TWENTY-TWO

By noon the next day, Hector hadn’t called back. She paced the apartment, tried his number again. When it went to voice mail, she ended the call.

The cat watched her from the futon, sensing her agitation. She went into the kitchen, opened a can of food for it, spooned it into the plastic bowl. The sound of the electric can opener usually brought the cat running, but this time it stayed where it was. I know how you feel, Crissa thought. I don’t think I could eat either.

She’d stored the .38 and the box of shells above a panel in the kitchen’s drop ceiling. Now she stood on a chair and took the gun out, fit the panel back in place. She got a package of thick brown rubber bands from the desk, wrapped four of them around the .38’s mother-of-pearl grips. They would steady the gun in her hand, keep it from slipping, prevent fingerprints as well.

She turned the gun over, felt its weight. She had never fired a weapon at anyone in her life, hoped to never have to. Guns were their own craziness, like drugs. Another distraction from the real work, from the calm and careful planning that set things in motion and made them pay off. They were a necessary tool, a threat, but to be caught with one meant even more trouble. She never carried one except when working, and then got rid of it as soon as the work was done.

The .38 was different. It wasn’t a tool. It was insurance.

At three in the afternoon, she tried him once more, hung up when it went to voice mail. There was nothing to do now except wait until night.

*   *   *

She cruised by the house twice. No lights inside. Hector’s brown Nova, his latest restoration project, was parked halfway up the block. It was crooked, front wheels angled to the curb, as if it had been left in a hurry.

She parked a block away, tried his phone one last time. No answer.

She got out and walked back to the house, her right hand on the gun in her pocket. Spanish television noise blared from the house next door. On the porch, she pressed the doorbell, heard it buzz inside. She rang twice more, then went around back.

The yard was small. As she neared the door, a motion sensor light kicked on bright. She went up the wooden back steps, stood on her toes, reached and loosened the bulb with gloved fingers. The yard went dark again.

She looked through the kitchen window into darkness, listened. After a moment, she brought out the penlight and leather lockpick wallet. She thumbed the light on, held it in her teeth, took a pressure wrench and pick from their sleeves.

She worked the dead bolt first. She slid a wrench into the keyhole, twisted it to keep tension, then used the pick to rake the inside of the cylinder. When she felt the pins slip, she turned the wrench farther. The lock clicked open.

The knob was easier. When she was done, she shut the penlight off, opened the door, felt it catch against a chain. She stopped to listen again, hoping Hector wasn’t inside with a gun, waiting to see who came through his back door. All she could hear was the tick of a clock in another room.

She put the pick set away, took out a small spool of heavy-gauge wire. Straightening a foot-length of it, she bent the end into a hook. She fed the wire through the gap in the door, feeling for the chain. She caught it on the second try, eased the door toward her to put slack in the links. When she pushed the wire toward the center of the door, the chain unlatched and fell free.

Drawing the .38, she moved inside, edged the door shut behind her. She raised the penlight in a reverse grip, thumbed the button.

The kitchen was small and neat, dishes stacked to dry on a counter, children’s artwork on the refrigerator door. Snapshots there as well. Hector with Luisa and the kids. Hector and his brother Pablo in tuxedos, arms around each other, grinning fiercely at the camera. Hector in a wifebeater and sunglasses, arms crossed, leaning against the hood of the Nova.

She went through the dark house, fanning the penlight in front of her. In the living room, a couch, chairs, and a wide-screen TV. To the right, a staircase leading up.

Above her, floorboards squeaked.

She switched the penlight off. Another creak. Footsteps, but faint, someone trying to be quiet. She backed away from the stairs, raised the .38. She could feel her heart thumping, the blood in her ears.

Another noise above. Then someone on the stairs, coming down into darkness.

She steadied the .38 in her right hand, gripped the penlight with her left, wrists crossed, thumb on the button. Her finger tightened on the trigger. No time to cock it. To fire, she’d have to take the long double-action pull, hope she was quick enough.

Steps creaking. Midway now, a darker shape there in the shadows. Facing her.

She was squeezing the penlight button when a beam of light came from the stairs, shining fully into her face, blinding her. Her penlight clicked on, the beam reaching out, illuminating the form there, and she squeezed the trigger on the .38, the hammer coming back, the light showing her the man on the steps, the gun in his hand, and then the man was saying, “Whoah, whoah, hold on, hold on…” and she saw his face, eased the pressure on the trigger.

He lowered his gun, let the light drop away from her face.

“Hey, Red,” Chance said. “Thought it might be you.”

*   *   *

They were upstairs in a bedroom, the room torn apart, clothes on the floor. The mattress had been upended, a bureau turned on its side, drawers pulled out. Chance had drawn all the blinds, put a lamp on the floor, and switched it on. It threw their shadows big against the wall.

“I thought you were in Cleveland,” she said.

“I lied.” He sat on the edge of the box spring, put the gun down beside him. He wore a black army field jacket, a dark sweater, and black gloves. “I guess I’m getting a little paranoid. Can you blame me?”

“How’d you get in?”

“Side window. You?”

“Back door.” She looked around the room. “You do this?”

“Way I found it. I only got here about a half hour ago. Kids’ room is the same way. Shit dumped everywhere. Somebody looking for something.”

She put the .38 back in her jacket pocket. “Why are you here?”

“My guy Sladden got a call from our friend Stimmer. Or at least from someone using his cell phone. They asked for me. Thing is, when you do the math, Stimmer was already dead when the call was made.”

“Then whoever killed him got his cell phone.”

“And all the numbers in it. Sladden called me. He wasn’t happy. He doesn’t like surprises. He tried Hector a few times, yesterday and today. No answer. So I started to get worried, came up here tonight.”

“You couldn’t have been far.”

“Wilmington. It’s not Cleveland, but hey.”

She knelt by the closet. Floorboards had been pried up. A battered black strongbox lay open and empty in the hole.

“Maybe they found what they were looking for,” she said. She thought about the twenty thousand she’d given Hector, wondered if this was where he’d hidden it.

“Hector mixed up in anything else that might blow back on him?”

She shook her head. “He’s straight. Just a go-between these days. That’s all.”

“That’s hardly straight.”

“You don’t have to worry about Hector.”

“Then who do I have to worry about?”

She looked at him.

“Nothing personal,” he said, “but this thing’s going farther south every day. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know. He’s your guy.”

She shook her head in irritation. “You look through the rest of the house?”

“Yeah. Same thing. Someone took their time, didn’t care about the mess they left.”

She looked around the room, thinking it all through, felt his eyes on her. “His car’s down the block,” she said. “I’ll take a look.”

He got up, put the gun away. “I’ll go with you.”

She went first, downstairs and out the back door. They met up in the street, walked along it until they got to the Nova. She came up on the driver’s side, shone the penlight in. The front seat was empty except for a folded newspaper. Nothing in the back. She tried the door. Locked.

“Back here,” Chance said.

She came around, shone the light on the trunk.

“On the bumper,” he said.

She guided the beam along the chrome, saw it then. Two fat blood drops, dark and dry, on the shiny metal.

Her stomach tightened. She clicked the penlight off.

“We have to look,” he said.

“I know.” She took out the pick set.

He turned his back, shielded her as she chose a pick and wrench. She worked by the light of the streetlamp, fit the wrench in, raked the cylinder, heard it click. The trunk lid rose slightly.

She put the pick set away, looked at the trunk, not wanting to open it.

“This is no good, being out here like this,” he said. “Go on.”

With the penlight in one hand, she lifted the trunk lid with the other, let the spring take it. A coppery smell drifted up, mixed with the scent of excrement. She thumbed the light on, played the beam inside.

There was a tarp there, splotched with paint and deep rust-colored stains. She picked up a corner of it, saw a pair of Timberlands.

Go ahead and look, she thought. Get it over with.

She pulled the canvas back. Hector lay on his left side, facing her. He was shirtless, his arms tied behind him. His eyes were half open, his face swollen. There was a deep cut across his throat, crusted with dried blood.

“Ah, Jesus,” Chance said behind her.

She couldn’t look away. There were other cuts on his chest and arms, long and deep. His pants legs were soaked through with blood.

Nausea welled inside her. She let the tarp drop back.

“We need to get out of here,” Chance said.

She clicked the light off. He reached around her and shut the trunk.

*   *   *

He was staying in a motel near the airport. She followed him in her car. Up in the room, he locked the door, closed the curtains.

“We can’t leave him there like that,” she said.

He put his gun on the desk, took off his gloves and jacket.

“Nothing we can do for him now,” he said. “You call the police, that starts a murder investigation. Maybe some nosy neighbor saw one of us going in there. Might be we’ve got a couple days grace period before they find him. Let’s use it.”

“He’s got children. A wife. He deserves better than being left to rot in a car trunk.”

“We have to look out for ourselves. He’d understand.”

He crossed to the sink, ran water, palmed it into his face. He dried off with a hand towel, looked at her.

“But I guess you’ll do what you want anyway,” he said. “Regardless of what I say.”

“That’s right.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s just one thing after another, isn’t it? This whole deal was fucked from the start.”

“There’s more.” She told him about Jimmy Peaches, what he’d said.

“Great.” He got up, started to pace. “It starts off as simple work, and now we’re in the middle of a bunch of guido shit.”

“Nothing for it. We are where we are.”

“He’s right. The best thing for both of us is to get as far away as possible.”

“I have a life here,” she said. “For the first time in years. I have a place I can go back to, call home. I’m not giving that up, and I’m not letting someone run me off it without a fight.”

“Stimmer and Hector weren’t amateurs. Whoever did this got the drop on both of them. Pretty easily, too. I don’t see the sense in waiting around for him to take a crack at us.”

“Do what you think is right,” she said, “but I feel like I’ve been running my whole life, one way or another. I’m tired of it.”

He leaned against the sink and crossed his arms, watching her.

“Anyway, I’ve got this thing down in Texas,” she said. “With Wayne. I need to be in a position to handle that. I can’t do it on the run.”

“I know.”

“There’s no reason for you to stick around, though. You’ve got no ties here, nothing to protect.”

“That’s right.”

“If I were you, I’d bail. Go to Cleveland, or wherever it is you were heading. If I need to reach you, I’ll call Sladden.”

He shook his head. “That route’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I walk away, I walk away. From you, from this whole mess. For safety’s sake. I need to protect Sladden, too. We’ve all got a lot to lose.”

“I understand.”

“I’m sorry, Red.”

“You’re doing the right thing.”

She opened the door and looked out into the parking lot. A plane droned low and massive overhead, landing lights flashing.

“It was good while it lasted,” he said. “We made a good team.”

“We did,” she said. “Be seeing you.”

*   *   *

At a Turnpike rest stop, she found a phone booth without a security camera nearby and called 911. When the dispatcher came on, Crissa told her she’d just seen teenagers breaking into a car in Jersey City. She gave Hector’s address and a description of the Nova. When the dispatcher asked her name, she hung up.

*   *   *

It was 3:00 A.M. by the time she got back to the city. Lionel, the night doorman, greeted her sleepily. She was feeling the leaden aftereffects of stress as she rode up in the elevator, remembering Hector’s face, the marks on his body. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

At her door, she worked the key in the locks, listened for the cat. It had taken to greeting her when she came home, mewling on the other side of the door until she got it open. Silence.

When she opened the door, a cold breeze blew past her into the hall.

She stayed where she was, listening. On the wall, the alarm keypad was blinking red, waiting for the code. It hadn’t been tripped.

She drew the .38, pointed it into the darkness. With her left hand, she tapped in the code. The light turned green.

The apartment was cold. She went through it with the gun up, finger tight on the trigger. The futon had been overturned, the pad slashed. The living room window was open, cold air pouring in. There was a perfect fist-sized circle cut out of the top pane near the lock, sticky remnants of tape around it. That was how they’d gotten in. The storm window had been forced up. There were shiny pry marks along its bottom edge.

In the kitchen, cabinets had been opened, pots and pans pulled out onto the floor. The refrigerator stood out crooked from the wall, door ajar. All its contents had been tipped out. On the floor, piles of sugar and flour spilled out of shattered ceramic containers. Wine bottles were broken in the sink, staining the porcelain like blood. There were footprints in the flour. Two sets. One with a sneaker pattern, a bigger one without.

She went into the bedroom. The bed had been stripped, the mattress pulled off, slashed. The closet door was thrown wide, and the maroon suitcase lay open on the floor, clothes spilling out. The lining had been cut open. The packets of money were gone.

She looked around, realized then the laptop was missing. The desk had been pulled away from the wall, the drawers taken out and dumped.

She went back into the living room, looked out the window onto the fire escape. On the outside wall, the rubber stripping that covered the alarm wiring had been peeled away. A pair of tiny alligator clips dangled from bare wire. They’d bypassed the system, done it quickly enough that no one had seen them and called the police—but they’d left quickly as well, forgotten the clips. She looked across the street. A handful of smokers stood outside the bar, puffing away in the cold.

She heard a meowing below, looked down, and saw the cat staring up at her from the fire escape, one floor down. It had fled through the open window, hidden out until they were gone. Smart.

She put the .38 atop the TV, looked around the apartment, felt the knife-edge of anger and loss, a stinging wetness in her eyes, all of it piling up on her. She thought about the laptop, the pictures of Maddie. Hector in the trunk.

All right, you bastards, she thought. You’ve got my attention now.

The cat appeared at the window, looked at her, then leaped down onto the floor. It brushed against her legs, hid behind her, arched its back, still freaked.

She looked out the window into the night.

You didn’t find what you wanted, she thought, but you’ll try again, won’t you? And I’ll be ready.