Read Chapter 20: The Escape

The alley behind Federal Trust stank of wet cardboard and rat piss. Walter pressed his back against the brick wall, sucking air in ragged gulps, the document folder pressed flat against his chest like a second skin. His hands shook. They had been shaking since the shot.

“Move,” Roy hissed, grabbing his elbow. “Not here. Not yet.”

The Packard sat three blocks east, parked behind a shuttered tailor’s shop. Walter’s legs carried him without permission. His mind was a fractured pane of glass—Doc’s cry, the guard’s body crumpling, the red bloom spreading across Doc’s white shirt. Jack had pulled the trigger on the guard, but Doc had taken the bullet meant for Jack. Walter had seen it happen in the half-second before the security panel sparked and the private safe clicked open.

Sal drove. His knuckles were white on the wheel, his eyes darting to every mirror. Jack sat in the back with Doc, pressing a wadded suit jacket against the wound. Doc’s face was the color of old newspaper.

“Where?” Sal said.

“The warehouse on Fulton,” Roy said. “The one with the rusted sign. Go around the back.”

Walter didn’t remember the drive. He remembered Doc’s breathing—wet, labored, each exhale a small apology. He remembered the folder in his hands, the weight of it, the way it seemed to grow hotter with every block.

The warehouse was a hollow cavern of dust and broken crates. Sal killed the engine. They dragged Doc inside through a loading door that screamed on its hinges. Roy produced a flashlight from his coat, and its beam carved a weak circle in the dark.

“Get him on that table,” Walter said. His own voice sounded strange to him, like a radio broadcast from another room.

They laid Doc across a splintered workbench. His jacket was soaked through, the fabric clinging to his side in a dark, wet hug. Walter tore it open. The bullet had entered below the ribs, high on the left. The wound bubbled slightly with each breath. That meant lung. That meant time was not their friend.

“I need hot water,” Walter said. “Clean rags. Alcohol if you have it. And I need someone to hold the flashlight steady.”

Jack stared at him. “You a doctor now?”

“I was an accountant,” Walter said. “But I spent four years in a field hospital in France. I’ve seen more gunshot wounds than you’ve seen payroll checks.” He looked at Roy. “The water. Now.”

Roy nodded and swept out with Sal. Jack stayed, holding the flashlight with trembling hands.

“You’re shaking,” Walter said.

“I just killed a man.”

“You did what needed doing.” Walter pressed his fingers around the wound, feeling for the bullet’s path. Doc gasped, a sound like tearing paper. “Hold him down.”

Jack’s free hand pressed Doc’s shoulder to the table. Walter worked. His fingers remembered things his mind had tried to bury—the slick of blood, the resistance of tissue, the small, terrible moment when you found the thing you were looking for. The bullet was shallow, stopped by a rib. He dug it out with a bent spoon that Sal had found in the office of the warehouse’s former tenant. Doc screamed into his own clenched teeth.

By the time Roy returned with a kettle of warm water and a bottle of rye whiskey, Walter had the wound packed and bound with strips torn from his own shirt. Doc’s breathing had evened, just slightly. The color was still wrong in his face, but the bleeding had slowed.

Walter poured whiskey over his hands, then over the wound itself. Doc’s eyes fluttered open.

“You’re alive,” Walter said.

“That’s a matter of opinion.” Doc’s voice was a croak. He tried to smile, and the effort cost him.

Roy set the kettle down. “How bad?”

“He’ll live,” Walter said. “If infection doesn’t set in. And if we can get him to a real doctor without raising questions.” He looked at Doc. “You’re lucky I was an indifferent accountant and a passable medic.”

Doc laughed, then winced. “Lucky. That’s a word I haven’t used in years.”

The others drifted away to secure the building and count the take. They had the document—that was the thing. The folder was still pressed against Walter’s chest. He slid it out now, holding it like a fragile thing. The wax seal of the Federal Trust auditor’s office was still intact. He had not opened it. He had not even looked at it.

Doc’s eyes found the folder. “It’s more than we thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“The names.” Doc coughed, a wet sound. “When I was in the vault, I saw a draft of the cover letter on DeVries’s desk. He didn’t bother to lock it away. Arrogant bastard.” He paused, breathing carefully. “The list goes further than the boardroom. It goes to Washington.”

Walter’s blood went cold. “Washington.”

“Bank examiners. Treasury officials. Men who sign laws.” Doc’s hand found Walter’s wrist, and his grip was surprisingly strong. “I was a soldier, Walter. I know what it means when paperwork reaches that high. It means the whole machine is rotten.”

“You were a soldier,” Walter said slowly. “Not a doctor or a locksmith or whatever else you’ve claimed.”

Doc’s mouth curved into something that was almost a smile. “I never claimed to be a locksmith. Jack did that. I just never corrected him.” He coughed again. “I was a sergeant in the 1st Infantry. Saw action in the Argonne. Came home, couldn’t find work, couldn’t keep a wife, couldn’t keep a roof over my head. So I started taking things that didn’t belong to me. It was the first honest work I ever did.”

“You said you were a deserter.”

“I said that?” Doc’s eyes drifted. “Maybe I did. It’s easier than the truth.”

“Which is?”

Doc was quiet for a long moment. The warehouse creaked around them. Rain had started to fall, and it drummed on the tin roof like a thousand small fingers.

“The Army didn’t discharge me,” Doc said. “I walked away. Not because I was a coward. Because I saw what the brass were doing. The officers who gave orders from the rear. The munitions contracts that went to their cousins. The men who died so that other men could get rich.” He gripped Walter’s wrist tighter. “I walked away from a war that was never about anything but money. And here I am, ten years later, bleeding on a table in a warehouse. Still fighting the same war.”

Walter sat back on his heels. The candlelight from Roy’s lantern carved deep shadows in Doc’s face. This man had been dying on a table minutes ago, and now he was confessing sins Walter hadn’t even thought to ask about.

“Why are you telling me this?” Walter said.

“Because you’re the only one who asked.” Doc’s eyes closed. “And because when a man saves your life, you owe him the truth. Even if it isn’t pretty.”

Walter looked down at the folder in his hands. The names inside it. The names in Washington. He thought of his own bank, the one that had failed, the one that had taken everything from him. He thought of the men who had signed the orders, who had sat in glass offices and watched the country burn while they counted their profits.

He thought of Edward Westlake, his old colleague, who had almost recognized him tonight. Edward had been a decent man once. Maybe he still was. Maybe that was why Walter had avoided him in the hallway. He didn’t want to find out that decency could be purchased and sold like everything else.

Roy appeared from the shadows. “We need to move. The police will be crawling over Federal Trust by now. Someone will have heard the shot.”

Walter nodded. He tucked the folder into his coat. “Where do we go?”

“There’s a safehouse in Cicero. Doc’s old place.” Roy glanced at Doc’s pale face. “Assuming he can travel.”

“He can’t,” Walter said. “Not far. Not tonight.”

“Then we wait until dawn and move him at first light.” Roy crouched beside them, lowering his voice. “But we need to talk about what’s in that folder. About what we do with it.”

Walter looked at the folder. Then he looked at Doc, whose breathing had become a soft, rhythmic rasp. Then he looked at Roy, whose eyes were dark and unreadable in the lantern light.

“We read it first,” Walter said. “Then we decide.”

“And if it says what Doc thinks it says?”

“Then we’ve got something worth more than any vault of cash.” Walter felt the weight of the words as he said them. “We’ve got the truth. And everyone in Washington is going to want to buy it—or bury it.”

Rain hammered the roof. Somewhere in the dark, a cat yowled. Doc slept. Roy watched Walter with an expression that could have been respect or could have been calculation. In the flickering light, Walter couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

He held the folder against his chest and felt the warmth of his own blood through his shirt. He thought about his daughter’s letter, burned to forge the invitation. He thought about the names in Washington. He thought about the long road that had brought him here, to this dark warehouse, to this bleeding man, to this moment where the whole country’s rotten heart was pressed against his ribs.

He did not know yet that his own bank was on the list. He did not know that Arthur Phelps was named as an accomplice. He only knew that the folder was heavy, and the night was long, and somewhere in the distance, a siren rose and fell and faded like a question no one wanted to answer.