by K. W. Jeter
“Donnie?” I pushed open the door of the bedroom and looked in –
And saw why the apartment had been so quiet when I came home.
He wasn’t there. The bed was empty.
It doesn’t take long to search an apartment small as this one. Bedroom, bathroom, closet and you’re done.
I stood in the middle of the front room, slowly turning around – as though my little brother were actually there and somehow I’d managed to overlook him. If I tried just a little harder, I’d see him . . .
That didn’t work. He was still gone.
My mind raced, trying to figure out what had happened. His wheelchair was gone, as well. He might have been able to get downstairs by himself, crawling down the steps from one floor to the next, all the way to the bottom. But he couldn’t have taken the wheelchair with him.
Which meant that somebody had taken him.
In the world that I used to be in, back when I had been Little Nerd Accountant Girl, that wouldn’t have been a good thing. For somebody to come into the apartment, without me knowing about it, and take Donnie away. For somebody to do it now, in this darker, more dangerous world that I’d moved into – that was a real bad thing.
Maybe somebody was watching me, from down on the street. Looking up to the apartment window and seeing me there, standing in the middle of the front room. Knowing that my brother was gone –
Because that was when my cell phone rang.
I yanked open my backpack and fished it out, flipped it open, and held it to my ear.
“Hey, Kim.” A man’s voice, that I knew I’d heard before, but couldn’t put a name to now. “How you doing?”
“Who’s this –”
“Don’t get so excited. Simmer down.” The voice oozed phony friendliness. And genuine self-satisfaction. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Where’s Donnie?” I turned to the window and looked out, but couldn’t see anything except the streetlights down below. “Where is he –”
“I told you. There’s no need to get excited. Everything’s fine.”
“If anything happens to him –” My killer mode kicked in. “If you even touch him –”
“Now you’re hurting my feelings,” said the amused voice. “We’re having a good time. The two of us. You keep a kid like Donnie cooped up all the time, he wants to go out and have some fun every once in a while. So that’s what we’re doing. Just having some fun.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Sorry. No can do. At least not right at the moment. But like I said – don’t worry about it.”
All of a sudden, it clicked inside my head who the person on the phone was.
“Michael,” I said. “This is Michael, isn’t it?”
“Bingo.” He sounded even more amused. “I’m glad you still remember your old friends. No hard feelings about what happened back at the office, I hope. When you got fired. Just doing my job. You now how it is when you work for somebody like McIntyre. He says do something, you gotta do it.”
“All right.” My voice went low and quiet as I spoke into the cell phone. “You bring Donnie back here, and then we’ll be okay. You and me. That’s all you have to do.”
“Really?”
“Really. But if you don’t – if you do anything to him – then I’ll kill you.”
“Sure you will,” said Michael. “I’m shaking in my boots.”
“It’s a promise. I’m not joking around. Just bring him back here.”
“You know, Kim . . .” He pretended to be thoughtful. “You need to be careful about who you’re hanging around with. Because it’s starting to rub off on you. All this talk about killing people. You didn’t used to be that way. You were a nice girl before. Very respectful and quiet.”
“I got over it.”
“Yeah, apparently –”
“Stop messing around. Just bring my brother back.”
“Well, I might,” said Michael. “When we’re done having fun. I guess it’ll all depend on what he wants to do, won’t it? I just wanted to let you know that everything’s fine. So you don’t have to worry.”
The phone went dead in my hand. I stood gazing at it for a moment, then closed it up.
* * *
I had some major thinking to do.
No way was I going to just sit here and wait for Michael to bring my brother back. If that sonuvabitch had taken Donnie, he had a reason for doing so – and it wasn’t a good one.
And Michael would be counting on me not calling the police about it. He might not have known exactly what I was up to with Cole, but he was sure to have an idea about how deeply I was into something that I didn’t want the authorities to know about. So that possibility, of getting any help from them, was right off the table. I’d have to get a lot more desperate before I got to that point.
I sat down at the kitchenette table, trying to figure out what else I should do.
What about Cole? Maybe I should go back over to the warehouse, tell him what had happened, see if there was anything he could do –
I chewed on one of the whitened knuckles of my tightly clenched fist. I knew already there was no point in talking to Cole. What could he do? He didn’t have any more resources now than I did, not for something like this. At least I could walk and move around – which was something that Cole couldn’t do, not in his crippled condition. And I already had a gun and a full box of ammo that Cole had given to me, tucked at the bottom of my backpack. Also, I knew how to use it. So if it came down to blowing away Michael – if that was what it took to get my brother back – I was just as capable of doing that as Cole would’ve been.
Maybe more so. My thoughts darted ahead, faster and faster, as my fingernails dug into my palm. I was motivated to get Donnie back – he was all I had. Why would Cole want to get involved? He had his own problems now. His own back to watch. If Michael was on to even part of what was happening between Cole and me, the smartest thing for Cole to do might be to pull the plug on the whole operation. And just tell me to get lost, go take care of my problems on my own. Then I’d be really screwed. Not just about ever killing McIntyre, but managing to keep both Donnie and me alive. In the long run, I needed Cole more than he needed me. To keep that going, I had to keep him from knowing that Michael was on to us –
Or at least that was how my thinking went. The problem with trying to figure out stuff like this under pressure is that there are no do-overs. You either get it right, or you get killed. Or somebody else does, like my brother Donnie. And that would’ve been worse.
I wasn’t sure how Cole would react, what he would do if I went to him and told him what had happened. That Michael had taken my little brother. Maybe there would be something he could do to help me. And maybe he would do it. I just didn’t know. It’s not like he was the predictable sort.
My knuckle was just about chewed raw by now. I pushed myself back from the table. There might not have been a fully formed plan in my head, but at least I had come to a decision. Anything to do with Cole, I would just leave that card in my pocket for now. I wouldn’t pull it out and use it unless it came to the point that I had no other option. Except to ask him for help. And see what the answer might be.
I went over to the couch and picked up my backpack. I might not have had a plan –
But I had an idea.
FOURTEEN
When I went downstairs to the street, I didn’t get on the motorcycle right away.
With the backpack slung over my shoulder, I hurried down the block to the corner store. I had loaded up the .357 before I left the apartment, but it was going to stay tucked away. Right now I just needed to ask some questions.
And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have any problems getting the answers. I went into the corner store so often, they knew me by name. The old couple who ran the place seemed to like me, probably because I was different from a lot of the other people in the neighborhood – I never tried to shoplift a bottle of Night Train or ask for credit at the cas
h register. Or hold the place up by sticking a gun into somebody’s face. Around here, that was enough to make me a preferred customer.
“Miss Oh – how you been?”
This was just about the only place in the world I didn’t get called by my first name. They were old-school polite.
“I’m good,” I lied. I didn’t want the old storekeeper to think there was anything wrong. “I just need to –”
“The delivery truck from the dairy came by this morning.” He looked over his fingerprint-smeared half-rims at me. “And the cooler’s been running pretty good last couple of days.”
Quality of the milk was always an issue in stores like this. Not what I wanted to talk about right now, though.
“That’s great. I’ll pick up a quart when I come back later. But I have to ask you a favor.”
“Sure, anything.”
Like I said, he already knew it wouldn’t be for credit.
“Your security camera –” I pointed to the one above the door, looking out. “Does it get a shot of the street? Out in front of the store?”
I’d gotten the idea from talking to that TV reporter Karen Ibanez. And what she had shown me on that tablet, the one I’d taken from her and smashed against the alley wall. No wonder people were starting to get the impression that I was becoming hot-tempered. But it’d put the idea in my head, that there were all sorts of videos that got shot all the time now, not just from people’s cell phones, but from security cameras as well. Like the one in the corner store where I was standing. Maybe it’d caught Michael’s car on tape, with Michael inside, as it’d driven down the street away from our apartment building. Maybe it would show which way the car turned, what street it went down. That wouldn’t be much, I knew, but it was worth a shot, since I didn’t have any other lead to follow.
“That one?” He looked up to the one over the door. “It used to.”
“Used to?”
“Oh, yeah. But it stopped working, maybe coupla years ago. Madge and I decided not to get it fixed. Didn’t really do much for us, when it came to stick-ups. This one –” He turned slightly and pointed to the one above his head, that scanned the cash register counter. When I looked up, I could see my face reflected in its lens, right next to the little red light that showed it was running. “It does pretty good. I mean, somebody’s stupid enough to wave a gun around when there’s a camera lookin’ right at ’em, least you got a good look at their dumb-ass mug. Cops like that, when I give ’em the tape. Sometimes I even get the money back I took out of the register, or most of it. People like that aren’t much smarter about gettin’ away.”
I didn’t say anything. The bottom of my stomach was dropping. So much for that plan. The only one I had.
“Here, I’ll show you.” The old storekeeper seemed proud of his camera set-up. He pulled around on the counter what looked like a little TV set in an industrial metal box. A cable ran from its back to the recorder unit underneath the cash register. Right now the screen showed me looking at the display device. “I can just run it back any time I like.” He pushed one of the buttons marked with arrows underneath the screen and the image jittered a bit, showing me walking backward, away from the counter. “There was a guy just this morning, didn’t like the looks of him at all –”
“Hold it.” I leaned forward, peering at the screen. The reverse image had sped up, showing everybody who’d come up to register before I had come into the store. “Right there. Back it up a little bit –”
The storekeeper did as I asked, then hit the pause button when I held my hand up.
It was Michael on the little video screen. He had come into the store to buy something.
I looked at the time code in the corner. He’d been in there about a half hour before I had come home to the empty apartment. If the other security camera had been working, it might have shown Michael’s car parked out front of the store, with my brother Donnie in it.
“Somebody you know?”
I barely heard what the storekeeper said. My thoughts were running ahead at a furious pace.
“Can you make the picture bigger?” I pointed to the screen. “I mean, zoom in on it?”
“Yeah . . . I think it’s this button here.” The storekeeper leaned over the counter to poke a finger at the box. “Gets kinda blurry, though.”
“That’s all right.” I leaned in closer as the image expanded on the screen. “There. That’s good.”
Now I could make out what had been on the counter in front of Michael. What he’d come into the store to buy.
It was a bottle of a cheap fortified wine called Spanish Harlem Nights. You never found it at stores in good neighborhoods, just at places like this. There was only one person I knew who drank the crap –
McIntyre.
He had a thing about it. He could splash out on all the expensive vintage wines he wanted – and did; there had been an article in one of the local magazines about the multilevel wine cellar at his house – but this cheap booze was a sort of lucky charm for him. He’d told me about it once, when I’d still been working for him. It went back to when he’d first started out, some young punk running a protection racket with his buddies. He’d come a long way since then, that was for sure. But whenever he really wanted to relax, he liked to have a couple of sips of the nasty stuff his little gang used to get their heads bent with. Just a sentimental thing –
But right now, it meant a lot to me as well.
As soon as the image of the bottle with its garish label had shown on the screen, I’d flashed on it. It meant that Michael hadn’t been operating on his own tonight. He’d been running errands for his boss McIntyre. Pick up a bottle of this cheap fortified wine –
And my brother Donnie.
“Thanks –”
I ran out of the store and back down the street, to get the motorcycle.
I still didn’t have a plan, but at least I had another idea.
About what to do next.
FIFTEEN
I’d been to McIntyre’s home before.
Mansion, actually. The kind of place people like him get when they finally have more money than they know what to do with. Why would somebody like him have any taste of his own? That’s what expensive experts were for.
And they’d taken him for a bundle. Best neighborhood in the city, where you had to be either old money or have enough new money to buy off the snobs. Lawns like rolling parks, minus real people and their kids having a good time. Mega-houses that looked like they could’ve been bought off minor British nobility who’d fallen on hard times, the stone walls and leaded windows disassembled and flown over in a fleet of cargo planes.
And security gates. Big, tall ones. With sharp ornamental spikes on top.
A couple of times when I’d still been working for him, I’d had to come out to McIntyre’s place to drop off some financial reports. I’d had to take a cab, since that had been long before I’d gotten the Ninja, and God knows there weren’t any buses that ran to this part of town. Around here, people sent their limos to pick up their nannies and housekeepers.
At least the company had paid for the cab fare back then. So there was at least that much that McIntyre didn’t owe me.
From the gates, I could look up the winding drive to the house. I didn’t see McIntyre’s limo parked out front. Or Michael’s car. Hard to tell what that meant. McIntyre might still be there, but with the limo parked in the garage. But before, when I had dropped off those financial reports, there had always been either Michael’s car or one of the company’s other vehicles there, sometimes with a couple of the other security guys still in it.
I pushed the button on the intercom box. I was in luck. I got McIntyre’s housekeeper.
“Manuela – hi!” I put on as much of a cheerful voice as I had anymore. “This is Kim. From the office. Remember me?”
“Oh, sure.” Her voice crackled over the intercom’s speaker. “How you doing, mi hija? You haven’t been by in a while.”
She an
d I had hit it off before. Probably because in a house like that, I’d been the friendliest face she ever saw. If I’d had to come out really late at night, she would even fix me something in the kitchen – about three times as big as my entire apartment – and sit and talk with me while I ate.
“I’m sorry.” I kept the button pressed down. “I’ve been busy. Is Mr. McIntyre there? I’ve got those reports he asked me to bring by.”
“Oh, Kim honey – he’s not here. He went out.”
This is what I’d been counting on. McIntyre wouldn’t have told his housekeeper that I didn’t work for him anymore. Why would he? So she thought I still did.
“Do you just want to drop them off? I’ll buzz you in.”
“No, that’s okay. When he called me, he said he wanted them right away.” I paused for a second, then went in for the kill. “Do you know where he went?”
“Sure . . .”
A couple of seconds later, and I had the information I needed. I was back on the motorcycle and heading for the other side of town.
* * *
“This just gets you into the park.” The guy in the booth leaned close to the chrome stalk of the microphone in front of him. “You can’t go on any of the rides. Unless you buy another ticket inside.”
“That’s cool.” Just about every dollar I had on me, I had just scraped into the booth’s cash slot. “I just like to look at the lights.”
“You sure? Because it’s a lot more expensive if you do it that way. If you decide you want to go on something. The best deal’s the Super Fun Pak. It gets you on –”
“I’m good.” I scooped up the ticket with the hologram on the front and headed for the entrance turnstiles.
There was a lot I already knew about this place – at least from the financial side. McIntyre had acquired it on my watch. I hadn’t been quite sure why he’d thought that buying a failed amusement park was a good idea, but hey – not my money.
And then he’d partnered up with some Japanese media company, to do a complete redesign on the place. Some third-party investment company had put up the capital for that project and had gotten majorly burnt by the time it was over – which was where McIntyre had wound up making his profit, from all the over-priced contractors he’d foisted on them.
