Dead and Gone

nothing had changed.

“Right,” is all I said, acknowledging the truth. Your child gets kidnapped, the one thing you never change is your phone number. Just in case. Even after years and years. But phone calls could be forwarded. Maybe they carried a cellular everywhere they went, never used it for anything else, waiting—an amulet against the unthinkable.

“That chance can’t dance,” the Prof snapped. “Remember what that Dmitri motherfucker said, Schoolboy—they said it had to be you. You got the street-brand here, no question. Too much of it, you ask me. But Chicago? Son, your star don’t shine that far.”

“So they were living here, then? And the Chicago address is a dud?”

“Maybe Cossacks all lie,” Mama said darkly, the memory of some obscure Sino-Soviet conflict igniting behind the emotionless mask of her face.

“Let’s just go with what we know,” the Prof said. “Click it off.”

“All right,” I told them. “It was a hit. I was the target. There were at least four of them. It was a good plan. I’d done that kind of work before—middlemanned a handover—so it made sense they’d pick me. And they knew I’d go for it, the kind of money they were paying. They picked a spot that should have been perfect. Even the kid—that was a sweet touch. I was expecting a kid. Gave them an extra split-second to get off first, before I snapped wise. They might have figured I’d have backup, but they didn’t think anyone could get close enough without tipping them off. They didn’t figure on the Kevlar, though. Or on …”

My throat stopped up. I couldn’t say any more.

“She went out the way I want to, son,” the Prof said, reading me like I was forty-point type.

“Yeah.” I ignored the pain-flash, got back to my summary. “They were cool under fire. At least their leader was. Took the extra time to make sure I was gone, picked up their dead, didn’t leave a trace.”

“They thought they left you, mahn,” Clarence said.

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” I told him. “That wasn’t unprofessional of them; it was smart. With my track record, being found dead in Hunts Point—what would it tell the cops? Nothing. Nothing to connect to them, and a ton of possible suspects out there, too.”

“That’s where we got to look,” the Prof said.

“I don’t get it.”

“Listen up, then. We got to be the detectives now. Whoever tried to ice you, it cost someone serious money. Took a lot of time, involved a lot of people. That’s got to be personal. The people who tried to do the job, I figure them for mercs. Hired hands. But the rest, that was about blood. Someone who hates you enough to do all that planning and spending. And someone who knows you enough to figure you’d go for that kid-exchange thing, too.”

“That’s not a short list,” I said.

“Might be a real short list, we can get alone with those Russians for a few minutes.”

“I don’t think Anton—the guy who took over from Dmitri—I don’t think he was lying.”

“These people must be registered,” Clarence said, suddenly.

“What?”

“Immigration, mahn. I know about this. I do not know how much truth there is in what you were told, but, if they were from another country, they would not be citizens so easily. They could move, but they would have to notify …”

I exchanged a look with Mama. She nodded.

I thought about it later, watching alone as the gray dawn drove off the black night. I knew the best info-trafficker in the City. And what I had to do.

“A public place is the safest,” Wolfe said over the phone, unaware she was echoing me from … before it happened.

“Safer for who?” I asked her, trying to reach across the barrier I’d built between us.

“Me,” she said, flat.

“You think that …? You think I’d ever …?”

“What’re you saying to me?” she challenged. “That I know better, right? That I know you?”

“I thought you did.”

“So did I,” she told me.

After so many years of wanting to be with her, I’d finally … had a chance, is the best way I could put it.

When you come to a fork in the road, you’re supposed to stop and consider your choices. Me, I never even checked for oncoming traffic.

I’d had a chance. A real one, not some convict’s fantasy. Whenever there’s a choice, there’s a chance. You know how men are always fearing they’re getting past it, that they won’t be able to do the things they once did? Not me. I wish I had been past it. Wish I’d changed.

But I’d gone right back to my old ways with that Albanian arms deal. Then blood came up. Pansy’s blood. And it filled my eyes until I went blind.

I might have gotten Wolfe to listen about the guns. Maybe. Plenty of citizens here thought we should have been arming the Kosovars. But it was just a matter of time before her wires dipped deep enough into the whisper-stream to pick up on who did Dmitri right in his own joint.

When I’d killed Dmitri, I’d done the same thing to my chance with Wolfe.

It’s harder to spot tags in bad weather. You see a guy behind you wearing a ski mask in July, you don’t have to be a CIA agent to know something’s off. But with the sleet coming down New York–style—cold, dirty, and crooked—everybody was bundled up.