If She Wakes

by Michael Koryta

  “Time to start earning your keep,” he said, turning to Abby. The boyish features seemed to fade, and his hard eyes dominated his face, eyes that belonged to a much older man.

  “What are we doing?”

  “You’ll be sitting right there. But you’ll be watching too.” He picked up his phone from the console, tapped the screen, and then set it back down. The screen displayed a live video image of the interior of the car. Abby twisted her head, searching for the camera, the cord rubbing into her throat. She didn’t see a camera, but when she looked back, she realized the video was in motion. When she stopped, it stopped.

  Dax smiled. “I’ll need my hat back,” he said.

  He took the hat off Abby’s head, and the video display followed the jostling motion. He settled it back on his own head, then turned to Abby, and Abby’s face appeared on the cell phone display, a clear, high-definition image. She saw there was dried blood crusted in her blond hair from where he’d hit her with the gun.

  “I need to confess something,” the kid said. His voice seemed to echo, but it was really coming from the phone’s speaker. “Covert audio recording is illegal here in Massachusetts. This is a two-party-consent state.”

  He sighed, and the sigh echoed on the phone like a distant gust of wind.

  “I’ve had to make my peace with that,” he said, “because my uncle was a big fan of recording things. Knowledge is power, right? The more eyes and ears one has, the more one knows. I think my uncle would’ve liked this hat. I never got the chance to show it to him, but…” He shrugged. “I’m confident of his opinion.”

  He moved his hand to the ignition and started the engine again.

  “You’re about to meet the man who’s responsible for the unfortunate trouble Hank Bauer encountered,” Dax said, pulling away from the curb.

  “You killed him,” Abby said. “I don’t care who paid you.”

  “Sure you do.”

  At an intersection, they paused at a stop sign, then they continued along the dark street and pulled into a driveway that was flanked by ornate brick pillars, a gate between them. Dax put the window down, punched four buttons on a keypad mounted in one pillar, and the gates parted. He drove through. The gates closed behind them and locked with a pneumatic hiss followed by a clang.

  He pulled down the drive, parked, and cut the engine.

  “Just sit tight,” he said. “I know it’s uncomfortable, but at least you’ll have a view.”

  With that, he stepped out of the car, slammed the driver’s door, and locked the car with the key fob, engaging the alarm. If Abby tried to smash the window, it was going to be loud, and the kid would have plenty of time to get outside. There was a slim chance that a neighbor might come to investigate, but probably not. Car alarms were viewed as nuisances, not cries for help. Unless Abby freed herself from the passenger seat, she wasn’t going to achieve anything by breaking a window.

  Dax walked around the back of the house and disappeared from sight. Abby’s eyes went to the cell phone, and now she could see from Dax’s point of view: a light came on in the back of the house. Dax went to knock, but the door opened before he could make contact, and a short, wiry man with graying hair and a nose crooked from a bad break stood in front of him, gun in hand.

  For an instant, Abby thought this could be good news—she didn’t care who this guy was; anyone who shot the kid was on her team.

  But the man didn’t shoot. He lowered the gun and said, “What in the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “My job,” Dax said. If he was in any way troubled by the gun, he didn’t show it.

  “Your job? You don’t come to my fucking home unless I tell you to! That’s not your—”

  Something moved at the edge of the frame and then came into the center. Dax was holding up Oltamu’s phone. “This was my job, Gerry.”

  The man stared at the phone. He leaned forward, then pulled back, suspicious and confused.

  “How’d you get it? Kaplan said—”

  “Kaplan’s trying to bluff her way back to life,” Dax said. “Let me in. I don’t want to stand outside and talk about this shit.”

  Gerry hesitated, then nodded, and stepped aside. Abby followed the bouncing path of the camera as the kid walked through a sunroom with a marble fireplace, opened another door, and stepped into a kitchen that was filled with expanses of white cabinets and stainless-steel appliances.

  “You alone?” Dax asked.

  “Yeah. And remember, the questions are—”

  “The questions are yours to ask, right. I didn’t think that one could do much harm.”

  Gerry paced back into the frame. His body language was tense, like a fighter’s before the bell. The kid worked for him, but he didn’t seem to have his employer’s trust.

  Maybe that was because Gerry had just arranged to kill him.

  “How in the hell did you get that?” he asked.

  “Kaplan’s been bullshitting you the whole time. She never had it. The salvage-yard guy gave it to his brother. It was in his pawnshop. I bought it for ninety bucks. I assume I’ll be reimbursed?”

  “Let me see it.”

  Dax passed it over. Gerry set his gun down on the counter to study the phone.

  Unwise, Abby thought, watching in the car. She was captivated by the scene playing out on the phone’s screen, but it was time to worry about more important things—she was literally captive within the car, and that wasn’t going to change unless she could free her neck.

  She reached for the cord with her clumsy, bound hands. There was just barely enough room between skin and cord to get a grasp, and when she did, the cord had no give. She leaned forward, straining painfully, and twisted until she got her hands over her shoulder. It was an awkward movement that put pressure on her rotator cuff as well as her throat, but she was able to feel the way the cord had been looped around the headrest and knotted. The knot was a pro’s work; Abby wasn’t going to be able to untie it from this angle, working blind and unable to separate her hands.

  There was, however, another option. She was tied to the headrest, which was a perfectly effective approach when the headrest was in place, but the headrest could be removed. It would be awkward, and it would be painful, but if she could lift the headrest out, the cord would slide off it.

  She arched her back, wincing at the pain, stretched her shoulders until the tendons howled in protest, and began to hunt for the headrest release with her fingers.

  44

  When he’d seen the kid arrive at his back door—his back door, he didn’t even walk up the front steps like a normal human—Gerry was tempted to shoot him. It had been years since he’d killed anyone, but he intended to do it in the next twelve hours regardless, and the sight of Dax seemed to portend trouble. Gerry didn’t want to kill him on his own property and in a quiet neighborhood with an unsilenced weapon unless it was necessary, though.

  Then he saw the phone, and killing Dax Blackwell became less of a concern. The phone was the whole point, and somehow the kid already had it.

  Standing in his kitchen, Gerry was no longer thinking about the arrangements he’d made in Old Orchard or the suppressed handgun that was under his driver’s seat, the one that already had a bullet chambered for Dax. The phone had all his attention.

  It was the right phone—no signal, a clone, and with a lock screen featuring a picture of the girl. Everything about this was good news except for the last.

  “How do you unlock it?” Gerry said.

  “Either with facial recognition or a code name.” Dax leaned laconically against the counter. “But does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters!”

  “Why?”

  Gerry lifted his head and stared at the kid. He was standing there in the shadows, slouching and wearing his hoodie and the dumb friggin’ baseball cap, same as always.

  “If you can’t open it, then it’s not worth a shit.”

  “Were you hired to open it?” Dax said. “Or just pro
vide it to your client? My understanding was that he wouldn’t even want you to wonder too much about it.”

  Gerry’s angry rebuttal died on his lips. It was a fair point. He could do more harm than good if he even told the German about the lock screen. Let the German deal with it.

  “I do think it could change your price point, perhaps,” the kid said.

  “Change my price point.”

  “Sure. The girl is alive. If your client wants us to bring that phone to her, I can do it. We can unlock it, which I’d assume is your client’s desire. But that’s above and beyond the initial job, isn’t it? Value added should not be free.” He shrugged. “At least, not in my opinion. But it’s your show.”

  Damn right it was Gerry’s show. However, the kid was spot-on. The German was inevitably going to want to get the phone to the girl if this was indeed a biometric lock, and Gerry wasn’t doing that shit for free. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to do it at all, though. This job had been sliding sideways from the beginning.

  “Maybe he wants this thing to disappear, period,” Gerry said, turning the phone over on the counter. It was a perfect replica of an iPhone. “That’s all he wanted for Oltamu.”

  “He wanted Oltamu dead. The phone, he wanted in his possession. If he’d planned on having it destroyed, he could have asked you to do it. But he didn’t.”

  Gerry had made it his business not to ask questions that he didn’t need the answers to, but the German had wanted the phone, and Gerry was curious just what was on this thing that made it so valuable. Already, the German had been willing to go to two million for the job. Gerry hadn’t even had to push to get that much. How much could he get for an unlocked version?

  “Call him and ask,” Dax said, as if Gerry had voiced the question aloud.

  Gerry looked from the phone to the gun and then up at the kid. He couldn’t see his eyes because of the shadow from the black baseball cap, but his posture was the same as it always was, the slouch of a bored delinquent. In this way, he was different from both his uncle, who had a military bearing, and his father, who was always in a state of physical calm but had presence, a means of commanding attention and respect without any alpha-male posturing. The kid would need to grow into that or learn the hard way that he came across as more sullen than sinister. Hard men would look him over and feel like they could test him. The more that happened, the more likely it was that one of them would succeed, and Dax Blackwell would be in a coffin before he was twenty.

  His mind and his hands worked fast, though. He’d killed Carlos and walked away clean; he’d eliminated a pair of difficulties in Maine; he’d called Kaplan’s bluff and found the phone. While Gerry had been scrambling to deal with Kaplan, Dax had been solving problems. Maybe he was right. Maybe this was worth making a call.

  “We’d have to be sure we can get to her,” Gerry said.

  “I can.”

  “Yeah? How? She’s in intensive care, she’s got doctors and nurses and family all over her, and there are cameras everywhere in a hospital.”

  “I’ll get to her,” Dax said, unfazed. “I look the part. A visiting friend from good old Hammel College. I don’t need to stay long—I can just pass through, say a prayer, take a picture.”

  Gerry grinned. The kid could probably play that role just fine. He was young enough to get away with it. “Okay,” Gerry said, straightening. “I’ll make the call. But keep your mouth shut. He’s going to need to think I’m alone.”

  “Sure.”

  It was two in the morning in Germany, but Gerry figured he’d get an answer. He wasn’t even sure if his man was still in Germany. He was supposed to be in the States by tomorrow, so maybe he was on a plane or already on the ground.

  Wherever he was, he answered the phone. They used an end-to-end encryption app that allowed for texting, voice, and video calls. Virtually untraceable, and the messages vanished. The German also used a voice-distortion device, though Gerry had never wasted time on that.

  “Do not tell me there is trouble,” the German said. Through the distortion, he sounded cartoonish, a Bond villain.

  “None on my end,” Gerry said. “Maybe some on yours.”

  “Explain.”

  Gerry did. Told him that Oltamu had put a facial-recognition lock on the phone before he died, and the face wasn’t his but the girl’s. He could get to the girl, he said, or he could hand the device off and let other people deal with it. He didn’t care; his work was done.

  There was some swearing, and then some silence. Gerry was beginning to think he’d made a mistake by allowing the kid to goad him into this when the German said, “Do you know it will work? She is in a coma. Will it work with someone who is in a coma?”

  Gerry looked at Dax, who nodded, pointed at his eyes with two fingers, then moved his fingers up and down.

  “It should,” Gerry said. “She’s got eye movement.”

  Dax gave him a thumbs-up. The kid was so damned cocky. He was also awfully good. In fact, after Dax’s work on this job, Gerry’s faith in him was renewed. The kid was more than a beta-Blackwell; he was the real deal.

  And to think, Gerry had planned to kill him. What a waste that would have been.

  “If it can be done safely,” the German said, “then do it. Otherwise, back off.”

  “Fine,” Gerry said. “And how much is that worth to you?”

  Another pause. Then: “Half.”

  Half was a million. If Dax Blackwell could walk into that hospital, hold the phone up to Tara Beckley’s face, and unlock it, Gerry was three million dollars richer.

  “Fine,” he said again, but he saw Dax shake his head and gesture upward with his thumb. He wanted Gerry to go higher. The balls on this kid. Gerry didn’t respond, just glared at him, and Dax shrugged and jammed his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie.

  “Has to happen fast,” the German said.

  “It will. Or if it isn’t doable, I’ll back off.”

  “We meet at the same place and same time, no matter what. Don’t risk anything that compromises that. I won’t wait.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  They disconnected. Gerry put his phone in his pocket, looked at Dax Blackwell, and smiled. He was feeling warm toward the kid, and why not? He’d just made Gerry an extra million bucks. “It’s on,” he said. “Think you can get to Tara Beckley without trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t push it.”

  “Of course not. What about Kaplan? She’s still out there. She doesn’t have the phone, but she’s still a threat. Somebody ought to meet her in Old Orchard, right?”

  “Ought to be you. You’re the one she’s seen, the one she wants.”

  “It’s personal to her, huh?”

  Gerry was still riding the buzz of an extra million, and problems seemed to be solving themselves, so he nodded. “Yeah, her bullshit was that she’d trade the phone for you.”

  Dax said, “I don’t recall you mentioning that.”

  Gerry hesitated, realizing that he hadn’t brought that up before, then shrugged. “Wouldn’t have mattered much. We’d have taken her tomorrow and gotten the phone. Now it’s even easier. Cleaner.”

  “Because we have the phone.” Dax was watching him intently.

  “Right,” Gerry said. “So tomorrow, it can be quick. No need to waste time. Just clip her and move on.”

  “Where will you be?”

  Gerry frowned. “Taking the phone in.”

  “Where?”

  “The hell business is that of yours?”

  “Abby Kaplan wants to see you. Maybe we should both be there.”

  No, Abby Kaplan wanted to see the kid. The kid would go there and kill her. Or possibly he’d go there and fail, but Gerry had trouble believing that. If the bitch actually appeared, the kid would handle her. And if Abby Kaplan was somehow leagues better than anticipated and had arranged for cops all over the pier, well, Gerry still wasn’t overly concerned about that. Dax didn’t seem like the talking
-to-cops type, and if it turned out he was, Gerry had silenced people in prisons before.

  “Let me handle my shit,” Gerry said, “and you handle yours.”

  He didn’t like the way the kid was looking at him. It was that clinical, under-the-microscope stare, penetrating and yet distant, the look that his father and uncle wore so naturally. The look they’d given those hard boys in Belfast all those years ago.

  As if reading his thoughts, Dax said, “I’ve cleaned it all up pretty well so far. Things had the potential to get out of hand, and now they’re back in my control. Do you still think my father and uncle would have done it better?”

  “They couldn’t have done it any better than this,” Gerry said, “and there were two of them.”

  Dax’s face split into a wide smile beneath the shadow cast by his baseball cap.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Since there’s just me, I’ve got to be twice as good, don’t I? Nobody in my corner. They were good, but there were two of them. I’m solo. I have to reach their level and then push beyond it.”

  “You’re on your way,” Gerry told him, unsettled by the conversation, by the way the kid happily measured himself against dead men. He nodded at Oltamu’s cloned phone, which was still sitting on the counter. “But you got some work left to do. Let’s not waste time.”

  “They liked you,” Dax said, as if he hadn’t heard the instruction. “They didn’t like many people either. But my father once told me that there were only two things I could trust. One of them was Gerry Connors.”

  This was oddly flattering. Gerry had looked out for the kid. Giving him chances, bringing him along in the business. And now, he’d decided to let him live. He’d extend their relationship; grow it, even. It wasn’t too late for that.

  “Glad to hear I earned their trust,” Gerry said. “Who was the second man?”

  “What?”

  “You said he told you to put your trust in two things.”

  “Oh.” Dax laughed. “I confused you, sorry. The second one wasn’t a person.”