Blackbird (10 page)

He has his phone in his hand as he walks, occasionally looking down at the screen. You can see the glow from it, a halo of light winding up from below, moving toward you. You’re just above, no more than twenty feet away from him. When he finds the device you can approach from behind.

He disappears, then reappears around the bend. He’s moving toward the device when he pulls a second phone from his pants pocket. It’s buzzing. He flips it open, answering it. “I’m here now,” he says. “I’ll call as soon as I have news.”

You recognize his voice from somewhere, but you can’t tell where. Was he in a dream? Did you know him from before? You watch him as he turns around, one hand balled in a fist. Whoever is on the other end of the line is saying something. The man’s mouth keeps opening and closing to respond, a series of “buts” and “yes, buts” slipping out, and nothing more.

He hangs up, moving his finger over the phone, glancing from the screen to the trail, then back again. He’s within a few feet of the tracking device. He winces as he peers into the bushes, using the phone for light.

You step out of the brush, moving along the trail, winding down to where he is. His back is to you as he moves deeper into the bushes. He’s thinner than you remember him, with skin so pale it seems ghostly in the dim light. He’s pulling some of the branches back, holding one arm up to protect his face, and he’s so frantic you almost feel something for him. He seems like a different person than the one you saw in the parking garage.

His belt is empty now, no gun or holster at his hip, and as far as you can tell he’s not carrying anything but the phone. You’re only ten feet away now, so close you can hear his breaths. When he takes another step forward you spring toward him. As you approach you’re suddenly aware of how small you are—he’s a foot taller than you, and though he’s thin he moves quickly, turning before you’re even halfway there.

You shoot the mace, a thin stream of liquid hitting him in the nose and mouth. His face tenses, his back hunched, his hands covering his eyes. In the dim light you can see the sweat collecting on his forehead, moving in thin dribbles down his face.

When you’re certain he can’t see you, you move forward, pulling the plastic ties from your pocket. You get it around one of his wrists, shove his other hand into the tie and pull it tight, until his wrists are pressed together. He tries to run but he stumbles forward, his chin colliding with the dirt.

When he turns over his face is swollen and splotchy, the spray leaving a red stain on his skin. “I thought you were dead,” he says, letting his head fall back against the rocky slope. “I should’ve known it was a trap. They warned me that you were clever.”

“I know you,” you say, realizing in a rush why you recognize his voice. He was the person who answered the phone. He was the one who told you to go to the office building. “You set me up.”

You unsheathe the knife. You start toward him, pressing it against the side of his throat, and you want so badly to know—just to make him tell you something, anything, that is real. “Who are you?” you ask. “Why was the woman trying to kill me? Why did she come after me?”

It’s only when the blade is against his neck that he tenses. Your fingers tighten around the end of the knife, and a familiar voice rises up inside you.
Don’t. We’re not murderers. We’re not like them.

The words are so present, so real that you turn your head, waiting to see the boy from the dream. It’s as if he was standing behind you. It was his voice, you’re certain of it, and so you close your eyes, trying to conjure it again. A few moments and you know it’s gone.
He’s
gone.

The man looks up at you, his face still swollen and red. He can barely open his eyes. “It was me. I never said it wasn’t.”

“Why, though? Why would you tell me to go there? What did the woman want from me?”

“I don’t know.” He wheezes the words, and it’s only then that you realize your arm has shifted. Your wrist is now pressing on his windpipe. You release him, taking a few steps away.

When you turn back to him he seems frightened. His words pick up pace, each one
streaming into the next. “My name is Ivan. These men paid me to set that office up, but they did it through people. There are probably four people between us. I don’t even have their first names.”

“Explain,” you say. “I’m listening.”

“A month ago I was doing odd jobs for this guy in Altadena. He was a friend of a client I’d helped buy a house—I’m a Realtor. Anyway, he told me about another job his colleague was looking for someone to do. Fifteen thousand dollars for a month of work. And it involved putting a tracking device on someone. I’d report on where they were, and then I’d do some other work at the beginning and end.”

“Some work at the beginning?” you ask. “So, making it look like I robbed that place?”

“I don’t know why they wanted the police after you; they didn’t tell me. They just told me to set it up and that as soon as you left the subway station I was supposed to keep a record of where you went. They’ve called twice so far asking for your location.”

“Who’s ‘they’? Who are the people you’ve been talking to?”

“I have specific instructions from someone who gets instructions from someone else. I don’t know, exactly. . . . I’m not sure who they are.” He shifts in the dirt, trying to sit up.

“So you agreed to work for them, and you didn’t ask any questions?”

The man shrugs, his expression uncertain. “I needed the money and once I was in it, I couldn’t find a way out. But I’m not a bad person. When I saw she was going to kill you I stopped her. I saved you.”

“Who was she? Did I do something to her? Does she know me?”

“I don’t know who she was; I’d never seen her before.”

“If you don’t know her, why did you shoot her? Why not me?”

The man squeezes his eyes shut. “I didn’t plan on it; I didn’t know that was going to happen. I’d given them the information about the bus station and then, I wasn’t supposed to, but I followed you. I’d done everything they had asked for weeks straight and I was starting to feel . . . antsy. I just had this feeling something was going to happen, and I wanted to know what, what I was being paid to do. Then I realized she was going to kill you. And something in me . . . I don’t know. I have a daughter who’s just a little younger than you. I had the gun in the car . . . I just did it.”

“And what happens now? Are they after you?”

When he looks up at you his face is swollen and splotchy, his skin stained with the red liquid. He keeps shaking his head and you notice for the first time the scar tissue covering one side of it, where his right ear should be. “I told them you killed her. I had to. . . .”

“Why? Why would you do that?” Your voice is uneven as you say it. All the uncertainty returns. If they wanted you dead before, what happens now? What will they
do now that they think you killed one of their own?

He doesn’t respond. It’s hard to tell if he knows more than he’s saying, but there’s no reason to stand here, listening to him, trying to parcel out the truth. You kneel down, pulling one of the phones and the car keys from his pockets.

The phone is a cheap disposable thing, so flimsy it feels like you could break it in half. You go to the call history, pulling up the list of recent calls. Most of the list reads
Blocked
, but several down there is an actual number, and you hit the button, sending the call through.

“What are you doing?” Ivan asks, studying you, his eyebrows drawn together in worry.

You turn away from him, bringing the phone closer to your ear. It rings twice.

“Esposito Real Estate,” a man says.

It takes you a breath to respond. It’s nearly nine o’clock at night, even later on the east coast. Every normal office would be closed.

“I have Ivan,” you say.

“Where are you?”

“Hang up the phone,” Ivan yells behind you. You turn and he is trying to untie his hands, his face frantic. “They know I’m here.”

You look down at the screen, the numbers counting time. Without thinking, you hit the
End
button, letting the phone go dark.

“You shouldn’t have called them,” Ivan yells. He tries to stand, but he struggles on the uneven ground, his hands still tied behind his back. “Now they know you know. They’ll come here—they’re going to kill both of us.” His gaze darts to the parking lot below.

“We have to leave. They’ll be here soon.” He starts up the trail in front of you. He tries to run but it’s a struggle. His shoulders hunch forward and he keeps pulling his arms back, but his head is down and he stumbles.

You stand there, watching the park below. The woods are dark. It’s barely noticeable at first, the lamplights lit on some of the narrow roads, the brush and trees rising up, blocking your view. But then you see the glow of the headlights. The black Mercedes finally appears in the parking lot below. It pulls in right beside Ivan’s empty car.

“It’s them,” Ivan yells. “Leave both of the phones here. That one has GPS in it.”

There’s a steep path up the trail, to your right. You toss the phones in the bushes and run, knowing that if you can just get up that path you can cut back to the observatory. There are more cars there, more people.

You’re nearly there when you notice Ivan, a crumpled silhouette near the cliff’s edge. He’s kneeling in the dirt. He twists, struggling against the restraints, trying to slip free. You’re nearly past him, at the bottom of the path, when you stop. How can you leave him like this? If what he said is true, how can you go, knowing he’ll be killed?

“Please,” he says. “I don’t have a chance.” He is watching the car below. Two men have climbed out. They open the doors to Ivan’s car, then the trunk, searching it.

You pull the knife from your belt and start toward him, cutting the plastic cord binding his wrists. He squeezes his hands closed, then opens them, trying to get the blood back into his fingers. When he looks at you his eyes are wet. The car door slams from below you, and you both run.

The rocks are harder to climb in the dark. As you grab on to the slope in front of you, digging your toes into the dirt below, you see Ivan out of the corner of your eye. He runs down one of the side trails, away from the device, winding back to where it meets another road. He doesn’t know this part of the park like you do. He hasn’t been here before. You want to call out to him and warn him, but he’s already disappeared beyond the bend. He is already moving back toward the parking lot, toward one of the two men.

You climb faster, pushing up the steep slope. Your palms are cracked and bleeding, and you can only see the handholds above, the occasional foothold below. When you finally reach the top, the path empties out to another trail, this one snaking back toward the planetarium. It’s only then that you look down.

Flashlights cut the dark, showing where each of the two men stand. One has already reached the device. The other waits in the parking lot. There is a loud, muffled yell. Then the flashlight falls. A figure runs beyond the trees. “I found him,” he calls up to the other man. “He’s here.”

From where you’re perched you can’t see the other man’s face. He wears a black baseball cap that shields his eyes. He kneels into the dirt, digging under the rock until he finds the metal tracking device.

He scans the cliff’s edge, turning it over in his hand.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

EVERYTHING IS IN
shadow. The flashlight scans the ravine, searching for you. As it moves past you flatten against the tree trunk. The beam lingers on a patch of shrubs ten feet away. Then it disappears. You listen to his steps receding. When there is only silence you finally move.

The woods feel safe. Your body seems to know exactly how to negotiate the uneven ground, avoiding roots, ducking low branches. You take a steep hidden trail down the side of the cliff face, remaining in the brush near the edge of the parking lot. It’s empty except for the two cars. The inside light in the Mercedes is on, the door open.

The man with the hat returns to the car, shaking his head. “She’s gone. No trace of the keys. We’ll have to come back for the car.”

He climbs into the passenger seat. Ivan sits right behind him, his chin is down, his shoulders hunched forward. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and you notice for the first time that they’ve tied his hands with rope.

Then the headlights flick on. The engine starts. The car pulls out and you realize everything that’s going with them—any chance of knowing, any chance at the truth. You grab the keys in your pocket. You need to follow them. As soon as the Mercedes leaves the lot you run for it, not stopping until you’re in the front seat of Ivan’s car.

The whole car smells of bleach. The glove compartment is open, its insides emptied out. There’s nothing on the floor or passenger seat. It takes you a few seconds to figure out which key is for the ignition, but once you do your movements are automatic, your foot going to the brake, your hand shifting the car into drive. You don’t turn the headlights on. Instead you roll forward, down the hill, barely using the gas.

You stay far behind, waiting until they’re out of sight to make the right turn behind the Mercedes. The street is empty except for a few cars. You follow a pickup truck that is slowed in the right lane, moving when he moves, staying just a little behind.

The road goes on for a mile or two, and the Mercedes disappears for a few minutes. You keep a mental list of the places you pass—the Thai restaurant with the lotus on the sign, the gray-and-pink motel, the underpass and the two gas stations across from each other. You say the names of the cross streets out loud, repeating them as you drive under their signs, hoping to keep a mental record of where you’re headed.
Western, Gower, Highland, La Brea.
It’s not until the road crests that you see the black car again. It makes a left toward a low building with several barred windows.

Almost as soon as it makes the turn it pulls over on the right side of the road. You go to the next light, circling the block to approach the house from the other direction. Within a minute you have come up the street from the opposite corner, your lights still out, slowing to a stop when the car comes into view.