63
ANSON
Stash held the shotgun with a single-handed grip, with the barrel over his shoulder and the butt resting in the crook of his arm.
While he couldn’t fire in that position, it wouldn’t take much to swing the weapon around and level it at us.
Lou from downstairs was behind him, his face blotchy and moist with sweat.
Some kind of handgun was tucked in the front waistband of his jeans.
Before either of them could speak, I blurted out, “Have you seen Meagan? Detective Moss asked me what it would take to move the Kid if we have to.”
Not the best of lies, but better than nothing.
“She’s not in here,” Detective Moss added without missing a beat. “We’ve looked everywhere.”
Lou repositioned his weight to his back foot and hooked the thumb of his right hand on his front pocket, inches from the gun.
“She went to the hospital to get supplies.” Stash’s eyes remained on me. They’d never looked so cold. He nodded over my shoulder at Meagan’s empty room. “You shouldn’t be in there. That’s her private space.”
“We wanted to leave her a note.”
“And did you? Leave her a note?”
“I couldn’t find a pen.” I glanced toward the stairs leading to the Kid’s room. “I was heading back up to get one.”
“How about we all go together?”
While he left the shotgun on his shoulder, his hand inched closer to the trigger. He motioned toward the staircase.
You could grab it, Champ. You go up the stairs first, him behind you.
Hit him with all your weight when he least expects it, one quick backward thrust. Throw him off balance and take the gun when he tumbles.
We probably practiced that move a thousand times on the basement steps back home.
You know you can do it, even if he outweighs you.
I started up the steps.
Stash behind me, Lou behind him.
I didn’t make a play for the shotgun only because Detective Moss was behind Lou, and something about that felt off. If Stash and Lou were trying to corral us, surely Lou would have made the detective go first. He was vulnerable with her at the rear.
When we stepped back into the Kid’s room, I thought Vincent might go for the gun he had at the small of his back, but he didn’t.
His eyes quickly met mine, then bounced to Stash and Lou and back again, this silent message to stand down.
“They were just up here,” he said. “Twill’s missing. Have you seen her?”
“Twill? I . . . no,” I stammered. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”
Lou leaned back against the door frame. When he spoke, he chose his words carefully, with one eye on Detective Moss. “Twill went out earlier on a . . . date . . . and was due back about three hours ago. She hasn’t checked in. That’s not like her. She always checks in after a date. Right after.”
He said this last part more to me and the other boys than to Detective Moss, but his weak attempt at code wasn’t lost on her.
She knew exactly what he meant by “date” and made no attempt to hide it.
No doubt grateful for the chance to change the subject.
“Do you know the guy?” she asked. “Is he some kind of regular?”
Lou seemed slightly taken aback by that, and he glanced at Stash before answering. When Stash reluctantly nodded, he turned back to Moss. “He’s new, but . . . but Meagan vouched for him. I came up here looking for her.”
The heavy footsteps we heard.
“But she’s at the hospital.”
Stash nodded. “Like I said.”
An image of the latest entry in that ledger we found in Meagan’s room flashed in my mind.
“WF15 6k MP.”
I wanted to ask what Twill’s real name was, but I knew I couldn’t, not without having to explain. I imagined Detective Moss was thinking the same thing.
“Does Meagan know how to reach him? This guy?” Moss asked. To her credit, she didn’t so much as blink at the drawing still sitting on the Kid’s bed. Instead, she stepped between it and the two men at the door, giving Vincent enough time to slip Paul’s sketch of Meagan back into his pocket.
Lou looked like he was about to answer Moss’s question when the Kid cleared his throat.
“Um, guys?” He turned his laptop around to face us. “You’ll want to see this.”
When we all drew close, he expanded a window and clicked a button marked “play.” A video filled the screen—a shot of the road outside the Market District’s main entrance.
“I tapped into a security feed from the convenience store across the street on King. These guys just pulled up.”
Although it was dark out, the street lights provided enough illumination to clearly see two white vans at the curb, not unlike Hillburn’s.
I half-expected to see “Talbot Enterprises” stenciled in red on the sides, but they were unmarked.
The back doors opened on both, and twelve men quickly streamed out, six from each.
Dressed inconspicuously, they split up and walked off in different directions.
Four of them took up positions on the sidewalk; the others quickly stepped off and vanished.
The vans pulled away. It was all over in under twenty seconds.
“Shit, they’re here,” Paul breathed.
The Kid pressed stop. “I’m trying to find more cameras, but I haven’t had much luck. I can only see the front. There’s probably more of them, though. There’s a good chance they dropped people off all around the building.”
Vincent’s mouth was hanging open, and his body grew rigid. “How many people are still here? To defend this place?”
“Seventy-three at last count,” Stash replied. “Nearly half are kids, though. Sixteen and under.”
Vincent turned to Detective Moss. “How many cops do you have?”
“Ten on the ground, four more in patrol cars circling the building.”
He looked out through the doorway, nodding toward Ruddy’s voice coming from somewhere nearby. “I didn’t count the weapons on that clipboard, but it didn’t seem like many.”
Stash licked his lips and swallowed. “Eight handguns. Twenty-three knives. Two shotguns, counting this one.”
“That’s it?” Vincent’s red face grew redder. “You just told everyone you could get more?”
“We can get knives from downstairs, and we have ammunition coming, but we can’t get more guns.”
“The ammunition isn’t even here?”
“It’s coming.”
Vincent glanced down at the frozen image on the laptop. “Fuck.”
Stash’s math was wrong. I quickly pointed out, “We have three shotguns, right? Not two. You forgot Pudge at the stairs.”
Stash’s eyes fell to the floor for a second. “We took the firing pin out of Pudge’s shotgun when we first gave it to him. He’s always been more of a deterrent.”
“So put it back in,” Vincent told him, his voice filled with aggravation.
“Nobody knows where it is. It’s been a few years.”
Vincent blew out a breath and ran his hand through his ruffled hair. “We are so fucked.”
“There are only two ways to get up here from down below, and we’ve got both covered with multiple people,” Stash insisted. “As long as we hold both staircases, they can’t get upstairs.”
“And I’ve got men positioned inside the market and patrolling the streets. Stash is right. They won’t get through.”
Vincent looked back at the Kid. “Let me see that video again?”
The Kid pressed several keys and the video repeated.
“Stop it there,” Vincent instructed.
The Kid did. Having just exited the van, the men were frozen mid-step.
“Can you zoom in?”
“Some,” the Kid told him. “I think. The quality isn’t that great.”
The quality was good enough.
As the image of one of the men grew on the screen, the barrel of some kind of assault rifle became visible sticking out the bottom of his jacket, tucked under the crook of his arm. It appeared they were all concealing assault rifles.
Their clothing looked bulky, too. Like multiple layers.
Detective Moss understood why. “They’re wearing body armor under their shirts.”
“We can’t defend against that,” Vincent said. “Not for long.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Stash replied.
“They’re not going to shoot,” Detective Moss said.
“Think about it. If their plan is really to herd the young for trafficking, they need to be careful about it. Surgical. They can’t hurt anyone.
They don’t want damaged goods. They certainly can’t risk drawing more law enforcement or the press. The guns are for show.”
It was after midnight. The Market had closed hours earlier. There was nobody to hear—
A single shot cracked through the air.