Mortal Bonds

by Michael Sears

  But I must have had some scent of guilt around me.

  “Passport.”

  I stopped and handed the officer my customs form and passport. During my ten years running the trading desk, I had traveled to fifty different countries on six continents. Never once had I been stopped by customs on my return. And it had never mattered before.

  “Carrying anything of interest there?” he said.

  “Just documents.”

  “Documents?”

  “Yes. Legal files.” My lips had gone so dry they almost smacked when I opened my mouth.

  “Open the bag, please.”

  The file folders looked up at him, trying to look innocuous. They looked guilty as hell to me.

  He moved the top folder aside and took the one directly beneath it. I couldn’t read the label; I had no idea what was in it.

  The officer opened the folder and pulled out a file of densely worded, very official-looking papers.

  “Do you know what these are?” He held them out to me.

  I did know what they were. I scanned the first page. I couldn’t read it—it was all in German—but I knew exactly what it was. I had five million dollars’ worth of them myself.

  “It’s an annuity,” I said. “A Swiss insurance company annuity. They are all cut from the same template. Standard Swiss boilerplate.”

  Worthless to anyone but the beneficiary, whose name was prominently displayed numerous times on the first page.

  “Then I doubt they fall under the definition of subversive materials, eh?”

  He was making a joke. A customs joke.

  I smiled. It felt like my cheeks cracked.

  He dropped the folder back in the bag and reached in again. This time he pulled out the box with the toy police car.

  “This yours?” he said, smiling.

  One of us was having a good time.

  “It’s for my son. The Kid loves cars.”

  “How old?”

  “Six.”

  “Nice.” He looked at the car again. “Nice car, too.” He put it back in the bag and zippered it up. “He’ll love it.”

  “I hope so.”

  He nodded and handed me my passport. “Welcome home.”

  I was through, having smuggled more than a billion dollars’ worth of various bearer bonds into the country. And a slim folder of Swiss annuities made out to Mistletoe Evans.

  • • •

  THE CROWD OF LIMO chauffeurs, most looking like hearse drivers in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, were pairing off with their rides as I came out. I spied the one with the sign for JASON STAFFORD, a tired-looking, bandy-legged, very short older man who looked like a retired jockey.

  “I’m your fare. Can you get me to the Upper West Side in an hour?”

  He tipped his head to the side, a tic I sometimes employed when about to deliver bad news.

  “The Van Wyck is not looking good. I can do an hour and a half maybe.”

  That still left me a half-hour of cushion before the Kid’s school got out—it was tight. I had wanted to shower and shave and change into clean clothes—and stash the bonds in my apartment—but that could all wait.

  “I’ll follow you.” I gestured to the outer doors.

  “May I?” He reached out to take the tote bag. He had a luggage cart waiting. I hesitated for just a second. There was no sane reason not to relinquish the bag, but about a billion paranoid ones. If he tried to run away with it, I was sure I could overtake him—unless he had his horse out front. I reluctantly handed over the canvas tote, and in a spirit of “all or nothing,” let him place my briefcase on the cart, too. He led the way.

  When he reached the revolving door, I hustled in behind him, earning an exasperated look from the little man. We shuffled our way around and out onto the street.

  The cars, SUVs, and limos were three deep at the curb, all with engines running so the drivers could argue with the attendants that they were not actually “parked,” producing a carbon-rich heat haze that just about pummeled my jet-lagged brain into a state of semiconsciousness. I kept my focus on the cart and my bags.

  The driver stopped at the curb and paused. It occurred to me that the light was with us. Why didn’t he go? I looked at him questioningly and he turned his head away. Then he lurched forward—just as the light turned.

  An oversized white SUV jumped forward and clipped the front of the cart, spilling both bags and tossing my driver to the ground. I leaped over him and ran for the tote bag.

  I grabbed it and turned around. The driver had picked himself up and was screaming, making sure the world knew that, despite his fall, there had been no damage to his lungs or vocal cords. He invoked saints and demons as he described the succession of animals that were most likely responsible for siring the driver of the vehicle—and which orifices had been penetrated at his conception.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the SUV screech to a stop, and the little man jumped in sudden fright, covering his mouth in a burlesque parody of contrition. I almost laughed. Instead I turned just in time to see a hand reach down from the SUV’s passenger door and grab my briefcase from off the ground. Then the big vehicle sped off.

  People were yelling and one of the traffic wardens blew a whistle. I almost yelled myself, but the words died in my throat. I was stunned, not by the assault or the theft as much as by the intricacy of the play. Someone wanted my briefcase. But they could have had it any number of ways. Simpler, less aggressive, less dramatic. It was a feint. I thought of the driver waiting at the curb, not stepping out until after the traffic began to move. Someone had just stolen forty dollars’ worth of chocolate and a five-thousand-dollar memento of my years on Wall Street, and when they discovered that they did not have a hundred million—or a billion—in bearer bonds, they would be back.

  “You all right, there?” the driver yelled at me. “Got your bag? That’s good.” The cart was wrecked and he hauled it back onto the curb. “Here, let me take that for you,” he said advancing on me. “Crazy son of a bitch, eh?”

  They would want me where they could easily find me again. They would want me under surveillance. I remembered the commotion the driver had made—the screaming and cursing—distracting me at just the moment that they had grabbed my briefcase. That may have been a paranoid’s deduction, but it fit all the known facts.

  I grabbed him by the shirtfront and shook him hard. “Who were they?”

  “Christ! I don’t know!” He brushed feebly at my hand and I shook him again.

  “Who are you working for? Those fucking Latinos? The Hondurans? Tell me!”

  “Whaddayou, nuts? Let me go.”

  He sounded sincere, but I thought I could see just the flicker of something else in his eyes. “Who, goddamnit?”

  But he had already recovered and began to play to the audience around us. “Get your hands off me, ya nutter.”

  The crowd was beginning to make noises that they were taking his side—he was the one who had been knocked to the ground.

  “They took my goddamn briefcase!” I yelled into his face.

  “So, whaddya want me to do? I didn’t take it.”

  The traffic warden was headed our way. With a billion dollars in my hand, I could not afford to attract the attention of any official authority, no matter how far down the totem pole. I released the limo driver with a small push, swung the tote bag handles over my shoulder, and marched into the crowd. No one tried to stop me.

  I dodged back into the terminal, wove through the milling crowds, and came out another revolving door next to the cab stand. There was no line—if there had I would have been forced to jump it.

  “Ninety-sixth and Columbus,” I said, settling in and hugging the canvas bag to my side. “Or anywhere around there. Whatever is quickest.”

  | 34 |

  The after
noon pickup traffic jam had already cleared by the time I paid off the cabbie and ran up the block. I checked in with Mrs. Carter anyway.

  “No, you missed them, Mr. Stafford,” she said as though there was no greater sin she could imagine. “They waited. Mrs. Stafford seemed to think you were picking them up in a limousine.” There was no such person as Mrs. Stafford. Hadn’t been in forty years. Even when we were married, Angie had insisted on being introduced by her modeling name, Evangeline, usually followed by “But you can call me Angie. I’m retired now.”

  “How long?”

  “Five minutes.” She gave me a touch of the evil eye.

  “In a cab?”

  “No, they were walking down toward Amsterdam.”

  If I ran I’d catch up in a few blocks.

  “Have a great summer, Mrs. Carter.” I loved being polite to her. It always left her speechless.

  • • •

  THREE BLOCKS SOUTH, I finally saw them a half-block in front of me. I slowed my pace to a brisk walk and watched the Kid and his posse sidewind their way down Amsterdam. Heather was the center, to which the Kid returned and bounced away as he skipped, ran, and darted his erratic way along. Any pigeon he came upon had to be examined until it flew off—perhaps less frightened than unnerved by the Kid’s eyeball-to-eyeball approach. Ivan matched the Kid move for move—a feat much more difficult than it sounds. If the Kid was the receiver, running downfield before breaking to one side or the other frantically, Ivan was the cornerback, matching his movements, anticipating his moves. Angie was the halftime show, perched on heels that should have been covered by the Geneva Convention; alternately strutting and lurching, she made frequent attempts to keep up with the Kid, but had neither the stamina nor the footwear for it. Too often, that left her walking at Heather’s side, a situation that, judging by body language, was extremely uncomfortable for both of them.

  Tom hung back. The safety. He was the only one not watching the Kid. He watched everything else. His movements were all about economy. He didn’t walk so much as he glided.

  Then the Kid fell.

  Heather was used to seeing him fall—he fell often. She turned toward him, but without breaking stride. She could see that this wasn’t a serious fall. Angie didn’t notice at first, her attention having been briefly stolen by a disturbance in the traffic. Ivan and Tom were still becoming acclimated to the Kid. They were bodyguards and their charge was in trouble. Ivan dashed to him, a move that saved the Kid’s life. Tom, for a few short seconds, dropped the ball and took his eyes off the field and focused instead on the Kid.

  The white van veered across two lanes of traffic, slowing as it came. The side door slid open. Angie saw it first. I saw her face register surprise and fear.

  Phwat. Phwat. Phwat. It could have been the sound of someone slapping a folded newspaper into the palm of their hand. It wasn’t.

  The bullets caught Ivan just as he reached the Kid. His body took all three of them, stitching down his right side and throwing him down over the Kid. Angie screamed, flailing her arms and stumbling forward, offering herself as a target in front of the downed Ivan and the boy. Heather was pawing at Ivan, trying to get him off the Kid. Then there was the sound of three more slaps of the newspaper. Angie staggered, her scream cut off mid-note.

  Tom had already swung around, a black automatic handgun having appeared in his right hand. He returned fire, emptying the magazine in a blaze of sharp cracking blasts. I couldn’t move. I wanted to run to the Kid or to Angie, but anywhere I moved would put me in the crossfire, so I stood there, feeling less than useless, hugging the bag of bonds that was the root cause of this disaster.

  Someone inside the van attempted to swing the side door closed and a line of nine-millimeter-sized holes appeared immediately as Tom continued to fire. The door slid back and I could see two men in the rear, one down, the other scrambling to retrieve a gun from the floor of the van. All I could see was a long silencer on a short rifle. The guy didn’t make it. Tom swapped magazines, pulling a fresh one from a back pocket as he calmly walked toward the van. Then he began firing again, slowly, more measured, taking the time to aim. Two men down.

  The passenger door flew open and a hooded figure jumped out brandishing a handgun. He never got off a shot. Three down.

  The driver must have had enough. The van had never completely stopped moving, and now it careened away from the curb, back across three lanes of traffic. Brakes squealed and horns sounded. The van raced across the avenue, diagonally aimed for the next side street. Tom followed, walking out into the street and emptying the second magazine into the retreating vehicle. It slowed, veered to the left, and plowed into a parked Nissan Maxima, setting off the alarm. A short, dark-haired man in a gray suit leapt from the driver’s seat and ran down toward Broadway. Tom had no clear shot. He turned and walked back calmly.

  For the next few seconds there was silence—stillness. It was as though I had lost not only all sense of hearing but all sense of being connected to the tableau in front of me. In defiance of science, logic, and proportion, my world had slid into stasis. Nothing moved; no sounds or smells could be sensed. Then a woman began screaming, and the universe started up again.

  Sometimes seconds take forever. I ran toward the Kid. He was already up, on his feet, more troubled by having been touched by another person than by any of the shooting. Heather was with him, but not doing much more than blocking the Kid’s view of the scene. Judging by her dazed expression, she was far outside of her comfort zone. I looked around wildly for Angie. I saw a red-soled high-heel shoe on the sidewalk. No sign of her. Tom passed me and crouched down by Ivan, helping him up to a sitting position. Where in hell was Angie? Then I saw her, lying between two parked cars, half in the street. There could be no doubt, she was dead.

  She was facedown, lying on one arm, the other extended toward the street. There were two exit wounds in her back, each the size of her fist. Considering the size and violence of the wounds, there was surprisingly little blood. Her heart must have stopped immediately. Her head was tilted at an odd angle, as though she had died looking down at herself, but she had been dead before she hit the ground. Her platinum hair fluttered in the breeze of passing cars.

  I walked to the next break between parked cars, bent over, and was sick. I vomited until I dry-retched. And then I kept retching, as though there were some stickle-backed creature caught in my throat gagging me. I couldn’t breathe, and for a moment I felt as though I might pass out.

  Then Tom took my arm. “I am not here. I take boy.”

  “What? You can’t leave,” I said. Where was the Kid? “The police will be here any minute.” The woman was still screaming, but other voices, shouting, angry, afraid, and accusatory, were adding a chorus to her single-note aria.

  “Ja. I go.”

  The Kid was back down sitting on the sidewalk, rocking back and forth and grunting furiously. There was a small smear of Ivan’s blood on his black pants.

  “Oh, shit. Heather!” I yelled. “Get him home and changed. Now.” I looked around. Heather was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with a faraway glaze. She looked like the poster child for PTSD. “Heather!” Shit.

  I made sure the Kid was not choking himself with his tongue, a recent addition to his arsenal of self-assault. His eyes were open slightly and I saw his fingers flying in their peculiar rhythmic manner. He was stimming, trying to gain control.

  “Good man,” I whispered. “You’re doing fine.”

  I looked back. There was no way he could have seen his mother’s body, though what he would have made of it was a question I wasn’t ready to face.

  “Come on, Kid. I love you. I need you to pull it together here. Please, son. Let’s get you home.”

  Tom bent down and spoke to Ivan. Ivan handed Tom his gun and gave him that brave, stoic stare that the wounded guy in the movie always gives when the hero has to leave him
behind in order to save the rest of the team. He wasn’t dying, but he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry unless it was in an ambulance.

  The other pedestrians were still hanging back. No one was running away, but no one was approaching to offer help. I suddenly saw them as Tom did. Witnesses.

  I grabbed his arm. “Go. I’ll do what I can. But go. Now.”

  Tom stood up and pointed to Heather. “Bring boy. We go.”

  Heather looked to me. For direction? Consolation? Reassurance? I didn’t have any.

  “Do what he says.” I turned back to my son. “Go with Heather, Kid. She’ll get you cleaned up.”

  I could see the flashing lights far down Amsterdam. The cops would be there in seconds. What the hell was I going to tell them? The whoop-whoop of the sirens punctuated my question. They were coming from all directions.

  The truth. Or something like it.

  I looked at the body lying half in the street. Angie looked tiny. She had never looked small to me before. Slight sometimes or thin—my thumb and first finger could encircle her wrist with room to spare. But in death, she was shrunken.

  I held my hand out to the Kid, palm down. After a moment, he stopped rocking and sniffed it. Then he stood up and held out his own to me. I bent over and sniffed it. Our private ritual.

  “You go with Heather, bud. I’ll be home in a little while.” The sirens were getting closer.

  “Now is good.” Tom looked like he was finally starting to fray at the edges a bit.

  I kept my body turned to block the Kid’s view of Angie. He looked down at Ivan, who was leaking blood all over the sidewalk but otherwise seemed clear-eyed and aware.

  “Bath,” he growled. “Bath.”

  “Yes, I hear you,” I said. “You’re angry, right? That man touched you.”

  “Bath.”

  “Yes, Heather will get you a bath. But don’t be angry. That man saved your life, Kid. He’s a good man.”

  He thought about that for a moment. It didn’t compute, so he shook it off. “Bye,” the Kid said. He turned and looked for Heather.