A Man of Lies, page 21
He was mad because there was information he didn’t have. He was blindsided by the fact that Barrett Rye was a player, and in that, Pickens sees how to keep his promise and eliminate two threats with four simple words.
“Laia didn’t tell you?”
CHAPTER 50 Barrett Rye, 3:52 P.M.
I hate small cars. You’d think it was the legroom, right? That’s what most people assume the problem is, but they’re wrong. Sure, it sucks having to fold my knees to my chest, but the real indignity is the head space. The roof of the car is roughly where my shoulders want to be. To fit, I have to slide down in the seat. I wind up in a fetal position, all but on my back with my feet on the dash. God help me if we get in a wreck. Best-case scenario the airbag snaps my legs.
I sit in ignominious silence, watching the soy roll past, trying to ignore the growing pain in my spine—just one more ache to add to the list—and the rising nausea, whether from motion sickness or the concussion remains anyone’s guess.
I need to get Pickens out, and while I know he said he would handle Laia, this is well outside his usual field. Much as it sickens me, I’m going to need her help to pull this off. I’d rather grab the wheel and drive us into oncoming traffic, but I think Mickey would want me to do it this way. So what do I know about Laia Quintana?
She’s a mercenary, and a damned good one at that. She’s professional. She won’t do an ounce of work beyond what she is paid to do, but neither will she go back on a contract once she’s accepted it. I wish I knew more about what drove her, but money is always a good guess, and thankfully, that’s the one thing I can offer right now. So the question then becomes how to tease out the cracks in her relationship with Holzmann. I’m so wrapped up in this puzzle that I don’t pay attention to our travel until the car starts accelerating onto 680.
“Wait, where are we going? I need to get downtown,” I say, twisting so I can see Laia. She has unholstered her gun and casually holds it in her left hand as she steers with her right. If I want to make a grab for it, I’ll have to reach all the way across her.
“There’s been a change of plans,” she says. “I’m taking you back to Chicago.”
“What about Holzmann’s key?” I ask. “He hired you to get it back, right? You can’t get it back without me.”
She sighs. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course I can get it back without you. You think Cass Mullen can hide from me? Holzmann will be pissed at the delay, but I’ll get him what he paid for, and I’m not risking you slipping away again.”
“I’m gonna get Scarpello’s money,” I say. “I’ll pay him back ten times over.”
“No, you won’t.” She checks over her shoulder to merge into traffic. “He’s gone public with his grievances. He can’t back down now.”
“I can still make this work. Just give me a chance.” I know I sound desperate, but I’ll trade my pride for my life.
“You’ve had enough of those already.”
“Please, Laia. I don’t know what I did to offend you, but I’m sorry. I can make it right. Just—don’t take me back to Chicago. Not yet.”
“Barrett,” she says. “It’s not about you. It never was. You keep thinking this is personal, but it’s just work.”
“I thought you’d been looking forward to this?” I point out. “Taking down Scarpello’s favorite, proving you’re better than me.”
“I just needed you pissed off, ya big dolt. How else am I supposed to beat you in a fight?”
“If it’s professional, then let me make a professional appeal,” I say, trying another approach. “You have no idea how much money is in play here.”
“Not about that either,” she says. She doesn’t sound frustrated or upset with my pleading. If anything, she sounds bored. She’s giving me nothing to work with. “It’s the principle of the thing. You stole from Scarpello, and when he showed you mercy, you jumped ship.”
“Does he know I’m here yet?” I ask. “That you’re bringing me in?”
“No. I don’t make a promise until I know I can deliver, and I didn’t have you in hand.”
“OK,” I say, letting the desperation creep into my voice again. It’s not hard to fake. If she doesn’t buy this, then I am well and truly fucked. I have no more backups. “Just give me one day.”
If she hasn’t told Scarpello she has me, then it doesn’t cost her anything to give me twenty-four more hours. She is silent for a moment, pondering. Or maybe she’s just paying attention to the freeway. She slips into traffic between two eighteen-wheelers, and sighs.
“No,” she says. Just one word. That’s it.
“Then just tonight,” I offer. “I’ll get you the money, and you can do whatever you want with it. Keep it. Take it to Scarpello. I don’t care. Just—please don’t take me back.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“And if I fuck up, you’ve still got me, right?” I rush over her objections. If she can’t vocalize them, they aren’t real. “I won’t leave your sight. Just until morning. Just give me a chance to get this money.”
She glances over, eyebrow raised. “It doesn’t matter if you come back with a million dollars,” she says. “You’re worth more to him as an example.”
She gave me a number. That’s all I need.
“And what if I came back with ten million?” I ask.
She snorts out a laugh. “Sure, you tell me how you’re gonna make ten million dollars in a night, and then we’ll talk.”
I wait a moment before I respond. She’s not taking me seriously.
“You’re right,” I say. “I’m not going to get ten million.” I sit back into my chair, trying to get as comfortable as I can, and wait for her to return her attention to the road. “I’m getting ten million for Scarpello and another ten for you.”
At first, she thinks it’s desperation, but I’ve spent the last few miles teaching her what I sound like when I’m desperate. That was me at the end of my rope, throwing out garbage to buy another few minutes of life. This is something else entirely. It takes time to sink in, and I don’t press it. I’ve got her on my line. I’m just waiting for her to realize it.
She turns her blinker on and takes the next exit. She doesn’t say a word until we’re off the freeway and in the shade of some trees in a church parking lot.
“Tell me more,” she says.
So I do. I tell her about the rich old man, Maxwell Novak, and his art collection. I tell her about the safe in the safe and the key and the Fabergé egg. I tell her how Holzmann approached Pickens and he told Mickey. I tell her my plan to steal the key and recruit Cass and Jonny Boy to help me get the safe away from Holzmann. Laia isn’t one for betrayals, so I tell her I was going to pay them half a million, more than fair compensation, while I made off with the lion’s share. It was going to be a peace offering to Scarpello. Then she showed up and threw the whole plan into disarray. I could take on Holzmann and his boonie soldiers, but not with her supporting him.
She listens attentively as I lay it all out, asking only a few questions as we go. And when I’m done, Laia sits back in her chair and lets out a slow breath.
“Jesus,” she whispers. “All these years you’ve been Scarpello’s pet boogeyman, and you’ve had a brain of your own the whole time?”
I shrug. Of everyone I thought I’d reveal this part of myself to, Laia Quintana is about as low on the list as you can get, but I need her now more than I need to keep my secrets. And it’s nice to be recognized, even if it is by your enemy.
“I guess I never wanted anything more,” I say. I need her to trust me. That means opening up, just a little. “Or at least, never thought I could have it. Not until I met Mickey.”
“You really loved him?” she asks.
“He was the first person who saw me as more than just this,” I say, giving her a biceps flex. It’s a bit absurd, having a heartfelt confession while folded in half in a tiny car seat, and the strangeness of the moment hits us both. Laia laughs, and I do too, and for a moment she seems almost human. I nearly forget that she’s the one who pulled the trigger.
“I thought he was just a pretty face taking advantage of you,” she says. “I told Scarpello to give you a chance, you know? Told him that in my professional opinion you got blinded by good dick and shouldn’t be held to the same level of account. I’m not trying to win brownie points or anything. I’m just saying—you had me fooled.”
I get out of the car to stretch while she looks up the nearest public library. I need a computer. The key—the real key—isn’t the only thing I’d left with Cass.
In 1965 Gordon Moore, a semiconductor scientist, predicted that the size of a microchip would be cut in half every two years. Forty years later he confessed that this had been wild extrapolation and unreliable guesswork, but Moore’s law—as the maxim came to be known—had proved remarkably accurate. Modern computer chips have become so small, it is no longer manufacturing concerns that limit the size of our devices but the laws of physics. The wires are so close that they interfere with each other at a subatomic level. The upshot is you can fit a tiny computer and battery onto a wafer smaller than a fingernail, and I had planted one of those on Cass.
That chip has been searching every thirty minutes for nearby Wi-Fi and cellular signals to check back in with a central server and announce its location. At the library, that server tells me that Cass—or at least her shirt—spent the last few hours in a townhouse owned by a woman named Marta Sepovim.
The sun is setting by the time we arrive, and we decide to wait until full dark to make our move. This gives Laia time to lay out her terms. Holzmann hired her to recover the key. Once she does that, her duty is complete. I will wait nearby while she relieves Holzmann of the egg. If I run, she will find me and kill me slowly. Once she has the egg, I will be free to leave. I won’t be out from under Scarpello’s bounty, but at least Laia won’t pursue it. At this point, it’s the best offer I’m going to get.
Laia and I break into an abandoned apartment down the street to wait. That should draw less attention than me folded into the front seat of her car. I try to get some sleep on the dusty floor.
CHAPTER 51 Barrett Rye, 9:15 P.M.
After not nearly enough time, Laia is shaking me awake. The sun is down. The house lights are off. Cass must have gone to sleep early, exhausted by the day.
The front door of the townhouse is unlocked, either an omen of good fortune or the bait of a trap, and the hinge needs oil. We sweep the bottom floor, finding little but chintzy furniture and framed pictures of a woman with a variety of smiling children. I’m surprised there are no Hummel figurines, though there is a set of presidential commemorative plates—from both parties, running all the way back to Nixon—hanging above the kitchen door.
Two of the stairs creak as we make our way up to the bedrooms. Laia has drawn one of her pistols, and I lead the way unarmed. She had more guns in the car, but denied me use of them.
An old woman sleeps in the bedroom at the top of the steps. I spot a cat on the bed beside her and go still, but the cat doesn’t move. It doesn’t even breathe. The thing is stuffed. It’s a good piece of work. Creepy as hell, but extraordinarily lifelike.
We turn to the other bedroom at the end of the hall. There, asleep beneath an open window, is Cass. There’s no sign of Jonny Boy. On the table beside the bed sits the key. Laia waves for me to get it while she stays at the door. I creep past Cass, keeping my weight spread lest I find another squeaky floorboard and wake her.
Even asleep Cass looks angry. Her brow creases, and her eyes move beneath her lids. Whatever she is dreaming does not look pleasant. I’m here for a reason, though, and I reach for the key.
A motor draws my attention back to the window as headlights shine through it from the street below. And that light is enough to set Cass stirring. She rolls over in bed, away from the window and toward me. Her eyes flutter open. Her pupils narrow in the light. Before she can scream, I clamp a hand over her mouth.
She bites into my finger, and I feel blood flow. She throws herself backward and away from me, tangling in the sheets and tumbling out of the bed. I snatch for her, but not quickly enough, as she scuttles across the floor.
Laia throws on the lights, and I shield my eyes at the sudden brightness, giving Cass a moment more to get away from me. She stops her flight when she sees the gun Laia aims at her.
“Someone is downstairs,” Laia whispers to me, and we both look to the door to see the old woman standing there in her dressing gown. She opens her mouth and lets out a piercing shriek of terror.
Cass uses the distraction to dive past me and toward the window, but I grab the back of her collar and throw her onto the bed. I snatch the key up off the table and am turning to the door when the bright LED of a flashlight catches me in the face, and a man from the hallway screams, “Hands in the fucking air!” and another shouts, “Police!”
Laia draws her second pistol to cover the cops—Owen and Conrad—as they push into the room. Trying to aim two guns at once is absurd, but if anyone can do it, it’s her.
Owen and Conrad shout at Laia to drop her guns, but she’s not paying them any attention.
That’s when Jonny Boy runs to the door, and you’re all caught up again.
I meet Jonny Boy’s eye. The man is panicking. His whole world is falling apart because I wanted to change mine. He’s just lost one of the only two friends he has in this world, and now the other one—miserable piece of shit though she may be—is in a room full of guns and pissed off people. Maybe I’ll never be who Mickey thought I was, but my failings don’t have to be Jonny Boy’s.
Nobody else has seen him. Laia’s attention is split between the cops, they both have their backs to the door, Marta is huddled in the corner, and Cass is still glaring at me. I don’t know how this ends, but he doesn’t need to be here for it. I give him a wave with my fingers. A gentle shooing. He slinks away from the door and into the darkness of the hallway beyond.
“Put your fucking guns down!” Conrad yells at Laia, and, surprisingly, she complies. She doesn’t lower them completely, but she at least directs them slightly toward the ground.
“We’re on the same team,” she says, keeping her voice level. “We’re all working for Holzmann.”
“He didn’t tell us about you,” Conrad replies, but he, too, lowers his gun a few degrees.
“He wouldn’t have.” Laia lets disdain creep into her voice. “The arrogant bastard doesn’t think anyone needs to know anything. And that’s how we wind up here, pointing guns at friends.”
“That does sound like him,” Owen says. “All that bullshit he was talking about fog and monsters.”
“And what about the big fucker?” Conrad asks, gesturing toward me. “He supposed to be on our side now, too?”
“He’s Holzmann’s new trained bear,” Laia says.
The problem with cease-fires is they are still a long way from peace. You can ease tensions all you like, but you put three heavily armed, paranoid, and pissed off people in a room together, and it doesn’t take much to set them off. All you need is a twitch or a word or a flash of nerves. Or the growl of an engine coming to life on the street outside.
It is the most banal of sounds. A starter spins the pistons, pulling in oxygen, as a spark flashes through a spray of gasoline. The fury of an explosion contained in a cylinder the size of a fist. We hear it so often it fades into the background. But here, in this room and at this moment, it courses through the delicate, transitory silence.
I let my legs go limp and fall as the first gunshot rebounds through the room. Cass hits the floor next to me, her eyes wide.
“Do you have a gun?” she asks, shouting through the ringing that deafens us both. I shake my head, and she curses. I need to get away, and I can’t have the key when I do. If I have it, Laia has it, and there’s one more thing I need to do before that happens.
I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I’m not pursuing some master stratagem. This train jumped the tracks long ago and has been barreling through a forest ever since. All I’m trying to do is keep the fucker from crashing into the very next tree and hoping I can bring it to a stop before I entirely lose control. I guess that would be the train tipping over? Fuck, this metaphor is bad. Let’s pretend it was better. I can find a more appropriate one when there aren’t guns going off all around me. I put the key into Cass’s hand.
“Our deal still stands,” I shout at her. “I know where the safe is. I’ll find you.”
I point toward the window and hold up three fingers. She doesn’t understand. I lower a finger. Two left. A countdown. She nods. At one, I grab the frame of the twin bed we’re hiding behind. Laia has driven the two cops out into the hallway, and they now fire blindly through the door. She has taken cover around the corner inside the room.
When my last finger falls, I heave, lifting the entire bed and throwing it toward the door. As it tumbles through the air, scattering sheets and pillows haphazardly, Cass jumps through the open window.
In the blizzard of linens, the gunfire has lapsed, and as the bed crashes into the wall, I vault over the debris and through the door. I get past the two cops, too stunned to react, and sprint down the hall. This passage runs parallel to the stairs, which descend in the opposite direction, and I jump over the railing to the stairs below.
Or at least, I try to. I don’t know that the two cops are former high school football stars. I don’t know that every day of their lives is filled with the regret that those glories are behind them, never to be reclaimed. I don’t know that Conrad Stenberg was an All-State lineman. All I know is that he hits me with expert precision before I can get away. The jarring tackle brings back all the nausea and dizziness from the concussion, and I go still. I’ve nothing left in me as he rolls me over and cuffs me.
