The Survivor

hurrying.

The guard followed Nate into the vault. Nate got there first, stuck Urban’s key in.

But the guard was just watching him, mouth shifting, making the mustache bristle. “I thought you were two twenty-six.”

The cool air froze the sweat on Nate’s back. “Nope,” he said. “Two twenty-seven.”

The guard’s mouth pursed. He made a puzzled noise low in his throat.

A snatch of conversation drifted in from the main floor. “-believe he’s in the vault, Agent-”

Nate tried to smile casually at the guard, though it felt like a death grimace. Footsteps approaching, the sound pronounced off all the metal. Growing louder.

The man’s watery blue eyes took Nate’s measure. Finally he lifted the master to the second keyhole.

Nate went to great pains to disguise his relieved exhale. They turned their keys in unison, and the tiny door swung open. Nate got the end of Urban’s box slotted in the hole and was about to shove when a new realization struck him. If he was searched by Abara, he could not be caught with Urban’s safe-deposit key. But where, inside a bank vault, was he supposed to hide it?

The spring-loaded door pressed against the back of his hand. He stared at where it dimpled his skin.

An autolocking door.

He lifted the long lid a crack and slipped Urban’s key into the empty box. Slid the box home. The tiny door to 227 swung back and locked with a click.

And Abara entered.

Nate’s breaths were coming fast and ragged. He did his best to muster a smile. “Agent.”

“Nate.” He wore a dress shirt, unbuttoned slightly to show off tan brown skin. “Happened to open a safe- deposit box today, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Just … got a hankering?”

“After my brush here Tuesday, I realized I could stand to sort out my affairs a bit. Why not store some important docs away for safekeeping?”

“Why not indeed.” Abara moistened his lips. “So you thought you’d handle this sudden bit of logistics at the same bank where you killed five men?”

“It’s already been robbed. I figure it’s the safest bank in town.”

Abara did not smile. He flicked his head at the nest of boxes. “Which one’s yours?”

Nate sensed the guard’s head swivel over to him. Felt the heat of his stare as he waited on an answer. Nate took a breath, tasted the metal of the vault. He had to say something immediately, and yet immediately had already passed.

“You know what?” His best approximation of moral indignation. “Is there some reason you’re following me, harassing me? I mean, I’m the one who took down the robbers.” He was almost yelling, the words ringing off the walls. “Shouldn’t you be thanking me instead of stalking me at every goddamned turn?”

The security guard kept a steady gaze on Nate. Was he buying the act?

The guard had just opened his mouth to say something when the stout manager leaned nervously through the day gate. “Uh, Agent? Maybe you could take this line of questioning elsewhere? We have a bank full of customers.”

“Sure thing.” Abara’s smile never faltered. His glibness seemed to take an uptick with every remark. “You have a private room?”

Of course they did.

They were led a few steps past the vault. Eyeing Nate, the security guard unlocked the door and returned to his post, letting the matter of the box number lie.

Nate stepped back inside the plain little room, confronting the watercolor of the little girl at the beach. With alarm he realized that despite his effort earlier, it hung crooked.

The door had barely closed when Abara stepped up on him. “Listen, I’ve done the nice-guy routine up until now. A little banter, a little innuendo. But let me tell you what I’ve learned from thirteen years on this job. I’ve learned to read liars. And you are lying. Now, I don’t know why and I don’t know what about. You’re all wrong. How you handled yourself during the shootings. Your energy-when you’re nervous, when you’re calm.”

Just over Abara’s shoulder, the crooked watercolor hung there, screaming for attention. And taped behind it, the envelope that would decide Cielle’s fate. Nate struggled to keep his eyes fixed on Abara.

“And yet,” the agent continued, “I can tell you weren’t part of the heist. You’re not a piece-of-shit crook who decided to double-cross his team.” He studied Nate’s face. “I think you came here for something, and it wasn’t to stow away Aunt Mabel’s family photos in a safe-deposit box. I will search you. Either you can give your consent here and now or I will take you in to the Federal Building for questioning, where your person can be searched as you enter. Which is it?”

A long beat. Nate emptied out his pockets, slapping his wallet and cell phone on the desk beneath the watercolor, resisting the compulsion to reach over and straighten it. The key came next, number 226.

Abara lifted it to the light, made sure the number passed muster. “That it?”

“That’s it.”

“Mind if I search you?”

“I would love if you would search me.”

Abara spun him, not gently, and nudged him between the shoulders so his hands thudded forward on the desk. The coerced lean brought his nose to within a foot of the painting. Girl at Beach, Askew. Abara’s hands checked his crotch, his armpits, pressed his pockets flat to his thighs, the cold proficiency calling to mind not only the firm pat-down administered by the Ukrainian bouncer outside New Odessa but also the poking and prodding Nate had grown accustomed to in sterile exam rooms.

His body, less and less his own.

Abara’s knees cracked as he rose.

Nate stared at the watercolor. “You done or are you gonna try to get to third base?”

“Now that you moved home,” Abara said, “I’ll leave that to your almost-ex-wife.”

Nate turned around, the two men close in the small room, squaring off. “You watching me?”

“Nah.” Abara backed off. “Drove by, saw the Jeep in the driveway.” He opened the door, gestured graciously for Nate to step out. “Just keeping an eye, like you asked.”

The walk across the bank floor seemed endless. Nate’s clothes, damp with panic sweat, chafed him. His hand was on fire, wrist aching, a preview of what the disease would bring. He curled it to his sternum, cradling it like something precious as he stepped into the air-conditioned elevator for the ride down.

Outside, the benches were taken, so he lowered himself to the curb. Grit and hot air found his face, the texture of passing traffic. He sat for a time, trying to catch his breath.

Chapter 24

Doubt and fear swarmed Nate’s brain, vying for attention. Had he pressed the tape hard enough onto the back of the watercolor? What if it didn’t hold and the envelope fell out onto the desk? What if a janitor took the painting off the wall to dust and discovered what it hid?

It was almost six o’clock as he parked in front of the Santa Monica house and climbed out of the Jeep. Three days and six hours until he had to deliver that envelope into Pavlo Shevchenko’s hands. At least it was out of the bank vault. Baby steps.

The sun had fallen behind the rooftops, clouds smudging the hot orange sky like a child’s handprints. It would have been a beautiful evening had he been in a frame of mind to notice. Folded into his back pocket were the divorce papers he’d retrieved from his place before coming here. While in his apartment, he’d packed a few changes of clothes and swept the tiny forest of orange pill bottles from the bathroom counter into a grocery bag. On his way out, he’d plucked the thumbtacked photos of Cielle and Janie from the wall. Everything else he would happily leave behind.

As he entered, Casper barreled toward him, claws scrabbling against the hard floor. Janie swung through the doorway-“How’d it go?”-her face almost collapsing with relief when she read his expression.

He’d just set down the grocery bag and suitcase when Cielle descended the stairs, Shithead Jason at her