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There’s still a ton of people milling in and out of the Venetian for the shopping experience, so it isn’t super late. I park as close to an entrance as I can manage and saunter in, leaving Bits and Bristol to hash out who’s gonna sit in the front and who’s gonna sit with the dog. I’ve got my guesses about how that arrangement’ll shake out, but I’ll just have to wait and see. I make it up to the room and get the bathroom door open before Bits is in my earpiece. The dog actually seems kind of happy to see me, she isn’t lifting her lip or anything. Lookin’ at me sideways with all the whites of her eyes showing. I crouch down and she comes to me, slowly, and when I hold my hand out she sniffs it and then bumps it with her nose.
“The contact just called in a panic, we gotta go.”
“Without the dog, I assume?”
“Yeah, leave her for now.”
“Roger that.” I give her a quick pat and say “Sorry, pup, I’ll try to be right back,” and I’m out the door again, making sure the do not disturbs are still up. They are, and there’s another tag hung so that we can indicate when we do want service. I’ll let Bristol handle that when we get back. “Bristol is this guy always so flighty?”
“No, actually, this has been an exceedingly odd situation.”
“In the six months that you’ve known him.”
“Yes, in the six months that I’ve known him,” she snaps. “Please don’t harp, it isn’t as though it will help a single thing.”
“Sorry.” Not sorry but. Sometimes you gotta pay lipservice to peacekeeping, not technically a lie. I get outside and get back in the car. “Okay where to?”
“I put his location in the car’s GPS,” Bits says. She’s still in the back seat, headset around her neck, and Bristol is up front, so I would’ve won money on that bet.
“You know, this might be the first time we’re ever like. To the rescue.”
“I think it is.”
“Oh please don’t call it that, darlings.” I cut my eyes to Bristol, and while she isn’t exactly wringing her hands, she’s tense.
“If there’s something else goin’ on here, now might be a good time to fill us in,” I say.
“I told you the entire story, cross my heart. My contact was paid to reach out to us to get the dog for his employers. Beyond the price these dogs go for, I don’t know what makes the one we’ve dognapped special, and I certainly didn’t know that other parties were interested as well.”
“I feel like we gotta start making a mental note that other parties’re gonna be interested. Just add it to the mission checklist.”
“Yes that’s all well and good but—”
“Bristol, cool it. We’ll get your guy, he’ll get the dog, we go our separate ways. Everything’s copacetic. We don’t need to know what’s up with the dog, that’s not what we’re getting paid for.”
“Looks like we’ll be there in five,” Bits says.
“Oh good,” Bristol says, shifting in her seat, resting her hand lightly on the door handle. She’s ready to roll out, which is great. Whatever you might think about Bristol at first or even second glance, there’s always more to her. I haven’t seen her actually have to hit somebody more than a couple of times, but she’s definitely got a crafted capability. I wonder if she learned that in her little online classes too. Old videos. Some kind of combat yoga spa retreat.
I look at the GPS in the dashboard, at our little blip getting closer and closer to his little blip, and I’ve got the feeling that we won’t be in time for...whatever this is. I still try, within reason, even pushing reason, trusting Bitsy to have an eye on things like radar and police and all that. It’s late enough that there is and isn’t traffic, are and aren’t pedestrians, and I make the final turn sharply enough that all of the tires are gently singing, like if you run a wet finger along a glass rim. I hear Bits’ teeth clack together when I stop and we all slam out of the vehicle and I’ve gotta hand it to Bristol, she actually can haul ass in high heels. It’s a public garden or a park or something, and we go through a stone arch, and then up a whole bunch of stairs, and then we see him on a walkway, leaning on a railing, looking out across the little lake there. Reservoir, inlet, whatever.
And at first I think I was wrong. Just ‘cause I go with my gut a whole lot doesn’t mean I like being right about bad stuff. There aren’t any lights up here, just some globe lamps in the park below, and the glow from the city. It isn’t ideal but I let Bristol get to him first, he’s her contact and he’s already spooked, right? She gets to him and he doesn’t react and I’m right behind her and she touches his shoulder and he’s not leaning on the railing he’s draped on the railing and starts to go over but I shove past her and grab a handful of his wet suitcoat and haul him back. He kathumps on the pavement the way no conscious person can and I was still holdin’ out for unconscious but then I look at my hand and of course it’s blood.
Bristol puts her hand to her mouth like she’s shocked, just shocked, and maybe she is. It’s just so quiet, even with the city all around us. Not even birds. Bits gets in there, though, kneels down and pulls his phone out of his inside coat pocket, blinks at it. “Can you turn him over? He’s got something else, I think in a pants pocket.” I oblige, and she pulls out a flat data pack or maybe another phone, it’s not a gun so my expertise is limited. She pulls his wallet too.
Bristol walks past a few steps, as though maybe whoever did this is at the other end of the walkway just waiting and watching, but I can’t see anybody, and if Bits picked up any electronics over there, she’d’ve already let us know. The internet of things makes it real hard to be sneaky sometimes. But if I was gonna shoot somebody here, I’d have my team spook them so they’d come out on this bridge and I’d drop ‘em without them feeling a thing. Oh shit. Oh we are so fucking stupid.
“We need to get outta here,” I say, but there’s no time, all the hairs on the back of my neck standing up a split second before I tackle Bristol over the railing, hearing the rifle crack once, then again, feel the wind of a round right by my face and the white-hot sear of one creasing the side of my neck, but by the third crack we’ve plunged into the water.
I don’t know if Bristol can swim. I assume she can. For me, growin’ up, there were all kinds of lakes and things by us. And we had that stereotypical Southern Gothic swimming hole that all the kids went to. Rope swing, ancient tree, kids driving out there to neck, the whole nine. Shallow by the shore, with weeds and stuff that people would pull up periodically so you can wade in without gettin’ all wrapped up, but it got real deep in the middle. No idea how deep, I’m sure there’s records somewhere, but not that we had access to. But once, I jumped off the rope swing with a belt that I tied a buncha crap to, so I’d get to the bottom right quick. Just wanted to prove I could do it.
Grabbed a handful of silt and rocks there with my left hand, while I undid the belt with my right hand. Pretty much blacked out on the way back up. My oldest brother pulled me out, cursing a blue streak, and the last thing I remember before actually blacking out is looking up at our friend Butler and shoving my balled up fist of silt and rocks and stuff at him until he held his hands out. Then I opened my hand and let go. And then I let go. Might be the first time I ever blacked out, actually. Somethin’ to put in the baby book. There was a super old coin in that wad of stuff, and he had it made into a belt buckle that I wore until I lost it, and there was a cowboy spur, and I had that made into a belt buckle he wears. I assume he still wears. I’m not sayin’ he’s carrying a torch but...
Anyway we don’t hit bottom, and I keep a hand on Bristol as I swim off for where I think the right shore is, and where I hope cover is. I don’t think my neck’s too bad, just a graze, more on the meat than near anything vital. Stings like a bitch. I don’t hear any more gunfire, and I have to trust that Bits’ll keep her head down and get back to the car without getting aerated. Bristol seems to be doing okay, swimming, not dead weight that I’m dragging. I don’t think she’s hit, I didn’t feel her shudder on our way down. You don’t forget what that shudder’s like. I’m not gonna forget what that shudder’s like, not for all of my days. I hope Bits isn’t hit. I gotta think about what the plan is, if one or both of ‘em did get shot.
That first breath when I break the surface both burns and is sweet relief, and Bristol’s trying not to sputter and cough but really needs to sputter and cough and I haul her up onto the shore where there’s some bushes and stuff, and between that and the angle, that shooter shouldn’t have a shot anymore. That shooter should’ve cleared out already, just discharging an unsuppressed rifle in a city like that at least three times. There’s some distant sirens but honestly, when aren’t there?
She finally gives in to the coughing, her face buried in her arms, and we lay there for awhile and catch our breath. She lost her shoes but not her purse, so I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t wear the fancy schmancy ones. “Bits?” I finally say, when things seem quiet.
“I’m at the car, I’m going to do a lap and then come back for you.”
“Understood.” I think we’ve got tree cover all the way back to the parking lot. We should probably even go further, up the road a little, before Bits stops. In case whoever that was is also doing a lap and coming back for us. “You okay?” I ask Bristol. Our earbuds and stuff, it all can work subvocally, if we bother to take that care. Right now, I’m botherin’ to take that care.
“Yes,” she says after a moment. Somebody could be standing a foot away and not hear us, other than our creep-on-the-phone breathing. “How did you—”
“Sometimes you just know,” I say. Because while I can’t explain my timing, I definitely understood the setup. There’s honestly no good reason we aren’t both dead or bleeding, unless the gunman was about done packin’ it in when we arrived and had to set up again. But that’s a weird decision to make. The world may never know. I got a bandanna in my pocket and hold it against my neck and I can see the flash of Bristol’s eyes as she looks at me. Of course I’d get just a little bit shot where none of the gear covers.
We lay there awhile longer and then Bits says “Everything is clear, unless they’ve just gone dark.”
“I guess we gotta take that chance,” I say. Can’t say why, but I’d lay money that they’re gone, not hanging around waiting, not circling back go look for us. I’m laying our lives on it, I guess, and that’s worth more than money. I squeeze out my bandana, figuring it’s mostly the lake water, then twirl it and tie it around my neck. Not quite a right fit, but kinda on the right spot. “You ready Bristles?”
“I suppose,” she says with a little sigh, pulling that carelessness around her like a shawl.
“Okay, I’ll meet you just up the road from the parking lot,” Bits says, and we sneak through the park until we get to path again. Wait. Look around. Then we keep going, cutting over where we probably shouldn’t be walking until we get to the street, right as Bits pulls over onto the shoulder.
“Everything still clear?” I ask. Until today we’ve just sat around for awhile, but also the thought of breakin’ down all my equipment and getting it dried out right when we get back to the hotel is exhausting. I’ll ride it out, though, can’t let stuff sit like that.
Bits shrugs. “Seems to be. None of the police even came through here.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it?” Bristol asks from the back seat. She’s leaned over, rolling off her stockings. I forget that she wears ‘em, but she’s also said they’re protective in some way. Guess they must be, if they didn’t shred right off her feet on our walk through the park.
“I’m not sure any of it does, but close enough.”
“Do you want me to look at that?” She leans forward, but doesn’t touch me.
“Nah, it’s probably fine.”
“Look at what?” Bits looks at me, then her eyes get big. “Dolly!”
“I’m okay, Jesus, look at the road won’t you? Gotten worse than this slamming my hand in a door.”