Chapter Twenty-Six #2
She cries out, staggers forward. Her gun goes off wild as she falls to her knees. It’s like a charley horse in her back. But she can’t stay still—she twists sideways and snaps up her weapon two handed.
Ray Dinkins whacks her gun with the shovel in his hands, and Nomi screams as one of her fingers snaps—a bright, shocking pain. Her gun goes flying.
Dinkins tries another swing, but his reflexes are off—probably from being shot—and Nomi rolls away. But by then Hart has come close enough to kick her in the stomach. She gasps, and he kicks her again; then she’s curled up in the fetal position, groaning and coughing on the cold floor.
That’s it; it’s over. Too easy.
Lamonte has recovered his cigarette from where he dropped it when he dove out of range. Now he takes a drag and blinks his hooded eyes as he looks at what Nomi has been reduced to.
“Put her in a chair,” he says, in a deep baritone that cuts through the room.
Is this real? Again, Nomi feels like she has to wonder.
But pain brings her back: the throb of her broken finger, the scrapes on her knees, the ache in her spine, the splintery feeling in her ribs.
She gets to appreciate the particular textures of each injury as she’s hauled up by Hart and dumped unceremoniously on the padded seat of a metal folding chair.
Ameche yanks her leather jacket roughly off her shoulders—goodbye to her knuckle-duster and her Mace.
Then, as she’s processing that loss, Dinkins grabs her by the hair and yanks back hard enough to make her shriek.
It’s all the distraction that Hart needs to simply gather both her wrists and duct-tape them together.
Now here she is, like a skein of tangled black wool dumped on a chair in the middle of the warehouse.
Wonderful. She hasn’t rescued anybody. In fact, she’s made it all worse.
Nomi’s been sat down directly across from Simon. His face is impassive, and the collar of his black Henley is torn above his knitted vest. This close, the bruises around his eye and nose, the blood on his neck and hands, all stand out much more. She tries to meet his eyes.
“This was probably a terrible idea,” she croaks.
“Probably.” He doesn’t seem perturbed, though.
Is he matching her gallows humor with his own?
Or maybe he’s in shock. If they knocked him out to get him here, he’s probably got a concussion.
As she watches, Ameche starts taping him to a chair.
It’s a crummy tape job, but it doesn’t seem to matter: Simon just sits there, letting them push him around.
Nomi finds this disturbing. He seems to have gone into some quiet, reserved space behind his eyes where emotions and external activity don’t even register.
Maybe he hasn’t got a concussion; maybe he’s got brain damage.
But she gets a tremor of recognition and alarm: This is Simon’s Easter Island face, the same blinkered impassivity as when he attacked Ameche at Big Mouth.
Is this his sociopath face? Has something flipped in him?
You haven’t really seen me lose my shit.
If being hit in the head has realigned the serial-killer circuits in Simon’s brain, could this be the first sign?
Then he speaks. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Shut up, you piece of shit,” Ameche growls, before turning to her. “Little Miss PI girl, huh? You got your delivery, and you still couldn’t keep your nose out of it—”
“Fuck off and die,” she snaps back.
Gino Hart clips her over the ear. Nomi sees stars.
Ray Dinkins is somewhere behind her, whimpering. “The fucking bitch shot me!”
“Everybody shut up,” Lamonte says as he steps forward.
In the quiet, wind crashes on the roof like waves on the shore.
The air in here is tundra cold, which Nomi’s grateful for because it’s keeping her alert.
She’s trying not to panic, so breathing cold air through her nose helps.
Her skin feels like it’s been sandpapered, and her taped hands pulse with constricted blood.
She thinks it’s quite likely that she and Simon will die here, and she’s trying not to take it personally.
“Now,” Lamonte says in forbearing tones, “we were discussing what happened to the kid.”
“Fucking dipshit there killed her!” Ray moans, gesturing at Simon. “Then he slashed me with the goddamn box cutter—”
“What?” Nomi says.
“Shut up,” Lamonte says, whether to her or to Dinkins, she’s not quite sure. “Claude, did you check if the kid is really dead?”
“Not yet,” Ameche says.
“You can check if you want,” Simon says quietly, “but I cut her pretty good.”
“You did not,” Nomi says. But she’s looking at the blood on his face and hands, looking at his detached expression. Oh god, this is not good.
“I had to.” He’s looking stonily at the floor.
“No.” She swallows hard. “No, I don’t believe you.”
“Believe me, don’t believe me—it doesn’t really matter.”
This is a joke. A trick. “Tell me you didn’t kill Brittany.”
“‘Tell me you didn’t kill Brittany . . .’” Ray Dinkins makes the words sound whiny as he screws up his face. “Did you not listen? He fucking killed her! I saw it with my own eyes!”
“Shut up, Ray,” Lamonte says. “Claude?”
“Sure, boss,” Ameche says, and leaves Simon to start toward the office door.
Simon looks at Nomi and sighs, as if this is all very tedious. “Nomi, listen to me. I want you to think back.”
“What?”
“All the way back, to when we first met.”
“What?” she repeats, blinking. A choking feeling is bubbling up, like rising damp.
“‘I’ve just come from Guatemala. I have amnesia.’” Simon is impersonating himself. “‘I need to find myself, but you can’t run my fingerprints. Now do you see why I need your help?’”
“No.” The damp is in her throat, clotted and foul.
“What the fuck is he talking about?” Dinkins says.
But Simon’s eyes are fixed on hers. “It was fun, following you around. I got to see Cevolatti’s body. You let me sew you up—you let me into your home. I got to join in the game. It’s a good game.”
“A good game?” Nomi feels heat in her cheeks. “What do you—”
“The very best game of all.” Simon grins at her discomposure.
“No,” Nomi whispers. “No, no, no . . .”
“It took a long time to get you to trust me, but once I won you over . . .” Simon smiles, blood on his teeth. “Don’t you remember what the report said, in my file? Deceptive and manipulative behavior.”
Her throat is very dry. “Stop talking. Please stop talking now—”
“Oh, and there was another one, wasn’t there?” Simon looks upward, pretending to think about it. “That’s right—a fundamental lack of empathy. Remember that one?”
Now Ameche backs out of the storage room and says, “I don’t know, boss—the kid looks dead to me. It’s messy as fuck in there.”
To see a man of Ameche’s nature grimacing at bloodshed is so bizarre, it’s enough to cause Nomi’s world to tilt on its axis. Ameche knows death; if he says that Brittany is dead, she must be dead.
Simon is still looking at her. “I killed Brittany because I want to get out of here alive. A seven-year-old kid is weight, and I don’t need extra weight. And what does it matter? They were going to kill her anyway.”
“Don’t say that.” Nomi’s head is spinning.
Simon looks at her pityingly, his eyes like twin sapphires, hard and cold.
This can’t be happening. Once again, she can’t read him, doesn’t know him—has she ever really known him?
This can’t be real. But what is real? Simon Noone isn’t real.
He’s just a cipher, a made-up name, a guy with no memories and a past full of blood . . .
“Who the hell is this guy?” Ameche asks Lamonte, gesturing at Simon with the gun. “Could he be with the Westies?”
It’s a name that Nomi knows, a rival gang in Hell’s Kitchen that she dealt with in the Tenth.
“Ask her,” Lamonte says, and he lifts his chin at Nomi.
She looks away. Her body is hurting, her mental landscape is fracturing, and she doesn’t want this man to look at her—just being perceived by him is repugnant.
“Who’s Simon Noone?” Gino Hart says by her shoulder. “Come on, baby, you can tell us.” His voice is surprising, mellow, warm as a foot rub. It’s unbelievable that a mob torturer should have a voice like a late-night radio DJ.
“I have no idea,” Nomi replies, wooden.
Hart shifts position, and now they’re all lined up in front of her at varying distances: Ameche with the gun, Simon in his chair, Lamonte at greater distance, Hart at his workbench.
Ray Dinkins startles her as he limps into view, holding his shoulder, his coat blotched carmine as he scrapes his ass up onto a table.
This is the worst-case scenario if you’re a cop: falling into the hands of the enemy, like falling into a pit of vipers.
Now they’re arrayed, and she’s being looked at by all of them.
Her skin prickles like it’s been electrified.
Being under the microscope like this, knowing each man is examining her and wondering what use he can put her to, is a horribleness so extreme she almost cracks.
And Simon? His eyes are the worst: amused, cruel, detached.
Nomi swallows hard, feels her gut tighten and cramp.
Every particle of her being wants to break into tears, beg for mercy, plead for her life.
But she’ll be damned if she’ll give these guys anything. No tears. No pleading. No compliance. Kneeling down is against her religion. They can all go to hell.
“Just tell us,” Lamonte sighs.
“How about I tell you to eat a pile of dicks,” she says.
Her voice is wobbling, but it’s there. You get too attached, sweetie. Irma’s critique. That was always your thing. Irma was right. But there’s something else that was always Nomi’s thing: being a stubborn-assed bitch. It’s gotten her in trouble for years. But now, at last, it’s found a purpose.
Nomi recovers her steel, breathes through her nose.
And when she looks over, Simon gives her a wink.