“Well,” Danny said softly, “I just can’t imagine it.”
“I’ve had twenty-some years to think about this. Though it doesn’t make this any easier.”
Danny looked at Galvin’s gun resting on the console between the seats. It was matte black and had a seal stamped on its handle that read R. BERETTA. He picked it up. It was cold and heavier than he’d expected.
He didn’t like guns particularly-they made him nervous-and didn’t own any. But his father had taught him to fire pistols and shotguns at the Nauset Rod and Gun Club on the Cape. He knew how to use one if he had to.
“Careful,” Galvin said. “That’s loaded.”
Danny nodded. “The safety’s on.”
“You know something about guns?”
“Enough. Do you have another one?”
Galvin looked away from the road, gave Danny a searching glance, then turned back. “There’s another one under your seat. Could you pull the trigger if you had to? I mean, and shoot someone?”
Danny was silent for five or six seconds. “Yeah,” he replied. He swallowed hard. “I could now.”
57
Danny reached down and felt something flat and hard. A metal flap. He pulled it open. Inside the compartment, he felt the cold smooth steel carcass of another gun and a small cardboard box. He slipped out the gun and the box. An identical Beretta. The box contained Cor-Bon jacketed hollow-point high-velocity ammunition and felt heavy.
He checked the magazine and saw it was full. The gun was loaded.
“What happens if they send a bunch of cartel guys with AK-47s after us?” Danny said. “A pistol’s not going to be much help.”
“If they send anyone after me, it’s not going to be what they call a fusilado. More like a tiro de gracia.”
“Translation, please?”
“A single shot. Not a firing squad. If and when it comes to that, I mean. They’re not going to send a bunch of goons with submachine guns after me. Not here. Not back in Boston, either.”
“Why not? They have the manpower, right?”
“They have armies. But they don’t need it, not for one guy. And they’re limited by the surroundings. Around here, a truck full of scary Mexicans with tats and Uzis isn’t going to blend into the background so easy. And something else: Even if they want to kill me, they’re not going to do it right away.”
Galvin paused, and Danny looked at him. He shrugged. “I don’t follow.”
Galvin tapped the side of his head with a forefinger. “There’s too much up here they need. Passwords to bank accounts and such.”
“Meaning they’ll torture you first.”
Galvin nodded.
Danny felt a wave of revulsion. He tried to keep those goddamned Internet videos of beheadings and castrations from playing in his mind.
“Oh, Jesus,” Danny said.
Galvin said, “But I don’t plan to give them the opportunity.”
Danny nodded.
“For now, I’ll just need you to keep a watch at the house. We have to get the women to the airport and onto the plane uneventfully. And make sure Abby and Lucy have no idea anything’s wrong, okay?”
“I’ll do what I can, but-”
“You’re a good friend. None of this has anything to do with you. You could just walk away if you wanted, but you’re not. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
If you only knew, Danny thought, but he just shrugged.
As they pulled into the long driveway in front of his house, Galvin said, “See the window over the garage?”
Danny nodded.
“Do me a favor and keep a watch from that room while everyone’s getting packed. That’s probably the best vantage point. You see someone with a gun drawn, shoot ’em.”
“Got it.”
When they came inside, Galvin clapped his hands like a grade school gym teacher and said, “Let’s go, girls. We need to be at the airport in half an hour. Less, if we can. We’ve all got to hustle.”
The girls were on the landing, on their way upstairs. “Well, this totally sucks,” Jenna said.
“Right?” Abby said. They were both still wearing their ski attire, their faces rosy from hours on the slopes.
“We don’t even have time to take a shower?”
“No.”
“Is what’s-his-name, Alejandro, going to come up and get our stuff or do we have to bring it down?”
“Alejandro isn’t working tonight,” Galvin said without a pause. “Bring your own stuff downstairs and I’ll load the car.”
“You’re not even packed, are you?” Celina asked her daughter. “Upstairs and pack. Now.”
“They’re not packed yet?” Danny said. “Come on, Abby, move it!”
The girls trundled loudly up the stairs. Celina bustled around the big main room, picking up miscellaneous items the girls had scattered about. Jenna’s iPad, a phone charger, lip gloss. She didn’t look at her husband. She wasn’t wearing any lipstick, or else it had worn off, and her eye makeup was smeared. Her eyes were bloodshot. She’d been crying.
Lucy wasn’t there. She was probably upstairs packing.
“Come on,” Galvin said, following the girls up the stairs. He stopped at one of the first doors off the long hall that led to their guest room. He switched on the light. The room had the faint solvent smell of newly installed carpeting. It was much smaller than the room where Lucy and Danny had spent the night. The only furniture in here was a queen-size bed with a chenille bedspread, a couple of end tables, and a bureau. Galvin pointed at the window.
“You should be able to get a good angle from here without standing directly in the path. If you have to fire through the window, do it.”
“Understood,” Danny said.
Galvin turned and left quickly without closing the door.
Passing headlights bloomed and faded on the road at the end of the driveway. They came by at the rate of around one car or truck every minute. He shifted from one foot to the other, tense.
“Danny?”
Lucy’s voice. He turned, saw her standing in the hallway, her blond hair gleaming in the overhead light.
The gun in his hand.
“Danny, what are you doing?”
58
Danny carried the Beretta onto the plane in the pocket of his down parka.
It went just as Galvin had promised. No going through security. No metal detectors or wands or pat-downs. He just walked right onto the plane as he’d done in Boston. Galvin had told him to keep the gun with him.
The seating arrangement on the plane was slightly different on the way back.
Celina sat next to her husband. They spoke almost continuously, in low voices, alternating between Spanish and English. Danny couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Celina looked worried and upset, and Galvin seemed to be trying to placate her.
The two girls sat next to each other on the couch at the back, as before. Jenna was reading the book Abby had just finished, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Abby was reading a novel by Jodi Picoult.
Danny took the seat near Lucy’s, but she appeared not to be speaking to him. She hadn’t said a word in the Suburban on the way to the airport, and as soon as the plane took off, she’d opened her Cleopatra biography. A couple of times he’d caught her eye, or took her hand, only to get no response. An averted glance, a limp hand.
She smoldered. He’d never seen her so angry. In fact, he could barely think of times when he’d seen her angry at all. Nothing more than momentary irritation. But this was different. She was angry, and she was frightened.