“Doesn’t exactly feel that way to me.”
“Of course it wouldn’t.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way to the Hunters, either.”
Her eyes narrowed, and now Charlie could see it—the glass one. Her right eye. The unnaturally blue one. So she hadn’t emerged from their little battle unscathed. She’d lost an eye. What was that old saying? It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye? Hardie supposed the fun and games were over. Now it was something else.
“That’s ancient history, too,” Mann said. “Look, as much as I’d love to sit back and reminisce, I’m here for a reason. They wanted you to talk to a familiar face, so that you’d know they were serious.”
“Again with the they.”
“It’s always they, Charlie. Don’t you know that? They run everything.”
“Kind of surprised they didn’t have you killed for screwing everything up so badly.”
This time Mann giggled before catching herself. Her cheeks turned red, and she fought for her composure. “Oh, Charlie, I’ve missed you. No, they didn’t have me killed. They don’t waste assets. And I’m an asset to the Industry. Just like you.”
Hardie tried to put his face in his hands, wanting to press his own eyeballs in to see if they’d stop throbbing. But then he remembered he was half handcuffed. Still, he used the palm of his left hand to rub his forehead. The movement was awkward; his left arm seemed to want to do its own thing, not be pressed into service.
“Do you have a headache?” Mann asked with something resembling genuine concern in her voice.
Hardie said nothing and continued rubbing his head. “Yeah. You wouldn’t happen to have any aspirin, would you?”
“That’s an unfortunate side effect of the memory shot they gave you.”
Hardie looked at her from between his fingers. “Memory what?”
“A shot to erase your short-term memory. Which is why you’re so confused right now, and why you have a really bad headache. They didn’t want you remembering anything about your trip here. Not the sounds of tires on the road, or the way the air felt or smelled. Nothing. So they blanked out your recent past. It’s a security precaution.”
“Exactly how much of my recent past?”
Mann smiled and hummed playfully. Hmm hmm hmmmmm.
“Great,” Hardie said. “You sure you don’t have any aspirin?”
Hardie had to admit it: he didn’t understand a thing about what was going on. Why was Mann smiling and chipper? That made him uneasy, far more than the ache in his skull and the handcuff around his wrist.
Now Mann leaned forward, sizing him up with her eyes. “You’re going to behave, right, Charlie?”
He took a moment before responding. “Sure.”
“Goody.”
Mann fished in her pocket and produced a small key. She stood up, scraping the chair back across the concrete floor, then moved around the table to Hardie’s side. He flinched. She told him to relax, then leaned forward. Her breasts brushed against his shoulder.
Hardie blurted: “You know, you still have a nice rack.”
It was a dumb inside joke between them—at least Hardie thought so. The first time they’d met, she’d been topless, sunning herself on a patio high up in the Hollywood Hills. He hadn’t known she was a professional assassin back then. He just thought she was rich and eccentric and an exhibitionist.
But Mann stepped away and frowned. Dark clouds formed in her eyes. Even, impossibly enough, the glass one. Okay, Hardie thought. Here it comes. Here’s the Mann I know. He braced himself for a punch in the head or a chop to the throat.
Instead, her hands came up and started to unbutton her blouse.
Now, this wasn’t what he expected.
“What are you doing?” Hardie asked.
“For old times’ sake,” she said, then removed her blouse to reveal her bra—disappointingly white and rather matronly. Mann reached around to the back and unhooked it.
“Look,” Hardie said, “I know this is a cliché, but when I said I had a headache, I really meant that I had a—”
When Mann’s bra came away from her chest, one of her breasts came with it. It took Hardie a few seconds to realize that the bra had padding on one side to perfectly match her remaining breast. The left part of her chest was glistening with fresh scar tissue, pink and raw-looking.
“God,” Hardie muttered. “What—”
“The big C. Runs in the family, sad to say. You can run away from many things in life, but you can’t run away from your genes. Happened a short while ago. I’m still getting used to one of the girls being gone.”
Hardie didn’t know what to say. What could you say? Sorry you lost one, but the other looks great? Mann wasn’t a high-school girlfriend. She was a cold-blooded killer. She had racked up many notches on her gun. She’d tried to kill him.
Then it occurred to him. When did she find the time to, like, survive breast cancer? How long had he been out?
“It’s not all bad,” she continued. “Amazon warrior women used to remove a breast willingly, so their tits wouldn’t get in the way when drawing back an arrow. Mind you, I prefer a gun, but I’m tempted to give archery a shot. Certainly would make for a great cocktail-party story, don’t you think?”
Hardie couldn’t look anymore. Mann rehooked her bra, slid her arms into the blouse, rebuttoned it. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you know that you’re not the only one who’s lost something, Charlie.”
“What do you want?” Hardie said. “Why are you here?”
“They wanted you to see a familiar face. They wanted you to know this is for real.”
“What’s for real?”
Mann smiled. “Your new life.”
“We’re in the vestibule of site seven seven three four,” Mann said. “This is a secret maximum-security facility, known only to an extremely limited number of people in the world. We’re somewhere deep in the earth, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Even I don’t know where it is.”
“Right.”
“No, I’m serious. They stuck me with the same memory shot they gave you. When I leave, they’re going to give me another shot, and I’ll wake up in a hotel room somewhere else in the world. Hopefully someplace with a spa and excellent room service.”
“They, again, huh?”
Mann leaned forward, raised her eyebrows. “Creepy, isn’t it?”
Unconsciously, Hardie’s trembling left hand went to the crook of his right arm and then he realized what he was searching for. The needle jab. Sure enough, there was a fabric bandage there, and wine-dark bruising around it. Somebody had given him a shot. Somebody had been giving him lots of shots. Sticking him up as though he were a college student trying to make some extra bread over a weekend.
Mann leaned back. “And when I wake up, my bank account will be fatter. I’ll probably go have a cocktail in the hotel bar. I’m not supposed to say anything to anybody, ever, so I’ll raise a silent toast to you, Charlie. Because you’re going to be away a long, long time.”
“So this is my punishment, huh?”
“Punishment?”
“For messing up your big Hollywood murder plans.”
“Oh, that,” Mann said. “Geez, I’d almost forgotten all about that.”
Uh-huh, Hardie thought. You forget all about about losing an eye. Forgive and forget. Turn the other socket.
“This isn’t about punishment, Charlie. It’s simple economics. You cost our employers a great deal of money. So they’re going to put you to work to recoup some of the losses.”