Fool's Run

by Sidney Williams

  Eliot’s The Hollow Men, interesting spoken in his draw. As I said, Jasso did a lot of reading in here too.

  He unlaced his fingers, sighed and leaned forward to look me directly in the eye and repeated his other aphorism. “Life’s a fool’s run on a crooked road. You have to find the best route you can.”

  “Maybe you are worthy of a pilgrimage,” I said.

  “I try to be.”

  He had a general sense of what I needed. I locked on his gaze now and didn’t waver.

  “You got any names for me?”

  “There are people I can send a cop to see. But maybe a quasi-legitimate businessman.”

  I left with a name, and I was happy to get the hell out of the place.

  Chapter 11

  Archie McCluskey was actually Jasso’s nephew, his sister’s boy. That was actually one of two names he gave me. Arch’s younger brother, Kenneth, Jasso warned, could be handy too but was a few bricks shy of a cube.

  “Don’t get ’em in trouble,” he said. “I know other people.”

  “Got you.”

  He also warned me not to get in a political discussion with Arch. “Boy’s never been inside, served overseas and he’s subject to the influences that swirl around everybody in the South if they watch too much of a certain cable network.”

  Arch had served tours of duty in unpleasant places including Afghanistan and Iraq where he might or might not have perfected black-market practices that he possibly carried on stateside. He also led hunting and fishing tours and offered “hunter safety” training, enlisting his brother’s assistance since his work in an autobody and wheel realignment shop had ceased to challenge him.

  Jasso had spoken of them with pride, eschewing the easy and lucrative path of meth cooking and distribution and other activities of the rural South. He’d known I wouldn’t share with anyone.

  I drove out to their fishing camp, following directions Jasso had provided. Once I’d found the right winding dirt road, I tooled through stands of cypress and oak trees with grey-green tangles of Spanish moss looking like Duck Dynasty beards.

  A metal gate blocked the roadway a short distance from the lakeshore, so I pulled to a stop and climbed from the front seat, trying to look non-threatening. I kind of expected that I’d be met here.

  The McCluskeys didn’t disappoint.

  As I leaned on the top of the gate and looked across, for signs of more than reptile or bird life, a voice drifted over from somewhere to my right.

  “You come down that road, you either have business with us or you mean us harm. Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?” It was a version of Jasso’s voice without as much vocal fry. But with a lot more malevolence.

  I kept my hands extended, showing they were empty. I’d dressed in jeans again and a new crew neck shirt with a windbreaker, striving to look less threatening and less official than the courtroom suit. Still it’s hard for a cop to look like anything but a cop.

  “My name is Silas Reardon. I’m a friend of your Uncle Richard’s.”

  “Funny, that’s just what an undercover ATF agent would say.”

  “Your uncle led me to believe you were smarter than to call out the name of the agency you suspected might be looking into you.”

  I heard a chuckle. “First one that came to mind, and if I said revenuer I’d sound like a hick.”

  “Or slightly anachronistic.”

  “Feds aren’t above bustin’ a few stills when they’re between looking for guys named Muhammad.”

  “I’d think white lighting would be the least of their worries in these parts. But you can generally bust a still without touching off an explosion.”

  “We don’t cook.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  Some foliage shuddered to my right. Then a patch of the swamp flora detached itself and moved toward me. I caught flashes of camouflage fabric among the wiry coils of jute twine, moss, and tree roots. The custom ghillie suit impressed, but the compound bow really held my attention, threaded as it was with an arrow featuring a nasty triangular tip with primary and secondary blades looking razor sharp. I studied them carefully. I couldn’t help but calculate how much weight the system of pulleys would put behind them in propelling them into my chest.

  “Can we have a conversation without that?”

  “Who are you again?”

  The guy in the suit who was tall enough to trigger reports of Bigfoot wasn’t the one talking.

  “Silas Reardon. You may have heard about me.”

  To my left this time, I heard more fabric rustle, and a guy slightly shorter and a little more dressed down emerged. He had on a camouflage jumpsuit and a matching camouflage cap that looked like it was cut for the German military. A neatly trimmed red beard masked his lower face. Had to be Archie.

  “Where?”

  “From your uncle who probably spoke of me fondly. Or in the news.”

  “You’re that cop?”

  “I’m pretty far from cop now.”

  “What brings you out here?”

  “I needed to talk to you about some hardware.”

  A few minutes later I was in their kitchen, which was neater and cleaner than I had expected, though their house skewed a little dark both in the lighting and the paneling. Dark brown leather furnishings in the living room didn’t add any cheer.

  A television they could have put at the Superdome did offer a little glow, though. At the moment, a couple of soccer teams from Spanish-speaking countries were squaring off in the latest iteration of HD. You could see nostril hairs.

  We sat at a little table near a back window overlooking a lake and a pier. The coffee wasn’t bad. They had a Keurig. I drank French Roast.

  “Your dad was a sports fan?” I asked as I sipped from a black mug with a gold Saints helmet stamped on it.

  “Through all the rough years,” Arch said.

  Those would have included eras when Archie Manning and Ken Stabler had served as quarterbacks and hope had sprung eternal in the hearts of fans. My old man had spent a lot of Sunday afternoons alternating prayers and swearing.

  Stabler had led the Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl victory, but he’d been a little older when he’d come to New Orleans when I was a kid. Hadn’t deterred optimism that “the Snake,” as he was known, would be a savior.

  “I’m technically Elisha Archibald,” Arch said, straddling a chair that was turned backwards toward the table. “He’s Kenneth Michael. The old man didn’t make it to see the team win the Super Bowl. He woulda legally changed one of our names to Drew Christopher.”

  Drew Brees had led the team to a Super Bowl win in 2010.

  “So, what do you need?” Arch asked.

  “I’ve got to do some hazardous surveillance work. I need something small, easily concealed but accurate. Doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest. No questions asked.”

  “Might go to the Russians,” Arch said, looking like he didn’t buy any of my story.

  “Russians, really?”

  He shrugged. “They invented a little flat job for their diplomats that I was shown recently. Goes nicely in a waistband.”

  “For when diplomacy fails?”

  “Somethin’ like that.”

  “Boom, boom,” Kenneth said in a voice that was higher and squeakier than his size would’ve suggested. I thought he was screwing around until later when he talked again. For now, he zipped it, following a sharp gaze from his brother.

  Out of the ghillie suit in his own camouflage jumpsuit, he was inches taller and much heavier than Arch, who was angular like their uncle, his beard thicker, but rounded, nothing to rival the Spanish moss or ZZ Top or Phil Robertson. He could have put on a green robe and a holly wreath and been the Ghost of Christmas Present, though.

  “Might work. Got it in house?”

  “Nah, it’s called a PSM. That stands for something in Russian, what is it Kenny?”

  “Pistolet Samozaryadny Malogabaritny.” Kenny’s skills excee
ded what I’d expected.

  “I thought in Louisiana a pistolet was a bread roll.”

  “It just means it’s a self-loading pistol,” Arch said. “I can get it. One I’m thinking of is the ultra-thin version the diplomats would have brought in and not the version that’s allowed for import. But no show models, sorry. This is an innocent fishing cabin for two brothers when they take a break from auto-body repair, logging, and serving as hunting and fishing guides.”

  “Is that what they call your work these days?”

  It was a good label for providing off-the-books collectibles to businessmen.

  “You’ll need to be close with it if your surveillance goes wrong. It’s not known for stopping power, but it’s got some features.”

  “Wi-Fi?”

  “It uses a specialized ammo, and we can get some boxes of cartridges. It’s not a Glock, but close enough in, it’ll pierce soft body armor. When do you need it?”

  “Few days?”

  “Doable. You’ll probably want to get familiar with it. We’ve got an outside range. We can put up some body-shaped targets.”

  “The fishermen use those?”

  “The business executives on weekend getaways do. Makes the white-collar types feel like they’ve got a pair.”

  “Ah huh.”

  He calculated how much I was going to take out of the Holst’s expense purse and wrote it down.

  I said: “Okay.”

  Chapter 12

  The club had been named The Runnel. It was an odd choice. The word essentially means a small stream. Clubs have to be called something, and someone must have convinced Alexeeva it had marketing value for the element he wanted to attract: It’s a hip word, and people will realize they’re going with the flow, baby!

  If you were able to flow past the doorman, you were part of an in-crowd.

  From what I’d picked up in word of mouth, it represented one of Alexeeva’s steps up over the last few years, though the opening had come after even the last reports from detective agencies that the Holsts had turned over to me.

  It was close enough to the Quarter to be chic, but outside, in daylight, it kind of blended with the rest of the district, which trended brown brick. Word had it renovations had made it much more exciting inside. Colorful lighting, loud music, dancers, enough to compete with a neighboring club backed by Harrah’s.

  It would be a signature location for Alexeeva, more glamorous than his other businesses. His hope was to preside and host an ongoing, raging party for a few hundred of his best friends. He longed for some extra air of legitimacy an in-spot could afford.

  I walked by, studying the entrance and the awning while remaining casual. I’d found a white, double breasted chef’s coat. I looked like I was due on the line in the kitchen of a nearby restaurant. Maybe I was out for a walk and a smoke. I even put a meat thermometer in the sleeve. Si Reardon, master of disguise.

  If this was going to be a place Alexeeva hung out, I’d wanted to at least be aware of the location as I tracked his movements. I wanted a good feel for all the spots he frequented so that I could formulate some sort of plan. I had to keep reminding myself my purpose wasn’t the same as it had been in law enforcement. I had no case to build unless I got lucky.

  I was reverse engineering everything I knew.

  I didn’t need to document times and dates as evidence, just to know his movements, locations, habits and how many goons were usually around him.

  Since the Holsts had the “let him know who’s behind it” request, and since I wasn’t a sniper anyway, I was contemplating how close might work. He maintained an entourage, I’d learned, with Taras Seleznyov and Nestor Zhirov, who Adam Holst had named when I described them. They were always on hand along with assorted disposable goons armed with concealed weaponry that would make the McCluskeys envious. The goons with Taras and Nestor formed a phalanx. Doing some Jack Ruby-style approach in a public place while he shuffled from a car to a building didn’t seem viable.

  Or advisable.

  Apparently the lean and smaller Taras served as a sort of CFO and could keep details of Alexeeva’s business written on the hard drive of his brain. He carried a weapon concealed somewhere in his dark suit, but he wasn’t my biggest concern.

  That would be Nestor based on what the Holts had told me. Nestor was a Russian tank.

  He stood a couple of inches over six feet, but he was also wide and solid. He didn’t try to button his black shirts at the throat. He wore a thin rope chain, the kind that retailed for a grand unless you had a 20 percent off coupon at Macy’s. He could probably catch a bullet in his teeth. If he missed, he could just swallow it. Couple of slugs in the abdomen would go unnoticed like mosquito bites. I suspected he already had a few scars from getting in the way of things aimed at Alexeeva.

  He’d be one of the biggest impediments to my getting away. And, ideally, getting away would still be part of the plan, unless I ramped up my life insurance and made my daughter a beneficiary. That still didn’t address the Finn problem.

  So, if I could get through assorted accompanying goons plus Nestor and the wiry Taras, who’d yank some kind of weapon from his suit, how would I flee if I popped Alexeeva? Anywhere.

  At the club—a crowded, loud, active venue—he’d be vulnerable in ways he wasn’t in a private office, the street or his garage. In a VIP room or even at the bar, the phalanx would be a little more relaxed and reluctant to bring out automatic weapons. But you can’t move well in a club under the best of circumstances. I’d be fighting a crowd to any exit, and with the boss dead the goons might just shrug, or they might not worry about collateral damage and spraying lead.

  I contemplated the life insurance again. I’d have to pass a physical for coverage, but an actuary wouldn’t have my morally corrupt intentions to factor into the premiums. Short term it might be a good move. It just wasn’t what I liked to think of as optimal.

  So, back to: Succeed and Escape.

  Getting close even in the crowd would be an issue.

  What if I threw on a breakaway coat over my chef’s jacket and went out through the kitchen? A firm Plan C or D. It came right behind getting a job as a limo driver and popping him in the garage where he’d offed the Holst kids.

  The poetic irony of that had to be weighed against the complications.

  Getting a chauffeur gig, given my recent employment problems, might be difficult, and it would mean leaving a trail worse than the shiny stream of slime I’d already generated. When the investigation of his death started, I didn’t want obvious, visible connections to Alexeeva if I could avoid them, activities I’d already engaged in aside. At the very least I wanted to avoid giving people good long looks in well lighted places.

  Short of going the other direction and getting a sniper rifle, I needed a shadowy way to get close. Developing intelligence would be the best way of getting an idea what might be possible. Once the Russian weapon arrived, and I slipped it into the small of my back and started to get used to the feel under an un-tucked shirt, I could move on from visiting locations and track the entourage a little more closely.

  I’d found a good used car, a tan Chevy Malibu from the early aughts with a few dents that wouldn’t capture much attention. I’d also purchased a little silver camera with an automatic zoom. Again, I just needed images I could work with, not anything sharp enough to stand up in court.

  I picked up the crew early one day at the garage. Alexeeva and Taras were busy inspecting the dent in the front fender of a white stretch Escalade parked just inside an open doorway. Looked like it had absorbed a pretty good blow. From the graveness of the expressions, they were either contemplating insurance issues, a potential lawsuit, or having someone shot.

  The last possibility started to appear more likely when Nestor brought out a guy who looked like he’d slept in his black suit. The body language said he was pleading his innocence while Alexeeva’s suggested a rising temperature. Arms flailed. Gazes turned toward the dent. I got the imp
ression it might be Alexeeva’s car and not just another brought in for body work.

  The guy gestured with open palms, saying something. Alexeeva flailed more and turned his back. Looked like he said something dismissive. The guy tried to speak again, but Taras stepped in, took his shoulders and turned him away.

  He must not be just any driver on a vehicle that had been brought in but Alexeeva’s driver. It didn’t look good for him. I looked at Nestor to see if he was drawing a weapon, but he just listened to Alexeeva and nodded. The guy walked away, looking like a sad kid with a bad homework grade.

  You seek intelligence where you can find it. I located the guy in a little bar on a side street, a nook with exposed wooden beams and a small army of gleaming bottles on display behind the bar. He sat on a stool with a beer. He’d slipped off his suit coat, rolled up the sleeves and loosened the tie. I ordered Bourbon with some ice and rattled the cubes a bit before taking a sip. After he’d finished a couple of drinks and his judgment seemed suitably compromised, I pretended to notice him with an absent glance in his direction.

  “Everything okay, buddy?”

  “Lost a job. Wasn’t my fucking fault.”

  I studied him, gave him a minute. Sipped. I didn’t really want too much in my system this early, but I wanted to look realistic: The Guy with Worse Problems Than Him.

  “Been there,” I said.

  “Car slammed me last night at a corner. Didn’t see it. Car full of college kids and a hooker. I hadn’t been drinking or anything.”

  “Lot of noise?”

  “One fuckin’ loud kid. Kind you wanna punch. The car was still at fault but I got canned. Boss was…insane.”

  “That empty? I get you another?”

  He tilted his bottle, nodding, and I made a replacement magically appear.

  When we moved it to a little table across the floor of red-and-black tile, he was telling stories because I’d asked: “Who the fuck is this asshole?”

  “Maniac Russian or Ukrainian really. Tries to rule everything.” He ran a finger into the waistband of his pants. “Had to keep trim and be perfect to be one of his drivers.”