The List Page 6

  “You wait and see, fools,” Andre says, his hand never slowing, the pencil scratching calmingly against paper. “Mystery Man’s gonna choose me, ’cuz he got some taste. Then I’ll drive a big-ass Cadillac and move to Cali. They got palm trees and shit and blond girls with juicy booties who Rollerblade in bikinis all day long.”

  Evan thinks about Cali and palm trees and Rollerblading blondes, Andre’s fantasy weaving into his until it’s one big tapestry way up out of reach.

  He waits silently until the voices quiet, until the sounds of breathing turn uniform, until the room is still.

  Then he creeps out of bed and down the hall toward the blaring TV. Papa Z is snoring operatically, his last Coors nestled in his crotch. Evan peers at the business card balanced on the arm of the chair next to the remote. At first he does not understand.

  The card is solid black.

  But then a commercial interrupts the Doogie Howser rerun and the changing glow casts the card in a different light. Visible only now, matte black against glossy black, are ten digits. A hidden phone number.

  Leaning for a better angle, hands on his knees, Evan commits it to memory.

  He swivels back toward the hall, his face nearly colliding with Van Sciver’s chest.

  The bigger boy stands perfectly still, arms crossed, blue bandanna perfectly in place. “Don’t even think about it,” he says. His lips move, but his teeth stay clenched, and a snakelike vein swells in the side of his neck.

  Papa Z stirs. “Boys? What’s the problem?”

  Van Sciver offers a wide grin. “No problem at all, sir.”

  * * *

  “Who is this?”

  “Not Charles Van Sciver.”

  “I figured that. What do you want?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Where’d you get this number?”

  “On the card you left.”

  “I told him not to give it to anyone else.”

  “He didn’t. I sneaked a look.”

  Silence. Then, “The park around the block with the outdoor handball courts. Last one on the south side. Behind the wall. Tomorrow at noon.”

  Click.

  * * *

  Evan rounds the handball wall, the weight of the shade falling across him. The Mystery Man is over at the fence, smoking, those slender fingers tangled in the chain-link. He looks up, and his face flickers with disdain. “You?”

  He strolls over. Suddenly Evan is acutely aware of how isolated they are here behind the last court on the south side. They face a glass-strewn alley and a burned building, the one that went down when Jalilah’s nana fell asleep smoking a blunt. The only sign of life is a black sedan parked at the edge of the asphalt plane, angled directly at them. The windows are tinted. All of them, even the windshield. Evan figures it might be the Mystery Man’s car, though no one has ever seen the guy drive.

  Then again, no one has ever seen the Mystery Man this close. Sallow features, wispy hair, face unshaven enough that it seems a statement, not an oversight. He flicks his cigarette butt with a practiced air as he nears Evan.

  Evan feels his heartbeat tick up a notch, his rib cage bump-bump-bumping against his worn-thin T-shirt. In the approaching Ray-Bans, he sees his twinning reflections, small and pathetic. He clears his throat to speak.

  The Mystery Man backhands him.

  Not with full force, but not holding back either. The blow snaps Evan’s head on the stalk of his neck, spins him down onto all fours, a cord of crimson-lined drool connecting his lower lip to the asphalt.

  The voice comes from behind and over him. “Lesson one. Be ready. Now, get the fuck outta here.”

  The static clears from Evan’s vision by degrees. He stands up, wipes his lip. “What’s lesson two?”

  Mystery Man swallows, surprised. He glances over at the dark sedan, and for the first time Evan senses nervousness in his body language. And Evan realizes: The car doesn’t belong to the Mystery Man.

  The Mystery Man hesitates, as if trying to read the dark windshield. Then he shakes his head with disgust. “All right. You want another shot? Tomorrow. Same time, same place.”

  As Evan runs home, the shame burns out of him at last, hot tracks down his face. Van Sciver is waiting in the bedroom and no one else. Word has spread. He holds his belt, looped once, the ends clenched in his wide fist.

  He says, “We never finished that conversation last night.”

  Chapter 4

  Next-Level Deep Shit

  Two weeks later Duran had almost forgotten about the pair of deputy marshals who’d breezed in at the midnight hour and asked him to keep tabs on the owner of that banged-up Bronco. Built dude with the squeaky voice and that woman done to a turn, all long red nails and fluffy hair—it was like he dreamed them up.

  But the call jogged his memory.

  Jake Hargreave phoning up to ask about his truck. He had a husky voice and a shifty temperament, and Duran could understand why he had the Marshals Service on his tail. And yes, he wanted to come now, at half past two in the morning, which seemed a sketchy time for a dude to want to reclaim his ride.

  Duran reviewed the paperwork. “Okay,” he said. “But I don’t see how you’re gonna drive it outta here, condition it’s in.”

  “Why don’t you let me worry about that,” Hargreave said, and cut the line.

  Duran unzipped his pouch—$128.95—and took out that phone number the deputy with the high-pitched voice had scrawled down. Staring at it, he chewed his bottom lip. Something felt wrong. But it felt just as wrong to not call.

  For all Duran knew, Hargreave was a Ten Most Wanted fugitive, and contacting the authorities right now was the only way to stop him from shooting up a mall or Silence of the Lambs–ing some lady in a basement well.

  Plus, the thousand dollars.

  Which was pretty much all that was standing between him and his little girl who was becoming less little his little girl every day his sorry ass couldn’t get his shit together.

  He dialed.

  A woman picked up. “U.S. Marshals Service.” In the background he could hear music playing, Rihanna asking some lucky fool to stand under her umbrella, ella, ella.

  “Hi … uh. I was asked to call this number—”

  Rihanna cut off abruptly. Then the woman said, “Yes, that was us.”

  Now he recognized the voice: Ms. Red.

  It occurred to him that neither of the deputies had given him their names. Looking down at the scrap of paper, he wondered why they hadn’t left an official business card.

  But the conversation was already proceeding without him.

  “Well?” she repeated impatiently.

  “Sorry,” he said. “What?”

  “I said, did the owner of the Bronco call?”

  Duran thought about how the security feeds had gone to static when the deputies made their appearance and then magically restored themselves after they’d exited the yard.

  “Mr. Duran,” she said firmly.

  He felt himself sweating. He hadn’t given her his name. Ms. Red had clearly done some digging in the federal databases.

  “Yeah,” he heard himself saying. “Yeah, he did.”

  “He’s coming in to get it now?”

  “That’s right.”

  The line clicked off.

  Duran stared at his phone, perspiration cooling on the side of his face. He set the phone down on the counter and stared at it. The chill of the yard crept into the kiosk, fogging the window. The November wind kicked up, howling through the hull of a burned-out Mustang.

  From its spot in the nearest row, the Bronco stared back at him.

  He recalled the male deputy’s words: He needs his truck. And we need him.

  Why did Jake Hargreave need his truck?

  Duran got out of the kiosk, stepping onto ground crusted with broken glass. The toe of his sneaker caught a smashed bottle cap, sent it skittering across the asphalt.

  Approaching the truck, he shone his flashlight through the spiderw
ebbed windshield. A scattering of safety glass across the dashboard. A plastic parking permit hooked over the rearview mirror, along with a bouquet of Little Tree air fresheners. A dark smudge on the black webbing of the seat belt—dried blood?

  The driver’s door was caved in, but the rear gave with a creak. Duran searched the backseat, the cargo area, the floorboards—nothing but a few more glass pebbles and a stray quarter. He crawled through to check the glove box. Totally empty.

  Someone had been thorough.

  Duran backed out and squatted, chewing his lip.

  He felt out of alignment, a snow-globe storm of instincts and impressions flurrying inside him, refusing to settle. Every time he reached for a thought, it twirled away, lost to the squall.

  Rising, he cracked his back and decided to patrol the property to clear his head. He passed a motorcycle with a pancaked front wheel that had undoubtedly cost a life or two. He passed a forty of King Cobra, a crumpled paper bag slumped around the bottle’s midsection like a skirt. He passed the hole in the chain-link that the possums were fond of sneaking through, pale vagabonds with marble eyes.

  Behind him the motion-activated light in the kiosk clicked off, bathing the lot in semidarkness. He pulled the company Maglite from his pocket and clicked it on. Weaving through the dark outer edges of the labyrinth, he let the flashlight pick across all those vehicles. Cracked windshields fragmented the beam, sent it kaleidoscoping across the rows of battered cars. Atop the chain-link fence, security cams peered down at intervals, robots noting his progress. The whole scene felt eerie and otherworldly, an urban landscape from a dystopian future.

  He wondered what kind of deputy marshal was up at 2:30 A.M. playing Rihanna.

  No business cards. The woman who’d answered the phone generically, still not giving up a name. The dude with the crazy voice and the crazier suit. Duran had seen plenty of deputy marshals, but never one who dressed like that.

  He finally pinned down the suspicion fluttering beneath all the noise.

  What if they weren’t deputy marshals at all?

  He stopped at the far edge of the lot. Clicked off his flashlight. Stood in the darkness to let the full weight of his misgivings land.

  He cursed himself for not digging deeper before now. Had he not wanted to admit that something felt wrong? After all, they’d offered him a thousand reasons to deceive himself.

  He took the slip of paper from where he’d crammed it in his pocket and stared at the digits. He didn’t want to check. Not at all.

  But he had to.

  He called information, asked to be put through to the Marshals Service office downtown.

  Dispatch answered, a woman with a pack-a-day voice who sounded not entirely awake.

  “Yeah, hi,” he said. “I was given a phone number by a deputy who … uh, might not have been a deputy. If I read it to you, can you tell me if … uh, if it’s real?”

  “I can’t disclose any phone numbers of federal employees,” she said.

  “Right. I get that. I’m giving you a number.” He rattled it off quickly, before she could cut him off. “I just need to know if it’s someone impersonating one of you guys. Before I give up any classified information.”

  She grunted. Said nothing.

  But he could hear the keyboard rattling away.

  In the ensuing pause, a set of headlights swept into the lot way across the maze of wrecked cars, throwing wild shadows over the twisted metal. He couldn’t see the vehicle, not directly, just the refracted beams needling through the gloom.

  He felt his heartbeat kick up a notch, fluttering the side of his neck. The vehicle crept toward the heart of the yard.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but that number isn’t registered to the Service,” the woman said. “And it’s not listed in the database as a personal number for any of our—”

  He hung up. Sucked in a lungful of frigid night air.

  The headlights eased toward the kiosk. Halted. A dinging announced an open door.

  Duran edged out from a row of cars and peered up the makeshift aisle.

  A Prius was parked by the wrecked Bronco. The driver’s door was open, the dome light throwing a globe of yellow. At first Duran didn’t see anyone.

  Then a movement brought his attention to the Bronco. A broad-shouldered guy—Hargreave?—had ducked through the passenger door of the truck and was leaning over the dashboard.

  “Hey!” Duran shouted. “Hey!”

  The guy slid out of the Bronco, took a few steps in front of the Prius, and stood backlit by the headlights’ glow, a perfect black cutout. His hands were at his sides, his head cocked with either curiosity or concern.

  Duran jogged a few steps toward him. “You should get out of here. These guys are after you. They fooled me—I’m sorry, but—”

  The faintest hum reached his ears. About thirty yards away from Hargreave, safely back from the throw of light from the kiosk, Duran halted.

  Hargreave turned, half his silhouette catching the headlights’ blaze, a vertical seam splitting his body.

  The hum grew louder, rising in pitch.

  Hargreave twitched once, violently.

  There was the briefest moment of calm.

  And then a jet spurted from his neck, two feet high.

  It took Duran a moment to assemble what he was seeing, to make the pieces fit.

  Blood.

  Carotid.

  As if Hargreave had been jabbed by a scalpel.

  Except there was no scalpel. And no hand to hold it.

  Hargreave clamped a palm to the side of his neck. His fingers trisecting the jet, three streams spraying through.

  His knees buckled.

  He sagged to the ground.

  He curled up in a loose fetal position. His knees twitched on the asphalt once, twice, and then stilled. A wet circle dilated beneath his head, as mesmerizing as an oil slick. The headlights laid a blanket of light over his hunched form.

  No one had been near him.

  Nothing had touched him.

  There’d been no gunshot, no projectile, no pop of a mini-explosion.

  It was impossible, and yet Duran had seen it with his own eyes.

  He was the only person in the lot. He was the only person on the security footage. Which meant he’d be the only person to blame.

  From the darkness he stared at the limp form, his flesh prickling. It was incredible how quickly a life could be extinguished.

  A jerking inhale shuddered through him. His senses had revved into overdrive. His skin on fire. The breeze chilling the wetness in his eyes. Even at thirty yards, he swore he could smell blood, taste the iron in the air. He pictured the two fake deputies with their well-dressed confidence, how the security monitors had fritzed out in perfect concert, a display of tech genius or dark magic.

  And now Hargreave lay emptied out on the ground thirty yards away, felled by an invisible hand.

  Duran could barely hear the humming over the white-noise rush in his ears, but he sensed it clearly, a vibration in his teeth. It was still present in the air, thrown like a ventriloquist’s voice, hovering over Hargreave’s body, then buzzing around the kiosk. And then, inside, a faint sound amplified between the tight walls.

  Searching.

  Searching for him.

  He took a step forward. Crumpled the piece of paper in his fist, his palm slick with sweat. The next few steps came with excruciating slowness, his wobbling legs threatening to give way. Peering out from behind a dismembered minivan, he gasped in a few breaths. The faint disturbance in the air still seemed to be moving inside the kiosk.

  He sprang forward, darted to the kiosk, and slammed the door closed. Fighting the key from his pocket, he jammed it halfway into the lock, then reared back and kicked the shiny metal head. It snapped off, pinging around in the darkness.

  Already he was running for the perimeter.

  He braced for the sound of the hum pursuing him but heard nothing aside from his breath thundering in his ears.

&n
bsp; Sliding into the rear fence, he skinned his palms, tore the knee of his shitty security slacks. He shoved through the hole the possums used, stray spikes of chain-link gouging his spine.

  Squirming free, he shot a look over his shoulder but could make out nothing more through the diamonds of chain-link than the dark expanse of the lot.

  They’d seen his face.

  They knew his name.

  He was in some next-level deep shit.

  He careened into the nearest alley, his shoulder scraping the rough brick. His mind whirled through options and outcomes. He was starting to grasp just how utterly screwed he was. Tied to a murder. On the run.

  No one to turn to.

  Chapter 5

  A Killing Tool

  Sweat cooling across his bare chest, Evan watched her doze off, running his fingers through her curly hair.

  Lying naked, bathed in the pale blue glow, she looked like a painting. The moonlight spill through the window painted her skin a flawless gold. One leg was drawn to the side, putting her hips on a slight tilt, the tilde of her waist dipping beneath the strokes of her ribs. The sheets gathered around her swirled like cake frosting. Her shoulders bore streaks from where he’d clutched her.

  From this particular angle in the uneven light, with her face turned away, she might have been someone else. For a moment Evan let his eyes feed him the lie.

  Then she lifted her head and nuzzled into his touch, her features coming clear, wide-set eyes, caramel skin, broad ski-jump nose.

  Not Mia Hall, the single-mother district attorney who lived in his building and occupied an outsize space in his thoughts.

  But Jeanette-Marie, a woman he’d met earlier that night at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. She’d been sipping Cîroc, a perfectly acceptable choice of vodka, and when he’d sat next to her and ordered Jewel of Russia Ultra, he’d caught her attention. Like him she was nicely into her thirties, and she had the poise and grace to show for it.

  A grin pulled her mouth to one side. “That was … gymnastic.” She blew a corkscrew sprig of hair out of her eye. “What’s your name again?”