Run: A Novel (20 page)

“No agents here, Marc.” He shook his head. “And the police? They were the guys who just left.”

“You know my name?”

“I know all about you.”

“How—”

“Doesn’t matter how. I know.”

“No. I was going to ask, how did you get rid of the police?”

“It’s amazing what a well-placed anonymous tip can do.”

Not when I tried making one
, I thought, which did nothing to lift my spirits.

“OK,” I said. “What do you want?”

“The memory stick. That’s all. Put it down, and back away slowly.”

I didn’t know what to do. The guy looked like he meant business, but I needed that memory stick. Without it, I’d never get the police and Homeland Security off my back. I felt my fingers tighten, pressing it into my palm.

“Put it down.” The guy shifted his weight very slightly so that his jacket gaped open, revealing the handle of a pistol. “Drop it on the countertop. All I want is the memory stick. Then I’ll leave.”

A sudden shiver rippled down my spine, triggered by something in
the tone of the guy’s voice. I’d heard it before. Earlier that day. And then it clicked. This was the guy who’d thrown the Molotov cocktail. The one who’d given me the money and the phone, and told me to run. Only when I’d met him earlier, his face had been hidden. Now it wasn’t. I could see him clearly. I’d be able to describe him to a sketch artist without any problem at all. And I couldn’t imagine a single circumstance where he’d leave me alive to do that.

“You’ll let me go, if I give it to you?”

“Absolutely. The stick is all I want.”

“OK. You can have it. No problem. But can I keep the other one?”

“What other one?” He took a step into the room.

“Well, I had three. I brought them home from my old job, after I got fired. One got stolen—I had a break-in—and the police are doing nothing about getting it back. You’re going to take this one. Can I keep the third one? I’m being cooperative, here. And the data on that third stick would really help me with my research.”

“You stole that data.” He took another step toward me. “So, no. You can’t keep any of it. You can’t start trying to do deals for it. You can’t use it in your research. What you can do is give it to me. And then forget you ever met me.”

“OK, OK.” I held my left hand up as if in surrender and used my right to slip the stick into the back pocket of my jeans. “You can’t blame me for asking. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I’ll get it for you right away. You’re welcome to it. And after that, if anyone asks, no one was here tonight. Not you. Not me. Not anyone else. OK?”

“Get it, then. What are you waiting for?”

“Give me two minutes.” I tried to steer a path around him to the door. “I’ll be right back with it.”

“Are you looking to take a beating?” He stepped across, blocking my way. “Where is it?”

My mind was in overdrive. If I couldn’t run, I’d have to hide. Or barricade myself in, somewhere. But where? Ours was a regular suburban home. It hadn’t been designed with defense against home invaders in mind. There certainly wasn’t anywhere suitable on the first floor. What about upstairs? The attic? That was the farthest away. But no. It
wouldn’t work. The retractable ladder was broken. It shot uncontrollably down through the trapdoor when you opened it, and always took five or ten tries to fold it back up. So where else? Our bedroom, maybe? The door had a lock, and if I could get in fast enough I could drag the dresser in front of it for extra security. That should be enough to hold the guy at bay for a few minutes, at least.

“It’s in the safe. It’ll only take a moment to grab it. Why don’t you—”

“Bullshit. I already checked. The safe was the first place I looked, Monday night. There’s only passports and papers in there.”

“The safe in the bedroom?”

“In the home office.”

The bastard had been in my study while I’d been upstairs, drunk and asleep. And that creeped me out more than the current situation with him standing in front of me, armed and full of threats.

“That’s the old safe. The last owners installed it. The really valuable stuff I keep upstairs, in the new one. It’s much better.”

“In the master bedroom?” He sounded suspicious. “Where? I didn’t see one.”

He’d been in my bedroom, that night? What if Carolyn had been there? I felt a surge of anger start to replace my fear.

“It’s very well hidden. Impossible to find if you don’t know it’s there. That’s why it cost such a fortune.”

The guy didn’t look convinced, so I pressed on before he could ask any more questions.

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

He let me walk down the hallway in front of him, but I paused at the bottom of the staircase, foolish enough to try one more thing.

“There’s no need for both of us to troop up there. Hang out here, if you want. I’ll grab it and be right back down. The bedroom’s on the second floor. Where am I going to go?”

“Shut up and move.” The guy planted a hand between my shoulder blades and shoved hard. I went down, face-first, into the stairs. The edge of a tread hit me just below the bridge of my nose. I heard a crunch and felt a sharp, stabbing pain. Two, three, four red dots appeared on the carpet, looking like burn holes in the light-colored pile,
and when I lifted my head I could feel the blood running down onto my chin.

I scrambled up the first few stairs on all fours, like a child. My upper front teeth felt like they were falling out. My heart was slamming against my ribs like a hammer, and that made me think—dresser or no dresser, I wasn’t going to be able to keep this guy on the right side of my bedroom door for long, given the strength he’d just shown. And the temper. I’d need help. But who could I call? McKenna? Was he still alive? The last time I’d seen him he was trying to rescue a man in a burning truck from three armed attackers. The odds of him having survived weren’t good. That only left the police. They’d arrest me. Throw the book at me for breaking out of jail. Resisting arrest. All kinds of things. Or hand me over to Brooking, who’d add whatever had happened to McKenna to her list of accusations. But it was a risk I’d have to take. Jail—or Guantanamo Bay—was better than the cemetery, even if it was unjustified.

The guy stayed tight behind me on the stairs. But when we reached the top he dropped back, offering me a brief glimpse of an alternative way out. He was bigger and stronger, but I was lighter and—I hoped—faster. So I feinted right, the opposite direction from the bedroom, then twisted back around and made a desperate leap for the stairs. If I could get to the hallway before him it would give me half a chance. To run back to the kitchen. Or dive out through the front door. I didn’t care which. All that mattered was getting away.

The factor I hadn’t bargained for was the length of the guy’s arms. What he lacked in speed, he made up for in reach. He just stretched out, grabbed me by the collar, and hauled me back up to the landing. Then he flung me forward, slamming me into the wall. I spun around and collapsed onto the floor. The blood from my nose was gushing again, running down the back of my throat, choking me, so I rolled onto my front, struggled to my knees, and half spat, half puked the warm sticky mess onto the carpet.

Carolyn’s going to kill me
, I thought absurdly.

Before I could move he was on top of me again. He seized my belt as well as my collar and launched me forward, even harder. Only this time he didn’t throw me straight. I veered sideways, away from the
wall, and crashed against the spindly wooden uprights that support the bannister rail. Several gave way under my weight, leaving nothing between me and a nine-foot drop to the solid floor below. I scrabbled and flailed my arms, desperate to arrest my momentum, but couldn’t find anything to hang on to. My eyes clamped shut and I braced for the long fall. But it didn’t come. I stayed where I was. Poised on the brink. Then I was conscious of strong fingers clamped around my right elbow.

I’d been saved by the same long arm that had nearly killed me.

The guy helped me to my feet and I moved slowly as we made our way along the landing, trying to shake off the residual dizziness. He urged me forward, but I dragged my feet even more. Then, when we were ten feet from my bedroom door, I broke away. I dived into the room, slammed the door back into place, and forced my trembling fingers to work the lock.

Step one was complete. I was bleeding and bruised, but I’d done it. A burst of triumph exploded within me as I grabbed the dresser and started to pull, eager to finish the job. It moved easily at first. Then it slowed. And after eight inches, it stopped dead.

Strands of the carpet’s long pile had wrapped themselves around its legs, snagging them like silky ropes. Cursing, I crouched down to free them. The edge of the door slammed into my arm. A whole section of the frame cartwheeled into the room, coming to rest at the foot of the bed. And then the guy appeared, lashing out with his foot and leaving me flat on my back, surrounded by splintered wood.

I
’D HATED PLAYING CHESS WHEN I WAS AT SCHOOL
.

Not because I couldn’t understand the rules. Not because I was terrible at it. In fact, I usually won. But because of one kid. The only one who could ever beat me. And even then, it wasn’t the losing that got to me. It was the expression on this kid’s face. An expression that said,
Is that the best you’ve got? Really?

I saw that same expression on the guy’s face as he stood in my bedroom doorway, looking down at me sprawled on the floor.

“Are you a moron?” He stepped toward me. “Or do you just like pain?”

“Wait!” I scrabbled away and pushed myself up until I was sitting with my back against the bed. “You don’t understand. I’m getting you the memory stick. I just didn’t want you to see where the safe was. That’s all. I’m sorry. It was stupid of me.”

“There’s no safe. And no other memory stick.”

“There is. I swear. The safe’s right here.”

“OK. Show me. But no more stupid stunts.”

“Of course. May I get up?”

The guy nodded.

I hauled myself back to my feet and shuffled toward the bathroom door. A picture was hanging on the wall next to it. A half life-size print of Lichtenstein’s
VAROOM!
from the days after I’d graduated from posters but couldn’t yet afford the real thing. I reached out, pretending to swing the frame away from the wall. Checked the guy’s reflection in
the glass, to make sure he wasn’t moving. Then lifted the picture off its hook and flung it at his head like a giant square Frisbee.

I didn’t wait to see if I’d hit my target. I just charged through the bathroom door, locked it behind me, and looked around for a weapon. I don’t know what I expected to find, but as I scanned the towels and toothbrushes and shaving stuff I felt like I might as well have been in the cuddly animal aisle at a toy store. Then the door crashed open behind me so I snatched up a bottle of Carolyn’s shampoo—plastic, unfortunately—pivoted, and threw it as hard as I could at the guy’s head.

He leaned to the side and it sailed harmlessly past him.

“Tell me something.” He took out his gun and used it to gesture toward a point on the wall to the side of my head. “What’s with all these cartoons? You’ve got them everywhere. With all the money you’ve got, couldn’t you have bought any real art?”

“Real art?” I ignored the echo of Carolyn’s sentiments, reached out, and took down the picture he’d just pointed to. “Let me enlighten you. This was painted by Roy Lichtenstein in 1964. Each one of the dots was drawn by hand. If it were real, not a copy, it would be worth a few million dollars. And if you look closely, right here at—”

I jabbed at the guy’s throat with the corner of the frame, but he saw it coming. He slapped me on the forearm with his left hand, knocking the picture out of my grip. It smashed into the wall above the bath and fragments of wood and glass rained down into the tub. Then he whipped his arm back the opposite way, slapping me on the side of the face and sending me staggering into the corner of the room.

“Listen!” The blood stung my tongue, making me lisp. “I’ll give you the memory stick. There’s only one, but I guess you’ve figured that out by now. And one of the paintings? The cartoons? It’s real. It’s worth a fortune. I’ll show you which one. You can have it. You can take it, if you leave me alone.”

“One of these kid’s drawings is worth something? Which one?”

“I’ll show you.”

“Tell me.”

I didn’t reply, shaking my head, trying to clear my vision and wondering what on earth I could try on him next.

“Having trouble with your memory?”

He reached out and grabbed my collar and belt. Then he launched me sideways into the little set of shelves where Carolyn kept the clean towels and her spare potions. The wooden framework shattered and I half fell, half rolled onto the floor, surrounded by a scattering of dainty bottles and jars.

“Stand up!” The guy seemed eleven feet tall, looming above me.

I felt around in the debris for anything I could use to fend him off, and my fingers closed around a plastic bottle. A liquid—more of a thick green slime—was oozing out of a crack in its side. I waited until he was only inches away. Then I slammed the bottle down on the floor between us, covering a row of tiles with shiny, slippery gel.

The guy stepped over the puddle, grabbed me by the collar, lifted me to my feet, and punched me in the stomach.

“The valuable painting. Remembered where it is yet?”

I would have answered if I could have breathed, but as I struggled to suck in air he lost patience and shoved me backward into the bathtub. He planted one of his feet on my throat. Then he worked the lever that closed the drain.

“Last chance!” He was reaching for the faucet.

I couldn’t believe he was going to drown me over a painting, but I changed my mind the instant the first drops of cold water hit my face. I started thrashing around, desperate to lift my head to safety, but his foot was pinning me down. My arms and legs were banging against the sides of the tub, and I could feel broken pieces of picture frame digging into my back. My right hand pulled back from something sharp and the sudden pain drove a desperate thought into my head. I reached out, forcing my fingers to seek whatever had just hurt them. It was a piece of glass. Triangular. Narrow. Maybe eight inches long and two across at the wider end. I scrabbled to get a grip. Then I raised it up and slashed furiously at the guy’s leg.