Into the Fire(39)

Her eyes dropped to Evan’s exposed sock. Suddenly aware of his bloody, mud-streaked shirt and clawed pants, he realized that she thought he was homeless.

It had been a long two days.

He grimaced, eager to wrap up the mission and get home to a freezing vodka and a hot shower.

“I could let you know first, though,” she said. “Unofficially. If you had somewhere I could reach you by phone…?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Evan said.

He started for the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he hesitated. Turned back. He walked over and rested a palm on the dog’s shoulder above the gash. The dog strained to lick his knuckles, the tape flapping atop his snout.

Evan thought, Goddamn it.

He jotted down an ordinary phone number that forwarded to his RoamZone and left it with the vet.

Stepping outside, he fished the Turing Phone from his pocket and dialed.

Max’s words came at him in a rush. “What happened?”

“The Terror is no longer a threat to you. Neither are any of his men.”

“Seriously?” Max said. “Wow. Just … wow. So it’s over?”

“Looks like it.”

Evan cut through a back lot onto the neighboring block, where he’d left the Chevy Malibu behind a life-insurance shop that advertised in three languages. The asphalt of the parking lot felt cool through his ragged sock. He walked to where he’d parked next to a dumpster in the darkness at the far edge. Broken glass crunched under his boot, prompting him to mind where he set down his other foot.

Max said, “I can go to the cops now, right? Hollywood Station? I can deliver the thumb drive into the right hands like I promised?”

Evan felt an urge rising in his chest—to wrap this up, put the Nowhere Man to bed, and move on with his life the way he hoped Max would move on with his. But the First Commandment reared into his awareness, casting a shadow over his optimism.

“It looks like the problem’s been handled,” Evan said. “But I don’t want to assume anything just yet. Give me a day or two to make sure this thing is tied up neatly before you go in and let the cops take over.”

“Okay,” Max said. “Okay. What do I do then? When this is done?”

“You can start over,” Evan said.

It struck him that he was speaking for himself as much as for Max. This was the first time his own freedom had been aligned with a client’s. When this mission ended, they’d each be able to turn a new page. He had to be certain that his keenness to do so didn’t make him careless.

The insurance shop’s exterior lights were mostly burned out, so Evan had to slow to study the ground for glinting shards.

“I’ve been so focused on surviving I haven’t given much thought to what I’m going back to,” Max said. “Or what I’m not going back to.”

Evan remembered his first time on a shooting range. Jack’s callused grip encasing his twelve-year-old hands, shaping them around the pistol stock, showing him how to aim. What would Evan aim at once he left the Nowhere Man behind?

He kept on across the parking lot, stepping around the shattered brown hull of a forty-ounce. “Maybe it’s time to start.”

Max said, “I still can’t believe it’s really over.”

Neither can I.

Evan signed off and put the phone away. He aimed the key fob at the Chevy Malibu, and the car responded with the double chirp of a mating call. As he reached for the door, the shrill ring of an old-fashioned telephone broke the silence. The sound was so out of place here in the dark parking lot that Evan had to register the vibration in his cargo pocket to realize it was coming from the phone he’d just hung up.

He took the Turing Phone out again. Caller ID showed: UNIDENTIFIED CALLER.

Evan clicked to answer and held the slab of rare metal to his cheek.

“The Merriweather job isn’t done.” The accent was hard to place. Maybe Armenian, maybe Georgian, the consonants slow and the vowels deep, forced through gravel.

Evan paused with his hand hooked under the cold metal of the door handle. He felt his flesh sitting heavy on his bones, the weight of exhaustion. He’d been awake for two days, shot at and chased, tackled and punched, bitten and clawed. He’d wanted the mission to be over, and that wanting had obscured his clarity.

Unidentified Caller was an unknown threat. A moving target. Another mask sliding forward to front a faceless enterprise.

“No,” Evan agreed. “I thought it was. But I guess not yet.”

He could hear the man breathing across the line. “I know what you did, boy. You interceded on his behalf. You put down Terzian and his men.” He sounded older, into his fifties at least. The words held the dead calm of a man accustomed to dealing with challenging circumstances.

Evan did not like the sensation spreading like acid in his stomach. That he’d underestimated the situation. That he was up against something more complex and dangerous than he’d anticipated. That things were about to get a whole lot worse.

“Who are you?” the man asked.

“Don’t worry,” Evan said. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Sooner than you think,” the man said.

Evan pulled the door open slightly, but something in the man’s voice made him hesitate. Picking his way across the glass-strewn lot with his eyes on the ground, Evan had neglected the Third Commandment. He shot a glance over his shoulder, but the dull yellow glow of the shop windows illuminated only a flurry of moths beating themselves against the glass.