Kiss Her Goodbye (A Thriller) (6 page)

 Not at her, at least.

 And while that small fact didn’t exactly have her jumping for joy, it was, she supposed, a step in the right direction.

S
HE MISSED HER
bus and had to catch a cab to school. Not something she liked to do, but she was a big girl. It was either that or be late again, and late was not an option.

 “Bellanova Prep,” she told the driver, and gave him the directions.

 The driver was a bald-headed perv who acted as if the only time he’d ever seen a girl in a school uniform was in some cheesy porn flick. All the way there he kept glancing at her in his rearview mirror.

 Jessie shifted uncomfortably on the backseat and folded her arms across her chest, watching the morning whip by.

 Vendors washed down sidewalks in front of flower shops and bakeries and delicatessens that promised mile-high pastrami sandwiches; harried moms dropped their squealing kids off at concrete nursery schools; men in gray suits with gray faces marched dutifully toward gray office buildings. It seemed to Jessie that people were always in such a hurry to get somewhere, but did any of them really know where they were going?

 She sure didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

 After a while, some guy in a funky old Jeep pulled up alongside the cab and blocked her view. Not that she minded. He was pretty cute.
Way
too old for her, close to thirty probably, but he looked familiar and she was sure she’d seen him on TV. Maybe one of the entertainment channels. She couldn’t be sure.

 The ponytail was a bit much—who the heck wears ponytails these days?—but the body wasn’t bad. Taut, muscular, looking like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors chopping wood or something. He had nice gray eyes and an easy smile, which he flashed in her direction as he sped up and turned a corner.

 Bellanova Prep was less than a mile away. Jessie had half a mind to tell the driver to turn around and “follow that Jeep,” but that would be a little reckless, now, wouldn’t it?

 Jessie was not a reckless girl.

 Moments later, as she paid the driver and got out of the cab, she could swear she saw the Jeep again, out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up the street, but saw no sign of it—if it had even been there in the first place.

 As she hurried up the steps and fell in with the crowd of kids piling in through the school’s cathedral-like entrance, she found herself thinking about that Jeep, and about sixth-period math and a guy named Matt who sat across the aisle from her.

 She wondered how
he
would look with a ponytail.

9

T
HE HOT ITEM
on drive-time talk radio was the transfer of Sara Reed Gunderson to yet another critical-care facility. This was the third such transfer in little over a month. The first came ten days after she was brought to Franklin Memorial, her baby lost, her pulse nearly nonexistent, and her brain showing little, if any, activity.

 In other words, Sara was about as dead as you can get without actually crossing over to the other side. The doctors should have pulled the plug that first day, but Sara’s parents wouldn’t hear of it. They still held out hope for their little girl.

 Sara’s father, the CEO of a top-flight investment brokerage, used his considerable influence and deep pockets to call in medical experts from around the world. They’d take his money and study her charts and quietly shake their heads.

 Sara’s mother appealed to God, but her prayers had apparently fallen on deaf ears. Sara had been in a coma for a month and a half now, and the prognosis wasn’t even remotely hopeful.

 Despite Sara’s crimes, and despite her leftist leanings, she was something of a cause célèbre to the right-wing fanatics who dominated the talk-radio waves. Whenever a new transfer was announced, discussions about government agencies out of control were renewed with venomous vigor. Most of that venom was reserved for the ATF.

 Remember Waco, they’d cry.

 The children of Walter O’Brien, and the wife of fellow bank guard Samuel R. Kingman, pointed fingers at no one. They believed Sara Reed Gunderson was an icy-hearted bitch who got exactly the punishment God intended: an eternity in hell.

 Their only hope was that her husband would soon join her.

 Unfortunately, no one expected that hope to come to fruition anytime soon. Despite the best efforts of the Chicago Police Department, the FBI, and the ATF, neither Alexander Gunderson nor his two surviving comrades could be found.

 The FBI, plagued by the more pressing concerns of Middle East terrorist cells, speculated that Gunderson and crew had fled the country, possibly to Cuba. The police commissioner, countering criticism that the CPD was asleep at the wheel, insisted they had headed for the mountains of Wyoming or Iowa, seeking refuge among the local militias.

 Neither scenario made sense to Jack Donovan. And as the publicity surrounding the Northland First & Trust robbery sank deeper and deeper into the back pages of the daily newspapers, he refused to give up. He maintained that Alexander Gunderson hadn’t left at all, but was holed up somewhere within the city limits.

 Waiting. Watching. Planning.

 Gunderson would never, Donovan insisted, leave his beloved Sara behind.

10

W
ILL YOU HURRY
up, for crissakes? He’s waiting.”

 “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

 The bitch in the Chevy Suburban dabbed at her nose, snapped her compact shut, then climbed out and slammed the door. The sound reverberated through the underground parking lot like cannon fire.

 Her husband, a balding butterball in a three-piece suit, was already standing at the parking-lot elevator, watching with a scowl as she straightened her skirt and checked her reflection in the passenger-side window.

 “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “You’re not gonna screw the guy. Come on!”

 Gunderson had half a mind to cap the butterball right then and there.

 Count your blessings, asshole. At least she can walk.

 Gunderson sat behind the wheel of his Jeep Commando, which was parked across the aisle from the Suburban. He’d been watching these two pathetic retards ever since they’d pulled into the stall five minutes ago. Neither looked particularly happy, and he had no clue where they were headed, but when they returned, they’d be considerably less jovial than they were now.

 He was about to steal their wheels.

 Gunderson had spent six months of his sophomore year of high school at the Illinois Youth Center downstate. His offense had been unsophisticated and impulsive: a smash and grab of his shop teacher’s prized Datsun 240Z.

 If six months at the IYC taught him anything beyond what the juvenile-court schools called an education, it was the wonders of the slim-jim and the screwdriver. No more smashing and grabbing for Gunderson, he now had the tools he needed to forge a career, and forge it he did.

 The next few years were spent organizing and operating a car-theft ring that quickly became a top priority for the Chicago Major Crimes Division. Cars were stolen, stripped, and dismantled in less than two hours, their parts often sold for three times the value of the car itself.

 Those days were long behind him now, but Gunderson still knew how to use the tools of the trade. In fact, he’d copped this crappy old Commando with nothing but a slotted two-inch Craftsman. The Jeep had served its purpose well, but now he needed something roomier. Something that said
soccer mom.
 

 The Suburban was the perfect choice.

 The elevator bell rang and Mr. and Mrs. Waste-of-Space stepped inside, the Husband of the Year still complaining about how late they were as wifey-poo adjusted and readjusted her ample, if sagging, bosom.

 Gunderson waited for the doors to close, checked to make sure the aisle was clear, then swung his legs out of the Jeep and crossed to the SUV.

 Approaching the driver’s-side window, he fed the length of a slim-jim down past the rubber, gave it a little shake and a tug. The lock popped open. Once inside, he pulled a stubby screwdriver from his pocket, jammed it into the ignition, and started the engine.

 The whole operation took less than forty seconds.

 On his way out of the parking lot, Gunderson paid the attendant five bucks (and they called
him
a criminal), rolled the Suburban up the ramp into traffic, and headed back the way he’d come.

 As ripe little Jessie exchanged shy glances with the pimply-faced geeks in her biology class, Gunderson thought about his sweet Sara lying silently in her hospital bed and allowed himself the slightest of smiles.

 Retribution is a wonderful thing.

11

W
HEN THE BUZZER
buzzed, Bobby Nemo’s muscles tensed. An instinctive reaction. He’d been on edge for weeks.

 “Oww,” Carla groaned, “you’re hurting me.”

 “Shut up,” Nemo said. He got off her, told her to get dressed, then pulled his pants back on and eased onto the sofa, letting his gaze drift to the television set across the room. ESPN extreme sports.

 He was trying to look relaxed, but he didn’t feel so relaxed.

 “That’s it?” Carla said. “We’re not gonna finish?”

 The buzzer buzzed again.

 “Get your clothes on and answer the goddamned door.”

 Carla pouted. Pushed her lips together and got all teary-eyed. Nemo hated when she did that. Made her look like some needy skank, especially when she sat there on the floor with her tits and ass hanging out. He knew what was coming next.

 “You don’t love me anymore.”

 “Jesus, Carla, don’t start, okay?” He picked her T-shirt up off the carpet and threw it at her. “Just shut up and get your ass in gear.”

 She got quiet then and pulled the T-shirt on, the words
MAN BAIT
plastered across her surgically enhanced chest. She reached under the sofa for her panties, started to slip into them, then had a sudden change of heart and flung them at Nemo instead. “Asshole.”

 She got to her feet and sashayed toward the door, the T-shirt barely covering the crack of her ass. She was planning to give their caller a beaver show, doing it to spite Nemo, because she knew how much he hated it when she did that.

 Of course, Carla made her living giving beaver shows. Let guys stick dollar bills up her snatch even though a sign at the back of the club where she was headlining clearly said
TOUCHING OF DANCERS STRICTLY PROHIBITED
. God knows what she let them do during the private dances.

 But that was work. This was different. Nemo had been staying with Carla for a few weeks now, and this was the second time she’d gotten pissed enough to go to the door bare-assed. Last time some poor geek of a Mormon kid got a glimpse of that little Brazilian wax job of hers and almost shot his wad right there in his Fruit of the Looms.

 Carla had laughed like a friggin’ hyena, but Nemo didn’t think it was funny. Not one bit.

 The buzzer buzzed a third time. Nemo’s hand slipped under the seat cushion next to him and touched the grip of his Desert Eagle.

 Carla called out, “Who is it?”

 “Chu’s Chinese. I’ve got your order.”

 About goddamned time, Nemo thought, and withdrew his hand. His muscles relaxed. Everything was cool. Nothing to worry about.

 For now, at least.

 The first time Nemo saw his face on TV, he almost shit a brick. This was the day following the Northland First & Trust disaster, when he, Alex, and that dimwit Luther were nursing their wounds at a house on Lake Shore Drive, a big mother of a place owned by Sara’s brother, Tony.

 Reed was an unwilling participant in the proceedings, a petulant little prick who spent one minute crying about his kid sister and the next threatening to call the police. So Alex wasted no time setting him straight.

 They were watching CNN on Tony’s big screen, watching a report on the robbery, when Nemo’s face filled all sixty-two inches of the thing, some candy-assed news anchor telling the world what a fuck ball he was.

 Nemo didn’t feel like a fuck ball, and he sure didn’t feel like spending the rest of his life in a federally franchised HoJo, so he split from Alex and Luther that day, telling them they’d all be better off if they didn’t travel in a pack.

 They kept in touch, using stolen and hacked cell phones, Luther the lucky one because he’d never been identified, living back home with Mommy. Alex carved his own shit-hole out in the boondocks while Nemo grew a beard and played nomad, bouncing from place to place. He thought about leaving the country altogether, but that would make him a stranger in some strange land and he didn’t exactly relish that thought.

 In the end, he stayed where he belonged, right here in the city, where he felt comfortable. The Feds probably figured he was holed up somewhere in South America, but he never got overconfident, always stayed alert. Keeping to himself during the day, he cruised the bars at night, constantly looking for a safe place to perch. He spent a few nights out at Fredrickville, holed up in some cracker-box motel that a friend of Luther’s managed, but a restless spirit sent him back to the city, prowling for a better grade of poon.

 Then he met Carla, a dancer at the Pussy Palace, a G-string-optional strip dive on South Clinton.

 Carla always opted to go without.

 That night, she took him to a private booth and gave him head like you wouldn’t believe. Nemo didn’t know if it was the size of his unit or the fact that he thanked her afterward that made her fall for him, but she invited him home and he’d been here ever since. It had worked out real good, because Carla didn’t watch the news or read the papers and had absolutely no idea who he was. Carla was a cute little piece of ass, but she’d never be a contestant on
Jeopardy.
 

 Nemo watched her get up on tippy-toes and look out the peephole. She was short, but it was all muscle and soft curves.

 “Puny little oriental guy,” she said, then turned and gave Nemo a defiant grin. “Let’s give him the full show.”