The Survivor

ever lucky enough to have a family of his own, he would never, ever let it erode like that.

And so he tells no one-not Janie, not his daughter. At all costs he will spare them the suffering he learned all too well in his own childhood. Soon enough he will not be able to control the deterioration of his grip, the drying out of his eyes, the strength of the breath in his lungs. But he can pick a time and a date and a ledge high enough to offer a good view and a long drop.

He just has to do it while he still can.

And pray that nothing interrupts. Like, say, six hooded thugs robbing a bank.

Because then he might find himself sitting on an exam table with a neatly stitched stab wound, alive against his own goddamned will.

LONG WAY UP

Necessity has the face of a dog.

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Chapter 8

Leaving the hospital, Nate rode shotgun in the unmarked sedan, ignoring the throbbing in his shoulder and doing his best to keep up. Abara-who’d given no first name-drove fast and talked faster. Easy confidence, slender athletic build, dense hair shaved to the bronzed flesh at the sides and back. He could’ve been thirty, or twenty-four. “So first of all, forget that shit you’ve seen on TV,” Abara said. “We don’t always travel in twos, we’re not all dickheads, and”-a gesture to his charcoal golf shirt with the gold seal at the breast-“we don’t have to wear suits and ties.” He flashed an unreasonably handsome smile, complete with dimples. “Also, we play well with others. We do have juris, but LAPD’s got a talented team over at Robbery Special, so I’m not gonna march in there and bark about how I’m taking over their case.” He picked a speck of lint off the spit-polished dashboard. “You sure you don’t need to go home, catch your breath, change?”

Nate looked down at his crisp new T-shirt, donated by the hospital. Crease marks at the chest and stomach from where it had been folded, presumably piled in a stack of other clothes awaiting stabbing victims. “Nah, I’m fine.”

They reached the police cordon, and Abara slowed the Chevy Tahoe and flashed his badge. “Marcus Abara, FBI. I got the hero with me. Gonna go walk the scene.”

The cop’s eyes were hidden behind a pair of Oakley Blades, but he lifted the reflective band of glass to Nate and said, “Nice work in there.”

Nate’s heartbeat was quickening in proximity to the bank. He nodded. “Thanks.”

Beyond the sawhorses, media and rubberneckers had massed. One woman was crying and kneading her sweater in her fists-a sister of a victim? It struck Nate that she could also be a relative of one of the men he’d killed this morning.

He had to rewind the thought: One of the men he’d killed this morning.

One head lifted higher than the rest, rising above the crowd as if on a stick. A man’s rough-hewn face-lantern jaw, mashed nose, slash of mouth. Flat eyes fastened on Nate as his gaze swept across. Nate did a double take, but the face was gone.

Abara’s eyes were on him and then on the sea of folks. “What?”

“Just a guy in the crowd. Looked … I don’t know. Menacing, I guess.”

He put it down to nerves but couldn’t help noticing Abara file it away in some private place.

They drove through and parked on the sidewalk. Before leaving the hospital, Nate had filled in first a patrolman, then two detectives, and finally Abara on what had gone down in the bank-or at least a version of what had gone down. Assumptions had been made before Nate had been sutured up and available to correct the record. By the time he’d entered the discussion, he was already party to the lie, and the lie had ossified into something hard and immovable. It went like this: Nate had been in the bank bathroom; he had heard shots; he had climbed onto the ledge, inched his way around, and saved the day. The questions-which had been detailed and copious-had picked up mostly at the saved-the-day part. And he’d been happy to pick up there as well. Did everyone need to know he’d been planning to pancake himself into a Dumpster? He would be made the subject of a suicide interventionist, and then there’d be a seventy-two-hour psych hold-no, that wouldn’t do at all. So rather than lay himself bare to be probed and picked at, he’d help through a few steps of the investigation, resort to Plan B, and let everyone figure it out when he wasn’t around to feel stupid about it.

Walking toward the bank entrance, Nate was surprised to hear his name shouted out. Instinctively he stopped and looked at the swarming reporters, and the agent had to press a hand to the small of his back to keep him moving. In the elevator Abara knuckled the button for the eleventh floor. As they rose, Nate thought about the last time he’d ridden up in this car, how he’d been sweating through his shirt in anticipation of taking the leap. And yet, implausibly, here he was again, back in the same little box, ascending to the same floor, Sisyphus in the age of technology. Abara caught him smirking at himself, and it seemed to pique his interest.

“You seem remarkably steady,” the agent said, “given, you know, everything.”

“I must be faking it well,” Nate said.

“Impressive stuff. The ledge, the window, the timing. I mean, six armed men.” Abara whistled. “Guess that high-end military training kicked in.”

Nate studied Abara back. Was that an accusatory edge in his voice? Or just Nate’s guilt working on him, putting a paranoid filter on an ordinary observation? He knew the truth of who he was-Nate Overbay, failed suicide-and the hero routine was starting to wear thin.

“Look,” Nate said, “I was a drafted dipshit. I don’t know how to kill a guy with a chopstick or anything. I’m just an army grunt who learned how to shoot a gun.”

“You laid low five trained gunmen.”

“Element of surprise. And a lotta luck.”

“I glanced through your military jacket,” Abara said. “You went through quite a bit over there.”

“Not as much as some people.”

A familiar voice sailed out from behind him: “I’ll say.”

Nate half turned, and sure enough there Charles stood, dripping on the elevator floor, chest blown open, heart visible through the bars of his ribs, hanging like a clump of grapes. He gave a big smile, dried blood cracking on his cheek. “You really stepped in it this time, podnah.”

As always, impeccable timing.

Nate turned away, annoyed.

“Someone’s uppity today,” Charles said. “Prefers to hang out with his alive friends. No, really, it’s cool. I get it. Ignore me. But can your alive friends do … this?”

Horrible moist sound effects from behind Nate. He didn’t even want to know. It dawned on him that Abara was staring at him expectantly.

Nate did his best to look attentive. “Sorry. What?”

“I said, I had some buddies came back with PTSD. You dealing with anything like that that might be relevant to how things went down today?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nate could see Charles poking his tongue through a hole in his cheek. “Nah,” Nate said. “Got over that a long time ago.”

The elevator doors spread to a panorama of cops, CSI, and bank security workers. Radios bleated, iPhones chimed, cameras winked. Charles had vanished-he hated commotions-and Nate found himself immersed in bloody