“For what it’s worth,” Finch said into the aching silence on the com, “I think I know what Clay is doing with all the money he steals.”
“Do tell,” Reese answered. His voice had the slow, deep edge that it got when he was ready to fight.
“Remember I told you his parents were barely holding on to the house? I assumed they were living off their savings, perhaps borrowing money from friends or relatives. Mrs. Clay has made been making her mortgage payments for more than a year using money orders. Which she’s purchasing with cash. And she receives a Fedex envelope almost every week. Shipped from various walk-in stores throughout New York City.”
“He’s sending the money home?” John asked.
“It looks that way. He has three younger brothers. He may have been reluctant to see them become homeless.”
“No legal way for a teenager to make enough money to cover a mortgage,” Reese sighed, “so he found an illegal way.”
“And Lis came to take care of him so he could take care of them,” Christine added. “Damn it, please don’t tell me I have to start liking this idiot now.”
“Well, he’s still an idiot,” Reese consoled her.
“Just an idiot with a big heart,” Finch finished for him.
The woman growled. “Damn it.”
“Let’s see if we can our idiot back,” Reese said grimly.
***
For a mobster, Leonardo Torres wasn’t particularly cautious. He walked into the alley with his hands empty, and though he looked around, he didn’t spot the man in the shadows.
Reese simply stepped out and put his gun against the man’s head. “Devin couldn’t make it,” he said.
Torres put his hands out in front of him, palms up. “Don’t want no trouble here, friend.”
“I’m not your friend,” Reese growled. He took the man’s gun and tucked it into his own belt. Then he ran his hands down both legs until he found the other gun in the ankle holster and took that one, too. “You’re going to show me where Aldo Rossi has Edward Clay.” He also took the man’s cell phone.
“Who?”
“Cash.”
“Oh.” This news did not seem to upset the mobster very much. “Yeah, sure. I’ll tell you where they went.”
“No,” Reese corrected, “you’ll show me where they went.”
“Fine, fine.”
It was too easy, John thought. Obviously the man thought Rossi and his men could overpower him once he got there. Reese was willing to take that bet.
He slapped his ” Stills’ ” handcuffs on the man and marched him back to his ” Christine’s ” car. As he slid behind the wheel, he looked over at the man.
Torres looked so smug that Reese wanted to punch him right there. But he needed him conscious. Later, he promised himself. He smiled at the mobster. Torres smiled back. “Where to?”
***
Eventually Lis stopped crying and curled up on the couch next to Christine. “John can get him back, right?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that? You’re that sure?”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t we … I mean, we could go help somehow … “
“No.”
“But why?”
“Because the very last thing John Reese needs right now is you, or me, jostling his elbow while he’s working. Just wait.”
“I hate waiting.”
“I know.” Christine stroked the girl’s hair as if she were a child. It seemed to comfort her. “You knew where the money was going, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell us?”
Lis teared up again. “Eddie made me promise. He said nobody could know.”
The girl had stopped calling him Cash, Christine noted. It was all Eddie now. She wondered if that was a sign of progress. The romance of street life fading away in the girl’s mind. “His parents must know.”
“His mom does. Probably. His dad doesn’t. He’d have a fit. He’d never take the money.”
“Proud or just stubborn?”
“Both, I guess. Eddie wanted to quit school and get a job. His dad wouldn’t let him. They had these big screaming fights about it. But they were going to lose the house. Finally Eddie just left.” Lis sat up, wiped her eyes with her fist. “I wanted to come with him, when he first ran away, but he said I was too young. He made me wait until I was sixteen.” She pouted just a little. “I told you he loved me.”
Christine shook her head. “There were other options.”
The girl shook her head firmly. “I’m staying with him.”
“Hmmmm.”
“If we get him back,” Lis amended.
“We’ll get him back,” Christine assured her again.
***
Reese eyed the building critically. The windows were eight feet off the ground. The door was steel and had only a very small security window in it. There was no keypad in evidence. “Is there a back way?” he asked.
Torres shook his head.
Reese didn’t believe him. But both the town car and the SUV were parked in front of the building. Rossi’s only interest in Clay seemed to be revenge for whatever the kid had stolen from him. Now that he had him, there was no reason to keep him alive. The boy was probably running out of time.
He marched Torres to front door, took off his handcuffs, and stood to the side, out of sight, still with his gun aimed at his head. “Knock.”
Torres knocked.
The little security door opened. Torres smiled, showed his open hands. The main door opened.
Reese shoved Torres inside, pushing back the man who’d answered the door. He spun and hit Torres in the jaw. The man dropped. He flailed a little, but made no attempt to get up. The door guard came at Reese, and he dropped him with a combination.
He moved.
Three more men loitered outside what looked like an office. They had guns out by then. Reese fired first. He got one in the thigh, just above the knee. By then he was close enough to hit the second one in the head with his gun.
The third man was the one Reese had dropped in the butcher shop. He simply dropped his gun and ran, with an odd gait, slightly sideways. Concussion, John thought, and a bad one. He let him go.
The door of the office flew open and there were more men and more guns. But they were bunched up in the doorway, like fish in a barrel. John shot one in the leg, a second in the shoulder. He stepped in closer, kicked the gun away from the first man. The thug with the shoulder wound tried to raise his gun and simply couldn’t; Reese reached down and took it from him almost gently, then twisted his wrist until he heard it crack.
The man screamed. John ignored him; he had his hands full with the next two who squeezed out the door. He clipped the first one with the butt of his gun, threw an elbow back at the other, then turned, threw a right at his ribs and then a left at his face as he bent over. He went down. The first one came at Reese’s back. John grabbed his forearm and bent at the waist, throwing him against the doorframe and then letting him fall.
And then he moved into the office.
Aldo Rossi waited just inside, flat against the wall. He put his gun to Reese’s head as he cleared the doorway. “Drop it,” he said.
Reese straightened, both hands in front of him, and looked around. Edward Clay was in a chair against the wall, gagged and in zip ties. The boy’s eyes were huge and very frightened. He was bruised up. But he was alive.
Rossi jiggled his gun. “I said drop it.”
“What do you want with the boy, Aldo?” Reese asked.
“I said drop the gun!” The mobster’s voice took a thin high edge, verging on a scream.
Reese loosened his grip on the gun, let it swing by the trigger guard from his fingertips, then bent slightly to let it drop to the floor as gently as possible.
“Now move!” Rossi barked.
John turned his head and looked squarely at the mobster. He was surprised how young he was. And that there was fear visible in his eyes, too. He’s new to this, Reese thought suddenly. And he’s out of his league.He didn’t waste any time feeling sorry him. He turned his shoulders a little, but kept his hands out in front of him. Palms open. The sign of surrender, of peace-making. Of giving up.
Then he closed his fist and flashed it into Rossi’s nose.
The mobster did scream then as he dropped to the floor. Reese grabbed his arm and twisted until he released his gun. Then he let the man slump, with both hands covering his broken nose.
John collected all the guns. It was a pretty impressive collection. Then he moved over behind Clay, drew his knife and snapped off the zip ties. The boy reached up and took his gag out. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.
Reese cut his legs free. “I’m from Children’s Services,” he said.
“Really?”
“No. C’mon, let’s go.” He helped the boy up; Clay was a little unsteady, but he could walk. They moved to the door.
Torres waited outside.
Reese tensed, ready for one more round, but Torres made the same universal hands-empty gesture Reese had just used. “Don’t want no trouble with you,” he said. “Just take the boy and go.”
“You tell your boss,” Reese warned, “that if he comes near the boy again, I’ll come back. And if I have to come back there won’t be any survivors.”
“I believe you,” Torres said sincerely.
John moved past him, still half-supporting the boy.
“No survivors,” he heard Torres mutter.
Reese spun, raising his gun and shoving Clay to the ground at the same time. But Torres wasn’t there. A gunshot sounded inside the office. John hurried back to the doorway, and came face-to-face with him again. This time the man’s hands weren’t empty. He aimed his gun at John. John aimed his gun back at him.
They were barely two feet apart.
Reese glanced down. Aldo Rossi was clearly dead.
“Nothing personal,” Torres said. “But Rossi was an idiot. I needed to get rid of him.”
“And now you’ll have to get rid of me,” Reese guessed.
“That’s the plan.”
“You need a new plan.”
“No,” Torres said easily, “I think I’m good with this one.”
Clay screamed, “Behind you!”
Reese pivoted and fired at the thug who was coming up on him. The bullet hit him squarely in the chest. It was, John noted, the one who’d run away from him, the one with the concussion. That wouldn’t matter anymore. He wheeled back, leaned to his left to avoid the bullet he knew was coming, and fired at Torres.
When the echo died, so did the man.
Reese shook his head. Carter was not going to be happy about this. Maybe she wouldn’t know it was him.
He looked around at the wounded men. She was going to know.
He hauled Clay up from the floor and headed out.
***
Harold Finch watched and listened from a bench as the two women entered the park. Bear sat calm and alert at his feet. When they were past him, he stood up and followed quietly. Christine glanced at him, but her companion didn’t.
“I don’t see him,” Lis said anxiously, scanning the part for her boyfriend.
“They’ll be here,” Christine answered. She looked back at Finch. “And then you’ll have as long as it takes your parents to drive in from Connecticut to tell him goodbye.”
The teenager spun. “What?”
“Your parents are coming to get you,” Christine repeated. “You’re going home. Tonight.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not leaving Cash.”
Fitzgerald sighed patiently. “We’ve pushed through David Clay’s disability claim. Three years of back payments for the claim will be deposited in their bank account today, and then regular monthly payments will be sent. It’s not a lot, but it will let them keep the house and feed the kids. Eddie doesn’t need to send them money to support them anymore.”
Lis blinked at her. “But … I … I’m still staying with him. He needs me.”
“Nope. You’re going home, and going back to school.”
“You can’t make me.”
Finch moved closer. “We can, actually. We hope it won’t come to that.”
The girl looked at him, startled. She hadn’t even noticed him before. Her eyes flashed down to Bear, then came back up. “Who are you?”
“That’s not important. You will return to your parents’ home, and you will go back to high school.” He held a pamphlet out to her. “We’ve arranged for you to be part of the Young Artists Group through VSA. Every other Saturday you’ll come to the city and spend the day learning the art and business of photography with some of the top professionals in the field. If you wish to visit with Mr. Clay on those weekends, we have no particular objection.”
“What?”
“It’s a prestigious opportunity, and gives you the best chance at a scholarship. I urge you not to waste it.”
“You can’t make me go home. You can’t make me leave him.”
“Mr. Clay can also return home, if he wishes. If he remains in the city, we have arranged for him to be mentored by a man who’s been in a position similar to his. Mr. Robinson will help him acquire a job and a place to live, and make sure that he works toward obtaining his GED.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Lis insisted.
Finch sighed. He’d predicted that the teens would be difficult. He was prepared. “Those are the carrots, Miss Holland. This is the stick. If either you or Mr. Clay fail to comply with the terms we’ve set forth, Mr. Clay will be arrested and charged with multiple counts of theft, as well as with illegal sexual contact with a minor.”
“And enticing a minor to cross state lines for illicit sexual purposes,” Christine added.
Lis shook her head, almost smiled. “Uh-uh. You can’t do that. We looked it up. Age of consent is sixteen. And we didn’t do anything before my birthday.”
“Age of consent is sixteen in Connecticut,” Finch answered calmly. “In the State of New York the age of consent is seventeen.”
Christine said. “And thanks to your visit to the clinic, we can likely provide DNA evidence.”
“You bitch.”
“Your boyfriend, Miss Holland,” Finch said, “will be convicted as a child sexual predator.” It was a half-truth at best; given the closeness of their ages, Clay could likely only be charged with a misdemeanor. But the girl didn’t seem to know that, and he wasn’t about to enlighten her. “His life will be, for all practical purposes, over.”
“You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t dare.”
Finch glanced at the older woman. “Last time I crossed him,” Christine said, “I ended up in four-point restraints. Trust me, kid, he ain’t playin’.”
Harold cringed inwardly, but kept it carefully off his face. To Lis he had to remain unmoved, implacable.
The girl looked frightened, angry, confused. “But I love him!” she wailed.
“You can love him when you’re eighteen.” Finch answered. “But you’re not going to throw away your life to do it.”
“But …”
“You have a talent, Miss Holland,” he continued. “A gift. And it can take you anywhere you want to go, if you make the right choices. You can have everything you dream of.” He glanced at Christine again. “If you continue on your current path, that future will most certainly be lost. Your life will likely be short and brutal, and there’s a very good possibility you will die in the gutter. And we are not going to allow that.”
“But … but …”
“This isn’t a discussion,” Christine told her. “You’re going home. Tonight.”
The teenager gave up and wept.
“They’re here,” Finch said.
She turned. Reese and Clay were walking toward them from the far side of the park. Reese moved with his usual easy confidence. The boy seemed deflated, defeated. Evidently Reese had filled him in on his new romantic reality as well.
Lis started toward them. Christine grabbed her arm suddenly, stopped her. “That guy. Have you ever seen him before?”
Finch looked where she pointed. A massive older man was moving toward Reese and Clay with purposeful strides. “Christine?”
“John?” she called urgently. Reese’s head snapped up; he picked up her alarm through the earwig. “John, watch the …”
The big man pulled a gun and pointed it at Clay.
Reese pulled his own gun and pointed it at the big man.
Christine said, “Shit! Hold her.” She shoved Elisa toward Finch and then started toward the three men and two guns at a dead sprint.
“Christine!” Finch called after her.
“Eddie!” Lis screamed under his voice. She started off; Finch yanked her back. She turned and buried her face against his shoulder.
Bear growled. He wanted to go help, too. Finch uttered a quiet command, and the dog sat, intensely alert.
He put his arm around the girl, patted her shoulder gently. And watched.
There was nothing else he could do.
***
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