34. Mike
MIKE
The bartender sets a bottle of Blanton's in front of Ryan. Ryan pours his own shot before the guy can do it for him.
"To Janet Graham," he says, and drinks it before I can decide if I'm supposed to join him.
It's late. Most of the room has cleared out; a handful of stragglers left in the booths, low voices, glasses sweating on the tables. Quiet enough that it's just us at the bar, two brothers and a bottle.
Nico's at the far end, dealing with a guy who's too handsy with a woman.
"You're quiet," Ryan says.
"I'm thinking."
"About what?"
"Logistics." The word tastes like ash in my mouth. "Wednesday. The alibi. Getting you seen at the Mets game while I?—"
"Forget the alibi."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't need it."
"Of course you do."
"Frank needed an alibi," Ryan says, turning the shot glass on the bar top, hard. "Frank had a body. Cops find a body, they build a timeline. They ask who saw him last, time of death, blah, blah, blah." He taps the glass twice. "Janet is going to disappear. No body, no time of death. No murder."
"Ryan—"
"She just doesn't come home one night." He shrugs. "Nobody's looking for a woman who's already been suspended, disgraced. People like that disappear all the time. They need to get away and start fresh somewhere else in Seattle, whatever. Nobody asks questions. They say she couldn't take it."
My stomach drops through the floor.
"I can't believe you didn't think of that," he says. "You're the smart one."
"Yeah, you're right. I missed it."
"Okay, we don't need Thursday," he says. "We don't need Friday. We do it tonight."
"Tonight?"
"Right now."
I keep my face still.
"You want to come with me?"
"Hell yeah, you should have seen Frank's face when he saw me. Fucking priceless. I want to see her face when she sees me."
Ryan grins. He knocks his knuckles on the bar like it's decided.
"Yeah."
I run the math the way I used to run it in the field. How many ways this ends with her alive. How many of those ways involve me standing here, agreeing, instead of already running.
"You think you should be doing this when you're high?"
"I'm fine. That shit has no effect on me," he says.
"What's the plan? It's after midnight?"
"We'll figure it out. Let's go. I'm going over there. You in or out?"
"Okay, we'll go. Let me go to the head first."
"Good. Always good to pee first."
I see Nico. I walk past him and whisper in his ear.
I lock the bathroom door and call her.
Four rings. Voicemail.
"Janet, it's me. Listen. Get out of your apartment. Tonight. Right now. Ryan is coming for you. Go to my place. Nico will let you in. Do it now."
I hang up and text instead.
Get out of the house. NOW. Not safe. Go to my place. Nico will let you in. It's the last place he'll look for you.
I stare at the screen for three seconds that feel like three years, shove the phone in my pocket, and splash water on my face like that'll wash any of this off me.
When I come out, Ryan's already at the door.
"You good?" he says.
"I'm good."
"I got Ma's car."
"Let me look up her address," I check my phone. Nothing from Janet.
"I know where she lives."
"You do?"
"Oh, yeah."
"If she's not there. She's got two sisters, one in New Jersey and one in Connecticut. She might be there."
I squeeze my phone tighter. "You really did your homework."
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. That's the Art of War; I read it in prison. You ever read that?"
"A long time ago."
"A lot of people think it's Machiavelli. I read him too, but it's not, it's Sun Tzu. That shit is deep, read it like five times."
On the drive to her building, Ryan talks the whole way. He tells me about the books he read inside—history, business, anything he could get his hands on. A man has to put his mind somewhere when the years are eating him alive.
I don't hear most of it.
I keep the phone face down on my thigh, waiting for a response that doesn't come.
"You're not listening," Ryan says.
"I'm listening."
"What'd I just say?"
"I heard you."
He laughs, satisfied, and goes back to the window.
A few blocks later he says it again, quieter this time, barely a question. "You sure you're good for this?"
"I said I was in."
"I know what you said." He drums his fingers on the door panel. "I'm asking if you're good for it."
"I'm good for it."
He looks at me a second too long before he turns back to the road, like he's deciding whether to believe me, like some old brother-instinct in him is picking at a thread I need him to leave alone.
We park a block from her building, in the shadow between two streetlights, the way you learn to park when you don't want a camera catching your plate. Ryan gets out first. I follow, my legs moving like they belong to someone else.
Her building is the kind with a locked outer door and a buzzer panel.
The street is quiet in the particular way Manhattan gets quiet after midnight. Brick, black fire escape, the flower box on the second floor that isn't hers.
Ryan sees her first.
An old woman appears inside the lobby, moving slowly toward the front door with a tiny dog at her feet. The dog pulls ahead on the leash, eager for its walk.
He turns away from the entrance, easy as breathing, and I move with him. We drift a few feet down the sidewalk.
The old woman pushes through the door, the little dog trotting ahead of her.
"I'm telling you," Ryan says, looking at me like this is the only thing in the world that matters, "the Mets don't need another bat; what they need is more pitching. That whole pitching staff's held together with tape and prayer."
The dog sees them.
She stops, stiffens, and starts barking at Ryan.
"Oh, I'm sorry," the old woman says, giving the leash a gentle tug. "She gets like that with strangers."
"No problem," Ryan says.
He smiles at her, harmless as a church bulletin.
She keeps moving down the sidewalk with the dog still huffing behind her.
Ryan waits one beat.
"Bullpen blows one more lead," he says, stepping back toward the entrance. "I'm done."
He catches the door before it closes.
"Which floor?" Ryan says.
"611."
We go up, take the elevator up.
"That's it," I say. "What now? What's your plan?"
He paces in the hallway.
"We get her to open up. Or bust it in."
He takes a gun out of his waistband.
"Are you insane? One, she's not going to open the door at this hour without knowing exactly who is on the other side. Two, you bust in and it doesn't look like she went on vacation, does it? It looks like she was snatched."
"Fuck. We got to think."
"Right. So, what's the smart thing to do here? You don't want to go back to prison over something stupid like this? So, let's do this right. Tomorrow we sit on this place and we snatch her."
"You're right. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You're right."
"Put that thing away."
Ryan nods once and puts the gun away.
"Let's go," I say. "We'll figure it out."
We take the stairs down.
"You're right," he says behind me. "We got to be patient. That's always been my problem. I got no patience."
"No shit."
We get back in the car, and Ryan drives me across town.
"You want to go to a strip club, look at some tits?"
"Nah, take me home."
"Yeah, we should get some rest."
The city moves past in streaks of glass, headlights, and wet black pavement.
“Who’s that?” he asks.
“Nico. Work shit.”
“At this hour?”
“Twenty-four seven,” I say.
When he pulls up outside my building, I reach for the door handle.
The engine cuts off.
I look over at him.
He gets out.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"What's it look like?"
"You're coming up?"
"Yeah. You said first thing in the morning, we sit on her place."
"Right. So I'll see you in the morning."
He looks at me like I suggested we swim to Jersey.
"Why would I drive all the way back to Queens just to come back through rush hour traffic?"
I don't answer.
"That don't make no kind of sense," he says. "I'll sleep on the couch."
I stand there on the sidewalk, keys in my hand, looking up at my own building like it belongs to somebody else.
Ryan watches me.
"What's the big fucking deal?"