18
DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST
MONDAY NIGHT
“It’s dark as a snake pit. All I want is a freaking fire.”
Elena’s headlight flashed in Manta Ray’s direction. “I told you, no fires. The last thing we need is for some ranger to follow his nose and pay us a visit, demand to know who we are and why we’re stupid enough to build a fire in a non-designated area. Eat your mac and cheese, Liam.”
Manta Ray’s headlamp jiggered her way. “Then we’d stick a knife in his gullet, so who cares?” He paused, cocked his head. “Liam? Only cops call me Liam since I hit the States years ago. Why’d you call me Liam?”
Because Manta Ray is too stupid to say out loud. I’m sparing myself. Elena took a bite of the instant mac and cheese Jacobson had picked out for their dinner. It wasn’t all that good, but on the other hand, it wasn’t supposed to be. She wanted to tell him to stop whining, but remembered Sergei telling her the night before exactly how to treat Manta Ray, as he lay next to her in the darkened bedroom, his hand running lightly over her hip.
Keep him safe, but tell him as little as possible. Don’t get in his face, moy golub, unless you’ve got no choice about it. He’s smart and he’s a ruthless killer. It’s our great good luck his partner screwed up that bank robbery. Leave him to me; I’ll deal with him.
She hadn’t seen any sign of his smarts yet or his ruthlessness, and for a moment she doubted Sergei when he’d told her not to bother to try to break Manta Ray for the information, but then she’d looked into the Irishman’s eyes and seen nothing but a fathomless void. But maybe she could get him to let slip where he’d stashed the small locked metal box he’d taken from Cortina Alvarez’s safe-deposit box at the bank. After all, hadn’t Elena’s mother always told her she had a silver tongue because she could talk anybody into anything, even as a little girl? Elena shook her head. She hadn’t thought of her mother in years, not since she’d died with an empty vodka bottle clutched in her skinny hands in her dirty little Moscow apartment.
She looked over at Jacobson. She would have to keep him from trying to beat the crap out of Liam to find out about the metal box, or if Liam chanced to make a break for it. She didn’t think he would. He had to know their job was to keep him safe and take good care of him. Jacobson was throwing pebbles into the underbrush. Hadn’t he noticed the Irishman’s eyes? No, he hadn’t noticed, he hardly noticed anything unless he was going to kill it.
She realized Liam was looking at her, and he asked again, “Why’d you call me Liam?”
She dredged up a smile, locked in an admiring look. “I think Liam has gravitas, better fits a man who hit up a bank in broad daylight.” Give him respect, that’s what he wants. “I’ll call you Manta Ray, if that’s what you’d like.”
“Gravitas? I like that, Elena. Makes me sound important. Liam’ll be nice for a while, sure, go ahead.”
His Irish brogue had thickened and he gave her a potent smile, a smile she’d bet had nailed a lot of women. She smiled back.
If only this Irish shite didn’t hold all the cards. She continued, “I think you would have gotten clean away if your partner hadn’t been a moron and killed that bank teller.”
Manta Ray shrugged. “Marvin wasn’t that much of a moron, usually. He had this one problem: He was addicted to money. He saw it, he had to have it.” He raised his camp cup and saluted the silent air. “To Marvin. Goodbye, buddy. Too bad you couldn’t take it with you.”
“Take what? The money?” Jacobson asked.
Manta Ray nodded, said matter-of-factly, “Marvin Cass already had lots of money, a couple of million stashed with his mum. Now she’s rich. I wonder if she’d rather keep all of it or have her son back.”
“From the sound of him, I bet she’d vote for the money, no question,” Jacobson said. He took the last bite of his mac and cheese, swallowed. “Cass got you shot. How come you’re not pissed about it?”
“He paid the highest price, poor old bugger.”
Jacobson said, “I heard Cass had a habit of starting bar fights he couldn’t win, regularly got the crap beat out of him. Seems he wasn’t much into self-control.”
Manta Ray said, “Ah, you’ve heard of him then, have you? No, Marvin was a spur-of-the-moment kind of guy. In most things. But he told me he was planning a trip to Belfast and he wanted me to come with him, show him where I grew up, show him the Maze prison, where I vacationed for five years.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe when you’re dead, you can still dream, you think? Marvin can still dream about Belfast.”
Jacobson seemed to think about it, then shook his head. “Nah, dead is dead and that means you’re nothing anymore.”
Elena wanted to tell them they were both idiots, but she said, “Cass is dead, but you’re not, Liam; you were tough enough to survive, but we do owe him.” She raised her coffee cup. “To Cass. Without him none of us would be here.”
Manta Ray saluted her with his empty coffee cup, gave her another drop-dead-gorgeous smile. “Right you are. It’s one of life’s lessons—you do what you’ve gotta do.”
She heard a snort from Jacobson, shot him a look. He was ready to stick his oar in, the ignorant fool. He stared at Manta Ray, flexed his big hands. “It’s a lesson I know well,” he said, “so don’t think I’m not going to teach it to you all over again if you give me a reason.”
Manta Ray grinned at him. “I don’t take well to threats, mate, never have. Last time somebody tried to teach me what to do was in the Maze. They had to wash his brain matter off the wall next to my cell.”
“Shut up, Jacobson, you’re not in charge here.” Do you think you’re going to scare him after he survived five years in that hellhole in Belfast?
Manta Ray looked between the two of them, the muscle and the brain. It amused him to let Elena believe she was in charge. He saw she was watching him now, to see if he’d say more, respond in some way, maybe snap Jacobson’s neck for her? He was good at reading people, knew she was looking for an angle, a way to get him to open up to her. Jacobson was as easy to read as a child’s book, a tool that could kill without hesitation and with some skill, nothing more. But Elena was still a mystery. He appreciated their breaking him out of that marshals’ van, but he knew he had to be careful while in the control of people he knew nothing about. Torture wasn’t their plan, or Jacobson would have been at him already. Here was Elena, actually trying to gain his trust, and wasn’t that a good laugh? Why not let her try, use her to find out what he could? When they were finally out of this godforsaken wilderness, then he’d do what he wanted with her.
He stayed quiet, drawing Celtic letters with his finger in the dirt. He accepted a second helping of mac and cheese from Elena. It was bad, as bad as the prison food he’d eaten for the past month in Richmond, but he shoveled it down. When he was finished, he decided it was time to feed the animals. He smiled at Jacobson and Elena. “You guys did good, getting me away from the marshals this morning. Really good.”
“I planned it,” Jacobson said. “I’m thinking you could return the favor, tell us where you hid the crap you took out of that safe-deposit box.”
Elena wanted to pull out her Beretta and shoot Jacobson in the mouth. The buffoon wanted to take the lead? Did he honestly believe Manta Ray would give up the information that was keeping him alive because he asked him to? She said, “The boss was impressed you didn’t tell the FBI where you’d hidden the stuff, very impressed.”
“Relieved, more like, whoever your boss is.” Manta Ray shrugged. “The FBI were never a threat; they can’t break free of their own stupid laws and rules.” He spread his arms wide. “I love America.” Once again, the killer smile. “Anyway, it was a good job, mates. If you want to make this a lovefest, why don’t you tell me what the plan is? So we picked up all this camping stuff waiting for us in a car boot just outside the forest and now we’ve hiked to a nice spot by a creek. Are we going to see the boss tomorrow?”
Elena said, “No, not tomorrow. Consider this a camping and hiking vacation. All you need to know is that we’ll keep you safe from the FBI.”
“So we’re marking time in the forest until the heat is off? Not a bad plan. How long?”
“I’ll let you know,” Elena said.
Manta Ray hadn’t expected she’d tell him any more. He said nothing, took off his boot and his thick sock, and aimed his headlight at his foot.
Elena frowned, leaned toward him. “What are you doing?”
“My heel hurts.”
Jacobson was emptying a small bag of peanuts into his mouth. “What do you mean it hurts?”
“It’s red, and it hurts to touch it. I’m getting a blister. Why didn’t you get the right size boot?”
“It is the right size,” Elena said. “But you never can be sure about a fit unless you try the boots on and walk around in them for a while. Jacobson, give him the first-aid kit.”
Jacobson gave her a look but got the first-aid kit out of his backpack, tossed it to Manta Ray. Elena watched Manta Ray gingerly rub Neosporin on his heel, press some gauze over the blister, and wrap an Ace bandage over and around his foot to hold it in place.
It was all she needed, an infected blister. She’d intended to keep their pace slow, no reason not to, since they were trying to kill time anyway. He was looking at his foot, turning it this way and that. She couldn’t believe it, but even his feet were beautiful, like Michelangelo’s David. She remembered the first time she’d seen Liam’s photo, remembered her hormones had come to attention. He was a looker, no doubt about it. She bet he had phenomenal success with women.
She gave Liam a bright smile. “It’s been a long day. Your heel will be better in the morning. Get some rest.”
He started to open his mouth but decided against it. He eyed the sleeping bag. No way did he want to zip himself into that skinny confining coffin. No, he wanted to stretch out and fall asleep by a nice cozy fire. He ended up lying on top of the sleeping bag. He watched Elena pull off her boots, crawl into the sleeping bag. He went over in his mind how he would deal with the boss. He knew he was the golden goose. If the boss forgot that, he was the biggest fool alive.
The air was still and warm. Jacobson was snoring. Manta Ray closed his eyes and remembered himself as a young man of eighteen, at home in the underbelly of Belfast, and for a moment felt the glow of exhilaration. And the winning, he’d loved the winning, and seeing the faces of those who knew he’d bested them, even if he had to beat or bludgeon a few to make them understand. And of course the money. His mum had complained about where it came from but she took it anyway. Then he was nabbed after beating a stupid copper and sent to the Maze prison, where real hunger was only a small part of the endless misery. Liam Ryan Hennessey, you are hereby sentenced to five years imprisonment at the Maze prison, commencing immediately.
He could still hear the gavel bang down, hear his mum weeping.