Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

“We’d better show ourselves,” Veronica said, “before someone gets shot.”

She reached down and took Evan’s hand. Stepping forward, she ushered them into the faint light of an antique lamppost.

Releasing his hand, she waved an arm. “Over here!”

The man zeroed in on them, melting from the mist, leading with his gun muzzle. Military bearing, pressed police uniform, requisite mustache.

Broken English. “Ms. Veronica, are you all right?”

“Of course. Matías is overreacting as usual.”

The barrel swung over, aimed at Evan’s center mass. It jerked upward twice. “Manos. Manos.”

Evan showed his palms, a nice excuse to raise them into an approximation of an open-hand guard.

“This really isn’t necessary,” Veronica said.

The policeman’s gaze shifted to her and then back to the space where Evan had just been. Evan was behind the man now. Controlling the cop’s gun hand from behind, Evan palmed his left ear and knocked his head gently against the lamppost.

He crumpled.

Evan turned to Veronica. If she was shocked, she covered it well.

He’d give her this: She was quick to acclimate. It struck him that he owed some of his own disposition to her. How novel to consider that parts of him had been inherited in the twisted ladders of his DNA. The thought undressed him, peeling away a lifetime’s worth of armor he hadn’t known he’d been wearing.

He walked out. She scurried to keep at his side.

They exited the gates into the embrace of a semicircle of police vehicles, headlights aimed at them like cannons. The mist thickened, swirling like white dust in the beams, flowing over the shoulders of the men. The air tasted of rain.

Evan looked down the bores of countless guns.

The stakes were real once again. If he were caught, his informal presidential pardon would be voided, which meant he would spend the rest of his life consigned to a dank cell in some rendition-friendly country. Or put down in a quiet field somewhere, his flesh burned, his bones powdered and spread to the wind.

He settled himself and started forward.

One man stood apart and slightly ahead of the phalanx, his uniform advertising him as the deputy commissioner. Leaving Veronica behind, Evan strode up to him, keeping his hands in sight. The fog swelled, cutting visibility even more. By the time Evan reached him, only the deputy commissioner and nearest two policemen were in view. All three aiming at him from close quarters.

“Look,” Evan said. “I don’t want to injure anyone and start an international incident. What do you say we just part ways amicably?”

The deputy commissioner’s mouth twitched as if he’d tasted something and found it not to his liking. “Handcuff this man,” he said. “We will deal with him in interrogation.”

12People Skills

One of the cops stepped behind Evan to cuff him, and Evan allowed it. As he was steered to the nearest police car, he stumbled, brushing against the guy. He was deposited roughly into the backseat. As the door swung shut, he slung the seat belt aside, flopping it out. The vinyl strap caught in the frame when the door slammed, wedged beneath the latch.

Mist rolled across the vehicle with car-wash intensity. The car might as well have been underwater.

The commotion of excited voices escalated outside, arguing in Spanish. Then a voice cut above the others. “¿Dónde están mis pinche llaves?”

By then Evan had used the key to unlock his cuffs. There was no inside handle, so he shouldered into the door, and it unstuck from the jammed seat belt with a soft click.

He fell outside, rolled under the car, and flattened against the asphalt.

Then he waited.

A few seconds later, the expected outcry arose. Various department-issue shoes shuffled into view, a colorful bouquet of Spanish curse words issuing from above. Then there was running and more swearing, which quickly gave way to recriminations.

Evan relaxed, pressed one cheek to the cool ground, watched wisps of mist furl and unfurl in his slivered view. At one point the exasperated deputy commissioner passed into sight, close enough for Evan to catch a whiff of his spicy cologne. One flap of his blue uniform shirt was untucked, the back spotted with sweat, and his inexplicably brown socks sagged down by the polished black leather of his boots. Someone was screaming at him through his radio. He vanished back into the mist, his head ducked with defeat.

At long last, cars started up around Evan and tires peeled off into the night. The vehicle above him erupted as the engine turned over, laying a soothing blanket of warmth across his shoulders. It pulled forward and drove off, leaving him alone lying in the middle of the park.

He stood and brushed off his knees. The branches of the Gomero de la Recoleta ranged and twisted overhead, cloaked in mist like the cobweb-draped arms of a skeleton.

It was mostly silent, just the gentle whoosh of the wind and the sound of a couple bickering in Spanish somewhere in the soupy air. He recognized the calmer of the two voices.

He strolled over, their words coming clear. Veronica had switched to English. “—your jealousy isn’t nearly as charming as you think it is.”

Evan walked up to where they sat on a low bench near the base of the behemoth tree. The man at her side was exceedingly handsome, late fifties, a curl of thick black hair laid across his forehead with timeless matinee-idol aplomb. He rose abruptly. His posture, ramrod-straight, compensated for the fact that he was not as tall as he seemed to think he was.

“This is him?” he said, showing his teeth. “This is the puta madre who injured my men?” He stepped toward Evan. “Give me one reason not to have you thrown in prison and leave you to rot.”

Veronica rose and rested a hand on the ledge of Matías’s shoulder. “You’ll have to forgive him, Evan,” she said. “He’s been working on his people skills for years, and he’s gotten them to the point where they’re merely terrible.”

Matías took out his phone, dialed, and pressed it to his cheek.

Veronica said, “Hang up the phone.”

His dark eyes swiveled over to her. “Or what?”

“Or you’ll never see me again.”

His jaw clenched, bone rising at the hinges. Through the line a voice said, “¿Hola? ¿Hola?”

Matías took a breath, then said into the phone, “Perdón. Estaba tratando de llamar a Francine.” He hung up and clenched his mouth with irritation.

Veronica said, “Evan, this is Chancellor Matías Quiroga. Matías, this is my … friend, Evan.”

Matías glared at Evan.

“He’s a former fútbol star,” she told Evan. “You know how they get.”

“No,” Evan said. “Not really.”

She turned to Matías. “Give us a minute.”

“I am not leaving you alone with this man.”

“I’m not asking,” she said, giving him a nudge to get him moving.

Matías strode a few paces off, lit a cigarette, and glowered over at them. She flicked her hand at him, and he ambled a few steps farther away.

Evan said, “Are you always like this?”

“No, dear,” she said. “Sometimes I’m assertive.”

“You two fight a lot?”

“ He does. I don’t show up to every argument.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Argentina?” She sighed. “I’m here on a lark.” She shot a glance at Matías, who was locked onto them and smoking aggressively. “I bore easily.”

“Who do you need me to help?”

She lowered her voice. “His name is Andrew Duran. You’ll have to find him.”

“Who is he to you?”

“I made a promise to someone, his mother, to look after him if anything ever—”