including in the hand, the chest, and the head. He survived to be captured and tried and sent off to the Minnesota State Penitentiary at Stillwater, but he’d suffered eleven serious gunshot wounds during the process.
Val, who’d been interested enough to find some library books on the subject, remembered that the total take from Northfield’s bank was $26.70.
Of course, those were old dollars and probably worth something, but even so…
Val tried to imagine Advisor Omura’s security guys shooting him eight, nine, eleven times and him still surviving. Being shot must hurt like hell. Cole Younger had been tossed into the back of a wagon along with his more severely wounded pals and, even though he was bleeding almost to death from his eleven wounds, had joked with his captors, and when they got to the town of Madelia, Cole managed to stand up, take off his muddy and bloody hat, and bow to some ladies passing by.
Learning this kind of coolshit stuff about the world and history was the reason that Val kept reading.
But could he be as coolshit gutsy as Cole Younger with eleven bullet holes in him? Val doubted it. He wanted to blubber like a girl when Leonard brought him to the black-market dentist in the basement tenement near Echo Park. How would he deal with a piece of lead traveling faster than the speed of sound slamming into his body, tearing up internal organs and arteries?
What other ways out were there?
He could open up on Coyne and the others before they assassinated Omura. Would that make him a hero to the city? Would the Advisor and mayor pardon him? Would he get a parade?
But killing all seven of the flashgang punks without getting shot himself seemed like a long shot to Val, even if he could bring himself to do it. He’d try for Coyne first, but all of those acned geeks were armed now. Val tried to imagine getting hit by a cloud of flechettes from Billy’s OAO Izhmash. Those things were three inches long and barbed. Jesus. The thought made Val want to throw up again.
Also, Val didn’t want to be pardoned. He definitely didn’t want to be a hero. He’d rather go the soft palate route than be the centerpiece in a parade.
What
To die rather than to keep on living in this fucked-up city and world… maybe. Probably.
The only thing that appealed to Val more than dying right now was somehow getting back to Denver and shooting the Old Man. That bastard had abandoned him after Val’s mother died—had abandoned him and forgotten about him, Val knew this for a certainty—and almost nothing would be sweeter than seeing Nick Bottom’s face in the few seconds before Val pulled the trigger of his Beretta.
And then, on Thursday—right when Val was sure that the only choice he really had was to shoot himself in the head later that night, just hoping that his skull wasn’t thick enough to deflect the slug—dear old Leonard had changed everything by telling him about the truck ride to Denver that his grandpa’s rich old spanic friend had arranged for them.
He’d almost broken down in tears right then but was glad he didn’t. Leonard would never have understood such tears of gratitude not only because he wouldn’t have to die that night, but that he’d get to see and kill his father.
Coyne had his magical getaway to Russia with his old lady the morning after the assassination of Omura. Now Val Fox had something coolshit better—his own midnight getaway with black-market truckers.
But what about the plan to kill Omura? Now Val could just shuck it off, not show up at the rendezvous Friday evening, stay out of sight until Coyne had to go on without him.
Or he could go watch—it would be something to flash on for years, no matter how it turned out—and never have to fire a shot himself. Or to
Val went to sleep smiling that Thursday night, but not before he used a twenty-minute vial of flashback.
He is four years old. Today is Val’s birthday and he’s four years old now. He can imagine how the four candles on the angel food cake with chocolate frosting will look because now he can count to four. He is four years old and his mommy is still alive and he doesn’t hate his daddy and his daddy doesn’t hate him and it’s his birthday.
Mommy and Val and Val’s four-year-old best friend Samuel from two houses down the street and Samuel’s grandmother—his playmate lives with only his grandmother for some reason—are all in the kitchen of the house where, less than seven years later, people in black will come to drink coffee and eat cake and other food after his mother’s funeral. But the now-Val shuts that memory of the then-future out of his mind as he surrenders himself to the flashback moment—slowly, deliberately, deliciously—as if lowering himself into a bathtub filled with very, very hot water.
Val is in the tall wooden chair that his mommy bought at the unpainted furniture place and decorated with painted flowers and animals just for him after he’d outgrown his high chair. Even though he’s a grown-up four today, he loves the tall chair that allows him to look across the table almost eye to eye with his daddy.
When his daddy is there. Which he’s not for this birthday dinner. Not yet.
He’d heard his mommy on the phone earlier: “But you
She is smiling when she comes back to the kitchen table, but Val feels his four-year-old self sense the tension in his mother. Her smile is too wide, her eyes a little red.
“Why don’t you open a couple of your presents while we wait for Daddy?” his mother says.
“Oh, what a good idea!” says Samuel’s grandmother. It’s strange to see an old woman clap her hands in excitement as if she were a little girl.
Val watches his stubby fingers open his wrapped presents. A toy boat from Samuel, although his playmate is as surprised as Val at what was in the wrapped package. A pop-up picture book of skyscrapers from Samuel’s mother. Little Val can’t read most of the words in the book but sixteen-year-old Val peering out of Little Val’s eyes can.
“Let’s have your cake now and open presents from Mommy and Daddy after you blow out your candles,” says his mommy.
Val’s and Samuel’s eyes grow wide after Samuel’s grandmother turns out the kitchen lights. There’s enough September evening light coming through the mostly closed blinds to keep it from being totally scary, but Val feels his younger self’s heart pounding with excitement and anticipation.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…” His mommy and Samuel’s grandmother are both singing. The candlelight is magical.
Val blows out the candles, getting some help from his mommy on the last one, and he points to each candle as he counts. “One… two… three… FOUR!”
Everyone applauds. His mommy turns the lights back on and there standing in the kitchen in his gray suit and red tie is Daddy.
Val raises his arms and his daddy sweeps him up into the air. “Happy birthday, big guy,” Daddy says and hands him a clumsily wrapped package. Whatever’s inside is soft. “Go ahead, open it,” says his daddy.
It’s a baseball mitt. Kid-size but real. Val tugs it on his left hand, his daddy helping him get it right, and then buries his face in the cupped and oiled palm of the mitt, smelling the leather.
His mommy hugs him and Daddy at the same time while his daddy is still holding him high against his chest and for a moment Val is almost squashed as everyone hugs everyone, but he keeps the sweet-smelling leather glove over his face—because for some reason he doesn’t understand he’s crying like a little baby—and Samuel is shouting something and…
Val came up out of the twenty-minute flash to the sound of sirens, helicopters, and gunshots somewhere in the neighborhood. The air coming in through his bedroom screen smelled of garbage.
Still, he wished he’d used a thirty-minute vial.
Val rolled over in bed and reached behind his old dresser to the hiding place behind the loose board in the wainscoting.
