Chapter 57 The X Always Held #2
The kid pulled his gaze up molasses slow. Evan expected to read something of his internal life behind the dull gray eyes, but there was no light in there. Nothing but a mechanical flickering, speed-skittery beneath the surface. He was bird-boned, almost frail.
Taz said, “Huhn?”
“Anca Dumitrescu,” Evan said.
“Huhn?”
“The young woman you took from the subway. You and your friends.”
“Di’n’t happen.” He went back to his phone. “Whudev.”
Taz’s thumb hesitated, and beneath it Evan could see notifications riddling the top of the screen, piling up atop one another. Taz’s eyes looked shallow, dimensionless. The pupils jittered some more. The only light they held was the reflection of the screen.
Even after giving the names, Evan could not hold his attention.
It was like the kid couldn’t bridge the gulf between whatever was happening behind those gray eyes and the reality out in front of him—the plate, the gnawed burrito end wrapped in foil, a drugged, unconscious twenty-five-year-old Romanian-American with her panties ripped down to her ankles.
Evan said, “Taswell.”
The gaze did not lift. “Hmmph?”
Evan slid the phone from Taz’s hands, dropped it flat on the table before them.
“Huh? What the hell, man? What the hell. You can’t just grab my phone.”
“Anca Dumitrescu,” Evan said.
“Huhn?”
“The young woman from the subway.”
“Wut? Dude. My phone. You grabbed my phone.”
“You raped her. With three of your friends. Finley Jacowski and Michael Macmanus are already in custody at the emergency room. You are going to join them there. Brandon Burke will be along shortly.”
“We di’int do shit. You can’t prove shit.”
“There’s video. You and your chest tattoo.”
“Huhn? I don’t…” Taswell put his hand over his mouth and dry heaved. “Don’t ’member.”
A well-placed flick of Evan’s knuckles would collapse Taz’s windpipe.
“You’re going to prison, Taswell.”
“Prison? Nah.” Taz gave an odd stutter of a laugh. He had bits of pinto bean in his teeth. “No way, man. No way.”
Evan stared at him.
“Wait. Wut? Prison? For real? ’R you fer real?”
“I want you to look at me. Look at me closely. And ask yourself: Should you be scared?”
Taz’s eyes skittered across Evan’s chest. Eye contact seemed to pain him.
Evan stayed still. Waited. Waited some more.
Finally Taz lifted his gaze and looked at him.
His pupils constricted sharply, as if he’d glanced at the sun.
“Nuh,” he said. “No way.”
He had earned nothing in his life and yet he could not—could not—believe that his will could be thwarted.
“You kidnapped her,” Evan said. “Assaulted her. Violated her.”
Taswell reached for his phone on the table but Evan blocked him.
“My phone, bruh. Need my phone.”
“Do you feel anything, Taz?”
“Huhn?”
“In there. Do you feel things?”
Taz gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Dunno.”
Evan said, “You’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.”
“Wudduya mean?” Taz’s face barely moved, and yet it changed drastically with the realization. A widening of his features, hairline settling back, skin gone lax. Abject terror. Evan had never seen anything like it.
“Nuh,” Taz cried out. “What if they do things to me there?”
Evan swept his shirt open, the magnetized buttons parting to reveal a glimpse of the ARES 1911 sitting ready in the appendix holster. Taz gasped and then the shirt front swung back into place, magnets clapping together once more like a stage curtain, sealing off the pistol from view.
“Uh-uh,” Taz said. “Uh-uh.”
Evan considered where he’d like to shoot the boy.
Few people understand how resilient the pelvic bone is.
Two precisely placed shots would be ideal, one to the front and one just above would blow bone and shrapnel through most of the essential working parts of his lower anatomy. The damage to his pelvic region would mean agony with every step, every time he sat, every time he moved.
For what he’d done to Anca, it was not enough.
But Evan didn’t want to do that here, not in public, not with children around, not against the spirit of Anca’s directives. Maybe not even for himself.
He’d put Taswell to sleep quietly, call Naomi to get him to the cops and the courts, leave the kid’s phone for additional evidence.
There was nothing more to say, nothing to get out of the kid, so Evan put his arm around his neck, starting to crimp the vagus nerve.
Taz said, “Ow.”
Evan drew him tight, the boy’s head cramped between his biceps and chest, his mouth against his hair, close to his ear, as if to deliver a kiss. He felt … he felt sad.
Evan whispered, “Feel this.”
Bling!
A texted photo came up on Taz’s phone, resting there on the table by their elbows. A pretty young girl against a wall, bleached in the light of an unflattering flash. She wore a caught-in-headlights expression—feigned smile, concerned eyes, forehead crinkled with alarm.
“Wait,” Taz blurted, pointing with his free hand at the screen.
The message, also from B-Roll, announced: Get reddy to partay!!
Evan released him. “Where is this? Where’s B-Roll? Where does he have her?”
Taz was breathing hard, almost panting. He rubbed his head, making his hair stand up in the front. When he looked at Evan, his eyes were dead. It was like looking into nothing.
And then. A spark.
A human spark.
“We hafta…” Shoulders hunched, Taz shoved his flattened hands between his knees, squeezed them. “We hafta hurry. ’S close.”
Evan grabbed him by the back of his collar and yanked him off the stool. Taz managed to snatch his phone—his lifeline. As Evan propelled him toward the door, he stumbled but kept his feet.
They slammed out into the street, Taz starting to jog to the north, Evan hustling him along. They didn’t get in a half dozen strides before Taz stopped, leaning against a news rack stacked with adult classifieds. He clutched his chest, leaning over, wheezing asthmatically.
“Can’t … keep up.”
“What’s the address?”
Still hunched, Taz had his phone out, resting it against his thigh, thumbing at it. “Here, man. ’S the address … here. Take it. Take my phone.”
Evan grabbed at it. A tug as Taz held on, muscle memory not allowing him to let go. It was like prying the black box from Devine’s hands.
Taz’s grip tightened around his phone. He stared up at Evan with pleading eyes.
Evan ripped it free.
And he ran.