Chin hesitates before the inner lobby door. The lock is broken, the door slightly ajar, a common occurrence that never fails to annoy Chin. The lock wasn’t damaged by vandals or thieves. Pragmatists to the core, the residents are themselves responsible. The intercom hasn’t worked in six months, which means you have to come to the lobby when you have a visitor or receive a delivery. Or you would if the lock wasn’t broken.
There’s a bottle of white wine in Chin’s refrigerator, a half-assed decent Chardonnay that calls to him as he presses the button for the elevator, as the door opens and he steps inside. Only when the elevator begins to move do his thoughts turn to Leonard Carter. Another ten grand and he’ll have the cushion he suspects he’ll need for his transition to legitimacy. Chin’s not suicidal. He’s not intending to confront Carter one on one. But there’s that warehouse two blocks away, the one he noticed while the cop examined his ID. Chin had driven past the building on his way out of the neighborhood, a matter of pure chance. The structure was vacant, its doors and windows covered with sheets of plywood. Late at night, access to the roof would involve only a minimum of risk. Chin’s almost certain the roof overlooks the windows of Carter’s apartment, all of them.
If Carter believes himself to be safe, Chin thinks, if he fails to take elementary precautions like keeping the shades drawn, if he foolishly exposes himself ...
Chin keys the two locks protecting his door, steps inside his apartment, locks the doors behind him and flips on the light. Big mistake. If he’d reversed the last two steps, if he’d turned on the light first, if he’d seen Leonard Carter standing in the kitchen before he locked the door behind him, he might have had a chance. Maybe not, though. Carter’s holding a gun in his right hand, a silenced, .22 caliber semi-automatic, an assassin’s weapon. His eyes are calm and cool, his stare unwavering.
‘Walk further into the apartment,’ he says.
Chin counts off the steps – one, two, three, four, five – until Carter orders him to stop.
‘Strip down. Toss your clothes across the room.’
Well, there it is, Chin thinks. What goes around, comes around. In Afghanistan, he’d ordered suspected Taliban to strip down shortly after taking them into custody, ostensibly because their garments and bags had to be searched. But a naked prisoner is a compliant prisoner, reduced in his own eyes, and everybody knew it, including the prisoners. Humiliation by design, caution the excuse, a naked exercise in power relationships. Forgive the pun.
‘You want to hear a joke?’ Chin asks as he strips off his briefs to stand naked.
‘Sure.’
‘What happens when a Chinese man with a hard-on runs into a wall?’ Chin gives it a couple of beats before delivering the punchline. ‘He breaks his nose.’
Carter doesn’t laugh. ‘I want you to sit down with your back against the wall, your feet crossed at the ankles. Do it now.’
Chin complies, but then asks, ‘Would you mind telling me what this is all about?’
Carter responds by shooting him in the right knee, the pain so overwhelming that Chin’s vision is instantly replaced by a wall of fire, as if he was staring into the heart of a blast furnace. He wants to scream, but he knows better. Then the fire recedes and he watches Carter raise the .22 until the barrel is pointed at his forehead.
‘I have a low tolerance for bullshit,’ Carter explains.
Unable to speak, Chin stares for a moment at the blood flowing from his knee. Then he wraps his hands around the punctured bone and feels the shattered bullet trapped beneath the skin. This is exactly what’ll happen if Carter pulls the trigger again. The round will shatter as it penetrates his skull, leaving each tiny shard to track a different path through his brain.
‘What do you want me to tell you?’ he finally mutters.
‘First, how you found me.’
‘Do you know who Bobby Ditto is?’
‘I know.’
‘He had information on you, your last name and your involvement with a man named Montgomery Thorpe.’ Chin pauses for breath. ‘I have a ... a contact with access to sections of the CIA’s database.’
‘Classified sections?’
‘Yes, classified data. I discovered Thorpe first, then you as a known associate. From there it was a matter of working backward until I found the address you gave when you enlisted.’
‘And Bobby Ditto knows my name and address?’
Chin’s wishing that Carter’s expression would change. He’d prefer righteous anger to the man’s eerie calm. ‘Look, I’m just a clerk. I trade in information. I’m not a threat.’
‘Then why did you put my apartment under surveillance? And why do you have a scoped Remington 30.06 in your closet?’
‘I’m a hunter, a deer hunter.’
‘No, you’re not. You don’t have any hunting equipment, not even a pair of boots. You hunt humans, Chin. Which leaves you without any right to complain when your prey fights back. I’ve searched your apartment and I know you’ve been to war. So, unless you’re that rare atheist in the foxhole, it’s time for you to make your peace.’
But Chin doesn’t pray. Instead, he begins to cry, the tears running from his eyes in a little stream. Not that it helps him. Carter has responsibilities now, to Angel and the cop. If he risks himself, he risks them, and Chin, given his military experience and his access to state secrets, is a genuine threat.
‘One day it’ll be my turn,’ he explains. ‘Today, it’s yours.’
Paulie Margarine’s fully awake when Carter steps into his bedroom, yet he sees or hears nothing until Carter reaches the foot of his bed. Paulie’s awake because he’s in pain, despite a patch on his chest that leaches a steady dose of Fentanyl on to his skin. The cancer is everywhere, including his bones, and he has little time left. Now, looking up at Carter and the gun in his hand, Paulie knows that he has even less, that his journey is almost complete. And the amazing part is that he still wants every minute, that he doesn’t want to surrender a single second.
‘Carter?’ The word is barely audible and he swipes a dry tongue over dry lips before repeating himself. ‘Carter?’
‘Yeah, Paulie, it’s me. The man you never expected to see again.’ Carter shakes his head. ‘How much, Paulie. How much to sell me out?’
‘I never ...’
‘Bobby Ditto connected me to Montgomery Thorpe, which he couldn’t have done without your help. I just want to know how much.’
Paulie’s too ashamed to admit the truth. Five thousand? Given the cost, the gain was pitiful. ‘Fifteen grand, but the money wasn’t the point. My family and his, we go back a long way. I couldn’t refuse him. But I swear, I never thought he’d actually find you. I never thought you’d let yourself be traced. I thought you were too smart for that.’
In fact, Carter might have sold Janie’s apartment at any time over the past few years, knowing she’d never use the place again. Instead, he deliberately left his back trail in place, the better to see who was coming up behind him. ‘Tell me why Bobby came to you? What made him think you could help him?’
Paulie tries to raise himself up far enough to slide a second pillow beneath his head, only to be greeted by a sharp pain that runs in a jagged line from his right shoulder to his fingertips.
‘Holy shit, I feel like my arm’s on fire.’
Carter leans forward to lift Paulie’s head, to prop up the pillows, to lay the old man back down. ‘You want something?’
‘The docs say if I take any more painkillers, they’ll kill me instead of the pain.’ Paulie laughs, surprising even himself. But he’s not a man to be victimized by illusions. He took a chance when he sold Carter out, though he truly believed the odds against the information he bartered leading to Carter were astronomical.