Columbus (18 page)

“Finally, seven days of sitting in the car with him and he leans over and asks, ‘how you wanna handle this?’ I don’t even think two seconds and I say, ‘hit him when he gets home after the bar.’ The fat man shrugs and says suits him fine, see ya tomorrow night, and that’s that.

“Of course, I don’t sleep that night, I don’t eat the next day, I’m all geeked up like it’s Christmas morning, you know. Now I got to wait around all day since I’m the one who said let’s hit him at night, so I end up getting in my car and following the mark to make sure he’s still sticking to his pattern—”

“Don’t tell me you jumped the gun.”

“No, not at all. I just wanted to watch this guy and see what’s what. And let me tell you, it was a hell of a feeling, knowing he was gonna die and him not knowing it . . . does that make sense?”

“More than you know.”

“I got a confession to make. I like the way it felt.”

“Yeah. It’s the nature of the beast.”

“You got that right. Anyway, I make sure the target goes to the bar after work like normal, and then I head over to meet Tuesday at the meeting point where we decided to hook up. He’s there when I get there, and I climb in his sedan, take a look at him, and let me tell you, he’s not looking so hot. His face is red and he’s sort of sweating all over.

“‘What’s up?’ I say, and he just shrugs and says, ‘nothing.’

“‘You all right?’ I say, and he mutters something like ‘why wouldn’t I be?’ and we take off for Brown’s pad.

“I’m thinking, ‘oh man, tell me this old veteran don’t have cold feet or isn’t shaky or something . . . ’ not on my first pull, you know? ‘Please tell me Archie didn’t tag-team me with a guy who’s suddenly having second thoughts about the shooting game.’

“So I got one eye on Tuesday and one eye on the prize and we wait and wait and eventually Sweet Georgia Brown comes home and I’m out the car door three seconds after he heads inside.

“Tuesday climbs out of the front seat and blocks my way and I’m like, ‘listen, old buck, if you lost your nerve . . .’ and he stares bullets at me and sort of growls like a junkyard dog and says, ‘wait, goddammit. You gotta let the mark settle in and catch him with his head on the pillow. Patience, lady, patience.’”

“I give him my best stink eye but he’s having none of it, and he’s right after all, but I swear something’s off about him. His face is splotchy, bright red in the cheeks, white on the forehead, and he’s dripping sweat, and I don’t know what to think.

“So we wait and wait and wait some more, and I’m listening to Tuesday’s heavy breathing like he’s on some phone sex line for what seems like a week, and finally the clock hits the hour and I nod at him and he shrugs and opens his door.

“We check the street and there ain’t a soul in sight at two in the morning, so we head up to the house. I pull out a pick but check this out, the motherfucking mark doesn’t even lock his front door.”

I chuckle and she leans forward, eyes dancing.

“Tell me about it. This ain’t just a cakewalk, it’s a trip around the whole goddamn dessert bar. So we move into the living room and I can hear Brown snoring in the back so I make a hand signal like I’m gonna go take care of business, and I look over at Tuesday and the man’s face is stark white, all color gone, like I’m looking at Casper the fat fucking ghost. He’s holding his arm like this and I swear I have no idea what the hell’s happening and right then he topples over, all three hundred fifty pounds of him falls sideways like a building coming down, right on a glass coffee table, I shit you not.”

“Heart attack?” I can’t keep the chuckle out of my voice.

“You got it. And this coffee table doesn’t just break, it explodes. I mean it sounds like someone set a bomb off in the room. KA-BOOOM!”

She smacks the table for emphasis.

“Before I know what’s happening, I mean I’m just processing this shit, I turn my head to see Brown, buck naked, standing in the doorway to his bedroom, holding a sawed-off shotgun.

“My heart’s beating like a drum and I remember the thought going through my head . . . I’m wondering what we must look like, a dead fat guy collapsed on his coffee table and me looking like I do, holding a gun in my hand.

“I don’t know if he thinks we’re burglars or what, but I guess he figures it out pretty damn fast, because he points both barrels at me and pulls the trigger.”

I raise my eyebrows and Ruby grins, anticipating my surprise.

“Click. That’s all he gets. You think I didn’t notice that gun under his bed when I staked his house? I know I’m not supposed to touch anything but I wasn’t going to take any chances. So I took the shells out of the barrels and left it right where it was.

“Good thing.”

“Damn straight.”

“And Brown?”

“I knocked the surprise right off his face.”

“And Tuesday?”

“Never saw Wednesday again.”

I give her the slow clap and she pantomimes a curtsy as we both laugh.

“I’m impressed. You tell a good story.”

“Now you know more about me than anyone in the game.”

“I know I better check to make sure my gun’s loaded if you’re coming for me.”

“You’re right about that.” She stands. “I’ll be right back,” and with that, she heads to the sign marked “WC.”

Like her brother, Ruby Grant has grown on me quickly. We are opposites—we approach this job from radically different directions—and yet maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe I can learn from her as much as she learns from me. Like getting inside a mark’s head, maybe getting inside Ruby’s head will show me a different angle, a different way to navigate this business.

She drops two fresh macaroons on the table as she takes her seat. “Pistachio and vanilla,” she says. “You gotta try both.”

“No, thanks.”

“More for me,” she shrugs as she bites into the green one.

Swallowing, she starts in with “All right, then. Enough about my humble beginnings. Let’s focus on the matter at hand. What’s going on and where do I fit in?”

“I’m going to take out the man who put the hit on me.”

“He dies, no one to pay out the contract, the hit goes away?”

“That’s the idea.”

“So where is he?”

“Holed up in one of six buildings on the Rue de Maur. Heavily defended. He’s known the neighborhood and the buildings his entire life. Oh, and I don’t know what he looks like . . . I’m pretty sure he had his face changed.”

She waits, her expression unreadable. Then she manages, “Shiiiit.” Just like her brother.

“I know.”

“What d ’you need me for? Sounds like the same type of creampuff as my Mr. Brown.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You got blueprints of the six buildings?”

I shake my head.

“Any of ’em?”

I shake it again.

“You know how many guys he’s got?”

I just keep shaking.

“Fuck you, Columbus. I mean seriously, fuck you.”

“I’m not going to go
in
there. . . . ”

“No shit you’re not.”

“I’m going to bring him out to me.”

She nods now, regaining interest. “Okay, okay. Now we’re talking. How do you plan to draw him out?”

She leans back and waits for me to paint the picture. I give her the basics while she finishes her macaroons. The table we occupy in the back corner has allowed us both to speak freely, as opposed to the States where we might have had to worry about hovering waiters. Here, the staff usually gives you all the room you need.

After I finish, she leans forward. “Okay. Okay. I dig where this is going.”

“Good. You’re in, then?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“I talked to Archie today. He wants to be your fence when this is over. That’s why I’ve been hanging around. I’m supposed to seal the deal.”

Well, there it is. I knew it was coming; I just didn’t know when.

“I’m not sure there’s going to be much more for me when this is over.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ve put in quite a few years now, and I’m still young. I lied when I said it was just a thought. I’ve been thinking about it more in the last month than in the previous thirteen years. There might be a way out for me.”

“How long you been giving yourself that speech?”

“Not too long.”

“No, I didn’t think so.” She shifts so she can look me straight in the eyes. “Listen, if you think there’s an escape hatch for you, I’ll tell Archie not to stand in your way.”

I nod, and she leans forward again. “But if you can’t get out—if you try it and things go sour—then he’s gonna want you in the fold.”

I sit back and rub my hands on the top of my head and think of Risina and then of a dropped silver handle on a stopped silver wagon and think of giving everything to her by giving everything away. And then my eyes fall on Ruby sitting in front of me, in this world, my world, and something in me keeps seeking her out, again, a few times during this hunt, a game in which I’m more hunted than hunter, and my instincts are out in front of my intellect. Do I want Archibald Grant to be my fence? Have I been angling for that without even realizing it? And what does that say about my plans to give this life up? Maybe I’m deceiving myself.

“Okay.”

She doesn’t ask for confirmation, doesn’t want to prolong my internal conflict. She’s the kind of woman who knows what an “okay” means without having to dig it out and analyze it.

We settle the bill, head to the front of the café to make plans for our next rendezvous and maybe we’re being cavalier and maybe we’re too comfortable and maybe there were signs, the way there were signs in that coffee shop on the day all this began.

I look up to see Roger Mallery riding down the street atop that goddamn bicycle and his eyes find us, and the look of confusion on his face lasts for what seems an eternity as his mind works out the mechanics . . . that I told him I was working for his boss Coulfret, that I needed his help on an assassination, that our mark was the very much alive girl standing next to me, that the whole thing was a lie . . . I can see it all come together for him, one plus one can only equal fucking two, and he must spot my eyes narrowing, hardening, because he swallows, lowers his chin, and starts pumping his pedals desperately, like a sprinter. His bike responds by hurtling down the street as though it has been fired out of a cannon.

Ruby recognizes Mallery just moments behind me and I think she says something to me, but my legs are already moving, and I dart across the street and barrel as fast as I can down the sidewalk.

As large as Mallery is, he sure knows how to work that fucking bike, and his lead grows as he cranes his neck practically under his right armpit to make sure I’m not gaining on him.

Three workers are unloading boxes out of a black delivery truck with the engine idling, and if luck wants to spin around on a dime then I’m sure as hell going to take advantage of it. I’m in the driver’s seat and throwing the truck into gear and ignoring the shouts of the angry workers and if there are any police loitering around for the next couple of blocks then I’m just going to have to deal with them later because I cannot let this man warn Coulfret.

He looks back for me on the sidewalk and then spots me behind the wheel of the truck and I discover a moment of panic in his eyes. Often, panic in your enemy can provoke a mistake, a stutter, an opening to his defeat. But it can also lead to a surge of adrenaline, a dip into the reservoir of energy he has buried inside him.

Mallery turns back, grits his teeth, and recognizes an advantage. There is traffic in the one-way street up ahead, and he doesn’t have to stop. He zips up a lane of his own creation, between idling cars and the rigid curb. I slam on my brakes and just catch a blur as a Vespa whips past me, Ruby atop it hunched over the handlebars like a jockey on a thoroughbred, and then she rounds the corner moments behind Mallery. At least one of us chose the right vehicle.

Fuck this. I hop the delivery truck over the curb and ride up the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians, bouncing on faulty hydraulics like I’m inside a washing machine. I spin the wheel and the truck responds, swinging to the right, somehow keeping on all four tires, and my fears are realized, no sign of Mallery on his bicycle or Ruby on the Vespa and a cluster of additional traffic ahead. I roll up a block, my head on a swivel, eyes scanning everywhere, and I catch just a glimpse of an overturned moped lying like a felled beast in the middle of the street of the adjacent block.

I jump out of the truck without bothering to throw it into park, ignore the foot traffic on the sidewalk, and as I get closer, I can see Mallery’s bicycle also lying flat on its side, looking alien in that way bicycles do when they’re not upright, half on and half off the curb, front tire spinning.

Again, I’m stymied, no sign of the big man or Ruby Grant, and then I hear the distinctive crack of a pistol firing. It came from somewhere up and to my left, and I duck my head and sprint inside the residential building in front of me. Something is troubling about that crack; Ruby prefers a high-caliber weapon, a .44, and the crack sounded sharp, quick, more like the pop of a kernel of corn, and I’m not sure about any of it, what exactly I heard, what was an echo, what was amplified, but that damn butcher better not have a gun. I’ve been with him twice before and never known him to carry a firearm.

I fly up a flight of stairs, mounting them two at a time, and almost shoot Ruby in the head. She’s crouched against a wall, looking amused, like she is expecting me, and what took me so goddamn long, and isn’t this whole affair a lot of goddamn fun. I don’t know how she does it—I’d like to think it’s all a façade—but I’ve been around her enough now to think maybe she’s found some way to swallow the strains of our chosen profession and fuel it into something else. What? Passion? Maybe she’s wired differently. Maybe she just enjoys it. Maybe I’m more like Ruby than I’d care to admit.

She smiles as I lower my gun and ease my index finger off the trigger.

“He’s carrying a pea-shooter. Got a shot off at me and ducked around the corner.”

I look above her head. A fresh bullet hole is plugged into the wall.

“He have a way out?”

“I don’t think so. Just got a quick scan of the building when I headed inside, but I think those stairs behind you are the only way down.”