Zero at the Bone (14 page)

He stood up and headed back to the cabin. “Comin’.” Jack was putting out bowls of oatmeal when D came in the patio door. In the past days, D had learned that Jack was more than competent at cooking but damned irritating about it. Wouldn’t make bacon and eggs, but insisted on oatmeal and lectured him about cholesterol and saturated fat. “What were you doing out there?” Jack asked.

D shot him an irritated glance. “Why you gotta know?” Jack shrugged. “Just curious.”

“Takin’ the air. Oatmeal again?”

“It’s good for you. Complex carbohydrates.”

“Don’t we have any eggs?”

“How are you feeling?” Jack asked, ignoring D’s question.

D shrugged, sitting down and starting in on the oatmeal without further protest.

Much as he was craving a nice big cheesy artery-clogging omelet, he guessed that as long as Jack was doing all the cooking he could shut up about what was put in front of him.

“Pretty good.”

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Hurts. Not as bad as yesterday.”

Jack sat down to his own breakfast. They ate in silence, putting their bowls aside when they were finished and moving on to coffee. D had noticed that Jack’s sermonizing about proper nutrition stopped short of denouncing caffeine.

He yearned for a smoke, but Jack had thrown all of them away. Somehow, in the course of treating his gunshot wound, Jack had appointed himself as D’s personal health and well-being traffic cop. If asked, D would have said that he hated the intrusion, Jack’s Zero at the Bone | 59

presumption and being deprived of grease, nicotine and starchy foods, but just between himself and the lamppost he could admit that it felt kind of nice to have someone worrying about him, and looking after him. He’d been looking after himself for so long that he’d forgotten what it was like to know that someone else actually gave a shit if he lived or died or came down with emphysema. He didn’t kid himself, though; Jack was looking out for himself in the process. D was the only thing standing between him and hordes of angry drug lords, after all.

Jack seemed a little distracted this morning. D could sympathize. He was trying to see his way clear to their next step, but the way ahead was still murky and ill-defined.

When Jack spoke, his voice sounded sharp, a blade cutting into their silence. “Tell me about these sixty-seven people,” he said.

D sighed. He wasn’t going to let this go. “You don’t wanna hear all that.”

“Don’t tell me what I do and do not want to hear.”

“Jack, there’s things about me you’ll be easier in yer mind if ya don’t know.”

“There are good things about you,” he said, meeting D’s eyes. “But I need to know the bad things too.”

D drained his coffee cup, looking out the patio doors at the lake. He had little experience talking his way around his job. Most of the time it wasn’t an issue. “I don’t think—” he began.

“I deserve to know,” Jack interrupted. “This isn’t you saving my ass anymore, D.

We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

He sighed. “Reckon so.”

“You trust me?”

That was a harder question to answer. For more than ten years, probably longer, D

had only trusted one person, and that trust had been paid for in blood. He didn’t know if he trusted Jack. He did know that he shouldn’t. His trust was dear, and it wasn’t earned by a short acquaintance or even medical treatment. Not when Jack had so much to gain by keeping D on his good side. And certainly not when Jack might have it in his power to get D arrested or killed.

But none of that changed the fact that in his heart he wanted to trust Jack, and hoped that he could, and that was unsettling to him. He knew that it was a short ride from wanting to trust someone to trusting them too soon, and from there an even shorter ride to a knife in the back. And if there was one thing that he already knew, it was that any knife in his back that had Jack’s name on the handle would hurt worse than just the wounding of it, and he didn’t care to think too long or hard on why that might be.

Jack was waiting for an answer. “No more’n you trust me,” D said, which was as vague as he could stand.

Jack wasn’t fooled. “Well, whether you trust me or not, you owe me.”

“I don’t owe you shit,” D snapped, rankling at the idea, its truth notwithstanding.

“Don’t go thinkin’ ’cause you patched me up that I’m obliged. I’d still be well advised ta kill you and serve up yer head ta the brothers, ya know.” He could see that this not-so-veiled threat didn’t faze Jack all that much. “What are you afraid of?” he asked. “That I can’t handle it? That I’ll run screaming into the woods?

I know you think I’m some kind of city-boy softie—”

“I don’t think that,” D said.

“Whatever,” Jack said, flapping a hand. “Point is that I’ve done time at hospitals in neighborhoods that even you’d be scared to walk around in. I’ve seen things that’d make 60 | Jane Seville

you puke up your whole intestinal tract, so don’t treat me like I’m made of bone china and can’t handle hearing about what you do.”

D sighed. “Usedta do, ya mean.”

“So let’s have it. All of it.”

He met Jack’s eyes, blue and chipped, and he couldn’t think of another reason not to tell him what he wanted to know. “All right. You asked for it.” He started in on another cup of coffee. “What you wanna know?”

“Who was the last one?”

“Art dealer. Thief, really. Took art that the Nazis looted and made it so it couldn’t be proved, so he could sell it for a bundle a cash when it belonged ta the families a the survivors.”

Jack blinked. “And you thought he deserved death for that?”

“He was a bad man. And it wasn’t me wanted him dead, anyhow.” Jack had his hands folded on the table. He looked like he was processing this information, to uncertain results. “So… what about the rest?”

“What, you want a complete list? Hafta check my day planner.”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“No, I am tryin’ ta tell ya that there ain’t no point ta me quotin’ ya chapter ’n’ verse about all the people I killed in my time!”

“I just want to know who they were!” Jack exclaimed, his face reddening.

Understanding bloomed in D’s mind and spread.
He don’t wanna know who they
were. Wants ta know how much like him they were. Wants ta see how close he came ta
bein’ one more
. He sighed. “A lot of ’em were killers theirselves. If you only knew how many a them guys get off on technicalities, it’s enough ta turn yer stomach. Some were rapists, or child molesters… court cases real hard ta prove fer those types.” Jack was nodding along.

“But… who pays to have them killed? You get, what, contracts? Who puts them up, and how? You can’t exactly look up ‘killers for hire’ in the yellow pages.” D chuckled. “Not really, no. Actually….” He hesitated. “I shouldn’t be tellin’ ya this. Lotsa times, my services are paid for by families a victims. Sometimes the cops ’n’

lawyers pitch in too. It ain’t talked about. And most a the time, the family gets an anonymous letter, or a card, tellin’ ’em who ta call.” Jack’s eyes were getting wide. “Who’s sending these cards?”

“Most a the time somebody like Josey, my handler. They keep careful track a the big cases. Court TV, newspapers… they got people watchin’ all over the country that tips

’em off too, so they know when some low-life killer’s got off, or some rapist got acquitted. On occasion, when the case is real bad… well, sometimes, a cop or a lawyer clues the family in.”

“Seriously?”

“Anonymously, a course. They cain’t be condonin’ what I do. But sometimes they jus’ cain’t take it. Bad folks gettin’ off ’cause the system’s set up ta prevent mistakes. I get why. Better the guilty go free than the innocent go ta jail. If the guilty go free… well, there’s folks like me ta deal with it.” He refilled Jack’s coffee cup. “Big part a my business. Most a the rest is criminals bumpin’ off their own. Warrin’ amongst themselves. Some are folks doin’ bad that ain’t never been caught, or ain’t never gonna be caught. Folks the law cain’t touch.”

“So someone calls your handler—”

Zero at the Bone | 61

“Right. Calls Josey, tells her who they want done, she does an assessment, quotes

’em a price. Price goes up for a high-profile target, goes up for high-risk, like if the guy’s got bodyguards or anythin’, goes up for a rush job, stuff like that. Part a that price is her fee, rest goes ta me if I take the job.”

“Who are these people that you won’t kill?”

D shook his head. “Jack, people want other people dead for all kinds a reasons, not all a which wash with me. A lot a those hits that come up are witnesses, like you. Ton a those. I’ve seen hits on cheatin’ wives, and hits on kids ta punish their parents fer whatever, and hits out on whistle-blowers and business competitors and just people pissed someone off.”

“And you see those files, and… what? Just say ‘Thanks but no thanks’?”

“Pretty much.”

“What happens to those hits then?”

“Well… Josey keeps ’em… until….” He was treading on very dangerous ground here, and by his darkening expression, Jack thought so too.

“Until she can give them to someone else who will take them, right?”

“Reckon so.” D stared down at his coffee cup.

“So you’ve seen these files on these innocent people, kids and women and whistle-blowers and witnesses, and you just pass on by, knowing that someone else will do what you won’t, and what do you do? Do you do anything?”

“What’m I sposed ta do?”

“Warn them?”

D shook his head. “I cain’t warn ’em. Give myself away sure as shit.” Jack stood up and took a few steps backward. “Then why the hell didn’t you just kill them yourself? Why the big act, like you’re too good for it? You knew they’d be killed, you did nothing… you might as well have gotten paid for it!” he shouted.

“Jack, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!”

“Ya knew who I was when ya asked.”

“I knew what you told me, but you didn’t tell me all of it, did you? You told me you only killed people who deserved it.”

“Right.”

“You left out the part about standing by and doing nothing while people who didn’t deserve it were killed by others!”

D gripped his coffee cup hard.
He cain’t know. Not yet. He cain’t fuckin’ know.

Keep yer stupid trap shut, no matter how much ya wanna tell him
. “Weren’t my job ta save them,” he said.

Jack’s face twisted into an expression of such disgust that D had to look away.

“You’re no better than the ones who did kill them,” he spat. “I should have let you die of that gunshot wound.” He turned around and stalked into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. D could hear him pacing, then he heard something smash where it was thrown.

He sat where he was, the coffee cup pressed between his palms, and stared at the tabletop until it stopped swimming.

62 | Jane Seville

THIS is a fucking fine situation you’ve gotten yourself into, Jack. Stuck in a cabin with a
killer in the middle of nowhere while the bad guys prowl around trying to find you and
kill you.

He’d been lying on his bed for over an hour, working himself up into a lather… or trying to. Cursing D, picturing the innocent people who’d died because he did nothing, imagining him putting bullets through people’s heads (Did he shoot them through the head? Or somewhere else?), imagining him waving off some file about a charity-donating, volunteer-working, church-going mother of five who someone wanted dead and not giving her fate another thought, going about his business, eating bad food and smoking like a chimney and maybe picking up hookers just for kicks.

I want to hate him. Why can’t I hate him?

He saved me. He should have killed me. He didn’t, he couldn’t. He saved me again,
and again. He put himself in danger.

Why for me, and not for any of those others? Why am I so goddamned special?

There was a quiet knock on the door. “Jack?”

Jack sighed. “What?”

He heard an awkward throat-clearing. “You, uh… gonna stay in there all day?”

“Maybe!”

There was a pause. “Well… I was jus’ thinkin’… reckon we oughta talk.” Jack sat up, glaring at the door. “Oh, now you want to talk, huh?”

“C’mon, Jack. Lemme in.”

He flopped back onto the bed. “It isn’t locked.” The door edged open a crack and D peered in. Seeing Jack just lying there, he came in further and lurked near the door, seeming loath to intrude on Jack’s personal space.

“Let’s go out ta the porch, somethin’.”

“Why? I spent enough time in your bedroom when we first got here.”

“But it’s… such a nice day ’n’ all.”

Jack laughed. “Oh, of course! Beautiful day! Like you care. We’ll walk among the trees and hear the pretty birds and sing tra la la.” D rolled his eyes. “Will ya cut that out? I don’t much like you like this.”

“Oh! You don’t like me! That is rich!”

“Look, it must be real nice and comfy on top a that high horse,” D said, suddenly snarling, “but you ain’t lived in my world and it’s jus’ fine fer you ta judge when you don’t gotta make them kinda choices.”

“Oh yeah?” Jack said, jumping off the bed to face him. “How about deciding whether you’re going to treat the woman with the head trauma or the drunk driver who mowed her down? Or whether to let a man die of gunshot wounds because you know he shot a cop on his way down? How about treating a woman who’s been beaten nearly to death and having to watch her walk out the door back to the husband who nearly killed her while she tells you that he didn’t mean it, not really! Don’t you fucking talk to me about hard choices, and harsh reality. Just because I didn’t tote a rifle around Kuwait and never put a bullet between someone’s eyes doesn’t mean I live in some world of sunshine and rainbows, D. I live in a world where I spend months putting a four-year-old’s face back together after her own father smashed it in with a bowling ball. You think you’ve got it so hard, and maybe you do, but the shit is tough all over. Fucking suck it up, man.” He held D’s furious gaze, willing himself not to blink first. After a few moments, D

sagged and the fight seemed to go out of him. He sat down on Jack’s bed, holding Zero at the Bone | 63