Royce hardly believed it. Danielle squirmed under his grip, he was squeezing her biceps so tight.
He recovered, reasserting himself, a note of command in his voice. “You listen here, Maven. I’ve got Danielle with me, so be very fucking careful where you—”
Ponk! Ponk! Ponk!
Three chips cracked open in the floor around Royce’s feet. Maven, firing blindly up at them. Royce staggered backward, unhit.
He had only three guys left upstairs with him. He grabbed a submachine gun off the nearest and shoved the guy toward the stairs.
“Hold him off!” said Royce, pushing Danielle toward the bedroom door at the end of the darkened hall.
Maven located the side stairway, rushing up to the third floor. He exited the alcove and entered the middle of the hall, behind the gunmen watching the main stairs. Maven had the drop on them.
Then a three-round burst from behind ripped up the back of his vest. Maven twisted, went down, fired behind him.
It was Royce, spitting flame from a door at the end of the hall.
The gunmen, alerted by Royce’s volley, spun and opened up on the end of the hall, half-blind.
Maven rolled to face them, firing from the floor, shins and knees, dropping them.
He rolled back to face Royce, who had closed the door by then.
Maven rolled back again, finishing off two gunmen, a third alligator-crawling into a doorway to die.
Maven crabbed into a room to reload.
Royce dumped his phone and the Beretta onto the dresser, needing both hands free for the Steyr. It carried a thirty-round magazine, but he had no time to check how many were left.
He went to the east-facing window and looked down into the security light shining upward. A lower corner of the roof was near enough, but then what? A long fall onto the courtyard and two broken legs.
Barricading the door would be an idiot’s play. He wanted Maven blundering inside, didn’t he? Walking right into the chain saw.
So he set up along the shadows of the side wall, ten feet laterally from the door. He gripped the Steyr, ready to open up on the first person to walk inside. All he had to do now was to provoke Maven into making one final mistake.
Royce looked to Danielle, standing at the dresser with her back to him, her eyes catching some of the window light, teary, glowering.
“Call him,” hissed Royce, crouching against the wall with a tight smile. “Call to him!”
Maven was sore from the armor hits, but still not carrying any lead. His breath was short and shallow, coming from high in his chest. He couldn’t get enough air.
He had finished reloading when he heard Danielle’s voice.
“Neal! Neal...”
Like stabs from a knife. Driven by thoughts of Samara, he rushed into the hallway. A thin strip of silver light lay at the bottom of the door at the end, small fingers of light reaching out from bullet holes in the wood.
Royce was behind that door. Maven didn’t hesitate, starting toward it, pistols up.
Bang! Bang-bang!
The reports stopped him. He expected more holes in the door, but the shots had remained inside the room.
He ran at the door, striking the knob square with the heel of his boot and busting it open, crashing inside.
The barrage he had expected — the one he was relying upon to tell him the source and direction of his target — did not occur.
Instead, he found Royce on the floor at the base of the shadowed side wall. A puddle of darkness was expanding beneath his neck. The Steyr was inches from his hand, though he showed no interest in it.
Maven turned. Danielle stood in the shadow of a dresser, smoke rising from a Beretta pistol cradled in her hands.
Maven looked back to Royce. He kneeled on his chest. Royce’s mouth was open, but he made no attempt to talk. His eyes were full, staring up at the snowy shadows drifting against the ceiling.
Maven waited. He waited for Royce to look at him.
Royce never did. His eyes stayed on the ceiling, amazed by the tumbling black flakes. He died watching them.
Maven stood after a while. Danielle came up behind him.
“He was going to kill you,” she said.
The emptiness Maven felt was acute, like the hole in his head where his left eye used to be. He said, “We were going to kill each other.”
Danielle reached out to him one-handedly, like a child uncertain whether the thing she wanted to touch was hot or cold. “I did it for you.”
Maven took the murder weapon from her other hand and dropped it onto Royce’s chest. Then he turned and started back through the broken door. He was walking away.
“Neal?” she said, a note of panic in her voice.
Maven kept walking.
Retreat
Maven drove the Parisienne north into the Vermont mountains, Ricky sleeping fitfully next to him. No radio, no conversation, no stops. The stillness of the frozen terrain suited his mind-set.
The sign read MOUNTAINSCAPE RETREAT. The main building looked like a small ski lodge. The branches of the surrounding trees were coated with sun-reflecting ice, like trees made of glass.
The inside was alpine, peaceful. The admitting director’s lips appeared very pink within his salt-and-pepper beard. “The VA has its own residential detox and recovery,” he said.
Maven said, “They’re not top five in the country. I looked you up.”
“There is currently a three-month waiting list for a bed, and even then, his insurance would cover very little of it.”
Maven lifted the duffel bag onto the counter. He ran the zippers down each end.
The admitting director looked at the cash inside.
“Enough for a full six-month program,” said Maven. “He’s a disabled army veteran. You can move him to the front of the line.”
Outside, Maven helped load Ricky out of the car and into A wheelchair. Ricky looked over at the admitting director, watching them from the building.
“You can do this,” said Maven, kneeling in front of Ricky. “You have to.”
Ricky winced, the thought of a six-month stay worsening his headache. “You’ll take care of my car?”
“I will.”
“You gonna visit?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna visit.”
Ricky looked down into his lap.
Maven said, “Ricky. I know I fucked up a hundred different ways. I’ll carry that with me forever.”
Ricky looked at him — really looked at him — and said, “What about you? What do you do now?”
Maven straightened. “One more thing I gotta do. One last guy I gotta see.”
Burning Window
Lockerty was in his underwear eating pasta at the kitchen table. He was a messy eater and didn’t like to feel self-conscious, so he always ate alone. And if the meal involved a red sauce, he ate without too many stainable clothes on.
The television was on next to the refrigerator, but he had the Boston Phoenix personals open in front of him, and he was more interested in scanning for some action. By chance, he looked up as the photograph of a young, black boxer was shown on the screen. The words below read, “Brockton Fight Legend in Grisly Discovery.”
The Dynamo. Lewis Termino. Royce’s pit bull.
A grisly discovery?
Lockerty said to the TV, “Are you shitting me?”
The story ended fast. He had come to it too late.
“Mr. Leroy!” he called.
He tried changing stations, but he kept pressing the wrong buttons. He couldn’t find out anything more.
“Mr. Leroy!”
The house was awfully quiet. Nothing more than the sound of water running through the pipes. Lockerty stood, leaving his napkin on the table, downplaying his concern. He moved to the window and looked outside, where dusk was turning to night.