Pursuit: A Novel

31

Varney walked toward the office, wary of the world around him, reading the sights as though he were working. For many paces he kept his eyes ahead and unfocused, so they would not be looking directly at anything, but receiving messages from the matrix of sights. Anything that moved was alive or dangerous, and his eyes would focus and evaluate it, then release it and go unfocused and receptive again. He used tricks to check behind him: reflections in windows, pauses and turns that were studied and small and unthreatening but gave him a chance to sweep the street behind. He did not limit his view to the street level but scanned roofs and upper windows while they were still far enough away to make turning or raising his head unnecessary, then swept them again as he passed. His ears were attuned to the sounds of motion and life—footsteps, sudden changes in the pitch of a car engine, a click or slide of metal on metal—because motion and life were the sources of all possible trouble.

He felt his pride in his senses, his cunning, his strength slowly returning, but he was restless and dissatisfied. He had been in a terrible period of his life ever since he had heard of Roy Prescott. He felt as though he had come upon a mangy, growling dog in the sidewalk, and on an impulse—not even a decision—given it a half-hearted kick to get it out of his way and teach it a lesson. It had not yelped and slunk away with its tail between its legs. It had clamped its jaws on his ankle and held on. After that, everything had turned painful and hard. He felt as though he still could not get loose. Everybody that he had met since then had gotten the better of him, because he had not come to them whole and well. He had been feeling the steady grinding of those teeth on his ankle, already through the flesh and into the bone, and dragging the dead weight of that big, filthy, mangy dog. He had let his control of his life go—not in a decision, but in a fit of preoccupation—and had not been able to clutch it again. He was nearly broke, his money leaking away in Tracy’s complicated assessments that made him pay for every second he was in Cincinnati, every moment of invisibility.

He had concentrated all of his mental energy on maintaining a small, private discipline. It was not even a plan, just a way of holding on to who he was. After the first week here, he had been shocked and alarmed at what he was doing to himself. He had been letting himself lose his edge. He had been letting his muscles go slack and his perception dull and his will weaken, and these were the same as dying. That day, he had begun to perform his old workouts. When he had felt the agonizing suspicion that doing them was harder than it had been a month ago, he had increased the number of repetitions, added new exercises, run farther, slowly increasing his workouts until they took half the day. He had walked wherever he went, sharpening his sense of the rhythms of the city, using his ears and practicing his night vision so that his mind would supply what his eyes could not see.

After a time, he had begun to shop for places where he could again practice the skills he used in his work. He had gone to a karate dojo and joined advanced classes that met two evenings a week. He had gone to a second dojo and joined an advanced class in judo that met two more. Advanced classes in martial arts were very small, made up almost entirely of men, all of them wearing black belts. They were much more highly skilled than anyone Varney would be likely to meet in the normal course of his trade. They helped him practice how to detect an opponent’s intentions from tiny physical changes, then block, dodge, roll, and retaliate ever more quickly.

He had not felt comfortable about going to a shooting range. There were few of them in the area, and he knew that at least some of the customers were sure to be off-duty policemen or people who worked with policemen. He didn’t want to be distracted by wondering whether one of them might have seen a copy of the picture Prescott had given the police in Buffalo. He drove around the area and found four pieces of land that were big enough and empty enough and so overgrown with scrub trees and weeds that they could not be used or even visited by the owners much.

He would go at night with his pistol hidden in his coat and walk the woods and fields. He would tread silently, aware of the way the moonlight fell on him and the shapes of trees and bushes behind him. He listened for the sounds of small animals in the brush, testing his patience and alertness by trying to find birds in their nesting places, and to surprise the skunks, raccoons, opossums, and field mice, which moved only at night.

He followed rituals, sometimes walking in the night landscape with his pistol broken down, the pieces secreted in different pockets. When he detected his prey, he assembled the weapon in the dark without looking at it: slide, barrel, recoil spring, trigger and sear, grip. He loaded one bullet into the magazine and slid the magazine into place. Then he screwed the silencer onto the barrel. He practiced until he could do it quickly, all without making a sound that would alert an animal to his presence. He would study the position and attitude of the animal, match it to the features of the landscape. Finally, he would cycle the single bullet into the chamber. That noise would startle the animal. It would panic, skitter toward a hole or a brush pile, or take flight, while Varney took his single shot.

At other times, he would stop in the brush, assemble the pistol with his eyes closed, slip it into his pocket, then move ahead, waiting to startle any animal out of its hiding place. When it happened, he drew and fired.

Now, three months later, Varney’s daily life was still out of control, a bundle he had let slip, that was rolling and bouncing downhill, coming apart and spilling its contents. He still had done nothing about that. Maybe it would all be lost and destroyed, and maybe later he would go back to gather up all the bits and pack them together again. He would not be able to make that decision until it had bounced to the bottom and stopped. For now, he would tolerate the unpleasant sensation. He had made a different choice. Whatever happened to his money, whatever temporary advantage people took of his vulnerability, Varney had preserved what mattered. He had chosen to save himself.

He knew he had wasted three months, given up planning, lost all of the respect he had earned with one of the syndicates that had often provided him with work. But today he had a feeling. He was beginning to feel that things were about to change. It might have been because he had needed to work on himself this hard, and he had been waiting until the self-improvement process had hit a certain high pitch before he could bring on the next change. But the rest had to do with the consequences of letting go of his life. The disaster was nearly complete. In another week he would be out of money.

There was a strange change in the atmosphere of the office when he stepped inside today. He knew that the reason he noticed was that he had trained himself so assiduously to detect tiny, subtle movements and sounds. Something was different. He looked at Tracy, sitting at a desk across the room, and she was holding herself differently. It took him a moment to realize that it was the angle of her back. Usually she leaned forward on her forearms, looking tired and frustrated. Today she was a little straighter, her shoulders held lower. As he stepped in, she fidgeted before she looked up. She was impatient. Her eyes widened. “Sugar!” she said.

“Hello, Tracy,” said Varney.

“I was expecting you earlier. Before lunch.” She glowered at him, but this time, the expression was not the usual counterfeit hurt feelings because his payment was late. This time it was mock anger, which he was supposed to recognize as a pleasantry.

“I walked here,” he said. “It takes time.”

She watched him take out the cash from his coat pocket and set it on the desk in front of her. She gazed at it for a moment, then looked up. “I’ll bet you’re running a bit low about now.”

Varney shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“I was right,” she announced. “Now,” she said in a fake-sympathetic tone, like the one people used to give unwelcome advice to drunks and addicts, “don’t you think it’s about time you got over what’s been bothering you and got a job?”

Varney shrugged again. “I guess I’ll have to do that one of these days.” He hated her. It was amazing to him that his bad luck should have been so relentless and extreme that it was forcing him to listen to this woman doling out these doses of criticism as though she had invented them and provided them for his benefit.

She stared at him with an air of superiority. “Would you even be ready to work if a job came up?”

“Of course I would. I’m healthy and rested.”

She looked at him more sharply. “That’s exactly why I ask. You’re rested, all right: maybe a little too rested?”

“I’m as sharp right now as I’ve ever been in my life. Something will come up,” he assured her.

“It has,” she purred slyly.

“What?”

“I said something has come up,” said Tracy, her eyes gleaming with self-satisfaction. Then the malice crept into her voice again. “I hope you were telling me the truth about being ready to work, because this is not like murdering Duane, who wasn’t expecting it and didn’t see it coming.”

“Then what is it like?” he asked.

“It’s a big job, almost at the level you worked before your . . . little setback,” she said.

“I didn’t have a setback,” said Varney. “I decided to take a break and cool off for a while. I’m ready to work. What is it?”

There was something in his voice that made Tracy’s instinct for self-preservation kick in. “I didn’t mean to offend, sugar,” she said gently. “I just have no way to know without asking. The job came through a man I know I can trust. He’s been doing business with us for at least ten years. A man he knows has an enemy.”

“What kind of enemy?”

“Some kind of business thing out in California went wrong, the enemy gave him up to the police, and he went to prison.” She stared at him and said reassuringly, “The man I know—my contact—stands between us and the client. The client only knows about my contact, and even my contact doesn’t know about you.”

“Why isn’t the client doing it himself?”

She squinted, as though she did not understand, then seemed to sort it out. “Oh, I get the question. The story is that if this enemy dies, there’s only one suspect. My friend was very clear on that point. The cops in California made some kind of deal with this guy. He turned informant, and in exchange, he got off completely free: everything he did got blamed on our client. This guy even got to keep his take from whatever it was they both did. The cops knew it wasn’t fair, but as usual, they settled for what they could get for sure—one conviction—and let their informant take his chances. If he got killed later, that was his problem. They probably won’t be disappointed. But it won’t stop them from going after our client. They know the client wants him dead. As soon as this guy hits the ground, they’ll be looking for the client.” She paused, and said to Varney with false patience, “Besides, I know it’s probably hard for you to see, but some people might want somebody dead, but not want to actually do it.”

“How is he protecting himself?” asked Varney.

“He wants to get you all hired and ready to do it. Then he goes back to California and establishes a clear, solid alibi. I’m not sure what that will be. Getting himself tossed in jail would be the best, but I doubt that he’ll do that. Anyway, when he’s sure he’s all set, he places a call from a pay phone to my friend. My friend calls me from a pay phone. I call you from a pay phone. No calls get traced later. You kill the guy in Minnesota, a couple thousand miles from where the client is. Everybody lives happily ever after. Or, practically everybody.” She smiled. “Satisfied?”

“Not quite,” said Varney.

She looked shocked, then mystified. “Sugar, what more could you want? Are you scared?”

“No,” said Varney. “How is the payment going to work?”

“Oh,” she said happily. “He’ll pay a hundred grand.”

“No,” Varney said. “I asked how. If the police know he’s the one who wanted the guy dead, and the guy dies while he’s got an alibi, they don’t give up. They’ll watch him for a while to see who he pays.”

She shook her head in delight. “It won’t happen, and if it did, it wouldn’t do any good. The police don’t know he has this kind of money—or any money. He had some hidden when he went to prison. Nobody knows about it. And,” she added proudly, “I took care of the rest.”

“How did you do that?”

“I set it up so he pays in advance. He already gave the hundred thousand to my friend. You get fifty thousand as soon as you agree. My friend holds the rest. When the killing is done, my friend passes along the other fifty. There’s no transaction that involves the client—or even takes place in the same state.”

Varney let some of his suspicion show. “You set that up, huh?”

“Well, of course I did, sugar,” she purred. “I can’t count on some strange client to protect me. He’s never done this before.”

Varney nodded, his tongue exploring the outer surfaces of his teeth. “So I get fifty in advance and fifty at the end, both from you.”

“That’s what I said,” Tracy agreed, her eyes settling on her fingernails, as though she were checking their length.

“I’ll do it,” said Varney.

“That’s smart, honey,” she said. “It’ll do you good. I just hate to see a young man lolling around, aimless, no use to himself or anybody else. It’s time that you pulled yourself together and stopped letting Mae lead you around like a little puppy dog, don’t you think?”

He said, “When you’ve got the fifty thousand, the name and address, call me and I’ll come around to pick them up.”

She brightened and opened the top drawer of the desk, pulling it into her belly. “Got them.” She handed him a thick manila envelope that felt like money, and another with some folded paper inside. “I expect the call to come from the client to my friend sometime around the fifteenth. Think you can be ready by then?”

“I’m ready now. I expect I’ll go where he is and have a look ahead of time.”

“Don’t forget to always leave me a phone number where I can reach you.”

“I won’t.” He opened the big envelope and got a peek at the hundred-dollar bills while he slipped the smaller envelope inside it. He lifted his shirt, pushed the manila envelope into the top of his belt, and tucked his shirt in over it. He glanced at Tracy, and saw she had been watching the process.

She saw him notice, and shrugged naughtily. “See you, sugar.”

He said, “While I’m gone, I want Mae in my apartment. Alone.”

She looked surprised. “Well, of course, as far as I’m concerned. You’ll have to make that clear to her. But I certainly won’t put temptation in her way.”

He nodded without bothering to look at her to detect the lie. “I’ll call you with a number where you can reach me.” He stepped out and closed the door. As he walked down the long, deserted hall, he noted all the things that were wrong with the deal. Tracy had said the price was a hundred thousand. That meant that it was more—probably two hundred—and she had taken a hundred out. There was no way in the world she would act as broker without a cut. She probably had to give the middleman something, but there was no question in Varney’s mind who would end up with most of it. She had also used her position as purveyor of information to exercise power over Varney, to drag out the process and watch him squirm, using every chance to impose her superior smile and tell him how worthless he was. She had sensed that this news was about to make him stronger, and she hadn’t been able to resist trying to weaken him, sucking away his strength like a tick.

He noted each of these things, but he only noted them and set them aside in his mind. The news was better than Tracy had imagined, and he only tallied the problems to remind himself that he knew them. He was no longer about to be penniless. He was walking along with fifty thousand dollars pressed against his belly under his shirt, with another fifty on the way. He was going out on the road again to find an enemy and cut him down.

Even the lies that Tracy had fed him about the job were good. She had made it sound as though this target was some hapless, stupid loser who had once simply gotten caught and squeezed and had the cops go easy on him. Varney didn’t believe it. Nobody would pay a hundred thousand, let alone whatever Tracy had really charged, to exterminate a man like that. Anybody who had served time would know fifty guys who would take out somebody like that for a thousand dollars.

The client was clearly a smart man. Tracy had not set this up. The client was the one who had fashioned the deal this way, because he had known that the police would suspect him, and he had known what they would do to prove he had done it. He had also known better than to hire an assassin directly. He was the one who had placed two intermediaries, two bloodsucking parasites, between him and anybody who hunted men for a living. He knew that the only likely way for him to get caught was if Varney screwed it up and traded him for a lighter sentence. This way, Varney couldn’t. But the client couldn’t tell the police who Varney was, either. All either of them could sell to the police was an intermediary who was next to worthless. Varney felt a certain respect for this client. It was good to know he was standing in for a man who was worth something, but who simply was too hemmed in by circumstances to go kill his own enemy.

Before Varney was aware of it, he had already walked a mile from Tracy’s office. He was alive again, in control. He was in the best shape of his life, he was thinking, making decisions, preparing to set off on a hunt. The interruption of his life was over, and he was an adventurer again.