Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

The pupil flourished.

They never spoke of Dax’s father and uncle formally, but they each mentioned them in passing and never referred to their deaths. Gerry followed the boy’s lead in keeping discussions of them in the present tense, as if they were still there, ghosts in the room, just waiting for the call to summon them back.

And in fact, when Gerry sent for Dax, that was exactly how it felt. As the boy grew, Gerry saw more and more of those two Aussie lads who’d walked so calmly into the room of hardened IRA killers.

Yes, he felt very much like he was calling on a ghost when he sent for Dax Blackwell.

Today the ghost arrived. He entered Gerry’s office in Boston’s North End expecting a paycheck for a completed job, having no clue yet as to the trouble that had occurred. Carlos Ramirez had needed to kill one man and steal one phone. Somehow, Carlos Ramirez had managed to steal the wrong fucking phone. Gerry understood this because the German had told him not to worry about a trace on the phone because it wasn’t active and had no signal. The phones in Gerry’s desk drawer had signals. Both of them had been ringing, and that was a problem. That was, maybe, an enormous problem, as the German was due to arrive by the weekend to pick up something for which he had already paid handsomely but that was not in Gerry’s possession. The German did not travel internationally to pick up things in person that could be mailed unless the items were of the utmost importance. Based on Gerry’s understanding of the German, he felt that this in-person disappointment was not the sort of thing one would want to experience firsthand.

Enter Dax Blackwell.

“The job’s not done,” Gerry told him as soon as the door was closed behind him.

“Not done? Did Carlos walk out of the morgue?” the kid asked as he sat down. Make no mistake, Dax carried his family’s blood. Which was to say that he was empty and cold in all the right ways, but he also carried his father’s smirk and his uncle’s deadpan delivery. Gerry had never been a fan of those qualities.

The only thing Gerry hated more than Dax’s attitude was his wardrobe. Jeans and hoodies, tennis shoes and a baseball cap. Always the fucking baseball cap. Whatever happened to gangsters with class? When did people decide they could come see him without shining their damn shoes, maybe putting on some cuff links?

But Dax wasn’t a gangster, of course. You had to be patient with the young ones. When young shooters became old killers, then you could demand more from them. If they made it that far, they’d probably figured it out on their own. Right now he was an Australian version of what the cartels called a wolf boy — a teenage killer, an apprentice assassin. Wolf boys were valuable in the border towns. Why couldn’t they be useful on a larger scale too?

Dax Blackwell, the Aussie lobo, descendant of ghosts.

“We are missing a phone,” Gerry said, leaning back and propping his feet up on the glass-topped coffee table so the kid could get a good look at his hand-stitched, calfskin Moreschi wingtips. Put style in front of his face, maybe it’d seep through his skull.

“He gave me two. You have them.”

“Neither is right. One is hers, and one is his, but neither one is right.”

“Carlos’s house was clean. So was his bag.”

“What about his pockets?”

The kid looked nonplussed. Dax Blackwell didn’t like to be asked questions for which he didn’t have ready answers.

“Didn’t check,” he said eventually. “I hadn’t been asked to. You told me get two phones; I got two phones. But I also don’t think he’d have kept one unless he knew its value. Did he?”

This was both more attitude and more inquiry than Gerry wanted from the kid, but he wasn’t wrong to ask the question. Carlos had no idea what the phone was worth. Gerry didn’t know anything about the phone other than that he was supposed to hand it to the German.

One thing Gerry had learned over the years was not to ask too many questions about what went on above your pay grade — hell, not to think too many questions about it — and he surely did not want to begin thinking about what the German needed from this cell phone. What he was willing to extend his personal curiosity to, however, was what would happen if he disappointed people above his pay grade, and he didn’t have to work too hard to imagine the outcome.

He needed that phone.

“Police found Carlos’s body,” Gerry said. “If he had the phone, it’ll be in evidence lockup, and I’ll get it. But I don’t think he had it.”

“I don’t either. If he was going to make a mistake like that, he’d have done it a long time ago.”

Again, more confidence than Gerry wanted to hear, more swagger, but also, again, not wrong.

“Probably. Which means it’s missing somewhere between here and there.”

Dax Blackwell thought about this, nodded, and then said, “He needed two phones, so he grabbed Oltamu’s and grabbed the girl’s. Dumb mistake, but that’s probably what he did, and he didn’t pause to check properly, so he missed the third. By the time they’d cleaned the scene and I picked them up by the river, the phone you needed was gone with the cars.”

Now he sounded just like his old man. Jack Blackwell always got right to it, but he never showed impatience, and he never rushed.

“That phone is imperative,” Gerry said. “I need it fast, and Carlos is no longer able to assist.”

“I heard he was... deported, yes.”

Now this was his uncle’s personality, everything about it pure Patrick — no twitch of a smile, and yet you knew he’d amused himself with the comment.

“Unless you want an expedited trip to the same place, spare me the wit,” Gerry said. The kid didn’t so much as blink. Gerry wasn’t sure whether he liked the kid’s response or if it infuriated him. Composure was appropriate. But fearlessness in front of Gerry? Less appropriate.

“I’ll get the phone, then,” Dax said. “You should have just let me take the whole job from the start.”

Gerry looked at him over the gleaming toe of the Moreschis, considered his response, and let silence ride. If it bothered the kid, he didn’t show it.

“It was supposed to look like an accident, and it was time-sensitive,” Dax said. “There were many better ways to do that than what he chose. He brought a brawler’s touch to a finesse job.”

“Just go find that fucking phone, and maybe I’ll have more patience for your input in the future,” Gerry said, frustration getting the better of him now, partly because the kid wasn’t wrong and partly because he didn’t understand one crucial element of the deal — Gerry had spared Dax’s life. The German had been very clear that anyone involved with hitting Oltamu needed to be expendable. Carlos, already a risk to Gerry on other matters, had thus been ideal for the job. But Dax could’ve gone too. Should have, in fact, by the terms of the deal.

But he was too promising.

If I can own one of them, Gerry thought, visions of the Blackwell brothers coming back to him, it will be worth it. If he grows into one of their kind, and he is all mine, loyal to the throne and not just the checkbook, then he will certainly be worth the trouble.

The kid stood without being told they were done. For a moment, Gerry thought about ordering him to sit his ass back down, but what was the point?

“Go on,” he said, and he waved at the door. “Get me the phone. It’s an iPhone, but it has no signal. That’s all I know. If the phone puts out a signal, it’s the wrong one.”

Dax Blackwell didn’t move right away. Instead, he stood there looking at Gerry, and then he said, “The phone is one problem Carlos left behind. There might be another. Do you have an opinion on that yet?”