How to Disappear(52)

He’s not getting the part.

I say, “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Cool customer.” Crap, this part of the nightmare has a terrible script.

“You’re in my apartment. Your boy has something aimed at me. Do you know who I am?”

I’m trying to sound like a prodigy crime lord, Son of Crime Lord, any heavy-duty thing I can think of.

He laughs at me.

There’s nothing to lose. Something bad is going to happen here. The guy behind me is leaning against the bookshelves (I can hear them creaking), lazy.

I swivel toward him, take the knee without too much trouble, my hand on his wrist, the only challenge how sweat-slick it is. The knife falls against my calf. I kick it to the side, out of reach, the payoff for ten years of martial arts.

The hulk in the chair barks, “Manx! Chill!”

The little sweaty guy is lying on the ground, swearing at me. All I’ve got going for me here is my lineage and a lot of sparring with an Israeli Krav Maga instructor who took me down every single time. I’d rather have metal in my hand.

The guy in the chair raises his eyebrows. “We don’t want trouble from you.”

“You ambush me in my apartment? Seems like trouble.” I’m doing the best possible imitation of my dad, or maybe the Godfather. I hope it’s good enough.

The guy in the chair takes his gun out from under the jacket and lays it across his lap. “Just tell me where she is, and we’ll leave.”

“Where who is?”

This was stupid because, in his line of work, he’s got a temper, and there’s a Beretta in his lap. He puts his hand on the gun and gives me a significant look, exactly like bad TV except for the real possibility of sudden death.

I say, “Okay, sorry. But if I knew where she was, do you think I’d still be here? I’d be at the beach.”

He’s looking me over, trying to decide if he believes me. “You find her, we take her,” he says. “Easy.”

If I say easy, maybe he’ll go away.

He’ll also know I’m blowing smoke.

I shake my head. “That’s not what I heard.”

He half-rises from the chair, his hand suddenly cradling the gun, the barrel and the silencer pointing straight outward. He shakes his head. “I know who you are, kid. Do you know who I am?”

“Karl Yeager’s cousin Bob? Cops who’ve been undercover too long?”

“Watch yourself!” his friend growls from the floor, the terror effect he’s going for undermined by the fact that he’s flat on his ass.

Beretta Man says, “You find her, we get her. Understood?”

I realize they have no idea where Nicolette is.

And, shit, they’re here because I led them here. How else? That was the point of Don’s making me visit him—not him showing off how much power he wielded over me, but Yeager’s guys being able to follow me out of the prison parking lot. And if they found me, they can find her. I’ve led them straight to her.

Now is when I have to do it, now before they find her, now before somebody other than me gets to her, and she and my whole family end up dead. But where? If they followed me back, they had days to do recon at the campsite. I was the hotshot, hiking around memorizing the terrain, and I didn’t notice these two? Or what if it was someone else? What if they tag team? How many people are looking for this girl?

Nicolette, why did you have to do it?

I say, “I can do this myself,” with more bravado than confidence.

“Sure you can,” the guy in the chair sneers as the guy on the floor edges toward his knife. I kick it into the kitchen.

Then there’s the choke hold. It’s not even the big guy, it’s the little guy I put on the floor—the one I thought was harmless. He comes up at me so fast, I’m just standing there, looking stupid. I can’t move, can’t breathe, his arm is pressed around my neck. My field of vision narrows to a speck. If I struggle against it, my windpipe is crushed and I’m dead sooner, and Nicolette is dead too. I hear them. “Arrogant little pissant.” And I’m thinking my last thought: Pissant, are you kidding me? Who says that?

Then my head implodes.





53


Cat


Abandon nice old lady in a house of food she won’t remember to eat, and disappear into the night.

Not exactly.

I tell Mrs. Podolski’s son, Walter, I have a family emergency.

He doesn’t even care.

He says, “She’ll be okay till you get back.”

I can’t tell if he’s stoned. Or a bad person. Or a moron.

I say, “No, she won’t! Seriously? You have to hire somebody else. Do you want her to eat safety pins?”

“She hated those other girls. When do you get back?”

“You have to hire someone right now!”

I clear any number of Sunday School hurdles.

I don’t take Mrs. P’s stash of emergency twenties.

Plus, I feel bad about walking (running) away from J right after I made him all mushy and soft. Which he hates.

Oh God, I like him so much.

Normally, this isn’t when I leave guys. It’s when I peel off my judgment like a pair of used gym socks. Reducing myself to a bundle of impulses, dangerous attraction, and bare feet.