John Connolly - The Reapers

Well, reasonably content.

“For the love of sweet Jesus and His holy divine mother,” said Willie, “cut that out!”

“Cut what out?”

“The singing.”

“Was I singing?”

“Dammit, you know you were singing, if you can call it that. If you’re gonna sing along to something, sing along to the Elegants or the Champs. You don’t even do a bad Kitty Kalen, but not, not Alvin and the goddamned Chipmunks.”

“David Seville,” said Arno.

“Who?”

“That was the Alvin and the Chipmunks guy. David Seville. It was 1958 when he started, except he wasn’t really David Seville, he was Ross Bagdasarian. Armenian, from Fresno.”

“There’s a Fresno in Armenia?”

“What? No, there’s no Fresno in Armenia.” Arno paused. “Not that I know of. No, he was of Armenian descent. His people just ended up in Fresno. Jeez, why is it so hard to talk to you? It’s like dealing with a geriatric.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s because you don’t know anything useful. How come you don’t know anything useful anyway? You got all this stuff in your head-poetry, monster movies, even damned chipmunks-and you still can’t find your way around a Dodge transmission without a map and a bag of supplies.”

“If I’m so bad, how come you ain’t fired me yet?”

“I have fired you. Three times.”

“Yeah, well, how come you let me back again?”

“You work cheap. You’re lousy at what you do, but at least you don’t cost much to keep.”

“Bad food,” said Arno.

“And such small portions,” said Willie, and the two men laughed. The sound was still echoing in the farthest corners of the auto shop when Willie tapped lightly but audibly three times on the side of his work bench, a signal that they had agreed upon as a warning of potential trouble. From the corner of his eye, Willie saw Arno reach for a baseball bat that he had begun to keep close to hand as of that day, but otherwise the little man did not move. Willie shifted his right hand to the front pocket of his capacious overalls, where it gripped a compact Browning.380 that had come from Louis.

Then Arno heard it: two knocks on the door. The auto shop was locked down. Now there was someone outside in the dark, demanding to be let in.

“Shit,” said Arno.

Willie stood. He held the Browning down by his side as he walked to the door and risked a glance through the interior grill and the Plexiglas of the window, trying not to make his head a target, then hit the exterior light.

The man standing outside was alone, and his hands were buried deep in the pockets of his overcoat. Willie couldn’t tell for sure if he was armed. If he was, he wasn’t waving it around.

“Are you Willie Brew?” the man asked.

“That’s me,” said Willie. He had never been much for the “who’s asking” school of greeting and debate.

“I have a message for Louis.”

“I don’t know a Louis.”

The man drew closer to the glass so that he could be certain that Willie would hear what he had to say, then continued as though Willie had never spoken.

“It comes from his guardian angel. Tell him to drop the job and come home, him and his friend. Tell them both to walk away. He asks, you’re to say that Hoyle and Leehagen are intimately acquainted. Are you clear on that?”

And something told Willie that this man was, however confusingly, trying to do Louis a good turn, and to deny any further knowledge of him would not only be fruitless, but might also result in harm to the two men who were, after Arno, closest to Willie.

“If this message is so important, you ought to tell him yourself,” said Willie.

“He’s out of contact,” he said. “Where he is, cells don’t work. If he calls you, pass the message on to him.”

“He won’t call here,” said Willie. “That’s not how he operates.”

“Then he’s not coming back,” said the man.

He turned to walk away. After a second’s hesitation, Willie opened the door and followed him into the night, slipping the gun into the pocket of his overalls. The visitor was approaching the rear passenger-side door of a black Lincoln town car that had been parked out of Willie’s line of sight. As Willie appeared, the driver’s door opened and a man emerged. He didn’t look like any chauffeur that Willie had ever seen. He was young, and neatly dressed in a gray suit, but he had eyes so dead they properly belonged in a jar somewhere. His right hand was hidden behind the door, but Willie knew instinctively that there was a gun in it. He gave silent thanks that he had not walked out of the garage with the little Browning visible. Instead, he held his hands away from his body, as though preparing to hug the man that he was following.

“Hey,” said Willie.

The man stopped, his hand on the handle of the car door.

“Who are you?” asked Willie.

“My name is Milton. Louis will know who I am.”

“That’s no good to me. He’s gone. They’re both gone. Can’t you do something? Can’t you help them?”

“No.”

“I’m not even sure where they are,” said Willie, and he heard the hint of pleading in his voice, of desperation, and felt no shame. Angel had told him a little, but it had meant nothing to him. He was surprised that Angel had chosen to share any details at all with him, but he had been more concerned about returning to his beloved auto shop at the time. All he had was the name of a town upstate. What the hell use was that if they were in trouble? He wasn’t a one-man army. He was just an overweight guy in overalls, with a gun that he didn’t want to use.

But Louis and Angel were important to him. Whatever his fears and reservations, they had saved him, in their way. Willie was under no illusions: when Louis had first approached him, it was not out of altruism. It had suited him to have Willie in the building that he had acquired, for reasons that Willie himself still did not quite understand. Yet, self-interested or not, Louis had permitted Willie to keep doing what he loved. That was a long time ago, and things were different now. They had paid for his birthday party. They had even given him a gift: a Rolex Submariner Oyster, discreetly handed to him after everyone was gone from Nate’s that night. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen that did not have four wheels. Never had he even imagined that he would own something so lovely. He was wearing it now. Only for an instant had he considered putting it in a drawer and saving it for special wear. He didn’t do “special.” If he put it in a drawer, then it would stay there until he died. Better to wear it, and enjoy the fact of it upon his wrist.

He owed these men. He would do whatever he had to in order to help them, even if it meant getting down on his knees in the middle of the street before a stranger and his armed acolyte.

And the visitor relented, if only slightly.

“They’re hunting a man named Arthur Leehagen. He lives upstate in the northern Adirondacks, not far from Massena. Now that you know where they are, what are you going to do about it?”

He opened the door and got into the car, pulling the door closed after him without another word to Willie. All the time, the man with the dead, unblinking eyes kept watch. Only when the rear door was closed, and his charge was safe, did he get into the front seat and drive away.

ONCE AGAIN, THE AUTO shop was locked down. The radio had been silenced, and the lights around the two vehicles upon which Willie and Arno had been working were now extinguished, the cars standing raised in the gloom on their hydraulic lifts like forgotten patients on a pair of operating tables, abandoned by the surgeon for more deserving cases.