The Survivor

When he’d finally made his restless way through the velvet-rope switchbacks, a tense young teller greeted him, bringing him up to speed on the policies for renting a safe-deposit box. Was he aware that a checking account was required? Already have one. Each time, he would need to show his driver’s license and sign in to gain access to his box. No problem. His signature would be double-checked against the signature card. Swell. Safe-deposit boxes were either three by five, five by ten, or ten by ten. Which would he prefer?

“You know?” he said, tapping his hands on the lip of the teller window. “I’m a little bit superstitious. I have a lucky number, and I was hoping I could-”

“Happy to look for you, Mr. Overbay.” She went back to nibbling at her thumbnail, a thin pendant cross jiggling against the front of her sweater.

“Two twenty-eight,” he said. “My first street address.”

She clicked around on the keyboard, her eyes darting at intervals from the screen to his face. Her jumpiness was making him uneasy, and yet how could she suspect he had an ulterior motive? “I’m sorry. That number’s taken.”

He feigned disappointment.

“I could get you three twenty-eight?” she offered.

He took a casual sip of coffee. “How about two twenty-nine? Two twenty-six or — seven?”

“Two twenty-six it is.” She guided him through a few forms, then handed him a familiar-looking key-226.

He rubbed the number as if it were a lucky rabbit’s foot. Then dropped the key into his left pocket. “Thank you.”

“I’ll buzz you through, and the guard will take you back to your box,” she said. As he stepped away, she reached beneath the glass and rested her hand on his sleeve. “I didn’t want to embarrass you, Mr. Overbay, but thank you for what you did for us Tuesday. I was here.”

Her fingernails, on second look, were chewed to the quick. Her face raw from sleeplessness. He pictured that face pressed to the tile, gunfire erupting overhead as she’d prayed for her life. And here she was a few days later, doing her job as best she could and trying to put it behind her.

He touched her hand, and she nodded a few times rapidly and turned her focus to the next customer.

After leaving the counter, he noticed a stout manager at the end of the teller line staring at him, phone to his ear. Did he recognize Nate as well? The man offered a cordial little smile, and Nate returned his attention to the job before him.

Pausing before the teller gate, he made a fist around Urban’s key in his right pocket. Squeezed. Cielle’s life rested on the next two minutes.

A harsh buzz announced the gate’s unlocking. He took a deep breath and stepped through. The security guard, an older gentleman with a fringe of blond mustache, nodded in greeting. As Nate headed toward the massive laid-open door of the vault, his steps slowed, the stutter of gunfire replaying in his head. There’s where the bank manager had toppled over, roses of blood blooming on her stiff pink suit. The glass day gate creaked open, and Nate stepped into the vault, eyeing the corner where he’d unloaded two bullets into the robber’s stomach. He looked down. His feet, precisely in the spot they’d been when he’d felt that letter opener sink into the flesh of his shoulder. He will make you pay in ways you can’t imagine.

The security guard had said something.

“Sorry?” Nate said.

“You okay, sir?”

He took a nervous sip of coffee. “Yeah, fine.”

He had to pull it together. Stepping forward, he eyed the nests of boxes. Everything repaired, just as Pavlo had promised. Nate ran his fingers across the small metal doors until he reached what he was looking for.

Danny Urban’s safe-deposit box.

Directly below the one Nate had just signed up for.

The guard fussed among the keys fanning from an overburdened ring. “Let’s see, two twenty-six, right?”

Again Nate slid his hand into his pocket. His right pocket. “That’s the one.”

The guard raised the master key, and Nate, pretending to juggle the key and the Styrofoam cup, dropped his coffee. It hit the floor, splattering on the guard’s cuffs.

“Oh, man,” Nate said. “I am so sorry.”

“No problem.” The guy swiped at his ankles with a handkerchief as Nate crouched over him. “It’s fine,” the guard said. “Come right out.”

Nate rose and plugged Danny Urban’s key into number 227. He waited patiently, holding the key so his hand blocked the number on the tiny door, his pounding heart seeming to reverberate in the hard walls of the vault. The muscle in his hand started to cramp, the faintest complaint of the disease. Jesus, he thought. Not now. He fought off the sensation, forcing his fingers to hold in place.

Distracted, the guard rose, folding the handkerchief back into a pocket and sliding the master key home. He nodded at Nate, they twisted at the same time, and the door to 227 popped open. And then Urban’s safe-deposit box was sliding out and-at last-in his hands. The spring-mounted door swung back and autolocked. They turned together, Nate gripping the box tightly, and headed for the private viewing rooms just beyond.

Five steps and they’d be clear of the vault. He counted them off, tried not to rush. Stepping through the day gate, he swept a gaze across the teller stations and the crowded lobby, and his muscles froze.

Agent Abara had just come through the bank doors.

Nate turned away reflexively, bumping into the guard. The long metal box in his hands gave off not so much as a rattle.

“Whoa, sir. This way.”

Nate couldn’t just reverse course and return the box without looking in it-too suspect. Plus, when would he have another chance to get to its contents? And yet he couldn’t risk being caught with a stolen safe-deposit box belonging to a dead hit man.

The guard took the choice out of his hands, nudging him forward and indicating a door to the right of the vault. Keeping his face turned from the bank floor, Nate ducked through and closed the door swiftly behind him. The plain room crowded in on him-white walls, elevated desk, framed watercolor of a girl playing at the beach.

Nate pictured that stout bank manager watching him, phone to his face. Clearly, by the time Nate had reached the front of the line, the manager had alerted Abara, who’d been standing by somewhere close. Because he suspected Nate of what? More important, how long did Nate have before the agent tracked him to this room?

He set the box down hard on the elevated table. The long lid yawned open on its hinges. Inside, a plain, sealed business-size envelope. Nothing more.

He grabbed it, lifted it to the light. All this, for something that could fit inside an envelope. Based on its heft, it was no more than a single folded sheet. Its slightness only added to its menace. Did it contain something incriminating? As horrible as the glossy photographs Pavlo had held up to Nate’s face in the warehouse?

He sharpened his thoughts to a single point: Get this envelope into Pavlo’s hands and Cielle was safe.

But if Abara found it on Nate, he would certainly seize it. Which, however indirectly, would lead to the saw and the block of ice.

Frantically, Nate looked around the unadorned room. Where to stash the envelope?

He thought about Urban himself, desperate to hide key 227 as he stumbled bleeding into his bedroom.

Tape.

A plastic desk caddy contained a stapler, some paper clips, and a roll of Scotch tape. Spilling the paper clips in his haste, he yanked two strips of tape from the roll and slapped them on the envelope, leaving sticky ends protruding from either edge. Couldn’t stick it beneath the desk-too obvious.

His gaze caught on the watercolor. Little girl at beach. He pulled the bottom of the painting from the wall, tilting it out. Reaching as far as he could toward the hanging wire, he pressed the envelope to the mounting board. He stepped back, straightened the frame with a tap of his finger, grabbed Urban’s box, and bolted out the door.

Abara was ten yards away, at a window, talking to the manager. Through some miracle he did not glance over. Nate pivoted sharply, head lowered, rushing the vault door. The guard was waiting, hands clasped at his stomach. He cocked an eyebrow as Nate raced for the vault, somehow doing his best to look as though he wasn’t