Moonlight & Vines (48 page)

The feds played their witness close to the vest. They never took him out. No one went in unless they were part of the op. In the end, Coe and Jimmy realized they'd have to do it on the day of the trial
.

They took up their positions as the feds' sedan pulled up in front of the
safehouse to pick up the witness. The feds had two more vehicles on the street—one parked two cars back, one halfway up the block. Coe counted six men, all told. And then there were the men inside the house with the witness. But when they brought him out, he was accompanied by a woman and a child. The witness held the child as they came down the steps—a little girl, no more than six with blonde curly hair. It was impossible to get a clear shot at him
.

Now what? Coe thought
.

But Jimmy didn't have any problem with the situation
.

“How d'you like that?” he said. “They're using the kid as a shield. Like that's going to make a difference.”

Before Coe could stop him, Jimmy fired. His first bullet tore through the girl and the man holding her. His second took the woman—probably the man's wife. All Coe could do was stare at the little girl as she hit the pavement. He was barely aware of Jimmy dropping the feds as they scattered for cover. Jimmy picked off four of them before Coe's paralysis broke
.

He hit Jimmy on the side of his head with stock of his rifle. For a moment he stood over the fallen man, ready to shoot the damned freak. Then he simply dropped the weapon onto Jimmy's chest and made his retreat
.

“Oh, yeah,” Jimmy says. “We have history.”

He laughs and Coe decides he liked the sound of the crows better. Jimmy's men give way as he moves forward.

“That's one way to put it, Leon,” Jimmy goes on. “Hell, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be here.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Coe asks.

But he already knows. He and Jimmy worked for the same people—men so paranoid they put conspiracy buffs to shame. When it came to that, they'd probably been on that grassy knoll in '63. Or if not them, then one of their proxies.

When Coe went underground, Jimmy must have taken the heat for it, sent him running till he ended up with the Blue Circle Boys. The fact that he's still alive says more for Jimmy's ability to survive than it does for the competence of the feds or any kindness in the hearts of their former employers. Unless Jimmy's new business
is
part of an op run by their old employers. Coe wouldn't put it past them. The Blue Circle Boys' war chest had to look good in these days of diminishing budgets, especially for an agency that didn't officially exist.

“How do you know this guy?” China asks.

“That's Leon,” Jimmy says, smiling. “He always was a close-mouthed bastard. Best damn wet-boy assassin to come out of 'Nam and he doesn't even confide in his girlfriend.”

“She's not my girlfriend,” Coe tells him. “She's got nothing to do with this.”

Because now he knows why he's here. Why the crows brought him back from the dead and to this place.

Jimmy's giving China a contemplative look.

“Oh, I don't know,” he says. “Can you say ‘stoolie,' Leon?”

“I'm telling you—”

“But it's a funny thing,” Jimmy goes on, like he was never interrupted. “She's supposed to be dead, and here she shows up with you. You did kill her, didn't you, Gary?”

He doesn't turn around, but the surviving shooter from the alleyway is starting to sweat.

“We shot them both, Mr. Chen,” he says. “I swear we did. When we dumped them in the junkyard, they were both dead.”

“But here they are anyway,” Jimmy says softly. “Walking tall.” He looks thoughtful, his gaze never leaves Coe's face. “Why now, Leon?” he asks. “After all these years, why're you sticking your nose in my business now?”

Coe shrugs. “Just bad luck, I guess.”

“And it's all yours,” Jimmy says, smiling again.

“Screw this,” China tells them.

As she lunges forward, Coe grabs her around the waist and hauls her back.

“Not like this,” he says.

She struggles in his grip, but she can't break free.

“Kill them,” Jimmy tells his men. “And this time do it right.” He pauses for a heartbeat, then adds, “And aim for their heads. That Indian war paint's not going to be Kevlar like the flak vests they've got to be wearing.”

That what you want to believe? Coe has time to think. China couldn't fit a dime under that dress of hers.

But then the men open up. The dawn fills with the rattle of gunfire. Coe's braced for it, but the impact of the bullets knocks China hard against him and like the shooter did earlier, he loses his balance. The
backs of his legs hit the wall and the two of them go tumbling off the roof.

For a long moment, Jimmy watches the crows that are wheeling in the dawn air, right alongside the edge of the building where Coe and his little china doll took their fall. There have to be a couple of dozen of them, though they're making enough noise for twice that number.

Jimmy's never liked crows. It's the Japanese that think they're such good luck. Crows, any kind of black bird. They just give him the creeps.

“Somebody go clean up down there,” he tells his men. “The last thing we need is for a patrol car to come by and find them.”

But when his men get down to the street, there's only the body of the dead shooter lying on the pavement.

Coe and China watch them from the window of an abandoned factory nearby. The men. The crows. China runs her finger along the edge of a shard of broken glass that's still stuck in the windowframe. It doesn't even break the skin. She turns from the window.

“Why'd you drag us in here?” she asks. “We could've taken them.”

Coe shakes his head. “That wasn't the way.”

“What are you so scared of? You saw for yourself—we can't die. Not from their guns, not from the fall.”

“Maybe we only have so many lives we can use up,” Coe tells her.

“But—”

“And I've got some other business to take care of first.”

China gives him a long considering look.

“Was it true?” she asks. “What the guy you called Jimmy said, about you being an assassin?”

“It was a long time ago. A different life.”

“No wonder the crows wanted you for this gig.”

Coe sighs. “If our being here's about retribution,” he says, “it's got nothing to do with us. What does the universe care about some old bum and a stripper?”

“According to your friend, you're not just some—”

“That freak's not anybody's friend,” Coe tells her, his voice hard.

“Okay. But—”

“This is about something else.”

He tells her about the hit that went sour, the little girl that died. Tells her how Jimmy Chen shot right through her to get the job done.

China shivers. “But . . .
you
didn't kill her.”

“No,” Coe says. “But I might as well have. It's because of who I was, because of people like me, that she died.”

China doesn't say anything for a long moment. Finally she asks, “You said something about some kind of business?”

“We're going to a bank,” he tells her.

“A bank.”

She lets the words sit there.

Coe nods. “So let's wash this crap off our faces or we'll give my financial advisor the willies. It'll be bad enough as it is.”

“Why's that?”

“You'll see.”

Coe can see the questions build up in China's eyes as he takes her into an office building that's set up snug against Cray's Gym over in Crowsea, but she keeps them to herself. The “bank” is up on the second floor, in back. A single-room office with a glass door. Inside there's a desk with a laptop computer on it, a secretary's chair, a file cabinet, and a couple of straight-backs for visitors. The man sitting at the desk is overweight and balding. He's wearing a cheap suit, white shirt, tie. He's got a take-out coffee sitting on his desk. Nothing about him or the office reflects the penthouse he goes home to with the security in the lobby and a view of the lake that upped the price of the place by another hundred grand.

The man looks up as they come in, his already pale skin going white with shock.

“Jesus,” he says.

The hint of a smile touches Coe's lips. “Yeah, it's been a while. China, this is Henry, my bank manager. Henry, China.”

Henry gives her a nod, then returns his gaze to Coe.

“I heard you were dead,” he says.

“I am.”

Henry laughs, like it's a joke. Whatever works, Coe thinks.

“So how're my investments doing?” he asks.

Henry calls up the figures on the laptop that always travels with him between the office and home. After a while he starts to talk. When the
figures start to add up into the seven digits, Coe knows that Henry's been playing fair. In Coe's business, people disappear, sometimes for years, then they show up again out of the blue. It's the kind of situation that a regular financial institution can't cope with all that well. Which keeps men like Henry in business.

“I want to set up a trust fund,” he tells Henry. “Something to help kids.”

“Help them how?”

Coe shrugs. “Get them off the streets, or give them scholarships. Maybe set it up like one of those wish foundations for dying kids or something. Whatever works. Can you do it?”

“Sure.”

“You'll get your usual cut,” Coe tells him.

Henry doesn't bother to answer. That'd go without saying.

“And I want it named in memory of Angelica Ciccone.”

Henry's eyebrows go up. “You mean Bruno's kid? The one that died with him the day he was going to testify?”

“You've got a long memory,” Coe tells him.

Henry shrugs. “It's the kind of thing that sticks in your mind.”

Tell me about it, Coe thinks.

“So you can do this?” he says.

“No problem.”

“And we're square?”

Henry smiles. “We're square. I like this idea, Leon. Hell, I might even throw in a few thou' myself to help sweeten the pot.”

“Where'd you get that kind of money?” China asks when they're back out on the street again.

Coe just looks at her. “Where do you think?”

“Oh. Right.” But then she shakes her head. “You had all that money and you lived like a bum . . . .”

“Blood money.”

“But still . . .”

“Maybe now it can do some good. I should've thought of this sooner.”

“To make up for all the people you killed?” China asks.

Coe looks down the street to where a pair of crows are playing tag around a lamppost.

“You don't make up for that kind of thing,” he says. “The foundation's
just to give a little hope to some kids who might not get to see it otherwise. So that they don't grow up all screwed up like me.”

China's quiet for a long moment.

“Or like me,” she says after a while.

Coe doesn't say anything. There's nothing he can say.

“So now what?” China asks after they've been walking for a few blocks.

Coe spies a phone booth across the street and leads her to it.

“Now we make a call,” he says. “You got a watch?”

She lifts her wrist to show him the slim, knock-off Rolex she's wearing.

“Time me,” he says as he drops a quarter into the slot, punches in a number. “And tell me when three minutes are up. Exactly three minutes. Starting . . .” He waits until the connection's made. “Now.”

While China dutifully times the call, Coe starts talking about Jimmy Chen, the hit on Bruno Ciccone, what Jimmy's up to these days, where he can be found, how many men he's got.

“Two-fifty-eight,” China says. “Two-fifty-nine.”

At the three-minute mark, Coe drops the phone receiver, lets it bang against the glass wall of the booth. He grabs China's hand and runs with her, back across the street, down the block and onto the next, ducks into an alley.

“Okay,” he says. “Watch.”

He barely gets the words out before the first cruiser comes squealing around a corner, blocks the intersection the pair of them just crossed, cherry lights flashing. Moments later, another one pulls across the intersection at the other end of the block. They're joined by two more cruisers, an unmarked car, and then a couple of dark sedans. The feds step out of those, four of them in their dark suits, looking up and down the street.

China turns to Coe. “Jesus. That was seriously fast.”

Coe's smiling. “A guy who kills as many feds as Jimmy did is going to give them a hard-on that won't go away. C'mon,” he adds as the police start to fan out, heading up and down the sidewalks, checking doorways, alleys. “We're done here.”

China keeps her questions in check again. She lets Coe take the lead and he slips them out of the net the police are setting up like he doesn't even have to think about it. Some skills you just don't lose.

He takes her back to the junkyard. They ease in through the gates when the old man running the place isn't looking and make their way
back to the rear. The dogs the old man keeps won't even come near them. But the crows follow, a thickening flock of them that settle on the junked cars and trash around them.

“That business with the phone call and the cops,” China wants to know. “What was all that about?”

“We just dealt with Jimmy.”

She shakes her head. “His lawyers'll have him back on the streets before the end of the day.”

“Unless he resists,” Coe says. “What do you think, China? Think Jimmy's the kind of guy who'll go quietly and stand trial on murder one charges for killing a half-dozen cops?”