“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m good. I miss Mama, but I see Kiara twice a week ’cuz she’s family and family takes care of you. I’m, um, um, I’m dating a girl.” An embarrassed smile sprang up, and he covered it with his hand, dipped his head. “She’s five-two and a hundred forty-seven pounds but it’s not nice to say so because that’s not a good social cue ’cuz a lady never says her weight but it’s obvious and I don’t see what the big deal is anyways but ladies are confusing.”
Trevon was like that. A human tape measure and digital scale. He saw the world as if through a set of binoculars with stadiametric rangefinding.
“She’s high-functioning like me but she doesn’t like sand or wind or 3-D movies so it makes it tricky to go out on dates.”
“Then you’d better raise your game. A yellow-and-orange picnic.”
Trevon checked his watch. “Are you gonna be here long? ’Cuz small talk gives me a headache and I’m supposed to shower.”
“I need a favor.”
Trevon checked his watch again, cleared his throat uncomfortably. “What favor?”
Evan pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and rested it on the counter. “I need you to take yourself to lunch.”
Trevon stared at the bill. “Um. Why?”
“I can’t show my face at this particular café again. So I need you to go in my stead.”
“And do what?”
“Eat,” Evan said. “And look around.”
“Why do you need me to look around?”
“Because you see things I can’t.”
“Like what?”
Evan told him precisely like what.
27
The Edge of Visibility
Despite the Las Vegas midday sun, a November chill prickled the skin at the back of Evan’s neck. The low-slung building ahead rose from a stretch of dirt road and desert sand like a woebegone settler’s cabin in a Western. A rusting auto-repair sign threw shade across the sturdy metal door, but the neon was unlit as always, the business unlisted in any directory. Husks of cars and the occasional engine block rested in the scrubby brush, arrayed like props, which was precisely what they were.
Carrying the weighty medical-waste bucket under one arm, Evan lowered his face from the sign where the front security camera was housed and rapped on the door. A popping sound from within answered him.
Gunshots.
Or, as he thought of it, the soundtrack of Tommy Stojack.
Evan pounded more loudly with the heel of his hand.
The gunfire ceased.
Silence.
And then the door yawned open, a burly figure standing in the dismal lair, pistol in either hand. He was backlit by a feeble shaft through a barred skylight and the glow of a gooseneck lamp clipped to one of a half dozen workbenches. A range of machinery completed the torture-dungeon motif of the shop. It smelled of gun grease and spent powder, coffee and cigarettes.
A Camel Wide lifted to the man’s face, the cherry illuminating the stub where the forefinger had been blown off at the knuckle. An inhale crackled the paper, the orange glow at last bringing the face to the edge of visibility. Biker’s mustache. Lip bulged out with a tobacco plug. Deeply expressive, melancholy eyes bedded down above crescent bags of puffy skin. A tumble of gray hair falling over a lined forehead twisted with wry amusement.
Tommy’s machine shop, which Evan thought of as a lair, provided a variety of services for a variety of government-sanctioned black-ops groups. Preproduction. Proof of concept and R&D. Prototyping and fabrication. Weapons procurement. Evan didn’t know specifics about Tommy any more than Tommy knew specifics about him.
He knew only that he trusted Tommy absolutely and that he was a world-class armorer.
Tommy spit a comet of tobacco juice skillfully past Evan’s shoulder, took another hit off the cigarette, and scratched at a nicotine patch adhered to his neck that had peeled away from the skin in either protest or despair.
“I’m glad it’s just you,” Tommy said.
Evan stepped inside, crouched to reach for a hidden outlet, and unplugged the security camera, as was their policy. “Who were you expecting?”
“Got a new broad hooched up with me. Figured maybe she was feeling lonely, talked herself into making an unannounced drive-by. That woulda gone down like a Japanese Zero. But forget that shit. How’s things?”
“Good. You?”
“Any better, I’d expect to get indicted.” Tommy jogged the pistols in his hands, showing each one off against a callused palm. “Working on some modifications for a couple of the ninja ballerinas.”
“Ninja ballerinas?”
“SWAT. This puppy’s an FNX tactical.”
“A .45?”
“Nobody makes a .46, do they?” Tommy let one palm drop, lifting his other one, Lady Justice with a gun fetish. “And this thing of beauty is an S&W .359 NG. Fixed combat sights, beveled cylinders, Crimson Trace grips. It’s got built-in laser, puts a dot on the forehead—insert offensive Indian joke here.”
“You got my next batch of ARES pistols?”
Tommy swiped the gun back and ambled toward the nearest workbench. An oft-injured warhorse, he had the broken-down gait of a retired bronc rider.
As Evan followed him into increasing dimness, Tommy stepped across a roll of what looked like green conveyer belt. At least fifty feet long, it stretched along the oil-spotted concrete floor, a python lying in wait.
Evan squinted down. Puttyish substance, thirty-six inches thick, like a parcel of linoleum ready to be unrolled. “Is that— Wait, Tommy. Is that C-4?”
Tommy paused, tugged at his mustache, and looked down. “Not just any C-4,” he said. “Detasheet from a stash that predates the mandatory addition of taggants. Totally untraceable—no coded microparticles in this slab o’ goodness. I took the lot off the books in ’82.” He smiled, showcasing the slender gap between his front teeth. “‘Expended in training.’ Had it in my inventory ever since, but I finally got around to slicing and dicing it for the Balls-Deep State.”
He detoured around a heavy-barrel Browning M2, giving it a loving nudge with his boot. “Been restoring this .50-cal meat chopper. It ain’t the aircraft version, but you’d better eat your Wheaties if you wanna lug this hog around. And over here…”
Years of experience had taught Evan to pry Tommy off show-and-tell as quickly as possible, so he set down the medical-waste bucket on the workbench, the ARES pistols inside clanking like hammers. “I need you to puddle these, turn them to slag.”
Evan always dispensed with his pistols after using them. The ARES were impossible to trace, sure, but each round still bore the signature from the individual barrel it had been fired from, as well as scratches introduced during the loading-and-feeding process. This meant that if he used the same gun in two shootings, a connection could be established between the incidents. Even if the projo was mangled, a fired case left on the scene carried distinctive tool marks from the firing pin, extractor, ejector, or the breech face. He always collected shell cases when he could and wore latex gloves while loading magazines, but if there was one thing Jack had drilled into his bone marrow, it was that you could never be too sure.
“You’re spoiling another set of perfectly good pistols,” Tommy said. “You do realize that this little security measure of yours is an affront to my fine handiwork?”
The Second Commandment, Evan thought. How you do anything is how you do everything.
He gave Tommy a been-there look.
“Okay, okay.” Tommy showed him his palms, relenting as he collapsed into a rolling chair behind the workbench. He spun a Pelican case to face Evan and popped the lid. Nestled in foam were a dozen fresh ARES 1911s. “I got your new EDCs here. Did an action job on ’em. Smoother than a frog’s asshole.”
“They’re notoriously smooth, are they? Frog assholes?”
“I ain’t field-tested it. But so says the literature.” Tommy slid the case across to Evan. “If they don’t unders
tand English, make sure they understand lead.”
Evan picked one up to feel the familiar heft, like an extension of his arm. Yet another reason he’d chosen the aluminum pistols as his everyday carry.
He lined the sights on the coffeepot gurgling behind Tommy like a witch’s cauldron. Then he ran a quick target-acquisition drill, swinging the muzzle to a cutting torch, a set of welder’s goggles, an ashtray made from a ship’s battered porthole. He was pleased to note that his vision stayed crisp—no double images, no blurring, no light streaks. Getting the concussion behind him was a necessity, given what lay ahead.
“That’ll steer you into the fray,” Tommy said, chinning at the pistol. “Then you hit ’em with the ‘iles.’ Agile, mobile, and hostile.”
Evan started to turn away, but Tommy snapped the intact fingers of his right hand. “Take it for a spin, please.”
At the back of the space, Tommy had a few paper targets strapped to bales of hay and more bales stacked up against the wall. Evan put on eyes-and-ears protection, firmed his stance, and went for the one-hole drill—all the rounds through the same hole.
The first eight shots went according to plan, but then a rush of light-headedness fuzzed his vision, his brain reminding him that it was still displeased about being slammed into parking-lot asphalt. His ninth shot edged south, turning the solitary hole in the target into a figure eight.
Intense focus or quick movements seemed to dial up the symptoms. Not helpful given that everything to come would be dependent on intense focus and quick movements. He lowered the pistol, blinking himself back to normal and hoping Tommy didn’t notice the sheen of sweat that had sprung up on his forehead.
Tommy cluck-clucked. “You got ‘How’d I do?’ syndrome. Peeked up and dropped the last shot. Didn’t no one teach you shit?”
When it came to shooting, Evan knew better than to compete with Tommy even when his head was clear. He returned the ARES to the foam lining and clicked the Pelican case lid shut. “I also need a sniper rifle.”
“For what?”
“To snipe.”
“I’m getting some FN Ballistas in next week that’ll make your socks roll up and down.”
“I don’t have till next week.”
“What range we talking?”
Evan told him.
Tommy waved him off with a four-fingered hand. “You don’t need a highly specialized sniper gun for that. You can just zero a deer gun.”
Evan said, “You’re thinking a 700 Remington?”
“Most common hunting rifle in North America. Millions of them. Hits your checkmarks for traceability and availability. Hell, I got a heap in the back. We pimp it out with an old-school Swarovski scope, you are GTG.”
Tommy kicked back in his Aeron chair, rolling across the slick concrete and disappearing into the shadowy fringe of the lair. A racket ensued—rusty hinges lifting, curse words, something clattering to the floor. The whir of the wheels presaged Tommy’s return. Sure enough, he sailed back into view, Remington rifle across his lap. He lifted it in triumph.
Evan said, “You got it in tan?”
28
Eleventh-Hour Surprise
In the corner of Joey’s apartment, Dog the dog lapped water from a Red Vines tub. Evan sat on the floor and looked him over. The laceration on Dog’s cheek was healing nicely, though the restitched flap of skin on his chest was red and inflamed. Evan smeared some Neosporin over the stitches and then checked the strips of exposed flesh at the muzzle and hind legs where the duct tape had been removed. Healthy white skin, the fur starting to grow back. Dog shoved his wet nose into the hollow of Evan’s neck, and Evan steered the big head away, scratching behind the ears.
Joey’s typing, a white-noise constant since Evan had given her Max’s thumb drive a half hour ago, contributed a pleasing background hum.
“Dog’s doing well,” Evan said.
“You like it so much, you should find a permanent home for it,” Joey said. “Sooner rather than later. We don’t want it getting comfortable.”
“He’s still healing,” Evan said.
“I know. It kept me up whimpering all night.”
“It’s hard work taking care of someone else,” Evan said.
Joey snapped around in her chair to glower at him from her workstation. “What does that mean?”
“Precisely what it sounds like it means.”
“I take care of someone else already.” She was wearing the Hello Kitty–with-an-AK T-shirt again, the sleeves hiked up, showing off her well-defined arms. “You. I have to, like, spoon-feed tutor you when it comes to hacking.”
“I assume you’re unfamiliar with the Dunning-Kruger effect,” Evan said.
“Dunkirk-who?”
“Never mind.” Evan rose and walked to the circular desk, Dog following closely, pressing into the side of his leg. “What did you find?”
“Your boy Petro’s got all the angles.” Dog the dog was whimpering, and Joey paused, annoyed. “Can you get it to be quiet?”
“When’s the last time you took him out?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want him to pee on your floor?”
“Yeah. I’d totally love that.”
“Let’s go.”
She grimaced and then dug beneath her desk and came up with a leash and a black fabric collar with a cutesy skull-and-crossbones motif.
Evan said, “You bought him a collar?”
“Just so it’s easier to take him out. Everything doesn’t have to mean some big thing.”
Evan noted her first use of the masculine pronoun but kept his mouth shut.
When Joey crouched to pull on the collar, Dog licked her cheek. She didn’t smile. But she didn’t protest either.
They rode the elevator down and stood outside, Joey holding the leash while Dog the dog sniffed the grass, moved a few feet, sniffed it again. Lifting his leg, he unleashed a fire-hose stream onto an elm sapling.
“Are you feeding him Big Gulps?” Evan said.
“He’s a big animal—a lion hunter, like you said. That’s just how they pee.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to defend him.”
“I’m not defending him. But while I’m stuck babysitting him, I’ve learned how he rolls. That’s all.”
Despite wanting to needle Joey more, Evan changed course. “So what’d you get on Petro? From Grant’s files?”
“Well, you’re right—he’s definitely upper management. Oversaw the washing process with the cash that Terzian and his crew brought in. The books are light on proper nouns, but I pieced together some of the EINs. They were laundering money through—wait for it—kebab vans and plumbing companies. I know, right? These guys didn’t take the sensitivity workshop on ethnic stereotyping. But it’s a lotta money. Like, a lotta lotta money. After a while kebab vans and plumbing trucks just wouldn’t do. So Petro got himself a bank.”
Dog the dog was still going. The elm sapling looked woeful. At last he lowered his leg and shook his head, his ears giving off leathery snaps against the sides of his skull.
“A bank,” Evan repeated.
“Yeah,” Joey said. “I broke the code on the routing numbers in, like, ten seconds. It was simple-stupid—middle-aged men playing at a girl’s game. Oh, yeah!” She did some sort of dance move with her hands shoving the air upward. Evan and Dog the dog stared at her. “So I followed the trail. Know what ‘bank capture’ is?”
“It’s where you buy a controlling interest in a bank in some nonreporting jurisdiction or a tax haven with shitty records. Then you channel your money through it, and no one’s the wiser.”
“Impressive. How’d you know that?”
“Because I’ve done it,” Evan said.
“What? What? When did you own a bank?”
“It was a onetime thing,” Evan said. “Long story.”
“O-kay. Anyways. You said Hollywood PD’s trying to build a case. But I don’t get why the feds aren’t involved, since we’re dealing with
banks in Singapore and whatnot.”
“Because,” Evan said, “they don’t know it’s that big yet. They don’t have the thumb drive. We do.”
Dog the dog stretched languidly and yawned, curling his tongue and emitting a tired whine that bordered on adorable. A crew of guys made their way up the sidewalk toward Evan and Joey, roughhousing and joking. With their gym muscles and notched-in side parts, they looked sparkly clean and uniform, rolled off an assembly belt. But Joey wasn’t looking at them with annoyance. Not in the least.
She snapped out of her daze, noticed Evan watching her. Blushing, she tugged on the dog’s leash to move him back toward the lobby. “Can we please get inside already? Us being seen together is social suicide, okay?”
Evan said, “For me or for you?”
“With all that training you got, it woulda been helpful if they’d included a crash course in, like, actual humor.”
In the lobby a few workers had appeared, measuring the flimsy single-panes and jotting notes on clipboards.
“New owners,” Joey said. “They’re fixing the place up, taking care of all those oh-so-scary security holes you’re so fussy about. Happy?”
Evan looked back at the loose guard plate on the front door. “Partly.”
“Are you ever happy?”
He thumbed the elevator button. “When I’m ballroom dancing.”
Joey’s emerald eyes widened. “Really?”
“No.”
Back upstairs, Evan crowded into the cockpit with her and studied the screens.
He pointed. “I’m assuming these initials are code names?”
“Yeah. Lower-end workers, payoffs, bribes, whatever. I guess I could run them down, tracking the precise amounts of the payments and then digging through bank records, but it’d be a slog.”
“Do it anyway. It would be helpful to match the code names with real identities.”
“For what? These are peripheral players.”
Into the Fire Page 16
