Losing Lila (11 page)

I nodded. Alex seemed to understand that that was all I could do – that I couldn’t talk about it – because he didn’t ask me anything else. He just pulled me close and kissed the top of my head.

‘You sure know how to treat your mama.’ Mrs Johnson was still ranting at Key. ‘Mrs Williams, she got a plasma television from her boy Marlon Junior. But what do I get? I get a trip to the parts of Mexico City not even the missionaries go to. And it’s after three a.m. Who we going to see at three a.m, I ask you? Ain’t no right-minded, God-fearing folks gonna be awake at this o’clock of the morning.’

‘Mama, I told you, once we’re done here, you’re heading straight to the Hilton in Acapulco. We booked you the nicest room you can imagine, sweet sounds of the ocean just outside, palm trees swaying, beach so white it makes your eyes hurt. You’re gonna love it.’

‘I’m just saying I’m not seeing no palm trees swaying, Joe Junior. Plasma television,’ she muttered under her breath.

Key’s head was thrown back. He was contemplating the roof of the rental car as though he wanted to do it extreme violence. I was wedged next to him, Mrs Johnson on his other side. Alex was driving and Suki was in the passenger seat. The others were in the van in front of us, which had been emptied of its Rachel load. Demos had deposited her in the same apartment as Thomas. I worried about the wisdom of leaving her in Amber’s vicinity, but then I remembered that Amber was blaming Demos and not the Unit for Ryder’s death. And then I remembered that I didn’t care what happened to Rachel and hoped that Amber had a change of heart about who she blamed.

We parked about two blocks down from Carlos’s little hideout. The streets were just as empty as they had been when Alex and I had come here a few nights previously.

‘How did Joe Junior get the nickname Key?’ I asked, making conversation before Mrs Johnson could launch into another tirade or ask about when she was going to be getting to Acapulco.

She turned to me, righting her hat which had slid slightly to the left, before placing both hands on top of her handbag. ‘Well, you see, when he was a boy, Joe Junior knew all these secrets. Things he shouldn’t have been knowing if he had any sense in that head of his. And every time we’d be saying,
That boy he knows all the secrets, it’s like he has the key, like he can unlock the things everyone be hiding away
. So we nicknamed him Key.’ She patted her hair, making sure it was all in place. ‘Course that’s before we knew what Joe Junior could do.’

‘Demos wants to know if we’re ready,’ Suki announced, leaning round to face us.

I glanced towards Alex. He was looking at me in the rear-view mirror. I couldn’t see his mouth, but I knew he was giving his reassuring smile.

‘Has Nate been in?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Suki said, having a silent conversation with Alicia in the van in front of us. ‘Alicia says that Nate counted four of them in there. One big fat one on the door, two others with guns and the Carlos man. I cannot wait to meet him.’

‘Sounds like the same men as before,’ said Alex. ‘Did he check all the rooms?’

Suki paused, running the question in her head and waiting for a reply. ‘Yes, he’s been through the whole building,’ she nodded.

‘Oh, my poor Nate,’ Mrs Johnson exclaimed. ‘I don’t like the way you’re putting him in danger. Why you letting my poor boy go in there all on his own?’

‘He’s fine, Mama.’

‘He is fine, Mrs Johnson,’ Suki said. ‘And look, he’s back from his recce.’ She pointed at Nate who was in the van in front waving out of the back window. ‘He says hello.’

Mrs Johnson started waving back. The car rocked and I ducked as her handbag swung in my direction.

‘I’d rather he was saying hello from the balcony at the Hilton – you understand what I’m saying?’

Alex got out of the car and opened the back door, releasing me from its crush. I clambered out and Alex leaned in past me. ‘You guys stay here until we call you. Lock the doors,’ he said to Suki who looked like she was about to argue with him. ‘Here,’ Alex said, handing a gun to Key, ‘just in case.’

Mrs Johnson’s eyes grew round. ‘Mary mother of Jesus, what you doing with guns? Joe Junior, what kind of trouble you getting yourself mixed up in? And why you dragging your poor old mama into it? Mrs Williams’ boy never goes getting himself into trouble. And if he did, he sho wouldn’t bring his mama into it.’

Alex slammed the door on them and we walked to the corner of the road, hoping Key didn’t turn the gun on his mother before she’d done her sifting business. Demos, Harvey and Alicia fell in behind us.

‘Lock your door,’ I mouthed to Nate as we walked past his van. He looked like a little puppy, waiting for his owners to return.

‘Are they going to be OK out here?’ I asked, looking around at the eerily dark streets.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Alicia said. ‘I can hear if anything goes wrong.’

Two telepaths
, I thought.
Handy
. Like having our very own silent walkie-talkies.

The others fell back as we approached the door.

‘Good luck,’ Alex whispered, before disappearing into the shadows at my side. I heard my footsteps getting louder, my heartbeat pounding like a drum in my ears.

Demos took up a position on the left of the door and nodded at me. I took a breath and knocked. A part of me, the inner voice which had been quiet over the last few days, started screaming at me to run – to run very fast in the opposite direction. But the door opened before I could unglue my feet and obey my survival instinct.

The man who answered was the tank-shaped one. The one I’d thought we’d need a battering ram to get through. Hopefully Demos was just as good. The man squinted at me, then he recognised me and his face contorted in disbelief. He cast his eyes up the street behind me.

‘About that job . . .’ I said before he could notice the car and the van parked there.

He looked back at me, uncertain whether I was insane or if he’d misunderstood my English, but then he grinned a leering kind of grin and called out over his shoulder, something in Spanish I couldn’t understand. He let the door fall open. And Demos stepped right in front of me.

We all strolled in, past the tank one, frozen now mid-leer, and stood in front of the other two who had been caught by Demos mid-step, confused expressions slapped on their faces. Carlos was sitting behind the desk, one hand resting on his gun which was lying flat on the table and the other setting down a shot glass.

Harvey and I went straight for the guns, easing them with glances out of their hands and floating them towards us. Alex walked over and patted the frozen men down, removing three knives and one machete in the process. He threw them into the corner of the room and took the gun I hovered in front of him.

On the table in front of Carlos were stacks and stacks of white bricks wrapped in cellophane. One brick lay slashed open like an upended bag of icing sugar, spilling its powdery contents all around. There was a razor blade and several hundred-dollar bills rolled up next to it. I had seen scenes like this before on
CSI
.

‘We hit the mother lode,’ Demos said with a smile, surveying the room.

Alex grinned back. ‘Easy as stealing candy from a baby. Lila, can you help?’

‘Sure,’ I said, lifting the stacks with just a glance in their direction and depositing them into the bags that Alex was holding open.

‘We need the money too,’ Alex said to Demos.

There was no money in sight, except for the rolled-up dollar bills on the table. ‘Wake him up or whatever it is you do,’ Alex said, nodding at Carlos.

‘Alicia, you ready?’ Demos asked.

‘Yep,’ she nodded.

Carlos blinked at us, his eyes focusing immediately on the gun Alex was pointing at him. He grabbed for his own gun, realised it wasn’t where it should be and frowned. Then he noticed his men were all frozen solid and I watched the panic flare across his face.

‘You,’ he growled at me.

‘Yeah, me,’ I shrugged at him. ‘Hi, we’ve come for all your money and all your drugs. So, tell us where the money is or else this man over here is going to do really bad things to you.’ I pointed at Demos who was busy focusing on the henchmen. This negotiating with a Mafia boss was more fun than I’d expected it to be.

‘Where’s the money?’ Carlos repeated, laughing, banging his hand on the table. ‘You think I’m going to tell you where my money is? Jesus!’ he yelled.

I thought he was swearing. ‘Jesus!’ he yelled again, which was when I realised he wasn’t swearing, he was calling to one of the men behind us whose name must have been Jesus.

‘Your friends can’t hear us,’ Alex answered. Carlos scowled again, confusion in his eyes.

‘It’s in a safe,’ Alicia interrupted. Carlos’s mouth fell open and I caught a glint of gold. He switched his gaze to Alicia.

‘Where’s the safe, Carlos?’ Alex demanded.

‘You think I’m going to tell you?’ Carlos shouted, tipping the contents of his shot glass down his throat. He reached for the bottle and I noticed his hand was shaking.

‘It’s next door. Under the floor,’ Alicia said.

‘Hey, how are you doing that?’ Carlos shouted, leaping from his seat.

‘Uh-uh,’ Demos tutted, freezing him instantly. Carlos blinked, struggling against Demos’s invisible hold. I wanted to stay and watch, but Alex dragged me into the adjoining room.

There was a table in the centre of the room. I shoved it to one side with a flick of my eyes and it slammed into the far wall. The rug beneath lifted up and Alex took hold of an iron ring set into the floor and started to pull. I leaned over his shoulder and helped. The door in the floor flew back revealing a hole, about two metres square. Face-up in the hole sat an old-fashioned bank safe with a combination lock.

‘We need numbers. The code!’ Alex yelled through the open door to Alicia.

‘I’m not telling you anything.
Nada
,’ Carlos spat.

‘You don’t need to tell me anything, I can read your mind,’ I heard Alicia say. ‘5 – 12 – 63 – 18 – 71,’ she called out and Alex spun the dial.

The safe clicked. Alex reached in and pulled it open. It was spectacular. The bricks of money were just there, waiting for us, like gift-wrapped presents in a stocking.

‘Lila?’ I looked up. Alex was nudging me with his eyes.

‘Oh sorry,’ I mumbled, taking off my backpack. We started transferring the contents of the safe into it. The money floated upwards and I stacked it in fat towers inside my bag and, when that was full, I started loading up a duffel bag that Alex had brought with him. He hefted the bags onto his shoulder.

‘Allow me,’ I said, grabbing them out of his hands before he could do anything and whisking them through to the other room. I let them hover in front of Carlos.

‘How are you doing this? Who are you people?’ Carlos asked, his stare turning bug-eyed and a vein starting to pop purple on the side of his temple. ‘You think you’re going to get away with this?’

Alicia looked at Demos, and then at me and Alex, before turning back to Carlos. ‘Yeah, I think so,’ she grinned at him.

‘I know your faces. I know your name,
Lila
. I’m going to hunt you down,’ Carlos hissed. ‘You’re never going to sleep sound again because you know I’m going to be there in your nightmares. And then one day,’ his voice dropped to a whisper, ‘
boof
, I’m going to be there for real. And that day you’re going to wish you’d never been born.’

A hooting laugh interrupted his monologue. It was Demos. ‘You’ve been watching too many
Godfather
movies, my friend,’ he said. Then he leaned in close to Carlos and winked. ‘And besides, you’ve not yet met Mrs Johnson.’

We could hear her long before we could see her.

‘There’d best be twenty-four-hour room service in this hotel, Joe Junior,’ she was saying. ‘And a robe. I want one of those white fluffy bath robes and a jacuzzi too. I bet Oprah got herself one of those—’ She stopped short when she walked into the room.

‘How in the name of Jesus my saviour are you doing that?’ She stared wide-eyed at the scene in front of her.

‘That’s Demos. Like I told you, Mama, he’s got a very special power. He can stop people doing what they want to be doing. Make people do stuff they got more sense not to be doing.’

‘Well, that’s a quite remarkable thing,’ Mrs Johnson said breathily, her hands fluttering.

‘Mrs Johnson,’ Alicia said, ‘I know this is an unusual scene and a strange request, but we’d like you to, um . . . use your power on the people in this room . . . remove every memory they have of us from tonight.’

‘And from before, any memory they might have of Alex or me,’ I butted in.

‘Yes, all the memories they have of Alex and Lila too,’ Alicia agreed.

Mrs Johnson spun on her axis towards me. ‘What’s a little bitty girl like you doing getting yourself mixed up with people like this?’ she said, pointing her handbag in Carlos’s direction and tutting loudly.

‘It’s complicated,’ I offered weakly.

‘Remember I told you a little of what was going on, Mrs Johnson?’ Alicia said sweetly. ‘About how these men were going to help us, in a roundabout way, rescue Lila’s mother and brother from some bad people?’

Mrs Johnson looked a little uncertainly back at Alicia. ‘What? Bad men like this? I know you asked for my help, but these men don’t look like the kind of men I want my Nate getting involved with. What was in those bags I saw floating on out of here?’

‘Nothing to trouble yourself with, Mrs Johnson. Just some stuff we needed to borrow,’ Demos spoke up, his gaze still on the middle distance, as he focused on holding Carlos and his men.

Mrs Johnson wiggled her shoulders, settling her bosom like a ship in a dock, and offered Demos a look that could have given him a run for his money when it came to freezing people. ‘You think I’m stupid, young man?’

‘No, Mrs Johnson,’ Alicia said, shooting a warning glance at Demos. ‘It’s just that we know how much you love Nate and Joe Junior and they speak so highly of you and your ability, and poor Lila over here,’ she pointed at me and I obliged by looking as sweet and innocent as I could, which wasn’t as sweet and innocent as I might have looked a month ago, ‘Lila needs our help.’