The Amateurs (37 page)

It didn’t matter. He’d made his play. No backing out now.

“You too, sister. On your feet.”

Shit.
In his best-case scenario, he’d figured that the man might leave her here, figuring that he would be enough leverage to keep Jenn from trying anything. More likely, she’d be tied up, but that would still be better odds. It was a flimsy plan, but it wasn’t like he’d had a lot of time. He’d been winging it, hoping that if he could distract the guy, Jenn would have her chance. A better chance than a pair of three-inch scissors would have offered.

Now, though. What had he set them up for?

“Let’s go.”

Ian nodded, started across the room. He could feel every inch of his skin, every bruise and cut and blow and burn. A turn of the card. It all came down to a turn of the card. He moved as slowly as he dared, limping a little bit. His mind in overdrive, examining possibilities, looking for every option, coming up with nothing. The man kept a careful distance. No chance Ian could jump him.

Shit, shit, shit
. What had he done? When the man realized he was bluffing, he would—

He had just started down the hallway when an idea hit.

More than a long shot. A Hail Mary.

And just like the game, it all came down to trust. Whether Jenn would trust him enough to see what he was doing. Whether he could trust her to recognize what was important.

Whether they had gone too far to ever make it back.

 

 

ALEX’S BRAIN WAS STATIC. Raw and unfocused and going nowhere.

Desperate to move, he sat still. He heard Mitch talking to Victor as the man poured himself a fifty-dollar drink. Trying to reason with him, or maybe just stalling for time, but not getting anywhere. Johnny had moved to the center of the bar, the gun held at arm’s length. Aimed with the loose ease of someone who had used a pistol before, who had looked down the barrel at another human being and pulled the trigger.

Alex’s head throbbed in time with his pulse, the pain back in full force, and yet the least of the pain he was dealing with. Thinking that all their discussion, all their debate, it came down to this. Four plastic bottles filled with death, and a man who had just admitted he’d sell them wherever someone was buying. That this might be used not in some faraway desert. That it might be used at an El station or a museum. A church, or a shopping mall, or a school.

That it might be used in the kinds of places Cassie went.

VICTOR SAID, “Now, if we’re done with the philosophy lesson, I’d like my merchandise, please. Put it in the bag.”

Mitch felt hollowed out. Pulled too hard in too many directions. He was standing in front of the devil, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Well, one thing. Small and pointless, but something. “No.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You want it, it’s right there. I won’t be part of this.”

Victor laughed. “Won’t be part of it? You are part of it. All four of you. Don’t you see? You had it for days. You knew it was dangerous. I’m betting that you had to know in your heart more or less what it was. Right?”

Mitch shook his head, but Victor only smiled, said, “Sure you did. You knew. You just didn’t want to admit it. Because if you did, you’d have to do something about it. And doing something, well, that’s not what the four of you specialize in.”

“What do you know about the four of us?”

“I know that if you really wanted to stop me, if you truly wanted to keep this from hurting anyone, all you had to do was go to the police. And I know that you didn’t.”

Words like ball-peen hammer blows. Part of him wanted to argue, to say that it was more complicated than that. And it was. But it was also that simple. They had not only failed one another. They had failed hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent people. They had become everything they used to despise.

“You see? If you had never gotten involved, then you’d be innocent. But you had a chance to stop me. And you didn’t take it. Which makes you guilty, Mitch. When my clients use it—and they will—it will be your fault.” Victor paused, took a sip of his liquor. “Now. Put those bottles in the bag and bring them to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to know that you’re beaten. That you lost completely.” Victor’s smile was broad and bright.

Mitch knew it didn’t make a difference, but he didn’t care. “I won’t do it.”

“Remember when I told you to believe every word I say? Believe this.” The man’s voice hard, pure alpha dog. “You will put those bottles in the bag, and you will bring it to me, and you’ll thank me for the privilege.”

“I won’t. And meanwhile, the police are on their way. We told them about you. They’ll be here any minute.”

“I don’t think so.” Victor reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone. “Amazing gadgets, these things. Used to be, a phone was for making calls. Now they can give you directions, play music”—he turned the screen to Mitch—“even take pictures.”

The image was small but clear. Ian and Jenn sitting on the couch in her living room.

“So you see, no police. And I think at long last you may be starting to take my word.” His voice hardened. “Put the fucking bottles in the bag and hand it to me. Or I’ll have my people start cutting pieces off your girlfriend.”

 

 

SHE COULDN’T BELIEVE IT.

OK, Ian had had his problems. The drugs, paying off the bookie. But those things had made sense in their way. They had been mistakes, but they hadn’t been malevolent.

But to actively sell her out? Not just to promise the money in trade for his own life—not theirs,
his
—but then to tell them about the scissors she’d palmed? He’d killed her. And for what? He couldn’t possibly believe this guy would let them live.

“Let’s go,” the man said. Ian stood and limped slowly toward the hallway, not looking at her. Coward. He started toward the kitchen, where an hour ago the three of them had planned to try to redeem their failures.

“Sister, you follow right behind him.”

Grimacing, she did as she was told. What was the point of this, anyway? Ian had promised all that was left of the money, more than two hundred thousand dollars. Which was impossible, because they had split—

Wait.

She looked up, clues snapping together with an almost audible click. At that same moment, she saw Ian stagger, fall against the wall with a hollow sound. For a moment he hung there, then he collapsed, hit the floor hard, not putting his hands out to catch himself. His limbs shook and twitched, arms and legs beating a pattern on the hardwood floor. He looked like he was having some sort of a fit, like demons had taken control of his body.

“What is this happy horseshit,” the man said. “Get up.”

For a bare half second, as Ian flopped to his back, his eyes opened and locked on hers, and in that moment, she knew what he was doing.

“Get the fuck up.” The gun swiveling.

“I think he’s having a seizure,” she said.

“So what do we do?”

“Let him choke,” she said.

“You’re all heart.” The man hesitated, then took a wary step forward. “Hey.” He nudged at Ian with his shoe. “Hey.”

The second time his foot touched Ian, the trader grabbed it with both hands, tucked it against his chest, and rolled. Caught off guard, the man’s knee buckled, and he came down hard onto Ian, who gasped at the weight. There was an explosion, loud and brilliant in the dim light of the hall, and drywall dust rained from a hole punched in her ceiling.

The guy may have been taken off guard, but he reacted quickly, spinning his other knee onto solid ground and then bringing the pistol down. Ian saw it, grabbed for the gun with both hands. The man lashed out with a fast jab that cracked Ian’s jaw. On his back on the ground, her friend looked like a child, thin and waxy-skinned and bleeding from his mouth. No chance he could win.

Not alone, anyway.

She was starting forward when Ian rolled his head sideways and stared at her. The look couldn’t have lasted more than a fraction of a breath, but it burned into her retinas. He saw her step forward and gave a tiny shake of his head. His eyes were locked on hers. Pleading with her.

His words on the couch came back to her, the ones she’d wondered about.

If you know you’re only going to play once, or if there’s something truly important at stake, something larger. Then
you
betray. You make sure
you
get out.

The emphasis on “you.” He had known what he was going to do then. He’d been telling her.

And he’d been telling her that he had already made a choice. That he had weighed the factors and decided what was truly important. He wasn’t trying to win. He was trying to keep them from losing entirely. It wasn’t chivalry or some misguided attempt to protect her. He had simply treated it like a game. He had set the cost of his life against the pay-off of her getting to the police and decided that it was a good move.

She stared at him. Thought about running to his aid, trying her kickboxing moves. An amateur against a professional; cardio classes against a lethal, armed criminal. As she watched, Ian took a vicious punch that snapped his face sideways, breaking their stare—and freeing the killer’s gun hand.

And she realized what would happen if she tried and failed.

Last game
.
If it’s the last game, and the stakes are high enough, there is only one thing to do.

Jenn turned and sprinted for the door.

 

 

ALEX LOOKED OVER MITCH’S SHOULDER, to where Victor held the cell phone, a smug expression on his face. Even from there, he could make out the picture. Jenn and Ian. Victor had them.

They had failed. Completely. He’d even failed to protect Cassie. It wasn’t that he believed that the gas would actually be used on her. He wasn’t stupid, could run the odds. But Victor had as good as said it would end up used on someone like her. Some innocent child who chose the wrong day to go to the mall. Someone else’s daughter.

“One more time, Mitch.” Victor’s voice was cold, but Alex could hear the anger beneath it. “Pick up the bag. Put the bottles in it. Now.”

Mitch. His friend, his doppelganger, the flip side of his coin. His partner in defeat. Alex could see in his eyes that the man was beaten. Mitch, who always had a plan. Beaten. Slowly, like his body was a wooden puppet under someone else’s control, his friend bent down to retrieve the black duffel bag from the floor.

Alex looked over at Johnny Love. His former boss’s hair was slicked back, but a clump had come loose and stood at odd attention. His smile was as slippery and self-satisfied as a television commercial lawyer’s. “I told you, kid. You don’t fuck with me.”

Mitch reached a shaking hand forward. Picked up one of the bottles. Slid it into the bag.

It was happening. It was really happening.

They were going to let these two assholes walk out with chemical weapons. They were going to put them in the bag politely, hand it over, and wait for Johnny to shoot them.

Or, maybe worse, wait for him not to. For him to walk away, and let them wonder when they would hear about sarin gas in a high school.

No.

Maybe they would be safe if they did nothing. But they would never be OK. They had to fight. Maybe it would cost them everything. Their lives. But it would be a cause worth dying for.

Mitch put the second bottle in the bag.

Alex gently slid one foot to the floor, shifted his weight, counting on Victor and Johnny to be watching Mitch.

If only they had a weapon. He remembered throwing the guns in the river, the heft of each and the plunk as they splashed into dark water. He would have given his arm to have one of them now. For a weapon of any sort: a knife, the baseball bat Jenn kept under her bed. A weapon, one little weapon. That was the only thing that was holding them back, keeping the odds from being even. A weapon—

Mitch put the third bottle into the bag.

Holy shit.

Alex would have laughed if it wouldn’t have slowed him down. Instead he slid off the stool, turned to grab it by the back, spun hard, and hurled the thing at Johnny.

It was a clumsy throw, awkward and overfast, and Johnny sidestepped easily, raising the pistol. But dodging had distracted him, and Alex put everything into a lunge, his shoulder down, feet scrabbling on the tile floor, the clean and perfect rush of motion, his insides piano-wire taut. He was going to tear Johnny apart, rip the smarmy fucker into pieces with his bare hands. Payback for a thousand minor indignities and one unforgivable sin. For Cassie.

The pistol in Johnny’s hand spat flame twice.

There was a sticky feeling like a thin finger poking through his belly, like a yellowed nail scraping through his intestines, and where it touched was agony beyond fire, and his feet were still moving, his momentum carrying him forward as he realized that he had been shot, that Johnny had hit him at least once, maybe twice, and that the gun was steadying again, centering on him, and everything disappeared but the gap, the horrifying gap between him and Johnny, six feet, five, the man so close he could almost see the pores on his nose—