Dead Harvest (28 page)

  
"You always keep 'em loaded?" I asked.

  
"No, not always. But guys like you, they come in wantin' a piece, I've found it ain't wise to keep 'em waiting."

  
"What do you mean, guys like me?"

  
"You know," he said, looking suddenly uncomfortable, "guys like you. Made guys."

  
So that's what I'd become? A made guy? My friend here said it with such reverence it made me want to puke.

  
"So how much?"

  
"For you? Twenty-five bucks."

  
"That seems a little steep."

  
The drumming on the counter sped up a bit. The guy looked a little green. "Hey, that thing's got no serial, no history. That's a good deal I'm giving you – Scout's honor."

 
 I looked him up and down. "You were a Boy Scout?"

  
"Hey, we've all been something we ain't anymore, you know what I mean?"

  
Yeah, I knew what he meant. I tossed some bills down on the counter and stuffed the gun into my pants pocket.

  
"There's thirty here," he said.

  
"Keep it," I replied. I left him grinning like an idiot behind the counter as I left the shop and stepped out into the cool September night.

  
On the street, I hailed a cab, and told the cabbie the corner of Whitehall and Bridge. I was headed to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, where I was to exchange the envelope in my pocket for another that I'd deliver to Dumas later tonight. The envelope in my pocket was full of cash. God knows what was in the other one. Documents, I'd guess – the kind of documents that could slap a veneer of legitimacy on whatever illegitimate shit Dumas was bringing in through the harbor. Or maybe they were raffle tickets. Truth be told, I didn't care.

  
This wasn't the first time I'd made the customs run for Dumas, or even the fifth, and every time it was the same. This time of night, the building was pretty quiet. My contact would meet me at the service entrance around back. We'd make the exchange and go our separate ways – no fuss, no mess, no complications.

  
So if everything was roses, why'd I need the heater? Because like I said, every time it was the same. Make the swap, bring the papers to Dumas. Always a spot of his choosing, always far from prying eyes. The only difference was, this time he was gonna get a little lead along with his envelope.

  
I wasn't happy with the thought of it, but I'd gone over it a thousand times, and every time, the outcome was the same. Elizabeth's program ended in just under a week, but she'd been off the drugs for days – the docs just wanted to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn't relapse. Once she was out, Dumas and I were done, at least to my mind. But when I'd broached the topic to him, he just laughed and shook his head. "Hate to have you get her home all healthy, just to have her take a nasty spill," he'd say, eyes dancing with mischief all the while. Always friendly, jovial – like he thought that it was cute. But I meant to get out, and if he didn't mean to let me, then I was gonna have to find another way.

  
The Custom House was an imposing Federal structure, six stories of cold granite overlooking Battery Park, and New York Harbor beyond. I set fire to a cigarette and made my way to the service entrance. Three cigarettes' wait, and the exchange went off without a hitch. My hands trembled with anticipation as I handed over the envelope, but if my contact noticed it, he didn't let on. The envelope he handed me, I folded, and stuffed into my pocket. For maybe the hundredth time, I thought myself a fool for going through with the swap, when I could've just taken the money and used it to help us disappear once the deed was done. But even if I could stomach taking it, the people it belonged to weren't likely to let its disappearance slide, and that'd result in a whole lot of the wrong kind of attention for me. No, it was best for me if they thought the hit and this transaction had nothing to do with one another. If that meant Elizabeth and I fled broke, then that was just how it had to be.

  
The walk across Battery Park seemed to take forever. My nerves were jangling, my knee was killing me, and despite the chill breeze that blew in across the harbor, my hands and neck were slick with sweat. Dumas and I were to meet at the entrance of the old fort. Designed to protect the harbor from the British navy in the War of 1812 but never once seeing battle, it now sat squat and lifeless beneath a starless sky. A little more exposed than I'd have liked to be, but I've since learned these things rarely go as smoothly as I'd like.

  
Dumas was chomping on an unlit cigar when I arrived. "Evening, Sammy," he said, though the words were garbled by the fact that he never removed the cigar from his mouth. "I trust you got something for me?"

  
"Yeah," I said. I thrust my hands into my pockets, producing the envelope from my left and handing it to him. My right hand stayed in my pocket, wrapping tight around the gun grip.

  
"You all right? You don't look so hot."

  
I laughed, cold and bitter. "Truth is, I don't feel so hot," I said. "But I think things are looking up."

  
"Yeah? Why's that?"

  
I wanted to have something cool to say to that. Something bad-ass. Something that let Dumas know that I was done playing the patsy for him. But when I opened my mouth, the words just wouldn't come.

  
Dumas cocked his head, eyeing me with sudden suspicion. "Sammy, what the hell is going on?" Then I pulled the gun, and he knew exactly what was going on.

  
I stepped in close. Grabbed him by the collar, shoved the gun into his gut. One, two, three, and it was done. His body muffled the reports, but still my ears rang. I didn't have long before the bulls arrived. I let go of him, then, watched him slump to the ground, eyes wide and blank and dead. Three blooms of red spread out across his chest. So much blood. I looked down at my hands, and they were spattered with it – that and gunpowder burns. The gun fell, forgotten from my hands. I stood trembling in the chill night air, tears stinging my cheeks. I thought that once the deed was done, I'd feel relief, but I didn't – I just felt sick. Sick and hollowed-out.

 
 It felt like an eternity, standing there, looking down at the body at my feet, but really, it couldn't have been more than a few moments. I was shaken from my reverie by the sound of sirens, distant but approaching. I should have thought to take the gun. I should have thought a lot of things. But the truth is, I didn't think anything at all. I just ran.

  
Problem is, some things, you just can't run from.

 

When I came to, my head was throbbing. By the digital readout on the console, I'd been out less than a minute, but it felt more like a week. For a moment, I didn't move, didn't
blink
– I just lay there, still as death, so spent was I by our mad flight across Manhattan, not to mention our sudden descent. My everything hurt, but the way I figured it, that meant my everything was still
attached,
so that wasn't all bad news. In the sudden absence of the helicopter's droning wail, the cabin was so quiet I wondered briefly if I'd been struck deaf. Then I heard a low groan from the back of the cabin, and I realized my ears, at least, were fine.

  The groaning was coming from Kate, who lay prostrate atop our pilot. It seemed he'd cushioned her impact, because she looked pretty much in one piece, if a bit dazed. There was a welt above her right eye from when she'd slammed into the ceiling, and blood ran freely from a scrape on her chin, but when my eyes met hers, she smiled.

  Our pilot had not fared so well. He was still out, and his leg was bent beneath him in a manner not possible given the usual number of joints and bones. His face was a swollen, bloody mess, and his bullet-grazed forearm had soaked through the fabric of his flight suit. Looking at him, I wanted to feel anger at Bishop for forcing me to hurt that man, or horror at what I'd done; I wanted to feel regret for having put the pilot in this position in the first place. I wanted to feel those things because they would have given me something of my past life to hold on to, something human and decent and kind. Mostly, though, I just felt tired.

  "Ugh," Kate said, rolling off of the pilot and collapsing against the cabin wall that now served as the floor. "That
sucked
. Next time you steal a vehicle, make sure it's one you know how to drive, OK?"

  "I didn't steal it – I
hijacked
it. There's a difference. And I don't think you 'drive' a helicopter."

  "I think it's pretty clear
you
don't."

  "Funny." I hauled myself up onto my knees. It felt like I was trying to lift a bus. "What about our pilotfriend? He still breathing?"

  "Yeah," she said. "You think he's still a bad guy?"

  "I don't know. If he's out, Bishop's out, so there's a chance Bishop's still around. But if I had to guess, I'd say Bishop bailed the last time our guy came to – I would have. The way that leg's bent, though, I don't think we've got to worry about him giving chase either way."

  "So what now?"

  "Now we run."

  I lifted myself up off the chopper window, now buried in the thick, brown-green muck that lined the bottom of the pond. An earthy stench permeated the cabin, and as I rose, I was surprised to find my clothes were damp with muddy pond water. It bubbled upward from the cabin wall beneath us; it oozed from the control panels. I helped Kate to her feet, and looked down at our pilot-friend, the inky water pooling around him.

  "We've got to take him with us," Kate said. "If we leave him here, he'll drown."

  "The water's barely three feet deep, Kate, and coming in slow. He'll be all right till someone gets here."

  "You can't know that."

  "I
don't
know that – but it's the best we can do."

  "No, it's not. You can help me get him out of here. I can't do it on my own."

  "Kate, that's nuts – we don't have time."

  "Yeah? Well, I say we do. You plan to sit and watch while I try, the cops approaching all the while? Or would you rather try and drag
me
off? Carry me or carry him – it's your choice. At least with him, you've got help, and unlike me, he won't be kicking the whole way."

  The way that leg looked, he might not be kicking ever again, but I wasn't gonna tell her that. What I said instead was: "OK. But we'd better hurry."

  First, though, we had to find a door. The one we'd boarded through now lay beneath our feet – not to mention a good inch of pond water. I scanned the cabin. If there was an emergency hatch, it sure as hell wasn't obvious. That left Plan C.

  What was once the left-hand side of the cockpit window was submerged, the water thick with particles churned up in our landing, but the right-hand side was clear, slate sky hanging low above a canopy of leaves.

  "Cover your eyes," I said. Kate complied.

  The gun thundered in my hand, painfully loud in the small, quiet space of the cabin. I, too, had covered my eyes against the threat of spraying glass, burying my face in the crook of my elbow. Once the reverberations died down, I allowed myself a peek.

  The glass had buckled outward, the pane a tangled web of cracks framing a hole the size of a quarter. I climbed atop the now-horizontal seat and braced my good leg against the window, my heel atop the hole, and my back pressed tight against the seatback. Then, with an animal cry, I pushed.

  The pane snapped free of its frame, not in a thousand tiny pieces as I expected, but all at once. It smacked into the surface of the water with a
slap
. Cool air kissed my face, and carried with it the sound of distant sirens. Been hearing those too often lately, I thought.

  "Grab his feet," I said, looping my arms under the pilot's arms and around his chest. "And mind that leg."

  Together, we wrestled him to the window and tossed him out. He splashed into the water about as gracelessly as the window had, bobbing face-down as we scampered after. The water was bitterly cold. It came up to my waist, and seeped into the knife wound in my thigh, bringing with it a dull, woozy ache that set my head reeling. I pushed past it, dragging the pilot to the shore and collapsing to the grass as Kate emerged dripping beside me. Just a couple dozen yards away, the Fifth Avenue traffic roared and honked, but I barely noticed. I was shivering and exhausted, and all I wanted to do was lay on this bed of grass and sleep. But Kate was having none of it.

  "Sam, c'mon, we've got to go." She grabbed my by the wrist and yanked. I stayed down. She tried again.

  "Sam, those sirens are getting closer. And we've got an audience."

  I raised my head and looked around. Dotting the park were a couple dozen onlookers, watching us with expressions of confusion and surprise. Then, one by one, their faces changed, each becoming a twisted mask of hatred. Black fire raged in their eyes. As one by one they began to approach, I found my feet, putting an arm around Kate and ushering her toward the low stone wall that marked the border of the park.

  "Sam, what's going on? Who
are
those guys?"

  "Demons – foot soldiers, I'd guess. Ever since I first failed to collect you, they've been watching me."

  "It doesn't look like they're content to watch you now."

  "No, it doesn't. Mu'an blamed me for the attack at Grand Central – for the war that's brewing now. I'm sure he's not the only one. I suspect they've tired of waiting for me to do my job."

  "So what happens if they catch us?" Kate asked.

  "Torture, death, an eternity of torment. You know, the usual."

  "Let's make sure they don't catch us then, OK?"

  "That's the plan."