Page 96 of I Will Find You

“It’s better we talk in person, don’t you think?”

She did.

“And it will be so good to see you, Rachel.”

“It will be good to see you too,” she said.

“Toro,” he said again. “One hour.”

“I’ll see you there.”

***

I don’t like the setup at Pop’s Garage.

I don’t like it at all.

I am driving the purportedly untraceable car Rachel drove up to Revere. I grabbed one of Dougie’s baseball caps and a pair of his Ray-Bans, and while I’m not totally disguised, I don’t think the police will set up a roadblock between Revere and Malden. If they know I’m here, I am assuming they somehow tracked me coming in on the train. They are not going to suspect that I was able to secure a vehicle. Or maybe they would. Either way, I have to take risks, but this one seems pretty calculated.

Hunting Street is a bizarre blend of residential homes and car mechanics on the border of the town center. Pop’s Garage is jammed between Al’s Auto Center and Garcia Auto Repair and across the street from Malden’s Body Work and Repair. I am, of course, on the lookout for cops or vans or anything suspicious. But there is nothing and no one on this normally congested thoroughfare—and that is what is making me suspicious.

Al’s appears closed. So are Garcia’s and Malden’s. They aren’t just quiet. They are shut down, shades pulled, lights out, no movement.

I don’t like that.

Only one person is visible. A man in a blue work coverall with a name I can’t make out stenciled in script on the chest waves at me. He motions toward the one open garage bay like one of those guys at the airport who direct the pilot in and out of the gate. I make the turn off Hunting Street into Pop’s. The opening looks wide, dark, cavernous, as though it may swallow me whole.

I hesitate, staring into the garage’s mouth, when Skunk emerges from the darkness like some horror film ghost rising from the grave.

He is pale. The hair is slicked back and oily. The forelock seems more pronounced than ever. Skunk smiles at me, and I feel the chill run down my spine. He hasn’t aged much if at all. His suit is too shiny and glistens in the morning sun. He steps to the side and beckons me to enter.

Do I have a choice?

I pull in with Skunk leading the way. He is signaling me to keep coming forward. At some point he gestures for me to slow down and then brake. I do. I am inside the garage now, the door sliding closed behind me.

There are just the two of us.

I step out of the car.

Skunk comes up to me with a big smile.

“Davey!”

He embraces me, the third person to do that today and in the past five years. This embrace offers no comfort or warmth, just hard edges; it’s like being hugged by a coffee table. He reeks of cheap European cologne. I have smelled some awful things in the prison, but this nearly makes me gag.

“Davey,” he says again, pulling back. “You look well.”

“You too, Kyle.”

“I’m sorry about this,” he says.

And then he punches me hard in the stomach.

It is a total sucker punch, but I saw it coming. One of the great lessons of prison: You learn to always be on guard. That lesson gets honed every single day. In Briggs, you revert to primitive man, always wary, always prepared. When I was in high school, I played attack on the lacrosse team. My coach would consistently scream out, “Head on a swivel!” which means keep looking for someone blindsiding you. That becomes your life in prison.

I shift a little and tighten my abdomen. The blow still lands but not where it does me much damage. His knuckles graze my hip bone, and I bet that hurts him more than me. I react on instinct, even as some other part of me is saying to back off, that I can’t seriously hurt him, that I need him to get the information on Hilde Winslow.

But the hell with that.

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