back down, left the building, and jogged back to Lexington. When he came into the store he was glad to see Alexi still standing there, still looking down at the broken freezer/fridge as if it had offended him.
“I wasn’t gone for too long, was I?”
Alexi looked up. He seemed puzzled by the question.
“Good,” Kevin said. He walked behind the counter and pointed. “Mind if I take a peek?”
Alexi gave him a doubtful look. “You can repair freezers?”
“I read a book on it,” Kevin said.
And yes, I can. Definitely. This just happens to be my first time, that’s all.
Alexi didn’t look convinced. “What book?”
“Hmm?” Kevin was already crouching down, trying to get a better view of the pipes on the freezer’s rear side. “Oh. It’s the GE Master Repair Manual for Major Appliances. I think. Do you mind if I slide this out a little bit? It’s cramped down here.”
“Why would anyone read such a book? Why would you?”
Kevin stopped trying to pull the freezer back. It was a good question, but dwelling on it fell into the same category as dwelling on why he would read a book on Portuguese. “I go through a lot of books,” he said dismissively.
Alexi was still resisting. “I need to call these guys,” he said. “They’re professionals, you can’t – ”
“Alexi,” Kevin said, cutting him off. He didn’t bother coming up from under the counter. He was already on his back, unscrewing a nut with his fingers. “I can fix this thing. I can fix it easily. It’ll take me ten minutes. Maybe less, if you can find me a wrench and a screwdriver. And it’ll stay fixed.”
Alexi sighed. “How much is this going to cost me?”
The phrase “go fuck yourself” did not appear in the textbook Kevin had used for learning Portuguese, but he managed to string together words that seemed to suit the purpose. “I’m just fixing a friend’s freezer,” he added. “Is that okay? You weren’t going to charge me for the beer, were you? Find me a screwdriver, my fingers aren’t made of steel.”
Alexi gave up. He stood and walked to the back of the store, and then Kevin heard the sound of a door opening in the storage area. Then a drawer sliding open. Then a very loud clattering as something fell.
Alexi swore.
Kevin added the phrase to his mental library, testing the sounds quietly on his tongue. The accent was difficult, that was for sure.
In a minute the storekeeper was back, and he handed down a screwdriver. And a wrench. Kevin thanked him and returned to his work. He paused, consulting a compressor diagram in his head.
No, that’s backward. This one is the other way. And now this pipe leads to this one and –
Kevin heard the sound of the store’s front door opening, and now quick steps on the hard plastic floor.
“Please,” Alexi said quickly, in English. The tone of his voice, tight and tense, made Kevin frown.
“Shut up and open it,” said a new voice, this one young and cracking. Then Kevin heard metal against metal, an urgent tapping.
This isn’t happening, he thought.
But it was. He had never heard this sound, and yet he knew what it was.
He’s hitting the register with his gun.
“Open it!”
Then a moment of silence.
Now the gun is pointed at Alexi again.
Kevin took a slow, steadying breath. Not once had he ever witnessed an actual hold-up in an all-night deli; he had half-assumed Alexi was kidding earlier about the prospect of getting robbed. But he supposed there was a first time for everything. A first time for fixing freezers and a first time for Portuguese.
And a first time for this.
Had he read the right books yet?
He took another second to think.
Yes, he thought. I have.
That Internal Extractor Issue
Kevin stood up slowly from behind the counter. So very, very slowly. He made eye-contact with the kid as soon as possible and held it.
This was the most dangerous part of the whole thing.
He made it to a standing position without the teenager trying to shoot, and that was a triumph. Kevin nodded reassuringly, and he put his hands out in an everything’s-okay gesture.
The kid, a pasty-white fifteen-year-old wearing baggy shorts and a t-shirt with holes in it, took a step back. The hand holding the gun began to tremble. Everything did not seem okay to him. Everything had been okay a minute ago, when it had been just him and the skinny Latino guy, the guy he had seen alone in this Deli eight nights in a row, eight nights in a row with nobody coming into this place, and finally it had been just too tempting. He had the gun, he needed the cash, and what could go wrong? But now this other guy was here, this other guy had appeared out of nowhere, he had stood up from behind the counter as if he had been hiding there all night for eight straight days, hiding there just hoping for this moment, and somehow that seemed reasonable, that seemed to make sense because the guy was huge, big and jacked and with eyes that seemed to see everything at once, and he towered over the little Latino guy like he was his specially hired bodyguard or something. The huge guy was putting his hands out now, making this let’s-all-chill-out gesture, which the kid thought was surely the gesture a bodyguard would make right before he reached over, grabbed you by the head, and tossed you out into the street like an over-ripe melon.
“Stay the fuck back,” the kid yelled, shaking his gun as though he meant to throw it at them.
“Nobody’s moving,” Kevin said.
The kid kept shaking his gun, perhaps to hide the tremble in his hand.
“Where’d you get that weapon?” Kevin asked.
“Fuck you.”
“It’s nice,” Kevin said, as if the teenager had told him his mother had bought it for him as a birthday present. “Browning 9X19, High-Power P35. Serious equipment. Pretty expensive, too. If you get it new, that is.”
“Shut up.”
“Right, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? The old ones look nice, but they’ve got that internal extractor issue. Your model have an internal extractor?”
“What – ”
“Because the reliability of that design is questionable at best. The external extractor, on the other hand, really improves the whole situation. Which is why all the new ones come with that feature.”
The kid was starting to look sick to his stomach. He lowered his gun slightly. He had thought there was a 50-50 chance of getting arrested for his plan tonight; he knew that risk, he was willing to accept that risk. This was far worse. The huge, bodyguard-looking guy was speaking pure gibberish, but he sounded as if he knew everything there was to know about guns. He probably owned hundreds of them, probably had one strapped to each ankle under his pants, along with the one stuck into his belt behind his back. And as soon as he got the chance, as soon as he noticed even a moment’s opportunity, he would let fly with a barrage of perfectly-aimed bullets that would not only kill the kid but would also carve some sort of star design into his chest. And then the huge guy would come over and stand above him while he bled out on the floor, and the guy would look down and tilt his head and say something like, “Darn it, my fourth shot was a little to the left.”
Kevin saw the look in the kid’s eye, and he didn’t give him too much time to think. “Your gun isn’t going to work,” he said to him gently. “It’s too old. It’s not reliable. You’re in trouble.”
T
he kid lowered his gun another inch.
“Maybe you should go home,” Kevin suggested. “Just turn around, walk away, and go home.”
“Please don’t kill me,” the kid blurted out suddenly. His gun was still partly raised, pointing now somewhere between the register and the floor. He seemed to be holding his breath, waiting for Kevin to pump him full of a dozen rounds to the chest. And then one in the head. To make sure.
“Go home,” Kevin repeated, putting more urgency in his voice. “Right now.”
The teenager lowered his gun all the way. He waited another second. When he found himself still alive and standing, he let out a shaky breath and turned around. Then, as if he were worried Kevin might decide at any moment to shoot him just out of spite, he went sprinting out of the store like a rabbit.
Alexi and Kevin stood next to each other for a few seconds, neither saying a word. Without taking his eyes off the door, Alexi made a small sound.
An amused sound.
“What?”
“That was a good bluff,” Alexi said.
“Thank you.”
“What if he hadn’t bought it?”
Kevin shrugged. “It’s hard to shoot a Browning GP with accuracy, even with proper training. That gun kicks. It can split the webbing of your hand if you’re not holding it the right way. And that kid had no idea how to hold it, let alone how to aim it.”
“He still could have shot you. The bullet has to go somewhere.”
“Right, but it’s a very low probability. And even if he did hit me, I’d still be able to get over there and grapple with him. Disarming is fairly simple at this range, even when wounded, and even with minimal contact. Then I’d – ”
“What are you talking about?” Alexi interrupted. The shock of the experience – the relief at having lived through it – was wearing off, and the amusement was gone from his voice. He turned to face Kevin. “Didn’t you hear me? He could have shot you. Or me. With a bullet. What’s this ‘low-probability’ nonsense? Who cares how you disarm him? We could have died. Are you not getting that?”
Kevin watched him silently for a moment, and then he seemed finally to hear the words that Alexi was saying. Seemed finally to grasp the situation as a whole, rather than as an academic exercise.
Jesus, what was I thinking?
“You’re right,” Kevin said.
But then Alexi shook his head. Suddenly he looked ashamed. “You’re in the middle of fixing my freezer, you save me from having to empty my cash register, and I’m yelling at you.”
“No, I understand. It was dangerous.”
Alexi shrugged. “That’s not your fault. He brought the gun.”
“True.”
“Anyway, now I owe you.”
“No you don’t.”
“Quiet. I’ll let you slide on the freezer, that’s a nice gesture. But fending off an armed robber is different. That counts.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“Even so. What can I give you? Something from the store? It’s stupid, I know. But pick something. Pick ten things, to make me feel better.”
Kevin looked around doubtfully. The idea of walking off with an armload of unpaid-for groceries seemed strange. Seemed not proper, somehow. He felt as if he were being asked to take a piece of furniture away from the man’s house. Still, he made a show of checking in every direction, left and right and behind him, as if he didn’t already know exactly what you could find in a corner delicatessen.
But then, unbelievably, something on the wall behind the register caught his eye.
I’ll be damned, he thought. That’s what I need. Lord knows I’ve got the time. And you’re definitely the guy for this.
The storekeeper followed Kevin’s gaze. When he saw what he was staring at, his eyes lit up. “Yes! That’s me, that’s what I do during the daytime!” He hooted with laughter again, delighted that a means of repayment had been found. “That’s perfect, we can do that!”
Kevin smiled. “Yeah, okay. I work during the week. You have time on a weekend?”
Alexi looked insulted. “Today! This morning is a Saturday, this is a weekend, no? What’s wrong with this morning?”
“You’re working. It’s not morning yet.”
“Bah. So you come back in two hours. Six o’clock right here, and then we’ll go together. I’ll take you, show you. Everything the proper way. This is going to be great.” He moved his arms around in rhythmic circles.
“All right,” Kevin said, relenting. The man’s enthusiasm was infectious. “Let me finish with your freezer. I’ll go home and try to get some rest, and then I’ll be back here at six.”
Alexi nodded energetically. “Yes, good.” Suddenly his eyebrows shot up, and his expression turned mischievous. “Wait a minute, I have a question.”
Kevin paused in the act of crouching. He wanted to get the freezer fixed quickly so that he could get home and finish resting. Reading. Whatever.
“Why?” Alexi said, his mouth stretched into a parody of innocent curiosity. “Why do you want me to teach you to dance?”
Kevin sighed.
He just wants to hear me say it.
“Because of a girl,” he answered dutifully.
“Yes!” Alexi cried, jabbing the air with a finger. “Yes, always!”
“Okay, enough.”
“Never enough!”
Kevin shook his head and put himself back on the floor. He returned his attention to the freezer’s main compressor assembly.
“Yes!” Alexi said again.
Do What I’m Telling You
The middle screen on Jacob Savian’s desk made a soft bonging noise. It was 6 AM, time for the morning update. Jacob rubbed his eyes and tried to clear his head. The day before had been a busy one, and George’s cleanup work had kept them both up far later than usual. George had been up because he was patient and methodical, and because he did not cut corners when painting pictures, building prototypes, or disposing of bodies. Jacob had been up simply because many of the tools George had been using – the bone saw, for example – were quite loud. And then there was the question of the chemicals for dissolving, which left a sharp, acrid smell that lingered even after the windows had been kept open for several hours. Which in turn let in the warm, humid air from the Indian Summer they were having, and on and on.
Neither one of them had slept very well. The next morning, George was still in the kitchen area drinking his coffee. Jacob wished he could put everything on hold, wished he could just postpone all of this unpleasantness so that he could go back to thinking about his next programming project. Nothing made him feel better than the start of a new project.
But now matters of business beckoned, important matters, and even though he was feeling confident now – even though he could tell that he was going to win, he knew he was going to nail that Billaud motherfucker right to the wall – he also knew it was important to see everything through to the very end. Which meant no putting things on hold. No breaks. He didn’t care that it was 6 AM on a Saturday, and neither did anyone else. When you were ensuring the future of human ingenuity, you didn’t sleep in.
So Jacob put on a stern expression, leaned forward, and hit the key to establish the connection. The Organizer’s face blipped into view.
“Talk.”
“There were two cops on patrol yesterday. Follow up, the usual.”
“Fine. But nobody did anything stupid this time, right?”
“Correct.”
“Any hits on the van plates?”
“Two. And a call to the building-redirect line about the paint job. Everything went smooth. Plates are all solid, they lead to a union lease shop on Staten Island. Guy’s got almost 300 vans, couldn’t keep track of them if he wanted to. Which is perfect. But he’s completely legit. They won’t smell a thing. And the paint-job call went great. They’re checking everything, but we’ve got it covered.”
“Good. What else?”
“We’ve redistributed resources for Frida
y. To account for…”
The Organizer hesitated.
“We’ve redistributed,” he said again, and left it at that.
Jacob looked away. “You need another man?”
“No, we’re still good. Redundancies were built in already. They know their jobs.”
Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) Page 22
