“Okay, okay. We’re moving.”
You pick Henry up by the arm, but he refuses, goes limp like Toby during a tantrum. You take the glasses off your head, wrap them in one of the hot towels available in a little oven, and stuff them in a pocket.
“Let’s go.”
“What don’t you understand? These are real.” He smacks the front of the vest with both hands and this makes you flinch, half expecting it to go off. “They’re real!”
“I can get it off you. Now let’s go.”
Henry’s face changes. There’s enough hope in what you’ve said that he collects himself. His weeping slows a bit. You grab another towel and mop some of the tears and sweat from Henry’s acned brow.
“You’ve got to try to calm down,” you tell him. “Just follow me and be calm. Okay? Everything’s going to be all right.”
He nods vigorously but can’t stop weeping. “I just really want to go home, you know?”
The two of you leave the bathroom and you’re anticipating the Xuritas guards to be waiting for you, but they’re still at the entrance. The Tesla is gone, and the valets are milling and bullshitting, hands in pockets. No one is looking at you. Henry follows you down the length of the atrium, and even though the temperature is cool and pleasant, you are sweating like a hog. You approach a woman at Guest Services. She is pretty and brown-skinned with a tight black bun on the back of her head. A nametag on a gray pantsuit says she’s Arma.
“ ’Scuse me, miss.” She looks at you like she can’t be bothered. “We need to borrow a wrench real quick. I talked to a guy in maintenance, but we’re new, we got lost…” You feel this pitiful lie even as you’re saying it. She’s just staring at you. “And, um, where’s he telling me to go to pick up this wrench?”
She shakes her head. “You mean like facilities management?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” you say too quickly.
“Second floor, down the hall to the left.” She even picks up a map of the hotel, which is labeled Blue Crystal Mountain Resort, and draws a quick line showing your route. “You’ll need your keycard.” She’s looking at your belt. “You have one, right?”
“We both left ’em downstairs. Sorry. Could I borrow yours? Promise I’ll bring it right back.”
She looks more irritated than suspicious and quickly programs a keycard on a little device. You don’t understand why she looks at you this way, how she can somehow sense, even within this lie, your true nature. She hands over the card and goes back to not thinking of you ever again. Henry follows you to the elevator, where you use the map to navigate your way to facilities management. “Wait outside,” you tell him.
You scan your way in. There are several men dressed in gray maintenance suits chatting at a desk. They look up.
“Hey, do y’all got a nut wrench I can borrow? I’ll bring it right back.”
The guy in the chair hops up. The two leaning against the desk remain, arms crossed. “Sure thing. What size you need?”
“Better give me a couple. Maybe a twenty-three and a twenty-two?”
The guy disappears into a back office and returns with the two wrenches. He hands them over without question. Wrenches in hand, you exit, grab Henry by the arm, and lead him down the hallway.
“You know how to unwire a bomb?” he asks worriedly.
“What? Fuck no.”
Down the hall, you search for the first door that looks private enough and use the keycard. It’s a supply room. You spot a roll of duct tape and strip off a small piece so you can cover the lenses on the ARs. Then you perch them back on top of your head. You can hear Quinn and Jansi having a total meltdown.
“Okay, okay, I’m here.”
“Keeper, we need to know what you’re doing,” Quinn pleads.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Then to Henry: “Get your arms over your head.”
“Okay, Keeper, I’m going to say something a bit frightening right now, but I want you to stay calm.”
“I am calm.” You fit the tips of the two nut wrenches inside the shackle of the padlock. “Calm as a virgin telling the truth.” Despite the circumstances, you laugh at that old idiom of Raquel’s.
“Those vests are going off one way or the other. Understand?”
You begin to squeeze the wrenches together. This old trick you learned ages ago, the first time you broke into a pharmacy to steal Vicodin.
“And you’ve got to think about Raquel and Toby and your mother. Not only will they not get the money, Keeper. Not only will that vest go off, but you won’t be around to protect them. They will be exposed.”
You stop squeezing. There’s a muffled exchange on the other end, and then Quinn’s voice returns.
“We can have people in Coshocton and Dayton in a matter of hours.”
Henry still has his arms above his head, thrusting out his side, looking at you with wide, expectant eyes. Unlike Schembari and his thugs, these people somehow know where your mother lives.
“We’re your fucking king now, Keeper. We decide what happens to you, what happens to your family, what happens to everyone you know or love or care about.” Quinn pauses. Then her voice is kinder, less strident. “Keeper, death comes and goes. There’s no need to be afraid. There won’t even be any pain.”
You feel the coldness of her words in your veins. It’s the sensation of the saline solution when you used to sell your plasma, the opposite of the warm crawl of heroin.
“Okay,” you say, and then you finish squeezing the wrenches together, laying all your strength into it. The padlock pops, and you tear the busted metal fragment out of the loop. Tossing the wrenches aside, you carefully lift the vest over Henry’s head, and he’s sobbing even harder now but with relief, thanking you so loudly that you take the ARs off and press your thumb over the mic again.
“Thank you thank you thank you thank you,” he says. You grab his shirt to try to focus him.
“You need to go quick, Henry. Got it? Go to that desk up front and try to get a map of the area. I got no clue where we are. Then go into the woods. Don’t use any main road, they might look for you there. Try to change your clothes quick as possible. Then you can’t go home, okay? Don’t go near anywhere they know about. There’ll probably be cops looking for you too. Just disappear, okay? Just vanish.”
He’s nodding, but you have no idea if he’s actually listening. “Aren’t you coming?” he begs.
“I’m going to keep them thinking we’re both here.” You hold up his vest, and he almost recoils from it. “Go. Get a head start, okay?” He nods, weeping for this reprieve he had not thought possible. “Go!”
Henry throws open the door, looks both ways down the hall, and then heads to the right. It’s the last you see of him. You wait in the supply closet for a moment, take a couple of deep breaths, and then replace the ARs.
“You there?”
“What’s happening, Keeper? Did you hear me?” Quinn says.
“I heard.”
“You need to tell Henry to put his glasses back on.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna work.”
“Why not?”
“Henry’s not here. I busted him out of the vest. He’s already long gone.”
Now you can hear them heatedly arguing among themselves. You wait.
“Go find him.”
“Let him go. He’s a scared kid you chumped into this. I got his vest. Just let him go.”
“We could set those both off right now.”
You’re staring at a row of hand soaps, wondering if this is the last thing you’ll see in your life.
“You would’ve done it by now. I ain’t that stupid.”
Silence on the other end. Finally, Jansi’s voice.
“Do exactly what we tell you, Keeper. Uncover those glasses or so help me God I’m going to personally put a bullet in your son’s head.”