Cut and Run

by Ridley Pearson

  They announced his every step.

  With the first of the sounds, the reluctant bending of unwilling wood, Paolo turned toward the improvised hallway and the second-floor banister beyond. Someone was coming.

  Hope saw the intruder fix on her. He’d not so much as given the bolster a second look until he’d seen the pillow that belonged in it at the bottom of the closet floor. Then he turned and looked right at her-right at the tiny gap in the zipper through which she looked. Right into her eye.

  He took a cautious step toward her. Then another, to the edge of the bed.

  As a sound in the hall distracted him, she made her move. With her left hand, she stripped the zipper open. With her right, she pushed the can of oven cleaner out of the bolster, sitting up simultaneously.

  He sensed her and turned.

  She threw herself forward, aimed for his face, and pressed the button, the can issuing a hiss of white spray that grew into foam as it contacted his skin. The cleaner covered the right side of his face, bringing a scream of pain, and she kept spraying.

  The burning began at once.

  With the pain, Paolo’s finger involuntarily flexed on the trigger and the weapon fired wildly. Its recoil sudden and more than he’d have expected, his wrist was jerked violently back and, as he reached to stem the agony in his right eye, he dropped the weapon completely.

  He lashed out blindly with the razor in his left hand, transferring it effortlessly to his right, and continuing to slash the air. The back of his calf caught the low coffee table and he went down backward, first to sitting, then rolling off the table.

  Footsteps charging up the stairs.

  The burning in his eye and on his nose and lips was more severe than anything he’d imagined and only grew worse. More spray hit him and again he lashed out at his attacker. Coming to standing, he caught blurry sight of the open door to the next bedroom and, feeding down from it, a second stairway-a back stairs. Everything inside him resisted turning his back on someone approaching. The person would shoot him dead.

  He leaped for the door.

  Larson, now at the top of the stairs, ran toward the gun’s report. He slipped on the hallway rug, banged into the doorjamb of the small television room, and an arm came down onto him as a gray blur. Heat penetrated the back of his right hand and his gun fell out of his hand as he realized he’d been cut.

  Hope lay on the floor in some kind of sleeping bag, struggling to get her legs out.

  A swipe came at his neck.

  Larson jerked away from the attempt. He kicked out and connected with the intruder, who slammed against the open closet door but came back at Larson like a boxer off the ropes.

  The razor whooshed past Larson’s right ear. He ducked and kicked out again, this time spinning the man.

  Larson regained his balance and delivered the tight knot of a fist squarely into the space above the man’s hip bone, pounding deeply for the kidney and bending him backward in pain as he connected.

  Incredibly, the intruder spun as if never struck. Their arms tangled. Larson defended against the razor by first blocking an intended blow and then grabbing the man’s wrist. They banged together like a pair of wrestlers, still on their feet. Larson won purchase on fabric and pulled. Buttons flew. Fabric tore. The intruder’s shirt tore open. Two dozen red raised scars screamed from his bare chest. Random lengths and shapes. Some old and thick and hardened, as if recut many times. Some pink and raw and new.

  Larson froze. He’d never seen anything like this.

  The intruder caught him with a toe in the groin, snapping Larson over in pain. Inexplicably, he did not feel the razor run its course down his back. Instead, he heard the familiar sound of feet fading away from him. A crashing downstairs.

  Then, gone, as he glanced at a wide-eyed Hope.

  “Are you hit?”

  “No.”

  “Get the gun,” he said, sliding it across the floor as he retrieved his own. “Into the bathtub for cover-lock the door-now!” His last words faded behind him as he entered the mouth of the stairs and scrambled down into the waiting darkness.

  A locked house proved as difficult to get out of as to get into. The intruder-Rodriguez?-made for the kitchen’s back door, but struggled with the antique twist-knob dead bolt, found it an impasse, and turned. This in the same time it took Larson to descend the steep back stairs.

  Larson got off a round-given the angle more of a statement of his presence than a kill shot. The bullet took out an old hand-painted plate in the hutch on the far wall. Splintered pottery rained down, tinkling and clinking as it landed. Larson raced down and into the kitchen but slowed as he reached the door that connected through to the front entry in case the killer planned any surprises.

  He heard the front door-a rattle of chains and locks. A loud bang as it thumped the wall, reeling on its hinges. The humph, humph, humph of the intruder running off the porch. And then, as the man hurried away, the crackling of sticks… autumn winds.

  Larson, like someone late off the blocks in a track meet, now followed behind as fast as his powerful legs would carry him, as fit and as solid as he’d ever been, the morning training on the river engorging his muscles, arms pumping like pistons as his right hand still clung to the weapon, slightly warmer, it seemed, from his firing that shot. A hundred yards and closing the distance, judged only by the sound of the other, the smudge of gray charcoal that might have been a man obscured in the foggy haziness of night.

  Larson made it another fifty yards before his own voice, whispering dryly from the back of his brain, asked about Hope and who was guarding her now, asking how certain he was that there’d been only one intruder. With the killer went a chance to find Penny. And Markowitz. Guilt-torn and fearful, his groin aching, his nerves raw from having discharged the weapon, the smell of cordite still bitter in his sinuses, Larson slowed and reversed directions. He pulled out his cell phone but then thought better of it.

  Compromised. Rotem had said so himself. How many other such moles? How many secrets leaking from FATF’s splintered hull? He put his phone away.

  His priorities certain now, Larson returned to the farmhouse, intent on getting her out of here. Rotem would have to handle the cleanup. He and Hope would sleep, if they slept at all, in a downtown condominium a friend had been trying to sell to Larson since the middle of summer. He’d say he’d picked up a woman downtown, and if there was ever a time for him to demo the place it was on this night of all nights. He would arrange for the key to be left. See no one. Make contact with no one. There would be no more connection made between Hope and him and the Service. They would go it alone.

  Some old dog began barking as a car fired up far in the distance.

  Thoughts competing in his head, Larson hurried inside and called out for her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Blinded by the corrosive chemicals in his right eye, Paolo drove one-handed, covering his bad eye to block the blurring double vision that turned the interstate into a rainbow of stretched lights.

  He headed for the motel but missed a turn somewhere and finally exited off 270 south onto Manchester Road, which teemed with traffic even at this late hour. He drove east, past the onslaught of strip malls and chain stores. Spotting a Shell station on his left, he pulled up to the back of it, hoping for a restroom accessible from the outside, only to realize he would have to go inside if he wanted water on his face, and inside meant witnesses and security cameras.

  Then he spotted the automatic car wash-three minutes of peace, a chance to collect himself, maybe even water for his face. But getting his car caught in an automatic car wash made no sense. He crossed back into traffic and found a McDonald’s. He pulled the car around to the drive-up microphone, his eye stinging and throbbing, leaking tears like a faucet. He ordered fries-feeling he had to pay for something-and a large cup of water, no ice.

  He awaited change at the first window, keeping his head aimed down, and his hand up to screen any sight of him. Dodging the change
from the two dollars might make him memorable. Once in possession of his order, he tossed the fries onto the passenger seat and raced the car ahead to a parking space. Hanging out the car door, he doused his eye. As the water hit, he clenched his teeth, the pain hot.

  He sat up, switched on the interior light, and aimed the rearview mirror. He saw a red, swelling mass, oozing yellowish fluid. He pried his unwilling eye open between trembling fingers, gathered his courage, and touched the eyeball itself, in an effort to clear it. But the plastic of his contact lens had melted and adhered to his eyeball. Real terror ripped through him. Blind? The end of his career. He’d be relegated to sweeping sand traps on the Romeros’ eighteen-hole golf course.

  The fear encouraged more pain, the pain more fear.

  He knew he had to extricate the lens. To leave it invited infection, possible blindness, and unbearable pain. Leaning out of the car, he once again splashed his face and eye, once again cringed. He stabbed at it with his fingers, squeezing and pinching, but it was no use. The excruciating pain left him feeling faint. It was glued onto his eyeball. He was stuck with it.

  He had to get to the motel. Had to handle the little girl. Had to handle his eye. Still had to take care of Hope Stevens, Alice Stevenson-the mark.

  His fear graduated to panic; pain to agony. His world caved in around him. Philippe would recall him. He’d be sweeping tennis courts. He’d be the guy with that face. The mirror showed blisters already forming on the rim of his eyelids, his nose, and the corner of his mouth-anywhere the chemical came in contact with him. The red swelling now included most of the right side of his face. Any such memorable features were impossible for a man of his trade. Anonymity was crucial. He had to fix this before it changed his life forever, and by the look of him, he had to do it fast.

  He needed soap and water. He needed the contact lens removed.

  Painkillers.

  Through shifting, blurring colors of passing traffic, streetlights, and walls of neon, swirls of light, he spotted a building across the street that represented some help: Mason Ridge Veterinary Clinic and Animal Hospital.

  He carefully backed the car out of the spot.

  For now, the girl would have to wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Penny lay in the bottom of the bathtub on top of the towel, her knees taped together. She couldn’t bend her legs and reach the piece of broken crockery hidden in her sock. Couldn’t cut herself free. She’d been here for so long she was beginning to wonder if the man with the scars was ever coming back, or if he’d just left her for good. The tub was slippery. She could rock back and forth but could not get her legs up and out and over the edge, could not get out of the tub.

  She’d tried a dozen different things, at one point accidentally rolling over so that she lay facedown on the towel. It had taken her several tries to get back over onto her back. Her flailing efforts reminded her of a turtle she’d had- Cheyenne -and how her mother had made her leave it behind on one of their many moves.

  If she could get out of the tub, even taped as she was, she thought she might hop to the door, maybe bang her head against it as someone passed. Do something. But trapped in the tub she felt helpless.

  Frustrated, Penny rocked and bucked, which only served to bang her head against the tub, and that hurt. She quieted again, remembering her mother’s lessons on patience, that everything took time, sometimes more time than we wanted, and there were “more ways than one to skin a cat.”

  At that moment, at the height of her telling herself to be patient, her mother so fully in her mind that it felt to her as if she, her mom, were sitting on the toilet while Penny took a bath, her mom finger-combing her hair the way she did when she was tired and talking to herself, Penny heard her mother say, “Look for the obvious.” “Don’t fight the easy answer.” It was then, at that moment, that Penny finally did see the obvious, saw what had been facing her throughout her entire ordeal, facing her like a giant’s eye, and she thought that without Mommy she never would have seen it, and that made her sad and all the more desperate to be out of here.

  The tub’s faucet, its single lever right before her eyes.

  She wiggled, moving herself incrementally toward the drain, stiffened her elbows, and rocked her bottom like playing bucking bronco. Her feet jumped up, though she could not hold them there. She tried again. And again. The third time, the tape around her ankles snagged on the pull-up lever on the top of the spigot, a lever that started the shower. Her feet were held aloft.

  One more heave, and her toes smacked the faucet.

  Cold water trickled out.

  Another try and the valve opened and the water gushed out.

  Shivering, she wrestled her feet free of the spigot.

  She felt the water collecting. When the maid had finished cleaning, she’d left the tub’s stopper down, plugging the drain.

  The tub slowly filled with cold water.

  A moment later she felt the first tingle of her body rising with the water. Floating toward the top of the tub.

  She cried at the thought of seeing Mommy again; her freedom might now be within reach.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Paolo roughly broke through a glass window using the corner of a shipping pallet at the back side of the Mason Ridge Veterinary Clinic and Animal Hospital. The sounds of barking dogs erupted from within. Hearing a burglar alarm, he moved quickly. These kinds of suburban neighborhoods were well patrolled, especially along the commercial district. The cops were typically bored and appreciated a good break-in to pick up a slow night.

  Stepping through, he found himself in a small bathroom. He grabbed a pair of latex gloves from an open box and donned them. The dogs continued to battle the alarm. Door by door, he worked his way past two examination rooms, an office, and the waiting room. The place smelled of dry dog food, medicines, disinfectant, cedarwood shavings, urine, and feces.

  Having marked his watch at the moment of break-in, he estimated he had less than five minutes before the police arrived. In New York City or Los Angeles he might have had twenty to thirty minutes. Not here in Middle America.

  He found the stockroom, located a pair of locked cabinets, and used a stainless-steel surgical device to pry it open. He trained his one good eye toward it in the dim light: The shelves were stacked with cloth-wrapped surgical gear. As he turned his talents to the second cabinet, he noticed he’d ripped open the surgical glove on his right hand. Fingerprints! He glanced behind him, attempting to quickly catalog all the surfaces he’d touched. When had it torn?

  As it happened, the idiots used their sirens. He heard the mechanical cries growing louder, but they still sounded far off.

  The second cabinet succumbed.

  He searched the five shelves of prescription drugs, reading for the base compound instead of the brand name, as vets called their drugs by different names.

  He pocketed some high-dose antibiotics and finally, mercifully, located a synthetic opiate-a painkiller.

  He would have liked to search for a salve for the blistering on his face, but no. The wash of headlights on the windows signaled the arrival of a patrol car far sooner than he’d anticipated.

  He hurried back through the building to the window through which he’d come, not trying for his car, eager to disappear up into the woods on the hill behind the small clinic.

  Minutes later, he dry-swallowed two of the large pain pills and squirted saline solution onto his swollen face.

  Never resting, he pushed up through the woods, reaching a clearing shared behind three large homes, all with garages.

  Garages meant cars or bicycles.

  From a distance, he could see down to the roof lights of the patrol car flashing red, white, and blue across the vet clinic.

  The painkiller wouldn’t kick in for a half hour or so, and by that time he hoped to have ridden a bus back to the motel, hoped to be numb to the sensation of the razor’s edge, and the punishment he so craved.

  He would still have t
o deal with the little girl.

  He wondered how tough she was, how badly she wanted her freedom, and whether she possessed the courage to remove the melted contact lens from his swelling eye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “What now?” Hope asked. She carried a small bundle of intimates and clothing cradled in her arms. “You want me to wash yours as well, you’re going to have to get out of them.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You could use it.”

  “This is all I’ve got,” Larson informed her.

  “That’s my point,” she said.

  He’d risked a quick stop at Target to buy them both some clothes. She was laundering what she’d changed out of.

  The condominium they occupied overlooked construction on a new baseball park for the Cardinals, and, beyond it, the tiny moving lights from Highway 40. From the corner of the living room, they had a view of a gambling casino on the Mississippi, an eyesore in Larson’s opinion.

  Larson took a minute to don the sweatpants and sweatshirt. Their clothes joined in the washer. He thought this oddly significant. Wondered if this was but the first of such nights together.

  He heard her setting the timer. She seemed more settled.

  She returned to the kitchen, searched the refrigerator and the cabinets, but of course no food. “We’re going to have to order in.”

  He wondered if this ease of hers had come with the shower or the attack on her. Or had she simply resigned herself to the fact that he now represented her daughter’s only real chance? Or, like him, did it run deeper than that?

  She slid down into an IKEA chair and placed her elbows on the table. “Let’s say they never call me back,” she proposed from a distance. “How do we go about finding her?”

  Larson took a chair facing her. “It’s a two-step process. Our best shot, our most likely prospect, remains Markowitz.”

  On the way to the condo, he’d told her all he knew about Markowitz. Hope already had a better grasp of the computer and technology aspects of the case than he did.