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Walid laughs. “Women. They are the most devious of sexes. If not controlled, they will poison the world. With complaints. With excuses. With the vagaries of being female.”
Despite my devastation, I rally the muscles in my spine and torso, order them to straighten. Fuck Walid. Fuck Tony.Anger boils in my cells, but I push it down. I need to stay calm, find an opportunity to break out of here, and save Sandesh.
Locking eyes with Tony, I see his flicker once, twice toward the couch nearest me and directly across from him and Walid. Fucker wants me to sit. He’s obviously trying to help.Oh, sure, Tone, why not? You’ll turn on Momma, but you’ll help me. You shit.
Pushing aside the feelings I can’t afford, legs like steel, unbending and tense, I walk to the couch. Steel-Blue Eyes keeps his icy gaze and his gun on me as I move. I more fall than sit, and there’s a sharpcrackas my weight hits the seat.
Once I’m seated, I don’t really need Tony’s help to understand why he put me here. I see a fraction of Victor’s reflection in a sliver of glass behind one of the heavy drapes. If it weren’t for where I’m sitting, I wouldn’t be able to see him.
I keep my eyes focused on Walid, trying not to reveal my growing confusion. Tony knows Victor is there, he must. Why else would he direct me to sit here? What’s going on?
Maybe I can find out if I can keep him talking. “This has been about Momma? You couldn’t have, oh, I don’t know, told us how you felt? Brought it up over an awkward Thanksgiving dinner like a normal person?”
Tony laughs. It sounds sarcastic and hurt and laced with hundreds of emotions and thoughts I can only guess at. “You mean like write a letter? A letter that told everyone in my family of female fanatics exactly how I felt?”
Female fanatics? Has he felt this way all along? Is that why he betrayed us? Or is he trying to appeal to Walid? Or are both things true?
Obviously, his betrayal is real. If it weren’t, if he hadn’t been able to supply some proof, Tony would never have been able to get to Walid and convince him to trust him. And he’s not lying about the letter. Hedidwrite a letter to Momma, the one with the plan for dealing with the Brothers Grim. Other than the plan part, I never saw it, so I have no idea if it stated what he says it did. But that’s not important. I have all the information I need because of what’s being left out—Tony isn’t telling Walid this plan to break in here today was his. Only that he hates The Guild and Momma. He’s not telling him about Victor. He’s walking a fine line.
The Guild taught me as a child that some of the best lies are those rooted in truth. Tony betrayed me and the family, he supplied proof of that to Walid, allowing us all to be in this room, close enough to kill Walid, but now he’s trying to make up for what he did?
If that’s the case, what does Tony want from me? Why direct me here?
In the glass, I see a glint of the gun Victor has raised. Is he waiting for some kind of signal? Or maybe just the right moment? Hmmm. Tony sits so close to Walid, he’s capable of delivering the poison if he’s offered the right opportunity, the right distraction.
I get it—or think I do. Like a pickpocket, Tony’s asking me for that help, asking me to be that distraction.
If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s pressing buttons. “Tone, you don’t think The Guild did the right thing killing that slime, Aamir?”
“You bitches,” Walid says. His outrage and disbelief make his words drop low and heavy. “You are trying to overturn the natural order of things. Women are to be bedded and fed and kept out of the way.”
“Come on, now.” Tony drapes an arm behind Walid’s shoulders, simultaneously squeezing his thigh. Distraction on top of distraction, but I’m paying attention and see Tony’s thumb brushes against Walid’s neck. “She’s playing you.”
Walid knocks his hands off his knee. Too late, and not even the area he needed to worry about. The poison will take some time to work. I was told between eight and twelve minutes to kill, but I never asked how long until Walid would show a reaction. And I never wondered, never thought I’d be in a position where it would matter, how long it would take the guards to notice those reactions aren’t natural. Once they notice, how long until they figure out who did it?
I can’t wait to find out. I meet Tony’s eyes. Almost imperceptibly, he nods.Not for nothing, as Tony would say.
I cross my legs, ranch-hand style, right foot on left knee. My pant leg rises up, making it easier for me to get the knife. As casually as if I’m telling him the weather, I say, “The natural order seemed pretty clear to me when I shoved that little piece of metal into your brother’s heart and he pissed all over himself.”
The room goes rage quiet. Walid’s face turns a furious shade of crimson. “You will piss blood when I dig my knife into your gut.”
He tries to stand. Tony grabs him by the shirt. “Knock it off.”
Thick Neck Guard puts his gun to Tony’s head. Tony goes still. By the look on his face, he finally registers the shit he’s gotten us into. Hmmm, it only took a gun to his head.
Walid, stands up, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a knife, and flicks it open. He stalks toward me. “Your brother can cry over your corpse as I did my brother’s.”
“Come on then, Wally,” I taunt through a bone-dry mouth.Please, Victor, understand the signal.“Let’s go!”
57
SANDESH
The rickety mineshaft elevator rocks to a stop at the top with apopthat spits out coal dust and congealed mechanical oil. Even the throatful of water I chugged from Dusty’s flask doesn’t keep me from coughing.
I cover my mouth and blink to clear my eyes. There’s a short tunnel leading out. It’s lit by a single caged lightbulb that illuminates four men at the mouth of the mineshaft with weapons drawn.
Dusty uses his Glock 22 to motion me and Gracie out of the metal box and to the side of the wood-beam-supported tunnel. It’s not difficult to play the weary prisoner, shuffling forward, keeping my head down. I’ve had practice of late. Plus, I’m weary as hell.
