Money for Nothing (22 page)

Hugo couldn't believe it. His own man was blocking his shot, walking into the line of fire. And Levrin was outraged. He yelled at the nameless thug, waved a fist at him, actually stamped a foot. The thug didn't care. He yelled back, pointed at the far-distant entrance shack, at the bus still visible across the sea of concrete and cars.

What was he saying? Don't do it here, it's stupid to do it here, someone will hear, someone will see. Take him someplace private, for God's sake.

Levrin did
not
like being argued with, and neither did Hugo. They both railed at the nameless thug, who then stepped forward and gave Hugo an angry push on the chest. Hugo, even angrier, pushed him back. The nameless thug punched at him, mostly missing. Levrin kept shouting, and Hugo slapped the pistol down onto the Land Cruiser hood to punch back. The nameless thug grabbed him in a bearhug, and they scuffled, Hugo forced back step by step.

Run, Josh told himself. While they argue, run like hell. Except they'd catch him, and even if they didn't catch him they could still shoot him while he ran.

The gun! It was right
there
. Grab it, turn, run around the back of the car, away from the fighting, then run as fast as he could for the exit.

Do it
now
. No time to be frightened, no time to forget how to breathe.
Do
it.

Josh jumped forward and grabbed the gun. It was heavier than it looked, and he lost his balance for just a second, before spinning away, the gun pressed with both hands to his chest.

Shouting behind him. He ran around the back of the car, but Levrin was already there, arms wide, blocking him, the nameless thug right behind him.

Josh spun back, and there was Hugo, coming toward him between the left side of the Land Cruiser and the fence, gloved hands spread to scoop him in.

No choice, no chance, nothing. Fumbling, he turned the gun, held it in both hands the way Hugo had held it, pointed it more or less at Hugo's body. He was terrified, trembling all over, the gun waving in his grip like a sapling in a storm, but he was so close, how could he miss from this close?

"Stop!" he shrieked. "Stop, I'll shoot! I will! I will!"

"Weakling," Hugo said, and stepped forward, and Josh's finger spasmed on the trigger.

It shot. The gun shot, it bounced a tremor of recoil all up his arm to his shoulder, it made a flat smack in the air like a faroff small firecracker.

The gun shot, and Hugo stopped. A dark smudge appeared on his white shirtfront. Then he smiled, and came forward again.

No! Stop it! Josh pulled the trigger a second time, but now all the gun did was say
click
, and Hugo came forward to pluck it out of his hands.

"What," Josh said. "What."

Levrin, no longer angry at anybody, had come up behind Josh. "Excuse me," he said.

Josh, stunned, moved over and Levrin went by him to open the driver's door, reach in, and take the key out of the ignition. Then he said, "Thank you, Josh, you may get behind the wheel now."

"But — what happened? What happened?"

"You don't understand?" Levrin smiled in comradely fashion. "That was a blank, of course."

"But,
why
?"

Levrin pointed at Josh's right hand. "Now, you see," he said, "there is no question, is there, that you fired that pistol today. Your fingerprints on the pistol, the chemicals from the firing of the pistol on your hand." With a little bow, "Get into your nice car now, Josh," he said, "while we wait a little."

JOSH SAT AT THE WHEEL OF HIS Land Cruiser, hands in his lap. A warm breeze blew through the car, from right to left. Outside, while the three chatted amiably in that language of theirs that was all gutturals and throat-clearings, Hugo emptied the spent blank cartridge from the pistol and put it in his pocket. Then he took actual bullets from his other pocket and loaded them into the merry-go-round of the bent-open pistol. Then he snapped the pistol shut, clicked a button on its side that must be the safety, and put it away in the pants pocket the bullets had come from. Then he stripped off the gloves, made a joke about the gloves to the others — something, probably, about how hot his hands got while he was wearing them — and put them in the blank-cartridge pocket while the others laughed. Then he waved both hands to air them and laughed again, this time alone.

During all of this, Josh thought. Or tried to think. Or tried to think useful thoughts instead of the merely despairing and self-despising thoughts that insisted on crowding his mind.

What could he have done differently? Aside from never taking the money, what could he have done
recently
other than what he'd done? He and Mitch Robbie had played along with the program, which meant they'd both gotten to live a little longer. Robert Van Bark had chosen or stumbled upon the only possible alternative, which meant he'd gotten to live a little shorter. But once they'd decided to take the money — no, once United States Agent had decided to awaken their sleepers — the ending was already determined.

Fire the gun or not fire the gun; no difference. They had surely already worked out some other way, if he hadn't fallen for that trick, to create a stage set more realistic than anything Good Rep had ever contemplated. From the instant Andrei Levrin had first approached Josh on the ferry dock in Bay Shore, this final scene had already been determined.

Which made him at last stop gnawing at the past and start to think instead about this final scene. It was inevitable, had been from the beginning — yes, yes, we know that — but it was being prolonged.

Once they had his prints on the gun and the evidence on his hand, why had they delayed? Why not kill him now? He was in the position of the lobster who has been brought into a kitchen, but then for a while it seems to the lobster that nothing is happening.

What water was Levrin boiling?

Maybe Levrin had been telling the truth when he'd said they were to meet someone else here. Maybe they had some reason they didn't want to kill him until some other person, or some other piece of evidence, had been brought here.

So now at last he was thinking more productively. If he wanted to have a future, he had to think about the future, and leave the past alone. Think about the immediate future, between now and when Hugo would put his gloves back on. What was there in this final interval that he could somehow turn to his own advantage?

And why, come to think of it, couldn't he have a spare ignition key in the glove compartment?

Well, he didn't have a spare ignition key there, no one keeps a spare ignition key there, that's regretting the past again. Think about the future.

Who or what are Levrin and the others waiting for? Could they be bringing Robbie here, so they could both be killed together, and left with the "evidence" of their monstrous crimes?

Then he knew. In an instant he knew, and in the same instant he understood why he hadn't wanted to know. Why he had wanted to shield himself as long as possible from the ending.

They were waiting for Eve and Jeremy.

FIFTEEN MINUTES OF SILENT HORROR. Fifteen minutes of begging for this not to be true, but knowing it was. Fifteen minutes while the rest of the globe rolled on but he stayed fixed on the spike of that knowledge.

Seeing the result. The three bodies in the car, in the sun, to be found… when? There would be no anonymous phone call, nothing to muddy the waters, nothing to take from the clarity of the story Levrin and the others would leave behind.

Josh Redmont, traitor, in despair over what he had been part of, had murdered his wife and child and had then taken his own life. The proof would be clear and indisputable, and the fact of his having murdered his family and then killed himself would be the proof that he had indeed been part of the massacre at Yankee Stadium. He and Mitch Robbie, and whoever else they had gulled into this enterprise. The fall guys, the scapegoats.

What could he do? What could he do? He couldn't even get out of the car; they'd stop him, not brutally, but firmly. No unnecessary extra bruises on his body.

Meanwhile, those three stood beside the car, up near the front on his side, talking together, easy, calm in their manner and calm in their minds. How could they do this? How could such people exist? To murder an innocent inoffensive family, for some… what?

For some temporary geopolitical advantage, to somebody somewhere, which would probably, given the history of such things, not even accomplish anything. If all the schemes and machinations of these realist political tough guys were any damn good, the world would be sorted out by now, wouldn't it? For good or for ill, somebody would have won.

But they don't care, they're pragmatists, they ride roughshod over real human beings for ephemeral advantages in a contest that never ends. They've traded in their humanity for something they think is better. They don't smell their own stink.

Do they always have to win? Do they make their messes and just move on, untouchable, full of their rotten expertise? Was there nothing for him to do but play the part of mouse, among these cats?

Think outside the box, Robbie had said. No, he'd said
he
could think outside the box, but Josh couldn't. Are you thinking outside the box now, Mitch? For how long?

Some craven corner of his mind wanted to beg, to plead for mercy, if not for himself at least for Eve and Jeremy, but he wouldn't give in, he wouldn't give them
that
. If there was some escape from this (no, there wasn't), it wouldn't come from their compassion.

Then, after a full quarter of an hour, his mind jolted forward with a new thought at last, but an odd one, so odd he didn't even question it, just leaned his head leftward out the car window and said, "Andrei?"

Levrin, pleasant as ever, turned to raise an inquiring brow. "Yes, Josh?" There was a faint smile on his lips; maybe he was anticipating the plea for mercy now.

Josh said, "Could I see the note?"

That surprised him. He took a step closer, away from the other two. "What was that?"

"You've done a suicide note, haven't you? Could I see it?"

Now the smile was broader. 'To rip it up, Josh? I don't think so."

"I don't want to rip it up," Josh told him. "I just want to see it."

"If there is such a note, Josh," Levrin said, "it might contain items you wouldn't want to see."

"I already know who we're waiting for."

"Ah." Levrin nodded. He did not, Josh noted, look the least embarrassed. "Still, it would be better not, I think."

"If you don't want me to touch it," Josh said, "put it against the windshield. Let me read it through the glass."

Surprised, Levrin considered that. "You really feel the need to see this document?"

"I'd like to."

Levrin pondered, then shrugged. "If you wish." And he turned and spoke to Hugo.

Here came the gloves again, and out of Hugo's hip pocket a folded sheet of paper. Levrin stepped out of the way, and Hugo came forward, unfolding the paper, to press it against the windshield in front of Josh.

Sewell-McConnell letterhead. They even had that detail. And a handwritten note that actually did look something like his own writing; possibly his own writing under stress.

We were wrong. We thought we could help the world if we rid it of its monsters. We just became monsters ourselves. I can't stand this pain. I'm going to a better place, with my family. I beg forgiveness.

"I certainly sound self-pitying," Josh said.

"Finished?"

"Yes."

Hugo took the paper away, folded it, put it back in his hip pocket, removed the gloves.

Josh said, "Could I get out of the car for a little while?"

"Oh, I think not, Josh," Levrin said.

"Just to stretch my legs."

"No, that's a comfortable car. No need." Gazing over the car roof toward the entrance, he said, "And the wait is over, in any case."

Josh looked, and across the pale concrete parking area under the bright midday sun, here came Mrs. Rheingold's big Marathon. When Josh next breathed, there was a little mewl sound in his throat that he couldn't suppress. He stopped breathing instead, and trembled, clutching the wheel with both clenched fists.

The Marathon approached, larger than most of the cars around it, then nearer, away from the other cars, and he could see two men in the front seat, strangers to him, men like Hugo. In the back were three people, in a row on the seat; Jeremy and Eve, huddled as far to the right as they could get, and on the left Mr. Nimrin.

"Nimrin," Josh said. His voice was dull, without resonance.

"Yes, of course," Levrin said. "This will be a reunion, will it not?" The idea seemed to please him.

The Marathon swung around to stop next to the Land Cruiser, facing the same way, its left side nearest. After an instant, the rear door on this side opened, and Mr. Nimrin hurtled out, to grab the Land Cruiser's rightside door, yank it open, thrust his upper body inside, show his red-faced furious glare to Josh, and shout, "
Where are the uniforms
?"

"OUTSIDE THE BOX," JOSH SAID.

Mr. Nimrin stared. Some of the flush left his cheeks. He said, "What was that?"

Something had snapped inside Josh, maybe when he saw Eve and Jeremy, maybe when he saw Mr. Nimrin's rage, some wire of tension had cracked apart, that had both held him together and held him down. Terror and despair still enclosed him like a shroud, but within that fog of hopelessness there suddenly hummed a brand new kind of energy. It had nothing to do with hope or anger or even hate. It was a kind of freedom, the freedom that floods in when everything has already been lost, when there's nothing left to struggle for, nothing left to protect.

He wouldn't play Mitch Robbie's scenario, the schoolboy deception of outraged innocence, the imp tweaking the grown-ups. Nor would he play Josh Redmont's scenario, the paralysis of fear. He had a new role now.

"Get in the car, Mr. Nimrin," he said, "Let's talk."