He was on the porch quickly, taking its steps while barely touching them, reaching Louis, startled and frozen, within seconds. Lucas swung the shotgun, putting his hips into the motion. The stock connected under Louis’s jaw. He lost his legs, and Lucas hit him again in the temple as he was going down. Louis fell to the gallery floor. Lucas turned him over, flex-cuffed his hands and ankles, and wound duct tape around his head and mouth. He checked his breathing and searched his jeans pockets. Found a phone, a brown envelope holding money, a wallet, matches, and a ring holding keys. On the ring were the keys to the Ford. A house key, too.
Lucas moved to the door.
Serge Bacalov heard a dull thud coming from outside. He turned the sound down on his laptop, closed its lid, dropped it on the bed, and got up out of his chair. He walked quickly from his lit bedroom and went into Billy’s bedroom because the room was dark. He went to the window, pulled its curtain aside, and looked out into the front yard. The Crown Victoria was still there, and Louis was not. Okay, so he was smoking a cigarette out on the porch before he took off. But why the noise?
Bacalov returned to his room. He picked up his Glock, fully loaded with a seventeen-round magazine. He thumbed off its safety and holstered it under the belt line of his jeans at the small of his back. He then got down on the floor and pulled the Ithaca out from under the bed. In his dresser drawer he found a box of shells, and with fumbling excitement, he ripped open its thin cardboard top. He turned the shotgun over so that its bottom was facing up. He thumbed five shells into the ejection port, felt the stop, released the slide, and pushed it forward.
Bacalov heard the front door opening down in the living room. Perhaps Louis had forgotten something and was coming back inside. Perhaps.
Bacalov went down the hall but did not turn the corner at the stairs. He rested his back against the plaster wall.
“Louis,” said Bacalov. “You come back, eh?”
There was no answer. Bacalov gripped the shotgun and smiled.
Lucas entered the house and shut the door behind him. He held the Mossberg ready, his finger inside the trigger guard, and stood still. He mentally cleared the room: an open living room/dining room area, a kitchen in the back. Old, cushiony furniture, a cable-spool table holding a bong, a chandelier over the dining room table. A stairway with a banister leading up to the second floor. Computer equipment heaped in a corner of the room. And square objects wrapped in brown paper, leaning against the right wall. His blood ticked.
As his eyes and shoulders moved, he moved the barrel of the shotgun. The index finger of his right hand brushed the trigger. His left hand cupped the pump.
He heard a voice from upstairs.
“Louis. You come back, eh?”
He heard the unmistakable snick-snick of a racking pump.
Lucas stepped toward the stairs and sighted the shotgun. He saw an elbow at the top of the stairs, a small triangle of flesh peeking out.
“All right,” said Lucas softly.
Bacalov spun around the corner and fired as Lucas pumped off a shell. The banister exploded in splinters before him and Lucas stepped back, then moved forward and rapidly pumped out five more shots up the stairs, hammering the plaster at the top of the landing and tearing up the wall. The shotgun blasts shook the house.
“Fuck you,” said Bacalov, and Lucas heard nervous laughter. He knew what that meant: relief. Bacalov had not been hit.
Lucas tossed the shotgun aside and drew his .38. He stepped out of the field of fire and walked backward, aiming the revolver at the stairs. He stopped and stood beside the couch.
“Take what you want,” shouted Bacalov.
“I’m going to,” said Lucas, blinking his gun eye against the sweat that was trickling into it.
“Who are you?”
“Come find out.”
“I am going to lay down my gun.”
Bacalov appeared on the stairway, shooting in descent. Lucas dropped behind the couch. Bacalov kept his finger locked on the Ithaca’s trigger as he pumped, cycling rounds through the chamber, slam-firing into the buckling hardwood floor and cable-spool table. The room went sonic.
Lucas heard the thump of a shell hitting the back cushion, felt its impact, saw stuffing rise in the air above him.
Bacalov dropped his shotgun and ran across the room. At the sound of his footsteps Lucas came up firing. He squeezed off several rounds and saw red leap off Bacalov’s shoulder. Bacalov fell behind the dining room table.
Lucas crouched back down behind the couch. He could hear Bacalov moving chairs. He holstered the .38 and drew the M-9, releasing the safety in the same motion. He pulled back on the receiver and let it go. Its recoil spring drove the slide home and chambered a round.
Bacalov, wounded but game, crouched on the floor behind the table and chairs he had pulled together. He drew his Glock with a shaking hand, jacked in a round, and wiped at his face. He rested the barrel on one of the crossbars of a ladder-back chair and aimed it in the general direction of the couch.
“Rick Bell,” said Bacalov. “Is this your name? Or is your name pussy?”
Lucas did not reply. He’d been talked to and taunted by insurgents in many of the houses he’d entered in Fallujah. It had unnerved him, but he’d fought on.
“I am not afraid,” said Bacalov.
Yes, you are, thought Lucas. So am I.
“Show yourself,” said Bacalov.
Lucas slid behind the couch and readied himself at its edge. With his left hand he pushed at the couch and moved it, and Bacalov let off several shots, punching lead into the cushions, and at that Lucas came up over the back of the couch and fired off many rounds at the chandelier. Glass and metal rained down on Bacalov and bit his face, and once again Lucas dropped behind cover.
“I am not hurt,” said Bacalov, but now there was a quiver in his voice.
Lucas concentrated. The Beretta’s mag held fifteen. He struggled to remember how many rounds he’d fired.
Recharge.
Lucas released the partially spent magazine and slipped it in his vest. From the same pouch he took a full-load magazine and palmed it home. He readied the gun and chambered a round.
“You are pussy,” said Bacalov.
Lucas stood and fired. The dining room table splintered, and Bacalov came up out of his crouch and squeezed off a round. Lucas felt a bullet crease the air as he walked forward, focused, firing his weapon, and through the smoke and ejecting shells he saw Bacalov dance backward as blood misted from his chest. He dropped his Glock and fell to the floor.
Lucas kept his gun arm steady and aimed. He stepped to Bacalov, stood over him. Watched as he struggled for breath, saw his shirt flutter about the chest wound, listened to the rattle of his filling lungs. His eyes crossed and saw nothing. Lucas shot him twice more and walked away.
He went out to the porch and checked on Louis, now conscious, his eyes frightened, his wrists raw from struggle. There were no sirens in the distance, no headlights coming up the gravel road. Only the sound of crickets and a faint ringing in Lucas’s ears.
He reentered the house and went up the stairs. He went bedroom to bedroom until he found the laptop on Serge’s bed. The size of the shirts hung in the closet told him it was the little man’s room. He’d corresponded with Serge via e-mail, and there’d be a record. He took the laptop off the bed.
Downstairs he went straight to the wrapped objects leaning against the wall. He tore off the brown wrapping of the top one and put it aside. He found what he was looking for when he unwrapped the second painting. Two men, bare-chested, one middle-aged, one young. In the right-hand corner was the artist’s name: L. Browning. He’d found The Double.
He went back out to the porch, got his duct tape, and returned to the living room, where he re-wrapped Grace Kinkaid’s painting. He then went around the room collecting ejected casings and shells, slipping them into his vest. He did the best he could.
He made two more trips outside and back again, carrying his shotg
un, the painting, and the laptop to the edge of the woods. He left those items there and found his bolt cutters and a bottle of water in the bag. He was still wearing the .38 and .9 on his holster belt when he stepped back onto the porch.
“Serge is dead,” said Lucas. “You can be dead, too. Blink hard if you understand.”
Louis Smalls closed his eyes, paused, and opened them.
“I’m gonna free your hands and turn you over.”
Lucas used the cutters to liberate Louis’s hands. He removed the duct tape from his face, put him on his back, helped him sit up, then took him by the arm and moved him so that he was in a sitting position against the porch wall. He was still bound at the ankles. Lucas stood before him.
Smalls rubbed at his raw wrists and watched Lucas as he drank deeply from the plastic water bottle. Lucas capped the bottle and tossed it to Smalls. He had a long drink.
Lucas picked up the wallet off the floor, opened it, and examined the Maryland driver’s license inside. The name said Louis McGinty. The photo matched, but the license’s graphics were smudged and not quite right.
“What’s your real name?”
“Louis Smalls.”
“Billy’s?”
“Billy King.”
“Where is he?”
“With a woman, I expect.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’s coming back.”
Lucas believed him. “How deep are you in with these guys?”
“Deep.”
“Why?”
“I got no one else,” said Smalls.
“You can do better.”
“He’s my partner.”
“Not anymore.”
Louis looked down at his hands. “What’s gonna happen to me?”
“I’m giving you a chance. That depends on you.” Lucas dropped the wallet in Louis’s lap. “Take the envelope with you, too.”
Lucas crouched down and cut the flex-cuffs from Louis’s ankles.
“Why?” said Smalls.
“I got what I came for. It’s done.”
Smalls stood and gathered his things. He took the keys out of the door lock where they dangled.
“I need to get some things out of my room,” he said.
“No. Keep the car keys and give me the key to the house. Get in your car and drive.”
Smalls removed the house key from the ring and handed it to Lucas. Without further comment Smalls went to his car, fired up the ignition, and drove away.
Lucas locked the front door of the house. If King did come back, he’d find Bacalov rotting and ripe.
Lucas knew he’d never be able to carry his guns, gear, the painting, and the laptop back through the woods. He jogged the half mile to his truck unencumbered and drove the Jeep back to the house, where he loaded everything into its cargo area. He went down the gravel road with his headlights off, navigating by the light of the moon.
Lucas rode back to D.C. in quiet, with the radio off and the windows down. He thought of Bacalov and their battle, and he saw him dead on the dining room floor.
He would have killed me.
Lucas stared coolly at the road ahead.
TWENTY-ONE
Lucas slept peacefully and got up late. He’d disposed of Bacalov’s laptop in a Dumpster the night before after breaking it into pieces on an alley floor. He’d built a compartment under a wood cutout in his bedroom closet, and there he’d stashed the guns. He’d return them to Bobby Waldron when he was certain that no heat had collected around the shooting.
He phoned Charlotte Rivers on her disposable and left a message. He read the Post out on his porch, did his prison workout, and had some lunch. Charlotte did not return his call.
He took a long bike ride, going north into Maryland, all the way out to Lake Needwood in Rockville. The trip took hours. When he returned to his apartment, he showered and phoned Grace Kinkaid. For straights, it was the end of the working day. She just gotten off work at her nonprofit and said she could be at her place in a half-hour’s time. Lucas agreed to meet her there.
They sat in the living room of her Champlain Street condo, the painting leaning against the coffee table. Grace had poured herself a large glass of white wine. Lucas was having water.
“I’m so happy,” said Grace.
“I’m glad.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever see my painting again. It’s not a reflection on you. I just thought, you know, that it had been sold and was somewhere out there in a collector’s hidden room.”
“I got after it,” said Lucas.
“Indeed you did. Was it difficult?”
“Not very.”
“Was there any connection to the car scam guy?”
“That was a blind alley.”
“So you found Billy?”
“No.”
“You spoke to him, though.”
“Never had the pleasure.”
“How’d you get the painting, then?”
“That’s not important, is it?” Lucas looked into Grace’s eyes. His message was clear.
“I suppose not,” she said.
“As for my fee…”
“You took me by surprise. I have to call the buyer and make the deal. I could write you a check from my money market account right now, if you promise not to deposit it right away.”
“I’d like it in cash, as we agreed. I can wait.”
“Certainly.”
“I know you’re good for it.”
“Of course.” Grace looked to a space on the wall where a brass hook was nailed into a stud. “I’m going to put it right where it was.”
“Would you like me to hang it for you?”
“No, I’ll do that. I think I’m going to sit here and look at it for a while.”
Lucas stood from his seat. “I better get on my way.”
Grace placed her wineglass on the coffee table and stood. She came close to him, put her hand on his forearm, and kissed him, catching the side of his mouth. Her lips were wet and she smelled strongly of alcohol.
“Thank you so much, Spero.”
“My pleasure.”
“I’ll probably have the money for you in a couple of days.”
“Right,” he said.
Lucas entered the elevator. In its polished steel interior he saw his reflection, refracted and dim.
He met his brother Leo at his neighborhood spot on Georgia Avenue, below Geranium, a nondescript, nonviolent bar with mostly middle-aged patrons and a jukebox stocked with soul, neo-soul, and funk. The room was filled with the voice of Anthony Hamilton, singing with gospel fervor.
“That’s my man,” said Leo, nodding toward the juke. “Anthony dogged his girl, now he’s praying to God to bring her back.”
“Maybe it’ll work. He sounds convincing.”
“That’s no spiritual pose. Dude sings in church.” Leo took a sip of his beer. They were drinking imports at a four-top in the center of the room. A woman at the bar had turned her head and was looking at Leo in a familiar way. “When’s the last time you been to Saint Sophia?”
“Been a while. You?”
“I took Mom two Sundays back. Father Steve’s still up there at the pulpit, preaching the good word.”
“F.S. is the man,” said Spero.
He needed to get to church and pray. Lately, he’d broken damn near every one of the commandments. But what good would it do? You couldn’t unfuck another man’s wife. You couldn’t give life back to the dead.
Leo studied his brother’s troubled eyes. “How’d that work thing go for you?”
“I took care of it.”
“The job’s done?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s up for you next?”
“Just keep doin what I’m doin, I guess.”
“You don’t seem too enthusiastic.”
“What’s your point?”
“You know what it means when someone wakes up in the morning and they don’t see any promise in
the day?”
“It means they’ve got a limp dick.”
“I’m serious. You been feeling a little blue lately, right?”
“Shit…”
“You should talk to someone. Not to me. I’m sayin, you should take advantage of your VA benefits and see a professional.”
“Please.”
“I’ve been reading stuff, Spero. About all the veterans who’ve been committing suicide. It’s up to one a day now. That’s a higher rate than the combat deaths in Afghanistan this year.”
“Screw you, Leo. You know me better than that.”
“I’m not saying you’re at risk. I’m saying, if those people had gotten help, they might not have done what they did. Ain’t no shame in talking to a shrink.”
“Screw you.”
“Nice to see you have an open mind.”
They changed the subject. They talked about the Nats and the Redskins, and the woman at the bar, whose head kept swiveling in Leo’s direction.
“So you hear anything on the Cherise Roberts murder?” said Leo. “The law got any leads?”
“My attorney, Petersen, he put some feelers out down at the D.C. Jail. There’s been no arrest as of yet.” Spero killed the rest of his beer. “Let me ask you something, man. When you had Cherise as a student, was there anything off about her? Outside of the usual teenage, temporary madness stuff?”
“Cherise was funny and popular. Not much of a scholar, though. She wasn’t headed to college or any place like it. She did the minimum, but she was pleasant, and she never disrupted my class.”
“What about her home life?”
“No father in her world, but that’s not unusual.”
“Was she promiscuous?”
“No more than you or me at that age, from what I could tell.”