Zero at the Bone (37 page)

At least I had him. For awhile, I had him. But now he’s gone too.

He punched the pillow and pulled another one over his head.
Wake me up when it’s
time to testify. Maybe when I’m done I’ll just walk out of the courthouse and yell for the
hit men to come and get me, but make it quick and painless.

FOLLOWING Carver’s car from BWI was not difficult, because he’d rented a red Corvette. D sniffed in derision when he saw the flashy thing pull out of the lot. Carver was new enough at this that he was still getting off on the so-called glamour of being an outlaw with bucketloads of cash. Usually the ones that drove fancy cars and bought jewelry and houses in the south of France didn’t last long. Carver wouldn’t either, if D

had anything to say about it.

His cell phone trilled. “D.”

“Okay,” Megan said, without preamble. “Car was rented under a different name than he flew under, so he probably used that one for his lodging so it’d match.” 168 | Jane Seville

“What name’s he usin’ fer the car?”

“Brace yourself. Slade Thorndike.”

D shook his head. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”

“As I live and breathe.”

“He get that off a soap opera?”

“Sounds like. Anyway I found a townhouse rental under that name on Thames Street.”

D’s stomach dropped. “Thames Street?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, that’s in Fells Point. That’s real near where we were last night.”

“Well, the courthouse is only a block from the hotel. He could have picked it because of that.”

“Maybe, but it’s safest t’assume he knows where Jack is. I’ll tail him ta the townhouse ’n’ deal with it there.”

Meg was quiet for a moment. “Are you going to kill him?” D clenched his teeth. “If he makes me. Gimme that address.” D pulled away from the Corvette and passed it, his jaw grinding.

THE townhouse, more of a duplex, was generic in the way of a temporary rental. The security system was a joke; D got in easily through the garage. He made a quick check; he didn’t have much time. Carver was no more than ten minutes behind him, perhaps a few minutes more if he was unfamiliar with the neighborhood.

He found a corner near the dining room where he could see both the front door and the door into the garage, so whichever way Carver entered he’d have it covered.

He stood there, still and silent, barely breathing, a SIG Sauer with a silencer screwed into the barrel in one gloved hand inside the pocket of his pea coat. His mind wanted to run back toward Jack. Think about him, what he was doing, how he was feeling. He couldn’t let it. That was a distraction he couldn’t afford.

He shut his eyes and tried to get back to that place. That place of D, that place where he’d lived for so long, his vault shut up nice and tight, everything smooth and shiny and featureless, not a scratch or a blemish on the surface of his arid desert mind.

Shut it off. Shut it all off. You remember. It’s easy.

It was hard to get back there when part of him stubbornly insisted on wondering if that place even existed anymore. Far from being clean and smooth, he was now righteously messy and turned over like soil in a garden just before planting. The vault door hung wide open, askew and half off its hinges, all the secrets it had contained floating around free.

He heard the garage door and took a step back into the shadows. A car door slammed, keys in the lock, the door opening into the kitchen. Carver was making enough noise to wake the dead.

He let his bag fall, oblivious, and walked straight toward D, hand out for the light switch. Before he could reach it, D moved smoothly out of his hiding place, grasped Carver’s wrist, spun him around and yanked the arm up between his shoulder blades, pressing his chest against the wall and the muzzle of his gun to his temple. “Quiet, now,” he hissed.

Zero at the Bone | 169

“Who the fuck are you?” Carver choked out. He tried to struggle but D had his knee socked right up between his legs and his whole weight leaning on Carver’s twisted arm.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

“You don’t need ta know. Now, you listen close ta me and maybe you walk outta here, you got it?” Carver nodded. “You here to do a hit on Jack Francisco, that right? On behalf a the Dominguez brothers?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you think I’m a cop then yer even dumber’n ya look. Answer my question.” He twisted Carver’s arm again.

“Yeah. Francisco.”

“When was you gonna do it?”

“Who the fuck’s askin’?”

D weighed this for a moment. It was true that his name carried a certain reputation behind it. If Carver knew who he was dealing with, he’d probably present his belly like a good little boy, especially since it seemed to be common knowledge that D had already killed a colleague. But if D told Carver who he was, the odds of it staying a secret were small. He just wasn’t sure how much it mattered if Carver blabbed all over town that D

was in the house. There was no price on his head at the moment, and like Frost, many professionals would shy away from them even if they existed. The only danger to him was that knowledge of his whereabouts would get back to whoever was after him so specifically… and it was likely they already knew. They surely knew that he’d been protecting Jack for months, and it wasn’t too likely they’d believe that he would have left Jack here in Baltimore unprotected. They had to be already assuming he was in town.

Part of him even
wanted
them to know, so he could get it over with. The sooner they came for him, the sooner it would be resolved, one way or another, and he could concentrate on Jack’s issues with the brothers. The thing that worried him most was that they’d come after him before Jack was safely in Witsec, and he’d have to parse his time between protecting Jack and protecting himself. But he had a feeling they wouldn’t do that.

Ya know, you could jus’ kill him once he tells ya what he had planned. Problem
solved.

That was certainly true, except… he didn’t want to kill the man.

You don’t wanna kill him because Jack wouldn’t want ya to.

So?

So, who’s runnin’ this show, you or Jack?

D didn’t know the answer to that, but in the two seconds it took all these considerations to run through his mind, he’d decided what to tell Carver. He was doing all this for Jack, and he wanted to do it as himself. Not as Lincoln, or some other alias, but as….

As the man Jack loves. He loves me. It’s crazy and it’s hard, and I can’t hardly
believe it and I sure as hell don’t deserve it, but he said it so he musta meant it. He’s
somewhere in this city right now, with no idea what I’m doin’ or why, and he loves me,
and that is damn near all I got in the world.

He leaned close and growled in Carver’s ear. “My name is D,” he said. He felt Carver tense up. “I see it’s known ta you.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He heard the trill of fear inside Carver’s voice, and knew he had him.

“I’m askin’ the questions. When was you gonna take Francisco out?” 170 | Jane Seville

“You want the hit? Buy it off me.”

D lowered the gun and pressed it to Carver’s leg. “Kneecap,” he hissed.

Carver tried to shy away from the gun but didn’t have far to go. “All right, goddamnit. I was going to do him long-range from a perch as he went into the courthouse.”

D was so amazed that it took him a second to gather his thoughts. “Jesus. I knew you was new at this but I didn’t think you was a fuckin’ moron.”

“Huh?”

“In what universe do they take a witness in a mob trial into the courthouse out in the open? They’ll take him in through the tunnels, you fuckin’ idiot.” Carver said nothing for a moment. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Christ almighty. All right, I ain’t got time fer yer sorry ass. Now. I’m gonna knock you out here in a minute. When you wake up, I be gone. You pick up yer little bags, get back in that flashy red cop magnet yer drivin’ and head on outta town. I don’t care where ya go, but the further you go, the better. You keep your fee on this job.”

“But… you don’t want the fee?”

“Nope.”

“Who’s gonna do the job?”

“Nobody.”

Carver snorted. “The brothers’ll have my head if I skip town with their money and don’t do the job.”

“If they make a stink I’ll arrange fer yer fee ta get returned outta my own pocket, but they gonna have bigger problems than that real soon.”

“Why you doin’ this?”

“We got a deal?”

Carver was quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”

D jerked on his arm again, getting a pained grunt in return. “You listen ta me,” he said, low into Carver’s ear. “You get gone, and you stay gone. I’ll be watchin’. I get so much as a whiff a the salami you ate fer lunch and you won’t get the chance ta be sorry

’bout it. You keep yer trap shut about seein’ me here. You got it?” He nodded. “Yeah. I got it.”

D shook his head. “You oughta get outta this business. You ain’t got the stones.” He stepped back and swung the butt of his gun against the back of Carver’s head. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. D patted him down and took his guns, then took the rifle he’d brought and his extra firearms, and made himself scarce.

“I THINK they’ll be able to finish the voir dire today,” Churchill said. He’d come by to have lunch with Jack in his room. It was Wednesday, and Jack was beginning to go stir-crazy. Churchill was doing his best to keep him company, but there was only so much you could do for someone stuck in a hotel room.

“Thank God.”

“Yeah, we were afraid they’d drag it out, but the judge isn’t having it. He’s presided over a few Dominguez trials before, trials that got cut short when witnesses turned up dead. He’s moving things right along.”

“You think I’ll be on the stand by the end of the week?” Zero at the Bone | 171

“I hope so. You won’t be the first witness, but Brad will try to get you up there as fast as he can. We can’t get you into Witsec until the trial’s over, though, because you could be recalled at any time.” He sighed. “I might be able to get Brad to push up your testimony because of the demonstrable threats against your life.” Jack nodded. “You’d think.”

Churchill drained his iced tea and sat back. He watched Jack for a moment, and then took a deep breath. “Can I ask you about him?” Jack was sitting slumped over the table, playing idly with the remnants of his lo mein. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. It’s… guys in his line of work, they’re kind of like urban legends.

You always hear about them but never see them, or meet them. I guess I’m curious.”

“He’s just a man.”

“I doubt that.”

Jack tossed down his fork and sat back. “Look, if you want to know about D, you’ll have to ask him yourself, since you guys are so tight. I’m not telling you a damn thing about him, because it’s not my place to talk about him to you and, furthermore, I’m not completely sure I trust you.” He seemed to be bracing for an angry response, but Churchill just smiled.

“Good,” he said. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

“You’re happy that I just told you I don’t trust you?”

“Jack, in your position, you can’t afford to trust anyone completely.”

“I trust D.”

Churchill nodded. “I know. I guess he’s earned that, hasn’t he?” Jack sat staring into space. “Are you married?”

“Ten years.”

“You got any kids?”

“I have two sons.”

“And you have a house, I bet. And a car, probably more than one, and this job and all this responsibility, and you probably have friends and co-workers and barbecues in the backyard and aunts and siblings and nieces and nephews and college roommates and all that crap, right?”

Churchill nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well, I don’t. Not anymore. And once this trial’s over I’ll never have it. D is all I have, Churchill. Don’t expect me to tell you anything about him, or what’s between us, because I can’t. I can’t let it outside myself. Okay?”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to—”

“I know you didn’t. It’s just… I’m stuck in this damn room with nothing to do but sit and brood about where he is, or if he’s alive or dead, and wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”

“CHURCHILL.”

“It’s D.”

“Good timing. I just left Jack’s… oh wait, you probably know that, don’t you?” D chuckled. “Actually, I ain’t watchin’ you or him right now, so I guess that makes it good timin’.”

“I wish you’d let me tell him you’re here.”

172 | Jane Seville

“It’s bad enough you told him we been talkin’ all summer. He’s probly sore at me.” Churchill was silent for a moment. “D, he misses you so much that I don’t think he could be angry about anything you did right now.” D stayed quiet, biting the inside of his cheek, until Churchill’s words had passed through his mind and were gone.

“Have you been able to find this JJ person?” Churchill asked.

“No. I’m lookin’ under every rock I can think of and as far as I can tell she ain’t even in town yet, although she oughta be. She is more’n capable of hidin’ from me.”

“I’ll say it again: give me her description and known aliases and I’ll put her on the watch list.”

“And I’ll say again that I cain’t do that. Brothers cain’t know that someone’s found out about their hits, because if they do they’ll jus’ call ’em off and get somebody else that we
won’t
know about. You gotta trust me. And I got help a that kind, so it ain’t all on you.”

“Help? From who?”

“Cain’t talk ’bout that. Let’s jus’ say I got some friends in high kinda places. They know yet when he’s gonna testify?”

“Brad’s hoping he can get him on the stand Friday. That’s the first day he’s being called to court, anyway.”

“So he’s leavin’ that hotel room on Friday mornin’, is what yer tellin’ me?”

“That’s right. We’ll take him by the tunnels.”

“Now, if I were JJ, I’d be tryin’ ta hit him before then, or on the way. On the way’d be hard and in the hotel room is hard. What route will ya take between the room and the tunnels?”

“The secure elevator here goes directly to the tunnels. We won’t ever be exposed.”