Emily St. John Mandel - The Singer's Gun

“You know him well?”

“Waker? No, I barely know him at all. We’ve said hello once or twice.”

“Did he mention when he was checking out?”

And the fear crashed down upon him again. “I only know him to say hello in the hallway,” he said. “We’ve never really talked.” His legs trembled a little under the table, but his hands were still.

Ali nodded. The others looked at him steadily. Anton feigned a yawn.

“Forgive me,” he said, “it’s been a long day. If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll retire for the evening. Thank you again for the wine.”

“Don’t mention it,” Claro said. “Would you ask Waker to come downstairs?”

“I will. Goodnight.” Anton heard them speaking in some other language as he moved away along the corridor and neared the foot of the stairs. He knew it wasn’t Italian, but he couldn’t otherwise identify it. It wasn’t quite Russian. David was standing at the top of the stairs; Anton motioned him to be still. He walked up the stairs and moved past David, knocked loudly on the door of David’s empty room, opened and closed the door, and then took off his shoes and tiptoed in his socks back to where David stood.

“Listen,” Anton whispered, “I think this is different from what I thought it was.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it’s more dangerous than I thought.”

David shrugged. “I’ll be fine,” he whispered. “Although I wish I had a gun.”

“What?”

“I always carried one when I was dealing coke. Never fired it, I just liked to have it in my pocket. Go get the package.”

Anton opened the door to his room and closed it behind him. Elena had dozed off with the bedside lamp on, and she was improbably lovely in the yellow light. Jim was curled up close against her side. She awoke with a start and sat up blinking.

“What time is it?”

“Ten fifteen. Shh. Go back to sleep.”

But she was wide-awake now, watching him. He was on his hands and knees, fumbling under the wardrobe. His fingers touched the edge of the FedEx envelope.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a stage whisper. “What’s going on?”

“It’s happening,” Anton murmured. He pressed a finger to his lips.

“That transaction you were telling me about?”

“I don’t want them to hear your voice. Will you lock the door behind me and turn out the light?”

She nodded and he slipped back out into the hall. The door locked behind him with a sharp click ; Anton winced at the sound and the light under the door blinked out. David stood motionless at the top of the stairs.

“Just go down there and say you’re Anton Waker. When they ask, you have a package for them.”

“Anton Waker.” David’s eyes were alight. Almost any adventure is better than limbo. “You’re seriously paying me five hundred euros for this?”

“When this is over,” Anton said, “I just want a different life. It’s worth five hundred euros to me.”

“Fair enough.”

“They might bring up my cousin,” Anton said softly. “Her name’s Aria. Aria Waker. She’s the one who’s orchestrating this thing.”

“Aria Waker,” David whispered. “I’ll remember.”

Anton opened his wallet, counted out five one-hundred-euro bills and gave them to David, who fanned them out to examine them and smiled before he stuffed them in his pocket. Anton gave David the FedEx envelope with the passports and David started down the stairs.

“Wait,” Anton whispered. He whispered into the keyhole, “Elena, open up,” and she unlocked the door instantly. He slipped back into the room and removed the singer’s gun from the top dresser drawer. Elena drew in her breath when she saw it glint in the moonlight — he ignored her — and back out in the hallway he pressed the gun into David’s hand. “Here,” he said. “Just don’t fire it, okay?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” David whispered. “Thank you.” He was putting the gun in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Are these guys that dangerous?”

“I assume so, frankly.”

“Hey,” David said, “at least you’re honest.”

“Thank you. I’m trying.”

David Grissom descended the stairs.

At the top of the staircase there was nothing to do but wait. In the locked room behind him Elena was silent. He heard Jim’s movements — a jump from the bed to the dresser and then from the dresser to the floor, soft thudding landings — and willed the cat to be still. He heard the voices down in the restaurant, indistinct from here, the murmured greetings — he heard his own name — and then a period of conversation that he couldn’t quite make out. He crouched low in the shadows, straining to hear. Time was passing very slowly. There was time to take in every detail around him: the shadows of the banisters, the gritty texture of the hallway linoleum under his hand. It began to seem that it was taking too long. He glanced at his watch and fifteen minutes had passed. And then chairs scraping back, and a sound — something small and hard had fallen to the floor. And then, quite clearly, “You came armed, Mr. Waker?”—but as hard as he tried, he could understand nothing else, until finally, “. . a walk on the beach?” and he heard David’s voice, nervous now—“At night?”

The voices were becoming clearer; the group was moving toward the foot of the stairs, toward the door. There were footsteps, a muted “No please — after you,” the door of the hotel opened and closed. The building was silent. Anton knocked softly on the door to his own room, where Elena was waiting.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

“They took him outside.” Anton closed the door behind him. The moonlight through the sliding glass doors was brilliant. He could see Elena clearly but he couldn’t meet her eyes. She sat cross-legged on the bed, watching him. Anton went to the balcony door and waited with his forehead almost against the glass, until the men came into view on the strip of beach that connected Ischia to the islet. As silently as possible Anton slid open the glass door a few inches, and the room was filled with the sounds of ocean and wind. The men were walking in a tight group, dark receding figures on the sand, and he couldn’t tell which one was David. On the other end of the beach they stopped. There seemed to be some discussion; after a moment they started up the path that curved around the edge of the hill, dim shadows in the moonlight until they disappeared from sight. Anton waited.

Inside the room they were perfectly still. Jim was sitting on the bedside table now, regarding him seriously with one shining eye. Elena sat on the bed and Anton stood by the sliding glass door straining to catch some glimpse of movement in the darkness of the islet. He kept glancing at the bedside clock. Five minutes passed, then ten. Long silence and then a sharp bright sound, a ripple over the surface of the night gone so fast that he thought at first he might have imagined it — If I turn and Elena’s face registers nothing, then I did imagine it and the gun didn’t really go off — but when he looked over his shoulder Elena had pressed the palm of her hand to her mouth and there were tears on her face. The sound was repeated once, twice. Three bullets; she was shaking; she was going to scream.

“Don’t make a sound,” he said.

Elena stared at him for a moment and then went into the bathroom. The light flicked on under the door and he heard water running. He closed the sliding glass door but left the wooden shutters open a few inches, watching through the crack.

Some time passed before he saw them again. A group of figures, four now instead of five, making their way over the hillside. They came back over the strip of beach toward the pink hotel and he stopped breathing when they came close to the building, but no one entered. There were soft voices and footsteps on the cobblestones outside the hotel door. Someone laughed. He stood frozen by the door of the room, but he could hear almost nothing — an impression of voices, of departing footsteps — and a long time later a car started up on the road beyond the edge of Sant’Angelo and receded.