“I don’t like you going unarmed.”
“I’m armed just fine.” I patted my breast pocket, feeling the hard edges of a fresh packet of playing cards. A .22 automatic rode on my hip for backup, just the right size for close-up work. “I can replace my cards and my gun. I can’t replace the wand. Besides, it only works when I’m protecting someone from danger. Someone who isn’t me.”
“It’s a stubborn wand,” she said.
“Stupid jerk wand.” I cast a baleful look at the stick as she slipped it into her purse. “Yeah, you heard me, jerk wand.”
A little forced levity made me feel better. For a few seconds, anyway. My watch said 10:58, time to go to work.
“We’d better split up,” I said to Caitlin. “If they know me, they know you. They won’t make a move if you’re close enough to save me.”
She took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I’m always close enough,” she told me.
Then she let go and cast me out like a worm on a hook.
Walking alone, I angled my way toward the benches near the soundstage where the meet between Todd and Santiago was supposed to take place. I kept to the shadows, but not too deep. Away from the crowds, but not too far. I had to walk the fine line between making myself look like an easy target and making sure my own people didn’t lose sight of me.
I counted my breaths and listened to the cover band butcher another vintage track. I wanted a drink. I worked hard at keeping my moves slow and easy. Couldn’t give away the game. I watched over Emma from a distance, trailing her shadow while she prowled near the benches, pretending I was her guardian angel.
Something was wrong.
My watch said it was thirty-six minutes past the hour, and nobody had made a move yet. I could only figure that we’d been made, that I’d given something away with my body language, and the Network had decided to fight another day. I didn’t want to go home empty-handed, and I tried to figure out where we’d gone wrong. Where had—
A hard electronic squawk jarred my thoughts. The music from the soundstage sputtered and died, leaving the fist-pumping audience milling in sudden confusion. Then a voice boomed from the loudspeakers perched throughout the park.
“By order of the Metropolitan Police Department, Container Park is closed for the evening. Please make your way directly to the exit at this time in a calm and orderly manner. Thank you.”
Deflated tourists joined a mob shuffling to the front archway, clutching their beer cups like trophies of war. I jogged up, getting closer, and saw a wall of colored lights lining Fremont Street. And a wall of beige uniforms at the park’s exit. A sergeant with a walkie-talkie was coordinating, pointing, and I watched a couple of cops snatch people from the front of the crowd when they tried to leave.
I walked backward, repelled like a flipped-over magnet, and speed-dialed Jennifer’s number while I hunted for a wastebasket.
“Sugar? I got five guys all shouting in my ear at once. What’s—”
“Harding,” I said. “He fucked us. He was supposed to keep his guys clear. Apparently he decided to go for a big bust instead. I bet he’s feeling the pressure after that house party; getting a few ink dealers off the street would make for good press.”
“He doesn’t even know who he’s looking for.”
I saw the cops grab a lanky guy from the pack and put him up against a cruiser’s hood, patting him down.
“I think they’re just grabbing anybody who doesn’t fit the tourist profile and hoping to catch them carrying. Idiot. He just blew this entire operation on a fishing expedition. Forget it. Jen, get your guys out of here, tell ’em to keep their heads down and we’ll bail out anybody who gets nabbed. You and me, let’s meet up at the Tiger’s Garden later. We need to have a long hard think about our relationship with Commissioner Harding.”
I could worry about that later. Right now, I needed to get out of here without ending up in handcuffs. Daniel Faust was legally dead, but my fingerprints were still in the national ViCAP database. One background check and I’d be back on the law’s radar for good.
I glanced over my shoulder. There were more uniforms taking up the rear now—they must have circled the edge of the park—and herding everybody toward the exit in a slow, firm march. I wasn’t worried about Caitlin and Emma. Caitlin could go over the side of the park if she had to—I’d seen her take a three-story drop and land with the kind of grace a cat would envy—and Emma could talk or buy her way out of most trouble. As for me, my concealed .22 had just transformed from a backup plan to a deadly liability. I had to lose it, fast.
I joined the crowd’s listless march, another lemming in the pack, and angled my stride toward a trash can up ahead. A deputy was standing five feet away, hands clasped at parade rest as he scanned every passing face. My fingers slipped under my jacket and brushed against steel. I’d have to pull the gun to toss it.
I watched the slow sway of his head, holding my breath, and timed my approach like a plane trying to land on a ten-foot runway. Five steps from the can, four, three, his gaze swung left as I turned my hip and plucked the pistol loose and—
—it disappeared, plastic lid swinging in its wake, as he locked eyes with me. I gave him a friendly nod in passing.
“Evening, officer.”
He didn’t respond. I didn’t care. There was nothing on me now but a deck of cards. Even if the cops on watch singled me out for a search, I was free and clear.
I took a deep breath and congratulated myself on a move well done. That’s when they pulled me out of the crowd, five feet past the exit archway.
A pair of uniforms grabbed me by the elbows and marched me over to a squad car. I gave them a genial laugh, playing up the “slightly drunk and confused” act. “Hey, fellas, I know the band sucked, but that’s no reason to break up the party. What gives?”
Neither of them said a word. One bent me over their squad car while the other gave me a brisk pat-down. He plucked the cardboard pack from my breast pocket, shook it a few times like he was expecting to hear something besides cards inside, then tossed it onto the hood.
“Careful,” I said, “that pack is loaded.”
They weren’t in a chatty mood. The cop finished searching me, running his hands along both legs from my inseam down to my ankles. I waited, patient, figuring they’d cut me loose with an apology.
Handcuffs clinched tight around my wrists. I barely got a word out before they shoved me into the back of their car.
13.
My stint at Eisenberg Correctional flooded back in a heartbeat and stole the breath from my lungs. I was standing on a yellow line, shoulder to shoulder with hardened felons, stripping down on command and tossing our clothes into a cardboard box. My prison uniform was tight in some places, baggy in others, scratchy as the barber ran his shears across my scalp. I watched my curls fall to the floor, mingled with all the other fresh convicts’, while they turned me into a man with a number for a name.
I was lying in the dark in my prison cell, listening to the snoring, the whispers, the faint sound of someone in tears, shivering under my paper-thin blanket. Still aching from the beating I’d taken earlier that day, and realizing that this was the shape of every single night for the rest of my life. Realizing that I was going to die in this cell and never breathe free air again.
I closed my eyes.
I felt my cuffed hands behind my back, brushed my fingertips together, then patted the cruiser’s seat. I wasn’t in Eisenberg. I was here. Now. And I wasn’t going back inside.
“What am I being arrested for?” I asked.
The two cops in the front seat didn’t say a word. Keeping up the silent act.
“I want to know why I’m being detained.”