The Seventh Wave. Episodes 45, 46.

A double helping to make up for last week's silence... also, it turns out there will be 51 episodes in total, not 49. Just FYI.

Episode 45

And yes, the storm is coming. The wind is high, the clouds are racing, the beaches are closed, the rain is heavy, the sea is immense. But hurricanes… no need to panic. The last one had hit the city hard, true, but his Manhattan fortress had shrugged it off, and the power outages never got far enough uptown to shut them down, so they were fine, it really wasn’t a problem, except that downtown friends came and slept in their spare bedrooms and on the living-room furniture too. The Korean bodega on the corner hadn’t even closed. The owners had been indignant at the suggestion that they might shutter the store. “Close?” they cried, pronouncing the word as if it was unclean and needed to be held at a distance by the fingertips, like a dead rodent. “Oh, no! We not ‘close’!”

We not “close.” That was the New York way. He staggers out of bed and stands at his window looking out to sea and in his fevered condition he could be Lear mad upon the heath challenging the forces of nature to single combat. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks. You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world. You hear me, storm? We not “close.”

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Her fever is higher than his, her delirium more overwhelming.

If they are going to come, they will come tonight, at the height of the storm, she tells herself. Dirty weather for dirty deeds. As the light fades she stares down the lane, looking for headlights. If they turn the car lights off a hundred yards away and then crawl slowly up, she’ll know who they are. She has loaded the gun.

Who are these people? Big Mama is dead, also the Orphan and Jimmy Two Dinners. Who’s giving the orders? She has no idea. Somebody wants things tidied up.

It’s possible they won’t come. They don’t have the ease of movement, the protection from friendly law enforcement that they once had. She tries to persuade herself of this, but it isn’t working. She knows how this goes.

It isn’t their money, but it’s money.

She has one edge on the men who will come. They will be under instructions to take her alive, otherwise the money disappears for good. So they will be hampered in their efforts. Alive is not their M.O.; dead is preferred. They’re not so good at alive. She, however, faces no such restrictions. She’s free to deliver the kill shots.

How many will they send? She’s guessing four. Not more. Four, plus two drivers who will stay in the cars, ready for the exit. If they park down the lane, they are sitting ducks, even with the lights out. It’s a straight shot. And she can shoot straight.

Fuck them. She’s ready.

*

They are both lost in the movie now.