apartments where the kids lived, the ones he’d been following for no rational reason these last few weeks. The girl wasn’t working tonight; she would have left for the Rialto by now if she was. Instead, they were both inside, at home on a Friday night at half past six. Pretty soon the mobile would set off again and Nick would have work, assuming his contact didn’t drop him for failing to answer. Or worse.
People came and went, peeling out in late-model Chevys and slamming doors and carrying on conversations by screaming at one another from one end of the place to the other. All the while the sole apartment in which Nick held any interest remained quiet and still, the same dull yellow light glowing uninterrupted in its only window, the thin white curtains drawn.
Maybe the phone wasn’t going to buzz, Nick considered. Maybe he was done. For good. Then what?
He shook his head and lit the cigarette that had been dangling from his lips for a good fifteen minutes. The car radio was on, the volume low. Some guy with an obnoxious voice was screeching about the incredible deal on Mitsubishis some dealer or another was sponsoring that weekend. Nick tapped the Pall Mall against the lip of the ashtray and his mind wandered back to Sweet Lorraine and the little blue butterfly that would forever endeavor to flutter away from her perfect alabaster pelvis but would eternally fail. And the more he thought about that pelvis and all the flesh and bone and hair that surrounded it, the more Nick’s testicles began to ache.
Restless was the word for it, and he knew it. He’d been stagnant for too long, that was the thing. It was the cure he couldn’t figure—did professional murderers take vacations to the Keys? Nick honestly didn’t know—he’d never taken a vacation and had no colleagues who may or may not have. Or maybe he only needed to get laid. He grunted and sucked deeply at the cigarette and looked back up to the kids’ apartment door as it slowly swung open. His eyes widened and his heartbeat picked up, and at the same time his mobile phone buzzed.
“Fuck.”
He ground his teeth and pressed the answer button. A voice both familiar and unknowable said, “So nice to see you haven’t gone and died, sweetheart.”
Nick said, “I’m here.”
“You’ve got work.”
The line clicked and the static white noise from the other end went dead. Nick returned the mobile phone to the passenger seat and watched the boy hold the front door open for the girl and then lock it once she was out. They piled into the Ford parked right in front and the backlights flared red and in no time at all they were out and gone. Nick clenched his fists, ached to know where they were going, what they were going to do when they got there, and who they were going to be with wherever they might be doing it. But he had work.
It was shaping up to be a busy season.
* * *
For the second time that day Nick found himself seated at the booth in the back, where he’d flattened out a crumpled code on the table in front of him. The same barmaid with the nice smile (sans one bicuspid) and the broad, swinging hips came to the edge of his table and with an arched eyebrow said, “You’re back.”
“Guess I wasn’t finished,” Nick said.
“Another Stroh’s?”
“Dewar’s,” he corrected. “No ice.”
“Straight?”
“Double.”
She raised both eyebrows now and jutted out her lower lip. It was a nice lip, Nick thought.
While the barmaid wiggled back to the bar to set up Nick’s drink, he squashed his own brow and glared hard at the numbers inside the consolation card.
267-4-58.
His first inclination was that it had to be a combination to a dial lock, but he scrapped that on account of the high numbers. No lock went up to 267, or even 58, that he’d ever seen. It was too short to be a Social Security number or state ID, couldn’t be a phone number without an additional digit, and the dashes ruled out the code being some kind of an
People came and went, peeling out in late-model Chevys and slamming doors and carrying on conversations by screaming at one another from one end of the place to the other. All the while the sole apartment in which Nick held any interest remained quiet and still, the same dull yellow light glowing uninterrupted in its only window, the thin white curtains drawn.
Maybe the phone wasn’t going to buzz, Nick considered. Maybe he was done. For good. Then what?
He shook his head and lit the cigarette that had been dangling from his lips for a good fifteen minutes. The car radio was on, the volume low. Some guy with an obnoxious voice was screeching about the incredible deal on Mitsubishis some dealer or another was sponsoring that weekend. Nick tapped the Pall Mall against the lip of the ashtray and his mind wandered back to Sweet Lorraine and the little blue butterfly that would forever endeavor to flutter away from her perfect alabaster pelvis but would eternally fail. And the more he thought about that pelvis and all the flesh and bone and hair that surrounded it, the more Nick’s testicles began to ache.
Restless was the word for it, and he knew it. He’d been stagnant for too long, that was the thing. It was the cure he couldn’t figure—did professional murderers take vacations to the Keys? Nick honestly didn’t know—he’d never taken a vacation and had no colleagues who may or may not have. Or maybe he only needed to get laid. He grunted and sucked deeply at the cigarette and looked back up to the kids’ apartment door as it slowly swung open. His eyes widened and his heartbeat picked up, and at the same time his mobile phone buzzed.
“Fuck.”
He ground his teeth and pressed the answer button. A voice both familiar and unknowable said, “So nice to see you haven’t gone and died, sweetheart.”
Nick said, “I’m here.”
“You’ve got work.”
The line clicked and the static white noise from the other end went dead. Nick returned the mobile phone to the passenger seat and watched the boy hold the front door open for the girl and then lock it once she was out. They piled into the Ford parked right in front and the backlights flared red and in no time at all they were out and gone. Nick clenched his fists, ached to know where they were going, what they were going to do when they got there, and who they were going to be with wherever they might be doing it. But he had work.
It was shaping up to be a busy season.
* * *
For the second time that day Nick found himself seated at the booth in the back, where he’d flattened out a crumpled code on the table in front of him. The same barmaid with the nice smile (sans one bicuspid) and the broad, swinging hips came to the edge of his table and with an arched eyebrow said, “You’re back.”
“Guess I wasn’t finished,” Nick said.
“Another Stroh’s?”
“Dewar’s,” he corrected. “No ice.”
“Straight?”
“Double.”
She raised both eyebrows now and jutted out her lower lip. It was a nice lip, Nick thought.
While the barmaid wiggled back to the bar to set up Nick’s drink, he squashed his own brow and glared hard at the numbers inside the consolation card.
267-4-58.
His first inclination was that it had to be a combination to a dial lock, but he scrapped that on account of the high numbers. No lock went up to 267, or even 58, that he’d ever seen. It was too short to be a Social Security number or state ID, couldn’t be a phone number without an additional digit, and the dashes ruled out the code being some kind of an
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