Never Go Home (2 page)

The nervous
man shook. He came up halfway, convulsed, then straightened his body. The front
of his shorts were wet. His
weapon
shook in his hand. The bodyguard
swatted at it. Two five-pound notes drifted to the floor.

The bodyguard
looked over his shoulder. He laughed, and said, “You believe this?”

The other two
members of Marcia’s security detail laughed. One held up his hands and
shrugged.

I heard
footsteps behind me. The fourth bodyguard, presumably, returning from the
bathroom.

I was wrong.

Dimple’s
perfume hit me before she passed on my left. Hand Tattoo’s body odor eradicated
her sweet smell. He had a gun dangling from his right hand. He lifted his arm
and aimed at the bodyguard who stood in the middle of the cafe.

The
bodyguard’s training forced him into action. Already armed with an M40, he
spun. He drove his shoulder into the nervous guy’s chest. The man flew
backward, sprawled out, skidded to the door. Hand Tattoo fired first. He caught
the bodyguard in the gut. A crimson bloom formed near the man’s navel. He fell
backward, landed on the nervous guy’s legs. Feeble attempts to lift his sidearm
failed.

I heard
another shot, glanced toward Marcia’s table. One of her men lay face down on
top of it. Unfocused eyes stared toward the display cabinet. Above them, blood
flowed from a hole in his forehead. The bullet he took ended his life.

I grabbed a
mug off the counter. It felt thick, heavy. I whipped my arm around and slammed
the mug into the back of Hand Tattoo’s head. His scalp split in two. The coffee
cup shattered. The only thing left in my hand was the handle. Hand Tattoo fell
to his knees. I struck him twice with each fist. He fell forward, unconscious.

The men out
front tried to get back inside. One drove his shoulder into the front door. It
dinged as it opened. It didn’t get far, though. The nervous man and the
bodyguard who took the gut shot blocked the door’s arc, preventing it from
opening all the way. That didn’t stop the two men outside from driving it open
repeatedly. The nervous man took the brunt of the door’s steel frame. He
screamed with every thrust.

I looked away
after his arm broke. There were more pressing issues to deal with at that time.

With Hand
Tattoo out of my way, I had a good view of Dimples. She fired a second shot.
The live guard at the table covered Marcia Stanton. The bullet entered through
his lower back. Dimples fired again. It hit the wall. A plaster cloud loomed in
the air. Dimples cursed.

I glanced
over the counter and located Skinny Red. He lay on the floor, hands over his
head. I felt disappointed in being wrong about the guy.

Dimples
retracted then extended her arm. The trigger clicked. The bullet didn’t fire.
She turned the gun sideways. Her head lowered an inch. She shook the weapon and
tried again. Nothing happened. The pistol had jammed.

Already
moving forward, I reached inside my pocket and pulled out a pen. Dimples looked
over her shoulder. Her eyes grew wide. Her right shoulder ducked. She turned on
the ball of her left foot. Four feet separated me and my pen from her and her
gun.

She reached
out and screamed and squeezed the trigger.

I cocked my
left arm back, and twisted and jumped.

Her pistol
roared. The muzzle flash was bright and instantaneous. The bullet sliced past
me and smashed into the plaster wall. A chunk fell to the floor.

She looked
pissed. Her mouth contorted. She turned and reset her aim.

I swung my
left arm and drove the pen into the side of her neck. I wasn’t going for her
jugular, or even a kill shot. The pen did damage in a different way. My only
job was to insert the tip. The fluid inside the hollow body did the rest. I
watched and waited. She brought her hand up to her neck, wrapped it around the
pen. Her twisted expression told me that the fluid coursed through her system.

Quickly.

Dimples
dropped to one knee. She fell sideways against the display case. Her lips
smeared against the glass as she slid down it on her way to the floor.

“What just
happened?” Marcia Stanton said.

I pushed
myself off the floor, got to one knee, and said, “You’re OK now. It’s safe.”

The front
door burst open. The two men came in shouting.

“Just stay
there,” Marcia told them.

Like
well-trained dogs, they remained in place.

With one foot
off the ground, a pen in one hand, and Dimple’s Glock in the other, I rose. The
adrenaline letdown had begun, and delayed my reaction to the footsteps behind
me.

Marcia’s
hands went out and she shook her head side to side. I think she might have
said, “No, no, no,” but I can’t be sure.

Something
smashed against the back of my head. I fell forward, catching the side of my
face against Marcia’s table, inches from the dead bodyguard’s blood. Might have
slid into it. Maybe not. Hard to tell, because that was about the time that I
blacked out.

Bright red.

That was what I
saw, even though my eyes were closed. I heard voices around me. They were
muffled and deep. My face felt hot. My body felt detached. It was almost like
I’d spent a day buried up to my neck in sand at the beach.

I forced my
eyes open. A bright light hovered above me. I brought my hand to my face. Metal
joints creaked. The light swung away. It cast its insidious glare toward the
corner of the room. The retinal burn faded, bright to dark to faint then gone.
I looked around the room. There was a woman standing next to the bed. I
recognized her.

“Jesus, are you
OK, Jack?” Sasha asked.

I nodded. My
neck felt stiff. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

“What the hell
happened in there?”

Glimpses of the
attempt on Marcia’s life played in my mind.

“I’m not quite
sure.” Slipping my hand between my head and the pillow, I massaged the base of
my skull and glanced around. It wasn’t a normal hospital room. “Where am I?”

“Where do you
think?”

“I wouldn’t ask
if I had a clue.”

“You’re in the
basement of my facility. One of our guys, you know, the ones you sent away, he
heard gunshots. By the time he got to the cafe, you were face down in a pool of
someone else’s blood. We found multiple others on the floor.”

“Not all of
them were my fault.”

“The people in
the cafe told us that you took two of them out, but one of them had taken out
the dead guy on the table.”

“And the guard
who stood in the middle of the restaurant.”

“And another
guard at the table is paralyzed from the waist down.”

“And some
innocent guy got battered by the front door.”

She nodded.

“And Marcia
Stanton?” I asked.

“She’s fine. We
got her out along with the member of her security detail that took you out. In
all, she left behind one dead guard and the blood of two others. I hope, at
least. Both men that were shot are in critical condition at this time.”

I checked my
facts against hers in my head. She sounded like she had a pretty good idea of
what happened. Guess she figured I could fill in some holes.

I shook my
head. “So she made it through unscathed.”

Sasha nodded.

“And it was one
of her guys that took me out?”

She nodded.

I reached for a
glass of water perched on the nightstand next to the bed. It had red lipstick
on the rim. I spun it around and took a sip. “And what about the two I
neutralized?”

She said, “What
about them?”

I said, “You
didn’t let them go, did you?”

She said,
“We’ve got them in custody. Thank you for confirming that you’re responsible
for them.”

I nodded. “They
came out of nowhere. I took the guy out first, Dimples second.”

“Dimples?”

“She had
dimples. They stood out.”

Sasha said
nothing.

“You didn’t
notify anyone, did you?”

“Who would I
notify?”

“You know who.”

“No, I didn’t
tell Erin.” She looked away. Bringing up Erin around the woman always produced
this result.

When I had
agreed to remain in London and help Sasha, she had asked me to leave Erin with
the impression that I had left the country. I didn’t. Even though things had
long since quieted between Erin and me, she was the mother of my child. A child
I hadn’t known about until recently. My time away from the job was spent with
Mia, and in turn, Erin.

“It’s best that
you didn’t,” I said. “I don’t want to worry Mia.”

“And Erin.”

“You sound
jealous.”

“Maybe I am.”
She could have burned me with her stare.

I smiled. She
looked away.

“You feel well
enough to get dressed?” she said.

“Bit of a
headache, but I’ll manage,” I said.

“OK. There’s a
shower in the bathroom. Get yourself cleaned up, changed, and then come up to
my office.”

I watched Sasha
walk away. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. It swung to the side.
Every step revealed a bit of her neck. She exited into the hallway and pulled
the door shut.

I swung my feet
over the bed and stood. My head spun. Perhaps I had risen too fast. The edge of
my vision darkened for a second or two. A hand on the bed steadied my body. The
sensation passed. I breathed in through my nose, held it, and exhaled through
my mouth.

“OK,” I said.
“That was fun.”

I stepped into
the bathroom. A folded towel, washcloth, and unopened bar of soap waited for me
on the toilet seat. I reached past the thin shower curtain and turned the
shower faucet. Ice-cold water dribbled from the shower head. It’d warm up, I
supposed.

I looked at my
reflection in the mirror that hung over the sink. Blood caked my forehead. I
parted my hair in a dozen spots but found no wound. I recalled the pool of
blood on the table in the cafe. It had spread. Or I had moved. Same result
either way.

My fingertips
skated along my scalp. They met in the back. There I felt a line of stitches.
Twelve by my count. They hadn’t bandaged the wound, so I figured it wasn’t too
bad.

My headache
dissipated. The blow had rendered me unconscious, but I didn’t feel too many
aftereffects. That didn’t mean a concussion didn’t exist. I had a feeling that
Sasha would insist I stay in the infirmary all night. It was that or the city
hospital. At least the building offered safety.

The mirror
fogged up. I wiped it with my palm, leaving behind thin streaks of
condensation. The gaps filled back in.

I stepped into
the shower. Red-tinted water pooled below my feet. My blood or someone else’s?
Ignoring it, I washed my body three times just to make sure I’d removed it all.
The minutes passed and the water turned clear.

I cut the
faucet off, dried myself and went back into the room. Sasha had left a change
of clothes for me. She’d set my wallet and cell phone next to them. I put on
the khaki pants and an off-white polo. They fit just right. Had she been
creeping around my closet? I grabbed my cell and the wallet, inspected both,
and stuffed them in opposite front pockets.

My shoes
must’ve taken a beating in the cafe, because she’d left a new pair for me.
Brown, leather, steel toed and hard soled. Another perfect fit.

I grabbed the
glass of water she’d left behind. The condensation on the outside of the cup
felt cold against the skin of my palm, which was still hot from the shower. I
emptied the glass, sat it down, walked to the door, and stepped out of the
room. My head started to spin again. I stopped, placed my hand on the wall,
waited for it to pass.

It didn’t take
long, and it wasn’t as bad as the first spell.

A nurse
witnessed the event. “You OK?”

I nodded. “I’m
fine.”

She said,
“Positive?”

I closed my
eyes, dropped my head back, turned my palms up and walked on a line. “Would I
be able to do this if I was lying?”

“You better
come back down here after you’re done with your meeting.”

I got the
distinct feeling that Sasha had to override the nurse to get me out of the
room. I resumed walking like a normal person.

She shook her
head.

I nodded and
smiled as I passed her.

She said, “I’m
serious, Jack.”

This was the
second time she had treated me. Last time had been off-site. I felt bad that I
couldn’t remember her name. I glanced toward the tag on her lapel, but she’d
already turned back to her paperwork.

“I know you
are,” I said. “That’s why I always refer to you as Nurse Serious. Best of the
bunch.”

“Get out of
here,” she said, laughing.

I stopped in
front of the elevator. There were no buttons, only a card reader. I retrieved
my wallet and found my access card inside. I waved it in front of the device on
the wall. The steel doors parted and I stepped inside the mirrored lift.

Sasha’s office
was on the top. That correlated to the button labeled four on the elevator’s
panel. I pressed it. The doors shut. The elevator dropped a foot, then darted
upward. It took a second for my stomach to catch up. I braced myself for
another dizzy spell, but it didn’t happen.

The lift came
to a stop. The door didn’t open. They wouldn’t on their own. Sasha worked on a
restricted access floor. I still held my access card in my hand. I swiped it
through the reader above the buttons. A light switched from red to green. The
doors opened. A guard straightened up. He placed his hand on his sidearm and
stared me down.

I walked toward
him. “At ease, mate.”

He rolled his
eyes at me. I never tired of it. They did.

He reached
across his body and pressed a button. The double doors in front of me clicked
and hissed. I reached out, turned the handle on the right and pushed the door
open.