Dennis Lehane - Since We Fell

“I’m pretty tired too.”

Another short glance at the bar, followed by a slightly longer one at Rachel. “Of course you are.” Kessler handed Caleb one of his business cards.

“I’ll call you,” Caleb said.

“Yes, you will, Mr. Perloff. Yes, you will. Because, can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“If Brian Delacroix-slash-Alden is as dirty as I think he is?” He leaned into Caleb and spoke in a whisper loud enough for all of them to hear. “Then that means you’re fucking dirty, my man.” He slapped Caleb hard on the shoulder and laughed like they were old friends. “So you stay in plain sight now, hear?”

Officer Mullen jotted in her notepad as they headed for the door. Officer Garza moved her head on a slow swivel, as if everything she saw was transmitted to a central database. Detective Kessler paused at a Rothko reprint Brian had brought with him from his previous apartment. Kessler gave the painting a squint and then a soft smile, looked back at her and raised his eyebrows in approval of her taste. His smile broadened, and, man, she did not like what she saw there.

They let themselves out.

Caleb went straight to the bourbon. “Jesus,” he said. “Jesus.”

“Calm down.”

“We’ve got to run.”

“Are you nuts? You heard what he said.”

“All we’ve got to do is get to the money.”

“What money?”

“ The money.” He drained his glass. “So much money these fucking guys, they’ll never catch us. Get the money, get to the safe house. Jesus. Shit. Fuck.” He opened his mouth to loose another expletive but then closed it. His eyes widened and welled. “Nicole. Not Nicole.”

She watched him. He pressed the heel of his hand to each of his lower eyelids and exhaled through pursed lips.

“Not Nicole,” he said again.

“So you knew her.”

He glared at her. “Of course I did.”

“Who was she?”

“She was...” Another long exhale. “She was my friend. She was a good person. And now she’s...” He shot her another heartless glare. “Fucking Brian. I told him not to wait. I told him you’d either catch up or you wouldn’t. We’d either send for you when it was safe or he’d forget about you.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Me? What were you waiting for me to—?”

The doorbell rang. She looked at the door and noticed Trayvon Kessler’s half-fedora sitting on the chair beside it. She crossed the condo and picked it up. Had it in her hand when she opened the door.

But it wasn’t Detective Kessler on the other side of the threshold.

It was two white men who looked like actuaries or mortgage brokers — middle-aged, bland, forgettable.

Except for the guns in their hands.

Each man held a 9mm Glock in front of his groin, their hands crossed at the wrists, barrels pointed at the ground. If anyone passed in the hall, they’d see only the men, not the guns.

“Mrs. Delacroix?” the one on the left said. “Good to see you. May we come in?” He flicked the gun barrel toward her and she stepped back.

They came into the apartment and shut the door behind them.

Caleb said, “Who the fuck are—?” and then saw the guns.

The shorter of the two, the one who’d spoken, pointed his at Rachel’s chest. The taller one pointed his at Caleb’s head. He used it to gesture toward the dining room table.

“Let’s all have a seat over there,” the shorter one said.

Rachel immediately saw the logic — of all the places in the apartment, the dining area was the farthest from any windows. The only way you could see it from the front door was to enter the apartment, close the door behind you, and then look to your left.

They sat at the table. Rachel placed Detective Kessler’s hat on the table in front of her because she had no idea what else to do with it. Her throat closed up. Fire ants scuttled along her bones and crawled over her scalp.

The shorter man had sad eyes and a sadder comb-over. He was about fifty-five and paunchy. Wore a fraying white polo shirt under a sky-blue Members Only jacket, the kind that had been ubiquitous when Rachel was in grade school but which she hadn’t seen much of since.

His partner was maybe five years younger. He had a full head of gray hair and fashionable gray stubble on his cheeks and chin. He wore a black T-shirt under a black sport coat that was a size too big for him and looked to be cheaply made. The shoulders spiked at the ends from spending too much time on wire hangers and in between the spikes and the corresponding lapels lay a poppy field of dandruff.

Both men gave off a whiff of curdled dreams and dead ambitions. That’s probably how they ended up here, Rachel thought, threatening ordinary citizens with guns. The one in the Members Only jacket, she decided, looked like a Ned. The one with the dandruff she dubbed Lars.

She’d hoped humanizing them would reduce her terror but it actually had the reverse effect, particularly once Ned screwed a silencer onto the muzzle of his Glock and Lars followed suit.

“We,” Ned said, “are pressed for time. So I’m going to ask you both to look after your best interests and not go down the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ route. Fair enough?”

Rachel and Caleb stared at him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes for a moment. “I said, ‘Fair enough?’”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

“Yes,” Caleb said.

Ned looked at Lars and Lars looked at Ned and then they both went back to looking at Rachel and Caleb.

“Rachel,” Ned said. “It is Rachel, right?”

Rachel could hear the tremor in her voice when she answered. “Yes.”

“Rachel,” he said. “Stand up for me.”

“What?”

“Stand up for me, hon. Really. Just right here in front of me.”

She stood and the tremor that had been in her voice found her legs.

Ned’s nose, red-veined and pitted, was eye level with her belly. “Good, good. Stay right there now and don’t move.”

“Okay.”

Ned leaned back in his chair so he could get a clear look at Caleb. “You’re his partner, right?”

Caleb said, “Whose?”

“Ah ah ah.” Ned tapped the butt of the Glock on the table. “What’d we say about that?”

“Oh, Brian,” Caleb said quickly. “Brian’s partner. Yes.”

Ned rolled his eyes at Lars. “‘Oh, Brian.’”

“Oh, that Brian,” Lars said.

Ned gave it a rueful smile. “So, Caleb, where’s the key?”

Caleb said, “What key?”

Ned punched Rachel in the stomach. Punched her so hard she could feel the impression of his knuckles as they burrowed under her windpipe and lifted her off her feet. She landed on the floor and lay there, stripped of oxygen, her insides aflame, her mind filled with black gum, unable to process anything. And once she could process, around the time that the air returned to her lungs, the pain intensified. She ground her head into the floor and made it to her hands and knees. She gasped several times. But the pain was nothing compared to the realization that she was going to die tonight. Not soon. Not someday. Probably in the next five minutes. And definitely tonight.

Ned lifted her to her feet. He grasped her shoulders. He seemed worried she might collapse. “You okay?”

She nodded and for a moment was sure she was going to vomit.

“Say it.” His eyes searched hers. Ned, the Good Samaritan.

“I’m okay.”

“Good.”

She went to sit down but he held her upright.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we may have to go again.”

She couldn’t stop the tears. She tried, she did, but she was overwhelmed by the memory of his knuckles, of the loss of breath, of pain so acute and immediate it short-circuited her ability to think, and, worst of all, the advance knowledge that it was coming, that this sad-eyed man with the comb-over and the concerned voice would hit her again and keep hitting until he got what he wanted or she was dead, whichever came first.