The Survivor: A Novel Part 4

Janie looks away. Her eyes well. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

He can't find any words. His throat clutches. Desperate for something to do, he cracks the ice pack, but she says, "I'm fine."

He holds it out. He can barely look at the growing spot of black on her beautiful pale cheek. "Please?"

She lifts the ice pack from his hand.

Casper follows him down the hall. Cielle is tucked in again, but wide awake. He sits at the edge of her bed. Casper curls up in the pink nest she has made for him from an old comforter. He keeps a wary eye on Nate, which shatters Nate's heart anew. When they are out, Casper will not allow strangers to get between him and Cielle, and that is how Nate feels now-like a stranger.

He says, "I'm so sorry I scared you."

She says, "It's okay, Daddy."

"No," he says. "It isn't." She stares up at him with her rich brown eyes, and he strokes her nose once with his finger.

"Why can't it be like it used to?" she asks.

He swallows around the lump inside his throat. "It just can't right now, baby."

"Why not? Don't I get a vote? I never get a say in anything."

"We don't always get a say in what happens to us," he says gently. He kisses her on the forehead, breathes in the no-tears-shampoo scent of her.

He strokes her back until she falls asleep, then goes downstairs to try to catch his breath. As he paces the unlit living room, it strikes him that he is denying himself his wife and daughter as a punishment for cherishing them so much that he couldn't unlock his legs on that helicopter and leave them behind. He pauses before the family portrait. The three of them falling over, laughing, propping one another up. He vows to get back to that place.

What he's dealing with, it's just temporary.

And yet five years pa.s.s.

Five years that see further dismantling of the life he knew. Nate's journey through that time is weightless, stunned, much like his flight from the spiraling helicopter. The point of impact comes in a medical office, from a bearded neurologist with kind, wise features-precisely how one wants one's neurologist to look, particularly when he's delivering a diagnosis like this. And Nate realizes that up until that moment, when it came to bad news, he'd never had a sufficient yardstick for comparison.

He drives away in a daze, cloaked in a black cloud of dread. He pictures his mother languishing in her hospice bed, dying by millimeters, her features caving in on themselves. How his father, too, was eaten from the inside, hollowed out like a rubber Halloween mask, the eyeholes empty. As a nine-year-old, Nate had vowed that if he was ever lucky enough to have a family of his own, he would never, ever let it erode like that.

And so he tells no one-not Janie, not his daughter. At all costs he will spare them the suffering he learned all too well in his own childhood. Soon enough he will not be able to control the deterioration of his grip, the drying out of his eyes, the strength of the breath in his lungs. But he can pick a time and a date and a ledge high enough to offer a good view and a long drop.

He just has to do it while he still can.

And pray that nothing interrupts. Like, say, six hooded thugs robbing a bank.

Because then he might find himself sitting on an exam table with a neatly st.i.tched stab wound, alive against his own G.o.dd.a.m.ned will.

LONG WAY UP.

Necessity has the face of a dog.

-Gabriel Garcia Mrquez

Chapter 8.

Leaving the hospital, Nate rode shotgun in the unmarked sedan, ignoring the throbbing in his shoulder and doing his best to keep up. Abara-who'd given no first name-drove fast and talked faster. Easy confidence, slender athletic build, dense hair shaved to the bronzed flesh at the sides and back. He could've been thirty, or twenty-four. "So first of all, forget that s.h.i.t you've seen on TV," Abara said. "We don't always travel in twos, we're not all d.i.c.kheads, and"-a gesture to his charcoal golf shirt with the gold seal at the breast-"we don't have to wear suits and ties." He flashed an unreasonably handsome smile, complete with dimples. "Also, we play well with others. We do have juris, but LAPD's got a talented team over at Robbery Special, so I'm not gonna march in there and bark about how I'm taking over their case." He picked a speck of lint off the spit-polished dashboard. "You sure you don't need to go home, catch your breath, change?"

Nate looked down at his crisp new T-shirt, donated by the hospital. Crease marks at the chest and stomach from where it had been folded, presumably piled in a stack of other clothes awaiting stabbing victims. "Nah, I'm fine."

They reached the police cordon, and Abara slowed the Chevy Tahoe and flashed his badge. "Marcus Abara, FBI. I got the hero with me. Gonna go walk the scene."

The cop's eyes were hidden behind a pair of Oakley Blades, but he lifted the reflective band of gla.s.s to Nate and said, "Nice work in there."

Nate's heartbeat was quickening in proximity to the bank. He nodded. "Thanks."

Beyond the sawhorses, media and rubberneckers had ma.s.sed. One woman was crying and kneading her sweater in her fists-a sister of a victim? It struck Nate that she could also be a relative of one of the men he'd killed this morning.

He had to rewind the thought: One of the men he'd killed this morning.

One head lifted higher than the rest, rising above the crowd as if on a stick. A man's rough-hewn face-lantern jaw, mashed nose, slash of mouth. Flat eyes fastened on Nate as his gaze swept across. Nate did a double take, but the face was gone.

Abara's eyes were on him and then on the sea of folks. "What?"

"Just a guy in the crowd. Looked ... I don't know. Menacing, I guess."

He put it down to nerves but couldn't help noticing Abara file it away in some private place.

They drove through and parked on the sidewalk. Before leaving the hospital, Nate had filled in first a patrolman, then two detectives, and finally Abara on what had gone down in the bank-or at least a version of what had gone down. a.s.sumptions had been made before Nate had been sutured up and available to correct the record. By the time he'd entered the discussion, he was already party to the lie, and the lie had ossified into something hard and immovable. It went like this: Nate had been in the bank bathroom; he had heard shots; he had climbed onto the ledge, inched his way around, and saved the day. The questions-which had been detailed and copious-had picked up mostly at the saved-the-day part. And he'd been happy to pick up there as well. Did everyone need to know he'd been planning to pancake himself into a Dumpster? He would be made the subject of a suicide interventionist, and then there'd be a seventy-two-hour psych hold-no, that wouldn't do at all. So rather than lay himself bare to be probed and picked at, he'd help through a few steps of the investigation, resort to Plan B, and let everyone figure it out when he wasn't around to feel stupid about it.

Walking toward the bank entrance, Nate was surprised to hear his name shouted out. Instinctively he stopped and looked at the swarming reporters, and the agent had to press a hand to the small of his back to keep him moving. In the elevator Abara knuckled the b.u.t.ton for the eleventh floor. As they rose, Nate thought about the last time he'd ridden up in this car, how he'd been sweating through his shirt in antic.i.p.ation of taking the leap. And yet, implausibly, here he was again, back in the same little box, ascending to the same floor, Sisyphus in the age of technology. Abara caught him smirking at himself, and it seemed to pique his interest.

"You seem remarkably steady," the agent said, "given, you know, everything."

"I must be faking it well," Nate said.

"Impressive stuff. The ledge, the window, the timing. I mean, six armed men." Abara whistled. "Guess that high-end military training kicked in."

Nate studied Abara back. Was that an accusatory edge in his voice? Or just Nate's guilt working on him, putting a paranoid filter on an ordinary observation? He knew the truth of who he was-Nate Overbay, failed suicide-and the hero routine was starting to wear thin.

"Look," Nate said, "I was a drafted dips.h.i.t. I don't know how to kill a guy with a chopstick or anything. I'm just an army grunt who learned how to shoot a gun."

"You laid low five trained gunmen."

"Element of surprise. And a lotta luck."

"I glanced through your military jacket," Abara said. "You went through quite a bit over there."

"Not as much as some people."

A familiar voice sailed out from behind him: "I'll say."

Nate half turned, and sure enough there Charles stood, dripping on the elevator floor, chest blown open, heart visible through the bars of his ribs, hanging like a clump of grapes. He gave a big smile, dried blood cracking on his cheek. "You really stepped in it this time, podnah."

As always, impeccable timing.

Nate turned away, annoyed.

"Someone's uppity today," Charles said. "Prefers to hang out with his alive friends. No, really, it's cool. I get it. Ignore me. But can your alive friends do ... this?"

Horrible moist sound effects from behind Nate. He didn't even want to know. It dawned on him that Abara was staring at him expectantly.

Nate did his best to look attentive. "Sorry. What?"

"I said, I had some buddies came back with PTSD. You dealing with anything like that that might be relevant to how things went down today?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Nate could see Charles poking his tongue through a hole in his cheek. "Nah," Nate said. "Got over that a long time ago."

The elevator doors spread to a panorama of cops, CSI, and bank security workers. Radios bleated, iPhones chimed, cameras winked. Charles had vanished-he hated commotions-and Nate found himself immersed in b.l.o.o.d.y memories of the morning. He moved forward on numb legs, the pill bottles rattling in his pocket, untouched. By the lobby, Abara held down the crime-scene tape, and Nate high-stepped over. The black security guard was gone, but evidence cones marked the outline of his body. The smudged pool of blood looked shiny and gelatinous beneath the overhead fluorescents.

A burly little man hurried over and blew out a breath, exasperated. He was balding, and the male-pattern swirl had lifted from his pate. It had been a long day. He introduced himself as the bank director of physical security, shook Nate's hand earnestly, then launched into the update.

"Looks like they dodged the parking-lot cameras downstairs, rode the service elevator up. So much for eleventh-floor security. As you saw, dark clothes, not form-fitting, big boots. Hard to read height, weight. No flesh showing anywhere, so witnesses couldn't get a read on their ethnicity."

"Considerate of them to leave their bodies behind," Abara said.

Nate was having a hard time lifting his focus from the crimson smudges on the floor tile. He thought of the guard's eyes, rolled back almost to solid white.

The security director continued, "Before they hit the vault, they broke down the door to the security closet and unplugged the DVR box that caches the digital footage."

Abara made a popping sound with his lips. "So they could work the vault with their hoods off."

"Right," Nate mumbled. He pictured the man stepping into sight in the vault doorway, gripping the circular saw, the hood pushed up atop his head. His ear, torn away in a spray of black blood. How he'd looked back and Nate had shot him again through the forehead.

He heard Abara's voice, as if from a distance. "... you okay?"

Nate nodded quickly. "Fine, fine."

"These guys were pros, moved fast and hard," the security director continued. "No one could get to an alarm. Our vault door's eighteen inches of steel, tool-resistant for thirty minutes, but it was, of course, open for the business day. So they sailed in through the day gate. They used a diamond-tipped rescue saw to hit one of the quarter-inch Diebolds, got a little over three hundo into a duffel. Which, thanks to you"-a nod to Nate-"is still sitting on the floor in there. They were razoring into the safe-deposit boxes when you went in guns blazing."

Abara was nodding along; he'd heard this all already. Clearly, repet.i.tion was a big part of the investigation-sifting through the evidence again and again, looking for flecks of gold.

The robbers' bodies lay where they'd fallen, hoods now tugged off, flight suits sliced open and peeled back like flayed skin. Nate walked where directed, minding the cones, the blood spatter. He found himself crouching over the first corpse in the lobby, regarding the clean-shaven face. You're gonna want to listen now, girlie. So much less menacing without the black hood and bug eyes. Younger than he'd have thought.

Nate wanted to reach down and touch the waxy features. "He's what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?"

"This one?" Abara checked a black leather notepad. "Twenty-six."

Nate wondered about the next of kin. Who would answer the door to the death notification? Sickly mother? Pregnant girlfriend? Nine-year-old son, home from soccer practice? Gazing at the bodies sprawled on the tile, Nate was all too aware of how the loss of these lives would ripple out. Awe settled in, a sense of the enormity of what he had done, but he expected to feel something more, too. A hint of remorse, perhaps. But no. There were too many other parts to this equation. Those bullets riddling the bank manager's stiff pantsuit. The cool white hand he'd gripped through the window. A young girl's earlobe, darkened with her mother's blood.

The security director had been pulled away, but Abara was still at Nate's side, asking a question: "You said the sixth man had an accent?"

"Eastern Europeanish," Nate replied.

"Russian? Polish?"

"More Russian, I'd say. But I don't know."

Abara gestured at the bodies. "Local dirty white boys, all five. Accent no makee the sense, hoss. You sure you weren't hearing things?"

"I'm sure. Do you know who they were? The dead ones?"

"Yup. They're an Inland Empire team. Been on our radar a little more than three years. But a few things don't add up. One: What the h.e.l.l were they doing in Santa Monica? They've never even made it west of Victorville for a job. And two: What's with the sixth man? They've always run jobs as a five crew."

"Maybe they recruited," Nate said.

"I don't know. Five men's generally the most you see in a job like this. Six is the tipping point for logistics-more trouble than help."

"The sixth man seemed to be the crew leader."

"So you said. In that case why would a new recruit run the show?"

Nate closed his eyes, put himself back in the vault. The scuff of that boot behind him-Number Six, lying in wait with the letter opener. The whistle of movement, steel through air, and the hot pain in his shoulder. He heard the voice, a low rush of menace-He will be greatly angered by you-and couldn't ward off a shudder. "They were working for someone."

"Right," Abara said. "'He' from 'He will make you pay.'" They'd been through this as well. Stepping past the teller gate, the agent gazed at the blasted drywall of the ceiling and ran a hand over his utilitarian buzz cut. "AKS-74U a.s.sault carbine."

"You can tell from the bullet holes?" Nate asked.

"No." Abara grinned. "Crime-scene report. Now can you walk me through it?"

"I already have. Several times."

Abara pressed his fingertips together. "I got this wife, yeah? She loses her d.a.m.n birth-control pills. I'm talking two, three times a week. Not a good thing to lose. And I always tell her, I say, 'Honey. Retrace your steps.' And she argues and argues-Puerto Ricans, right? But when she finally listens? There they are. So what do you think. Can you do that for me?"

Nate said, "Find your wife's birth-control pills?"

No smile. Instead Abara pointed at the window, still cranked open as Nate had left it, swath of blood across the pane. Nate took a moment, chewing his lip. Then he walked over, set his hands on the sill, and leaned out into the cool dusk air.

"Whoa, cowboy." Abara's voice sounded distant behind him. "Want to reel it back a little?"

Nate pulled himself in. Nothing was left of the teller with the pretty green eyes but a collection of evidence cones at his feet. He set about retracing each move, starting with his tumble through the window over her lifeless body. One detail at a time. The tiny puffs of drywall. The relentless screech of the saw. The bullet sailing past, so close it trailed heat across his cheek. Recounting all this now in relative solitude made it more real, and with every step he took, a black tide rose in his chest, threatening to choke off his words. He had shot two men on the main floor and was stepping back toward the vault when something glinted under a desk, catching his eye. He walked over, crouched, and picked up the pearl clip-on earring. Cradled it in his hand. Flashed on its owner's limp arm unfurling, her rings clacking tile. The black tide climbed into his throat, catching him off guard, and he eased himself down to sit on the floor. Several of the cops paused and looked at him. Then a few CSI techs. The movement around him ground to a halt, the focus of the room pulling to him. He swallowed hard, tried to keep the emotion from his face, but he could feel his cheeks turn to pins and needles.

"Sorry." He clutched the earring, the clasp digging into his palm. "Just give me a sec here."

Abara waved the others to get back to work and squatted next to him. "Take all the time you need."

After Nate caught his breath, he finished the walk-through, ending with his face-to-face with Number Six in the vault. Abara scratched his head with a pen. "Can you look at some security tape, see if you can pick out the crew leader?"