Evan Arden 05 Irrevocable (23 page)

I start pulling things out of drawers and dumping them out.  I find his wallet and remove the few bills that are inside, not bothering to count the measly take before I toss the wallet on the floor.  It’s a small apartment, and it’s pretty evident that there’s nothing worth stealing.

“Gone all destitute without a little girl to whore out?”

He doesn’t respond.  At this point, he’s just watching me and trying to stay still.  Maybe he thinks I’ll forget that he’s there.  Maybe he’s going into shock from seeing his own blood soak his shirt.

“Part of me wants to know the details,” I say as I sit back in the chair and light up another cigarette.  “I don’t think she’ll ever tell me, but I get that.  There’s plenty of shit I’ll never tell her either.  Sometimes it has to stay buried.  The shrinks tell us we need to talk about all that shit to get it out, but some things are best left untouched.”

“It’s funny that she and I are in each other’s lives, really.”  I’m babbling and I know it.  I’m not even sure why I’m saying all of this except that I know he’ll never have the chance to repeat it.  It’s my own verbal journal, maybe.  I’ve had a couple of counselors who wanted me to write shit down in a journal, but I never did it.  I don’t need a book of memoirs.  “Considering what you did to her, she should be even more screwed up than I am.  At least I was at war with the people who fucked me over.  You were supposed to be the one protecting her.  It’s a wonder she can function at all.”

I get back in his face and tap the edge of the knife against his nose.

“Did you get off on that?  Betraying the girl you should have loved and protected the most?  Did you get off on making her do all that shit?”

He’s completely still, which is a wise decision.

“Are you even sorry about it?”

Again, he is motionless.

“The worst part was in between deployments.”  I sit back in the chair.  “Telling family members that the guys you were supposed to protect weren’t coming home.  Trying to explain that there was nothing you could do to stop what happened.  Then again, maybe you’re more like that woman whose husband was executed right beside me.  She was glad he was gone.  She was happy to get his death benefits and move on with her life.”

I shake my head.

“That’s more fucked up than I’ll ever be.”  I sit back and smoke the rest of the cigarette as Jimmy watches me.  There are tears in his eyes, and I’m glad.  I’m sure he’s only feeling sorry for himself and not the girl he hurt, but at least he’s scared.  “I bet she was scared, too.”

It’s time to end this.

It’s not like the city is going to spend a lot of time or money sending a forensics expert out for a shitbag like James Marino, but I still want to keep things looking like a burglary gone wrong.  It’s the little slip ups that get people thinking something is up, and that can lead to a more thorough investigation.

“Hold your hands up near your face.”  He follows my instructions slowly, but as I approach him with the knife, he starts to panic and grabs for the gag.  I slam the toe of my boot into his shin and tell him to do as he’s told.  Tears flow down his face as he cooperates.

I slash his arms up near his wrists, just below the gloves.  I make nice, defensive-appearing wounds.  He’s trying to scream through the gag now, but it’s pointless.  I kick him again and tell him to shut up.

“You do understand that you are going to die for what you did to her, right?”  I get in his face and stare into his eyes.  “You’re going to die for that.  You deserve a lot worse, but I have to stick with my original plan.”

I haul back and hit him as hard as I can.  I hear his jaw crack with the blow, and my knuckles sting.  I shake my hand out and hit him again.  I doubt he’ll be screaming too much now even without the gag.

I stab him twice in the stomach and let him bleed for a minute.  The wound won’t be fatal unless he lies here a long time, but it’s enough to weaken him.  I’ll have to do a little more damage before I go.  I shove him to the floor and let him lie there.

In the meantime, I turn a few things over and shove anything that seems remotely valuable into my duffel.  I’ll ditch it all when I get back into the city.  There isn’t much to take, so I don’t spend a lot of time at it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Jimmy rolls to his stomach and tries to crawl toward the door.  I walk over unhurriedly and kick him in the belly a couple of times as he howls through the gag.

He doesn’t even try to take it out again.

Rolling him over with my foot, I shove the knife between two ribs and the blood really starts to flow.  It’s still way too good for him.  I watch as he struggles, too weak to roll back over, and his eyes start to glaze over as the dingy area rug soaks up blood.

I sit back in the chair and watch him die.  It’s unfulfilling.

The kitchen sink is full of dishes, but I clean up there anyway, removing all traces of blood from my skin.  Before leaving, I head to the bedroom in the back of the apartment to check for anything else worth stealing.  Any burglar would have gone through the dresser drawers, and I want the cops to just glance over everything, write up their report, and file it under unsolved.  I go through the dresser drawers and find a small handgun.  There aren’t any bullets in it, so it’s not like it would have protected him from much.  Maybe it is just for show.  I pocket it and look over to the nightstand.

There’s a photograph of a woman and a young girl on top of it.  My stomach quivers a little at the sight.

I can’t help it.  I walk over and pick up the photograph.

It’s definitely Alina.  She’s young—maybe six or seven years old—and she’s standing next to a woman with a cigarette dangling from her fingers.  In the background is the Navy Pier Ferris wheel.  The woman next to her is undoubtedly her mother—a very thin and gaunt woman.  Alina is right about her mother being a junkie.  It’s obvious even in the faded photograph.

My curiosity piqued, I open up a couple of drawers just to see if I can find anything else.  When I don’t find much of interest, I check the closets.  On the top shelf of a small bedroom, I find a box without a label on the outside.  I pull it down and open it up.

There’s a doll on the top of it.  One of those Raggedy Ann dolls with button eyes and stringy hair made from red yarn.  It’s pretty filthy but not in an unkempt way.  It’s a well-loved kind of worn.  Beneath the doll are a couple of children’s picture books and a Connect Four game.  There are also a bunch of those plastic figures you find in kids’ meals at fast food places.

At the very bottom, there are more photographs.

“Bingo.”  I glance up and see Ralph sitting on the bed.  I’m a little surprised because I haven’t had an appearance from him in several days.  He also hasn’t spoken to me in weeks, but he must feel this is important.

“Just a little voyeuristic glimpse into the past,” I mumble as I pull out the pictures.  They must have gotten wet at some point because a lot of them are stuck together and tear when I try to pry them apart.

There are only a couple of Alina as a young teenager.  One is obviously a school picture, and her hair is nearly as long as it is now.  I’m surprised to see her in a pair of glasses that don’t quite fit right.  I wonder if she wears contacts now.  I’ve never noticed.

As I start to put everything back in the box, I see a small envelope stuck to the bottom, below where I had found the other pictures.  I take it out, noticing the thickness of the contents, and realize there are more pictures inside.

There are only three, and they are upside down as I remove them.  As I turn them over, I’m fairly sure my eyes nearly bug right out of my head, and I drop down on my ass and stare down at my hands.

I really didn’t expect to find a picture of myself.

I stare in utter disbelief.

The photograph is from when I was stationed in Saudi Arabia, shortly before heading into Afghanistan.  It’s a picture of me and Zach Marshall, my spotter during Desert Shield.  We’re dressed in our combat fatigues, and I’ve got my arm swung over Zach’s shoulder.  There’s a big smile on my face.

I remember the day it was taken.  We were leaving in the morning, and Zach said he needed a good picture to send back to his family.  It was early March, and someone in our unit had just received a big box of Girl Scout cookies in the mail.  I’d just eaten two entire sleeves of the peanut butter ones by myself.  In the picture, Zack’s got a plastic bag of Thin Mints gripped in his hand.

How the hell did this picture end up here?

The other two pictures are solo shots—one of me target shooting while we were still stateside and another of Zach reclining on his bunk.  There’s nothing written on the back of them or on the envelope, and there’s no indication as to how they might have ended up in a box in Alina’s father’s closet.

I have no idea what to think.

Taking the pictures, I shove the box back up in the closet.  There isn’t anything anyone would want in the bedroom, so I don’t bother looking through the rest of it.

I step over Jimmy’s body as I check around to make sure I haven’t left anything important behind like my cigarette butts or gloves.  I’ve collected the zip ties and the knife and removed the gag from his mouth.  There’s no reason to leave it there.  I toss it into a heap of dirty clothes in the bedroom.  I have everything else.

Ralph crouches near the body, apparently checking out my knife work.  He looks up at me as I open the door to the apartment and shakes his head slowly.

“Fuck you,” I mutter as I leave.  “I don’t need your opinion.”

With my duffel swung over my shoulder, I maneuver around in the shadows until I get back to the Volvo.  It’s been a handy thing to keep around, but it’s probably time to get rid of it.  It’s already been involved in two major crimes.  I drive it to the airport and take the ‘L’ back into the city.

I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.  Every few minutes, I sit up and look at the pictures again.  I can’t seem to help the flood of Zach-related memories that flow through my brain.  We’d hit it off instantly.  He was probably the first real friend I ever had.  We spent eight months shoulder to shoulder before he was killed right beside me.

As much as I want to keep what I’ve done from Alina, I can’t let this go.  I need to know why her father would have a picture of me and my dead spotter.  As far as I knew, he only sent those pictures to his family, and he definitely wasn’t related to any Marinos.  I knew his entire life story.  He was from the Chicago area, but the only people back home were his parents and his older brother.

I sleep very little.  As soon as I doze off, I dream of Zach.  When I wake, my chest is tight and my eyes burn.  It’s still early enough that the sun hasn’t appeared, but I get up and shower anyway.

As I make coffee and breakfast for myself, all my thoughts are on those pictures.

Alina isn’t supposed to move in until tomorrow, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to wait.  She gave me her phone number, but I’m hesitant to call.  I don’t want to push her or give her any reason to back out on me.

It would be best to wait until she is actually here with all her things.  That makes it harder to just get up and leave.  As I debate, my phone rings.  I grab it quickly, hoping it’s her, but it’s not—it’s Jonathan.

“Hey brotha,” he says.  “I’m heading to the hospital.  Want to go?”

“Yeah.”  It will be a good distraction from thinking about Alina, but it isn’t going to help with everything else.  I can’t avoid it though.

Jonathan picks me up, and we sit in rush hour traffic with the music from his radio blaring Led Zeppelin.  By the time we get to Rinaldo’s room, visiting hours have already begun.  Lucia and Becca are there, apparently going over some numbers.

“Evan!  I’m glad you’re here.”  Rinaldo sits up a little.  It has been less than a week since his diagnosis, but he still looks weaker to me.  He struggles to get himself upright.  “You should hear all this.”

Becca looks at me coldly.  I have the feeling she doesn’t like sharing information, but she might as well get used to it.  Like it or not, I am going to be the boss after all.

“Go ahead, Becca.”  Rinaldo waves his hand at her to continue.

“As I was saying,”—she glances at me briefly as she sticks a pen behind her ear—“the accounts you pointed out do represent most of the missing funds.  Do you have any idea who has access to them?”

Rinaldo looks at me and Jonathan, and we glance at each other.

“Nothing concrete,” I say.  “The money is being funneled through several countries.  It will take a while to track it down.”

“Well, get on it!”

“Yes, sir.”

Jonathan lets out a breath and starts fiddling with the unlit cigarette in his hand.  Rinaldo looks between the two of us, and I would have kicked Jonathan for being so obvious, but that would make it worse.

“You two going to share?” Rinaldo asks.

I glare at Jonathan, and he shrugs.

“Not yet, sir.”

Rinaldo huffs and lets Becca get back to her numbers.

“It’s a significant amount,” she says, “and it definitely goes back a couple of years.”

“Justin was clearly involved,” I tell her.  “He’s got a brother in the area.  We think he may be involved with the gangs down south.”

“Justin was with us a long time,” Lucia says.  “Why would he have been skimming?”

“Because he liked money,” I say simply.  “He was also an asshole.”

Lucia puts her hand on her hip and eyes me.

“Enough, Evan.”  Rinaldo sounds tired.

“Justin would make sense.”  Becca nods and gathers up her papers.  “I’m going back to the office to see if everything balanced out prior to his involvement.  I’ll report back what I find.”

“Thank you, Becca.”  Rinaldo lies back in the bed and rubs his eyes as Becca leaves.  “How’s the security system at the warehouse?”

“It’s got some issues,” Jonathan says as he looks over at me.  “I’m gettin’ close to figurin’ them out.”

I nod.  We’ll discuss it later.

“It would be nice to know that’s all done,” Rinaldo says with a sigh.  He glances over to a tray of untouched hospital food and rubs his eyes.  “I’m tired, boys.  Let’s continue this conversation tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Evan—one more thing.”  Rinaldo lifts his hand slightly in my direction.  It seems to take a lot of effort.  I gesture to Jonathan with my head, and he waits outside the door as I go to Rinaldo’s side.

“What is it, sir?”

“Lucia.”  He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.  “You need to take care of her.”

I blink, trying to understand just what he means.  That sentence could imply a lot of things.

“In what way?”

“She isn’t going to be happy when this is all over,” he says.  “When I’m gone, she’s going to find out it’s all going to you.”

“Put it in her name,” I tell him.  “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“No, you have to have all the control.”  He turns his head to face me a little better.  “Lucia has to feel like she’s getting her share, and there’s only one way to do that.”

My skin crawls a little as I realize what he means.

“No…Rinaldo, I can’t possibly—”

“You can,” he interrupts.  “It’s the best way.”

“You always said I wasn’t right for her.”  I sit in the rolling chair by the bed and put my face in my hands.  “You can’t believe I’ve changed that much.”

“Maybe not,” he says, “but it will placate her.”

“Placate her by marrying her?  I thought she and Beni—” I stop the sentence, wishing I hadn’t started it.

“Not him.”  Rinaldo furrows his brow.  “You don’t trust him.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then why would I let him near my daughter?  You’ll take care of her.”

“Did you talk to her about this?”

“Not exactly, but I think she knows it’s what I want.”

My head is spinning.  Marry Lucia?  I have a hooker about to move into my apartment.  I just killed her father and found pictures of myself in his possession.  I do not need further complications.

“Does she want it?”

“Ah, Evan.”  Rinaldo smiles and shakes his head at me.  “Don’t you know all the women want you?”

I pull back a little.

“What, sir?”

“Look in the mirror sometime.”  He chuckles softly and keeps shaking his head.  “Go now.  I need some sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

I meet Jonathan in the hall, and we both leave quietly.  I glance at him as we get in the truck, and I know we’re thinking the same thing.

“He’s fading fast,” I say as I buckle up.

“Yeah.”  Jonathan lights a smoke before handing me the pack.  “Not sure how all this is going to play out.”

“He’s leaving it all to me.”

“Are you shitting me?” Jonathan shoves the truck back into park and turns sideways.  “He’s giving it all to you?  Not Beni or Lucia?”

“Lucia can’t handle it.”  I light a cigarette and roll down the window a crack to blow the smoke out.  “Family or not, I don’t think he really trusts Beni to run it right.  He says I’m the only choice.  He wants me to marry Lucia.”

“I don’t know if I should say congrats or condolences.”

“Me either.  I don’t want to run it all, but I can’t exactly refuse his request.  I have no idea what Lucia is going to think.”

“Damn, brotha.”  He whistles long and loud.  “That’s major shit.”

“I’m gonna need you.”  I look at him seriously.  “I don’t trust anyone else but you, not even Lucia.”

“Always, brotha.”  Jonathan nods.

“You found something about the security software, didn’t you?”

“Definitely Beni,” Jonathan replies as he shifts back into gear.  “I had to go through the journaling to find his profile’s footprint, but it’s definitely there.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I trust he understands it.

“So we know Beni mislead you to get you out of the way before the ambush,” I say.  “We also know he’s definitely in business with Joshua and skimming from Rinaldo’s profits.  Joshua was in with Marcello’s gang and probably took our guns.”

“I think there’s another link on the inside,” Jonathan says.

“Who?”

“Don’t know for sure, but there has to be someone.”

“Why do you think?”

“Because Beni’s login was just part of it.”

“What else did you find?”

“There’s not just a backdoor into my app.  There’s also a whole other app collecting information from my data.”

“Where’s it going?”

“A server in the Ukraine.”

“What the fuck?”

“That’s where they keep a lot of hackers these days.”

“What data?”

“All of it, as far as I could tell.  I shut that part down, but I don’t know how much was sent.”

“Stay on that.”

“Will do, boss.”  Jonathan smirks at me.

“Stop that shit.”

“Might as well get used to it.”

Jonathan drops me off, and I immediately grab a beer and chug it.  There is far too much going on in my head, and I need to shut down for a little while before I can start sorting through it.  Mundane tasks work well for that, so I start getting ready for Alina’s arrival.

The landlord came through with my request for a bigger place, and it takes me all of about two hours to move my stuff from one apartment to another.  All I really have are my clothes, guns, and cash.  There’s just enough in the kitchen to make a lame yard sale.

Maybe I should get new dishes.

The new place is definitely roomier.  There are two bedrooms, and they come completely furnished.  I have no idea if Alina will want to move in furniture, but I figured this was best for now.  We can always get a different place if this one doesn’t work out.

“You think she’ll really put up with you long-term?” Ralph asks as I shove some clothes into a drawer.

I don’t respond because I don’t have an answer.  I hope she can put up with me.  I plan to behave the best I can, but that isn’t always good enough.  Hell, I’m not even sure what it means.

After all, why would anyone put up with my shit for an extended period of time?  I’ve been hit on by enough girls to know I’m a decent-looking guy, even without Rinaldo’s comment, and I’ve always kept myself fit, but that only works for a couple of nights.  All a woman has to do is sleep in the same bed with me to know how screwy I am.

Alina has.  She’s seen that side of me.

Seeing it occasionally and seeing it every night are two totally different things, though.  After a week, will she still be all right with me crying in my sleep?  A month?

“Fucking doomed,” I mutter.  Ralph seems to agree.