The Chevy Cavalier died at the intersection of Route 9 and County Road 12, and Marcus Webb knew it was some kind of sign. The engine coughed twice, shuddered like a sick dog, and then gave up entirely. Steam rose from under the hood in thin white ribbons that dissolved into the October night.
He sat there for a long moment, hands still gripping the wheel, staring at the red glow of the traffic light swinging in the wind. It was 2:47 AM according to the dashboard clock, though that thing had been running fast for three months now. Could have been 2:30. Could have been 3:00. Didn’t much matter.
What mattered was that he had $47,000 in a duffel bag on the back seat and two dead men in a storage unit fourteen miles behind him.
Marcus got out of the car. The October air hit him like cold water, and he sucked in a breath that tasted like woodsmoke and dying leaves. Out here, twenty miles from the city, you could still see stars. He hadn’t seen stars in years. Growing up in Cleveland, working the docks, running with Carmine’s crew. Stars were for other people. Stars were for people who had time to look up.
He popped the hood and looked at the engine without really seeing it. What was he going to do, fix it? He didn’t know a carburetor from a catalytic converter. He’d been a numbers guy. That’s what Carmine always said. “Marcus, you’re my numbers guy. You make things add up.” And he had. For twelve years, he’d made things add up. Made the books look clean. Made the money disappear into legitimate businesses and reappear washed and pressed like Sunday laundry.
Then Tommy Pescatore had to go and get greedy.
The traffic light changed from red to green. There was no one else on the road. The light was performing for an audience of one, and Marcus watched it cycle through yellow to red again. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Once, twice, then silence.
He walked to the back of the car and opened the door, pulling out the duffel bag. It was heavy. Forty-seven thousand dollars in mixed bills weighs about four pounds, but this felt heavier. This felt like it weighed a hundred years.
Marcus slung the bag over his shoulder and looked at the intersection. Four roads. Four choices. Behind him was Cleveland and Carmine and whatever was left of his old life, which wasn’t much. Carmine would have found Tommy and Rico by now. Would have found the mess Marcus left in that storage unit. Would be asking questions.
To the north, the road climbed into darkness. Some small town up there, he remembered from the map. Brickton or Bridgeton or something like that. Farms and churches and people who didn’t ask questions about strangers passing through.
To the south, the road ran toward Columbus. Big city. Easy to disappear in a big city. Find a room, find a job, keep his head down. He’d done it before.
And to the west, County Road 12 stretched into nothing. Just fields and woods and whatever lay beyond.
Marcus started walking west.
He didn’t know why. His feet made the decision before his brain caught up, and by the time he thought about turning around, he was already fifty yards from the dead Cavalier. The duffel bag bounced against his hip with every step. The road was cracked and potholed, the kind of county maintenance that happened every decade whether it needed it or not.
He thought about Tommy as he walked. Tommy with his gold chains and his slicked-back hair and his constant schemes. “Marcus, I got a thing. A sure thing.” How many times had he heard that? And Marcus always nodded, always ran the numbers, always told Tommy why his sure thing was actually a quick way to end up in a shallow grave.
But this last time, Tommy hadn’t listened. This last time, Tommy had gone behind Carmine’s back, skimmed from the casino take, and tried to set up his own operation. Brought in Rico DelVecchio as muscle. Rico, who was dumber than a bag of hammers but loyal as a dog. Loyal to whoever was paying, anyway.
Carmine found out. Carmine always found out. And Carmine came to Marcus.
“You’re my numbers guy,” Carmine had said, sitting in that booth at Martinelli’s, twirling spaghetti around his fork like he was discussing the weather. “You’re gonna fix this.”
“How do you want me to fix it?”
Carmine had looked at him with those dead shark eyes. “Tommy’s got my money. Rico’s got a gun. You’re gonna get my money, and you’re gonna make sure Tommy and Rico don’t become a problem. You do that, we’re square. You don’t do that…” He shrugged. “Well. You know how it goes.”
Marcus knew how it went. He’d seen how it went three times in twelve years. He’d helped bury how it went.
So he’d set up a meeting. Told Tommy he wanted in. Told him he could cook the books, make it look like the skim was going somewhere else, buy them time to build up the operation. Tommy bought it. Tommy always bought it because Tommy always thought he was the smartest guy in the room.
They met at the storage unit. Tommy, Rico, and Marcus. Three men and a duffel bag full of Carmine’s money. Marcus had brought a gun. He’d never fired a gun before, not once in his life, but he’d brought one anyway.
He didn’t remember much about what happened next. It came in flashes. Tommy’s face when he realized something was wrong. Rico reaching for his piece. The sound of the shots, impossibly loud in that concrete box. The smell of cordite and copper. And then silence, and two bodies on the floor, and Marcus standing there with a smoking gun in his hand, wondering who the hell he’d become.
He took the money. Left the gun. Got in his car and drove.
That was four hours ago. Four hours and two dead men and $47,000, and now here he was, walking down a dark road toward nothing, and the thing was, he felt calm. Calmer than he’d felt in years. Maybe ever.
A light appeared ahead. Marcus squinted. It was a building, set back from the road. A bar or a diner or something, a low wooden structure with a neon sign buzzing in the window. As he got closer, he could read it: LAST STOP. Real subtle.
He pushed through the door. The place was nearly empty. A jukebox in the corner played something by Johnny Cash. A woman sat at the bar nursing a drink that looked like whiskey. The bartender was a big man with a shaved head and tattoos crawling up both arms.
“Kitchen’s closed,” the bartender said.
“Just need a drink.” Marcus took a stool at the end of the bar, setting the duffel bag on the floor between his feet. “Whiskey. Whatever you got.”
The bartender poured two fingers of something brown and slid it across. “Long night?”
“You could say that.”
The woman at the bar turned to look at him. She was maybe forty, with dark hair and lines around her eyes that spoke of hard living. Pretty once, and still holding onto some of it. “Car trouble?”
“How’d you know?”
She smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile. “Everybody who walks in here this time of night has car trouble. That’s why they call it the Last Stop.”
Marcus sipped his whiskey. It burned going down, and he welcomed it. “What’s your story?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Everybody has one.”
She considered this. “Used to be married. Used to live in Pittsburgh. Used to have a house with a yard and a dog named Charlie.” She shrugged. “Now I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“I made choices.” She drained her drink and signaled for another. “That’s what happens. You make choices, and then you live with them, and then one day you end up in a bar called the Last Stop talking to strangers at three in the morning.”
The bartender refilled her glass without a word. The jukebox clicked and whirred, and a new song started. Something old. Something sad.
Marcus looked at the duffel bag. $47,000. Enough to disappear. Enough to start over. But start over as what? He was forty-two years old. He’d spent his whole adult life making numbers add up for bad people. What else did he know how to do?
“You look like a man at a crossroads,” the woman said.
“That’s funny.”
“What’s funny about it?”
“My car died at a crossroads. Literally. Intersection of Route 9 and County Road 12.”
She raised her glass. “Then I guess you’re in the right place.”
The door opened behind them. Marcus didn’t turn around, but he watched the bartender’s face. Watched it go carefully blank. Watched the woman’s eyes flick to the mirror behind the bar and then back to her drink.
“Marcus Webb.”
The voice was familiar. Marcus closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. Then he turned around.
Carmine Deluca stood in the doorway. He was wearing a long coat despite the weather, and his hands were in his pockets. Behind him, two men Marcus didn’t recognize flanked the door like bookends.
“You found me fast,” Marcus said.
“We put a tracker in the car six months ago. You think I don’t track my investments?” Carmine walked forward slowly. “You did good work on Tommy and Rico. Clean. Professional. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Neither did I.”
“But then you took my money.” Carmine stopped five feet away. “That was stupid, Marcus. That was real stupid.”
“I know.”
“So why’d you do it?”
Marcus thought about it. The whiskey was warm in his belly, and the jukebox was playing something about highways and heartbreak, and through the window he could see the first gray light of dawn touching the horizon.
“Because I’m tired,” he said finally. “Twelve years, Carmine. Twelve years of making things add up for you. Twelve years of knowing where the bodies are buried. Literally. You were never gonna let me walk away. We both know that.”
Carmine’s expression didn’t change. “So this is, what? Your retirement plan?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s not a very good plan.”
“No. I guess it’s not.”
They stood there, the two of them, while the jukebox played and the dawn crept closer. The woman at the bar hadn’t moved. The bartender had his hands below the counter, probably on a shotgun, probably not planning to use it either way.
Carmine sighed. “You know what your problem is, Marcus? You always thought you were different. You thought because you didn’t pull triggers, because you just moved numbers around, you weren’t really part of it. But you were. You were part of it from day one.”
“I know that now.”
“Little late.”
“Yeah.” Marcus looked at the duffel bag, then back at Carmine. “You can have the money. It’s all there. I didn’t spend any of it.”
“I’m gonna take the money anyway.”
“I know.”
Carmine studied him for a long moment. Something flickered in those shark eyes. Something that might have been respect or might have been pity. Hard to tell with Carmine.
“You got family, Marcus?”
“No.”
“Anyone who’s gonna miss you?”
Marcus thought about it. Really thought. “No.”
“That’s sad.” Carmine pulled his hands from his pockets. They were empty. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna give me the bag. You’re gonna walk out that door. And you’re gonna keep walking. I don’t care where. Mexico. Canada. Mars. But if I ever see you again, if you ever come within a hundred miles of Cleveland, I’m gonna finish what Tommy started.”
Marcus blinked. “You’re letting me go?”
“Twelve years. You earned that much.” Carmine picked up the duffel bag. “But don’t mistake this for mercy. This is business. Dead accountants can’t testify, but they also can’t be useful later. You never know. Maybe someday I’ll need someone to make things add up again.”
He walked out. His men followed. A moment later, Marcus heard car engines start and fade into the distance.
The bartender let out a long breath and brought his hands above the counter. They were shaking.
“Jesus Christ,” the woman said. “You got any idea how lucky you are?”
Marcus looked at her. He looked at the bartender. He looked out the window at the morning light spreading across the fields.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think I do.”
He finished his whiskey, left a twenty on the bar, and walked out into the dawn. County Road 12 stretched ahead of him, empty and waiting. He didn’t know where it led. Didn’t know what came next. He was forty-two years old with no money, no car, and no plan.
But for the first time in twelve years, he was free.
He started walking.