Burn this City by Aleksandr Voinov
2
Aweek after the wedding, Jack chose to take the long way around the bay. The silver-grey Porsche 718 Cayman handled like a dream even on wet leaves, and normally he’d have enjoyed taking the car out for a spin. Letting let the sound system blast every last thought from his mind for an unnecessary 45-minute detour through the forest was the closest he got to taking a vacation these days. But the album he’d been listening to had grated, so he now drove in silence, peering every now and then at the phone in its holder, half-worried he might be called back for something urgent.
Come to think of it, he’d lived the past few years like a top-rated neurosurgeon, always on call, never able to relax because things always deteriorated when he turned his back.
The darkness robbed him of the beautiful fall colors and the way the rust and yellows contrasted with the refreshing blue shades of the bay.
He thought he saw lights from some yachts further out, though this time of the year, the richest inhabitants of the bay were beginning to decamp to their winter haunts of the Caribbean or St. Moritz. Besides the asphalt in front of him and a glimpse of a lighter darkness between the trees, his only company was the headlights following in his wake, though not close enough to blind him. Mauro had no reason to trail him that closely—if this trip had been dangerous enough to justify somebody hugging his rear tires, he would have had Mauro sit right next to him, riding shotgun.
Mauro was one of the soldiers who provided Jack’s personal security whenever necessary. Seemed he was concerned enough about the risk of an ambush and the relatively remote location of Jack’s house up in the hills to insist on following him and checking on the house.
Earlier this day, during their catch-up, Andrea had been very relaxed about the missing Dommarco associate, which made Jack believe that his boss really knew nothing about the matter, and also that he didn’t understand its significance. Had it been otherwise, Andrea would have been angrier and more accusatory.
“Maybe he’s just fucked off to Vegas for a week, how’s that my problem?”
Jack drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel, both impatient to arrive at the house and not quite willing to face the consequences of the decisions he needed to make. It was almost midnight, and Jack couldn’t wait to get to the house and rest. Back in town, Andrea would obviously be still awake for a few more hours. The man rarely went to bed before three in the morning and didn’t rise before noon. Jack guessed that worked for some if they were still in their thirties. By now, Andrea should have adapted his lifestyle to fit his family’s, after all, he was married and had two children under the age of five, but Jack could imagine how any such suggestion would be taken. Whether Petra had tried to rein him in or not, Andrea kept up his wild bachelor lifestyle and assumed that everybody did the same.
But Jack had just turned 45, and he required the assistance of very serious quantities of espresso to keep up with Andrea’s schedule, even if he managed to hide it. Andrea would consider it a sign of weakness.
He shook his head and stared at the street ahead. Some turns in this part of the drive required attention, and while the darkness allowed him to spot cars coming from the other direction from miles away, he didn’t want to hit a deer or other large animal. At least this last bit of the climb up into the hills felt more familiar. Forest at night was always the same, and the drive had stretched out much longer than he’d expected or even had been emotionally prepared for. He’d planned to come up with a solution on the way, but his thoughts were a jumbled mess that he couldn’t untangle while focused on night driving.
The gate opened and let both the Porsche and Mauro’s Beemer in. Another very short and much slower drive, and he parked the car at the side of the house. He couldn’t wait to get inside—the angular shapes beyond the trees looked like a friendly fortress now.
The Beemer’s tires crunched gravel as Mauro drove up close enough that Jack could have touched the car without extending his hand much. The window buzzed down. “Need a hand?”
Jack scoffed and opened the Porsche’s trunk. “I’ll manage.” What clothes he needed fit snugly into his overnight bag, along with his laptop.
“All right,” Mauro drawled and killed the engine. “Just a quick check.”
“Sure.” Jack led the way, unlocked the door and deactivated the alarm. He dropped his bags on the chair next to the fireplace and busied himself with starting a fire, while he listened to Mauro moving through the house, opening cupboards and doors. Since the house was almost an open floorplan with plenty of large windows and thus reflections, he didn’t even have to pay attention to know exactly where the soldier was.
Mauro returned. “Right, looks clean. Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
Jack raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “I packed enough socks, the bar is filled up, and Gino’s has delivered enough food to survive here for a couple of weeks.” He looked around demonstratively. “I’ll be fine.”
“You know the boss would prefer me staying here.”
“He also prefers blondes, and yet …” Jack smiled at Mauro’s beginning smirk. “Listen, you go home to Hannah. I’ll call if I need a pick-up or anything more dramatic happens than me running out of pasta. Which is unlikely. You know Gino’s.”
Mauro still didn’t seem convinced, so Jack shed his jacket and patted the gun holstered at his belt. “I can look after myself.”
It wasn’t like they were on enemy turf. This was one of the smaller villas up in the hills, and he was so rarely here he’d be astonished if anybody targeted him. He fully expected to go in a more traditional drive-by shooting, unless he returned to Memorial Bridge one night and ended things himself. But Mauro didn’t need to know any of this.
Mauro held his gaze for a couple of moments, then glanced toward the kitchen. “Gino’s, eh?”
“Definitely Gino’s,” Jack confirmed. “I’m taking a break, not starting a diet.”
“Good on you. And you’ll call?” Mauro looked around, as if checking whether he’d looked into all the rooms and corners, but the way his weight shifted betrayed that Jack had won the argument. Nobody was eager to pull boring guard duty when he could hang out with his crew or sleep next to his wife. This place offered solace to somebody like Jack, but the same peace and quiet held no appeal to somebody like Mauro.
“I’ll call.” He wasn’t going to add “I promise”—they weren’t that familiar with each other, and ultimately Jack was under no obligation to reassure a soldier. His aim was to get him out the door without worrying him too much. He’d struggled so hard to get the time away from the bustle of Port Francis, and constantly awaiting Andrea’s pleasure, and all those late-night phone calls. He needed this to clear his head and so Mauro needed to get the hell out.
“Well, I guess.” Mauro shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Nobody knows you’re here.”
“That too.”
And that was how he liked it. Andrea knew. A faceless housekeeper knew. After all, she’d taken delivery of the restaurant food, checked there was wood for the fire, and that all bed clothes and towels were fresh. But, to her, Jack was nothing but a rich guy from the city who wanted his vacation home ready for a few days. There were dozens like him with houses like this scattered around the hills. His name had never been mentioned, and a totally legitimate company was listed as the owner. Ah, anonymity. Priceless.
He stood and subtly herded Mauro back toward the front door. “Thanks, I’ll let you out.”
“All right.” Mauro nodded. “Have a good break.”
Jack breathed a sigh of relief when Mauro left. On the security screen, he followed the soldier’s progress down the natural stone path winding past manicured shrubs. Mauro was still watchfully gazing left and right until he’d reached the Beemer. On cue, Jack opened and then closed the gate for the car and then sagged against the wall in the corridor as if he’d sprinted a dozen miles without warm-up.
Restlessly, he walked through the house—it only had two floors. When he’d first bought the place three years ago, he’d briefly considered replacing the ornamental wall with its open doorway with a solid wall and door to add privacy for the downstairs master bedroom, but he’d decided against it. The house had never been meant to be shared. He wasn’t going to entertain anybody here, and he’d never had any use for the guest bedroom upstairs.
After he’d locked away his gun in the safe, he hung up the few clothes he’d brought in the spacious walk-in closet. Jack kept a few shirts and suits hanging, plus some workout clothes folded neatly on shelves, mostly so it felt less like an empty design hotel suite, but with little effect. Now he added the light woolen coat he’d worn to that collection. The architect had clearly intended for a couple to have plenty of space for their clothes, and Jack’s five suits, ten shirts, and three pairs of shoes drove home how poorly they filled it. Whoever had built the shelves had anticipated handbags, many more shoes, jewelry, suitcases and ties, and all the other stuff that accumulated over the years.
Jack placed his current book on the nightstand, then walked around the corner to the bathroom to drop off his toiletry bag. As much as the large shower beckoned, he ignored it for now—the thought of stepping out of steamy warmth onto cold stone with bare feet made him shudder. He switched on the underfloor heating so he could enjoy a long shower later to beat the lingering tension out of his muscles.
Upstairs, he placed his laptop on the large empty desk and plugged it in for tomorrow’s hard workday, though he’d likely get distracted by what the estate agent had called “his one-million-dollar view”—well, make that two million—over the flank of the hill and out to the ocean. As stunning as it was, he preferred the view from the living room, down the hill and over the bay. The house was mostly glass with a few wood and natural stone walls, but its real value was in the fact that it was also completely private. No neighbors could peer into his windows, and likewise he didn’t even catch a glimpse of other people’s properties. Unlike the other side of the bay, this area hadn’t been ruined with development, and further construction had been banned, adding another cool half million to the value of the house.
Of course, in deepest darkness, none of the views mattered. On a clear night, the landscape could be downright magical, especially when a full moon poured a silver pathway across the bay and the trees cast dark blue shadows. No moon tonight, though.
He still switched off all the lights, opened the double doors of the living rooms and stepped out into the night to enjoy the quiet, deeply breathing in the clean air that held a promise of fall. The season was about to turn, teetering between the overripe sluggishness of a radiant summer and the sobering chill of autumnal decay.
To his struggling peasant ancestors, fall had meant slaughter season, hunting season, with nature tightening the purse strings so only the strongest of her children would survive. They couldn’t have dreamed of the life he led now.
Ah, blessed silence. No phone calls, no people, just quiet hills, trees, sky, wind. Jack almost wished he were still a smoker to keep his hands busy and settle his nerves. Hell, in his youth he’d have added some weed to that, but these days marijuana only made him tired and hungry, and ultimately he could no longer afford the loss of control over his own thoughts. Better to stay in the here and now, settle into a kind of domestic vacation boredom that would be punctured with short bursts of intense work.
After the past week, that seemed like heaven. Only, of course, it couldn’t last. He had to come to some final decisions and make a phone call he didn’t want to make. But for today—and maybe even tomorrow, if he pushed it—he could still avoid it. He could still tell himself the same thing he’d told Andrea: that he needed the quiet so he could focus on reviewing the annual numbers.
He’d deal with the personal stuff after that.