“He wrecked my Bentley! That was a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car!”
Lipsky put a hand on his arm. “I’ll buy you another one. Okay? Whatever color you want. But you need to be on that plane. Now, don’t touch anything else, get in your car, and go directly to the airport. When you get to the hotel, destroy your suit and shoes and replace them from the hotel shop. Do you hear me?”
“Come on, he’s going to die anyway. Why can’t I kill him?” Skinner sounded like a child. Something was definitely not right in there.
Peter said, “You know he’s slipped his leash, right?”
“Shut your mouth, or I’ll give him his knife back.”
“Look at his eyes, Detective. What if he decides to stab a stewardess? Then you’re really screwed.”
Lipsky pivoted and swung his pistol into the side of Peter’s head, which flared in a bright burst of pain. He closed his eyes against it and kept breathing, in and out. Kept the static from rising up completely.
Lipsky’s voice was a little farther away now. “Keep an eye on him, Sergeant. I’ll come for you when it’s time. We’re almost there.”
“Can I hit him?” Skinner’s voice was eager.
“No,” said Lipsky, calm again. “You’re leaving.”
“What about the nigger? The one who was with him when he wrecked my Bentley?”
“Wait,” said Lipsky. “There’s someone else?”
Felix walked past to slip out the loading dock door. Boomer followed with Dinah and Miles.
Lipsky rolled down the truck door with a clatter. Then the clank of the latch. Peter was trapped in the back with Midden and the bomb.
Waiting for Lewis.
He heard Boomer talking faintly through the aluminum skin of the truck. Then Lipsky, and maybe Dinah.
Breathe in, breathe out. The white static rose.
Then he heard the bark of a dog.
44
TWO HOURS EARLIER
Charlie
Run. Charlie, run!” his mother screamed. Charlie froze. He’d never heard her sound so scared before.
There was a loud noise and smoke in the room, and Lieutenant Ash’s two friends raced forward with guns in their hands. But his mom shoved him through the door to the basement stairs and closed the door behind him. He stood on the step in the dark with Mingus beside him and he couldn’t see anything.
He put his hand on the door and felt the thunk as she threw the deadbolt.
Mingus growled at the banging and shouting above them. People were shooting, Charlie knew. Shooting at one another. Maybe at his mother.
Then Mingus bumped Charlie with his shoulder, nudging him down the stairs. Charlie reached out to grab his rope collar. Mingus pulled him onward through the dim, musty maze of the basement to another set of stairs with a faint rectangular frame of light at the top. Charlie climbed up into the kitchen of some kind of empty old restaurant that smelled like spilled beer and old people. He locked the basement door behind him, ran past the bar and the tables with their chairs stacked on top, opened the deadbolt on the outside door, and ran across the street, the dog hard at his heels.
He watched from the shelter of overgrown bushes, Mingus crouched beside him, as two men put his mother and brother in the back of a plain white van and climbed in. Charlie felt a wave of relief seeing them alive, even if they did have what looked like old shirts over their heads. But the other two men, the friends of Lieutenant Ash, did not come out.
The dog growled.
“Mingus, quiet,” said Charlie. “Just wait.”
He didn’t think anyone had taught the dog those commands, but Mingus seemed to understand. Charlie wished he had his baseball bat, but he knew better than to think it would help him against these men and their guns. He was angry and afraid in equal amounts. He wondered if that was how his dad had felt when he was off at war. Or back home.
The white van’s engine started. Behind him in the bushes, leaning against the house, Charlie found an old ten-speed bike with curly handlebars. When the white van pulled out, Charlie hopped on and followed.
Good thing he’d run all those sprints at basketball practice. He had to pedal awfully hard to keep up with the van.
He was pretty sure that the two men had killed Lieutenant Ash’s friends.
The van was pulling away from him, so Charlie pedaled harder. He was the man of the family, and he was going after his mother and his brother. Mingus was ahead of him, but the dog kept looking over his shoulder to make sure Charlie was still there.
The white van drove like every other car or truck, no crazy moves. Nobody would know there were people trapped inside, maybe tied up. Maybe hurt.