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It wasn’t really loud. I mean, I want to know if somebody’s trespassing. But I don’t want them to know I know. Like, if there’s a gigantic air-raid siren, a klaxon horn, guns firing, signal rockets going up—they’re going to know I’m ready, right? And that makes it a lot harder to get the drop on them and decide whether it’s going to be a permanent drop.
So this alarm was a muted buzz and a small flashing light, just enough to get my attention inside the house, and it did. I switched it off and checked the panel. Somebody had pulled a car onto my road and parked. I flipped a switch and got a visual. It was just there, not moving. There was one guy leaning on the hood of a rental car, smoking a cigarette.
He didn’t look like much; kind of small, wiry, maybe forty years old. His clothes had the tailoring and that scruffy elegance that said he was European and he had a little money. And he was just sitting there, smoking, holding his cigarette like they do in Italy and France.
But just sitting, doing nothing. That could mean a couple of things. He might be waiting for another car or two, filled with storm troopers, before he moved in on me. Or even worse, maybe three or four guys had already jumped out and were sneaking through the bushes toward my house right now, while he sat and waited for them to finish doing horrible things to me and come back to the car.
And sure, I know, maybe he was lost, or just taking a break on a nice country road. But I didn’t think so. It doesn’t work that way in my world. If he was here, he was here because I was here, and I couldn’t think of too many ways that could be good. Besides, the clothes, and the way he smoked the cigarette, said he was from Europe. The way things were shaping up for me right now, that felt like bad news, too. And in any case, better safe than sorry.
I hate sorry, so I’m good at safe. I was ready. I stepped into the kitchen and right through to the back of the pantry. The back wall had a hidden door, and I popped it open. Inside I had a couple of toys I’d stashed away for the idle hours, like this had suddenly turned into. I pulled one out, a cute little Heckler and Koch HK433 assault rifle. I had the longer 18.9-inch barrel on it because it’s better at a distance, and there are times when one long shot is a whole lot better than spraying something close up. I fed in a clip, stuck two more in my pocket—I mean, you never know, right?—and slipped out the back door.
I circled away from the driveway and down to the lakeshore. There’s a bank that drops down about four feet from the yard to the lake, and a small lip of mud between the bank and the water. I crouched over, letting the bank hide me, and slurped through the mud for about a quarter of a mile, until I was screened by trees and brush and far enough away from the dirt driveway to be invisible. Then I cut up to the main road through the woods and came back toward my driveway. I didn’t see anybody, didn’t hear anything, didn’t notice anything that shouldn’t be there.
I kept it stealthy anyway and came up behind the guy on the rental car. Long before I saw him I could smell the smoke from his cigarette. I slid sideways and snuck up to where I could see his face. He was still smoking. It had to be his third or fourth since he’d parked there. Maybe I should just wait a little longer and he’d die of lung cancer. On the other hand, I kind of needed to ask him why he was there, was he alone, all the standard crap. So I worked the action on my rifle, just one snick-snick, so he knew I was there.
He didn’t jump. Didn’t even flinch. Just took one last puff on the cigarette and then ground it out with the pointy toe of his Italian shoes. “That’s just the way how I woulda done it,” he said in a thick Brooklyn accent. Like I said, European. I’m never wrong about that stuff. “Snuck up like that, around the side.” He held his hands up in the air, showing they were empty, but so casual that I could see he was just being polite and he wasn’t really expecting me to do anything. “Let’s go sit someplace, huh? My ass is killin’ me from sittin’ on the fucking hot metal hood. Hey, you got anything to drink? Fucking hot out here.”
“Sure, why not? We’ll go have a couple of drinks and tell jokes,” I said. “Except—who the fuck are you, and why don’t I just pop a cap or two in your ass?”
He turned all the way around to face me. “You fucking kiddin’ me?” he said. “Who the fuck you think I am? Santa fucking Claus? I’m your fucking contact.” He gave a lazy wave of his hand. “Benny.”
“Contact,” I said. My brain spun around the word, quickly tossing out a bunch of wild stuff and settling on the most obvious. “Contact from—”
He held up a hand, quickly this time, and said, “Let’s not do the name game, okay? Just in case, you know, somebody might be listening?” He gave me a tiny smile, closer to a smirk. “It can happen—even in all dis rustic splendor.” A small snort and then he added, “And seriously, who the fuck you think would give enough of a shit to check up on you in a shit hole in the middle of Tree-Fuck, Ohio?”
It was
a question with at least two answers, but the most likely one was Boniface. He’d said he would be in touch. So I played along and asked, “You represent a serious collector?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “I like that. Sure, the art collector.” He tilted his head down the drive toward my cabin. “Seriously, can we get outa the fucking sun? Huh?”
Yup. Boniface. I put my weapon on safe. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s do that.”
We got outa the fucking sun and went to my fucking cabin.
19
Benny didn’t have a lot to say. Just checking up. The only important thing he did was to give me a phone number to call when I was ready to make a delivery, or if I needed anything special. Then he used the bathroom, lit up again, and left, trailing a cloud of smoke. When he was gone, I opened up the cabin and put the fans on high to get rid of the tobacco smell. Then I just sat and thought for a long time. They were not really any new thoughts, and the old ones were getting depressing as hell.
I knew Boniface could find me eventually, no matter where I went, but he had found me here way too quickly, and it pissed me off—a lot. I felt like I had no secrets left. And I probably didn’t. He already knew about Mom. He knew my hideouts. He probably even knew the account numbers and pass codes for my bank accounts. And apparently he knew where I was pretty much all the time.
I really and truly did not like that. In fact, I absolutely hated the shit out of it. Maybe it doesn’t seem like such a big deal, like I’m being a whiny dick because some alpha dog knew where I buried all my bones. I mean, just bury them someplace else, right?
It doesn’t work that way in my world. My privacy, my secrets—they were the only things keeping me alive and walking around on the outside. If I lost that, I was as good as dead. And I didn’t even bother hoping that it would all be over when I did this impossible thing. I would never be free from Boniface. And even if somehow I did bust free, then there was Bailey Stone, and he didn’t seem like the kind of sweet, forgiving guy who ever gave up a stranglehold on anybody. He’d hang on just because it made me miserable. So whoever was the last asshat standing would have me by the nut sack, and they’d hold on forever.
I hated that even more. But I wasn’t seeing a whole lot of choice from where I was sitting.
And I still hadn’t figured out how to steal a wall.
And because the only consistent law of the universe is that things always get worse—forty minutes after Benny left, my alarm went off again.
I switched it off and looked at the monitor. Another rental car. Still moving, but only one guy, the driver, was visible. I reached for my weapon and took a step toward the back door, heading for the lakeshore and the mud again, and then I thought—Fuck it. I went out the front door, stepped behind the utility shed, and waited.
In just another minute, the car came barreling down the drive. No subtlety at all to this guy. He slid to a stop and parked next to my truck. The driver jumped out right away, before the dust even started to settle. He was in his thirties, just under six feet, with blond hair and pink cheeks. He looked like a recruiting poster for Aryan Nations, except that he was dressed in beat-to-shit jeans and a faded orange T-shirt that read, “VOLS” in big white letters. He took a couple of steps toward the cabin, then stopped dead, turned in a full circle, and frowned.
“Hey, buddy!” he hollered. “Where you at?”
The voice was pure redneck, like the T-shirt, and the way he stood there like he was waiting for me to bring him a beer, I had a pretty good idea who he was—or, at least, what.
