Premonitions

by Jamie Schultz

“New plan,” Karyn said. “Grab the table and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Take the whole table?” Anna said.

  “Tommy, you said if we pick the item up off the table, the alarm goes, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think so.”

  “So we take the table. Now.”

  The table was a glorified nightstand, big enough for a lamp and a few books. Anna picked up one end as Tommy lifted the other. “Go,” Anna said.

  Karyn moved to the bedroom door, listened, and opened it for the other two. Once they were through, she moved as quickly as she could to the stairs. A glance down revealed nothing. “Come on,” she said, starting down the stairs. “Be careful.”

  She thought she glimpsed the faintest flash of white as Anna rolled her eyes, but she ignored it. She reached the bottom of the stairs and peered around the corner into the main gallery. A light flicked on in a room across the way, and distant, ghostly snatches of conversation drifted across the space to her.

  Anna and Tommy reached the landing behind her, and she waved them forward frantically. Go, go, go! Any second now, a half-drunk couple or a security guard was going to come walking through here, and then they’d be screwed.

  The three of them scurried across the gallery floor like roaches heading for cover, every breath and scrape of shoe ringing in Karyn’s ears. The conversation in the far room ebbed, and a woman giggled. Something fell, clattering to the floor. Anna and Tommy moved faster.

  Another low exchange came from the lighted room, and Karyn swore she heard the word “upstairs” clearly above the rest.

  Then they were in the hall they’d come in from. The front door was just after a little jog in the hall. A clatter of drunken footsteps came from behind them as Anna and Tommy hustled the table around the bend and out of sight.

  “Quickly,” Karyn said. “That guy’s gonna be really pissed in another minute or so.”

  “We go right out the front door, I suppose?” Tommy asked.

  Anna nodded. “You know it. Just give me a sec.” She set down her end of the table and crossed the short foyer to the front door, wood with a gleaming oval of translucent stained glass. A shadow fell across the window.

  Anna held her eye to the tiny peephole in the center. Ten seconds passed. Twenty.

  “Not a lot of time here,” Karyn said.

  Karyn saw the set of Anna’s shoulders stiffen for a fraction of a second, and then Anna moved. She threw the door open with her left hand while her right moved in a blur from her hip, arcing upward. Before Karyn could even register what was happening, the security guard on the front stair spun around and caught a blast of pepper spray in the face. He threw his hands to his eyes and Anna planted a foot in his crotch. As he fell, she stepped casually forward and plucked the gun from his belt, then his radio.

  She leaned down over his huddled form and whispered something. Whatever it was, the man huddled into a ball and whimpered.

  Karyn was already moving to take Anna’s place at the table. She and Tommy crossed the threshold, and then the cry went up from inside, inarticulate shouting echoing down the stairs and through the gallery.

  Anna closed the door, and Tommy and Karyn carried the table across the lawn, as quickly as they were able, to where Nail was waiting in the van.

  Chapter 2

  Anna eased into a slick leather booth with a clear view of the door, slid a rolled-up paper bag under the table, and tried not to make eye contact with the waiter. No luck. He came over, frowned at the way she was dressed, and pretty much demanded she order something just by the way he was standing. She sent him running for a twelve-dollar beer, the cheapest thing on the menu. This place was a lot more upscale than the kind of shithole she liked to hang out at on her own time, but most of her clients didn’t want to be seen walking into that kind of establishment, and Clive Durante was no exception.

  She was fifteen minutes early, as usual. Clive was a good client, reliable and unlikely to pull any bullshit, but that wasn’t a reason to get sloppy. She pushed into the corner, put a foot up on the bench, and scoped out the room. Not too crowded at this late hour, but busy enough that a low murmur of talk and faint, repetitive techno piped through overhead speakers made it hard to eavesdrop, if you kept your voice low. Lots of white and silver tablecloths, standing out against a backdrop of black tables and black leather cushions. She’d already managed to put a dusty gray footprint on one of the latter, but that didn’t matter. They wouldn’t throw her out for that. Wouldn’t want to make a scene.

  She drank her beer and fought down a nagging unease about the swag. It had taken a hell of a lot more than ten or fifteen minutes for Tommy to kill the alarm on the object, and they’d ended up having to take the whole mess—table and all—back to Tommy’s creepy basement workshop. When it was done, Tommy’d run a shaking hand over the field of stubble on his head. Then he’d crossed his arms, wiry and tattooed in the white tank top undershirt he always wore, and shrugged. The actual object didn’t have any more mystical powers than his gym socks, Tommy had said, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t valuable. Maybe that was why it had been all magicked up. He hadn’t said it with much conviction, though.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Clive had put in an order for something that didn’t live up to its billing, and he hadn’t minded in the past, but Anna worried anyway. He’d been real good to Karyn’s crew over the last few years, and Anna would hate to burn him, or the relationship. He wasn’t the kind of connection you could replace overnight.

  At nine p.m. on the dot, the restaurant door swung open. Anna got one good look at the man who walked in, and she swore under her breath. The guy’s name was Gresser, so naturally everybody called him Greaser, at least when he wasn’t around. He had a face that looked like it had been pushed in by an enormous fist, a two- thousand-dollar suit, and an attitude that could make a hyena run off to look for better company. Rooms cleared when he walked in, because anybody who recognized him suddenly remembered somewhere they had to be. People on his bad side got out to avoid getting damaged, and people on his good side made themselves scarce so that he wouldn’t be tempted to ask them any favors. It was an open question whether it was better to be in his good graces than not.

  Curiously, Anna had never heard a story about Greaser so much as laying a finger on anyone. He didn’t have to. When you were Enoch Sobell’s strong right arm, fate went out of its way to smite your enemies for you.

  She’d seen him once across a crowded room, just as that room started to become miraculously uncrowded. She’d been smart enough to go with the flow and ease out the nearest exit at the time, but that wasn’t an option this time, not unless she wanted to spend the next few days trying to track down Clive Durante and do some heavy-duty explaining. She pushed against the wall and sank down in her seat, looking away from the door.

  In her peripheral vision, the big man’s shape just got bigger. Silence, surrounding him like a cloud, approached—and then he sat on the bench across the table from her. She looked up, meeting a pair of small, piercing eyes.

  “Anna Ruiz,” Greaser said. His voice was soft, and Anna found herself sitting up and leaning forward to make sure she heard everything. “Expecting someone?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You ain’t him.”

  “You run with Karyn Ames’s crew.”

  “Vice President of Business Development,” she said, trotting out the same joke she always used. It seemed a lot more tired today than usual.

  “That’s good,” Greaser said. “Clever. You know who I am.”

  It didn’t sound like a question, but Anna nodded just to be on the safe side. She wished the guy would break eye contact for a second. Blink, even.

  “You know who I work for.”

  Another nod, this one more emphatic. Let’s make sure there’s no misunderstandings here, Anna thought. She was surprised to note a thread o
f excitement in her anxiety. He was looking for her, specifically. Everybody said Greaser was bad news, but if the crew got in with him, this meeting could open a lot of doors.

  Could also fuck us nine ways to Sunday if we screw it up, she reminded herself. She glanced toward the door. Was Durante coming or what?

  “Good. Then you know not to jerk me around.”

  “Sure.”

  “Your crew’s got a good reputation. Discreet, thorough, and never caught with your pants down. Is it true Ames is psychic?”

  Anna kept her gaze steady. “We don’t talk about that.”

  Greaser’s piglike eyes widened fractionally. His grin followed a second later. It didn’t improve his looks any. “Good. I like that.” He paused. “You have something for me?”

  Anna’s heart sped up a notch. “For you? No.”

  “Mr. Durante is no longer a buyer. Seems he lost interest.”

  Anna ran the options. Could be a bluff, in which case she should hold out for Durante’s arrival. But Greaser knew the client’s name, knew where he was supposed to be. Most likely, then, Durante had been run off. That wasn’t gonna be good for future business. Anna steeled herself. “Price hasn’t changed.”

  Greaser reached into his jacket and pulled out a manila envelope, the motion quick enough that Anna didn’t have to spend more than half a second wondering if he was going to take out a gun and shoot her right there. “Fifty thousand,” he said, and he tossed the envelope on the table. “Now, the object? Unless you want to sit here and count the cash first.”

  Durante she trusted not to fuck her over, but not this guy. Still, she didn’t want to count fifty thousand dollars in the middle of a restaurant, in full view of the handful of people left in the room. She reached under the table, produced the bag, and plopped it down in front of her. Greaser unrolled the top and looked inside.

  “Charming,” he said. He slid the bag out of the way, close to the wall, and produced another envelope. It was large, fat with papers. “Here’s the job,” he said, pushing it across the table.

  “Job?”

  “Yeah. Did you think I was here for the conversation?”

  “What if we don’t want it?”

  The big guy shrugged. “Don’t take it. You guys are good, but for two million dollars, I can get ‘good’ lined up all the way down the block.”

  Anna’s mouth fell open. She knew she looked like a complete amateur, but she couldn’t help it.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Greaser said, and he got up to leave. Anna was still speechless as he took the paper bag and walked away. He didn’t even look back, just opened the door and walked out.

  As the door swung slowly shut behind him, she saw him dump the paper bag in the trash.

  Chapter 3

  When Anna came out of her room, satchel in hand, Nail felt his face shape itself into a grin. Payday, he thought, and not a single day too soon. Hard not to feel good about that.

  “There you go,” Anna said, dropping the satchel on the table. “That’s what you get for all that clean living.”

  He couldn’t miss the anticipation in the air, but nobody moved.

  The satchel sat in the middle of the cheap card table that was practically the only furniture in the living room of the cheap apartment Karyn and Anna shared. The place was a testament to just how little stuff a couple of people could live with. There was the table, a handful of folding chairs, and, lonely in the corner, a black leather beanbag chair. The door to Anna’s room on the left, Karyn’s on the right, and only the stained gray carpet in the middle. The two women had lived like this as long as Nail had known them, going on eight years now. Karyn said it was so there was less stuff to pack if they had to leave in a hurry, and he supposed that was part of the story. She didn’t like to go into a lot of detail about her gift, but he’d seen it in action enough times to understand some of the basics. She saw things, usually things that were gonna happen in some way, and it wasn’t hard to see why she might want to keep things around her simple. Less confusing that way. Less worry about what’s real or not.

  Around the table, everyone stood behind one of the folding chairs. This was part of it, a piece of the odd ritual that had developed over years of working together. Anna was at the place to Nail’s right, one hand on the back of her chair, thin as a bundle of sticks but one of the toughest people he’d ever met. Black hair fell in lazy waves just past her chin, and her dark eyes darted around the room, scanning everything, never stopping, not even here where he’d have thought she was as safe as anywhere. To Nail’s left stood Tommy, restless as always, nearly bouncing as he shifted his weight back and forth. He was like a scrappy little dog who’d never figured out that he wasn’t as big as the other dogs, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Nail had given him a raftload of shit a couple of years back when he’d taken to shaving his head, just like Nail himself, probably because he thought it would make him look tough. The result wasn’t pretty. Nail took that shit seriously—there was not a trace of stubble on the dark skin of his scalp—but Tommy half-assed it, so that his pink head was covered in very short, patchy growth, like a lawn mowed by a careless drunk. Tommy took all Nail’s ribbing in stride, and he never did let his hair grow back out. Every week he at least ran some clippers over his skull.

  Across from Nail, Karyn studied the satchel, arms crossed in front of her. It had been only the last year or so Nail had noticed the faint lines at the corners of her eyes, the filaments of gray in the brown bundle of her tied-back hair. Nothing surprising about that—none of them were twenty years old anymore, and he himself had dots of white stubble cropping up on his chin on the rare occasions he let that go more than a day—but lately it was more than just getting a little older. Her eyes seemed like they peered out from dark hollows, and she was jumpier than she used to be. Every time he really let it register, it made him uneasy. She was the rock, the pillar that held this whole thing up, and he wondered about the strain she was under.

  All eyes were on Karyn, waiting. This part was as immutable as Thanksgiving dinner now. Anna always made the drop—sometimes alone, sometimes not, depending on the client—and always brought back the cash, but Karyn gave the word.

  “Everything go OK?” Karyn asked.

  “We got paid, if that’s what you mean. Not by Durante, though.”

  “By who?”

  “Joe Gresser.”

  Karyn frowned. Nail vaguely recognized the name, but couldn’t quite remember from where.

  “What did he want?” Karyn asked.

  “We can talk about that later. Just . . . you know. I don’t trust the guy, so you might wanna look at this one extra hard.”

  Karyn studied the satchel for another moment. Nail was never sure what she was looking for at this point. The job was done and the money was here, so if they were going to get fucked somehow, that fucking would already be in motion. What would the money tell her?

  She opened the bag and poured out the contents. Five thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills, rubber-banded together, fell out. No scorpions, snakes, demons, or razor blades fell out with them, at least not that Nail could see. Karyn’s face was impossible to read as she stared at the pile.

  “All right,” she said. Everyone in the room let out a slight breath. Nail smiled broadly.

  “Everybody got their accountant hat on?” Karyn pulled out a chair and sat, and the others followed, crowding around the table. She divided the money up into four roughly equal stacks and handed them out. A few moments later, the counting was over. Nail had a hundred too much, Anna was a hundred short, so they straightened that out. “All right. Pass ’em to the left.” An unnecessary part of the ritual these days, Nail thought, even though it had been his suggestion way back when. He took his stack from Anna and pocketed it without counting. Only Tommy ever bothered to go through the motions of double-checking anymore, and that only because
he liked counting up his riches so much.

  “Celebration time,” Tommy said, grinning. “Who’s got the cards?”

  * * *

  “I’m done. I’m done! Hell with you guys,” Tommy said, throwing his cards down.

  The game had been going for hours, and thousands of dollars had moved across the table one way, then another. It was hard to tell who was up how much, but Nail didn’t need to see the dwindling stack of bills in front of Tommy to know his luck had been for shit all night—he’d seen it in operation, one lousy hand after another. “I keep this up, I’ll be out my whole share,” he said.

  “You didn’t do shit anyway,” Anna shot back.

  “Fuck that noise. You guys would be lost without my mad occult skills.”

  Laughter all around, but Tommy had kicked off the wind-down, and the others started taking their cash off the table. The last shots were tossed back, the last dregs of beer drained. Even Anna, usually the last woman standing at these postscore parties, rubbed her eyes and yawned. Nail thought she had the right idea. He was worn down, too, and because he’d needed to be mindful of his cash, the game hadn’t been as much fun as usual. It would be good to get home.

  “You see,” Tommy said, “this is why you don’t play poker with a—”

  “Shut up, Tommy,” Anna said.

  Karyn opened her mouth to laugh, then froze. It was just a moment, the pause between one movement of the second hand and the next, but Nail didn’t miss it. Neither did Anna, who turned in the direction Karyn had been looking.

  Karyn’s expression had gone wary, already recovered from a brief moment of shock, but the pleasant buzz Nail had on vanished, and he found himself standing, pistol in hand.

  “You OK?” he asked.

  Karyn swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah. Just—hey, can you have a look outside? See if you see anything weird?”

  He went to the window, peeked through the blinds. Then he turned the dead bolt, slipped off the chain, and cracked open the door. The sounds of traffic filtered into the room, along with the shouting of the couple in 221—still at it, even at three in the morning. The stairwell was empty. Nail walked to the balcony, saw nothing unusual below, and walked back.