Drawing Dead (46 page)

“Rhino…”

“She's pretty; she's smart; she could have been anything she wanted. But something happened to her when she was…small. I know it.”

“They've probably been…together for years,” Tiger said. “She couldn't tell anyone about him, so maybe she was hoping, if they ever got that ‘specimen' the government wanted, she could tell the G what a mind he had, and they'd step in and pull him out.

“Maybe he was doing all kinds of evil things, but not to
be
evil. You saw what you just wrote, being him. It was like he was stashing money all over the place for
her.
So she could run, like he knew she'd have to, one day. It's insane, but…it's a love story, Rhino—it doesn't have to make sense to anyone but them.”

“Could you…both of you…just take a drive somewhere? Please? I want to be by myself for a little while.”

“We'll go inside the club, honey,” Tiger said. “I've got my phone. Just call when you want us to come back, okay?”

“Thank you,” the behemoth said. And closed his eyes.

“YOU DON'T
think—?”

“Not a chance,” Cross assured her. “Rhino's heart hurts. But he's never gonna leave Princess on his own. You just sit there in that dark little spot you like. I'll have a couple of smokes. It won't be long.

“How do you—?”

“I know
him,
” Cross cut her off. “I've known him since before he was…a person. He may not know why he snatched Princess out of that jungle, but I do.”

“Hey!” a hard-faced woman in a tuxedo suddenly said to Cross. “I think you're in the wrong place, pal.”

“No, he's not, Bella,” Tiger said, leaning forward out of the darkness to face the woman. “Anyone who's with me, how could they be in the wrong place?”

“Oh!” the woman said, startled at the Amazon's appearance. “I didn't see—”

“Ah, that's what we say about
them,
isn't it, girl?”

Bella's face was instantly transformed by her smile. She turned and walked away without another word.

“WHAT'RE
YOU
doing here?”

“Saving your life, fool.”

“I don't need nobody's help.”

“Look, bro: you one seriously mean motorscooter, I give you that. But slick ain't your speed. You left a trail Ray Charles could follow.”

“Not your problem,” Percy assured Ace.

“Yeah, it kinda is. You follow orders, right? Me, I follow obligations. And I got one owed to you. Those two you was chasing down, I wanted them more than you did, trust me on that.”

“Why should I—?”

“Oh, man—that's an expression, not some spy-crap. But try this one on: Those two, Blondie and Wanda, I never met them. But they were the ones who set it up for my wife and my children to die. Just to smoke me out. Smoke out
any
of us.

“So I'm going to make them dead. Or at least
see
them dead. Not about revenge, like you probably thinking. But with you after them, they know you never gonna quit. So until I see bodies, my family can't come back home. To
their
home. Understand? Killing them, it don't mean no more than shoveling the walk and throwing down the rock salt, so my family can get to the door without slipping on the ice.”

“Blondie's done.”

“Heard that. Heard that happen, I'm saying. That fancy machine gun of yours don't make a lot of noise, but down an alley, buildings on both sides, I figured
one
of them was finished.”

“How could you tell which—?”

“—Blondie's probably faster than that bitch. Probably carries, too. But she's smarter. Man like you, you'd always take the harder shot first.”

“Didn't
look
harder. That blond punk took her wrist and spun her into the wall. I'm no sprinter. Figured she'd still be there. But she wasn't.”

“Don't surprise me none. Blondie might hate…some of us, sure. But Wanda, that foul bitch wanted us
all.
Don't know why. Don't care. And once I saw that it was
you
who was moving after them, I knew they couldn't run to the G.

“So, yeah, we teamed up good,” the indigo-black assassin finished. “But that partnership's over now.”

“I didn't ask—”

“Look, chump, you in
way
too deep. Wanda ain't anywhere close to this side of town. It was a smooth trick, but it's already been played. Only thing left to do now is get you the hell out of here. What you think? The G's gonna do some kind of liftoff for you? Or drop in some more ammo for your last stand?”

“I have to—”

“I know,” Ace told Percy, with something almost like sympathy in his deceptively soft brown eyes. “But, like I said, I'm a man who pays his debts. You come with me; I'll get you across. Not just some damn border in this town, get you to O'Hare, okay? You tap your phone, you get a ticket to…wherever, right?”

“I'm not—”

“Man, rest it! You tell the G the job is
done.
We got Wanda hooked, hooked
deep.
All we gotta do is reel her in. Not gonna be long—probably before you even land wherever you're going. But you got to
go,
understand?”

“Wanda—”

“If you gonna say she'd sell everything she knows to the highest bidder, you right. She's not gonna get that chance. I give you my word.”

Percy was as still as a statue for thirty seconds. Then he extended his hand, sealing the last bargain the two men would ever make.

“YOU PROMISED,”
Rhino said.

“Cross wouldn't lie to you,” Princess said, absolutely sure of his own words.

“We got the idea to watch, same way we watch Mural Girl's wall,” Cross said quietly. “Tracker's got an infrared planted. Not as close, but it's got a little zoom to it. We'll see her coming. She'll get down to wherever she thinks that thalidomide man is, and—”

“He's got a
name,
” Rhino interrupted.

“Not one he ever knew,” Cross said. “You want me to call him something else, I will, but it won't make any difference to
him.
Wanda, she has to die. What she wants is not to die
alone.
That's the promise. The promise they made to each other. The promise that's gonna get kept. Once Wanda gets underground, it'll be what
he
wanted. She won't get that far, but she'll get to him. I can't say where, but they'll be together, okay?”

The behemoth nodded.