The Drifter (27 page)

TWO HOURS EARLIER

Charlie

R
un. Charlie, run!” his mother screamed. Charlie froze. He’d never heard her sound so scared before.

There was a loud noise and smoke in the room, and Lieutenant Ash’s two friends raced forward with guns in their hands. But his mom shoved him through the door to the basement stairs and closed the door behind him. He stood on the step in the dark with Mingus beside him and he couldn’t see anything.

He put his hand on the door and felt the thunk as she threw the deadbolt.

Mingus growled at the banging and shouting above them. People were shooting, Charlie knew. Shooting at one another. Maybe at his mother.

Then Mingus bumped Charlie with his shoulder, nudging him down the stairs. Charlie reached out to grab his rope collar. Mingus pulled him onward through the dim, musty maze of the basement to another set of stairs with a faint rectangular frame of light at the top. Charlie climbed up into the kitchen of some kind of
empty old restaurant that smelled like spilled beer and old people. He locked the basement door behind him, ran past the bar and the tables with their chairs stacked on top, opened the deadbolt on the outside door, and ran across the street, the dog hard at his heels.

He watched from the shelter of overgrown bushes, Mingus crouched beside him, as two men put his mother and brother in the back of a plain white van and climbed in. Charlie felt a wave of relief seeing them alive, even if they did have what looked like old shirts over their heads. But the other two men, the friends of Lieutenant Ash, did not come out.

The dog growled.

“Mingus, quiet,” said Charlie. “Just wait.”

He didn’t think anyone had taught the dog those commands, but Mingus seemed to understand. Charlie wished he had his baseball bat, but he knew better than to think it would help him against these men and their guns. He was angry and afraid in equal amounts. He wondered if that was how his dad had felt when he was off at war. Or back home.

The white van’s engine started. Behind him in the bushes, leaning against the house, Charlie found an old ten-speed bike with curly handlebars. When the white van pulled out, Charlie hopped on and followed.

Good thing he’d run all those sprints at basketball practice. He had to pedal awfully hard to keep up with the van.

He was pretty sure that the two men had killed Lieutenant Ash’s friends.

The van was pulling away from him, so Charlie pedaled harder. He was the man of the family, and he was going after his mother and his brother. Mingus was ahead of him, but the dog kept looking over his shoulder to make sure Charlie was still there.

The white van drove like every other car or truck, no crazy
moves. Nobody would know there were people trapped inside, maybe tied up. Maybe hurt.

Still, the van drove faster than Charlie could ride on the old ten-speed, and he had trouble keeping up. Only three speeds worked. He felt bad about taking the bike, because stealing was definitely wrong. Not that he had much choice. But at the same time he wished he’d managed to steal a better bike, and wondered what Father Lehane would say about that.

He was lucky that there were a lot of cars on the road, because when the van got stuck in traffic or at a light, Charlie could make up lost ground. And he knew he didn’t want to get too close. Even Mingus seemed to know he couldn’t do anything while the van was still moving.

Eventually the van came up to a giant old falling-apart brick building. A big squat-nosed cargo truck, like the rent-to-own furniture trucks, only plain white with no markings, was backed right up against the building.

“Mingus, come.” Charlie stopped in the street, breathing hard behind the shelter of a tan SUV, and got his hand on Mingus’s collar. He wished again that he had his baseball bat. He wanted to hit those men with the bat, hit them hard and make them pay. Mingus pulled to get away.

“Mingus, stay,” said Charlie.

He used his serious voice the way Lieutenant Ash told him to. He watched the van pull up to the building and wait.

Mingus pulled at his collar again, like he wanted Charlie to do something. But Charlie didn’t know what to do. Maybe Mingus didn’t, either.

Then a window hummed down in the tan SUV.

A deep voice said, “Hey, kid. Where you get that ugly dog?”

Lewis

T
he kid took a step back and looked Lewis right in the eye. “Mister, I don’t know you.”

The kid looked more like Jimmy than Lewis would have thought possible. Lean, not grown into it, but he would get some size on him, you could tell. Big bony shoulders, and feet like a damn yeti.

“Your dog knows me,” said Lewis, putting out his hand for the animal to sniff. “Name of Mingus. Peter found him under your porch. And you one of Dinah’s boys, supposed to be with your mom and Nino and Ray at my place.”

The kid looked at him with a complexity of expression older than his years. “I think Nino and Ray are dead.”

It hit Lewis like a stone, that crippling loss, but he made himself set it aside. Time for that later. “Tell me.”

“Two other men came. My mom put me and Mingus down the basement stairs, and I made it out another way. I watched from the bushes while they put my mom and little brother in that van right
there.” He pointed at the white Dodge van that had pulled up right before the kid. “I took this bike, and followed them here.”

Lewis looked at the boy with new respect. It was no small thing, what he’d done. But he couldn’t be out on the street, not now.

Lewis said, “Put up that bike and get in here.”

When the kid opened the passenger side, the damn dog jumped in first, crouched down on the center console, growling at the white van and tearing up the leather with his claws. Breathing down Lewis’s neck, that big fucking dog.

Lewis didn’t like dogs. He’d never liked dogs. Would never like dogs. Then again, to have a four-legged assault weapon was maybe not such a bad thing. Although he didn’t think this particular dog could actually be controlled. This dog had a mind of his own.

The guy with the scarred face got out of the white van and looked around like Mr. Magoo trying to spot a tail. Very subtle. Then he walked to the rear doors and opened them up, the doors blocking the view. Lewis caught a glimpse of a blank-faced man in a black jacket, with his hand on someone’s elbow, and maybe a fourth person, who must be the little brother, as they walked behind the big Mitsubishi to the loading dock and disappeared.

“Shit,” said Lewis. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He’d been there all night, waiting for Peter to come back. The jarhead was supposed to meet the cop at eleven and set things in motion from there. But something had gone wrong, because Peter hadn’t come back and hadn’t answered his phone, either.

Lewis had decided he would stay put, watch and wait. Do nothing without word from Peter, unless the big Mitsubishi tried to leave. Then he’d trigger the charge they’d rigged under the Mitsubishi’s engine block overnight, and use his shotgun to take out the driver and anyone else he didn’t know. Lewis was looking forward to it. The cops would come soon enough after that.

But this was new information. Dinah taken. This changed the plan. He could not just watch and wait. Hell, no, he could not.

Not once Dinah got taken inside.

Seeing her, it was like he was fifteen again.

He wanted to kick the door down and do some damage. Do it old-school.

But Dinah’s oldest boy was under his care. Lewis couldn’t leave him, at least not yet. He’d watch and wait a few more minutes, see what happened next.

He wondered if the kid knew how to drive. It would be a help. Twelve was old enough to learn.

But Dinah was inside. He couldn’t leave her, either. He looked at his watch. He would give it fifteen minutes. Then call the cops and go in.

“Aren’t you going to go get my mom?”

The kid was looking at him. Lewis couldn’t get over how much he looked like Jimmy.

“Yeah,” he said. “I am. But not yet.”

He heard the faint tick of the second hand and kept both eyes on the truck. He thought about what these assholes were up to. It had to be about money. It was always about money, one way or another. So how could a man make a profit by putting a big bomb together with a hedge-fund asshole?

Lewis had been thinking about it since last night. He was pretty sure he had it figured out.

He didn’t think the target even mattered.

It probably didn’t even matter if the bomb actually went off.

A bomb found at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, or at any regional headquarters of a big commercial bank, would send the markets into the tank. If Skinner knew when that would happen and planned ahead, he would clean up.

Lewis briefly wished he could get online and make a few trades.

Instead he waited.

And counted.

He was about ready to send the kid to the Boys and Girls Club and kick in that warehouse door when Skinner showed up.

Not in the busted-up Bentley, Lewis noted. But in a very nice Audi SUV, which he parked beside the box truck like he owned the place. He walked around to the back of the truck and climbed up the loading dock and inside.

So Peter was right about the hedge-fund asshole, which meant Lewis was right about the financial part.

—

After a minute or two, Skinner sauntered out to his car and drove away.

Lewis had the little Radio Shack transmitter in his hand, ready to blow the charge on the truck’s engine block. The 10-gauge was muzzle-down in the footwell, ready to put some holes through the driver of the truck. Then the radiator, then the tires. Better to blow it up here in a neighborhood of single-family houses, where evacuation would be relatively simple and fast, than a more dense target area. Like downtown Chicago. It was only ninety miles away.

“Okay, kid. Time for you to get out of the truck, take that dog, and get as far away from here as you can. Someplace safe.”

“Sir, I’m not going anywhere.”

Kid had that same stubborn look as Jimmy, too. “Listen,” said Lewis. “I ain’t askin’, I’m tellin’. The shit is about to hit and you gotta be somewhere else. There gonna be bullets flying and God knows what. And your mom would skin me alive if something happened to you. So get out the truck and walk away from that warehouse. I want you at least two blocks away.”

“Mister, that’s my mom, and my little brother.” The kid’s mouth was set. “I’ll duck down low. Nobody will see me. But I’m not leaving.”

Lewis was starting to think that he wouldn’t win this one. The engine would shield the kid some. It wasn’t the worst idea, except for the bomb. But if the bomb went off, wouldn’t none of them be left in one piece. The cold autumn wind blew through the open windows. The dog panted in his ear. He opened his mouth to reply when a skinny shave-headed guy in a Marine’s dress uniform came out and climbed up into the driver’s seat of the big box truck. That would be Jimmy’s missing Marine, Felix.

“Get down. Now,” said Lewis. He opened the door and stepped out of the Yukon. He laid the 10-gauge across the hood and flipped the power switch on the transmitter, arming the radio. He put his thumb on the little red button.

Then the guy with the scars came out holding the smaller boy by the arm, not gently.

“Shit,” said Lewis, and took his thumb off the little red button. He watched as the guy with the scars pushed the kid up into the cab of the truck on the driver’s side, and the missing Marine scooted over to the passenger seat to make room. Then a tall, rangy white guy with a nice coat and a cop haircut—had to be the cop Lipsky—came out with his hand hard on Dinah’s arm. Lewis was stunned by the sight of her, even half a block away. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to see her without that tightness in his stomach. He didn’t think he wanted to.

Had she been wearing handcuffs before? She wasn’t now. Lipsky hustled her up into the driver’s seat, and Lewis knew he’d lost his chance to blow the engine block. It would kill Dinah, and the boy, too.

Lewis only had the 10-gauge. At that distance, he might well
kill everyone in the cab of that truck with a single pull of the trigger. And he wasn’t going to do that. It paralyzed him, just the sight of her. So there he stood, one foot on the ground, one foot still in the Yukon, unable to decide. Kill Dinah and her boy, or let the truck go. Let them all go.

Then the damn dog started barking, loud enough to be heard in Chicago. Lewis saw Dinah turn her head and look right at him, eyes wide. The cop shouted to the Marine and stepped up to the running board. He reached in through the open window and started the truck with a diesel rattle. Then he spotted Lewis with his cop eyes and pulled out his pistol.

Dinah ground the truck into gear without taking her eyes off Lewis.

And Lewis still couldn’t do a thing.

The cop shouted again and Dinah gunned the engine and pulled the Mitsubishi out of the loading dock and onto the street like she’d been driving a truck all her life.

She turned right, up the street and away from Lewis, and the cop Lipsky stepped off the running board, walking toward Lewis with his pistol held down at his side like Wyatt fucking Earp.

The truck was at the end of the block now and turning behind the bulk of the warehouse. Lewis reached for the 10-gauge and Lipsky raised his gun and started firing steadily.

Lewis stood behind his door, which gave him some protection, but it didn’t feel like it when the slugs started punching into the Yukon, spiderwebbing the glass. The guy wasn’t just emptying his clip, he was aiming. For fifty yards away and walking, the guy was accurate as hell.

Lewis wanted to step out with the 10-gauge and put some holes in the man. It’s what he should have done. Put the man down. But
the boy was right beside him, Dinah’s boy. And the boy didn’t ask for this. The boy didn’t have a choice.

So he ducked into the driver’s seat, threw the Yukon in reverse, and roared backward up the street, steering with his mirrors and hoping like hell he wouldn’t hit anything.

Maybe everyone else would die when that bomb went off, but not this boy. Not the son of Jimmy and Dinah, the woman they had both loved.