Sloppy, sloppy monster.
“And then you’re going to realize that your cure isn’t going to work, because she’s lost too much blood now, and she’s gone. And the only thing left to do is sit here in this chair and slice your own throat with a shaving razor. You’re a trained professional. You know exactly how deep to cut.”
Inside the bathroom, the shower water turned off.
“Of course, that’s after you cut off her head,” she whispered.
Kowalski had heard stories about these types of CI-6 killers. Pain freaks loved to work with nervous systems, either numbing them to the point of paralysis or exposing them to agony so extreme that few human beings could process it. They were smart people. They had to be. But they were also fucking nuts.
He watched her position her back to the bathroom wall, syringe in her hand, ready to strike Vanessa the moment she emerged. She’d know exactly where to plunge the needle, too, to paralyze her instantly.
And then she’d start drawing blood.
The bathroom door opened. Steam flowed out of the doorway. Vanessa liked her showers hot.
The pain freak winked at Kowalski.
And then something white and round whipped around the corner and smashed the pain freak in the face.
Vanessa emerged, toilet seat in hand, and gave her another mad powerful whack.
The syringe tumbled out of the pain freak’s hand and stuck itself in the carpet. She followed right behind it. As she fell, Kowalski could see that part of her face had been destroyed. He’d be the last man to see her look so good.
Vanessa was completely dry, wrapped in a towel. She hadn’t even stepped into the shower. It had all been a ruse.
“Been curious about something,” she said.
Kowalski blinked.
“You’re a professional killer. Why don’t you carry any fooking guns?”
There was nothing Kowalski could do, except blink twice.
Which he hoped sounded like, “Bite me.”
It took a little while for Vanessa to figure it all out. She was all like, What the hell is wrong with you? Why aren’t you moving?
Kowalski gestured with his eyes best he could. Look. Look at the back of my neck. See all that tape? No, no. Back. There. Finally Vanessa got the clue, looked behind his head. “Jaysus,” she said. There was a little more one-sided back-and-forth, with Vanessa finally instituting a blink once for yes, twice for no system, and asking questions like, “Are you paralyzed?” and “Is that needle why you’re paralyzed?” and finally, at long last, “Do you want me to pull the needle out?” FUCKING YES, Kowalski wanted to yell, I’d like you to pull the fucking needle out of my neck. Such a move could paralyze him permanently. But that would be fine. He could always blink until Vanessa realized he wanted to be mercy-killed.
“Don’t move,” she said, leaning over him, and then realized what she said.
She started laughing.
“Sorry.”
There were a few harrowing moments there at the beginning, and Kowalski honestly thought he would be paralyzed for life. But sensation came back, and with it, a dull throbbing pain in pretty much every part of his body that featured nerve endings.
“Is she dead?” he asked, when he could.
“Not yet.”
“Good. Grab that box of syringes.”
You left our three operatives alive,” said the interrogator. “Why was that?”
“Three?”
“Yes. Three.”
“What about the guy who blew up?” Kowalski asked.
“He made it, too. He’ll probably have a surgery every couple of days until he dies, which may not be too far off in the future. And Ana’s not happy about her kneecap. Nor, Bonesaw, about her face. But my point is, you didn’t go back to finish the job. That’s not the Kowalski we know. What’s the deal?”
Kowalski thought about it. What did it matter if he told him?
“Vanessa lost her taste for killing,” he said.
“Oh really.”
It was true. Vanessa Reardon may have flown across the United States, killing men for the sin of trying to pick her up, but somehow, she’d compartmentalized it. She hadn’t been Vanessa Reardon then. She had been Kelly Dolores White, and she had been created by Matthew Silver, a man who’d tried to fuck, marry, and then finally, kill her. Kelly White was capable of murder because that was what she knew from birth.
But now, ever since Silver’s brains had been splattered all over the side of Pennsylvania Hospital in downtown Philly, Kelly White had been fading away. Vanessa Reardon had been coming back. And she was more than a little horrified about what had happened while she’d been gone.
“So it bothered her to kill people,” the interrogator said, “who had been sent to kill her.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Then explain one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The seventeen people she killed in Mexico.”
Rosarito was the only place that made any sense. It was not too far over the border, and it was a familiar enough place for Kowalski. He’d spent seven months here in 1995, recuperating from injuries after a field op had gone to shit. It was a fine place to put your mind and body back together. He had rented a small house south of Rosarito proper, right on the beach, for pennies. There were very few ways in, so you could easily see enemies coming. There were enough tourists around, so you never stuck out.
Kowalski also had a box of plastic-wrapped weapons buried near his old rental house. Right on the beach. Unless someone had dug it up since then.
Most importandy, Kowalski knew a good cheap Mexican dentist who might be able to put his remaining tooth back in his mouth.
He wasn’t ready to give that up just yet.
They crossed the border at dusk. There were no problems, especially since they’d traded the car with the cracked windshield in for a less conspicuous vehicle. It was another beige Ford Taurus. Vanessa said she’d just gotten the hang of it, and it would worry her to change it up.
Just over the border she announced she was famished. Kowalski told her they’d be sitting down to real Mexican food in under thirty minutes, but she asked him for a dollar anyway and bought a bag of fried bread from a kid on the street. She regretted the purchase after taking a bite. She dumped the rest in a compartment between the driver and passenger seats.
Roads in Mexico were much more challenging than 1-5 south. Painted lanes? Yeah. Sure. And then there were the potholes the size of kiddie swimming pools.
“Fooking hell,” she said. “This is worse than L.A.”
And it had been a while for Kowalski, so he was a little confused as to which road would take them down to Rosarito. Had they moved the roads since then?
Maybe it was his concussion. Or being paralyzed.
The darkness didn’t help, either.
After a while it seemed like they were seeing the same gas stations and shuttered buildings and nonsensical road signs. Kowalski wanted to close his eyes. That wasn’t going to happen. Not for a while, anyway.
Until he finally saw the sign for Fox Studios Baja.
James Cameron had built this massive tank down here for Titanic, and since then a bunch of movies involving large bodies of water had been shot here, too. Kowalski had been gone before they built the thing, but he visited enough times to know he was close.
“We’re here,” he said.
“Thank Christ,” she said. “I’m starving.”
“First we have to go to the beach.”
“What?”
“You were the one complaining about my lack of fooking guns.”
The little cluster of houses was still there. Only now there was a guard at top of the road leading down to the beach. Vanessa flirted with him best she could while Kowalski crept down to his old house, which was occupied, of course. He made his way to the spot on his hands and knees, and was grateful that nobody had decided to install a cement patio over the spot. The box was three feet down. The tops of his fingers were raw by the time they brushed against the dark green metal. There was no sound in the house. Just the sound of his own breathing and the waves crashing on the shore.