Nameless Night (23 page)

The sound of Acey descending the stairs forced him to get a grip on himself. He tore the shower curtain from the rod and patted it down around her body, straightened up and pulled the string, sending the bathroom into darkness before stepping outside and closing the door.

Acey appeared at his side. “She ain’t there,” he said. “Maybe she . . .” He reached for the bathroom door. Randy grabbed his wrist. He shook his head.

“No,” he said.

Acey read his eyes. He sobbed and tried to push his way past Randy, who held him at a distance. “No,” he said again.

“Why you got to—” “She’s not coming back.”

Acey scowled.

“Not now. Not ever,” Randy said.

Acey shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Part of him knew what Randy was saying. Another part didn’t want to believe it. Tears rolled down his smooth cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak and then started bawling. That’s when the place lit up. Headlights bounced to a halt outside the house, sending shafts of light here and there through rotten curtains, through every crack and cranny in the walls, creating a surreal world of light and shadows within the interior. A movement to his right pulled Randy’s eyes toward the back door. He watched the black guy in the parachute pants snap the curved clip into place with a wicked snick. The shape was all he needed to see. AK-47. The guy pulled back the bolt and leveled the weapon at the back door. Randy was off and running. He snatched Acey off his feet and made a dash for the bathroom. The first volley of automatic fire tore through the house just as Randy flopped into the bathtub on his back, clutching Acey to his chest. He pulled the boy’s head to his chest and closed his eyes. Wasn’t until the first brief break in the gunfire that Randy remembered the corpse beneath him. The skeleton popped and cracked as it absorbed their collective weight. His stomach heaved as the slippery corpse tried to slide up the side of the tub, like it wanted to be on top. Randy rearranged his limbs so that wasn’t going to happen and pulled the boy closer. A couple of her ribs cracked from their combined weight. Mercifully, the shooting began anew as another gun, being fired at right angles to the first, opened up and began to spit ammo through the walls. And then both guns at once, filling the air with the buzz of superheated metal, as the house first began to shake and then began to crumble from the fearsome onslaught of the cross fire.

Parts of the ceiling fell onto the backs of Randy’s hands. Somewhere in the house a slug had cut through a water pipe. The sound of rushing water mixed with the pop of an exposed electrical wire. Then the toilet exploded and the sound of rushing water got louder in the seconds before the big cast iron tub began to vibrate from the volley of slugs tearing through the walls and clanking against its formidable sides, the power of the metal hitting metal pressing Acey and Randy deeper into the tub, setting them to using their hands to cover their heads and shield their ears from the terrible hail of gunfire and the rain of debris falling from above, shards of wood and Sheetrock, bits of wire and glass and a veritable snowstorm of yellow fiberglass insulation filling the air inside the room like a blizzard. The firing went on and on. Acey held on tight. And then . . . just as it seemed the roaring of gunfire might never end . . . it did. The car lights wavered and then bounced a couple of times before disappearing altogether.

They stayed put. Breathing. Waiting. Just in case. Randy could feel the boy weeping. He hugged him tighter and stayed where he was.

“You okay?” he asked.

Acey said something but Randy’s ears were still full of the sound of slugs hitting the bathtub. “What?”

Acey said something else but Randy couldn’t hear that either. Randy lifted the boy high enough to clear the rim. Acey set his feet carefully amid the debris. Randy climbed out and stood beside him on the littered floor. He kept his body between the boy and the bathtub and looked around. The place was shot to pieces. Major portions of the ceiling had fallen. Sparks cascaded like fireworks in the kitchen where the overhead light fixture had been completely destroyed. Randy pushed the boy out into the hall and eased the door closed behind himself.

“Let’s get out of here,” Randy said.

Acey reached up and took his hand. Together, they kicked their way through the debris covering the floor, out through the flooded kitchen to what remained of the back porch, where the roof had partially collapsed, forcing them to veer left toward the tracks or walk into a faceful of nails.

The cool morning air washed over Randy like a wave. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and came away with a wristful of sludge. The sight of Acey nearly caused him to laugh. The kid’s head was covered with bits of insulation and Sheetrock. He tousled the boy’s hair but not much of the stuff came out. A train whistle sounded again, much closer this time. Two different car alarms were going off, and in the distance, the whoop whoop of a siren seemed to be moving closer. Randy looked up.

The car and the train were moving in opposite directions. Acey and Randy stood stupefied as the train came roaring toward them, its great single light sweeping the track in front of the engine. The red brake lights of the car flickered and then showed themselves for real. The car stopped.

“We gotta get the fuck outta here,” Acey said. He pointed after the car. “Ain’t no way out down there. They gonna have to come back.”

He was right. The car containing the gunmen had come to a stop and was in the process of turning around. The train came chugging past the headlights when the car was partially through the U-turn. A shout from the car floated their way. They’d been spotted. Randy grabbed the kid’s arm. “Let’s go,” he yelled above the deep throbbing of the engine. They took off together, running hard toward the tracks.

Instinctively Randy turned his head toward the lights. The train was gathering speed. The car was bouncing at them with somebody hanging out the window. Wasn’t until he saw the yellow flame of the muzzle flash that Randy realized somebody in the car was shooting at them. A slug buzzed by so close, he checked himself for blood. Randy turned and scooped the boy into his arms, then turned again and ran for the tracks, ran for the patch of white light moving along in front of the engine. The engineer must have seen them coming. He tooted his horn twice and then repeated the warning as Randy approached the tracks, his legs burning from the strain of the boy’s weight, his ankles threatening to roll over as his boots met the two-inch gravel and then one final lunge, stepping over the nearest track, so close to the front of the engine he could smell the grease, then getting a foot down between rails, before catching his heel on the far track, sending the two of them rolling head over heels down the far side of the grade. Randy groaned at impact and rolled over onto his back.

Acey got himself together first. He had Randy by the elbow, pulling him to his feet, “Come on, dog. Come on,” he was panting. Randy followed the boy’s prompting and struggled to his feet. His head throbbed so hard he could barely see. His left arm, where he’d landed on the rough gravel, hung nearly useless at his side. The Mercedes was fifty yards away. They shuffled that way together. As they approached the car, Randy shot a glance back over his shoulder. Acey had been right. The train went on forever. He threw himself into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“Go, dog, go,” Acey chanted.

30

The Four Seasons Hotel offers two seating choices for lunch. For those of a romantic nature, the Pool Room offers a gurgling marble pool surrounded by a veritable forest of lighted trees, a nearly perfect setting for amour, improved only by the impeccable yet unobtrusive service. For those engaged in those more practical and power-oriented pursuits for which the hotel has become so justly famous, the Grill Room’s legendary rosewood walls and soaring ceilings have beckoned moguls and machers for nearly a half century. More than sirloins had been devoured within its hallowed confines.

Every afternoon, the restaurant’s gleaming brass door on East Fifty-second Street develops what owner Armond Arabelles likes to call “a little limousine problem” as CEOs, managing partners, and all manner of political movers and shakers sit quietly and look out the windows as their drivers jockey through two blocks of “limo  lock.” Walk-ins are politely sent on their way. Regulars have their bills sent to the office.

“I’m going to list this lunch prominently in my expense column,” Jacobson said.

“Old friends catching up.”

“Why not? I don’t get to New York very often these days.”

The waiter returned with their drinks. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. Jacobson ordered the civet-of-wild-boar appetizer. Pomegranate sauce on the side. Bob opted for the lentil-and-sausage soup. Entrées were bipartisan. They both ordered the roast turbot with root vegetables. Bob took a sip from his glass of Talisker on the rocks. He’d been a single-malt aficionado since grad school days at Yale. Somewhere in the past he’d settled on Dalwhinnie as his Scotch of choice. That preference went unchallenged for nearly thirty years, until, two years ago when his wife, Christine, learned she had relatives living on the Isle of Skye, a discovery which of course prompted a visit to the venerable town of Carbost, a rust-tinged hamlet nestled among the rough slopes of the Cuillin Mountains and boasting itself as the sole distiller of Scotch on the isle. They’d hiked the broken ground, met the relatives, toured the Talisker distillery, and pretended to enjoy some of the most execrable food on the planet. When they got back home, Bob suddenly found his preference in Scotch under fire. About the third time Christine demanded an explanation as to precisely why he preferred Dalwhinnie to her suddenly beloved Talisker, Bob had followed the party line of least resistance and switched his allegiance, exhibiting a chameleon-like ability to blend into the leaves, a long-nurtured talent which had served him so abundantly in the arena of politics.

“Didn’t I just see you?” he asked Ron Jacobson. Jacobson leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Unfortunately so.”

“What’s up?”

“The matter is rapidly coming to a head.”

“Really?”

“We always knew it was flammable.”

“Indeed.”

“I wanted to discuss with you . . .” He allowed the rest of the sentence to taper off as the waiter returned with the appetizers. He thanked the waiter and called him by name: Gino. He looked up from his food and commented on the quality of his appetizer; Bob reciprocated to the effect that his soup was likewise marvelous. They ground away at the small talk until the four men in the next banquette said their good-byes and shuffled out. He checked the area. Satisfied no one was within earshot, Jacobson said, “It may be time to implement our backup scenario.”

“Tell me.”

So he did. Starting with how they now believed Paul Hardy had managed to hitch a ride with a young woman named Alma Anne Harris, who at that time was in the process of quitting her job as a hairstylist and vacating her apartment for the purpose of moving back to her native Alabama.

Somewhere along the way, Paul Hardy had become Randall James.

“So?”

“So, it turns out the real Randall James is another of the residents at the group home where Mr. Hardy once lived and they checked and found the real Randall watching the Ultimate Fighting Chal- lenge in the home’s TV room. Agents felt certain that Paul Hardy was using Randall James’s identity.”

“Not much gets by these guys, does it?”

“Barney Fife could have figured it out.”

Jacobson went on about the wi-fi query from Alabama, the trans - fer of title on the car, and the assurance that no one on the Alabama end was otherwise involved.

“What else?”

“The Florida State Patrol . . .” he began.

“Florida.” Bob gargled a mouthful of soup. He dropped the spoon into the bowl and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Did you say Florida?”

Gino arrived with a gleaming silver tray. They smiled and nodded and thanked him for the service. When he was gone, they ate in silence.

“What now?” Bob asked.

“We hope for the best and prepare ourselves for the worst.”

Bob nodded his agreement. “The turbot’s excellent today,” he commented.

THE LETTUCE WAS brown around the edges. Kirsten set the plastic container back on the counter and selected another salad from the array . . . and then another and a third and a fourth. They were all the same way. She could tell the guy behind her in line was losing his patience but was too polite to ask her to hurry the hell up. She grabbed two containers of yogurt and a white plastic spoon. Five sixty-five including tax.

The courthouse commissary was a weird place. Everybody treated it like it was a library and they weren’t supposed to make any noise. The combined effect of the forty or so whispered conversations was akin to the prolonged hiss of a leaking tire, and so it caught Kirsten’s notice when suddenly the hissing stopped altogether and the room fell strangely silent. She wiped her mouth with a stiff paper napkin and looked up.

Bruce Gill was smiling his political smile as he made his way toward Kirsten through the maze of tables, favoring those he recognized with a nod or a wink, stopping here and there to schmooze with several of the more noteworthy diners. Took him a full five minutes to cross the room.

“Slumming?” Kirsten asked.

“I like to think of it as keeping in touch with the electorate.”

He sat down in the chair opposite Kirsten. The whispered con-versations rose back to their normal level. All eyes were slanted in their direction.

“You ever been in here before?” she asked.

“Are you suggesting . . .”

“Have you?”

“No,” he admitted.

“So?”

“Margie said you were down here.”

“I’ll have the brief for the ethics committee ready by tomorrow afternoon, say fourish,” she said as she peeled the foil seal from the second yogurt container.

“Take a look at this.” He slid an FBI document across the table at her.

“What this?” she asked around a mouthful.