Dr. Knox (31 page)

“Pizza,” Sutter said, and he threw Siggy onto the floor in back, climbed in after, and shut the door. “And keep to the speed limit.” I nodded, but I struggled all the way to the pizza place on Foothill to go light on the gas.

The storefronts in the shopping center were dark when we got there, and Sutter told me to park in back. I found a spot in the shadows, amid some Dumpsters, and killed the lights and the engine. Sutter hauled Siggy onto the back seat and grabbed a corner of the duct tape strip over his mouth.

“When I take this off, I know you're gonna want to tell me how dead I am, how dead everyone I know is—everyone I've ever known, et cetera—and in the bloodiest, most painful way possible. Believe me, I understand the urge. But how about we skip over that part? Let's take it as a given that you're pissed and want to kill me, and that I know this, and we'll go from there. What do you say?” Then Sutter peeled away the duct tape—gently, I thought—and Siggy spit in his face.

“Killing you will be the least of it,” Siggy said. His voice was low and calm. “An afterthought. But we won't get to that part for a while. And when we do, you'll be begging for it. I promise you, you'll thank me—you and this prick both. It'll be a fucking mercy. That's my
given,
soldier. Besides that, we got no reason to talk.”

Most of Siggy's spit had landed on Sutter's shoulder, but he wiped off the bit that hit his jaw and smiled ruefully. “I guess you had to get that out of your system. I did fuck up your landscaping, after all, not to mention your French doors, that guy in your den, the one at the gate, and your evening in general. But let's move on, and let me tell you how wrong you are. We've got at least one thing to discuss: I want the woman back. Tonight. Now.”

Siggy laughed. “Or what—you're going to kill me? Then she gets aced too, asshole. Besides, I don't think you've got the taste for it anymore. Maybe it's from hanging around with this motherfucker.”

“I never had a taste for it, Sig, not like you. Doing what needs doing is a different story.”

“Bullshit—you lost your nutsack, plain and simple. You forgot what war is. So now it's your turn to cut the crap. We both know you're not going to put me down, so buy yourself a day's head start and cut me loose now.”

Sutter shook his head. “You're the only one talking about killing you, Sig,” he said. “I've got something different in mind.” Then he reached down into the duffel, pulled out a laptop, and opened it. The computer whirred awake, and a blue glow lit Sutter's face. He typed quickly. “Gotta let the broadband connect. I could've pulled this up on my phone, but I think it's better on a bigger screen. There we go. The picture's a little grainy, 'cause it's night vision, which is cool by itself—a live feed right through the scope—but, grainy or not, I think you can make out all the highlights.” Then he turned the laptop so Siggy and I could see.

He was right about the image, a grainy green-and-gray tableau, the figures and the objects in it—the tall window frames, the wall cabinets, the big double-door refrigerator, massive kitchen island, and hanging lights—all blurred at the edges. But Siggy knew what he was looking at, and lunged forward and strained against his bonds.

Sutter cuffed him across the ear, and Siggy fell back, snarling. His eyes burned in the dark.

“Bliad!”
Siggy growled.

Sutter laughed. “You gotta keep your shit together, Sig, or I'm gonna put the tape back on.” He held up the laptop again. “But I'm glad you catch my drift here.

“What do you think they're doing there, in your kitchen? They must be pretty worried, and I guess your little girl must be scared.” He pointed to the blurred figures at the kitchen island, the taller, slender one, the smaller one. “But it looks like she's eating something, so not too scared for that.

“And how about the missus, Siggy? She's nice to look at, but is she made of tough stuff? Is she a warlord's wife? I guess they must be waiting for a call from somebody. Waiting for somebody to tell them what the fuck is going on. Is she gonna hold up under all the pressure, or freak out? You think she feels safe right now, with all those guys in the kitchen with her? Too bad none of them is smart enough to keep her away from windows, huh? Not very well trained.”

Siggy was silent, staring at the screen, and I wasn't sure if he'd heard much of what Sutter had said or if he was transfixed, as I was, by the crosshair at the center of the image—the way it scanned lazily back and forth, from Siggy's wife to his daughter. It was hypnotic and terrifying, and the longer I watched, the harder it was to breathe.

My voice came out in a raspy whisper. “What the hell—?”

Sutter held up a hand. “You do get where I'm going with this, right, Sig? You understand what comes next?” Siggy's eyes were wide and damp, and he answered with a stream of menacing, guttural Russian that came from deep in his chest.

Sutter shook his head. “Stay on track. You see what comes next:
da
or
nyet
?”

Siggy nodded. “But you're not going to do it,” he said.

Sutter pulled out his cell. “It's a phone call away.”

“Bullshit,” Siggy whispered.

Sutter shrugged, and thumbed his phone. He held it to his ear and spoke into it in rapid French, then looked at Siggy. “You want to pick, Sig, or is it dealer's choice?”

I put a hand on Sutter's arm. “For chrissakes—”

He jerked his arm away and pointed at me. “You mind sitting still and shutting the fuck up, doc? You got this shit boulder rolling; I'm just trying to stop it.”

“I'm going to kill you myself,” Siggy said. “With my hands. With my fucking teeth I'll tear you apart.”

Sutter spoke again in French into the phone, and put it in his pocket. Then he drew closer to Siggy, and his voice was soft and intimate.

“No, you won't. Because you can't. Do you know how long it took me to set up this little op? Not even two hours, with just three guys, not counting the doc and me. Imagine what I can do to you and yours with more time to plan, more intel, more manpower? You have a lot of muscle, Siggy, and in your own AO you do fine, because you're tough and mostly you're dealing with morons. But you have no imagination or discipline or patience, and I've got all three. Plus, Uncle spent a crap ton of time and money training me how to use them, and then sent me to the ass end of the earth so I could practice on people who shoot back with a lot more firepower than you can organize.

“You think I forgot what war is? I only wish I could. If I prayed, I'd pray for that. But the sad truth is, I can't forget it—not ever. All I can do is live with it, and try to avoid it in the future. The fact is,
you're
the one who forgot, Siggy. You're a long way away from that crib in San Pete. You're living fat now, with your nice wife and kid and your nice house out here, your place up in Tahoe, the one in Hawaii, and the condo on the Wilshire strip you hope the missus doesn't know about. You got those restaurants and clubs, all your new Westside friends, and the city councilmen who take your calls.” Sutter reached out and touched a leg of Siggy's trousers. “Shit, you've got Brioni suits, Siggy. That's a lot to lose. A long way to fall.”

Sutter held up the laptop. The grainy scene was still there; the crosshair now fixed on Siggy's wife. “
You're
the one who forgot about the crap-your-pants fear and the scrambling panic, about the paranoia, and jumping out of your skin when a car backfires or a fish farts six miles offshore.
You're
the one who forgot about collateral damage. Because, more than anything else, that's what war is: the slaughter of innocents while they're taking their goats to market, or coming home from school, or sitting in their nice kitchens having a fucking bowl of ice cream.”

He closed the laptop and sat back and sighed. “You forgot. You took things for granted. You climbed up so high you thought there was no more gravity. You thought you were immune. I get that—it's a very human thing. But tonight I'm gravity's representative, Siggy, here with a one-time-only reminder. Your nice life can go away. I can take it away. I
will
take it away, faster than you can imagine.

“Or I won't. I don't like war and I'm not looking for one. Let go of this thing you have for me—leave me alone, leave him alone, and turn over his nurse—and you'll never see me again. Anybody asks about Siggy Rostov, I say he's a badass, somebody you never want to mess with, so scary I can barely speak his name, the one man that gives me nightmares. So it's your call, Siggy. And now's the time to make it.”

Sutter put the laptop back in the duffel and took out his cell phone. He looked at Siggy, whose breathing was ragged and raspy and filled the car, and whose eyes were fixed on nothing. I felt a ribbon of sweat slide over my ribs.

When Siggy finally spoke, his voice came from the bottom of a well. “All right. We're done. After this—after tonight—you don't exist for me and I don't exist for you.”

I sighed, long and shuddering, and Sutter nodded. “Who do I call?” he asked.

“Josef. His number is—”

“I know his number.”

Sutter left me in the GMC with Siggy while he stood by the Dumpsters and called Josef. Siggy looked at me while we waited.

“He's crazy, your friend, you know that?” I said nothing. “You knew him when he was a soldier?”

“After, when he was private. In Africa.”

“He was this crazy?”

“Pretty much.”

Siggy shook his head, and Sutter opened the passenger door and held up his phone. “Siggy, tell Josef you're alive and that the swap is okay.”

From the speaker, Josef's voice was tight.
“Kak dela?”

Siggy closed his eyes. “
Horosho,
Josef. We have a deal. Do what he says.”

Sutter nodded and shut the door. He was back in less than a minute, and climbed into the front seat. “Josef's dropping Lydia at a shopping center down the road. My guys will meet her there. When they tell me she's safe, we'll let you out and tell Josef where to collect you.”

We waited in the car. Sutter cut Siggy's hands free and put on Coltrane again. Then he read his mail and surfed the Web on his phone, and laughed occasionally at what he saw there. “Love these cats,” he said to no one. In half an hour, Sutter's phone rang. He listened for a moment and then said
“Merci.”
Then he turned in his seat and opened the rear door.

“This is where you get off, Sig. I'll call Josef when we're on the road.” Siggy said nothing, but climbed out of the GMC and closed the door. Sutter ran down his window and looked at him.

“In a little while, you're gonna find yourself thinking about all this—going over it in your head. A word to the wise: don't. There's nothing down that road for you, so don't go there. Don't brood. You're getting out whole. Go back to your life.”

“We have a deal. I know what a deal is.”

“We had one before.”

“I know what this deal is.”

Siggy turned and watched his bare feet on the asphalt, and walked gingerly away from the car. Sutter called to him. “One other thing—why're you interested in Elena's kid? Was he just an excuse to fuck with me some more? How did you even know Elena had a kid?”

“You think I'm an idiot? You think I don't know other people are out looking for her too, and her kid? You think I don't know it's Bray? I guess he figured out I wanted her too, so he comes to me yesterday and offers me a finder's fee—a hundred large for the kid.”

Sutter looked at me and then at Siggy. “Harris Bray came to
you
?”

Siggy shook his head impatiently. “Not him. His fucking weird son.”

It was a fifteen-minute drive to Lydia, west on Foothill, and Sutter was quiet at first, scanning through tracks on the audio system and glancing over at me. Finally, he settled on Sarah Vaughan.

“It was a matter of time before Bray's trackers ran into Siggy's,” he said, “but what do you make of Junior hiring him?”

I shook my head. “Strange bedfellows, for sure. I guess Siggy didn't need much excuse to yank your chain some more, but a hundred thousand is a nice bonus.”

“You think Kyle's dad knows about it?”

“I'd be surprised.”

Sutter nodded. “Me too. Kinda fucks up his play with you. Muddies the waters. I don't think Daddy will be happy.”

We were quiet for a block or two, and then I glanced over at him. “You think Siggy will honor this—that he'll really walk away from you?”

Sutter thought about it for a while and shrugged. “I don't know. The Siggy from San Pedro wouldn't—no way. But this is a different guy. I scared him tonight. I just hope his memory outlasts his ego.”

After another few blocks of silence, he cleared his throat. “I was sort of a dick before. You get that that was for Siggy's benefit, yeah? I had to sell it.”

“You did a fine job. But I was fairly certain you weren't going to do anything to the kid or the wife.”

“You sure about that?”

“I just wish you'd clued me in.”

“Your surprise helped the sale.”

I nodded. “And that part about me getting the shit boulder rolling…?”

Sutter laughed. “That? That was all true, brother.”

The shopping center where Lydia waited was also dark. She was in the passenger seat of a Volvo wagon, drinking from a water bottle. Sutter's mercenary pals, Evie and Franco, were there too. Franco was in the driver's seat, looking at his phone, and Evie stood by the rear bumper. She had the hatch open, and there was a long black gun-case in back. As we drove up, she was tucking an elaborate scope into its own luggage.

“Everything smooth?” Sutter asked.

“Oui,”
Evie said. “We drove around after the pickup. There was nobody on us.”

Sutter nodded. “You two take off. I want more distance before I tell 'em where to get Siggy.”

Evie nodded back and closed the hatch. She went to the passenger door and held it open while Lydia got out, then got in; the Volvo drove away.

Lydia stood in the parking lot like the last coat in the lost and found. She was creased and dazed in stained jeans, a pajama top, and sneakers with the laces undone. Her thick hair was lumpy and tangled, and her face was pale, sagging, and smudged around the eyes. There were bruises on her forearms.

I jumped out of the car and ran to her and stopped when she slapped me across the face. She pointed at me, and her hand shook and tears welled in her eyes.

“You…” she said. Then she got into the back seat of the GMC and slammed the door.

I climbed behind the wheel, rubbed my cheek, and looked at Sutter, who pursed his lips and shook his head.