Gregg Hurwitz - The Survivor

Abara pressed his fingertips together. “I got this wife, yeah? She loses her damn birth-control pills. I’m talking two, three times a week. Not a good thing to lose. And I always tell her, I say, ‘Honey. Retrace your steps.’ And she argues and argues-Puerto Ricans, right? But when she finally listens? There they are. So what do you think. Can you do that for me?”

Nate said, “Find your wife’s birth-control pills?”

No smile. Instead Abara pointed at the window, still cranked open as Nate had left it, swath of blood across the pane. Nate took a moment, chewing his lip. Then he walked over, set his hands on the sill, and leaned out into the cool dusk air.

“Whoa, cowboy.” Abara’s voice sounded distant behind him. “Want to reel it back a little?”

Nate pulled himself in. Nothing was left of the teller with the pretty green eyes but a collection of evidence cones at his feet. He set about retracing each move, starting with his tumble through the window over her lifeless body. One detail at a time. The tiny puffs of drywall. The relentless screech of the saw. The bullet sailing past, so close it trailed heat across his cheek. Recounting all this now in relative solitude made it more real, and with every step he took, a black tide rose in his chest, threatening to choke off his words. He had shot two men on the main floor and was stepping back toward the vault when something glinted under a desk, catching his eye. He walked over, crouched, and picked up the pearl clip-on earring. Cradled it in his hand. Flashed on its owner’s limp arm unfurling, her rings clacking tile. The black tide climbed into his throat, catching him off guard, and he eased himself down to sit on the floor. Several of the cops paused and looked at him. Then a few CSI techs. The movement around him ground to a halt, the focus of the room pulling to him. He swallowed hard, tried to keep the emotion from his face, but he could feel his cheeks turn to pins and needles.

“Sorry.” He clutched the earring, the clasp digging into his palm. “Just give me a sec here.”

Abara waved the others to get back to work and squatted next to him. “Take all the time you need.”

After Nate caught his breath, he finished the walk-through, ending with his face-to-face with Number Six in the vault. Abara scratched his head with a pen. “Can you look at some security tape, see if you can pick out the crew leader?”

“I thought they wiped out the footage,” Nate said.

“We got some in the service elevator and back hall before they pulled the plug on the digital feed.”

Nate followed him to a rear office filled with monitors, where the security director and two Robbery-Homicide detectives waited, the screen before them fluttering on pause. The footage showed the robbers crowded in the service elevator, six forms covered with black fabric. The director clicked PLAY, and they all watched the men ride up, waiting to explode into action. Wrists jiggled. Boots tapped. Gun slides were racked, magazines reseated. Every man a jumble of live nerves.

Except one.

Number Six, the smallest of the crew, stood perfectly still, his head on a slight tilt, those patches of mesh staring directly up at the security camera. Staring directly, it seemed, at Nate.

Beneath the crisp folds of his T-shirt, Nate’s skin went clammy. The man’s quiet poise. No suggestion of what was to come. He might have been riding the elevator up to see a movie or visit a friend. That slender, compact build. The faint accent. He will make you pay in ways you can’t imagine. The threat recalled sent a blade of ice up Nate’s back. He was already dead, ready and willing to find the next opportunity to pull the plug himself. So why be scared?

Maybe because he sensed the promise hidden in that calm voice, the promise that whatever he would deliver would be worse than death.

Nate swallowed dryly and pointed at Number Six.

Riding down in the elevator, Abara said, “We’re gonna need you at the press conference outside.”

“Press conference?” Nate said. “So you’re gonna help ID me for the guys who want to kill me?”

“The media’s already dialed into the story. There’s a picture circulating the Web of you walking out of the bank carrying that little girl-looks like a Bruckheimer one-sheet. If we don’t trot you out, you’ll have media crawling up your ass for weeks. Smile pretty for the cameras, satiate everyone’s appetite, and no one’ll remember you by tomorrow.”

“The guy threatened me. Face-to-face. And I believed him. Whoever his boss is, I killed five of his guys and screwed up his robbery.”

“I doubt they’ll come after you. Bank robbers and cold-blooded murderers fit different profiles.”

“A comforting factoid.”

“I’d imagine not.” Abara removed a business card and handed it to Nate. “My cell’s on the back. Something freaks you out, anything you need, call me. And I’ll make sure LAPD has a squad car drive by your place at intervals for a few nights until the scare wears off.” Abara took note of Nate’s expression and said, “What do you expect? A Secret Service detail?”

“Nah,” Nate said. “If I get killed, I get killed.”

Abara’s smooth forehead wrinkled a bit at that one. They hit the ground floor, their footsteps ticking across the lobby. Abara spun them through the revolving door, and a wave of noise and heat hit them. Bodies and news crews everywhere. In the middle of a small clearing stood a podium. Before Nate could get his bearings, he was ushered forward to the bouquet of microphones, a police captain stepping aside. Nate blinked and gazed out. Above all else there were lights-bright lights that hid the faces of his interlocutors. Questions sailed out of the white blaze.

“When you took them on single-handedly, what were your thoughts?”

Nate moistened his lips. “I was just reacting to what was in front of me. I guess it took me thirty-six years not to think for once.”

“Did you have a mission plan in mind?”

There was a particular chagrin, Nate realized, in being taken more seriously by others than he took himself. “Point and shoot?” he offered.

A feminine voice from the back: “Were you scared?”

“No, not really. I was angry.”

“At what specifically?”

“They killed three people. Kicked a woman in the face. Seemed on the verge of shooting a little girl.”

Bass voice in the front row: “So you think they all deserved a death sentence?”

Nate said, “I think if I hadn’t shot them, they would’ve killed more people.”

“Yes, but still. There are laws.”

Clearly, the reporter intended to goad him. Nate thought about how in the past he might’ve responded with something appropriate. He sorted through all the replies he’d ordinarily think to make, the placating gestures, the tempered assurances. But then that feeling returned, the sensation he’d encountered as he’d floated through the teller gate, bullets carving the air around his face. Liberation. And he replied, “You want laws? Here’s a law for you. Don’t fucking rob banks and kill innocent people.”

A hush descended. A reporter reached over to her cameraman’s gear and clicked off the live feed. A firm hand hooked Nate’s waist, politely conveying him to the side, and then the police captain replaced him in front of the microphones. “I think that’s enough questions for the time being.”

Biting off a smile with perfect white teeth, Abara led Nate off. Once they were clear of the crowd, they nodded good-bye, and Nate went to find his trusty, rusty Jeep Wrangler where he’d parked it an eternity ago this morning. Climbing into the driver’s seat, he realized that he felt neither embarrassment nor regret over his final reply at the podium. He had said exactly what he’d wanted to. Just as this morning he’d done precisely what he’d needed to. No fear. No capitulation. No paralyzing self-scrutiny. He had-literally-nothing left to lose. He pulled on his seat belt, set his hands on the wheel, and the thought hit him: What a trite goddamned shame that he had to be dying to learn how to live again.