Gregg Hurwitz - The Survivor

Anger burned in Nate’s chest, evaporating any panic. He braced a foot against one of the table legs and shoved with all his might. The table skidded a foot or so, plates and glasses jumping, and the two men holding him down lost their grip. Nate twisted up and away from Pavlo’s grasp, but then the bouncer palmed his head and slammed it to the table. A cool ring of steel pressed against his temple, and he heard the soft click of the gun cocking.

“You want to do it?” Nate said. “Then do it. But quit wasting my time with the freak show. I’ve got a job to do.”

A view of Pavlo, offset by forty-five degrees. Nate felt as though his skull might collapse from the pressure of the giant hand. One finger smashed his nose, another smeared his lips to one side. Vodka glugged unevenly from the toppled bottle.

Pavlo studied him calmly as he looped his belt, buttoned his coat.

The spilled alcohol was making Nate’s eyes water. “Pull the trigger,” he said, “or get off me.”

The Georgian had barely moved. Overflowing his chair, now displaced from the shoved table, he uttered his first words in broken, barely intelligible English. “Take him into kitchen. I will haff cleaned up.”

But Pavlo gave a small shake of his head, the ring of steel lifted, and the pressure came off Nate’s temple. He straightened up.

“You are as crazy as Chechen nigger,” Pavlo said. “I have seen many men in many circumstances. And you, my friend, are not correct in your head.”

This , Nate thought, from a man nicknamed Psyk .

“We will see if you are still wise enough to fear.” Though his pants were now buckled again, Pavlo set a hand above his groin where the slogan was tattooed.

“If you want any chance at getting what’s in that safe-deposit box,” Nate said, “then keep out of my way. And stay clear of my family.”

“I will give you and family space if you obey. But we will be watching. You have four days. And then”-Pavlo made a quick slashing gesture across his stomach with the blade of his hand- “sffft.”

He pointed toward the door and sat down again at the strewn table.

Nate felt all eyes on his back as he threaded through the tables, his step quickening as he neared the big oak door and the fresh nighttime air beyond.

Nate faced Janie across the kitchen counter, her hands cupped around a mug of chamomile tea. She’d drawn all the curtains, he’d checked all the rooms, and for the moment it was just them again in their old house, their daughter upstairs. But now, he realized, it was probably time for him to leave.

He got up from the barstool, withdrew the Beretta from the waist of his jeans, and set it carefully on the counter. “If they come again. You’re here with Cielle.”

“Is this real?” Janie’s eyes were unfocused, dazed.

“What?”

“All of it. Your dying. The death threat on Cielle. Pete leaving.”

“I’ll make sure Cielle’s safe and you’re safe, too, and then Pete can come back and you and he can work it out, start over.”

“How about you?” she asked. “The ALS?”

He smiled. “That I can’t fix.”

She reached across, slid the Beretta back to him. “I don’t want the gun.”

He made no move toward it. “I know you don’t.”

Her eyes went from the gun to his face. “Will you stay with it?”

He looked down, embarrassed that she’d see what this meant to him. He picked up the gun, tucked it in his jeans again. “I’ll sleep down here on the couch. Keep watch.”

“Talk to your daughter first. She needs you. Whether she knows it or not.” Janie turned to wash out her cup and he looked at her back for a moment before starting for the stairs. Casper rose from his slumber to follow him up.

He confronted Cielle’s bedroom door a moment before tapping. “Honey? It’s me.”

“What do you want?”

“I just want to see your face.”

A long silence. Then she said, “I heard Pete say to Mom, ‘I am not cleaning up his mess again.’ Is that what I was to him? A mess?”

“Oh, honey. No.” He leaned against the closed door. “He was talking about me and what I got us all into. Pete loves you.”

“Then why’d he leave?”

“Because he was scared.”

“I’m scared, too. And I don’t get to leave. Because they’re after me. ” Fear cracked her voice. “I never get a say in anything. Everything’s just you guys making choices and doing things, and then I’m the one who has to live with it all.”

He pressed a hand to the wood. “From here on out, I will tell you everything. Every move, every choice. And you will get a say. Deal?”

“What were you doing at the bank?”

Not a hesitation. The question right there, locked and loaded.

His mouth went dry. How could he tell her something like that?

“You said you’d tell me everything,” Cielle said. “So?”

He struggled to find a point of entry. “Remember how I told you your grandma died?”

Her voice came through the door. “Yeah. Cancer.”

“I never talked to you about what that was like. For me, as a kid. And so … with me now and what I’m looking at … I didn’t want to put you through that.” He took a breath. “That’s why I was on that ledge.”

He waited, palm against the door, listening. Nothing.

Just as he was about to turn away, the knob twisted and the door pulled open a little more than an inch. Her face, red from crying, filled the crack. She looked in his eyes, really looking at him for the first time since he’d come back. Then she nodded and closed the door.

Waking on the well-worn couch to the sight of his favorite potted plant in the corner, the artfully distressed wood of the coffee table, and his dog curled in a spot of light beneath the curtains, Nate felt a momentary peace. Then he sensed the hard metal against his palm. He raised his hand, the pistol he was gripping came clear in the early-morning light, and the whole disastrous situation came flooding back in on him. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes, and Casper padded over to him. He dug his fingers into the dog’s scruff and kissed his head. How he loved the smell of his fur after it had been baking in the sun.

First order of business-Urban’s safe-deposit key, which he dug from his pocket. The number 227 stamped unevenly on the head. He tapped it against his knuckles. Flipped it like a coin. Slid it back into his pocket.

He took his pills at the kitchen sink before walking down the hall to the bathroom. Passing the laundry room, he saw Janie’s kicked-off clothes from last night, her underwear atop the heap. They were her favorite style from the Gap-pink, crosshatched. Not her most alluring pair, but still, the sight of them brought a rush of nostalgia. More times than he could count, he had watched her blow-dry her hair in them, had folded them out of the dryer, had slid them from her body. And now he diverted his gaze and kept on because noting them was somehow inappropriate. The shifting politics of intimacy.

When he returned to the living room, Janie was there, straining to reach above the mantel, the oversize Lakers T-shirt she slept in pulled high to the backs of her thighs. It took a moment for him to realize what she was doing. With a little grunt, she reached the frame and unhooked the portrait of her, Pete, and Cielle from the wall.

She turned, noticing Nate. “I bet this makes you happy.”

“Not today.”

She set the frame on the floor, leaned it against her legs, and stared down at it. “You were always messy. You infuriated me, and then … well, we could make love or fuck sometimes and I woke up mad next to you and woke up ecstatic, but I never woke up”-she searched for the words-“mildly contented. Pete was so safe after you, and kind, but there were times I thought, ‘If I have to drink another glass of Kendall-Fucking-Jackson pinot noir, I’m gonna hang myself with one of his woven silk ties.’”