“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Gordie said. “I think I can speak on Mr. Fleming’s behalf that your services will no longer be required.”
Braithwaite looked uncertain. “Seriously?”
“Yup,” Gordie said.
“That’s... that’s terrific. It’s almost too good to be true. I appreciate it. I really do. Is that what you wanted to tell me? Because if it is, great, but I’d like you to drop me off.”
“Not yet,” Bert said.
“What are we doing? Why are we driving around?”
“We’re just looking for a spot,” Gordie said.
“A spot?”
Gordie said to Bert, “How long we going to keep wandering? Gas ain’t cheap, you know.” Gordie had been so engrossed in conversation with Nathaniel Braithwaite that he’d lost track of where they were. But he was guessing it was the road that led up to Derby. Two lanes, regular traffic, but more isolated than stopping on the Boston Post Road.
“I think this is good,” Bert said. “I can just pull over to the side. It’s not like anyone can see in.”
The van’s tires crunched on gravel as it veered from pavement to shoulder. Bert moved the column shifter up to park but left the engine running so the air-conditioning wouldn’t shut off.
Gordie got up and slipped through the space between the two front seats. Braithwaite took a step back to make way for him.
“I don’t want any trouble,” he said. “If there’s something you guys want, or Mr. Fleming wants, just tell me what it is.”
“We want the truth,” Gordie said. Now Bert was getting out from behind the steering wheel, moving into the cargo area, but not before reaching under his seat for a small case made of rigid black plastic. On the side were the words Black & Decker.
Braithwaite wiped sweat from his brow. Even with the air going, it was hot in this metal cell that suddenly felt much smaller. Three grown men, jockeying for position.
“Sure, whatever you want to know,” the dog walker said, glancing nervously at the case Bert was carrying.
“Where’s the money?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the truth. I don’t know what money you’re talking about.”
“The money you took from the Cummings house last night. Two hundred grand, give or take. Where is it? If you give it back right now, we’ll only hurt you. But if you make us work for it, well, it’s gonna be very bad.”
“I didn’t take any money. Are you saying there was money in the house? Was that why your boss wanted to get in? To hide money?”
“You ready?” Gordie asked Bert.
The other man nodded and set the case on the floor. He flipped back two clasps, opened it, and brought out an orange and black cordless drill.
“What the hell?” Braithwaite said.
Gordie suddenly moved on the dog walker, hooking his foot behind his leg and driving him back with two hands to the chest. Braithwaite landed hard, with a loud metallic thump. The van jostled. Gordie jumped on top of him, straddling him. He grabbed the man’s wrists and pinned them to the floor alongside his head, sitting on him like a schoolyard bully.
“Get off me!” Braithwaite said.
Bert stepped around them and stood just beyond the man’s head, looking down, holding the drill in his right hand. He gave the trigger a quick squeeze, the quarter-inch drill bit spinning furiously as the device emitted a high-pitched whirring sound.
“I think you might have a cavity,” Bert said. “D’ya ever see Marathon Man? That was like getting a flu shot next to this. I’m gonna need you to open your mouth wide.”
“No,” he said quickly, then clenched his jaw.
Bert got down on his knees, hovered over the man’s face. Teased the trigger of the drill.
Whizz. Whizz. Whizz.
Nathaniel continued to clench his jaw and press his lips together.
Gordie offered a suggestion. “If he won’t open his mouth, just drill into his forehead.”
Bert said, “You got one last chance to tell us where the money is.” The drill bit was an inch from the man’s lips.
Spinning.
“Don’t know!” he said through clenched teeth.
Bert touched the tip of the drill to the man’s upper lip for a millisecond. Tender flesh ripped and blood sprayed. Nathaniel screamed.
“Oh shit, you got some on me,” Gordie said.
“Sorry,” Bert said. “Maybe if I forget the teeth and go in through the ear. Might be less messy.”
Nathaniel’s eyes widened with even greater fear.
Bert was repositioning himself when there was the sound of a cell phone. The two thugs looked at each other, wondering for a moment whose phone it was.
“Not me,” Gordie said.
“Shit,” Bert said. He set the drill on the floor and reached into his pocket for his phone. Glanced at the screen and winced.
“Jabba?” Gordie asked.
Bert nodded and put the phone to his ear. “Yeah? I told you, I can’t make the meeting. Just tell them to keep the old bat. We can’t take her. Yeah, that’s what I said. The old—”
Nathaniel saw his chance.
He’d only made it to a purple belt in karate, but he remembered at least one move. When someone is straddling you, holding your wrists down, gravity is on your opponent’s side. You can’t raise your arms.
But you can make them go sideways, and use your attacker’s weight against him.
Nathaniel swept his pinned arms down across the van’s floor to his side, quick as lightning. Gordie, his hands still locked on Nathaniel’s wrists, found himself pitching forward. Nathaniel scurried out from beneath him, and as Gordie started to turn over, Nathaniel drove the palm of his hand into the man’s nose with everything he had.
Gordie screamed, “Fuck!”
It all happened so quickly, Bert was caught unprepared. He still had the phone to his ear as it all went down.
Gordie put both hands to his face, over his nose, while Braithwaite scrambled, crablike, to the van’s side door. He pulled on the handle, kicked the door open, and leapt from the vehicle.
The car was parked so far onto the shoulder that the ground sloped immediately away into tall grass. Braithwaite quickly found his footing, pivoted left, and ran toward the front of the van.
Bert caught a glimpse of the man streaking past the front window, running across the road.
“Fuck!” Gordie said again. But he’d taken his hands away from his face and was getting up, blocking Bert, who was about to give chase, from moving around him.
Gordie stumbled out into the grass. There was loose gravel underfoot, too, and he needed a second to get purchase. He charged around the front of the van, started running across the road.
That was when Bert heard a panicked screech, rubber sliding on dry pavement, and a very loud FWUMP.
Sounded like a side of beef dropping from a second-story window. That moment when it hit the sidewalk.
A man shouted, “Jesus!”
Rather than go out the side, Bert threw open the rear doors. A FedEx truck was stopped parallel to the van, engine rumbling. Bert ran between the vehicles, stopped when he got to the courier truck’s front bumper.
Gordie lay on the pavement, his body a bloody pretzel. The FedEx driver, kneeling close to Gordie but too horrified to touch him, saw Bert and said, “He ran right out in front of me! I swear! I couldn’t stop!”
Bert forced himself to look away, scanned the surroundings for Nathaniel Braithwaite.
Not a sign of him.
He ran to the back of the FedEx truck, looked again. There were a thousand places where the dog walker could have disappeared. A wooded area. Half a dozen houses he could have sought cover behind.
Fuck it.
Bert slammed shut the rear doors of his van after first snatching his phone off the floor, opened the driver’s door, and got in behind the wheel. The engine was still running.