Chapter 9

9

A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.

—Charles Darwin

Bushwick, Brooklyn

Now

The ringtone stops and the call times out. Kenji didn’t answer when I got off the plane and he’s not answering now. I still don’t know what I’m going to say to him, or precisely why I’m calling, but it’s something to do with my time, other than disappear down a dark little hole in my head and never come out.

I stick my phone in my pocket. I want to believe he wasn’t involved, but I’m having a hard time. After he went against the Yakuza, killed his brother, and dishonored himself—the worst transgression someone in his position could commit—he fled to the States, unable to return home, unable to access anything from his previous life. He showed up in New York with the money in his wallet and the clothes on his back. I admired that about him. I sometimes wonder if I would have stuck with the program this long if I didn’t have fat stacks of cash to keep me warm at night. I don’t have to work another day in my life—even if some days it’s hard to enjoy that comfort when I think about where it came from.

Is that why Kenji seemed cagey when we last spoke? I thought it was because we were trying to obscure our conversation. Was it something else? Did he hire the Russian, or just sell me out? Why would he toy with me like this? None of it makes sense. Hearing the word Sanjuro felt like a sledgehammer on my heart, and the psychic pain of it is still ringing through my body.

I thought he was my friend.

I take the six-month chip out of my pocket, turn it over in my hands. He gave me this. He was so proud of me. He was so excited for me to trade it in for the next one. It feels different now, like the weight of it has changed. It feels lighter. Cheaper. Fake.

“What’s that?” Astrid asks.

I shove it back in my pocket. “Nothing.”

“Whoever this is, I hope they show up soon.”

The concrete steps leading up to Valencia’s apartment are freezing, but at least the ground is dry. I could get us inside easily, to wait where it’s warm, but surprising killers is never a good idea, even if they’re reformed.

I’ve been here before. One night, maybe six months ago, after a meeting, we went out for drinks. She talked about the desire to be a mom, and we both got drunk enough that she decided I had good genes and it’d be cheaper than going to a sperm bank. We got here and were nearly naked when she stopped and looked me in the eye and seemed to recognize something and hit the brakes. She didn’t say why, but I respected it and knew it was for the best. Preserving the safety and sanctity of the meetings was more important than getting laid, and I figure she was thinking the same thing.

If I had a choice I’d be here alone, but when I suggested finding a hotel for Astrid and P. Kitty to hole up in, she flipped. Told me she wouldn’t be the woman in the hotel. Bringing her with me compromises both Valencia’s identity and anonymity, but I couldn’t think of a good way to explain that.

So here we are.

P. Kitty yowls in his carrier. I reach a finger through and scratch his head.

“We’ll be inside soon, buddy,” I tell him.

“Two days to Christmas,” Astrid says.

“Did you have any plans?”

She shrugs. “Dinner with some friends. FaceTime with my sister, though we don’t exchange gifts. What about you? How does a hitman celebrate Christmas?”

I think back to last year.

The tree. The popcorn. The presents.

The blood. The screaming.

“Alone,” I tell her.

Valencia appears at the end of the block. She pauses when she clocks us, then resumes her pace. She’s wearing a flannel jacket with a fur collar and hood hiding her face, carrying a grocery bag. I put up a hand and wave. She stands at the bottom of the steps and says, “Hey, Astrid.”

“Hey, Valencia.”

I look back and forth between them. “You two know each other?”

“Of course we do,” Astrid says. “How’d that GSW heal up?”

Valencia’s hand drifts near her left thigh. “Pretty good. Minimal scarring. You did nice work. Now, why are you both here?”

“Can we go inside?” I ask her. “It’s important.”

She walks past us and opens the door, and we follow her up the creaky staircase to her apartment. We get inside and drop our coats. She takes her bag to the kitchen and unloads meats and vegetables into the fridge. “You can free the cat,” she says.

I open the carrier and P. Kitty waddles out, taking small, tentative steps around the living room. Poor guy has lived his entire life between a bodega and my apartment and now he’s been halfway around the world. I pick him up and hold him, try to comfort him, but he squirms out of my grasp and sets about exploring the space.

“Fine,” I tell him.

Valencia steps back into the living room. “I’m guessing we should talk in private. Astrid, help yourself to anything in the fridge. Mark?”

She leads me down a long hallway to the bedroom, and she closes the door behind us. The room is pretty simple: a queen bed with a crushed green velvet comforter, a vintage dresser, a nice standing mirror.

And a bulletin board, on which there are pictures of several men.

There’s not much in common between them. Ages, races, and body type all vary. Each photo has an index card underneath with neat handwritten notes in Spanish, which, like a lot of languages, I can speak pretty well but have a tough time reading. My assassin brain says this setup looks like a series of targets. Before I can ask, Valencia says, “Don’t worry about that. Did you kill Rubén Espinosa?”

I turn to find her laying into me with a razor-blade stare.

Espinosa. It takes me a second. Is that sad, that it does? Probably.

A compound in some sand-swept section of Mexico. Sneaking through at night to deliver a dose of ricin into the cocktail of a rebel seeking to destabilize the housing market. He was recruiting followers to destroy new developments and had orchestrated the killings of a dozen security personnel.

“I guess you saw the video,” I tell her. “Yeah, that was me.”

Her mouth is a flat, furious line. “Figured.”

“Look, I don’t know who he was to you, but he was a bad guy—”

“No,” she snaps, taking a step toward me. “The bankers and government officials inflating the Mexican housing market by thirty percent were the bad guys , Mark. Espinosa may not have been perfect, but he was on the side of the people.”

“And why do you care?”

“Because I was trying to protect him.”

“I thought you were into cartel stuff.”

She squints at me. “You think because I’m Mexican that I was affiliated with the cartels? That’s a hell of a stereotype, Mark. I was Special Operations Group. You know what that is?”

Oh shit. “The covert paramilitary arm of the CIA.”

“Yeah.” She turns away from me and sighs with her whole body. “That housing scheme screwed over a lot of people. Kept them in poverty. All so some asshole could afford a second yacht for when his first one broke down. We got the assignment to stop Espinosa. I was feeding him intel, keeping him a step ahead. Because whatever he did, he was doing for the right reason. I guess I did too good a job because they brought you in.”

“Look, I was just doing my—”

She turns back to me, nearly shaking with anger. “Don’t say you were doing your job. Bunch of brown people get uppity, try to fight back, so they send in the white Terminator to take care of them. Though I guess that’s a tale as old as time.”

“Hey…”

“What?”

“…I killed a lot of white people, too.”

As soon as I say it, I realize it was a stupid thing to say. She puts her hands on her face, takes a few breaths in and out. I join her: in for four, hold for four, out for four, empty lungs for four. It’s a little funny, how just a few years ago, this showdown could have played out very differently. I want to laugh, point that out to puncture the tension, but I don’t think she’s at the laughing stage yet.

“I always wondered,” she says. “The hit was too clean. Now I know, at least.”

“So we don’t have to fight this out?”

“No, you dope. I can be angry and upset and still forgive you. That’s the whole point of this program.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. And sorry about the cartel thing. I was stereotyping.”

She sits heavily on the bed. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I think Kenji sold me out.”

Her face drops. She blinks a few times. “That doesn’t sound right.”

I give her a rundown of everything that happened in the past few days: the Russian, why I’m with Astrid, our trip to Singapore, the Agency on high alert and threatening to send Azrael after me, Gaius, and the connection to Kenji. She takes it all in with a stone face, slowly nodding along at points where I guess she has a sense of what’s going on. When I’m done, we hang there in a long stretch of silence, sorting through the puzzle pieces.

Valencia purses her lips, then blows out a burst of frustrated air. “I’ve heard of Azrael. None of what I’ve heard is good.”

“Haven’t had the pleasure. For all they know, I’m at full speed, so it’s a nuclear option. The longer this plays out, the more I figure it’s a matter of time before our paths cross.”

“And you really think Kenji is involved?” she asks.

“That’s why I came here without calling, in case you decided to check with him. Up until recently, he was the only one who knew my real identity, and that I’m handicapped with this goddamn program.”

“This goddamn program is saving your life, and mine, and countless others.”

“Right, but my life would be a whole lot easier if I could just cut loose and let this play out the way—”

“Stop right there,” she says, standing up and sticking a finger in my chest. “I get where you’re at, but you’re trying to give yourself permission to erase an entire year of progress.”

“Would it be so bad to clear the deck this one time so I can live in peace? It’s only a year. I can get back to counting days…”

“What’s the point of stopping, then? Just kill someone whenever you have a problem. Next guy who cuts you in line at the bank, snap his neck.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“All we have is all we have,” she says slowly, making sure to enunciate each word. “No more of that, okay? It’s not good for you to hear, and it’s not good for me to hear, either.” She puts her hands on her hips and arches her back to stretch it. “What do we do now?”

“Check with Booker and Stuart. See if they know anything.”

“Booker lives on Staten Island,” she says. “Stuart lives in Astoria.”

“I’d rather we handle this analog. No calls, no email, no texts, no trail. Do you know where Booker lives, exactly?”

“Yeah, we’re in a bowling league together.”

“You two are in a bowling league?”

She laughs a little. “He sucks. Don’t say anything. He’ll get upset.”

“Okay, how about this,” I tell her. “Can you go find him? I’ll see if I can find Stuart. I’d like to see if he has anything useful to share, but when the time comes, I’d rather go at this with you and Book.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I can do that.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” I tell her. “For Espinosa. For coming to you with this. I don’t feel great about it.”

“That’s why we’re here, dumbass. You can feel bad, and you should. Now you sit with those feelings and take the next right action. Meanwhile, I forgive you, because the person you were then isn’t the person you are today. Welcome to recovery.”

I fight with my face, to keep it straight. I don’t do a great job, so to buy myself some cover I throw my arms around her, squeeze her tight. She lets me do it, and then she pats me on the shoulder and says, “Stop being a pussy.”

We pull away from each other, temperatures having returned to normal. I nod toward the photos on the bulletin board. “You know I can’t let that go. Looks like you’re working again.”

She huffs and walks over to it, regarding the different headshots. “You know my deal, Mark. I talk about it every week. I want to be a mom. I met with a sperm bank, got some potential profiles.”

“Thought those were supposed to be anonymous.”

She smiles. “Yeah. Not for people like us, though. There are things I’m looking for, things they might not disclose on the forms, and I need to be sure.”

“Such as?”

She turns to me fully and her face softens. It is the most vulnerable I’ve ever seen her. “I want someone who doesn’t have any kind of history of violence.”

Oh.

That thing she saw in me, the last time I was here. Why she stopped me.

That maybe our genes were combustible.

“You think we’re born this way?” I ask.

She offers a half-defeated smirk. “I’m not taking the risk.”

I want to argue and say, no, we were molded into this, but the way my body buzzes when it’s pumped full of adrenaline, the way my blood so easily converts to steam, I don’t know if that’s true.

It makes me wonder what hope there is for me, then. For any of us. It gives me something else to be terrified of. The thought that whatever’s inside me can be passed down.

“C’mon,” she says, moving toward the door. “Let’s get to work.”

Before she can open it I say, “Hey.”

She doesn’t turn. Her voice is barely a whisper. “Yeah.”

“I’m not exactly an expert on the subject, ’cause I never really had one, but for what it’s worth, I think you’d make a good mom.”

Her hand drops to her side, and it seems like she wants to say something. Like she’s preparing herself to let something fly. Whether it’s a thank you or a fuck you , I can’t tell. All I know is that I believe it. Then she reaches up and turns the knob and leaves the room without saying a word.

—

The R train rumbles toward Astoria. Astrid sits across from me. I plug away on my phone, the service going in and out between stops. I don’t have much to go on for finding Stuart. I know his name. I know he’s a serial killer. Based on some stuff he’s said, I turned up a few unsolved murders around the city in the last two years I think could be him.

It feels very uncomfortable going to his home, but I need to check in. In part because maybe he overheard something that I missed. Maybe he’s in danger, too, and despite how I feel about him, I want him to succeed. Every meeting he goes to is a life saved. It makes me think of a Krav Maga instructor I worked with a long time ago. We were doing an active-shooter drill. Every second you stopped a shooter from firing, he said, you saved a life. And according to the Talmud, for every life you saved, you saved a universe.

He would walk around the mat, barefoot, point his hand in the air like it was a gun, and yell, BANG! A universe.

BANG! A universe.

BANG! A universe.

I need to remind myself of that sometimes.

Especially in moments like this.

Because Smiley is here, too. He’s sauntering up and down the car with his empty Hennessy bottle, swinging it without care or fear of striking someone.

The train pulls out of 23rd Street and he sways out of time with the jostling of the car, talking to people who don’t want to talk to him. His dark hair is greasy and unkempt. He looks more lit than usual.

And he zeroes in on Astrid.

He steps in front of her and she stirs a little, but I can’t see how she reacts because he’s between us.

Just a few stops to go. Astrid is a big girl. She can handle herself.

We can ignore him.

Four seconds in, hold for four, out for four, and…

Nope.

I get up and push between them. He has to move a little to make room for me, and he looks more shocked than angry. Then he smiles when he recognizes me. “You back for more?”

Ignore.

Just stand here. That’s it. That’s all I have to do.

A gentle and peaceful deterrent.

“I was talking to her,” he says.

Astrid looks up at me like, What are you doing?

Ignore. Ignore.

“You deaf?”

“Mark, c’mon…” Astrid says.

Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

Four seconds in…

He shoves me. I’ve set my feet so I don’t move, but it interrupts my breathing.

Just like I wanted him to.

To give me an excuse.

He says, “Sit down or I’m going to see red, motherfucker.”

My hand lashes out before my brain can react. I grab him by the roots of his hair and yank his head back, exposing his throat. I want to sink my teeth into it. I want to tear a chunk of it out and spit it back into his face.

“You know how you can tell someone can’t fight?” the Pale Horse asks. “When they say they see red. Like you’re going to lose control and turn into some kind of animal. That’s not how it works. The really dangerous people are the ones who can stay calm and collected under the most intense pressure imaginable.”

I yank harder, causing him to arch his back.

“Mark!” Astrid says.

“Don’t come at me with that tough-guy bullshit,” the Pale Horse says. “You never know who you’re picking a fight with.”

I turn him around and smash his face into the subway door. He goes down, blubbering. I pick up his arm and set myself, ready to break it. I know how to do it so it’ll never heal right. So he’ll always have a little reminder, when it’s humid or when he moves it the wrong way, that little ache will keep him away from thinking he’s a man—

Astrid yanks me off him.

“Stop,” she says.

He’s crying, curled into a fetal position. I realize all I’m doing is stepping on an ant. I look up and expect, I don’t know, something other than what I see, which is everyone squished to either side of the car, absolutely terrified.

At the most savage part of me.

I wish I could say I regret it, but I don’t.

This is the perfect moment to call Kenji. And I can’t.

“We need to go,” Astrid says.

A few straphangers have their phones out and they’re filming. Right. This’ll end up on social media. Of course. Everyone looking for me will suddenly know exactly where I am.

When the doors open at 28th Street, Astrid pulls me off and we go aboveground, looking for a cab, as I clench my fists so hard they hurt.

—

This seems to be the place. The fries are good. Thin cut, crunchy on the outside, pillowy on the inside, perfectly seasoned. At our last group meeting, Stuart said something about scoping out a bartender near his place where the fries are really good. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but I found four different food blogs praising the fries at Rusty’s Tavern.

It’s an old-man bar on the corner of 31st and Steinway. Lots of wood and old-school stools, and a mix of older clientele who just want to drown in a drink, along with wide-eyed gentrifiers who started flooding this neighborhood when they got priced out of Brooklyn.

It was a little busy when we came in, so after I went to the bathroom and washed the blood off my hands, Astrid and I found seats at the bar and ordered two pints and some fries. She doesn’t touch her beer. I get halfway through mine—not enough to get tipsy, but enough to blunt the edge.

Astrid isn’t speaking to me. I think she’s spooked. She should be. I feel like this thing I’ve been grasping onto for the past year is slipping through my fingers.

And my suspicion was true. Twitter is blowing up—the video of me beating on Smiley is being shared around, and it’s being politicized on both sides. The right thinks it’s time to take our city back with violence, the left is condemning me for attacking someone like that, calling on the mayor for more funding for mental health services.

Here I am, stuck in the middle with my feelings of regret, and hard evidence for the Agency that I’m back in New York.

The bartender comes over to check on us. She’s young and pretty—dark hair freshly blown out and hanging in shiny waves, piercing blue eyes, and the kind of smile that attracts zealous overtipping. “Need anything?”

“Yeah, actually,” I tell her. “Got a question for you.”

Her shoulders tense. I don’t think she’s explicitly creeped out by me, but when a strange man tells a pretty bartender he has a question for her, it’s perfectly reasonable to put up some defenses.

“Got a friend, comes in here sometimes I think,” I tell her. “He’s either really noticeable or not noticeable at all. His name is Stuart…”

Her eyes twitch a little in response.

“So you do know him?”

She nods slowly. “He’s your friend?”

“I shouldn’t say ‘friend,’?” I tell her. “He’s a guy I know. I need to find him. I’m Mark, by the way—”

“That guy weirds me out.”

“Me too. If you don’t mind me asking, has he ever done anything inappropriate?”

“No, he’s perfectly polite. There’s just something about him. It’s like he’s wearing a mask.” She picks up a glass and wipes it down, then looks at me with some reservation. Probably because my face looks like raw meat. Finally she says, “He’s always respectful and he tips well and he keeps to himself. He’s the perfect patron, outside of the fact that he makes my skin crawl.”

“I need to find him. Anything you can tell me—”

“He lives around the corner. There’s a bunch of brick houses on the left-hand side, all in a row. I can’t remember which one he lives in. They all look the same to me. But I saw him coming out of there once.”

I peel a hundred out of my wallet and slap it on the bar for the fries and the beer. She slides it off, looking at me expectantly.

“Keep the change,” I tell her.

As I’m dismounting the stool, she slips the bill in her pocket. “If you’re looking for him, be careful, okay?”

Can’t help but laugh at that. “Sure. I’ll do my best.”

Outside the bar the sun is dipping below the building tops and random flakes of snow are swirling through the yellow glow of the streetlights. Astrid is still giving me the silent treatment. I hitch up my collar and stick my hands in my pockets as we make our way toward the corner, passing stores and homes done up with twinkling colored lights.

“You gonna talk to me?” I ask.

“That was messed up, Mark. He was just a kid.”

“Kid needed to learn a lesson.”

“That didn’t teach him a thing. Clearly he needs some kind of help he’s not getting. He’s not in the game, Mark. And you could have killed him.”

Yeah. I could have.

And it would have felt good.

I put that thought out of my head as we turn the corner. The bartender was right. There are six two-story brick homes, all connected to each other. They look exactly the same. I’ve got a good eye for details and if I saw Stuart come out of one yesterday I wouldn’t remember which one it was today. Out of the six, there are only lights on in two of them, so I pick the closest one and knock on the door. The mailbox on the railing is overflowing. I pluck out an envelope.

Stuart Bates.

He’s a serial killer and his last name is Bates?

C’mon now.

“This is it,” I tell Astrid.

Part of me feels lucky to have found him on the first try, but the abundance of mail and the lights on inside make me wonder how long that luck is going to hold out. The block is mostly empty. No cameras in sight. I keep a cheap lockpick set in my wallet—it’s not going to get me through a secure door, but this isn’t that. It takes about ten seconds to pop the pins and the dead bolt isn’t engaged. I give one more look to make sure the street is clear, checking the windows across the street for any Rear Window types, then we slip inside.

“Jesus,” Astrid says. “That stench…”

As soon as it hits me, I know whatever we find isn’t going to be pleasant. The rot is so thick I can taste it at the back of my tongue: spoiled meat left in the sun. I’m used to the smell of fresh carnage—the way blood and viscera hang in the air, the way a body will shit itself moments after death—but I’m usually long gone before they ever get this far along.

There’s blood in the entryway. I bend down to get a closer look. It’s a thin film, dry and tacky. Been a day or two, at least. Maybe more. Right off the entryway is the living room, which is where I find Stuart, lying on his back, his head caved in.

Astrid puts her hand over her mouth and dashes outside.

The living room doesn’t have any real personality. Gray couch, big TV, a coffee table with some remotes on it. No art on the walls, no rug on the floor. No books. Stuart is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and fat cockroaches chew on the shattered remains of his head.

This is not a professional estimate, but I’d say a somewhat educated guess: his head looks like it was stomped on by a boot. There’s something about the uneven flatness of it that makes me think of a heel. Nestled in that mess is a hazy, milky eyeball gazing at the ceiling.

My stomach swirls with a mix of complicated emotions. The first thing that comes up is relief. Maybe the world is better off with him gone. But that makes me wonder if I’m really just imagining myself in his place.

After that, there’s sadness. He really was trying.

Finally, there’s a toxic mix of fear and confusion. How the hell did Stuart get involved in this? Why would someone come after him ?

The why doesn’t really matter, I guess.

It’s more important that I get back and make sure Booker and Valencia are okay.

—

Lulu wordlessly fills our coffees, then goes back to the register. The man in the brown suit is sitting across the diner, like always, and there’s no one else here.

“Nice cat,” Booker says, nodding to the carrier on the table.

“He’s a fluffy boy,” Valencia says.

“So,” Booker says. “I always figured you were serious. Didn’t know you were this serious.” He nods toward my beaten and bruised face. “But it seems that kid banged you up pretty good.”

“You saw the video?” I ask.

“Nah,” Booker says, then points toward Valencia. “She told me. I don’t go on the Via Maris anymore. That shit is triggering.”

Then he casts a concerned look at Astrid.

“How’d that shoulder heal up?” she asks him.

He rotates his arm in the socket. “Right as rain. Thanks again for that.”

She smiles as she tips a mug to her lips. “It’s what I do.”

“Now, Stuart,” Booker says. “Good riddance. Never trusted the guy.”

“He was trying,” Valencia says, her voice hushed.

“He was weird,” Booker says.

“He was one of us,” Valencia says.

It’s Astrid’s turn for a confused little look, but she doesn’t dig.

“Let’s focus,” I tell them. “Someone tried to kill me, then killed Stuart. Kenji is in the wind. That changes the metrics here. Neither of you have noticed anything?”

“Nothing,” Booker says.

“Nobody,” Valencia says.

I spin my coffee mug. Two sips in and I don’t want it anymore.

“What about Azrael. Booker? Do you know anything about him?”

Booker shrugs. “Whispers and rumors. Nothing solid.” Then he snaps his fingers. “This Russian guy took your notebook, right?”

Booker, Valencia, and I all freeze at that. Silence strangles the table and after a moment Astrid catches on and says, “I think I need to use the bathroom.”

She slides out of the booth and disappears to the other side of the diner.

Booker shakes his head. “Dragged that poor woman into this…”

“Couldn’t be avoided. But yeah, my entire amends list. It’s ciphered, but someone with half a brain and a full afternoon could probably crack it.”

“What’s in there that could be valuable?” Valencia asks.

“It’s ten years of political assassinations and whatever side gigs I picked up on the Via Maris. The intelligence alone is probably worth a fortune.”

Booker points at me. “That right there tells you something. You’re about to start the ninth step, right? So you’re supposed to go over it with Kenji. Decide who to make amends to. Who gets a direct amends and who gets a living amends. He wouldn’t need to steal it if you were about to read the whole damn thing to him.”

“I’ve been stalling,” I say. “I think he knows that. Maybe he couldn’t wait.” I take a swig of coffee. “Or maybe we’re all criminals at the end of the day and we can’t change.”

Valencia elbows me in the ribs. “Stop that.”

“Let’s just go to Kenji’s,” Booker says. “The three of us, together. See what the story is. You know where he lives?”

Yes, I do.

“No, I don’t.”

Because I’m not ready to find out that it could be true.

“How about this,” Booker says. “You said the guy who attacked you at Dymphna’s was Russian, right? Why not go ask the Russians?” He smirks. “I know someone, operates out of a club in Brighton Beach. I’m not gonna lie, they ain’t gonna roll out a carpet for us. And whatever goes down, I need you to let it play out. But I think the three of us show up looking mean, we can get away with asking a few questions.”

“I like everything except the ‘three of us’ part. This is my fight. I’m not putting either of you at risk for a slip.”

I toss a hundred on the table, and the two of them look at me like I just spit in their faces.

“The fuck is this?” Booker asks.

“Both of you should get out of town,” I tell them. “Take Astrid and the cat with you. This might get messy. We still don’t know if someone is coming after you. I’ll check into the drafts folder once I have a better handle on all this.”

“Get right off with that cowboy shit,” Valencia says. “If you’re in it, we’re in it.”

Booker reaches over and finishes my coffee. “Let’s go,” he says.

“I don’t feel good about this,” I tell them.

“Get used to it,” Valencia says. “Don’t make me quote the Big Book at you.”

“I just…”

Valencia rolls her eyes. “?‘The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.’?”

Booker nods toward her. “What she said. We ain’t related, but that don’t mean we’re not blood. Pale Horse or not, you’re not stopping us from following you. I’ll be perfectly honest, you don’t look that tough to me. You know who looks tough?”

“I swear to god, if you say you thought I would look like Jason Statham, I’m going to slap the shit out of you right here in Lulu’s.”

He puts his hands up.

Astrid appears at the table. I think she can tell from the looks on our faces that she’s not going to like what happens next. So when I take her outside and hand her the cat carrier and a few hundred bucks and tell her that the next thing I do I have to do alone and she should go back to the first hotel we stayed in, she sticks a finger in my face.

“You have completely inverted my life,” she says, “and you are still keeping shit from me. I am tired of it. Soon as you get back, we’re sorting out how to get the money you owe me, and then I’m gone.”

She stalks off, looking for a subway.

It’s for her own protection, I tell myself.

And I remind myself that letting people into my life has never gone well.