The Last Orphan
Chapter 43

Evan stood maybe twenty feet from Luke Devine at the edge of an expensive-looking silk splash rug that stretched to the fireplace. On the rug by the hearth were two facing love seats. Between them sat a rectangular cuboid of a glass table with a naked male mannequin trapped within, a piece that Devine must have fancied to be art. A series of radius windows looked out on what felt like perpetual darkness with no glimmer of the backyard party. Evan’s internal compass was exceptional, but he had no sense which way he or the room was oriented; it was as though they were floating in the gloom.

For a moment the men regarded each other, neither blinking. The inferno raged behind Devine, flames leaping from his shoulders.

“How did you know I was coming?” Evan asked.

“We’ll get to that.”

“How do you know who I am?”

“We’ll get to that, too,” Luke said.

Evan had the unnerving sense of being outplayed and out of his depth. He was reminded of the shot he’d missed from twenty feet at the hospital plaza. Wide open, no wind factor, no glints or shadows.

needle punching through his shirt

windshield spiderwebbing

missed shot at twenty feet

He felt vulnerable.

He hated feeling vulnerable.

“Please,” Luke said with an artful flare of his hand. “Sit.”

They took positions on the love seats, squaring off across the glass table.

Luke’s eye contact was direct, unremitting. There was no sign of the mania that Echo had warned Evan about, and he wondered what it would take to get Luke there. Or had Echo made it up, exaggerated his flaws through the prism of her own inadequacies?

“I’m fascinated by people who are exceptional at something,” Luke said, his tone as calm as ever. “Because excellence is the way we burrow through to meaning and—if we’re lucky—wisdom. Dancing, thinking, sculpting …” He cast an eye at Evan, translucent blue like Icelandic water. “Killing.”

The mannequin peered up, its smooth, featureless face conveying terror, plastic palms pressed to the glass, mouth agape in a silent scream.

“I want to know what they know,” Luke said. “I want to feel what they feel. I admire people like you. The mercilessness required to get done what you get done—I’d imagine you pay a terrible price for it. I’d imagine you have to turn off many parts of yourself. You have to be so much less to be so much more. It’s a sacrifice, really. But you were made for it. If the rumors are true, you’re like … like a demigod.”

“No,” Evan said. “Just a guy with no patience for theatricality.”

“Amusing coming from someone dressed up like an avenging angel,” Luke said. “You put on the garb, but you won’t own what’s beneath. I understand. There’s nothing more terrifying than embracing that which is great in you.”

“I’m not certain about much,” Evan said, “but I’m sure that there’s no greatness in what I do.”

Luke cocked his head. Being at the receiving end of his focus was like staring into a klieg light. “Your humility seems unfeigned.”

“I was taught to remain aware of how many ways I can be better,” Evan said. “But I’m not interested in myself. I’m interested in you.”

“I’m the recipient of a great deal of interest from a great number of powerful people. They think I’m dangerous. No one can rise this high without dealing outside the boundaries of accepted law. The rules change as you ascend. That’s why you’re here.” The fire made cat’s-eyes of Devine’s pupils. “Because of the power I hold.”

Evan wondered why Devine wanted to block a trillion-dollar environmental bill. Money was the obvious answer, but he seemed governed by other impulses. Evan, too, had different concerns beyond a bill and a Senate vote, neither of which had motivated him to arrive at Devine’s door dressed in the black garb of death.

The heat of the fireplace warmed the right side of Evan’s face. “You had a kid killed. And a young woman.”

He looked at the cat’s-eyes, and the cat’s-eyes looked back. Or they did not.

Luke’s light blond brows vanished when the flames licked a particular way, but the skin of his forehead rose a quarter inch. Evan read his posture, his expression, looking for a forward l*p purse or some other alpha display that indicated a clandestine plan. There was none. Luke seemed genuinely surprised.

“I did no such thing.”

“Then why did your man come after me in New York?”

“Because you went after Echo. We thought we’d catch you there.”

“To do what?”

“Invite you here.”

“Mr. Folgore didn’t seem interested in inviting me anywhere.”

Again Luke looked surprised.

“Your other man came after me in Massachusetts,” Evan said. “And after the family of the kid who was killed.”

“What kid? What are you talking about?”

“Johnny Seabrook.”

Luke concentrated, his non-eyebrows bunching, his face shiny and smooth in the firelight. “I remember a report about this. There was a girl, too.”

“When young women are killed, no one seems to remember their names.”

“Her name was Angela Buford,” Luke said.

There was a ruckus behind Evan, and then a quintet of men tumbled into the room breathing hard, faces red. The full roll call: Tenpenny, Rath, Dapper Dan, Santos, and Gordo.

They spotted Evan and charged him, veering off only when Luke held up a palm. Evan remained sitting.

“Goddamn it,” Tenpenny said. “He slipped by us. Are you okay?”

“As you see,” Devine said.

Tenpenny came around to face Evan. He reeked of cigarette smoke, bits of ash dotting his tie. “You piece of shit,” he said. “I’ve coordinated protection for Al Jazeera in Qatar against terrorists, for Tucker Carlson against Antifa wackjobs, for Rachel Maddow against crazed right-wingers. Compared to what I’m used to, to what these men are used to, you’re a speck of spinach caught in my teeth.”

Evan said, “And you haven’t learned that dropping names means you’re still someone who has to drop names.”

“Get the f**k up. And march the f**k out.”

“Derek.” Luke Devine’s voice, no more than a whisper. “Let me offer you something. People are never feared for being threatening or making demands. But by their silence. Their unimpeachable politeness. Because they’re above it.”

Tenpenny lost an inch or two in his posture, that long spine retracting at Devine’s rebuke. The others lurked behind Evan or in his periphery.

“He’s right,” Evan said. “I’ve killed quite a few of them.”

“Get up,” Tenpenny said. “Move. Now.”

Evan said, “I’m not done with your boss.”

Devine stiffened in his chair, his first show of displeasure. “I don’t care if you want to kill me,” he said to Evan, “but at least be polite.” He dusted his small hands, though there was nothing to dust. “I’ll see you when you’re ready to discuss our … antagonism with some measure of civility. Security will show you out.”

Barely moving, Evan gauged the men’s placement around him, tapped into a sixth sense to read body heat and disturbed air. “That might not go well for security.”

The widest shadow shifted on the silk rug. A creak of floorboard behind him.

“I’ll make sure they’re respectful,” Luke said.

“Kind of you.”

Gordo’s meaty hand reached across the back of the love seat to clamp down on Evan’s shoulder. Reaching across his chest, Evan grabbed the hand at the ledge of the pinkie and pried it up, locking the elbow and torquing the arm. A grunt that stank of salami wafted over his shoulder as Gordo pressed his substantial weight in for a better grab. Rather than resist, Evan kept the arm and tucked forward onto his feet in a crouch, tugging the big man with him. He felt about 350 pounds roll up across his back and shoulders. There was a hitch at the apex as Gordo’s mass slowed the momentum, and then he rotated across Evan’s shoulder blades and smashed through the glass table, crushing the mannequin.

Behind Evan the love seat toppled, providing a charming little coda to Gordo’s downfall.

Tenpenny skipped back to let the real fighters have their space.

Rathsberger was already lunging, but Evan dropped low and swept the leg. Rath hit the rug hard on his shoulders, ruinous face contorted, his lungs ejecting a noise sounding like a displeased seal.

Dapper Dan snatched Evan up from behind in a sleeper hold, arching his back to pull Evan’s feet off the floor and choke him out. His massive biceps crowded Evan’s cheek. Evan could sense the crinkle of Dan’s smile, the fresh scent of wintergreen gum.

In front of him, Gordo had labored up to a knee, one hand pressed to the shattered glass to support his substantial weight. B***d veined the silk beneath his palm. Evan kicked out his elbow, and the big man crashed once more, cheek replaceing shards. Dapper Dan tightened his hold, static crowding in, and Evan shuddered once, made a gurgling sound, and went limp.

The losing-consciousness act worked, Dan relaxing just enough for Evan’s boots to lower a few inches. Evan heel-stomped the inner arch of Dan’s foot through the trendy sneaker, crushing bone, and Dan grunted and released him. Evan threw an elbow hard back into Dan’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him but missing the floating rib he’d intended to break. Dan staggered back into the upended love seat, which struck him at the backs of the legs. He tumbled over it, deposited in rocket-launch position staring up at the ceiling with his back and legs parallel to the floor.

Evan whirled to face Santos, the least threatening, but Sandman’s bearing showed him to be anything but. The small man had taken a medium-wide stance, heels elevated, springy on his feet. Arms partially extended, elbows bent, hands open and searching. Spine flexed and curved forward, center of gravity eased slightly over his lead leg, readying for a lunge.

A grappler.

Grapplers were always the most dangerous.

It had all gone down so fast—less than ten seconds.

The others were on the floor or picking glass out of themselves. They were gasping and panting, breaths echoing like crosscurrents in the vast hard room. The acrid stink of body odor made itself known above the burning cedar.

As Santos moved, an Order of Christ pendant, square with flared tips, swayed at his chest. He was short and compact, low center of gravity. Evan shuffle-stepped with him and tried to track his eye movements to see if he’d give up a target glance telegraphing where he’d strike first.

That’s when he heard the click of a hammer drawing back on a pistol.

Tenpenny peered over a 9-mil, gripping it like a mall warrior with the thumb of his support hand behind the slide. Evan could see that the sights were aimed under his left elbow, and the deltoid of Tenpenny’s shooting arm was tensed, which meant he’d likely anticipate recoil and place the shot even lower and wider. If Evan could shake Santos for a moment, he could get inside Tenpenny’s reach and introduce his Adam’s apple to his neck vertebrae.

But Santos drew in toward the other marines, and Tenpenny shuffled behind them as well. On the floor Rath rolled onto his side and coughed out more air, his sleeve smeared with white paint from Evan’s face. A test tube had slid from his pocket, and it took Evan a moment to distinguish the insectoid scrambling within. He thought of the pimp’s face adhered to the table in that pigsty in Mattapan. Skin swollen tight like cellophane, glass cylinder protruding from the nostril, a grotesque feeding tube. The way the swollen lips had bulged at the corner before the red ant had wriggled through and popped free.

Rath tracked Evan’s gaze to the test tube, then grabbed for it and lunged up, his twisted features a blur of scar tissue. His hand found the coyote-tan pistol in his h*p holster, but he didn’t draw; his angle would put his own men in the danger-close area and his principal within ricochet distance. Gordo had risen as well, as slow as a mounting ocean swell. Glass studded his left cheek, b***d dribbling from both palms. Dapper Dan was next up. Tenpenny edged farther behind his men, still aiming the pistol imprecisely at Evan over their shoulders.

Devine was also on his feet, though Evan hadn’t seen him move; it was as though he’d teleported from the love seat.

It occurred to Evan that for the past few seconds there’d been no memories, no doubts, no uncertainty. He had occupied himself without distraction. And it had been a dark kind of lovely.

He stared at the crew of men. They stared back. They were more bruised and bloody than he was, and that pleased him.

He offered Devine the faintest tip of his head. “Please inform security that I’ll show myself out.”

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