Still no traffic so I run across the road and this time, instead of vaulting the barrier, I hurdle it. I land running, pumping my legs hard, holding the briefcase in front of me. I round the corner. Same supermarket, same view of shopping carts behind windows, same garbage bin. I put the briefcase where I found it. Before I can head back, tires shriek into the parking lot and headlights wash across the neighboring fence, sweeping toward me. My only chance is the service alley. I dive just as the light behind me comes into view. I hit the ground hard and come to a stop against a chain-link gate that rattles but not loudly enough for Cyris to have heard over the car. My car. I twist around and, staying low, peer around the corner.
Instead of turning the car around as Frank had, Cyris keeps my Honda pointing directly at the garbage bin. He climbs out of the car and doesn’t look in my direction. He looks exactly the same as last night from the scruffy facial hair to the black clothes. The only difference is a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. It really pisses me off seeing him driving my car in such a way that when this is all over and I’ve killed the son of a bitch, I’m going to be buying a new car. He walks to the bin, walking with a slight limp and with one hand against this stomach. He reaches it and grabs the briefcase. He rests it over the edges of the bin, tilts it toward him, and pops it open with his thumbs. The angle is wrong for me to study his expression, but not wrong enough to watch him stand there for a full minute, still and silent. He closes the case, turns it around in his hands, sets it back down, and opens it again, as if he’s the victim of a parlor trick. Then he turns from the garbage bin and carries the hundred-dollar note to the front of the car. Carefully he examines it under the headlights, turning it over so he can read the note I wrote for him. In the end he screws the bill into his jeans and walks back to the briefcase. He picks it up and swings it hard into the bin. The impact clangs out into the night. After two more blows the briefcase starts cracking and the bin begins to fold inward. The headlights isolate him from the darkness as though he’s on a stage.
He stops thrashing the briefcase, swings his arm back, and throws it high in the air. It hits the roof of the supermarket and doesn’t come back down. He leans over the bin and starts shaking it, pulling it from side to side, wrenching it back and forth until it tears from the bolts, leaving jagged holes in the bottom. He holds it high above his head for a few seconds, then throws it at the supermarket doors. It bounces off with a metallic thud, the dents in it stopping it from rolling away once it hits the ground. He picks it back up and throws it harder. This time the glass cracks. The third throw gets it through the glass doors. The alarms are instant.
He walks back to my car, clutching his stomach, and when he pulls his hand away I can see it’s red. He’s bleeding. He leans against the car and watches the supermarket.
I turn around and study the service-alley gate. Ten feet tall and made up of chain-link wire. I’m sure I can scale it without being heard over the alarm. I do just that, climbing it like a large spider. I follow the alley until it circles toward the back entrances of the shops in the mall. I scale another fence and hit the ground in some industrial section, perhaps an auto body shop-it’s too dark to tell exactly. Then over another fence and into somebody’s backyard. I climb into a park, and start to circle my way back toward my car. By the time I get there two police cars are in the parking lot, but probably no Cyris. With thousands of dollars in the car I’m lucky not to be walking home right now. I guess it’s a school night for all those joyriders out there. I do a U-turn, pissed off that I let Cyris get ahead of me, but what could I do? Wait for him to stop breaking glass doors then run after his car?
I keep my foot on the accelerator, hovering between thirty and forty miles per hour. I can’t afford to be too late. Cyris already has ten minutes on me and I doubt he took his time driving to Frank’s. I also doubt there’s anywhere else in the world he’d be going right now.
I wonder if I’m already too late.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
There’s no other traffic, no reason to stop at any red lights. Cyris sure wouldn’t have. He’s fueled with rage just as I was fueled with despair the other night. I’ve raced these lonely streets before, but the fuel that has me speeding is different from the mix that burned through my veins on Monday. I don’t get lost on my way to Frank’s house, not like Monday morning, and when I turn into the street the first thing I see is the silver Mercedes still parked on the side of the road. Maybe it’s purely for show.
I drive past Frank’s house and glance in. Lights are burning inside, but I can’t see his Mercedes. It’s probably in the garage. I pull up two houses further down. My Honda isn’t here, at least not that I can see. Either Cyris has been and gone or he isn’t coming. I kill the engine, kill the lights, and wait. I look around the street for any signs of life, but it seems like life on this expensive street has died since I was here earlier. I look at my watch. It’s nearly one o’clock.
I stroll over to the house, knowing that slow movement attracts less attention. I don’t pause at the cobblestone walkway, I stroll up it as if I live there. The front door is open. That’s not good. No signs of forced entry. Coming here is tearing open a recent memory.
I step forward and stand on the threshold of the hallway. On the threshold of Monday’s memory. On the threshold of a new horror to come. I stand still and listen, but there’s nothing, so I take a few more steps and repeat the same procedure and get the same result. I put my hands in my pockets where they’ll be safe from touching anything. I could just turn away and read about it in tomorrow’s paper, but I need to see this. I want to see this-to see what has been done to the man who orchestrated the deaths of two beautiful women.
The lights are glowing in the lounge and it’s here that I find him, lying on his stomach with his head twisted, his arms spread in front of him, the carpet beneath soaked in blood. My breath catches at this sight and I suddenly realize why. I have killed this man and the feeling doesn’t make me feel sick or guilty. I have killed him, not directly, but as surely as if the metal stake protruding from his chest was placed there by my hand. I step closer and kneel down. The anger I feel toward him hasn’t diminished at all just because he’s dead. If anything I actually feel like kicking him. I’m not sure what that says about me, and I’m not sure I really want to know.
Frank has that distinguished look you see in middle-aged doctors on TV. His wire-rimmed glasses have been knocked askew, his eyes are open and reveal irises that are more yellowish then green. He wears a grim look on his face that death is managing to hold in place, a look that tells me the end didn’t come easy. There is a thin line of blood and drool slipping from the corner of his slightly open mouth. The edge of a piece of paper is sticking from between his lips. I reach forward and grab hold of it, and when I pull, his mouth doesn’t even move, but his lower lip is dragged forward, his suddenly revealed teeth giving him the smile of a skull. The hundred-dollar note is damp. I unscrew it, my fingers getting wet. I read the message I wrote across it earlier. Come near me and I’ll have you killed.
I hide it in one of my many pockets, then jam my hands into two of the others. I turn around, studying the room. Expensive furniture and expensive gadgetry and nice paintings. . I guess it’s true when they say you can’t take it with you, even though with his arms spread it sure looks like Frank’s giving it a go. I call out for Kathy, but she doesn’t answer.
“You deserved worse,” I say to Frank, and Frank doesn’t answer. He doesn’t concede the point, or argue it. He just lies there looking pissed off, and I guess I can’t blame him. “You probably think I ought to be feeling sorry for you,” I tell him, “but I don’t have it in me. You got off easy. Way too easy.”