Fifty Grand (2 page)

A click of the button and the trunk pops open.

His eyes are wild, his naked body Pollocked with mud, oil, and paint flecks. His legs covered in yellow bruises. He’s been trying to kick open the emergency release lever with his knees.

He’s having trouble breathing. I see that the duct tape is partially covering his nostrils. The sort of clumsy mistake that could have suffocated him.

I rip the tape off his mouth.

“Bastard,” he says, and spits at me.

Save your strength, if I were you,
compañero
.

I lift his legs out and then grab him by the arm and heft him from the trunk onto the embankment. I shove him facedown into the snow, take the knife, and cut through the duct tape at his ankles. I step away from him and remove the Smith & Wesson M&P from my jacket pocket.

He gets to his feet, but he can’t do anything with his hands still cuffed behind his back.

I waggle the gun at him to make sure that he sees it.

“Now what?” he says.

I point at the lake.

“I’m freezing. I want my clothes. I’m freezing to death.”

I bring the 9mm up to his navel and press it against his bruised stomach.

The gun and the ski mask are iconic images of terror. It would take someone of sterner stuff than him to resist this kind of pressure.

“All right,” he says.

I turn him and push him gently in the direction of the lake.

He mutters something, shakes his head, and walks through the frozen snow to the lakeshore.

His body is pale, almost blue white. And he’s a big man. Six foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds, none of it fat. He was a college football player back in the day and he’s kept himself in shape. Five miles on the treadmill each morning and rugby training every Wednesday with the Gentlemen of Aspen.

More grumbling, and he stops when his soles touch the ice. He hesitates. The snow was full of air and not too frigid but the ice is dry, flat, and sticky. It’s cold enough to burn.

“What do you want me to do?”

I’m about to speak for the first time but the words die on my lips. Not yet.
Not yet
.

I wave him forward.

“On this?”

I nod and extend the gun.

“Ah shit,” he says but begins walking.

It’s full light now.

The sun advancing over the plains. The moon a fading scar.

Beautiful.

The lake. The trees.

Frost crystals.

Voleries of geese.

Fish in trance.

“Aow!” he says.

Vapor lock. His soles are stuck and he shudders to a halt. Momentum is the key. I give him a shove. His back tenses at my touch and he doesn’t move.

I tap him with the gun.

We begin again.

But the sensation of his powerful shoulder muscle through the glove has made me nervous.

I’m going to have to be very careful when I give him the hammer.

In his freshman year at college he had a charge of assault and battery dismissed (so Ricky thinks) through the influence of his father; and in his senior year he broke another man’s jaw, but that never came to anything because it was on the football field.

He’s strong. He could snap me in half. Would too, given half a chance.

“How much farther? What is this?” he asks and stops again.

I push him.

Although he moves, there’s a little jaunt in his step that makes me think he’s up to something.

Got to be careful in spades.

“What’s with the silent treatment, buddy? Do you even understand English? Are you mute?”

He turns to look at me.

“Huh? Get me? What are they paying you? I’ll give you ten times what they’re paying you. What’s your price? Name it. Just name it. I’ve got the money. A lot of money. Everyone has their price. Tell me what it is.”

Can you run back time? Can you do that? Are you a mage, a necromancer?

“What have you done with my clothes? I want my clothes. I want my goddamn clothes!” he shouts, furious, stubborn.

Naked in,
amigo
, and perhaps if things don’t go well, naked out.

Even so, when the gun waggles he keeps walking.

“What is this? I want my clothes!”

The echo back over the lake opens the floodgates.

“This is insane! This is crazy!” he yells. “You can’t shoot me, you can’t. You can’t shoot me. You can’t. I haven’t done anything. You got the wrong man. This is a goddamn misunderstanding.”

I’m not going to shoot you. That would be far too easy. That would not give us sufficient comfort in the long years ahead.

“Listen to me, listen to me. I know you’re not mute and I know you can hear me. Say something. Speak. You think you’re being so smart. You’re not. I want you to speak. I’m ordering you to speak. Speak to me!”

You want part of it? How about this: enshrined within the Colonial Spanish penal code is the Latin maxim
talem qualem
, which means you take your victim as you find him. American cops call it the eggshell skull rule. Slap someone with a delicate cranium, break it, and they’ll still charge you with murder.
Talem qualem
. Take your victim as you find him. In other words, be careful who you kill. Be careful who you kill, friend.

“Madness. This is madness. You’ve obviously made some kind of mistake. I’m not loaded. You want to go to Watson, he’s worth a billion. I’ll show you. I’ll show you. He’s got a van Gogh, a Matisse. Him, not me.
Dammit, talk to me! Who do you think I am? What is this? Who do you think I am?”

I know exactly who you are.

It’s who I am that’s the mystery. What am I doing here? That one I still haven’t figured out.

He stamps his heel into the ice, flexes his shoulder, turns again.

“This is crazy. You don’t . . . Have you any idea what you’ve got yourself into? Do you know who you’re dealing with? Ok, I’m no goddamn Cruise but let me tell you something, I’ll be missed. They’ll come looking for me. Are you listening? Take that thing off your head. I don’t know what they told you. I don’t know what you think you’re doing but you’re making a big mistake, pal. Big mistake. Biggest mistake of your whole life. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t know who I am, this is just a job to you, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Well, let me hit you with the truth, bud, you’re making a life-changing error.”

His confidence is starting to return. It didn’t take long. His default position is the black rider, the boss, the center of the Ptolemaic universe. I prefer that.

“This has gone on too far. Way too far for a practical joke. Right now you’re doing permanent damage to the soles of my feet. I’ll see you in court for this.”

He still doesn’t get it. He still doesn’t see why we’re here.

“Listen to me, pal, you have no idea what you’re mixed up in. You don’t. Name a sum of money. Go on, just name it. A hundred thousand dollars? Two hundred thousand dollars? How about a cool half mil? Half a mil. Easy money. Easy money. Come on, buddy. You and me. We’ll pull one over on ’em. We’ll show them. Come on, whaddya say? I’m a grifter, you’re a grifter. Come on, man, you can see the angles, we’ll play ’em together.”

Oh,
compañero
, is everything about you fake? A performance? Where did you learn to talk like that? The movies? TV? Isn’t there anything real under that sheath of skin?

I slide the breech back on the M&P and it makes a satisfying clunk.

He continues shuffling, but only for a few paces.

“Come on, man,” he says, and turns, and he’s so fast I don’t even see the drop kick coming.

He jumps with both feet and crashes into my stomach.

The wind is knocked out of me and the gun goes flying. Both of us go down onto the ice with a crash. He falls on me, his thighs crunching against my ribs.

Water and a big fissure forming under my back.

He pivots on top of me, and although his hands are still cuffed he’s trying to bite my face.

His teeth snag on the ski mask at my chin, his breath reeking of booze and fear.

I make a fist and thump him so hard the first blow probably breaks his nose. The next gets him in his left eye, and the sideways kick to the crotch is the clincher. He doubles up in agony and I push the writhing mass of naked flesh away from me.

I get to my feet, retrieve the gun, suck O
₂
.

I look nervously at the crack under my feet. I stand there for a few beats but it doesn’t widen.

“Jesus,” he says.

Jesus is right. That was really something.

We both could easily have gone right through the surface. The hammer in my backpack would have taken me down to the lake bottom and if the shock hadn’t sent me into cardiac arrest, the current would probably have taken me away from the crack and up under unbroken ice. And if I hadn’t been able to break through I would have drowned. Shit, even if I’d gotten through somehow, I’d have been too exhausted to get out of the water. I’d have frozen to death in about half an hour. Mary, Mother of God, that would have been too perfect. It almost would have been worth it, just for that. What a wonderful, circular, karmic joke on me.

Yes.

I underestimated you, friend. And if I was a better person I’d let you go.

More deep breaths, hard, until I feel that I’m balanced again, poised between fight and flight.

Behind me the startled ravens stop squawking and resume their perches.

He is gasping for air, blood bubbling in his mouth.

After all the excitement we’ll both need another minute. He returns my gaze and, observing the gun, backs away crabwise, trying to make it to the shore. Painful to watch: hands resisting the desiccated ice, heels dragging.

Squeak, squeak, squeak. Clouds. Snowflakes. Squeak, squeak, squeak.

I walk to him.

“No,” he says.

His ass sticks to the ice. He rips it free and the crab walk recommences. It’s so pathetic I’m starting to feel bad. I point the gun at his stomach.

“No,” he repeats in a whisper.

Nooo
. His breath a ghost that vanishes like all ghosts. Desperation in those red, coke crash eyes. I go behind him and lug him to his feet. Ice-burned skin. Human skin.

Sickening, but not much farther now.

“Listen to me, buddy, I can make you rich. I can get you money. A lot of money. Millions. Do you understand? Millions of dollars. Goddammit! Why don’t you understand, what’s the matter with you? Millions of dollars? Do you speak English? Do you understand the goddamn English language?”

I do. It was my major.

“I hope you understand me, because you’re making a mistake. A life-altering—I have men, they’ll find me, and when they do I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes.”

Better my shoes than no shoes.

“You just don’t know who you’re dealing with. You have no idea.”

What next? You’re connected? You’re high up in the mob? Your movements are tracked by drones piloted by the CIA?

Just a few more steps: one, two, three, four.

There, we’re about thirty meters out now, which is far enough.

I give him the universal “stop” sign and signal him to lie down.

He shakes his head. I place the barrel of the gun against his heart.

Still he doesn’t obey.

I walk behind him and kick him in the left calf. His knees buckle and I push his head down, shoving his face against the ice. His body goes limp. Bracing himself.

I put the 9mm in my pocket, remove the handcuff key, unlock one wrist, and quickly get out of his way. I grab the gun again and wait. For a moment he doesn’t believe that I’ve unlocked him, but then when he sees that he’s completely free he gets to his feet and begins rubbing the circulation back into his wrists.

Keeping the gun on him I place the backpack in front of me and unzip the central pocket. I take out the sledgehammer and slide it to him over the ice.

He looks with astonishment at the vicious maple-handled, steel-headed five-kilo sledgehammer.

“What’s this for?” he asks.

I point at the ice.

His face shows incomprehension, but then he gets it. “You want me to make a hole in the ice?”

I nod.

He picks up the hammer.

As I knew it would, my heart starts to race. This is by far the riskiest part of the whole plan. Now, if he tries his trick, I’m dead.

Maybe we’ll get that sweet karmic ending after all.

He’s got a fantastic weapon, he’s strong, he’s angry, he’s free.

He holds all the cards but one.

Information.

He doesn’t know that the gun is empty.

He stares at my masked face for a moment, smiles unnervingly, and tightens his grip on the maple.

He looks like Pitt at the party, like Thor at Ragnarok—the hammer, the ice, the bloody face, the blond locks.