It was an uncomfortable few minutes.
Finally René returned. “Six of my guards are in bad shape. Internal bleeding, renal failure. Their kidneys seem to be shut down.”
Manny made a noise between a growl and a cry.
“It is Dr. Franklin’s opinion that they ingested poisonous mushrooms.”
“It’s hard to distinguish them sometimes,” Evan said sympathetically.
“None of them claim to have picked any mushrooms, let alone added them to their chili.”
“If I added mushrooms to chili, I wouldn’t admit it either,” Evan said.
He watched Manny’s jaw tighten and enjoyed it a bit.
René cleared his throat. Evan was surprised to see his brown eyes moisten. “There’s nothing anyone can do,” René said. He added quickly, “And no major medical facilities nearby.”
“Here in Graubünden,” Evan added.
The chocolate eyes sharpened. “That’s right.” René swept a hand over his hair, though no strands were out of place. “They’ll die within days.”
“In excruciating pain.” Evan directed a look at Manny and Nando. “You should put them out of their misery. It’s the only humane thing to do.”
Manny and Nando studied the floorboards, waiting on their orders.
Evan switched his gaze to René. “Dying men drain resources quickly,” he added. “You should consider what’s best for everyone.”
After a moment René gave a little nod. “Do it kindly,” he said.
Manny bared his fourteen-karat teeth at Evan on his way out. And then Evan was alone with René and Dex.
“You’re upset,” Evan said.
“Not for them. For me.”
“Why’s that?”
“We all get sad when someone dies. It reminds one of one’s mortality.”
Jack’s blood-drenched hand trying to stem the arterial spray from his shoulder. The crimson soaked blue flannel mopped around Evan’s fist. Jack’s smile, rare as a rainbow, warming his eyes at the corners.
Evan said, “That’s why you think people get sad?”
“Remember when you first found out about death as a child? I never got over it. I don’t think any of us do. It’s an awful thing, to die. I don’t buy any of the marketing pitches that try to assuage the horror of it. Heroics of war. Drifting off into a blaze of white. The welcoming arms of God.” René’s teeth clenched, a sudden intensity. “I don’t want to,” he said. “And I won’t.”
“You’d be the first.”
His lips pursed, pulled taut. “Remember how long summer used to last when you were a child? An eternity. Everything still in front of you. Life feels … limitless.” He folded his hands at his waist and studied them. “And then one day you see a picture. You’re in your thirties, getting out of a pool in Santorini. And your hair is thinning, so much so that you can see the scalp beneath. It’s been that way for a year, maybe years — how often do you see a photograph of yourself swimming?” His palm rose again, hovering over his thinning hair. He seemed to realize what he was doing and pulled his hand away. “I don’t like limits. Being told what is possible. By man or nature. Just like you.”
“No,” Evan said. “You want to be everything. I want to be one thing well.”
“Then you suffer from a failure of imagination.” René leaned forward, a fall of light illuminating his meaty features, the dried dabs of cover-up, the augmented hairline. “We all want to beat death. It just becomes embarrassing to admit. But think if you could. Control time. If you control time, you control everything.” When he leaned back against the chairless desk, the thick fabric of his suit rippled like spread butter. “Imagine being who you were in your twenties.”
“Like the good book says, ‘You can’t repeat the past.’”
René smiled, showing a gleaming row of beautiful ivory caps. “‘Why of course you can!’”
The cuffs were cutting off the circulation in Evan’s hands. He wondered how long René was going to leave them on.
René produced the skinny bottle and sprayed down the surfaces he’d touched. “Uncuff him and lock him in,” he told Dex. On his way out, he paused before the big man. “No need to be gentle.”
Dex’s softball biceps flexed as he raised his right hand and cupped it over his mouth.
Happy face.
27
Six in Total
Evan lay on his back in the darkness, waiting for the gas to hiss through the vent and knock him out. He was tired enough to sleep without the encouragement, but there was no way René could know that.
He had just drifted off when a distant gunshot woke him. And then another. They kept on at regular intervals, one after another.
Six in total.
The vibration of the final bullet held the air for an extra few moments, unwilling to let go. At last there was complete silence.
Evan stared at the ceiling.
To Alison, to the boy, he sent a simple thought: I’m coming soon.
Then he fell asleep on his own.
28
The Grim Reapress
The next morning Evan was roused from sleep with a shotgun pressed into the side of his neck. He opened his eyes, looking up the length of the barrel past the neon orange stock at Manny. Manny grimaced, those teeth flashing — Jaws from James Bond gone rapper. “Get your culo up.”
Evan eased to a sitting position. The metal bore remained shoved into the side of his throat. Nando stood five feet back and to the side, a second shotgun at the ready.
“You’re wanted downstairs,” Manny told him. “But I’m thinking maybe you have a accidente right here. You made a move on me. I reacted.”
Evan’s eyes slid to Manny’s finger on the trigger. His knuckle was white, the trigger partially depressed. Another half pound of pressure and the opposite wall would be wearing Evan’s trachea.
“Samuel. Yoenis. Álcides. Memo. Luis. Eddie. I will not forget those names.” Manny’s voice shook. “We took them out to the woods last night. And said good-bye.”
Tears leaked from his eyes, but he kept the shotgun level, making no move to wipe his face. He glided the barrel up Evan’s chin, ground it across his cheek, shoved his nose to the side.
Evan didn’t meet his eyes. He looked at the far wall. Kept his body language neutral. Hoped he hadn’t pushed Manny far enough that he’d contradict René’s orders and kill the golden goose. Though Evan had stared down more gun barrels than he’d care to recount, decapitation by beanbag presented new intricacies he didn’t want to contemplate.
Santa Muerte’s skull head grinned from the side of Manny’s neck. The Grim Reapress. She wore a blue cloak bedecked with roses, one skeletal hand clutching a scythe, the other an hourglass. At the moment of death, she was said to sever the silver thread of life.
Evan wondered if now was the moment that the scythe would fall, that his own thread would be cut. He stared ahead. Waited for a one-centimeter movement of Manny’s knuckle.
“Manny,” Nando said. “Manny.” He stepped forward and tugged at Manny’s shoulder. An instant later the pressure relented.
“We won’t forget what you made us do,” Manny said. “Now get your shit downstairs.”
Evan was marched along the ground floor through a moist corridor scented of lavender and rose water. At Nando and Manny’s prompting, he pushed through a glass door beaded with condensation and stepped into a sprawling spa area.
They passed a Jacuzzi, a cold-water plunge pool, a teabag stuffed with herbs slung into a freestanding marble tub. Various enclosures were labeled with sleek metal placards: SAUNA, EUCALYPTUS STEAM ROOM, RAIN SHOWER. The Korean mist room featured a concrete bench studded with large smooth pebbles, matching the Zen-Disneyland motif of the rest of the spa.