“Do you remember,” Mitch said, staring out the darkened window, “how we used to talk about the rich guys, the CEOs and politicians? How we used to hate them for acting in their own interests instead of for the good of everyone else?
“We went into this thinking we were going to stick it to guys like that. Like Johnny. People who broke the rules for their own good. And now here we are. Thinking the same way.”
“So what do we do?”
He took a breath. “All I know is what I won’t do.”
“What’s that?”
“Settle for the lesser of two evils.” Mitch spoke with a quiet calm. His back was straight and his voice steady.
“But-”
“There has to be a third way,” he said. “There has to be something better.”
Again, the silence fell.
Then Mitch said, “You know what?” He turned to face them. “There is.”
“What?”
“I take the stuff to the police. I turn it over and tell them everything.”
“But-you-the alley. You…” Even now, she found it hard to say the words.
“I killed someone,” he said. His voice was steady, but she heard the stress beneath it. “I shot someone. And I’ll admit that.”
“They’ll arrest you,” Ian said.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But it’s the only way. Take responsibility for what I did.”
“That’s crazy. They’ll send you to jail.”
“Maybe that’s where I belong.” His voice cracked a little, but he kept going. “Look, I’ve been hiding from this since it happened. Pretending I can be something else, that I can just go on with life. Maybe there are people who could forget it, but that’s not the way it works for me. I did it to protect you, and I’ll tell them that. Maybe it will help. Maybe not. But I can’t go on pretending, and we cannot let Victor have this.”
“But it’s not our fault,” she repeated, hating that they were making her play this role. “I know that sounds weak, but if we hadn’t come along, Victor would have bought and sold it, and we wouldn’t have known a thing.”
“Sure. But if we give this to him, chances are, one morning we’ll turn on the news and see a story about a terrorist attack with sarin gas. Maybe here, maybe somewhere else, and we won’t even know for sure it was the same stuff. But there will be hundreds of people dead. And we’ll have to stand and watch, and wonder if we could have done something. Can you live with that?”
She looked at him. The streetlight outside cast raindrop shadows across his face. His back was straight, but his hands trembled. She imagined herself making breakfast in her kitchen. The radio on, a bagel in the toaster, hummus on the counter, coffeepot gurgling. Alone in her little world. And on the TV, images of innocent people twisted and broken, their faces locked in eternal screams.
“No,” she said. “No, I can’t.”
“Me either,” Ian said. “But there’s a snag in this plan, right? The DF is in a safe-deposit box. How do we-” He stopped, caught the expression on their faces. “What?”
“It’s not in the bank,” she said. “It’s here.”
“Here here?”
“Down the block, in the trunk of the drug dealer’s car.” She paused. “Are you sure you want to do this, Mitch? You understand-”
“I understand.” He raised his hands above his head in a stretch, then let them drop. “I’m not happy about it. But that choice between the lives of people we love and the lives of a lot of people we don’t know? I won’t make it.”
It was a simple enough statement. But she didn’t know if she would have been strong enough to say it.
“What are you going to tell them?” Ian asked.
“What happened, more or less. I don’t need to mention you guys.”
“Yeah, you do,” Ian said. “Johnny saw me, too, remember?”
“I can just say that I won’t tell them who my partners were.”
“That will make them go harder on you. As it stands, you’re a civilian without a criminal record. The man we robbed is a former drug dealer, and the one you killed was selling chemical weapons. Weapons you brought to them.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Besides. Screw the Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Ian gave that lopsided grin. “I’m not letting you take this on alone.”
Mitch smiled. “If you’re looking for me to convince you otherwise…”
“We’re not,” she said. She stood up. “I’m going too.” Some part of her wanted to do this, she realized. Wanted to admit the wrong and take the punishment, to stand with her friends. “Guess the Thursday Night Club isn’t done yet.” She took a deep breath, the air rasping cool into her lungs. “OK. So when do we go?”
“Now.” Mitch stood. “Right now.”
The rain had been going steady and soft for the last few hours, and the air had that smell that told her it might go all night. It had put a damper on the usual Saturday revelry, and the sidewalks were nearly clear. They walked in silence, all of them lost in their own thoughts.
Abruptly, Mitch spoke. “I’m sorry.” He turned to Jenn. “I can’t believe I-that wasn’t me.”
She turned responses over in her mind, looking for the right one. Finally, she said, “I know.”
“You too.” Mitch turned to Ian. “If you hadn’t figured out what this stuff was, we would have gone through with it. I was wrong to call you a fuck-up, man.”
“No, you weren’t. I am a fuck-up. But I’m working on it.”
“We all are,” she said and meant it. Still, there was a calm replacing the panic of earlier. They had come up against an impossible decision, and they had made the right choice. Whatever sins they’d committed, that had to count for something. And if nothing else, at least this would all be over soon.
They crossed the intersection, passing two women holding hands. Weird to think that just days ago she and Mitch had run this course in reverse, in pain just from smelling the chemicals. How much worse must the actual thing be?
She thought about the police, wondered what the three of them would say. The truth, obviously. But what exactly? Maybe it didn’t matter, she thought. Fast or slow, elegant or graceless, the facts spoke for themselves. Maybe it was just a matter of telling them-
“No.” Mitch stared straight ahead. “No.”
She followed his gaze. In the dark, the Eldorado had a richer hue, the purple almost looking good. The car radiated a certain cool, that big grill, a hood that could sleep three. The sharp, almost dangerous lines of the body, leading back to where-
The trunk was open.
IN THE CITY PROPER, Saturday night made for lousy, slow driving. But at this hour the freeways weren’t too bad, and even with the rain, Alex made good time. The dashboard clock read 11:32 when he pulled up outside his ex-wife’s.
He sat in the car for a moment. He could hear the ticking of the engine and the soft, steady spatter of the rain. Through the windshield he could see her house: porch lights on, the quiet domestic comfort of aluminum siding, squares of warm yellow hidden behind curtains. It looked comfortable, cozy. Everything he had ever wanted.
The rain made him want to hurry up the walk, but the thought of what he would say-or rather, the total lack of any idea what to say-made him keep his pace steady. With shaking fingers, he rang the doorbell. Listened to the soft tones, wondered what it felt like to hear them from inside.
Footsteps, and then Scott opened the door. Trish’s new husband looked surprised, but quickly wiped it away. He stood in the doorway, his body blocking the light. “Alex.”
“Scott. I’m sorry to come out here like this. But I need to talk to Cassie. Just for a few minutes.”
“I can’t do that.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“I know. And you can see her. But we went through this. It’s almost midnight. You can’t just drop by. We need you to let us know in advance, so that we can-”