Into the Fire

by Gregg Hurwitz

  “What are you doing?” Joey said.

  He waved her off. From her dish of cobalt pebbles, Vera II looked on in support.

  The fourth name, Paytsar Hovsepian, threw back a useful report from NCIC. A stoned outing in his senior year of high school had ended with a conviction for vandalism. He’d made threatening remarks to the arresting officer, earning him a position on the Violent Person file.

  Even more helpful was his profile information. Mid-thirties. Lean build. Average height. Just an ordinary guy, not too handsome.

  Evan went back to the online article depicting Paytsar holding a sign that read NO PLACE FOR DENIAL. With his other hand, he flashed the peace sign.

  Evan double-clicked on the high-res photo. Great focus, strong lighting.

  Precisely what he needed.

  He zoomed in on the two fingers held aloft. Tighter, tighter.

  “X,” Joey said, “why are you dicking around with this right now?”

  From his other side, Vera II cheered him on silently. Another reason to prefer the company of plants.

  The photo resolution held. He captured the image, sent it to his RoamZone.

  “Wait,” Joey said. “Is that…? Are you…?” She shook her head. “No way. No fucking way.”

  “Language,” he said.

  He grabbed his phone from the charger, scratched Dog the dog on the head, headed out of the Vault.

  Paused halfway across the threshold, one foot in the shower.

  “You coming or not?”

  Joey scrambled off her chair.

  41

  Your Usual Four-Alarm Emergency

  “Are you fucking crazy?” Melinda Truong asked.

  The accurate answer, Evan figured, was yes.

  Joey had ridden shotgun on the drive to Northridge, laptop across her thighs, running through procedures and regulations and pop-quizzing him on the players inside. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was what he had.

  Melinda set her tiny, capable fists on her hips, and Evan realized that she wasn’t going to allow him to dismiss the question as rhetorical. He looked to Joey for air support, but her mouth only clutched a few times ineffectually.

  Melinda was the first person Evan had seen render Joey speechless.

  And fair enough. She was a force of nature. Stunning and lithe, a rope of jet-black hair hanging past the curve of her lower back. Yoga pants and a Lululemon sports bra hugged her compact form. Her skin was without blemish, perfectly smooth. Not a stray hair out of place. A pair of bright yellow Pumas capped off the precision athlete look.

  Inside her warehouse-size operation in an industrial park, she presided over her restoration service with an emperor’s iron fist. The operation placed vast resources and highly specialized equipment at her disposal. The dozens of workers—every one of them male, every one of them simultaneously terrified of and in love with her—spent their days and nights bent over giant square worktables with atomizers and palette knives, coaxing vintage film posters back to health. Some of the one-sheets sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  But that wasn’t where Melinda made her real money.

  She made her real money here, in this dark-walled photography room with blacked-out windows, as a world-class forger.

  A 000 paintbrush, the most slender of them all, was tucked behind her ear like a pen. Pink tape wrapped its handle, a stamp of ownership ensuring that none of her workers would dare borrow it. Cradled in a hip holster like a six-shooter, her Olympos double-action airbrush was also padded with pink tape.

  She looked like a lead character from one of the exploitation posters she so lovingly resuscitated.

  From the main floor, sweatshop noises echoed down the hall at them—machinery and conversation and motorized equipment being revved. A horrendous crash sounded, punctuated by a cartoon aftereffect like a hubcap spinning out on asphalt.

  Melinda snatched up a phone on a desk scattered with counterfeit passport stamps and hit the intercom button. Then she barked in her native tongue, “You’d better unbreak whatever just broke, or I’ll take it out of your hide.”

  She slammed down the phone and turned crisply on her heel to face Evan again. “Well? Are you fucking crazy?”

  He said, “Clinically or legally?”

  She strode over to him, grabbed both sides of his face, and kissed him full on the mouth. At a hair over five feet, she had to rise to her tiptoes. Her mouth was soft, dewy from lipstick, and she smelled delightfully of lavender skin cream.

  She finished and shoved him away. “You know what that is? That’s your long kiss good-bye, Evan.”

  “It was worth it,” he said.

  Joey was still standing dumbly at his side, her jaw partially unhinged.

  “Now we’re never going to get married and have beautiful mixed-race children,” Melinda said.

  “You never know,” he said. “I might survive.”

  She scowled, a focused effort that at last produced wrinkles. Just as quickly they were gone. All business, she snapped her fingers. “Let me see them.”

  He produced the silver case with the fingerprint adhesives. “They’re silicon composite films,” he said. “Fifty microns thin. Developed in a DARPA lab, but I managed to acquire a few sets. You’ve probably never seen anything like them, but—”

  “You got ripped off.” She screwed a loupe into her eye, examining one of the slides with a jeweler’s focus. “These are at least seventy-five microns. The ones I deal in are a true fifty, which makes for better adhesion.” She dumped them in a trash can and cast a look at Joey. “Men.”

  Joey said, “Right?”

  Evan tried to steer the conversation back on track. “Look, I’m not sure if you have the printing technology to transfer someone else’s fingerprints onto the adhesives—”

  “My preferred method,” Melinda said, “is to generate engraved plates from my 3-D printer. Since the silicon films are impressionable, etched casting surfaces are ideal.”

  She leaned over the computer on her desk, linked to an AmScope binocular microscope and a MakerBot Replicator+. A red glow lit the printer’s black box, an intense spill of color that made the contraption evocative of a futuristic forge, which Evan supposed it was. She brought up the photo detail Evan had forwarded her, Paytsar Hovsepian’s fingers raised in a peace salute.

  She let out a hiss of delight through her teeth. “Nice detail. I can get a couple dozen ridge characteristics easy.”

  Evan could still taste her lipstick, sugary like frosting. “I pulled the rest of his fingerprints off NCIC. They were ink-rolled at a local station nineteen years ago, middling clarity, but I figure as long as we have two at high-res, you can improvise the rest.”

  “Improvising,” Melinda said, “is my life.” She straightened up, flicking her hair expertly over a shoulder.

  Joey had to lean back to avoid getting whipped.

  “What else do you need?” Melinda said.

  “Fake driver’s license,” Evan said.

  “Finally a reasonable request.”

  “With ink that fades after twenty-four hours,” he added.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Even for you?”

  “I’m incredible,” she said, “but not magical.” A lash-heavy eyelid dipped in a wink. “Except in bed.”

  “First of all … um, gross,” Joey said. “Second, how ’bout a chemical reaction? Layered under the laminate? Something that kicks in after a certain exposure time to oxygen or whatever.”

  “She speaks,” Melinda said. “And reveals brains beneath that god-awful haircut.” She went to Joey and smoothed her hair down, covering the shaved strip on the right side. Then she tucked Joey’s locks behind her ears and caressed her cheeks. “Don’t be afraid of how beautiful you are.”

  For once Joey didn’t back away. She looked too shocked to react.

  “Um, thanks?” she said.

  “Or how smart you are. You can be both, you know, even if that makes the less-fai
r sex feel insecure.” Melinda gave another crisp officerial pivot to Evan. “Now. I can play with some metal-compound inks, like cerium oxalate. One of my men, Giang, is an expert in acids. But this level of specialty work will cost you plenty.” She picked up the phone again, hesitated. “I assume this is your usual four-alarm emergency. I’m almost afraid to ask when you’ll need it by?”

  “We’ll wait here,” Evan said.

  Melinda licked her thumb. Then reached across the desk and wiped a smudge of lipstick off Evan’s mouth. “Very well, sweetie,” she said, already dialing. “But you’d best stay out of my way.”

  42

  A Nice Visible Presence

  Joey looked uncharacteristically small behind the wheel of the massive Ford pickup. Or maybe it was just the view from the passenger seat, which Evan was occupying for the first time. It felt dislocating. As they prowled downtown streets cloaked with dusk, he emptied his pockets into the center console. No money clip, no RoamZone, no keys. Last out were the eight charcoal pills. He started palming them into his mouth two at a time, swallowing them dry.

  Joey said, “Once you leave this truck, you’ll have nothing.”

  Evan felt an urge to comfort her with false assurances but knew better than to lie.

  She shot a glance down at his hands, the transparent films invisible across the pads of his digits. “Not even your fingerprints. “No backup, no weapon, nothing.” She clenched the wheel. “I know, I know.” She reverted to head-waggy Nowhere Man voice. “‘I am the weapon.’” He had to smile at that, but she just glowered at him. “This is stupid dangerous, X. Think about it. I won’t be able to do anything to help you. No one can do anything to help you. You’ll be totally at their mercy. If one thing goes wrong, you’re done. Forever. And if you smack your stubborn concussed head in there? You could die. And it’s not like fights aren’t known to happen. Christ, X. This is dumb in more ways than I can count, and I’m really good at math.”

  The RoamZone rang, rattling in the console. Evan tensed, anticipating that it was Max with a last-minute complication. But then he saw the Las Vegas area code and picked up.

  The voice, pure gravel and exuberance, poured through the receiver. “I got yer sniper rifle.”

  “I didn’t order a sniper rifle.”

  “Sure you did,” Tommy said. “When I outfitted you with that low-rent Remington, I told you I was getting Ballistas in.”

  Evan tossed the last two charcoal pills into his mouth. “I don’t need a sniper rifle anymore.”

  “Any man worth his salt needs a precision pea-shooter. I’m in L.A. on Monday. I’ll drop her by for you.”

  As Joey weaved through sparse traffic, they passed under the shadow of Men’s Central, a blocky construction of intersecting concrete slabs rising behind a perimeter of chain-link. Beyond it rose the dueling chunks of Twin Towers, one seven stories of misery, the other eight, each a study in beige efficiency. Evan forced the pills down his gullet. “I’m a little busy at the moment, Tommy.”

  He’d barely thumbed off the phone when Joey was on him again. “You don’t have to do this,” she said. “We have enough on Bedrosov to turn over to the cops now. Let them run with the football from here. They’ll put him away for good.”

  “The case will take months to prosecute,” Evan said. He scooped a few coins and some beat-up singles from the ashtray, seeding his pockets. “And in the meantime? Bedrosov is a shot caller in jail. With access to a phone. And hit men on the outside.”

  He remembered Benjamin Bedrosov’s voice over the line, his tone the epitome of reasonableness: You can keep killing them. But I can keep sending them. He might as well have been updating shareholders on an earnings call.

  “X—”

  “Even if he’s found guilty and goes to prison,” Evan said, “do you really think he won’t see it through and end Max?”

  Headlights swept the windshield, highlighting her hair, her full cheeks. Her eyes were brimming, and he was confused yet again by the turmoil of her moods.

  “If it goes bad…” Joey paused, struggling, seemingly forcing each word out. “What happens to me?”

  “There’s enough in your account to—”

  “I’m not talking about money,” she said. “Goddamn it. You’re such an idiot.” She screeched the truck over to the curb. “Just get out. Here’s as good as anywhere. Just go, okay?”

  He sat in the passenger seat, watching her. She was turned partially away, but he could see her front teeth pinching her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. Biting down hard. Nostrils flaring with each breath. She blinked several times, fighting her way back to control.

  “Joey.”

  She ignored him.

  “Joey.”

  Still nothing.

  Gently he said, “Josephine.”

  She pulled her face to profile. It was the most he was going to get.

  “Take a breath,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you can’t take a breath from the past. And you can’t take a breath from the future.”

  He watched the words land on her. She took in their meaning. Then she said, “This is lame.”

  “Do it.”

  She closed her eyes. Inhaled deep. Let it go.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. And then, “Maybe a little.”

  He reached to brush her hair out of her eyes, an avuncular gesture, and she let him. He sensed a hint of softness in her face now.

  She said, “Why do you care so much about Max Merriweather? I mean, aside from the fact that he lucked into your phone number?”

  Evan didn’t reply right away. He owed her a considered answer. “He lost a baby, lost his wife, lost his bearings. He’s been knocked down for years, trying to get up, and these guys came along and put a foot on his back. You know what that feels like.”

  Evan did, too.

  He understood what it was to be born under a bad sign.

  The few papers he’d been able to excavate after leaving the foster-home system indicated that his birth mother had traveled from out of state to relinquish him in Maryland for a domestic adoption. The post-placement visit to his new home revealed that the adoptive mother had suffered a series of strokes that she’d never disclosed, and her rapidly deteriorating condition left her and her husband unable to provide care to a newborn. The placement fell apart. A second placement became delayed when the agency tried to locate Evan’s birth mother, as she had retained the right to select the adoptive family. But she’d traveled out of state to hand over her baby for a reason; she didn’t want her identity known. And so Evan was frozen in a bureaucratic middle ground past one fate and shy of another.

  The Nowhere Boy.

  By the time the state had him officially declared “abandoned,” he was no longer a palatable commodity, but a four-year-old who’d bounced through multiple foster homes.

  No mother, no father, no early-childhood memories.

  When his remembrances started to fade in, they were not of being treated kindly.

  After Jack had rescued him at the age of twelve from one dangerous life and put him into another, Evan had asked, Why’d you pick me?

  You know what it’s like to be powerless, Jack had told him. I need someone who knows that. In his bones. Don’t ever forget that feeling.

  All at once everything felt heightened, the air crisp, the nighttime sharp all around them.

  “I made it out,” Evan said. “But I owed something still.”

  “To who?” Joey asked.

  “To anyone who got left behind.” Evan took a breath. “Jack never wanted…” His throat felt uncharacteristically thick. He cleared it. Joey was looking directly into him. He felt vulnerable, exposed, and had to look away for the moment. “It was never just about becoming a killer. It was about staying human. And it’s not easy. If I started picking and choosing … If I looked at someone like Max and decided he wasn’t worth it, then I’d be back to where I started. Wh
ere no one’s worth it. And then I’d just be what they made me to be.” His lips felt dry, cracked, and he wet them. “A murderer.”

  Joey’s eyes were wide, brilliant emerald, glimmering with moisture or a trick of the light. They’d never talked about it, and the starkness of who he was, of who she was, too, lay there for an instant, as shimmering and vivid as koi in a stilled fountain. The words hung between them for a brief, searing moment, and then he cleared his throat and opened his door, disturbing the waters once more.

  “You ever gonna really prove that to yourself?” she asked. “What you’re not?”

  “I don’t know.” He scratched the back of his neck, looked away. “But it’s easier than figuring out what I am.”

  Or maybe it’s the first step to getting there.

  “How much more do you have to prove?” she asked. “When’s it end?”

  The ultimate question laid bare, slicing him to the bone. He stared over at the rise of the jail, shadowed and foreboding.

  “After this,” he said. “After this it ends.”

  She stared at him. Her lips quivered ever so slightly, and she pressed them together, clamping down. She reached across his knees to pop the glove box, grabbed a pint of Cuervo Gold, and smacked it against his chest. “Don’t forget your tequila.”

  He took the bottle, climbed out, and looked back at her across the high seats.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll do my job. Just make sure you do yours.”

  She peeled out, spraying his shins with grit, leaving him with a mouthful of exhaust.

  She’d left him behind the El Monte Busway by a Denny’s parking lot. He could see through Union Station’s Gateway Plaza to where the threads of the railroad tracks gathered. A cop car was parked past the bus entrance. An officer leaned against his unit, a nice visible presence for all the commuters streaming by, catching their trains home.

  Evan uncapped the cheap tequila and flipped the top to the side, heard it ping off across the sidewalk. Then he settled himself with a deep breath, banishing thoughts of the vodkas slumbering untouched in his freezer drawer, each as pure as the driven snow.