Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 05 - The Devil's Breath (6 page)

Mulberry smiled and leaned across the table toward me. “Sydney, this is going to take time. The wheels of justice are slow.”

I took a bite of my eggs and chewed it, watching a man wearing an American flag bandana, leather mini skirt, and pink boa bike by, a stereo bungie-corded to the back of the bike playing something with a Latin beat.

“Then why did I have to race over here?” I said, turning back to Mulberry. “If this is all going to take so much time, if we have to wait for the actual justice system to grind out a solution, why did I have to drop everything and get on a plane with you?”

“I thought you’d want to be here,” Mulberry said, his brow creasing. “Robert arranged a private jet for you. I was supposed to tell you the night before but…”

He left the sentence open and I felt my face flush as I remember how few words we’d spoken that night.

Mulberry continued, “We got him out on bail only by some kind of miracle.”

I coughed on my coffee. “Miracle? Those seem to show up around Bobby Maxim.”

“That’s why he’s good to have around,” Mulberry said quietly. He picked up his napkin and wiped at his face. “The man is impressed by you. He wants to work with you. He’s the head of the largest and furthest-reaching private investigation firm on the planet. If you don’t want to be a part of something like FGI, what do you want to do?”

I took another bite of my eggs.

Mulberry shrugged. “Seems like there is a little punching-the-gift-horse-in-the-mouth thing going on here.”

“What?” I asked, angry.

“Don’t go all postal on me, Sydney. All I’m saying is you’ve got an unreasonable dislike for the man.”

“He tried to kill me,” I said, slamming my fist down. It hit the spoon in the salsa flipping a couple of chunks onto me. “Crap,” I said and went to grab my napkin, inadvertently dumping the rest of the container onto my lap. “Shit,” I said, jumping up.

The waitress hurried over. “Think you could make more of scene?” Mulberry asked with a sly smile on his face that made my palm itch to wipe it off. I took the extra napkins from the waitress and thanked her. She smiled at Mulberry and I didn’t like the look in her eye.

I sat back down, pushing my eggs around with my fork.

Mulberry leaned across the table to me. “Look, Sydney. All I’m saying is don’t let your personal feelings fuck this up for Hugh.” I felt an
again
at the end of the sentence and resented it.

“I’m having dinner with Robert tonight,” I said. “At his house.”

Mulberry cocked his head. “Really?”

I shrugged. “You said I should give him a chance.”

He frowned but didn’t say anything.

“What?”

Mulberry sat back in his chair. He waved for the check and turned back to me. “I had hoped to take you to dinner. Maybe tomorrow night?”

“Did you just ask me out on a date?” I asked, laughing a little at the end.

Mulberry smiled, his cheeks brightening. Jesus Christ, was he blushing? “Yes,” he answered.

“No!” I blurted out.

“Jeez, Syd,” he said, looking away from me. “That kind of reaction is not good for the ego.” When he turned back to me he was smiling, his eyes bright. He leaned across the table looking down at my stained outfit. “You probably need to go shopping,” he said.

I looked down at the ruined silk top and thought back to the contents of my bag: jogging clothes, a couple of sundresses, a ratty pair of jeans, an extra bra, my leather jacket, a T-shirt with a rip in one armpit, and two white T-shirts, both with stains. I looked down at my one good outfit. The jeans were salvageable. “I wanted to go see
Defry’s
,” I said.

“I’ll drop you there. Lincoln Road is nearby, you can get whatever you need there.”

Blue and I stood in front of the restaurant after Mulberry drove away. It had a green awning with Hugh’s last name,
D
efry
, scrawled across it in white. The space for outdoor seating was empty, a gap in the sidewalk. The windows were dark.

A couple approached, both dressed in beach wear, their skin glistening with sunscreen. They stopped in front of the restaurant a couple of paces from me.

“That was the restaurant from that  show, right?,” said the woman to the man.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“So sad,” she said.

“Do you think it was for ratings?” he asked.

She slapped his arm. “That’s terrible.”

He smiled down at her and they began to walk again. Never glancing at Blue or me, as if we were invisible. I didn’t even want them to consciously not look at me. Just let their brains filter me out. Keep the world the way it was supposed to be. Hugh was the one who told me how to hide. As long as you were something most people didn’t want to see they wouldn’t.

I wondered if Hugh knew that being that unwanted
thing
meant you’d stepped behind a curtain. That you were back there with all of your own kind. That as much as you hid, you were also drawn. Did Hugh know this because he was a killer, too?

Back in New York, when I realized that the bullet I’d just shot thunked into a corpse instead of the living, breathing man who killed my brother, I hardly had time to think. His security burst through the doors and I ran for my life. When I found out it was Bobby Maxim who stole my revenge, I blamed him for everything. The death of my brother, my own failure to avenge him, for the creature I felt myself becoming.

But I didn’t try to kill Bobby. I held back, not wanting to do the exact thing that he expected of me. When Robert offered an end to Joy Humbolt in exchange for tracking down his Mexican friend’s missing daughter I went along, hoping to put my past behind me. But the girl, Ana Maria Hernandez Vargas, turned out to be a manipulative, cold-blooded killer  who screwed me six ways from Sunday. Right as I was exacting my revenge on her, exposing the rat that she was, Robert sent stupid men with lots of guns after me and my friends, including fucking Mulberry. In the end, Robert disposed of Ana Maria more permanently than I planned. He also killed Joy Humbolt.  Her body was found, her case closed, the manhunt ended, and I was free to be Sydney Rye. So, again, I didn’t try to kill him.

But here’s the fucked up thing. While I didn’t kill Bobby Maxim, I killed a shit ton of other people in my time as Sydney Rye. A shit ton of men, to be more specific. Guys who took advantage of their strength and cruelty to subjugate others. But more important than any moral ground I thought I stood on was the hole in the pit of my stomach, the unfulfilled promise that made me want to tear everything apart. Did Hugh have the same hole? No, I thought turning away from the restaurant and heading down the street. Hugh was innocent and I was going to prove it. But first, I needed some clothing.

#

L
incoln Road ran east to west away from the beach toward the bay. It was like an outdoor mall with a wide plaza between the stores where restaurants had seating and street performers entertained for tips. Waiters and waitresses were setting the tables in the center. They hurried from inside the restaurants out into the sun, carrying cutlery wrapped in napkins, plates, and glasses. There were few pedestrians at this hour but the place buzzed with the anticipation of the lunch crowd.

Between the restaurants were clothing and accessories stores, their brightly lit windows filled with proposed outfits. Doors propped open letting the air conditioning float out. Looking at the displays I tried to imagine myself in a pair of straight leg jeans, a button-down shirt, and a fitted blazer but it seemed so wholly ridiculous. Blue and I wandered in and out of the shops, working our way lazily down the street, my mind mulling and turning.

A gold flash flickered at the corner of my eye and I turned to see a darkened store front. Except one of the mannequins was wearing a gold sequined dress that caught the sun in a brilliant display of twinkles. I walked over to it. The dress was strapless and short, not the kind of thing you could bend over in. Too short even for a knife on the inner thigh. But with that much leg you could probably keep a small pistol between…my eyes shifted focus and I saw a group of people standing in the store.

It was dark inside. I flicked my eyes to the closed sign on the front door, then back to the group. Three women, thin, drawn, frightened, dressed provocatively like the mannequins in the window.  And two men, thick brows and flattened noses, short hair, eyes that told me to fuck off. Blue nuzzled my hip. I decided to try the door.

It was mirrored, reflecting the plaza behind me, the growing lunch crowd, a man setting up to play an accordion, the sun a bright globe of light almost at its apex. I tested the handle, pulling slightly, not locked. A small panel listed the store hours. They were supposed to be open.

I was sure the group inside could see me.  So I yanked hard, jumping out of the way . The sun shot through in a blinding ray. I stepped into the beam, backlit. The men squinted at me, their pupils little pin pricks. The women shielded their eyes, holding up forearms against the light. There were finger bruises on the pale flesh of one girl. Ligature marks, fading but still visible, on the wrists of the other two. Blue’s and my shadow stopped five feet in front of the cluster.

“We’re closed,” the bigger of the two men yelled, his accent Slavic. He was a little closer to me, to the left of the girls who stood between the men. He wore a pair of jeans with an Eastern European cut and faux wear on the knees and thighs. The smaller guy was balding, his head shaved. He wore a tight black T-shirt that showed off a defined chest and strong shoulders. Tattoos started at his wrists and wound up his arms, Cyrillic lettering interspersed with swastikas was the theme. Oh, and titties.

When I didn’t respond to the big guy’s question the smaller one smirked. “Vhat are you, blind and deaf?” he asked, his accent thicker. It took me a second to realize he thought I was blind and that Blue was my seeing eye dog.

The door began to swing shut behind me, sweeping darkness across the floor. It closed with a soft click.

“Get out,” the big one told me again. He was starting to look angry, his shoulders bunching up, making his neck look comically short.

“Do you speak English?” I asked the women. The one with the forearm bruises understood me, I could see it in her eyes. But she didn’t answer.

“You go now, we are closed,” the big one said.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

He started toward me. The woman licked her lips and then pulled the bottom one between her teeth, biting down on it. She had big brown eyes and stringy blonde hair that hung down to her bony shoulders. She was wearing a bright blue dress. Its rich color made her pale skin look gray. The smaller man reached out and grabbed her bicep, shaking her hard. She winced and lowered her eyes to the ground, teetering on high heels.

Blue growled and raised his hackles. The big man’s approach stuttered but didn’t stop. He reached out, as if to take my left arm. Blue’s growl grew louder. The man’s fingers touched my skin. I squatted low twisting my body away from him and fisting my right hand. Blue barked, high pitched and grating, throwing the big guy off as much as my quick movement. Pushing into the ground, I rocketed my body up, extending my right arm while keeping a slight bend in the elbow, and plowed into the guy’s chin.

He stumbled back, his neck exposed. Pivoting fast I drove my left fist into his throat. His hands flew up, clutching at his neck. The man’s feet lost contact with the ground, his knees buckled, and he landed on his ass hard enough that I felt it through the floor. Staring up at me with bulging eyes he coughed on a breath. Wheezed and coughed again.

I looked up and the smaller man was struggling to pull a gun out of his pants while still clutching onto the girl. She was shaking violently and pulling away from him, the whites of her eyes visible in her panic. The sight of his pistol had snagged in his pants and all he needed to do was let go of the girl and free it, but he was too shocked, his body wouldn’t let him release her. And that was going to cost him.

Blue leapt forward, placing his front paws on the big guy’s shoulders, knocking him flat on his back. I knew he’d placed his teeth against the man’s already bruised throat but I didn’t wait to watch. I ran as fast as I could toward the guy with the grip. His eyes widened in the moment it took me to close the space between us and his gun arm pulled harder.

Pivoting sideways I used my momentum to jam my elbow into his solar plexus, keeping it there as he bent around my arm, his face almost touching my shoulder. He let go of the girl and she fell back with a small cry. Straightening my arm, I reached down and wrapped my hand around his, sneaking my finger in front of his and over the trigger. With my free hand I grabbed him behind the neck. He went very still. Our faces were a breath away from each other, his chin pressed on the back of my bicep, body curled around the gun aimed at his junk.

Sweat poured down his brow and his mouth was open, sucking in air. The man’s heartbeat thumped in his chest and I could feel it against my arm. He was very much alive and knew that could be extremely temporary.

Blue’s low growl permeated the air and I could hear the big man’s wheezing breaths. Quieter still was the soft mews of the women, they were good at crying silently. “I know you can understand me,” I said to the woman, while keeping my eyes on the man.

Her friends had helped her up and now they stood together, a tight huddle, backs against the wall, the one in blue slightly in front of the other two. Their long exposed legs teetering on high heels made them look like a tightly knit group of trees shaking in the wind.

“We’ve got a situation here,” I said to the man. He blinked. “What do you suggest we do?”

His brow furrowed slightly, his breath was returning to normal. “Let go?” When he spoke his chin pressed deeper into my muscle.

I smiled. “Unbutton your pants.”

“Fuck off,” he said.

“Should I have my dog kill your friend?”

His mouth twitched up, he was feeling a little confident that his dick might make it through. For all I knew the safety was on. For all I knew, if I pressed his finger harder, nothing would happen. But as soon as I applied pressure his mouth puckered and he twitched his hip back. “Unbutton your pants.”