‘Thanks, Billy. Thanks for that.’
‘I’m sorry…but this is unreal. Why have we spent the last few hours holed up in Eddie’s only to come right back to the scene of the crime? It’s insanity.’
‘That’s what it is,’ said Ren. ‘Please, just take me where I need to go.’
‘And then what? Wait for you?’
‘Yes. Wait for me for one hour. And if I don’t show, get the hell back to Stray Eddie’s.’
‘An hour?’ said Billy. ‘But how do you know that’s going to be enough time? And what will you do if it isn’t? Hitch a ride?’ He gave her a kind look. ‘Have you thought any of this through?’
‘Billy, come on. Yes. Of course I have.’
‘Jesus, Ren. Should I be stopping you doing this?’
‘No.’
So Billy did as Ren asked. And two hours later, he forced himself to start up the engine and drive back to Stray Eddie’s alone.
Billy Waites sat across the table from Stray Eddie in a cramped diner on a busy corner on Colfax. It was day time, but felt like night. A strange parade of people walked by the window, drawing Stray Eddie’s gaze more than Billy’s.
‘You OK?’ said Eddie.
Billy nodded and called the waitress over for more coffee. He picked up the sugar dispenser and started hitting it with the palm of his hand, trying to dislodge the lumps. Eddie grabbed it from him. He reached over to the next table and handed Billy the dispenser from there.
Eddie turned back to the window and the night-time people dressed in clothes not fit to be seen in winter daylight.
‘Are you banging her?’ said Eddie.
‘Who?’ said Billy, glancing out the window.
‘I’m not talking about some random chick from outside. Miss Ren.’
‘No, Eddie. No.’
‘You want to, though.’
Billy smiled.
‘She looks dirty,’ said Eddie.
‘You say that about every woman.’
‘I don’t notice women who aren’t dirty. Who is she?’ said Eddie.
‘If I could work that out…’
‘Women are fucked up.’ Eddie leaned forward in his seat. ‘Yo, check it out,’ he said, pointing past Billy’s shoulder to the television. Billy turned around. A photo of Peter Everett was in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
Eddie stared at Billy. ‘That’s your body, isn’t it?’
‘Shhh.’ Billy held a hand up to silence Eddie.
The rest of the report focused on Peter Everett’s life.
‘That’s your body,’ said Eddie. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
Billy’s face was white. He nodded.
‘Did your future wife do that? All that blood on her feet…’
‘That was her own blood,’ said Billy. ‘She’d been running barefoot.’
‘No wonder you were running,’ said Eddie. ‘If there was a dirty Fed in the mix.’
‘Yup,’ said Billy.
‘Or were you and your fiancee in cahoots with the guy?’
‘No.’
‘Fucking Feds, always protecting their own,’ said Eddie. He took a drink of coffee. ‘My name, photo and the location of the last toilet I shat in would be scrolling along the bottom of that screen if I were found hanging around a dead body. It’s one of theirs? No names given, nothing. Total shutdown. Case closed.’
‘Case closed, I guess,’ said Billy.
54
The warehouse floor echoed as it had when Ren Bryce crossed it to find the dead body of Javier Luis. Catherine Sarvas walked past the same door, glancing inside, recoiling at the blood stains, the twisted crime-scene tape, the grim sense of decay. She was dressed in a long, padded cream coat, clutching her black leather purse strap, moving through the cold white air of her breath. Further down the hallway, she stopped and took a right into a large room with gray walls and gray floors that carried the faint markings of a basketball court.
Domenica Val Pando sat on a chair in the far right-hand corner, one leg crossed over the other, a lit cigarette and a cardboard coffee cup gripped in her right hand. She stood up and sat against the edge of the table.
Catherine walked across to her. They shook hands.
‘Gregory told me you were unaware of his…position…with us,’ said Domenica.
‘He was my husband,’ said Catherine. ‘He told me everything.’
Domenica smiled; a slow smile, held too long to be genuine. ‘You must have had a difficult time with the FBI.’
‘I knew that Gregory had hidden everything well,’ said Catherine. ‘I knew that they couldn’t trace anything to him. And if they could find my sons for me…’
‘Well, that’s my job now, I believe. I have something you want, you have something I want.’
Outside, the wind was building. Catherine glanced up at the row of rectangular windows that stretched across the wall above Domenica. The snow was hitting the windows at an angle and had gathered halfway up the panes at the corner, bright white, untouched.
Ren Bryce sat alone in the darkness on a battered steel bench. The room stank. The floor was filthy, the walls shedding flakes of paint. It was rotting from the inside out. Ren’s mind was racing. She had barely slept in three days.
Helen’s voice came back to her: ‘Ren, you need to be aware of your triggers for mania: you need to avoid stress, get a lot of rest, reduce your caffeine intake…’
This time, the mania had slowly built – late nights, fear, stress, travel, caffeine…and then, she knew. Her mind sharpened, her thoughts sped. Connections jumped off the page, her fingers worked quicker on the keyboard, she drove faster, she got everywhere quicker. She got here quicker.
Domenica dropped the cigarette butt into her coffee cup and pushed it out of her way.
‘You can hand your husband’s files over,’ she said to Catherine. ‘I will organize to have your son returned to you and…and then we can say our goodbyes.’
Catherine felt a surge of anger that lit up her eyes. ‘You were responsible for that…man…raping me.’
‘He was not meant to rape you,’ said Domenica. ‘He was meant to intimidate you, he was meant to wait until you and your husband were in the house together…without your children. He was sent to get a message across to your husband, to warn him how unwise it would be to co-operate with the authorities. Oh yes, I knew as soon as he
