“Lowell, if you know something-”
“They marked you.”
“What?”
“You’re marked, Harris. If they find you, you’re dead.”
“What’re you talking about? Who’s they? How do you know them?”
Lowell looks over his shoulder. I thought he was studying the reporters. He’s not. He’s studying the door.
“You should get out of here,” he says.
“I… I don’t understand. Aren’t you gonna help me?”
“Don’t you get it, Harris? The game is-”
“You know about the game?”
“Listen to me, Harris. These people are animals.”
“But you’re my friend,” I insist.
His eyes drop back to his key ring, which has a small plastic picture frame on it. He rubs his thumb against the frame, and I give it a closer look. The photo inside the frame is of his wife and four-year-old daughter. They’re at the beach with the surf crashing behind them. “We’re not all perfect, Harris,” he eventually says. “Sometimes, our mistakes hurt more than just ourselves.”
My eyes stay glued to the key ring. Whatever they have on Lowell… I don’t even want to know.
“You should leave,” he says for the second time.
The hamburger in front of me goes completely uneaten. Whatever appetite I had is gone. “Do you know the guy who killed Matthew and Pasternak?”
“Janos,” he says as his voice cracks. “The man should be in a cage.”
“Who does he work for? Are they law enforcement?”
His hands begin to shake. He’s starting to unravel. “I’m sorry about your friends…”
“Please, Lowell…”
“Don’t ask me anymore,” he begs. Over his shoulder, the same four reporters turn around.
I close my eyes and rest my palms flat against the table. When I open them up, Lowell’s staring at his watch. “Go now,” he insists. “Now.”
I give him one last chance. He doesn’t take it.
“I’m sorry, Harris.”
Standing from my seat, I ignore the trembling in my legs and take a step toward the front door. Lowell grabs me by the wrist. “Not out the front,” he whispers, motioning toward the back.
I pause, unsure whether to trust him. It’s not like I have a choice. For the second time today, I dart for the kitchen and push my way through the swinging door.
“You can’t go back there,” the waitress snips at me.
I ignore her. Sure enough, beyond the sinks, there’s an open door in the back. I sprint outside, hurtle up the concrete steps and keep running, making two sharp rights down the poorly lit alley. A black rat scrambles in front of me, but it’s the least of my worries. Whoever these people are — how the hell could they move so fast? A biting pain pinches me at the base of my neck, and the world swirls for the slightest of seconds. I need to sit down… gather my thoughts… find a place to hide. My brain flips through the short list of people I can count on. But after watching Lowell’s reaction, it’s clear that whoever Janos is working for, they’re drilling through my life. And if they can get to someone as big as Lowell…
Straight ahead, a passing ambulance whips up Vermont Avenue. The sirens are deafening as they reverberate through the canyon of the brick alleyway. Instinctively I reach for one of my phones. I pat all my pockets. Damn… don’t tell me I left them in the -
I stop and turn around. The table of the restaurant. No. I can’t go back.
Double-checking to be sure, I stuff my hand inside the breast pocket of my jacket. There’s actually something there, but it’s not a phone.
I open my palm and reread the name off the blue plastic nametag:
Senate Page
Viv Parker
The white letters practically glow in front of me. In the distance, the siren of the ambulance fades. It’s gonna be a long night ahead, but as I turn the corner and run up Vermont Avenue, I know exactly where I’m going.
15
Outside Stan’s restaurant, Lowell Nash slowly scanned the sidewalks up and down Vermont Avenue. He stared at the shadows in the doorways of every storefront. He even studied the homeless man sleeping on the bus-stop bench across the street. But as he turned the corner onto L Street, he couldn’t spot a twitch of movement. Even the air hung flat in the night. Picking up speed, he rushed toward his car, which was parked halfway up the block.
Again Lowell checked the sidewalks, the doorways, and the bus-stop benches. If his recent notoriety taught him anything, it was never to take chances. Approaching the silver Audi, he scrambled for his car key, pressed a button, and heard the doors unlock. He gave one last glance to his surroundings, then slipped inside and slammed the door shut.
“Where the hell is he?” Janos asked from the passenger seat.
Lowell yelled out loud, jumping so fast, he banged his funny bone against the car door.
“Where’s Harris?” Janos demanded.
“I was…” He grabbed his funny bone, holding it in pain. “Aaah… I was wondering the same about you.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I’ve been waiting for almost an hour. He finally got up and left.”
“He was already here?”
“And gone,” Lowell replied. “Where were you?”
Janos’s forehead wrinkled in anger. “You said ten o’clock,” he insisted.
“I said nine.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“I swear, I said nine.”
“I heard you say-” Janos cut himself off. He studied Lowell carefully. The sting from the funny bone was long past, but Lowell was still crouched over, cradling his elbow and refusing to make eye contact. If Janos could see Lowell’s expression, he’d also see the panic on Lowell’s face. Lowell may be weak, but he wasn’t an asshole. Harris was still a friend.
“Don’t fuck with me,” Janos warned.
Lowell quickly looked up, his eyes wide with fear. “Never… I’d never do that…”
Janos narrowed his glance, studying him carefully.
“I swear to you,” Lowell added.
Janos continued to stare. A second passed. Then two.
Janos’s arm sprang out like a wildcat, palming Lowell by the face and slamming his head back into the driver’s-side window. Refusing to let go, Janos pulled back and smashed him against the glass again. Lowell grabbed Janos’s wrist, fighting to break his grip. Janos didn’t stop. With a final shove, he put all his weight behind it. The window finally cracked from the impact, leaving a jagged vein zigzagging across the glass.
Slumped down in his seat, Lowell held his head from the pain. He felt a trickle of blood skating down the back of his neck. “A-Are you nuts?”
Without saying a word, Janos opened the door and stepped into the warm night air.
It took Lowell twenty minutes to get his bearings. When he got home, he told his wife some kid on Sixteenth Street threw a rock at the car.
16
“There — he’s doing it again,” Viv Parker said Monday afternoon, pointing to the elderly Senator from Illinois.
“Where?”
“Right there...”
Across the Floor of the Senate, in the third row of antique desks, the senior Senator from Illinois looked down, away from Viv.
“Sorry, still don’t see it,” Devin whispered as the gavel banged behind them.
As pages for the United States Senate, Viv and Devin sat on the small carpeted steps on the side of the rostrum, literally waiting for the phone to blink. It never took long. Within a minute, a low buzz erupted from the phone, and a small orange light hiccuped to life. But neither Viv nor Devin picked it up.