I was up. I pulled out a small leather case and slipped out a steel pick plus a steel tension rod and pushed them into the lock. I bit my lip, breathing deeply to calm my heart and my shaking hands. Leary kept watch silently as I worked at the lock, driving the pick inside and pushing at the pins. Lock picking was a lot easier than most civilians realized; any lock on almost any door, at least those that used the common key-and-tumbler format, could be broken into within minutes. No door is truly safe. The only thing that really kept the bad guys out was the social contract, the belief that breaking into another person's house was wrong.
Fortunately, I didn't have such antiquated moral hang-ups. I felt the pins move into position, and I turned the lock with a satisfying click.
The door slipped open. Leary pulled it out farther and moved inside, gun in hand. I put my picks away and followed quietly.
Leary was crouched down behind a cabinet in the kitchen. He nodded to me, making a hand gesture. Room clear. I nodded back, moving forward, my own gun out and hand forward. We kept our flashlights off, just in case, and my eyes were quickly adapting to the dark rooms.
I moved into the main bar area and swept through it quickly. There was nobody. I made hand signs at Leary. Check the office. He disappeared into the back rooms while I kept watch. Two minutes later, he poked his head out and gestured at me. All clear.
We moved together back into the office, and I shut the door softly behind us. Leary clicked on his penlight, and I turned on mine a second later. We swept the beams over the space. It was sparsely furnished, with three large filing cabinets, a safe in the back corner, two chairs, and a large mahogany desk. There were paintings on the walls, and a corkboard with papers pinned to it.
I made a series of hand gestures to Leary, flashlight held between my teeth. Crack the safe. I'll loot the cabinets. He nodded and got to work while I opened the duffle bag I had slung over my back.
Despite being a drug addict and a shady guy, Leary was one of the best safe crackers in the whole city. That was more or less the only reason he was still alive at all, actually. He had run afoul of so many dangerous people so many times in his insane drive to be constantly high, but they had kept him alive because he was so useful. Whenever the debt got to be too much, he'd go do a job for whoever he owed.
As I began forcing the locks on the filing cabinet and dumping their papers into my bag, I wondered why Leary was risking so much to help me. It was true that we were old childhood friends, and had reconnected recently, but that didn't explain it. It wasn't like Leary was a bad guy, but junkies universally looked out for themselves first. Leary was trying to get his shit together, but he was still an addict.
I sighed as I remembered Ellie. She was an addict, too, and yet she was one of the strongest people I had ever met. She could easily curl up in a ball and wait for me to save her, and yet she was insisting that she help out as much as she could. I frowned, finishing the cabinet and moving to the next one. Maybe I had underestimated Leary. Lumping people into stereotypes was a good way of proving yourself wrong and showing you how diverse and incredible people could sometimes be.
A soft thump pulled me from my thoughts and I looked down at Leary. He grinned up at me: the safe was open. I gestured at him. Good job. He gave me a little bow, and then he began to loot the thing, dropping stacks of cash, a gun, and other documents into his open bag. I tore out every paper in the cabinets indiscriminately, not caring what it was. I didn't have time to look over it all; I had to just take everything I could find and hope for the best. Once he was done with the safe, Leary began rifling through the desk drawers, taking anything that looked important.
Finally, the last paper was in my duffle. It was heavy as hell as I hefted it onto my back, but that was fine. The room was trashed, with shit thrown all around us, but I had no clue if we found anything worthwhile. I didn't have a chance to see what was in the safe, or what Leary found in the other drawers. Only a few minutes had passed since we first entered the building, which was pretty good. I might have been out of practice, but I was still a damn good burglar. I moved toward the door silently. Leary gestured at me. Let's go. I nodded and put my hand on the doorknob.
There was a noise in the main room. I looked at Leary, my eyes wide, and he stared back. I gestured at him. Was that something? He nodded. Quickly, we turned off our lights and flattened ourselves on either side of the door as there was another thump, followed by the front door opening and slamming.
I gestured to Leary. Stay quiet. Don't move. He nodded. There were more footsteps in the main room, and I could hear people talking.
". . . late as shit," the voice said, coming close enough for me to hear.
"Yeah, well, we're done at least," came the response.
"I'm sick of these night runs. Why does Colm got to have us crawling all over the city at this hour?"
"Because he thinks we can find Liam this way."
I blinked, my heart hammering in my chest. They were talking about me, about looking for me. And if they had come in through the back, we could have been fucked. We didn't close the door in order to make our escape that much easier, and besides, we didn't expect anyone to show up.
"It's not gonna happen, man. Like I said, the guy is long gone, probably in Mexico by now.
"He's here. We'll find him."
The more they spoke, the more I couldn't shake how familiar they sounded.
"I'm not sure we will. Boss seems pretty fucking obsessed."
"He does, but can you blame him?"
"I guess I don't."
"Liam embarrassed Colm, made him look weak. He has no other choice but to hunt Liam down and kill him."
"Yeah, and I owe that rat cunt."
The man laughed. "You really do."
There was a brief silence. I heard glass clink. They were having a fucking drink, I realized. Probably parched from a long day of trying to murder me.
"You still need to do the count?"
"Yeah."
"Put it off, man. Screw that."
"Got to do it. Boss will be pissed if I don't."
There was another clinking of glass. "Whatever, pussy."
I heard the man laugh again, and then I heard a chair scrape against the floor. There were footsteps coming closer, and I tensed. I gestured quickly to Leary.
I'll take the first guy. You get the second. He nodded, gripping his gun firmly. I checked to make sure that my safety was off, my hands shaking and covered in sweat.
"Fuck it. Do it tomorrow morning," the one guy called out. "Stay here and have another drink."
"I have to finish this crap, Max."
Max. Recognition spiked through my chest and my pulse jumped. Jesus, I knew the guy that spoke, too. It was Colin, or at least I was pretty damn sure it was Colin. Had the same voice as him, and seemed to know Max pretty well. On the other side of the door, the two men sent out to hunt for me all night, were Max and Colin.
I clenched my jaw as rage filled my body. I wanted to tear the fucking door down, shove my gun into Colin's mouth, and pull the trigger. The piece of shit had said that I could trust him, but that was a lie. Everything about the Mob was a damn lie. I wanted to finish the job on Max, too, and regretted letting him live. That was a moment of weakness that I wasn't going to repeat.
"I'm not waiting around here. Fuck this. I'm going home," Max said.
I heard Colin sigh. He was standing right on the other side of the door. If I put my gun against the wood and pulled the trigger, chances were pretty good that I'd hit him. It would be so easy. I heard his hand grab the doorknob and my fingers tightened their grip on the gun. He was inches away, and it was kill or be killed. I had no other choice as I leveled the gun, pressing the barrel up against the wood where I hoped his chest would be. There was a brief pause as I steadied myself and prepared to shoot.
There was another sigh. "Fine. I'll do it in the morning."
He turned and walked back into the main room. I heard Leary let out a breath, and I gave him a sharp look.
"Come on, you're driving," Max said.
Colin responded, but I couldn't make it out as the footsteps retreated. I heard them close the front door behind them and lock it.
We stood in the office completely still, listening to the empty room. I thought I heard an engine start, but I wasn't sure. I gestured at Leary. Wait two minutes. Standing there in the darkness, trapped in the office of the man who wanted me dead, I thought I was going to collapse from anger. I was seething, blind with rage. How dare they think it would be so fucking easy to hunt me down? How dare Colin betray me? I always figured he was in Colm's pocket, but that proved it, beyond a doubt. I shouldn't have felt as betrayed and annoyed as I did, but I couldn't stop myself from wanting to smash his skull against a wall.
The minutes slipped by, and Leary gestured at me. It's time. I nodded, turned the knob, and pushed the door open, slipping out into the room fast, my gun drawn level. Leary was right behind me, his own gun held steady.
Empty. The room was empty. I nodded at Leary and we moved fast but quiet back through the kitchen and out the back door. We didn't bother shutting it; they'd figure out quickly enough that someone had broken in. We stopped at the end of the alley and I looked out into the street. There was nothing except for the parked cars. The place was silent like a grave. I waited a minute or two, straining to hear everything around me, but I couldn't catch a single sound. Finally, I nodded to Leary, and we made our way across the street, back to the other side of the parked cars, and hustled down the block toward Leary's car. We kept low and quiet, moving fast.