across the sand. I didn’t want to get cornered in a store with only one entrance and exit. I needed options, quickly.
The department store had its own escalators in the center of the clothing area, but standing exposed and upright on a moving staircase is a dangerous game, as I had just been reminded. Instead, I ducked to the back of the store and zeroed in on a pair of elevators, usually reserved for women with strollers. Doors were just closing as I hustled aboard and pressed the button for the bottom floor of underground parking.
I waited there for over an hour, in an obscure corner with no traffic, freezing my ass off. I didn’t see him again.
In my hand, I’m holding a Nokia pre-paid cell phone I picked up at a mini-mart near the Holiday Inn in Decatur where I’m now staying. I employed every anti-surveillance technique I know in driving away from Buckhead, veering on and off the highway, racing red lights, making unexpected turns, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t been followed, but I’m not positive, goddammit, and this fucker has me doubting myself in ways I have not doubted in a long time.
And yet, if he wanted to kill me, if that was his end game, then he made a colossal mistake in not doing so when he had the chance. If he’s so fucking smug that he’s choosing to play games, choosing to reveal himself so that I know he knows where I am, then I’m going to pluck whatever weapon he comes at me with right out of his hands and ram it down his fucking throat. Toying with your target is a novice’s play, a cocksure move intended to intimidate your mark into making a mistake. But there are flaws to this play, and chief amongst them is that he has given away information about himself.
My pursuer carries a knife in his left sleeve, I’m sure of it. In the two instances where I spotted him, I took in the folds of his jacket, and both times, the left sleeve bunched up near the wrist opening, then smoothed out toward the elbow. It wasn’t much, and I’d only had a second to look, but it was there.
Maybe he has been paid not just to kill me, but to stick me up close, to disfigure me, a vendetta killing. I’ve heard of bagmen taking this kind of work, not just ending a mark’s life, but disgracing him in death, pissing on his grave. Come to think of it, it would require the killer to work in close, and maybe that’s why he’d been aiming low in the train station in Naples, when the bullet skipped off the pavement by my feet. Maybe he had been aiming for my knees, hoping to wing me so he could carve me up like beef at the slaughterhouse. Or maybe I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.
I dial a number from memory, look at the digital clock next to my bed, and wait for her to answer.
“ Ciao ?”
“Risina. It’s Jack Walker.”
Her voice warms immediately. I can feel the smile through the phone line.
“ Buongiorno , Jack. I was just opening the store.”
“I thought you might be. Do you have a moment?”
“Yes. Yes. How are you?”
“I’m . . . fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I don’t? I’m tired, I guess.”
“Where are you?”
“The States. East Coast.”
“It is late there.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m very pleased you called. I was thinking about you.”
“I’m glad you were. I think about you too much.”
She laughs. It is a sound low in her throat, as soothing as a touch. “You can never think about me too much, Jack.”
I wait for a moment, and there is an odd comfort in the silence, like the distance between us has been erased. I don’t know why I feel the compulsion to say what I’m about to say, but the words come out of me before I can decide against them.
“I was just remembering a story I read once. Something from when I was a kid.”
“Yes?”
“Maybe you can figure out for me who wrote it.”
“I can try. It is a children’s story?”
“Well, I read it when I was a kid, but I’m not sure where or how I came across it. I’m
The department store had its own escalators in the center of the clothing area, but standing exposed and upright on a moving staircase is a dangerous game, as I had just been reminded. Instead, I ducked to the back of the store and zeroed in on a pair of elevators, usually reserved for women with strollers. Doors were just closing as I hustled aboard and pressed the button for the bottom floor of underground parking.
I waited there for over an hour, in an obscure corner with no traffic, freezing my ass off. I didn’t see him again.
In my hand, I’m holding a Nokia pre-paid cell phone I picked up at a mini-mart near the Holiday Inn in Decatur where I’m now staying. I employed every anti-surveillance technique I know in driving away from Buckhead, veering on and off the highway, racing red lights, making unexpected turns, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t been followed, but I’m not positive, goddammit, and this fucker has me doubting myself in ways I have not doubted in a long time.
And yet, if he wanted to kill me, if that was his end game, then he made a colossal mistake in not doing so when he had the chance. If he’s so fucking smug that he’s choosing to play games, choosing to reveal himself so that I know he knows where I am, then I’m going to pluck whatever weapon he comes at me with right out of his hands and ram it down his fucking throat. Toying with your target is a novice’s play, a cocksure move intended to intimidate your mark into making a mistake. But there are flaws to this play, and chief amongst them is that he has given away information about himself.
My pursuer carries a knife in his left sleeve, I’m sure of it. In the two instances where I spotted him, I took in the folds of his jacket, and both times, the left sleeve bunched up near the wrist opening, then smoothed out toward the elbow. It wasn’t much, and I’d only had a second to look, but it was there.
Maybe he has been paid not just to kill me, but to stick me up close, to disfigure me, a vendetta killing. I’ve heard of bagmen taking this kind of work, not just ending a mark’s life, but disgracing him in death, pissing on his grave. Come to think of it, it would require the killer to work in close, and maybe that’s why he’d been aiming low in the train station in Naples, when the bullet skipped off the pavement by my feet. Maybe he had been aiming for my knees, hoping to wing me so he could carve me up like beef at the slaughterhouse. Or maybe I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.
I dial a number from memory, look at the digital clock next to my bed, and wait for her to answer.
“ Ciao ?”
“Risina. It’s Jack Walker.”
Her voice warms immediately. I can feel the smile through the phone line.
“ Buongiorno , Jack. I was just opening the store.”
“I thought you might be. Do you have a moment?”
“Yes. Yes. How are you?”
“I’m . . . fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I don’t? I’m tired, I guess.”
“Where are you?”
“The States. East Coast.”
“It is late there.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m very pleased you called. I was thinking about you.”
“I’m glad you were. I think about you too much.”
She laughs. It is a sound low in her throat, as soothing as a touch. “You can never think about me too much, Jack.”
I wait for a moment, and there is an odd comfort in the silence, like the distance between us has been erased. I don’t know why I feel the compulsion to say what I’m about to say, but the words come out of me before I can decide against them.
“I was just remembering a story I read once. Something from when I was a kid.”
“Yes?”
“Maybe you can figure out for me who wrote it.”
“I can try. It is a children’s story?”
“Well, I read it when I was a kid, but I’m not sure where or how I came across it. I’m
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