by Sam Powers
At the end of the hall, he pushed hard against the emergency door latch bar.
Locked.
He turned back, still in a crouch. Tommy stood at the end of the hallway, looking profoundly irritated. He raised the pistol and Stanley threw up his arms in a subconscious bid for self-protection.
The woman came out of nowhere, flying full-force into Wong with her shoulder buried in his ribcage. Even though he was much larger, she moved so quickly and struck him so perfectly that he left his feet, their momentum smashing both through the drywall and into the kitchen beyond.
Stanley gingerly crept back up the corridor toward the restaurant. He was almost to the hole in the wall and could hear metal-on-metal, the pair still conscious and brawling. He peered through as he passed. The woman in the cocktail dress was using a pair of frying pans to block a series of strikes from a pair of Wong’s butterfly knives. Stanley stood there for a moment, transfixed by the fluid, rapid strikes and parries.
He was there a moment too long. Whether she’d seen him and was worried about him escaping or was just trying to take him out, the woman in the dress sacrificed one of her makeshift shields, flinging the frying pan sideways without turning her head, the heavy object catching Stanley in the temple and knocking him to the ground, unconscious.
Brennan rounded the corner, expecting to find one or both of his adversaries standing over Stanley’s body.
Close enough. The professor was lying in front of a gaping hole in the drywall and he could hear the grunts and blows of a fight from the other side of the wall. He knelt down and checked the old man’s vitals, then slapped him gently. ‘Stanley? Stanley, wake up.’
In his periphery, he saw the knife just in time, a glint of light on the steel blade from twenty feet away. He rolled backwards and to his feet as it thunked into the wall beyond him. He anticipated an immediate follow-up attack but Wong, who’d thrown the blade as soon as he’d seen Brennan out of the corner of his eye, was still tied up by the string of kicks and punches from the woman in the dress.
In the kitchen, the assassin backed up and absorbed the blows, passing steel prep tables and still-cooking food on the adjacent stove burners as she assaulted him relentlessly. The staff had fled through a back entrance. Brennan climbed through the hole and raised his pistol at the woman. Her back was to him as she fought Wong, an easy kill shot.
Brennan hesitated. His finger was curled on the trigger, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull it. She was after his objective, and she’d hit him twice, but he wasn’t going to shoot her in the back. Instead, he rushed up behind her and slammed the butt of the gun into the nerve cluster at the base of her neck. The woman went down hard, badly stunned. Wong reacted first, reaching back just a few inches with the knife, intent on plunging it into Brennan’s throat. But he trained the gun at Wong’s eye level and waved a finger on his other hand.
‘Uh uh uh, Tommy.’
‘You could have shot us both when we were fighting. If you didn’t then, you don’t have the nerve now.’
‘I’ve seen your file, Tommy. I’m game to find out if you are.’
Wong raised both palms in a show of surrender. ‘Hey, I’m good, but I can’t dodge bullets.’ As the words left his mouth he was on the move, closing the few feet between them, then spinning his body like a top as Brennan squeezed the trigger, moving out of the path of the bullet and coming around at speed, a backhand sweeping toward the American’s temple. But Brennan was unfazed, coolly professional in his focus. The move left the assassin’s chin unguarded; Brennan slammed the butt of the gun into it with a short jab, the hard metal connecting with the nerve. Wong slumped to the ground, his eyes lolling back in his skull, his breathing suddenly even and short.
He heard a click, the sound of the pistol behind him far enough away that his only option was to turn and face the music.
The woman in the cocktail dress had recovered. She was young, perhaps in her late twenties, her black hair falling just short of her shoulders but cut close and layered, styled by a pro. She was Chinese and pretty, with high cheekbones and dark almond eyes; her makeup was light, sparingly applied. The dress was torn at one thigh slightly and scuffed with dirt but obviously elegant, and at some point, she’d kicked off her heels and gone barefoot.
And she had Wong’s silenced pistol in her left hand.
A southpaw, Brennan thought. I always have problems with southpaws. ‘You could’ve just shot me...’
‘But I’m offering you a chance to walk away,’ she said. ‘You saved me in the alley, and you could have shot me first here. You didn’t, which is honourable. However, I cannot allow you to interfere with my assignment.’ She extended her pistol hand. ‘So, what will you choose? Stay and die, or go now?’
In point of fact, Daisy Lee had a problem: the dossier had explicitly stated that if she encountered any Americans after her objective, she was to observe and attempt to avoid engagement. The subtext was that she was to avoid an international incident...such as outing an American asset and killing him publicly. In Macau, the state media did not exert the same control as in China proper, and it would not be able to explain the narrative.
‘Hmmm....’ Brennan said, squinting as he studied the gun.
‘What? If you’re trying to guess the pull weight on this trigger, I can guarantee you Wong is enough of a pro that you don’t have time to close on me.’
‘Nope, that’s not it. I was just thinking about the last time I played Blackjack. You see, I’m trained to count the number of shots fired from a particular brand of gun and clip size, so that I’ll know when an enemy combatant is out of ammo. And if I was smart, I could’ve used that skill to count cards at Blackjack, and maybe not lose so much darn money.’
The inference was obvious; but rather than ask the question, Lee flung the gun toward him with a lightning-quick sidearm, as if tossing a throwing star. Brennan tried to duck it but it caught him in the side of the forehead, stunning him for long enough for her to follow up with a spinning round kick that caught him flush, staggering him to one knee just as her foot crashed into his chest, sending him flying onto his back. She ran forward, flipped head over heels, her buttocks coming down hard on Brennan’s chest, pushing the air from his lungs. She rolled to one side then slammed a fist back toward him, the winded agent unable to block it, the strike just missing his throat and catching his collarbone.
She pushed her grounded torso backwards slightly then rolled back over, catching his head between both knees, her rounded calf muscles flexed and choking the air from his windpipe. Brennan ignored the instinct to reach up and try to pry her thighs loose, his training kicking in.
Instead, he reached down to her bare feet ...and snapped her left toe bone.
Lee grunted and choked down a shriek, the pain excruciating. She rolled off him and Brennan was up quickly, his breathing back to normal, his adrenaline in flow but controlled. She was prone on her back, trying to scramble to her feet. He aimed a well-timed kick that caught her on the chin, putting her lights out. He fought back a momentary sensation of guilt at having kicked a woman in the face and looked back at Wong. He was still unconscious, which wasn’t good. It had been at least a couple of minutes, which meant he was probably...
The hitman stirred, his body jerking for a few seconds spasmodically as his nerve processing kicked back into gear. He began to shake his head to rouse himself and to push himself up onto his elbows. Brennan’s boot crashed into his face a split-second later, and he was out again.
Brennan could hear a police siren, which meant the authorities were already there. Outside in the hallway, Stanley staggered to his feet. Brennan ran over to the hole in the wall and climbed back through. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get out the back here somehow.’
As they ran toward the rear exit, Stanley said ‘No, no, I’ve already tried this door. It’s...’
Brennan opened fire with a volley of at least six shots from the Smith and Wesson, the door frame around the lock hasp disintegr
ating in a cloud of splinters. In one smooth motion, Brennan kicked the door open wide and they ran out into the street. It had begun to rain in the torrential fashion common to humid climates, the water coming down in near-blinding torrents, and both men were soaked instantly.
The police squad cars were there before either man could react, dazed and damaged as they were. The cars squealed to a halt in front of them, their lights spinning, and four officers piled out, guns drawn. The streetlights were blinding white.
‘Macau Police! Drop your weapons!’
Brennan raised his hand and dropped the dangling pistol from his forefinger. It clattered on the wet, dirty asphalt.
PART TWO
10/
DAY 6
LOS ANGELES
Zoey Roberson was in love.
It wasn’t the mild infatuation that springs from a first meeting or a first date, and it wasn’t hero worship. It wasn’t just about sex this time, or making rent, or having someone to protect her. In fact, given her past, there were a lot of things Zoey was glad her relationship wasn’t.
This time, it was real. This time, he loved her as much – or even more, maybe – than she loved him.
This time was different.
It hit her like a ton of bricks again as she watched Ben from across the dinner table, oblivious to her attention and chewing a mouthful of green beans. It was that warm sense of belonging and attachment, the knowledge that they had found each other, and that she could depend upon him. She’d never felt truly loved before, growing up in a single-parent home with a mom who drank herself insensible and didn’t even seem to care if she was there.
She had the urge to go around the table and mount him; to pull open that dress shirt, pull off those studious glasses and run her fingers through his tight dark curls. To wrap her thighs around his waist…
But that was the old Zoey, and things were better now. The quick rush from satisfying a bad boy was still a lure, a pull she felt any time she drove through the wrong neighborhood, with the wrong bars. The weird mix of satisfaction and shame was still familiar, lurking in the background. But loving Ben had helped her gain control, to focus her affection on someone who deserved it.
And the shame was gone. Zoey knew she probably still looked odd to some people on the outside, with her pale white skin and tattoos, her black-and-blonde hair and her nose ring. She’d always been proudly loud about not caring what they thought, but it had always cut her to the quick when she was sure someone was making fun of her. And the idea of feeling good on the inside had seemed almost ridiculous for so long…
Ben looked up from his food, realizing they hadn’t spoken in a few minutes. Zoey was gazing at him with a wide-eyed, distant look. ‘What? Do I have something…?’ He felt around his lip for stray food.
She shook her head in small, quick motions, leaning on her hand and smiling. ‘It’s just… this is nice, you know?’
He nodded. ‘Good casserole,’ he said, turning his attention back to the plate.
In a way, the scene seemed surreal, Zoey decided. Just months earlier, her life had been the same disaster it had been since childhood. She’d been dancing at a club in Mid City, barely scraping by on a few nights a week, her life a mess of bad men, bad drugs and no prospects. The club’s owner was trying to pressure her to turn tricks out of the back rooms, and she owed enough on her credit card debt that quitting wasn’t an option; besides, dancers and staff had been the closest she’d had to family for nearly a decade, since dropping out of high school as a sophomore.
Consequently, it hadn’t occurred to her that six months later she’d be sitting across from a forty-year-old Jewish plastic surgeon from Ohio, wondering if he’d eventually pop the question and turn her fairy tale into reality. Or that he’d be so wonderful that nothing from her past would matter.
He took another forkful of food and raised it to his mouth, then noticed she was still staring, not eating. ‘You don’t like it,’ he said. ‘You don’t like the tuna casserole…’
‘No, I do, really!’ she said.
‘But you’re not eating. Is this like the monkfish, where you don’t want to make me feel bad after cooking…?’ he began to ask.
‘No, no, no. I’m… It’s just…’ She leaned across the table slightly and held out a hand and he took it in his. ‘I’m just happy, that’s all. It’s just nice to look at you.’
Ben blushed. His parents had long passed, but when he was a kid, the Levitt clan had never been especially touchy-feely. Zoey had so much affection for him – so much of it physical -- that at times he felt overwhelmed. It wasn’t always sex; she also liked holding hands in public, and hugging him, and spooning with him in bed. He wasn’t sure why, or how, but she seemed as infatuated with him as he was with her. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a five-foot-eight guy with a paunch, a balding head and hair on his back. Zoey, however, could look right past all that.
He knew they didn’t really have much in common; his friends figured he’d tire of her eventually, like the rest. But Ben wasn’t so sure.
Then again, he hadn’t been sure with Wendy, or Jill, or Danielle, or...
‘You want to head over to the pier tomorrow, see if we can catch some fish?’ she asked as he finished the last mouthful of casserole. ‘Or we could call Ginny and Mark and see if they want to get brunch?’ Ginny and Mark lived in the condo below them and were the closest thing they had to ‘couple friends.’ Despite her fears, they’d also seemed underwhelmed by Zoey’s appearance, or when she fiercely announced early on in their friendship that she used to be a dancer.
‘Contemporary or modern?’ Ginny had asked.
‘Naked,’ Zoey had replied.
Ginny had just shrugged. ‘Beats an office gig,’ she’d said.
They’d gotten along well after that and Zoey was eager to preserve the union. ‘We can see if they want to go for dim sum,’ she suggested.
‘Sure,’ Ben said, smiling back. He’d already fallen in love with her; he knew that much. Mark had warned him off, saying Zoey was all trouble, the kind of crazy girl who’d cheat on him at the first opportunity. But it hadn’t taken long before she seemed just as infatuated with him. He knew it didn’t make any sort of sense from a normal social standpoint; she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The guys at the racquet club had been all over him about her tattoos and mini skirts, to the point where he’d almost gotten into a fight for the first time since grade school. And he knew the life she’d led, what she’d done to make ends meet.
It didn’t matter. He was sure this time that his wandering eye had finally set upon the right woman for him. They’d moved in together after just a few weeks. It didn’t matter that his friends disapproved – and boy, did they disapprove – and it didn’t matter that his colleagues thought he was having a midlife crisis. What mattered was that at the end of the day, after stitching up countless wrinkled, Botox-laden widows from the Hills, he got to go home to her.
His phone rang. He took it out of his suit pants pocket and answered.
‘Benjamin Levitt.’
Zoey watched as he nodded his head once. Then he put the phone down on the dinner table and got up, walking out of the open-plan condo’s dining area and down the hall toward the bedroom, saying nothing.
‘Sweetie?’ Zoey asked.
He ignored her. Zoey stared at the empty opening to the hallway.
She sat and waited for a few moments. ‘Are you okay?’ she called out. ‘Because you got up awful sort of sudden there.’
No response.
Zoey got up from her chair. She grabbed their empty plates and carried them over to the black marble kitchen counters, where she set them above the dishwasher. ‘Was it work? I thought that always went to your service after hours…’
She waited for a reply but there was only silence. ‘Sweetie?’
She walked the short corridor to the bedroom and pushed the ajar door open. ‘Ben?’ she asked.
He had a suitcase on the be
d and had already half-filled it with folded clean clothing. Beside the suitcase was a black attaché case. He ignored her presence as he unfastened the catches and opened it. The suitcase was full of money, stacks of bills held together by slim strips of paper. There must have been tens of thousands of dollars there at least, she thought. Then he reached into the lid pocket of the case and withdrew a small black pistol, which he secreted into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
‘Ben, what the hell…’ she said. He continued to ignore her as if she wasn’t even there, transferring the rest of the money from the attaché case to the suitcase pockets. Then he took his wallet from his back pocket and began to throw credit cards and ID onto the bed, emptying it. He reached into the suitcase pocket again, withdrawing a small Ziploc plastic bag. There were two credit cards inside, a driver’s license, other documents.
She walked over and knelt next to him, beside the bed. The driver’s license said ‘Paul Joseph.’
‘Sweetie… what are you doing? I didn’t know you owned a gun…’
He ignored her and said nothing, as if she wasn’t even present, finishing up his packing and zipping the big brown suitcase closed. Then he rose, picked up the case even as she walked beside him, and headed into the dining room. He picked his phone back up off the table, then moved to the front room.
A wave of fright crept through her, a sense of lost control, an old familiar feeling, out of place. ‘Ben, you’re scaring me; why are you packing? Why aren’t you saying anything to me? Ben! What’s going on?’
He walked to the hallway closet and took out his dark grey wool topcoat, the formal coat he wore over his suit when they went to Temple. He closed the closet door and fished his car keys from a bowl on the adjacent end table.
Was he walking out? Zoey was confused. ‘Bennie, please… you’re not acting right….’ It seemed obvious he was about to leave, so she hurried up the front entranceway ahead of him and stood in front of the door, next to the kitchen entrance, blocking the hall.
