Page 130 of Nothing More

Scott frowned. “What?”

“Take them and go,” Toly snapped. “I won’t say it again.”

He scrambled off the chair, then, stumbled, wobbled. But he managed to get the bags zipped and thrown over his shoulders; staggered out the door, footsteps fading away until the steel door below shut with a slam.

Toly let out a slow breath, and it was an effort not to hyperventilate.

The man who’d spoken first said, “What now?”

“Call Andrei,” he said. To the man beside him: “Go and make me a drink.” The next. “Clean up this mess.” He waved at the blood, the bodies. “I need a smoke.” He stepped over Oleg’s warm corpse and strode from the room.

Then he kept striding, straight up to his room. There, the adrenaline shakes gripped him hard. He crammed all of his things in his rucksack, and then donned his gloves and took a cloth to all the smooth surfaces, wiping away his prints. There was nothing to be done about the DNA, but he wasn’t in the system, he reminded himself. There was a full bottle of vodka on his nightstand. Warm, but he cracked the seal and sipped at it until his stomach had settled. He stowed it in his bag, too, pulled a beanie over his hair, and went out the window.

He’d never gone to ground before, but he did it well, and carefully – or so he thought.

Almost a month later, he was washing his hands in a McDonald’s bathroom when a man loomed behind him in the mirror, and said, “Anatoly Kobliska?”

Toly froze, glanced up at his reflection, and then froze again.

The man had a friendly, weather-beaten face, handsome in an easy sort of way. Dark hair getting some salt in it, jaw rough with purposeful stubble, brown eyes. He wore a plain blue hoodie.

And a Lean Dogs cut.

Toly’s pulse spiked; his fingers twitched toward the front of his jacket, and the knife stashed in the inner pocket.

“Whoa there,” the man said, as though talking to a spooked horse. “Easy, son. There’s no need for that.”

Toly could see his own heartbeat in the hollow of his throat, and the side of his neck. Throb-throb-throb. The man behind him had a height and weight advantage, but Toly had youth and speed on his side, and plenty of acquired knife skills besides. The man’s cut declared him the Vice President, but that betrayed nothing of his possible skills and experience.

In a choked voice, Toly said, “How do you know my name?”

Slowly, the man lifted both hands to show his empty palms. Rough, callused hands that had known hard work, old dirt baked into the creases. “I asked around. It wasn’t hard to find somebody Russian who’d spill the beans on you, kid.” He cocked his head to one side, grinned. “You’re the one who shot his own Pakhan.”

There were a dozen defenses he could have offered: the whole, sordid tale of Oleg the terrible leader. But that would require more words than Toly had ever used at one time.

The man said, “My name’s Maverick, by the way. You wanna turn around so we can talk face-to-face?”

No. But it was that or stab the man.

He looked at his own face, the dark, sleepless circles beneath his eyes, the haggard complexion, the greasy hair. He didn’t have money for a hotel room, and so he’d been making use of shelters and the occasional bit of hospitality from people he did odd jobs for: a pallet on a warehouse floor, one night, the back of a moving truck another.

What did he have to lose? Nothing. He had nothing. And he was so, so tired.

He turned, and leaned back against the edge of the sink.

Maverick nodded, and looked pleased, his smile not large, but warm. “I’m not angry,” he said, “and I’m not going to hurt you.” Like Toly was somechild. Like he cared about this stranger’sapproval.

Toly’s shoulders drew up on instinct. He glared. “I’mnotyourson.”

“I know,” Maverick said easily, “it’s old habit, I guess. I don’t have any kids, so I end up calling all the boys ‘son’ or ‘sport’ or something lame like that.” He shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Toly gauged there was a span of three feet between them: far enough that he could draw a weapon, but so close that if Maverick drew too, he wouldn’t be able to get off a decent shot. And then, given their location, someone would come pelting into the restroom, and someone would call 911, and then someone would catch a glimpse of him as he fled and give a description to the police. If every Russian in the city was already spreading his whole fucking name around, apparently, there was no chance they’d waste a chance to offer it up to the cops when his sketch appeared on the evening news.

Maverick said, “I know what you’re thinking, and you need to take a deep breath, and at least hear me out.”

Toly’s shoulders jerked up a little higher. He’d begun to shake, faintly, and though he tried, he couldn’t stem it.

Maverick’s gaze said he really did know.You don’t know shit, Toly wanted to snarl, but he couldn’t, throat blocked up with nerves that proved him right.