by Evelyn Glass
And then what? I ask myself. Anna begins snoring softly beside me, and after a moment I climb onto the couch behind her, spooning her. She moves aside with a soft grunt, without having to think about it, and I wrap my arm around her and hold her close to me, hold her so close that I’m frightened I might be holding her too tightly. But she snuggles into my arm and I know, even in sleep, she wants me to hold her tightly.
I rest my face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her. The outpouring of love that grips me now is sudden and violent. My world reforms around her, the various aspects of my life—the killing, the women, the violence—pushed aside until only Anna, shining out like a beacon, stands before me.
And then what? I ask myself again, and it comes to me, comes to me so starkly that, despite everything, a smile spreads across my face. I kiss the back of her head, laughing quietly when her hair tickles my lips.
The then what that enters my mind is brilliant, fantastic. It’s the then what of a life I never dreamed I would be able to have. The then what that few men like me ever get to experience. Over twenty million . . .
That’s enough for one lifetime, isn’t it? That’s more than enough. We can live in comfort for the rest of our lives for twenty million.
With a shock that causes me to bite down, I think, I don’t have to kill anymore.
I have never dreamed that I would think this, would even want to think this. But life is like that, I guess. That’s what Anna has taught me. Life rarely stays on the course you set it. Things happen, circumstances change, life gets involved.
And then . . .
And my smile grows wider. I kiss Anna and hug close to her, closing my eyes, and drifting into the most content sleep of my life.
###
I leave Anna with Jack’s cell number, telling her to bolt the door behind me and call Jack if anything seems suspicious. But I know that it’s only a precaution. River is in a jail cell now. Not prison, but bars still close around her and that’s a massive improvement from this time yesterday. River is sitting behind bars. Angry, resentful, probably boiling over with rage and plotting a thousand ways to get back at me, but she’s behind bars and that’s all that matters.
I leave early, before seven o’clock, and it takes me around four and a half hours to make a circuit of all my New York safe houses and collect all my cash. When I’m done and I’m driving through the midday half-light to the docks, three briefcases sit on the passenger seat next to me. It’s strange to think that everything I’ve ever done, all the jobs and the murder, all the lives I’ve taken and all the pain I’ve caused—even if it was pain against men who deserved it—can be squashed down to a few briefcases and placed next to me. My life’s work sits beside me, silent, cold and green. It makes me think as I drive, think about the future, Anna . . . Anna most of all, because she’s the point now. More and more, I’m starting to think that my life’s work is over, at least this part of my life. The coldly earning cash part of my life, the killer’s part, has passed. I don’t know what will be next, only that I want Anna with me every step of the way.
But first . . .
As I pull into the dock car park, I think about the last time I was here. I was going to kill her, I think, as I climb from the car. I take the briefcases from the passenger seat, walk around to the trunk, and hide them underneath the secret passage. I open one and take out the cash for Gomez, and when I close it, I place a small tracking device inside the briefcase. If, on the off chance, the car is stolen, I’ll be able to get to it before the thief discovers the hoard of cash. I walk through the cars with wads of cash pressing into my pocket, wondering how different life would’ve been had I just killed River. Outwardly, I know, not much would change except that the cuts and bruises which cover my body and face would not have been there. But inwardly, I would be a changed man, something I never want to become: a woman-killer. It’s been a pain, risky, dangerous, and yet I’m glad I chose the bloodless road.
Officer Gomez waits outside one of the disused warehouses. He’s a squat man, flat-faced, but with an easy smile and stocky muscles. He’s wears a suit just a little too big for him, so that it hangs from his body as though from a clothes rack. As I approach, he flicks his cigarette into the sea and faces me.
“Black,” he says.
“Gomez,” I nod.
We walk down the dock, away from the workmen which buzz around, until we are standing at the edge of the water. I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket and take out the brown envelope. I’m officially a rat now, I think. But I’m not scared or ashamed, like I would’ve been not that long ago. Ratting, in my game, is one of the worst things you can do. Usually, whoever you ratted against would have you killed. But River and her goonies are behind bars, and she has no long-term ties to any crime families. She’s not mafia. She’s freelance, like me. He takes the envelope wordlessly and tucks it into his pocket.
“Enough here to bring her down?” he says.
“Way down,” I say. “Life. She’ll never be free, or, if she somehow cheats the system, it’ll be in at least thirty years. And I’m not the sort of man to borrow the worries of tomorrow against today.”
Gomez nods, takes out a cigarette, and then lights it. He offers me one. I shake my head. “And the other thing?” he says.
I take out two more envelopes, each of them overflowing with bills. He snatches it quickly, and then turns a wide smile on me. “I’m going to build a gaming PC,” he grins. “I’ve got bills, you know, and my landlord is a bit of a prick. Doesn’t respect the badge at all. But who does, eh? Wanted one of these gaming PCs for a while. Four-K. But my mother’s sick and the landlord and . . . well, River is a bad woman, isn’t she?”
I shrug. I find it more difficult to answer that question than I perhaps should. “She tried to hurt somebody very close to me and she’s killed countless people. If anyone deserves to go to prison, it’s her.”
“Well, this’ll do it,” Gomez says, and then takes a long drag on his cigarette. “That NBA player is going to be okay. Might not play for a while, but . . . He’s going to survive, so if that was eating at your conscience, you can let it go.”
“Good,” I say, surprised to find that I am relieved. I love the NBA, have always loved the NBA. I’m not as fanatical about it as I could be, but the idea that I ended a man’s life who has never killed before doesn’t appeal to me. Even in the early days, when I took most jobs I was offered, it was only most jobs where the mark deserved it. “But surely he’s in some shit, too?”
“Oh, yeah, attempted murder,” Gomez says. “But some prisons have sports programs these days, don’t they?”
“No idea. I never want to find out.”
Gomez chuckles. “You know that River was the brother of—”
“I know, yeah. Made a whole lot of sense when I found out.”
“I’m sure it did. What you maybe didn’t know was that we’ve just rescued this NBA player’s sister from a goddamn hole in the ground. River got close to him, seduced him, made the poor guy crazy for her. Then, when they were close and his mind was all messed up, she kidnapped his sister and blackmailed the guy into trying to kill Anna. Don’t know what choice the guy had under those circumstances. But I can tell you this, any motherfucker can kidnap my sister any time he likes. If I have to listen to one more goddamn baby story I’m going to blow my brains out.”
He drags heavily on the last half of his cigarette, drawing it down to the filter, and then exhales through his nose and mouth.
“You know you can’t work in this town anymore, don’t you, Black?” he says as he turns to leave.
“I know,” I say. “Only one person this information could’ve come from. And you know as well as I do what the mob thinks about rats. Not that River was well-loved. But there’s the off chance some white knight might try something on principle.”
“So what’ll you do?”
Gomez stuffs his hands in his pockets and paces away without waiting for an answer. I watch him g
o until he rounds a corner and is out of sight. And then I turn to the sea. Suddenly, the clouds part and bright sunlight lances through and touches the water. It glints and reflects into my face, but I don’t lift my hand to shield my eyes. After all this darkness, a little light is good, welcome. Maybe my life could be like that autumn sky, I think. Years of shrouded cloud until, finally, the clouds part and light passes through.
He’s gone and there’s no need to answer his question, but I do anyway.
“I’ll live,” I say. “I’ll live and I’ll be with Anna. I think that’s enough, now.”
###
I’m driving back to Uncle Richard’s apartment when I pass a jewelry store. It’s one I’ve passed many times in my time in New York. It’s one of those places which cater exclusively to the extraordinarily rich. I’ve never had a reason to go in there before. I certainly never splashed out on River or any of my previous women in such an extravagant way. As if by fate, the traffic is heavy as I pass it and I slow to a crawl, enough to see the rich women that walk in and out of the store. Fake-faced, Botoxed and plastic. One even holds a handbag with the terrified face of a dog poking out between its folds. The door swings open and I watch a glimpse of the inside, the jewelry laid out like glittering pieces of starlight.
I wonder, can a man like me really have a life like that? Can a man like me really do everything I’ve done and be everything I’ve been and still have his happily ever after?
It’s a question I’m only considering because of Anna, Anna who has entered my life and changed it irrevocably. Anna who has the power to shift everything around her. Anna who has me questioning who I am now that all of this is over. River will go down and so will her cronies, Anna is safe, but I can’t stay in New York. There’s no question about that. I’ll have to leave. But will Anna leave with me? Maybe not if she’s just Anna, my girlfriend, my woman. But what if . . .
Giving myself over to spontaneity, I pull into the first free parking space I see. I don’t get out of the car right away. I feel as though I am at a crossroads in my life. I see it, in my mind. But in my mind I am not the man I am now; I am the small boy I was before I learnt of the life. The small boy terrified of Dad’s fist and full of love for kind Uncle Richard, a man I never imagined could do harm to anybody, a man I never dreamt would be known as Black Knight for his brutality. Anna has turned me into that boy again, has pulled away the veils of coldness and anger that surrounded me and revealed the boy underneath. Because he’s still there, I know. He’s still there in everybody, I bet. Whoever you are, whatever turns your life has taken, somewhere, maybe hidden so deep you don’t even suspect he’s there, is the small child you once were, before life took you and warped you.
‘You’re too old to become a philosopher, boy,’ Uncle Richard laughs. ‘There’s nothing in this life worse than a late-blooming philosopher. You love the girl, that’s what you mean, eh? So if you love her, get your ass out of this car and do something about it! Sitting here and thinking won’t get you anywhere!’
I smile to myself, and then step from the car, go to the trunk, and take out enough cash to buy Anna a ring any woman would be proud to receive. As I walk down the street, I find I am nervous. I have been on hundreds of jobs and killed countless men and always, whatever happened, I’ve been able to hold onto my sacred killer’s center. That is something I’ve never lost. But approaching this jewelry shop makes me more nervous than any of that ever did.
What if she says no? I wonder.
A cold spike moves through me at the thought. The jingle of the bell above my head as I enter the store cuts through me.
She can’t say no, she just can’t. For better or for worse, I have placed all my hopes and dreams in Anna’s hands.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Anna
When Samson leaves and the door is bolted, I sit on the couch in my pajamas and think about the future. For the longest time, my future was honed down to one thing: my veterinary work. And while that is still an aspect of my life, a huge aspect that will never be pushed aside, I find that other things are filtering into my mind. I see myself with Samson, not young like we are now, but old, impossibly old (I’m sure nobody ever thinks they’ll grow that old), sitting on a park bench with his hand on my knee. The image changes between the appearance of a smiling dog and a smiling child, our child or grandchild, until it settles on the child leading the dog right up to us with an equally goofy grin on her face. My breath gets quicker as these images cycle through my mind. I wonder if it’s possible to fall in love, truly and deeply in love, over such a short period of time. But I don’t have to wonder for long, Samson and I are evidence of this.
I go to my bag in the bedroom and take out the dress and the jewelry he bought me. Holding the dress up, I admire it. His money no longer seems as important as it did only a few days ago. After some thought, I discover the reason. It’s the arena, everything that happened in there, and the gunshot especially. I still have the ringing in my ears from the shot and I know it will be there for days. When that shot went off, I wasn’t thinking about Samson’s money, his impressive mounds of wealth. No, I was thinking about the dogs and Samson, just Samson. I know now that even if he was poor, we would find a way to make it work. If that’s not true love, true dedication, what is? But that doesn’t mean I don’t love the dress. I strip naked and pull it on, savoring the feel of the fabric against my skin. It’s easily the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever worn.
I dance through the apartment in the dress, spinning around so the hem spins around my thighs, and then I start giggling to myself. God, have I gone mad? I wonder. But that doesn’t seem to matter when you’re in the throes of love. Love has gripped me, lifted me up, and now I’m soaring and nothing else matters. Love blots out everything else, love is everything else.
I think of the night I found Eric stuffed in my car, the confused medley of fear and relief, and then the appearance of this strange man at my front door. He seemed cold, almost jerk-like, and yet I gave myself to him, didn’t I? He was too sexy. That was my reasoning at the time. But now I wonder if I didn’t see something behind his eyes, some potential for what we could become.
“Having fun?”
I stop spinning at his voice, my gaze resting on him. My head waves from side to side and the spinning has caused the ringing in my ear to get worse, but I don’t care. I’m just glad to see him. He stands there in a suit jacket and trousers, shoes, shirt tucked in and highlighting his muscular form. It’s like the first time I spotted him at the NBA game, a rich onlooker, a stylish stranger a woman like me would never meet.
“I guess you could say that.” I smile.
He walks into the apartment holding three briefcases, drops them on the couch, and then comes to me. He reaches his hands out and takes mine, looking into my eyes with his bright sky-blues. He massages his thumb over the back of my hand, rubbing it softly, and slowly a smile spreads across his face. It’s the smile of a mischievous little boy, the smile of a boy who’s been holding something secret and is now bursting with the desire to set the secret free. I feel free and happier than I can ever remember feeling at any other point in my life. When I’m with Samson, it’s like Mom didn’t die, Dad didn’t turn mean and cold, like everything bad that’s ever happened to me is swatted aside in favor of his warmth, his smiling face.
“What is it?” I ask.
He bites his lip and uncertainty comes into his eyes, a flicker of it. “I . . .” He lets go of one of my hands and touches his jacket pocket. “I have something I want to say to you before I . . . Can I just say it?”
“Of course.” I reach up and touch his chin, his day’s growth tickling my hand. “Of course you can, you silly man.”
He takes a deep breath, and then launches into a speech. “For the longest time, Anna, I’ve been focused on finding my center. My killer’s center, I call it. It’s my calm place, my place where I can think clearly and do my job efficiently. It’s a cold place, devoid of any emotion, t
he sort of place a man goes when he wants to kill heartache and distraction, the sort of place a man holds close to him when all he wants is to turn into a well-functioning machine. But now, I find that my killer’s center isn’t enough. I don’t want coldness. I don’t want to just be a machine. I want something more. And you’ve given me that, Anna. You’ve given me that and so much more. How can I be cold around you? How can I feel nothing around you? You’re amazing, the best woman I’ve ever met or will meet. You’re my woman and I want to . . .” He stops, swallows.
I stroke his face. “Go on,” I urge, realizing that there are tears in my eyes, sliding warmly down my cheeks. “Go on, Samson.”
He sinks to his knees, reaches into his pocket, and takes out a ring box.
My hands come to my mouth, a gasp escaping my lips. He tilts his head sideways at me, and it’s hard to tell if his stark azure eyes are glistening with tears or just glistening with life. “Anna Hill, will you marry me?”
