Finding Gideon(124)
“When we were at Barnes and Noble, yes, for a few minutes.”
“Did you watch him?”
“No. I was reading a novel and drinking café. I trusted him.”
“Either he planted a virus or stole your personal information. Your computer is no good. Give it to me. I’ll get you another one today. Change your e-mail address. The banking I set up for you and the boys, any account you have, change all of your passwords, including Wi-Fi.”
“Jesus. This is too much. All of this, this is too much.”
“Has anyone contacted you looking for him?”
“No one. I did like you told me to do. Once or twice a day, I have called his number pretending I was looking for him. Today I will call and say I am hurt that he has not returned my calls, sound sad, be angry, tell him I can take a hint, cry, and say that I will never bother him again.”
“Good. Good.”
“Where is his— Where is his body?”
“It will never be found, not without an archeological dig.”
She took a few hard breaths. “He used me. Like every man I have ever met, he used me. When a man does that, when he lies to have sex with a woman, when it is done, the woman feels as if she has been raped.”
“He was after more than sex. This was deeper. Sex was his foreplay. He wasn’t around long enough for you to feel like you’d been fucked.”
Her voice cracked. “He found me, tricked me, used me.”
“Get over it. You’ve used many people. In your own way.”
“I don’t use people.”
“You sent me to kill. You did that. My mother put a weapon in my hand and sent me to kill. Then she lied and kept most of the money.”
She clacked her teeth twice. “Let’s not do this, Jean-Claude.”
“You put a weapon in my hand and sent me to kill.”
“Fucking get over it.”
“There she is. Thelma. Hiding behind Catherine’s smile.”
She regarded her gun, then deepened her scowl.
I said, “You know how to use it. It’s loaded.”
“You are cold and abusive, no different than Mr. Midnight.”
“You don’t like my tone? Then kill me. End this shit. This is who I am. I’ve gone too far down this road to turn around. I can’t put my gun away and become an electrical engineer. That was my dream when I was a kid. You put a knife in my hand. You sent me to kill. And the things I have done to save you . . . You don’t want to know the things I have done.”
“When you are angry, you sound like him. That terrifies me.”
“Like who? Medianoche? Or the Beast?”
She dropped her gun like it burned her hand, let it land in the dirt. Dark secrets made her lip tremble.
I asked, “Who is Andrew-Sven’s father? You’ve never said.”
Catherine hurried away from me, ran hard, then slowed when she was near the boys. I watched her and wondered what information Hawks had found. I wondered what she knew about my mother’s life in Yerres. I wondered what Hawks was refusing to tell me. I wanted to know what the fuck my mother was hiding. I felt Mr. Midnight and the Beast were part of a bigger secret. I picked up her gun, took a few steps, then jogged and stopped near her. She told Andrew-Sven and Robert it was time to end target practice. The boys ran over to her, saw she was crying.
Robert asked, “What’s wrong, Mum?”
“We were talking about Alvin White, and I became sad. I told Jean-Claude how beautiful the funeral was. I told him about Alvin’s brothers. They are big men, boxers like Alvin, and they cried like they were little boys. His wife cried. And his children cried out for their daddy and that made everyone in the church break down. A hundred people came to see him off. He did nice things for so many. I told your brother how everyone spoke and said Alvin White was a good man. I told him how the tears started again when they put dirt on his coffin. Now I am crying again.”
Andrew-Sven hugged his mother as she wiped away her tears.
My mother was as good at lying as I was at killing. Her lie was powerful enough to make me need to step away and wipe my own eyes.
Chapter 32
Strangers
As I’d done night and day since the battle in Argentina, I snapped awake and grabbed the gun stationed on the nightstand. Within a blink, I was on my feet and the nine millimeter was trained in the direction of the abrupt sound. The problem didn’t reveal itself, hugged the darkness.
I was seven years old again, and Mr. Midnight was in the shadows.
The noise came back, and I saw my enemy.
The sound that had pulled me from my nightmare had come from my phone. A new text message alert had made it vibrate on the desk.
I exhaled, eased the tightness in my chest, the same for the pressure in my head, then I moved by Tumi luggage, stepped over a T-shirt that said ABOLISSONS LA PAUVRETÉ and other clothing scattered on the carpet, over three pairs of shoes, and picked up my work phone. It was next to the satellite phone, the Thuraya I had been given on behalf of Señorita Reina Abeja.