Killer Move

and ordered the nudie book. Set up a few other things, too, which you probably don’t even know about yet. They’ll come home to roost sooner or later.”

Her face suddenly hardened. “Enjoy, shithead. But for now, buzz off. I’m hungry, and I’m ready to order now. I’ve waited a long time for this meal.”

I lunged at her, but Jane was faster. She yanked me away from the table, whispering the same thing over and over in my ear.

“Not worth it. Not worth it. This is not worth it.”

She dragged me out across the floor of the restaurant, ignoring my shouts and attempts to break free. She pushed me out the door and to the top of the stairs and kept on shoving until we were down at street level.

“Janine was in on it?” I yelled. “You know her?”

“I don’t know her,” Jane said. “But yes, she was a piece. I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do about it now, and no good will come of trying.”

“Holy Christ,” I said. “Who else? Karren? Was Karren White in on this? Is that why she just happened to be undressing in front of the window that night? Is Karren sitting somewhere right now counting her money, too?”

“Not as far as I’m aware,” Jane said. She grabbed my shoulders and held me still, and her voice was low and clear. “I never had any contact with Ms. White. But here’s the point, Bill. The guy who took those pictures? He’s disappeared. That’s what Tony meant upstairs about other things going strange. This guy was called Brian. He was an old friend of mine. We even dated for a while. He’s ex-army, too, and he sure as hell knew how to look after himself. He vanished last night. He didn’t turn up to meet me where he was supposed to. I can’t get him on the phone. Someone has pulled the plug on this game at a higher level than the Thompsons have any clue about, and people are starting to fall off the board.”

“What do you mean, ‘higher level’?” I said. “They said it was just them. A club of rich fuckheads screwing with other people’s lives. Who else is there?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe Warner, maybe someone else. I don’t know. The Thompsons don’t know, either, and that’s why I am splitting right now. You want a lift out of town, I’ll do it. I owe you that much for having been a part of all this. But then I’m dust.”

“I’m not leaving town,” I said petulantly. “I live here. I’m going home.”

“I wouldn’t do anything predictable at this point.”

“Why? What the hell else can happen?”

She strode away up the sidewalk and I stormed after her. I didn’t care what else she did, but I wanted a lift back to where Hunter had left my car. In all the things I’d been told upstairs, only one had really stuck in my head as worth listening to. Marie’s advice.

Go home.

Jane impatiently gestured for me to hurry up. She trotted straight into the traffic, darting between the circulating cars. I started to run after her, shouting her name. I wasn’t sure why. I just needed to shout something. She headed into the park area in the middle, but a passing vehicle nearly took me out as I tried to follow—so I diverted to head around the parked cars instead, getting honked at all the way.

I got to the far side of the Circle before she did, and ran around the back of her pickup as she came out of the park, her keys already out.

But then I stopped.

“Get in,” she snapped, unlocking her door.

“Wait . . .”

“No,” she said. “I’m done here.”

I had seen something, however. I stepped back. I didn’t know whether the truck was hers or a rental, but it had seen some action in the last few weeks—not least in the breakneck drive through the woods at the far end of the key that morning. The rear end was dirty and dented. But there, in the dust, was a clean patch. Not so much a patch as a series of linked lines, letters, written the way passing jokers will sometimes scrawl CLEAN ME.

But that wasn’t what this said. It looked fresh, and it was just one word and it began with M.

“Don’t!” I shouted, just as she turned the ignition.

It wasn’t a loud bang. It was tight, short, contained. I doubt people across the road even heard it. But I did. And I heard Jane’s scream.

I didn’t consider whether there’d be another explosion. I probably should have. I ran to the driver’s side and found Jane pinned in the seat, bolt upright. She looked surprised and let down. There was blood on her shirt and face. She was staring down at her right hand.

“Oh Jesus,” I said. The device must have been tiny, hidden in the steering column. None of her fingers were totally gone, but she’d lost most of one and half of her thumb and a chunk out of the side of her palm.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

With a kind of eerie calm, she reached under the seat and pulled out a T-shirt. She wrapped it tightly around her hand, blinking fast but steadily.

“It’s all fine,” she said, but I don’t think she was talking to me. She was breathing in a slow, controlled manner, as if counting the seconds between each.

She turned awkwardly in her seat, and I helped her down out of the truck onto the street.

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll get you to a hospital.”

She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to the hospital.”

“How? Do not call the cops.”

“My car,” I said. “It’s back on Lido. Come on.”

I took her by the arm and started trying to pull her across the street. Cars kept driving around us, looking for somewhere to park, the drivers’ minds on their first cocktail or breaded shrimp or their chances of getting laid once the kids were asleep. Jane was hard to move.

“Seriously,” I said, trying to stay calm, or at least sound it. I looked up, trying to gauge a gap in the traffic to pull her through. “Let’s . . .”

Then I saw him. On the sidewalk, watching us. Hunter. He was standing with his hands loosely down by his sides, a point of stasis, a rock in jeans and a casual jacket. He looked like he could have been there forever, from before the Circle was built.

I tugged Jane harder, and finally she started moving, her feet stuttering into motion like a toddler being dragged toward something she’d already said that she didn’t want to do. A big white Ford honked hard but stopped to let us through.

“Was this you?” I shouted at Hunter as we approached. “Did you do this?”

“It’s my present to you,” he said. “As a fellow sufferer. One of the modified.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“I listened to what you told me,” he said. “Ask yourself—who was the first person to arrive when you woke up this morning? Who came banging on your door? Did she look surprised that your lady friend was gone? What did she do then? She got you running before you could get your bearings. Got you in that truck and drove away as if there was someone hot on your tail. But did you actually see anyone? Did you?”

I opened my mouth, but he’d already dismissed us from his mind.

“I’m just saying,” he said, and walked away. From the direction of his feet and where he was looking it was obvious where he was headed.

“He followed you here,” Jane said, between teeth that were clenched tight. “He’s going after Tony and Marie.”

She was right. Hunter trotted calmly across the road and headed straight for the side stairway of Jonny Bo’s.

“That’s fine by me,” I said.

It took five minutes to hurry Jane down the road and over the short bridge onto Lido, and another five to follow Ben Franklin Drive around to the condo complex where Hunter had taken me. My car was still there. Jane said nothing on the way. Her face had become pale, and the T-shirt wrapped around her hand was soaked with blood. Even the blue of her eyes seemed to have become muted, washed-out. She was tough, though.