Zero at the Bone (42 page)

“Yeah, uh… I saw—”

“What the fuck were you thinking, going off by yourself?” Churchill shouted, grabbing Jack by the coat. “You could have been killed! What made you come out here alone?”

“I got… got this note…. D was here.”

Churchill looked at him sharply. “What?”

“D was just here. Right here. These guys had me… this other guy was going to inject me with something…. D shot them. The other guy got away, I guess… guess D

went after him….” He snapped out of his daze. “Why the fuck is he here? He’s supposed to be far, far away! That was the whole idea! Me here, him… not here!”

“Jack, I can explain….”

Churchill’s guilty face snapped Jack to a new level of rage. “You
KNEW?
” he thundered. “You knew he was here and you didn’t tell me?”

“He wouldn’t let me. He—”

“Don’t! I don’t want to hear it!”

“Jack, let’s get you to a hospital; you’re hurt.” Jack shook him off. “I’m not going anywhere! D!” he shouted, walking off toward were D had vanished. “You come back here so I can kick your ass and don’t you think I won’t! D! I know you can hear me, you….”

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Jack’s words were abruptly cut off as he staggered against a wall and bent over, his dinner coming up and splashing onto the dirty pavement. Churchill was at his side, one hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Jack. It’s over.”

“No,” Jack choked, tears streaming from his eyes. “It’ll never be over, it’ll just go on and on and on—”

“Come on, let’s get you out of here. I want you checked out. I should never have let you come here.”

“My gun,” Jack said, straightening up and wiping his mouth. “Where’s my gun?”

“We’ll find it later—”

“No!” Jack exclaimed. “I’m not leaving without it. D gave me that gun; I’m not going to lose it.”

Churchill pointed. “There it is.” He picked it up and handed it to Jack, who took it with both hands and stared at it.

“I never even fired it,” he said, blinking.

“That’s a
good
thing.” Jack could only stare at the gun, hypnotized by its shiny, compact efficiency. “Come on, Jack. The police will handle all this. Let’s get you someplace safe.”

Jack nodded and let Churchill lead him away.

“THESE two each got it once in the back of the head. Looks like a nine mil. Dead center, each one. That’s pretty good shooting in the dark,” the crime scene tech said, the last sentence coming out with sarcasm. It was near superhuman shooting and they both knew it. “No ID.”

“Shocker,” Churchill said, moodily puffing on a cigar. “We’ll run their prints.

Betcha they’ve each got close personal friends named Dominguez.” It had been several hours since the shooting in back of the bar. Churchill had pieced together what had happened, except he couldn’t exactly tell the local police about D’s involvement. He spared barely a thought to the ethics of fabricating a story for them. His priority was the safety of his witness, and somehow that imperative had swelled and expanded until it included protecting D too. There had definitely been a third man in the alley, and it was looking like they were going to pin the shootings of these two on him.

They’d been lackeys, and he had killed them to keep them from talking. It was cold-blooded but not unheard of.

The third man’s identity was unknown, except Churchill had a pretty good idea who it had been, but maybe if he didn’t say the name out loud it wouldn’t be true.

Jack had been checked at the hospital, pronounced bruised and battered but okay, and taken back to his hotel room where he was no doubt pacing the floor and muttering to himself.

Churchill could have shot himself in the head for bringing him here. It hadn’t seemed like an unreasonable risk. No on-street exposure, a crowded public place, and a security escort three men strong. But their unnamed friend had devised a way to get Jack out of that safety as efficiently as if he’d been pulling out a splinter. So what had Jack done? Pulled a gun and snuck up on the guy. It had backfired spectacularly, but you had to hand it to the guy: he had stones.

Those minutes when he’d realized that Jack was not, in fact, in the bathroom had been… bad. Searching the bar, the growing realization that he wasn’t there, that barred 194 | Jane Seville

back door only telling him that his witness might be already dead. He sighed and wandered off. This wasn’t his crime scene. Local PD would handle these guys.

His cell phone vibrated and he pulled it out to find a text message.

Meet across the street by the archway.

He walked down the alley to the cross street. There was a stone arch that led into the courtyard of a nearby building; behind one of the uprights was a shadow a little denser and taller than the others around it. Churchill joined him, barely able to make him out in the dimness. “Why aren’tcha with Jack?”

“I don’t stick to him twenty-four/seven, you know. He’s in his hotel room with marshals at the door. He’s safe.”

“Sorry if I don’t take yer word on that as too trustworthy jus’ now.”

“I know, D. You’re the only one capable of protecting him and the rest of us can all just go drown ourselves, right?”

Silence. “Ya know who that was in the alley, don’tcha?”

“I’m trying to take one thing at a time here.”

“It was Petros.”

“Shit, now you’ve done it. Said the name.” He sighed. “You didn’t catch him, did you?”

“Gave me the slip. That ain’t no mean feat. Fucker’s like mercury, cain’t pick it up, if ya try it just skitters away like a little… skittery thing.” D sounded discouraged. “I’ll get X to have another go at him.”

Churchill stubbed out his cigar on the ground. “I’ll be taking Jack up to Albany on Monday morning.”

“Where ya gonna relocate him?”

“D, you know I can’t tell you that.”

“Ya think I won’t find out?”

“Probably, but that doesn’t mean I can tell you. This isn’t a court of law where you can argue inevitable discovery.”

D nodded. “All right.” He shrugged his coat closer around his shoulders. “Take me to him.”

Churchill blinked. “You… you want to see Jack?” He was quiet for several beats. “I’d been any later, he’d a been gone. Few seconds is all it takes. I saw it happen, ya know. Minute I realized Petros was in that alley I was runnin’ there, but the whole way I saw it. Getting there and him gone, all a them gone.

No idea where.” He stared at the ground. “I gotta see him,” he said, his voice quiet and embarrassed. “I cain’t do this no more. Only way I can be sure he’s safe is if I’m standing beside him.” He lifted his head and met Churchill’s eyes, his barely visible in the dark. “I gotta see him,” he repeated.

Churchill nodded. “It’s about goddamn time.”

JACK paced his hotel room, muttering to himself and trying to ignore his throbbing face.

He’d been avoiding looking at himself in the mirror. Once had been enough. The pair of bruises on his cheeks and jaw looked like ink stains. His whole body ached; Churchill said it was from unconsciously tensing up all his muscles during the confrontation.

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The confrontation. If he closed his eyes he was back in the alley, grunts and cries, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh, his head breaking a man’s nose… D’s form in the darkness, backlit by the red emergency light like a specter from hell.

D, who had probably been in town this whole time. D who hadn’t told him any of this. D who he wanted to kill. D who he dreaded trying to live without.

There was a knock at the door. “It’s Churchill.”

“Come in.”

Churchill used his key and entered. “Got someone here to see you,” he said.

Jack stopped pacing and turned his head just in time to see D step out from behind Churchill. He just stood there silently, looking… tired, actually. Worn out, as Jack had only seen him once, when he’d been sick from the infection. He didn’t look like he’d been sleeping, or eating. He didn’t look good, or wouldn’t have to anybody else.

Jack found himself nodding, to keep himself from yelling. “Of course. Of course you’re here. And you were in that alley, naturally. You’ve been here the whole time, haven’t you?” D and Churchill exchanged an uneasy glance. “Of course. Did you stow away in the backseat of my cab? Were you hiding under the bench in Baker Park?” D cleared his throat, his voice raspy like he hadn’t used it in awhile. “Jack, I couldn’t—”

“No. Why would you? Why would you tell me anything, either of you? Jack has to be protected. Jack can’t deal with things like this. Jack doesn’t need to know things that don’t concern him. Jack is fucking spun sugar and might melt or crack into a million pieces if he hears a bad joke!” he shouted.

“It ain’t like that.”

Churchill, looking more and more uncomfortable, interrupted. “I’m going to…

uh… leave you guys alone. I’ll, uh… see you later.” He left. Jack barely noticed.

D shrugged out of his topcoat and let it fall, rubbing one hand over his shorn skull.

“Jack, I hadta protect you, but I couldn’t let you be thinkin’ ’bout me bein’ out there watchin’. You had other things ta think about.”

“Well, I don’t now. It’s all over.” Jack watched him, his anger rapidly bleeding away and leaving only the sensation of being here in the same room with D, relief that they were both alive, near-giddiness at his mere presence that Jack fought down so he wouldn’t start grinning like an idiot.

D’s eyes ranged over Jack’s face. “Jesus, lookit you. They did a number on you.” Jack nodded. “Hurts like a sonofabitch.”

He took a step closer. “So… lemme see if I got this right. Yer in the bar. You get a note sayin’ somebody’s got me and you better come out or they kill me.”

“Yeah.”

“And you believed that?”

“Not a word of it.”

“But ya went out there anyway. Just in case they had me.” Jack was surprised at D’s simple tone. He’d been expecting angry reprimands for his foolhardiness. “Yeah, I did.”

“And then, my favorite part. You didn’t jus’ walk out there like a sucker, oh no.

You reconned the area from height, determined the best approach, and tried to creep up on the guy wantin’ ta take ya.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. I know, it was dumb.”

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“Dumb ain’t the word. Crazy’s more like it. Stupid, and foolish, and I thought I’d met some guys in my time who were brave ’n’ true, but none a them’re anythin’ ta you, doc.”

He looked up and met D’s eyes, standing only a few feet from him now. In them he saw only tenderness, the kind he’d longed to see for so long and which had taken so many weeks to elicit. “Yeah?”

“And when they rushed ya, you broke one a their feet and smashed the other guy’s nose inta his face. And all this after what I’m told was a helluva day in court durin’ which you made their expensive lawyer stand there with egg all over his face.” Jack felt a slow smile creep over his face. “Yeah.” D reached out and carefully touched the bruise on Jack’s left temple. “Well, think it’s fair ta say you had one helluva day, Jack.” Jack took the last step that separated them and leaned close, his hands going to D’s waist. He stopped when his face was mere inches from D’s.

“The day ain’t over yet,” he whispered.

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“DAY ain’t over yet.”

Jack’s words floated between them, a world of promises in his voice. His hands on D’s waist were trembling; D could feel the warmth of Jack’s breath and smell the gin he’d had at the bar, as well as the antiseptic they’d used at the hospital to clean the lacerations on his face.

Jack tried to smile, but it seemed to get lost halfway to his mouth. The journey from his head to his smile had become rather blocked and cluttered in the past few days, D

imagined, but here he was as usual, trying to be positive and upbeat, and he couldn’t take it. He pulled Jack close, wrapped his arms around him, and pressed his face into Jack’s hair. He felt Jack’s body mold to his immediately, as Jack’s arms went around his back and clutched tight there. “Jesus, Jack,” he breathed. “You gonna be the death a me for sure.” Jack sighed, a deep and shuddering release, the tension flowing out on the tide of his breath. D held him tighter.
Goddamn, I been missin’ this. How’m I gonna last months,
or years, when we gotta be apart?
“Saw them guys had ya and….” He bowed his head down, his mouth against the crook of Jack’s neck. “Damn near stopped m’heart,” he murmured.

Jack straightened, one hand coming up to cup D’s head. “I know what you mean,” he said. “That’s how I felt when I read that note.” D lifted his head. “Talk later.”
Right now I jus’ gotta kiss you ’til ya cain’t breathe.

Jack’s lips were as soft as he remembered, the quiet sounds he made warmed his belly as much, and it felt just as right to hold him as it had before. His hands were on D’s neck, pulling him closer. His eyes closed, D felt himself spinning in the darkness, anchored by Jack’s mouth, diving deeper there to find all he could of this man who was
his
man, no doubting it now, his as sure as he was Jack’s, and he felt the solid lock of their pieces fitting together again, his whole life a solitary odyssey until now, until him, until Jack.

Jack withdrew with a few short kisses. “Hold up,” he said, smiling.