Flashback

was left of Delroy’s thinning hair.

“I won’t ask any question twice,” barked Nick.

“Nossir. Yessir. Oh shit and fuck. But nossir,” quavered Delroy.

“What did Keigo Nakamura ask you about when he interviewed you six years ago and what did you tell him?”

“What?” shouted the kneeling man. “Who? When?”

“You heard me,” said Nick, digging the small muzzle deep enough into Delroy’s temple that it broke the skin.

“Oh, the Jap? That Jap with the camera and the, you know what I’m sayin’, sexy snatch assistant? That motherfuckin’ Jap?”

“That motherfuckin’ Jap.”

“Whattya want? I mean, you know what I mean…”

“What did he ask you?” repeated Nick, pressing the muzzle tighter. Blood began to flow. “What did you tell him?”

“The motherfuckin’ Jap wanted to know where I got the, you know, the motherfuckin’ flashback that I, you know what I’m tellin’ you, sold,” whined Delroy.

“What’d you tell him?”

“You know, man—told him the motherfuckin’ truth. No reason not to, know what I’m sayin’?”

Nick dug the muzzle deeper. “Tell me the truth or there’ll be two men named Nigger in this yard minus their brains. I swear to God, Delroy.”

“I’m tellin’, I’m tellin’, I’m motherfuckin’ tellin’,” screamed Delroy, raising his shaking hands but keeping them away from the pistol. “What was, like, you know, the question?”

“Where’d you get the flashback?”

“Where I got all my good drugs then, man. This be six motherfuckin’ years ago. Got all my good shit, ’cludin’ the flashback, from Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev at his big motherfuckin’ hacienda down in Santa Fe. He’s the, you know what I’m sayin’, head of the Bratva fucking Russian motherfuckin’ mafia down there.”

Damn, thought Nick. All roads always lead to Santa Fe. He’d have to go through with the trip Sato had planned for tomorrow.

“What else did you tell Keigo Nakamura during that interview?”

“Just about the motherfuckin’ flashback, man. He wasn’t even interested in the heroin or coke or nothin’, you know what I’m sayin’? Just wanted to know all about the flash—how I get it from fuckin’ Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev, how we drive it back with the motherfuckin’ pass to get past the motherfuckin’ reconquistas, that sort of shit.”

“What else?” demanded Nick, moving the pistol’s muzzle to Delroy’s soft eye socket.

The dealer squealed. “Nothing else. Jap didn’t wanna talk about anything else. Look at the motherfuckin’ videos if you don’t believe me.”

“Why’d you leave the party with Danny Oz the night Keigo was killed?”

“What? With who?”

“You heard me.”

“You mean that Jew-boy over to Six Flags?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think I left with him, man? Somebody just got his ass murdered at that party, you know what I’m tellin’ you? Time to go, Joe. We had to get out of there and whatshisname, the Jew, the wizard of Oz or what the fuck, wanted some product. We went to my house up on the motherfuckin’ hill. I didn’t bring no vials to the party.”

“Which product, Delroy?”

“Flashback. That Jew never bought nothing else.”

Nick held out his phone with Dara’s photo filling the screen. “Look at this picture…”

“Nice white snatch…,” began Delroy.

Nick dug the muzzle of the .22 target pistol deep enough behind the dealer’s left eye that he could have popped the eyeball out with a twist of his wrist. Delroy screamed. Nick let up some of the pressure. The barrel and muzzle were wet with blood trickling down from Delroy’s forehead.

“What the fuck, man? You want me to look without no motherfuckin’ eye?”

“Where have you seen her before? And when? Be specific or you’ll lose more than an eye, I swear to God.”

Delroy waved his right hand in a placating way and leaned closer to the screen, squinting. “I ain’t never seen her, man. Nowhere. No time.”

“Look again.”

“I don’t have to fuckin’ look again. I don’t know her, never sold to her, never paid her for nothin’, never fuckin’ seen her, you hear what I’m tellin’ you?”

Nick slipped the phone away. “I hear what you’re telling me.” He hit the little man just hard enough with the barrel to drop him to the dirt.

Nick walked quickly toward the centerfield wall. He refused to run, to keep the last of his dignity, although the back of his head waited for a bullet to strike it and his shoulders scrunched up despite his best efforts to keep them from doing so. The K-Plus might deflect the body shot, but the blow to the back of his head would kill him even if it didn’t penetrate the Kevlar balaclava.

“Warden Polansky will not be happy with us,” whispered Sato’s voice in his ear. “But by great good coincidence, Bottom-san, your video and audio pickups seem to have failed the last two minutes or so.”

“Okay,” said Nick, not caring. “Tell Polansky and Campos that they have to get Soul Dad out of the yard… right away. Everyone saw him talking to me before you took out Ajax.”

The centerfield fence and door were less than fifty feet away now. How many outfielders had rushed at that flaking green wall while chasing a fly ball? How many relief pitchers had come through that door and walked toward the mound with their hearts pounding and body jagging with adrenaline the way Nick’s was now?

Only the top of the centerfield wall then hadn’t been covered with rolls of razor wire as it was now.

Chief sniper Campos’s voice buzzed in his ear. “We don’t need to get Soul Dad out, Mr. Bottom. He’s almost worshipped here at Coors Field. A lot of the blacks think he’s hundreds of years old and some kind of wizard. Even the whites and spanics leave him alone. No one will harm him.”

“But…,” began Nick.

“Trust me,” continued Campos. “Soul Dad is in no danger. I don’t know why he warned you, but he must have had his reasons. And he was right about Bad Nigger Ajax having no friends here. Lots of toadies and butt-boys, but they hated Ajax even more than the others who were terrified of him. Soul Dad’s all right.”

Nick shrugged. He would have jogged the last fifteen feet or so to the high wall and door, but his legs were weak with the retreat of adrenaline.

He could hear someone on the other side loosening the heavy latch. Someone opening it with the rusty hinges screeching like a dying man’s scream. Except Bad Nigger Ajax hadn’t had time to scream.

Then Nick was through. Then he was out. 

1.10 Raton Pass and New Mexico—Wednesday, Sept. 15

When Sato called him sometime after 6 a.m. and told him to be on the roof of the Cherry Creek Mall Condos by 7 a.m. to wait for a pickup by the Sasayaki-tonbo dragonfly ’copter, Nick felt a shameful rush of relief so profound that it almost affected his bowels. He’d not known before this that he was such a coward.

He didn’t care. Flying to Santa Fe—despite the Nakamura Corporation’s worries about shoulder-launched or other kinds of missiles—had to be a hell of a lot safer than trying to drive.