Never Look Away (26 page)

"So let me ask you this," Dwayne said. "You feel kind of bad for him?"

"I wouldn't be human if I didn't feel bad about leaving my son," she said.

"No, not the kid. Your husband. I mean, the poor bastard, he's not going to know what hit him."

"What do you think would be better?" she asked. "Would it be better to have every cop in the country wondering where I'd run off to, have them looking for me? Or would it be better to have them thinking I'm already dead?"

"Listen, I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. It's fucking brilliant, that's what it is. Acting all depressed, but just for him, letting him think one thing, setting it all up so the cops will think another. I'm in awe, okay? I'm in fucking awe. All I'm saying is, you did live with the guy for a long time. How'd you do that, anyway? Stick with him only as long as you needed him? Make him think you cared about him when you really didn't?"

Jan looked at him. "It's just something I do." She went back to looking out her open window, hot wind blowing in her face.

"Well, you did it good," Dwayne said admiringly. "You ask me, it's okay if you don't feel bad about it. That's probably even better. No sense striking off on a new life feeling all guilty about what you did to get it. But I just keep picturing the look on his face. When he finds out what you told the guy at the store. When he finds out you never went to the doctor. And when they can't find you on those park cameras. The guy's got to be shit-tin' himself."

"Let's talk about something else," Jan said.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"When's the last time you talked to your guy who wants to buy our stuff?"

"The day after I got out," Dwayne said. "I call him up, I say, you're never going to guess who this is. He can't believe it. He says he gave up on me long ago. I never got a chance to call him after I got picked up for the assault thing, so when we didn't show years ago, he just kind of gave up on us. So I say, hey, I'm back, and we're still ready to deal. He goes, shit, are you kidding me? He figured maybe I was dead or something. The other thing he said that was kind of interesting was, there was never anything in the news about it, I mean, about the diamonds actually going missing. He said there was something in the paper about some guy got his hand cut off, but nothing about diamonds."

"That's not surprising," Jan said.

"How you figure?"

"You don't go reporting illicit diamonds stolen," Jan said. "There's not even supposed to be any of them anymore, not since that whole diamond certification thing got going back in 2000. The Kimberley thing. You never saw that movie because you were in jail, the one with Leonardo Di-Caprio, all about Sierra Leone and--"

"Don't you mean the Sierra Desert?" Dwayne asked.

"That's the Sahara Desert."

"Oh yeah. Okay."

"Anyway, even with the certification thing going on, and the whole industry clamping down, there's still a big market in illicit diamonds, and you don't go to the cops whining about having some ripped off, even as many as we got. Did you know that al-Qaeda made millions off the sale of illicit diamonds?"

"No shit?"

"Yeah," she said, holding her hand out the window, pushing against the wind.

"So what we did, in a way, was help fight the war on terror." Dwayne grinned.

Jan didn't even look at him. You had to be careful, she thought. You started thinking he was dumb as shit, it made you forget he could also be very dangerous.

Funny thing was, he didn't mind inflicting pain, but he couldn't stand the sight of blood. Complex, in his own stupid way.

"So who is this guy?" Jan asked.

"His name's Banura," he said. "Cool, huh? He's black. But
really
black. I think he's from that Sierra place you mentioned."

"How do you get in touch?"

"I got his number written down in my pocket. He lives on the south side, in Braintree."

"Does he know we want to do this tomorrow?"

"I didn't tell him an exact day. I was kinda just putting him on alert."

Jan said she thought it would be a good idea for him to get in touch. Banura might need time to start pulling the cash together, in anticipation.

"That's a good idea," Dwayne said.

Jan didn't want to be around the Boston area any longer than she had to. Get the merchandise, exchange it for cash, get the hell out.

They got off the turnpike and Dwayne went looking first for a place to fill up. While he was pumping gas, Jan wandered into the store to look around. She was twirling the sunglasses rack when she noticed the heavy-set woman next to her. The woman was leaning over, telling her daughter to stop whining, and she'd slung her purse over her shoulder and onto her back.

It was open. Jan was staring straight into it.

She didn't care about the woman's purse. She had enough cash to get to Boston, and once they delivered the diamonds, there was going to be more money than she knew what to do with.

But the woman's cell phone might come in handy.

Jan pulled it off in one clean move. She leaned over the woman as if to reach for something on a shelf, one arm going for a package of two cupcakes, the other sliding down into the purse, grabbing hold of the slender phone, and slipping it into the front pocket of her jeans.

She bought the cupcakes--they were Ethan's favorite; he liked to eat around the little white squiggle across the chocolate icing and save it for last--and got back to the truck about the time Dwayne was done filling the tank. She tossed the cupcakes through the window, got in, and handed him the phone once he was behind the wheel.

"Phone your guy," she said.

By the time they decided to each have a cupcake, the icing had melted to the cellophane wrapper.

Jan worked carefully to peel it away, and she managed to free one cupcake with relatively little damage. She handed it over to Dwayne, who shoved the entire thing into his mouth at once.

The second one turned into a horror show. Most of the icing lifted off, so she bared her teeth and scraped it off the wrapper.

A technique she had learned from her son.

"Look, Mommy."

Ethan's in the car seat, Jan's up front, driving home from the market. She glances back, sees that he's not only managed to peel the icing from the wrapper in once piece, like a layer of pudding skin, he's eaten along each side of the white squiggle. He's lined it up along the underside of his index finger. His mouth is a mess of chocolate icing, but he looks so proud of himself
.

"I have a squiggle finger," he says
.

Dwayne snapped the phone shut. "We're good to go, tomorrow. I told him we should be there about noon. Maybe even earlier. The banks open at what, around nine-thirty, ten? We hit mine, we hit yours, and unless you stashed your half in fucking Tennessee or something, we should be done pretty quick. Sound good to you?"

Jan was looking away. "Yeah."

"What's going on? You okay?"

"I'm fine. Just drive."

THIRTY-TWO

Oscar Fine had parked his black Audi A4 on Hancock Street, looking south, the back of the State House up ahead to the left. From this side, parked on the downslope, the gold dome was not visible. But that wasn't what he was looking for, anyway.

He liked Beacon Hill. He appreciated it. The narrow streets, the sense of history, the beautiful old brick homes with their extraordinary window boxes full of flowers, the uneven sidewalks and cobblestone streets, the iron boot-scraper bars embedded into almost all the front steps, not quite so important now that the streets weren't full of mud and shit. But it was too crowded for him around here. Too jammed in. He didn't like having a lot of neighbors. He liked being on his own.

But still, it was nice when his work brought him up here.

He was watching an address about a dozen doors up, on the other side of the street. It was early evening. It was about this time that Miles Cooper got home from work. His wife, Patricia, a nurse over at Mass Gen, was, as usual, working the late shift. She'd left about an hour ago. She usually walked, although sometimes she'd only hoof it as far as Cambridge and then grab a bus part of the way, and occasionally she'd even grab a cab. Most nights, when she got off, she was dropped off by a coworker who drove and lived in Telegraph Hill and didn't mind taking Hancock on her way home.

Oscar had been watching their routine for a few days now. He knew he was being more cautious than he needed to be. He already had a good idea of what Miles Cooper did, day in and day out. He knew Cooper liked to spend his weekends on his boat, that he spent too much money on the horses, that he was a lousy poker player. Oscar knew that firsthand. The guy had so many tells it was laughable. If he was dealt a useless hand, he shook his head side to side. Not noticeably. A millimeter in each direction, if that, but enough for Oscar to notice. If he was holding a flush, you could feel the floor shifting underfoot because Miles's right knee was bobbing up and down like a piston.

There were other things Oscar knew about Miles. He was seeing his doctor about gastrointestinal pains. He went through a medium-sized bottle of fruit-flavored Tums every day. He had a storage locker outside of the city where he was hiding, for his younger brother, three stolen Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Every second Monday, he went to the North End and paid three hundred dollars to a girl who worked out of her apartment over an Italian bakery on Salem Street to take her clothes off very slowly and then blow him.

Oscar also knew he was stealing from the man they both worked for. And the man had figured out what Miles was up to.

"I'd like you to look after this for me," the man said to Oscar.

"Not a problem," Oscar said.

So he'd tracked Miles's movements for the better part of a week. Didn't want to drop in on him when the wife was home. Or their daughter. She was in her twenties, lived in Providence, but she often came to visit her parents on weekends. This being Sunday, there was a chance she could have been here, but Oscar had determined she was not. If Miles Cooper followed his usual routine, he'd be walking down the hill from the direction of the State House any moment and--

There he was.

Late fifties, overweight, balding, a thick gray mustache. Dressed in an ill-fitting suit, white shirt, no tie.

As he reached his home, he fished around in his pocket for his keys, found them, mounted the five cement steps to his door, unlocked it and went inside.

Oscar Fine got out of his Audi.

He walked up the street, crossed diagonally, reaching the other side out front of Miles Cooper's home.

Oscar rang the bell.

He could hear Miles's footsteps on the other side of the door before it opened.

"Hey, Oscar," Miles said.

"Hi, Miles," he said.

"What are you doing here?"

"Can I come in?" Oscar said.

Something flickered in Miles's eyes. Oscar Fine could see it. It was fear. Oscar had gotten a lot better at reading people the last five years or so. Back then, he'd been a bit cocky, overconfident. Sloppy. At least once.

Oscar knew Miles wouldn't close the door on him. Miles had to know that if Oscar didn't already suspect he was up to something, he surely would if Miles refused to let him into his house.

"Sure, yeah, come on in," Miles said. "Good to see you. What are you doing around here?"

Oscar stepped in and closed the door. He asked, already knowing the answer, "Patricia home?"

"She'll be at work by now. She's usually half an hour into her shift by the time I get home. What can I get you to drink?"

"I'm good," Oscar said.

"You sure? I was just going to get a beer."

"Nothing," Oscar said, following Miles into the kitchen. Oscar Fine did not drink, which Miles could never seem to remember.

Miles opened the fridge, leaned down, reached in for a bottle, and by the time he turned around, Oscar was pointing a gun at him, holding it in his right hand, his left arm stuck down into the pocket of his jacket. The gun had a long tubular attachment at the end of the barrel. A silencer.

"Jesus, Oscar, what the fuck. You scared me half to death there."

"He knows," Oscar said.

"He knows? Who knows? Who knows what? Christ, put that thing away. I nearly wet my pants."

"He knows," Oscar said again.

Miles twisted the cap off the bottle, tossed it onto the countertop. His mouth twitched as he said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please, Miles, show some dignity. He knows. Don't play stupid."

Miles took a long swig from the bottle, then moved to a wooden kitchen chair and sat down.

"Shit," he said. He had to put the bottle on the table because his hand was starting to shake.

"You need to know why this is happening," Oscar said. "It would be wrong for you to die not knowing why this is happening."

"Oscar, come on, we go way back. You got to cut me some slack here. I can pay it back."

"No," Oscar said.

"But I can, with interest. I'll sell the boat. I'll sell it tomorrow. And I've got some other cash set aside. The thing is, it's not really all that much. He won't have to wait for his money. He'll get it back right away, and that's a promise. Plus, I've got some motorcycles. I was holding them for my brother, but I can sell them and give the money to him. Fuck my brother. Tough shit for him, right? I mean, it's not like he had to pay for them in the first--"

The gun went
pfft, pfft
. Oscar Fine put two bullets in his head. Miles Cooper pitched forward, hit the floor, and that was it.

Oscar let himself out, walked down the street, got in his Audi, and drove out of Beacon Hill.

Oscar Fine only had to slow as he approached the security gate at the shipping container yard. The guard in the booth recognized the car and driver and had hit the button to make the gate slowly shift to the right. Oscar waited until there was just enough of an opening, then guided the car into the compound.

There were thousands of the rectangular boxes, stacked like monstrous colorful LEGO blocks. They came in orange, brown, green, blue, and silver and were labeled Sea Land, Evergreen, Maersk, and Cosco. They were stacked six high in some places, and it was like driving through a narrow steel canyon. The compound took up a good ten acres on the outside of the city. Oscar drove his car to the far side, parked up against a ten-foot fence with coils of barbed wire adorning the top. He got out of the car, taking with him some milk he had bought at a 7-Eleven after driving out of Beacon Hill, and walked over to the square end of an Evergreen container that had two others stacked atop it. He reached into his right pocket, found a key, and unlocked the container door.

He swung it open, and about four feet inside was a secondary wall and a regular-sized door. He unlocked it with a second key, opened the door toward him, and stepped into what seemed to be almost total blackness, although there was a hint of light.

He reached along the inside of the secondary wall with his right hand and found a bank of switches. He flipped them all up, and instantly the inside of the container was bathed in light.

While one might have expected the inside walls to be exactly the same as the outside--metal and vertically ribbed--they were instead smooth and painted a soft moss green. The interior walls, perfectly drywalled, were adorned with large examples of modern art. Underfoot was not metal but gleaming wood flooring. Just inside the door were a leather couch, a matching leather reclining chair, and a 46-inch flat-screen TV mounted to the wall. About halfway down the container was a narrow, gleaming kitchen area with aluminum countertops and dozens of recessed pot lights. Beyond that, an elegant bathroom and bedroom.

Oscar Fine heard a sound. A second later, something brushed up against his leg.

He looked down as a rust-colored cat purred softly.

"I bought you some milk," Oscar said. It was for the cat that Oscar had left on a couple of nightlights. He set the bottle on the counter, hugged it to himself with his left arm while he uncapped it with his right, and poured some into a bowl on the floor. The cat slinked noiselessly to the bowl and lowered its head down into it.

Oscar took the gun from his jacket, set it on the counter, then opened an oversized kitchen cabinet door to reveal a refrigerator. Oscar set the milk inside and took out a can of Coke. He popped the lid with his index finger, then poured the drink into a heavy-bottomed glass.

"How was your day?" he asked the cat.

Oscar sat on a leather stool at the kitchen counter. A silver laptop lay there, its screen black. He hit a button on the side, and while he waited for the machine to get up and running, he reached for a remote and brought the flat-screen TV to life. It was already on CNN, and he left it there.

The laptop was ready to go and he checked his mail first. Nothing but spam. If only you could find those people, he thought. They had it coming even more than Miles. He checked a couple of his favorite book-marked sites. One showed how his various investments were doing. Checking that tended to depress him these days. The other site, which always cheered him, featured short videos of kittens falling asleep.

He glanced up occasionally at the TV while he surfed around.

Onscreen, the news anchor was saying, "... in an unusual turn of events, a person who makes his living reporting the news finds himself at the center of it. Police are refusing to say whether they believe Jan Harwood is alive or dead, but they have indicated that her husband, David Harwood, a reporter for the
Standard
, a paper in Promise Falls, north of Albany, is what they are calling a person of interest. The woman has not been seen since she accompanied her husband Friday on a trip to Lake George."

Oscar Fine glanced up from his laptop to the television for only a second, not really interested, then back to his computer. Then he looked back up again.

They had flashed a picture of this missing woman. Oscar Fine only caught a glimpse of the image before the newscast moved on to a shot of a house where it was believed this David and Jan Harwood lived, then another shot of the reporter's parents' house, and an older woman coming to the door, telling the media to go away.

Oscar kept waiting for them to show the woman's picture again, but they did not.

He returned his attention to the laptop, and with his right hand did a Google news search of "Jan Harwood" and "Promise Falls." That took him to a couple of sites, including that of the Promise Falls
Standard
, where he found a full story, by Samantha Henry, as well as a picture of the missing woman.

He clicked on it, blew it up. He stared at it a good minute. The woman's hair was very different. He remembered her hair as red, but now it was black. And she'd worn heavy makeup, eyelashes like spider's legs. This woman here, she had a toned-down look. Looked like your average housewife. Okay, better than that. A MILF.

He clicked again, blew the picture up even more. There it was. The small scar, shaped like an L, on her cheek. She probably thought she'd pancaked it enough to make it invisible the one and only time they'd met. But he'd seen it.

That scar was all the proof he needed. That, and the throbbing at the end of his left arm, where his hand used to be.

Oscar Fine had some calls to make.