She’d fallen for it, never dreaming anything was wrong until she found the file in Eric’s home office—the second bedroom in his apartment, the very room he’d died in—while digging for her birth certificate so she could get her passport renewed.
That innocent-looking manila folder with Wolfe written on the tab. She could still remember being on her knees in front of the file cabinet, opening it out of curiosity…and then, the pictures. The proof. The newspaper clippings as well as dates she recognized, because Josiah traveled a lot.
For business, he always said.
The entryway was cracked linoleum, a bank of mailboxes, a short hall, and stairs covered with indifferent carpeting. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, a combination of poverty, cigarette smoke, and fried food, sticky and oily. It was horribly familiar; she and Eric had lived in places like this after their parents died. His second semester of college and her sixth-grade year had passed in a haze of numb grief, both of them barely able to make it through classes, Eric coming home to fix two doses of ramen or something similar, eating silently together on the ratty orange couch they got from the curb, its cushions still reeking of weed smoke, and retreating to sleeping bags in the one bedroom.
Once, and only once, she’d asked him if it would be easier if she weren’t there. Don’t be stupid, he’d snapped, and gone back to work on a paper, writing in his cramped sideways cryptic scribbles.
The memory hurt more than usual. Oh, Eric.
Josiah led her up two flights of stairs and through a propped-open fire door giving onto a narrow, dimly lit hall. He knocked once on the third door on the left, after pushing her aside and telling her to stand still against the wall with a single significant glare.
A stranger’s look. He’s telling me to stay here because…hm. Maybe they could shoot through the door? But then, he’s right there.
The door opened, and there was a metallic click. A low, muffled thread of sound, someone talking fast and soft.
Josiah, of all things, replied in the same language, heavy on the k’s and z’s. His voice had changed again, becoming harder, disdainful.
The door opened a little more and he glanced at her, a single look that told her to follow. She did, meekly enough, stepping into a dim front hall of an apartment that smelled foreign. The air was blue with cigarette smoke and the drapes were drawn; this was a studio apartment and the only furniture was two couches set facing each other. Cheap beige carpet was worn down the middle; a door off to the left showed a slice of brightly lit bathroom, in no way clean but not overly filthy, either. The kitchenette to the right, bare and empty except for a hulking man in black with an honest-to-God submachine gun in his beefy paws, could have used some bleach and hot water, too, especially in the corners.
Anna’s heart jumped into her throat. Jesus.
Their host was a quick, rotund little ferret with a lit cigarette, black hair oiled slick to his skull over a round pockmarked face. He wore a cheap gray suit and twitched a little nervously when he turned back and caught Anna looking at the fabric. He spat something that sounded uncomplimentary; Josiah made a short, sharp reply.
The hulk of Submachine-Gun Man moved forward inside the empty kitchen and gestured at the door. He crowded close behind them to sweep it shut, the deadbolt clicking home as Josiah and the obese ferret moved forward.
There was another man in the dimness, sitting on the couch with its back to the right-hand wall. Josiah had suddenly gone tense. Just how she could tell she couldn’t quite explain, but he seemed suddenly, hurtfully aware of everything in the room.
Just like he used to every few months, following her around, sticking close to her, waiting for her outside her building. She’d thought it was love, that he was paying attention.
All those “business trips,” too. How many of them had ended up with someone dead? With more than one someone dead? He was always a little more affectionate when he came back.
Josiah half-turned, reached back with his left hand, and grabbed her wrist. Pulled her forward, into the studio space, then slid his left arm over her shoulder and brought her close to his side. He made another short remark, and the burst of nasty male laughter made her exposed skin feel grimy.
The third man laughed loudest of all, his wide, dark eyes never leaving Anna. He gestured, blue smoke trailing from the end of his cigarette, and when he spoke in English it was almost a shock.
“Pretty little piece, lupo. You always did have taste.” A slow Mediterranean accent wound through his words. He had a long nose, dark skin, and soft, curly, oily hair; he was wearing a very good suit, silk if Anna didn’t miss her guess, and exquisitely tailored. Good shoes, too; calfskin, tailored as well. A briefcase sat next to him on the sagging couch, like an obedient angular dog.
“A man has to have a weakness, signor. How’s your health?” Josiah pulled her forward, managing to make it look like they were walking together. He pushed her toward the couch opposite the long-nosed man.
“Ah. Getting older, getting older. Having daughters gives a man many worries, many indeed. Sit, sit, bambina. Does she want a drink?”
There was a low, cheap coffee table between the couches. Anna sank down, her knee and ankle protesting. Not even the ibuprofen was helping.
“She doesn’t.” The new Josiah grinned, laying the file down on the table with an easy movement. “But I’ll take one, signor. With thanks.” He settled down next to her, pushing her aside slightly. Anna tried to make her face as impassive as his, with a sinking feeling of failing miserably.
The man on the couch studied her avidly. “Rough trade?” he asked, and laughed again. It wasn’t a nice laugh, she decided. It bore a stunning resemblance to a hyena’s cackle. His cigar fumed and smoked.
“Someone didn’t play nice with her, so she came over to my part of the schoolyard.” Josiah leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands dangling loose. “How’s the signora? I hope her health is good?”
For a few moments the banter went back and forth, Josiah asking about the man’s family and listening patiently, the man inquiring after Josiah’s own health and prospects. It sounded like the numbing kaffeeklatsches her mother had loved, hens clucking at each other over weak coffee and small stale cakes hour after hour.
Only these hens were watched by a man with an AK-47.
Was it an AK-47? That was the only gun name she knew. Eric would have known; he’d done a piece on endemic violence in Guatemala.
Funny, that he would have survived that and come home, promising never to do any combat reporting again. He didn’t talk much about what had actually happened, and she got the idea the worst of it hadn’t made it into the articles he wrote. He drank a little more afterward, that was all.
The whole thing was mind-numbingly boring, and she had almost relaxed by the time Oily Round Ferret brought two glasses with a few finger-widths of amber liquid in each, no ice.
The glasses were sparkling clean. That was odd. Anna tried to rearrange the scene inside her head, design a better one, and failed. Maybe if she worked in gouache she could capture the dinginess, and there would have to be a lot of straight lines, the perspective just subtly altered to induce the dreamy feeling of unreality.
As if that was a signal, Josiah pointedly glanced around the apartment.
The other man breathed out through his nose, a loud huff of air. “You think I want to be seen talking to you? Even if you are retired.” His eyes slid slowly over Anna again. “Pretty piece.” The remark was delivered in a thoughtful tone.
“Thank you.” Then, amazingly, Josiah began to speak in another language. It sounded like Italian.
That led to a conversation that would have sounded beautiful and rolling except for the slow narrowing of the other man’s dark eyes. Josiah leaned forward, slowly, and tapped the file. Then he—still slowly—pulled the gun from his shoulder holster and laid it on the file.
There was a soft, metallic click behind them. It took all Anna’s self-control not to twist
around and look. That click sounded like it came from another gun.
Like maybe the one the gorilla was carrying.
Oh, my stars and garters. Maddeningly, she heard her brother’s voice in her head, his tone of mock surprise, used plenty of times when she was a little girl and he had a surprise for her—pleasant or unpleasant, a gift or an Indian rope burn. Look at what we have here.
She was suddenly very aware that she was on a dingy couch in a room with three men she didn’t know and one she might not know as well as she thought, all four of whom probably had more than one weapon and the willingness to use it. Even Josiah probably had another gun on him. A thin thread of sweat trickled down the channel of her spine, and she suddenly wished they had been able to find some clothes that really, truly fit her. The sweater was too baggy and the jeans had to be rolled up, and the boots were loose even though her feet had swollen and the socks were the heaviest she’d ever worn.
Christ. I’m sitting in this room and worrying about my clothes. I must be insane. But isn’t this why I came to Josiah? Although I have no goddamn idea what he’s doing.
Whatever it was, she hoped it was worth it. She was suddenly hoping, too, that he could indeed handle this.
“Lupo, lupo.” The dark-eyed man shook his head, waving one caramel-skinned hand. “No need to get suspicious. We are old friends, and you have always been reliable.”
“Then tell your man behind me to get his finger off the trigger and go take a walk somewhere useful, like out in the parking lot.” Josiah didn’t bat an eyelash. His expression stayed interested, bland, open. “And tell the Polish to stop sniffing. His snort’s about due and you’re purposely keeping him here. He sounds like a goddamn adenoidal bulldog.”
The man laughed. Another stream of liquid Italian, and the door opened and closed, clicking securely shut. The third man was gone. “I forget how cautious you are, sometimes.”
“As I forget how wily you are.” Josiah didn’t relax. “And the second half of it is this, signor. I am calling in the favor.”
The air in the room went very still. The man’s eyes slitted, and he studied Josiah with interest. “The favor.”
“If I should meet with an accident, this one—” He tipped his head slightly, indicating Anna. “She goes to a safe pensione and these papers get distributed widely to the press. Every press. My staff is given twenty-four hours to clear out.”
“Even that fucking raghead?” The profanity was suddenly shocking, since the tone had been courteous so far. This, Anna suspected, was real business.
A thin curl of irritation lit behind her breastbone. It wasn’t that Anna particularly liked Hassan, but that…term…was gratuitous, and nasty.
Josiah’s calm remained unruffled. “Even him.”
“You ask much.” The man’s eyes began to take on a satisfied gleam Anna didn’t like at all. “This is not the old days, friend, when a man’s word is his bond.”
Josiah sighed. Anna’s stomach contracted even further, bile threatening to crawl from the back of her throat out and into the world.
The dark-eyed man on the couch had produced his suspected gun, and had it pointed at her. The mouth of the barrel looked wide, deep, and very black. She let out a small, shocked sound, unable to help herself, and the man laughed.
It was not a nice laugh, even though his belly shook with Santa Claus jollity.
“Giuseppe.” Josiah shook his head, like a disappointed uncle. “Not you too.”
The man shrugged, his suit wrinkling in interesting ways. “As I said, I have daughters. Who would not want to live forever?”
Josiah said nothing. Anna couldn’t look away from the gun, fascinated by its yawning black eye. Her first thought was completely ridiculous. Eric, I am just going to kill you for this.
Then she remembered her brother was dead, and she began to feel light-headed.
Josiah made a brief movement, and the gun clicked. The Italian man still held his smoking cigar in his left hand. “Please. I have nothing against you, lupo, and I do owe you. But the bambina, she is to be brought to some mutual friends, and made to tell all she knows. It is business, my friend. Nothing more.”
There was another click, and the ferret-oily man had another gun, to Josiah’s head. The dark-eyed man on the couch opened his mouth to yell, and things got very confused.
There was a stunning impact against the side of her head—Josiah had pulled Ferret-Face down and across his lap, somehow, and Ferret’s skull cracked against the side of hers. She forgot the prohibition on talking again and yelled, more with surprise than actual pain, slithering off the couch as something zinged over her head and there was a high scream of pain across the room. Her knee hit the coffee table, and an amazing jolt of pain speared her thigh. She ended up on the floor with deadweight on top of her, and for a moment she thought he was trying to pin her to the carpet. Anna thrashed, kicking, another scream caught in her throat, her heart slamming in her chest so hard little black sparkles danced in front of her eyes.
“Stay where you are, Anna.” And damn the man, Josiah sounded calm. “Now, Giuseppe. Let’s have a little chat.”
Anna found her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and the childish thought that she could just keep them that way and avoid the whole situation occurred to her in slow, syrupy motion.
Oh, God. She opened them, and sucked in a sharp breath.
Fat Ferret-Face hung over her, one of his eyes glazed. From the other eye protruded something she had to stare at before she realized it was the leather-wrapped handle of a knife. His mouth was slightly open, and his good eye stared at her as if he had just had a whopper of a great idea and was working it around inside his head before he let it out his gate of a mouth.
Hot, acid, gooey bile whipped the back of her throat again.
Don’t you dare throw up, Anna Maria Caldwell. It was Eric’s voice again. Just lie there for a moment. Yes, I know it’s a dead body. Just stay there. It’s what he told you to do.
The absurdity of her dead brother telling her to do what Josiah wanted and stay still under a dead body made a dark, screaming noise fill the inside of her skull. It was like the rushing that had filled her head when the cop showed up at the door that rainy evening her parents died. Caldwell? Eric Caldwell? There’s been an accident. You’d better sit down.
Babbling in Italian. High-pitched, squeaky. Then Josiah’s voice, terribly even and calm.
I can’t. I can’t do it. She struggled free of the heavy body on the floor, rolling it aside. Her throat scorched; she was losing the battle with whatever breakfast she’d managed to choke down.
Now, of course, it was even worse. She ended up squeezed between the body, the hilt of the knife hitting the floor with a hideous thock, and the couch—which smelled none too clean.
Nobody had made any attempt to freshen up this piece of furniture. Why bother, when someone was just going to get stabbed on it?
Do not throw up. For Christ’s sake don’t throw up now.
She suspected she wouldn’t even be able to draw this.
Da Vinci did corpse studies. You’re just following in the master’s footsteps, right?
There was a wet, gurgling sound. The world faded out to a gray haze for a moment, came screaming back as copper filled her mouth. She found herself grabbing the lip of the coffee table to haul her clumsy, unwieldy body half-upright. Her back gave an amazing flare of fresh pain, her knee screamed, but she didn’t care.
Josiah pushed the man on the couch over. Another knife hilt of leather-wrapped wood stuck out of the man’s neck, and Josiah knocked his wavering gun away. There was a horrible stink that couldn’t be what she thought it was, a real bathroom stench.
Then Josiah calmly leaned over, wrenching the knife back and forth inside the flesh, making little squicking sounds. He had braced his knee in the man’s midriff to do so, and the man gurgled again.
“Have the grace to die quietly,” Josiah said, softly, as if thinking aloud. He glanced over, his gaze
lighting on Anna. His eyes were dark, not piercing green anymore. “I thought I told you to stay down. He managed to squeeze off a shot.”
She stared at him, swallowed hard.
This isn’t what it’s like in the movies. She’d always enjoyed mindless action flicks with popcorn and explosions, but she suspected she wouldn’t anymore.
Not after this.
Josiah made a swift movement and the body slid off the couch, landing bonelessly on the other side of the coffee table. He checked his watch against the inside of his wrist, then put one hand on the back of the couch and hopped over, gracefully, and strode to the window. He proceeded to peer cautiously between the edges of the cheap curtains, not moving them. “Christ,” he muttered. “Of course they would be in on it. Anna, you okay?”
I really don’t know. The sensation of the world skewing sideways and normal angles and ratios failing to apply made everything tilt around her, a hideous carnival spinning. “F-fine.” She hauled herself up, her shoulders protesting and the jolt of her wounded knee making her wince. “I think I hit the table on the way down.”
“Sorry about that. I wanted to give you some cover. Bring me my gun and the file, there’s a good girl.” He sounded just the same as ever. Completely, madly calm. “Fucking two-faced bastard. I suspected this.”
Her fingers were cold and numb, and she swayed, her knee a bright spike of pain. “You suspected? Then why did you—”
He gave her an amused look she couldn’t quite classify as contemptuous, but it wasn’t extremely encouraging, either. “This was the only way to find out. Now we’ll see.”
He had just killed two people. As calmly as if he was taking out the trash. “Jesus,” she breathed. The world kept doing its funny sliding, first one way, then the other. “Who are you?”
That earned her a shrug, which was even worse than that look. “Are you deaf? Bring me my gun. And don’t leave that file lying there, either. Move, woman!”
Nothing made any sense. Mechanically, she scooped up the heavy gun, holding it awkwardly. The man on the couch gurgled again and flopped. The stink was tremendous.