“What are you looking for?”
“The book.”
“He doesn’t have it.” Anil sucked in a sharp breath. “That means . . .”
“The necklace is still at your house.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
?“Anil!” Anil’s mother greeted us at the door of his family’s modest townhome in Naperville. “You’ve brought friends. You’ll need food.” She ran down the hall. “Salim! Salim! Anil has friends. He brought friends to the house. Get them drinks. Quickly before they run away.”
“Mom.” Anil coughed, choked. “We’re just here to pick something up.”
“Nonsense. Into the kitchen. All of you. We had a big family dinner last night and there are lots of leftovers.”
“I do like Indian food,” Emma said. “What have you got?”
Everyone followed Emma into the kitchen. Anil and I ran to the living room.
“What book is it?” I asked. “What does it look like?”
“The Exorcist. It’s black and red.” He held up his hands in a helpless gesture. “My mother doesn’t like horror. I knew she’d never open it.”
We checked the entire room. No book on the couch. No book on the tables, floor, or bookshelf. Anil pulled all the cushions off the furniture and tossed them on the floor.
“He wouldn’t have had much time,” I said. “It has to be here.”
“Anil! What are you doing to the couch? Where will your friends sit?” His mother stared in shock at the mess.
“I left a book here the other day,” he said. “Did you see it?”
“Horrible book.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t even touch it when I saw the cover. I told your father to put it downstairs.”
Anil raced out of the room and I followed him into the basement. His bedroom was filled with drones, robots, models, and computer equipment. He grabbed a book from the shelf and flipped it open. It was, as he’d said, a miniature safe complete with a combination dial. He turned the knob and the door clicked open.
“It’s here.” He held up the necklace, his face creased in delight. “We’ve got it.”
My knees gave out and I sank down on his bed. “Now we just need to find Jack.”
Thirty-One
Jack
They say your life flashes before your eyes in your last moments. There are actual scientific reasons for this. Something to do with a secret trapdoor in the memory center of the brain that is triggered when the body shuts down. For some people, this venture into the past is a gift—all puppies and rainbows, hugs and kisses, and piles of presents at Christmas. But imagine if the idea of reliving your childhood all over again is something to be avoided at all costs. You’ve already experienced the pain of watching your parents die in a house fire, and then the loss of your grandmother to a developer’s greed. You suffered abuse and neglect in foster care followed by a hard life on the streets under the thumb of a cruel and brutal man. You don’t dwell on these things, of course, because you’ve learned to move on, but when Mr. X’s hench people grab you and throw you into their SUV, you are resolved to survive simply so you don’t have to relive the nightmare again.
You hold to your resolution through a bumpy ride with a sports bag over your head. The smell of old sweat is nauseating but not as bad as the sharp scent of blood and offal that assails your nose when the sports bag comes off and you find yourself in a butcher shop, complete with chopping table, a full complement of cleavers and knives, and a giant walk-in freezer. Hog-tied and beaten on the floor, you realize you finally might have run out of lives.
“Where’s the necklace?” Virgil kicks you in the ribs. After so many years of chase-catch-beat-shoot and chase again, you and your thickly mustached friend are on a first-name basis. After all, his bullets have been inside you.
“Angelini’s daughter took it.” You try to breathe through the pain but your lungs aren’t obeying commands. “She’s at a warehouse in Hanover Park with a buyer on the way. You’d better hurry or you’re going to lose out. If you’d just asked me instead of throwing a bag over my head, we could have been there by now.” You have always believed the best defense is offense.
“What the fuck were you doing in Naperville if the necklace was in Hanover Park?” Virgil kicks you again. He’s bought some new steel-toed boots and he’s trying to break them in.
“My friend’s mother invited me for dinner. I thought it would be impolite to refuse. She makes wonderful pakoras.” You wish you’d had a chance to taste them because they smelled amazing, but when you saw the hench people through the window, you had to act quickly to save Anil’s family. Henches don’t care who they hurt when they are doing Mr. X’s bidding, unless of course it’s someone you love. You and Mr. X have a professional understanding. Family, partners, even pets are off-limits. Break that rule and there will be hell to pay.
Virgil wraps a chain around his fist and punches you in the gut. The chain is new for Virgil. Usually, he uses his bare hands. He throws a few more practice punches, hitting your ribs and kidneys before he tires of his new toy and grabs a thick metal pole to beat you with instead. Over and over again, until the world becomes a haze of pain.
“Don’t kill him yet,” Rusty says. You don’t call this henchman “Rusty” to his face because he’s sensitive about his red hair. His real name is Andrew.
“Too bad, Virgil.” You heave in a breath. Some part of your brain screams at you to shut your big mouth, but you have a habit of not listening. “I know it’s how you get your kicks.”
Virgil gets his kicks with a well-aimed blow to your head.
You black out.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
?A bang. A blaze of light. Footsteps. You feel fire on your cheek and cold deep in your bones. Your hands are chained over your head and your feet dangle, barely touching the floor. You open your eyes and wish you hadn’t.
“I thought you’d be dead by now,” Mr. X says from the door of the meat freezer.
“Give me a little credit,” you say. “I grew up in Chicago. Have you lived through a Chicago winter? My grandmother made me play outside when it was so cold my eyelashes froze together.”
“And you had to walk uphill both ways in a snowstorm to get to school?”
“I didn’t go to school. I couldn’t see.”
“Funny. You’re a funny guy.” Mr. X walks into the freezer flanked by two extra hench people. You are flattered that he needs four henches to protect himself from you, considering you’ve been badly beaten and you are chained up in a meat freezer, well on your way to hypothermia.
Mr. X has a cane, but no limp. A head, but no hair. He is tall enough not to be short, but too short to be considered tall. His face is as round and red as an overripe plum, and his lips are so thin, they beg for Botox. Taking a page from the Villains-R-Us manual, he has a thin mustache and a thick goatee. The last time you met, he had a thick mustache and a thin goatee. The new look is an improvement.
“Funny enough for you to let me off the hook?” Mr. X hates it when you joke around. Torture time is supposed to be serious.