The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [129]
For Clementine.
My mind swirls into rewind, replaying every moment, every interaction, every conversation we’ve had since she “magically” returned to my life. I thought I was lucky. I thought I was blessed. How many guys get to reconnect with the girl they used to dream of? The answer’s easy. None.
I replay our night on the bridge… and the homemade photo she made of us… and how she understood me in a way that Iris never did. I try to tell myself how stupid and cliché and dumb every precious moment was—but the toughest truth, as the bitter pain in my belly tells me, is how bad I still want every damn second of it to be real.
Still running on toothpicks, I tear as hard as I can, putting as much space between myself and the building as possible. My stomach nearly bursts, feeling like a rolled-over carcass. How could she do this to me?
“Beecher, are you—?”
“I-I saw him,” I tell Dallas.
“Nico?”
“No. I saw him. He’s here. I saw Eightball!”
“What’re you talking about?”
“He’s alive. We assumed he was dead—that Wallace killed him all those years ago—but he’s—” At the top of the hill, the path dumps me back in the parking lot that sits right across from Nico’s home building. Within seconds, I beeline for Dallas’s old Toyota and fish the keys from my pocket. “Don’t you see, Dallas? We were right—about Eightball… and the blackmail… That’s what they were doing. That’s how they found out what happened all those years ago,” I add as I whip open the car door and slide into the front seat. “Maybe they found Eightball… or Eightball whispered it—either way, they used that to blackmail—”
“I think it’d be best if you put down the phone now,” a soft gentlemanly voice suggests from the backseat.
“Whatthef—!” I jump so high, my head slams into the roof.
“I also highly recommend not turning around,” the man warns. “I see what you’re doing,” he adds as we lock eyes in the mirror. He’s an older black man with silver hair and a matching silver mustache. “I’m begging you, Beecher—this is the time when you want to use that big brain of yours. Now please… put the phone down, and put your hands on the steering wheel.”
His voice is kind, almost soothing. But there’s no mistaking the threat, especially as I spot his shiny silver weapon just above the back of my headrest.
At first, I assume it’s a gun. It’s not.
It’s a straight-edge razor.
* * *
91
Twenty-six years ago
Journey, Ohio
Up here… left up here!” the kid with the tight curly hair—the one called Palmiotti—insisted, sitting in the passenger seat and pointing out the front windshield of the young barber’s white van.
“The hospital’s to the right!” Laurent shouted, refusing to turn the wheel.
“No… go to the other hospital—Memorial. Stay left!” Palmiotti yelled.
“Memorial’s twenty minutes from here!” Laurent shot back. “You see how he’s bleeding?”
Behind them, in the back of the van, Orson Wallace was down on his knees, cradling the head of the unconscious kid with the eight-ball tattoo, trying to stop the bleeding by tightly holding towels from the barbershop against his head.
An hour ago, Wallace threw the first punch. And the second. He would’ve thrown the third too, but Eightball got lucky, knocking the wind out of Wallace’s stomach. That’s when Palmiotti jumped in, gripping Eightball in a tight headlock and holding him still as Wallace showed him the real damage you can do when, in a moment of vengeful anger, you stuff your car keys between your knuckles and stab someone in the face.
Years later, Wallace would tell himself he used the keys because of what Eightball did to Minnie.
It wasn’t true.
Wallace was just pissed that Eightball hit him back.
“He’s not moving anymore,” Wallace’s sister whispered from the back corner of the van. She was down on her knees too, but just like in the barbershop, she wouldn’t get close to the body. “He was moving before and now he’s not.”
“He’s breathing! I see him breathing!” Wallace shouted. “Stewie, get us to Memorial!”
Palmiotti turned to the barber. His voice was slow and measured, giving each syllable