“What do you want, Milo?”
He laughs. “You really want me to answer that?”
“No.” It’s the usual teasing, but there’s something floating underneath his joking tone that makes me stiffen. Milo is seriously excited.
“Actually, it’s more what you want, Wick. The guy who called off those guards? I found him.”
“Will he talk to us?” I should have said “me” and I don’t bother correcting it.
“Yeah. We gotta move now though. He’s clearing out, will be gone by tonight so dump your shit and meet me outside.”
I hesitate. I can’t just leave school.
Can I?
“Give me five minutes,” I say.
20
I dump my books in my locker and walk off campus with two stoners who are sneaking into the woods to smoke. It would come as a surprise to most people, but this will be the first time I’ve ever skipped class and it’s actually crazy easy. I’m kind of aggravated I haven’t done it before. The stoners hunker down in the woods along a side street and Milo meets me at the corner. I jump into his battered Crown Vic and we peel off.
“For the record, I’m really digging the scarf,” Milo says.
“For the record,” I mimic, fiddling with the seat belt only to find it’s broken, “I don’t do stuff like this. I’m actually a straight-A student.”
“I figured as much.” Milo makes a right onto the highway, heading for the interstate. “That’s how I knew I had something good. You were willing to come to me.”
He leans against his armrest, grins at me like he’s won something, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
“Shut up and drive, Milo.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Damn straight.”
He laughs and, after a beat, so do I.
We end up in a run-down apartment complex just outside of Atlanta. As it turns out, Milo has done work for this guy before. They’re not exactly friends, but Milo’s confident he’ll answer any questions I have.
“How do you figure?” I ask, rushing to keep up as he strides across the parking lot. “Because you’re going to ask nicely?”
“Something like that,” Milo says, and uses his fist to knock on apartment 3A’s door. Nothing. Milo beats on the door again.
“Maybe he’s not home,” I say, and Milo gives me an of course he’s home look.
“Corey,” he yells, staring into the peephole. “I gotta talk to you. Now.”
I’m about to ask Milo if he has any other genius ideas when the lock scrapes and a moon-pale face wedges between the door and the jamb. Corey, I presume, glares at Milo like he wants to set him on fire.
“Let me in,” Milo says. “We have to talk.”
The other guy’s mouth presses thin, but the door swings open. Milo motions me to go first while he watches the parking lot behind us. I’m barely across the threshold before Corey makes an angry buffalo snort.
“Who’s the chick?”
The chick. Like I’m freaking furniture.
“You remember the Walker job?” Milo asks, shutting the door behind us and turning the lock. It makes Corey shift from foot to foot.
“Yeah.”
“She did it.”
“Bullshit.”
“No shit.”
“She’s a girl,” Corey says.
I roll my eyes and neither of them notices. They’re too busy glaring at each other.
“Fine. Whatever. Be fast, man,” Corey says. “I’m on my way out.”
Yeah, no kidding. The small apartment is almost empty. Only things left are an ancient sofa pushed against the wall and drag marks in the floor dust.
“I want to know about the work you did a few days ago,” Milo says. “Calling off Barton and Moore’s guys.”
“It was a job. What else is there to know?”
“Who’d you do it for?”
Corey pales. “I don’t have time for this.” He picks up a battered duffel bag and jerks it over his shoulder. “I am so gone.”
“You won’t be if I burn you.” Milo says it so pleasantly that it takes Corey a moment to process the words. He stares at us, slack-jawed.
“You wouldn’t.”
Milo cocks his head, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
I search his face, trying to find the lie . . . and I can’t. He’s serious.
“I’ll make it so you’ll never work again,” Milo says.
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“This is all I have.”
That really gets Milo smiling. “Then tell me what I want to know.”
“I got the first job through one of the message boards,” Corey says. He keeps playing with the strap on his duffel bag, eyes returning again and again to the apartment’s sole window. “It was good money, like really good money, and after I finished he offered me the Benson and whatever work. It wasn’t too hard. They had a flaw in their cell phone messaging system.”
Corey readjusts his duffel bag. “Stupid how their guys kept putting off the OS updates for their phones, but good for me, you know, ’cause I was able to get in and text one of the guards. I told him they were both called to HQ.”