He had excellent teeth.
“What’s this?” he said.
By way of answer, the Gray Man picked Declan up off his bed and slammed him against the adjacent window. The sound was curiously muffled; the loudest part of it was the boy’s breath bursting from him as his spine railed against the sill. But then he was back up and fighting. He wasn’t a shoddy boxer, and the Gray Man could tell that he expected this surprise to give him an advantage.
But the Gray Man had known before he arrived that Niall Lynch had taught his sons to box. The only thing the Gray Man’s father had taught him was how to pronounce trebuchet.
For a moment they fought. Declan was skilled, but the Gray Man was more so. He tossed the boy about his dorm room and used Declan’s shoulder to sweep awards and credit cards and car keys from the dresser. The thump of his head against a drawer was indistinguishable from the bass down the hall. Declan swung, missed. The Gray Man kicked Declan’s legs from beneath him, hurled him to the wall by the piece of furniture, and then approached for another round, pausing only to pick up a motorcycle helmet that had rolled into the middle of the floor.
With a sudden burst of speed, Declan used the dresser to haul himself up, then pulled a handgun from a drawer.
He pointed it at the Gray Man.
“Stop,” he said simply. He flicked off the safety.
The Gray Man had not expected this.
He stopped.
Several different emotions battled for precedence on Declan’s face, but shock was not one of them. It was clear the gun was not for the possibility of an attack; it was for the eventuality of one.
The Gray Man considered what it must’ve been like to live like that, always waiting for your door to be kicked in. Not pleasant, he thought. Probably not pleasant at all.
He didn’t think Declan Lynch would balk at shooting him. There was no hesitation in his stance. His hand trembled a bit, but the Gray Man thought that was from injury, not fear.
The Gray Man considered for a moment, then he hurled the helmet. The boy fired a shot, but it was nothing but noise. The helmet crashed into his fingers, and while he was still stunned, the Gray Man stepped forward and plucked the gun from his numb hand. He took a moment to put the safety back on.
Then the Gray Man smashed the gun against Declan’s cheek. He did it a few times, just to get his point across.
Finally, he allowed Declan to sink to his knees. The boy was holding on to consciousness quite valiantly. With his shoe, the Gray Man pressed him the rest of the way to the ground, and then eased him onto his back. Declan’s eyes were focused on the ceiling fan. Blood ran out of his nose.
The Gray Man knelt and pressed the barrel of the gun to Declan’s stomach, which rose and fell calamitously as he gasped for air. Tracing the gun over the boy’s right kidney, he said conversationally, “If I shot you here, it would take you twenty minutes to die, and you’d be done no matter what the medics did for you. Where is the Greywaren?”
Declan said nothing. The Gray Man gave him some time to consider his reply. Head wounds tended to make thoughts slower.
When Declan remained quiet, he dragged the muzzle down to Declan’s thigh. He pressed hard enough that the boy gasped. “Here, you’d die in five minutes. Of course, I don’t need to shoot you for that. The point of your umbrella over there would do it just as well. You’d be gone in five minutes and wishing for it in three.”
Declan closed his eyes. One of them, anyway. The left eye was already swollen most of the way shut.
“I don’t know,” he said eventually. His voice sounded full of sleep. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Lies are for your politicians,” the Gray Man said, without vehemence. He just wanted Declan to know that he knew about his life, his internship. He wanted him to know that he’d done his research. “I know where your brothers are right now. I know where your mother lives. I know the name of your girlfriend. Are we clear?”
“I don’t know where it is.” Declan hesitated. “That’s the truth. I don’t know where it is. I just know it.”
“Here is the plan.” The Gray Man stood up. “You’re going to find that thing for me, and when you do, you’re going to give it to me. And then I will be gone.”
“How do I find you to give it to you?”
“I don’t think you understand. I am your shadow. I’m the spit you swallow. I’m the cough that keeps you up at night.”
Declan asked, “Did you kill my father?”
“Niall Lynch.” The Gray Man tried the words out in his mouth. In his opinion, Niall Lynch was a pretty lousy father, getting himself killed and then allowing his sons to live in a place where they propped the security doors open. The world, he felt, was full of bad fathers. “He asked me that question, too.”
Declan Lynch exhaled unevenly: half a breath, and then the other half. Now, the Gray Man could see, he was finally afraid.
“Okay,” Declan said. “I’ll find it. Then you’ll leave us alone. All of you.”
The Gray Man set the pistol back in its drawer and pushed it closed. He checked his watch. He had twenty minutes to pick up his rental car. He might upgrade to a midsize. He hated compact cars nearly as much as he hated public transportation. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Declan said again.
The Gray Man withdrew from the room, shutting the door partway. It wouldn’t quite close right; he had messed up one of the hinges when he’d entered. He was sure there was an endowment somewhere that would cover the damages.
He paused, watching through the crack of the door.
There was still more to learn from Declan Lynch today.
For several minutes, nothing happened. Declan lay there bleeding and crooked. Then the fingers of his right hand crabbed across the ground to where his cell phone had fallen. He didn’t immediately dial 9-1-1, though. With agonizing slowness — his shoulder was almost certainly dislocated — he punched in another number. Immediately, a phone rang on the opposite bed. It was, the Gray Man knew already, the bed that belonged to Declan’s youngest brother, Matthew. The ringtone was an Iglu & Hartly song that the Gray Man knew but couldn’t condone. The Gray Man already knew where Matthew Lynch was: floating in a boat on the river with some local boys. Like his older brother, never content to be alone.
Declan let his youngest brother’s phone ring for longer than it needed to, his eyes closed. Finally, he pressed end and dialed another number. It still wasn’t 9-1-1. Whoever it was didn’t pick up. And whoever it was made Declan’s already strained expression even tighter. The Gray Man could hear the tinny sound of the phone ringing and ringing, then a brief voicemail that he couldn’t catch.