The Interloper

by Dave Zeltserman

  Luce got into his car and drove out of the garage, then parked two blocks away and sat idling, waiting to see if anyone had called the police. After fifteen minutes, he decided it was safe and drove off. He’d be passing by Willis’s rented beachfront cottage to get to either of the other addresses McCoy gave him, so he decided to make a short detour back to the cottage. It was seven thirty when he entered it again. He gave the place a thorough search, but found nothing useful. No receipts, no papers, nothing. He looked over the dried blood drops on the floor and the two places where the walls were damaged. There had to have been an altercation there. The plaster in one place was caved in as if someone had been swung head first into it.

  It wasn’t hard for Luce to imagine what must’ve happened, and he had little doubt that Willis and the rest of the crew, after their misunderstanding, were now trying to hunt down the Factory hit man who stole their money. But how they could possibly do that, especially given that Willis would be taken out immediately if he tried approaching The Factory office downtown? The bounty offered was for his death, not for taking him alive.

  The more Luce thought about the situation, the more anxious he got. It didn’t matter that Willis had no way of tracking him down, he could still cause problems for Luce with his Factory bosses, and Luce’s chest tightened as he thought of all the ways Willis could accomplish that.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of footsteps on the front porch. Luce pushed apart slats on the closed blinds of one of the front windows. A woman holding a box with two coffees and a bag of donuts. She was a redhead in her early thirties. Thin, cute, and wearing a pair of worn jeans and an even more worn-looking suede jacket. She had an almost tragic smile, as if she was unsure of the reception she would be receiving, but also showing a sad hopefulness. If Luce wasn’t such an utter sociopath, he knew that look on her face would’ve touched him. It also would’ve bothered him what was going to be happening to her. But since he was a pure sociopath through and through, he was fine with it all.

  Chapter 10

  At seven forty three, Willis sat silently on the cement floor behind an older model Honda Accord. The Factory supervisor he was going to be abducting was named Allen Patterson. Willis had arrived at the Waltham house thirty-five minutes earlier, and had spent the first four minutes scouting the grounds before breaking in.

  The house was a modest beige-colored colonial with a recently added attached two-car garage. A quick look through a side window showed an older model Honda Accord and a shiny new minivan, as well as evidence of young kids. Fortunately, they didn’t have a dog. If possible, Willis wanted to take Patterson without involving his wife or kids, and if a dog was in the picture that wouldn’t have been possible.

  Willis was able to gain access to the house through a side window that led to a small laundry room. A children’s cartoon of some sort was blasting on a TV in the kitchen, and that drowned out any noises Willis might’ve made. Moving quietly through the house, he was able to get a look at Patterson, his wife, and their two young children. Patterson was in his early forties, his wife in her late thirties, their two girls no older than five and three. Patterson sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper as he drank coffee and chewed slowly on a Danish pastry. His wife was dressed conservatively in a skirt and blouse and rushed around the kitchen putting away dishes. The two girls sat mesmerized by whatever they were watching. Bowls of cereal were laid out in front of them and they each had spoons gripped tightly in their chubby hands, but neither was eating. If Willis didn’t know better the scene would’ve been one of a typical middleclass family: the balding and out-of-shape white-collar husband, the harried working mom who probably would’ve been pretty a few years earlier but was now putting on weight and mostly just looked tired, and their two young children. But it wasn’t anything typical. Not with the husband spending his days supervising the killing of unemployed men and women. Willis slipped away to the garage.

  He’d have to wait and see whose job it was to drop the kids off at daycare. He’d rather that it was the wife’s, because if Patterson was taking the girls, Willis would have to grab them also, maybe the wife, too. He tried to just breathe slowly and blank his mind as he waited for Patterson, and not think about those valuable minutes that were ticking away. When he heard the door to the garage open, he moved into a crouching position. The wife had the two little girls with her, and she loaded them into the minivan. A minute later, she got behind the wheel and pulled the van out of the garage. As she did that, Willis moved to the front of the Accord so that he wouldn’t be seen by the wife or girls or anyone else while the garage was open. When the garage door closed, he moved again, this time to the side of the door that led into the house. Three minutes later the door opened, and as Patterson stepped into the garage, Willis put him in a chokehold. Patterson flailed away uselessly for nine seconds before dropping into unconsciousness. Willis lowered him to the floor, searched his pockets, and pulled out Patterson’s car keys and wallet. He checked Patterson’s driver’s license to make sure he had the right guy—the last thing Willis wanted was a fuckup where he grabbed the wrong man. After that, he went through Patterson’s briefcase which gave him plenty of reassurance that he had grabbed a trusted Factory employee. He found Patterson’s Factory badge inside the briefcase. While the badge could be used to gain access to the Boston Factory office, it also contained an embedded tracking chip. Willis left the badge on the garage floor, then after using duct tape and a rag to bind and gag Patterson, he moved the unconscious man into the Honda’s trunk. While Patterson had a good amount of flab around his middle, he was tall with long, bony legs and had a pronounced Adam’s apple showing in his thin neck. He was dressed conservatively in a blue suit, button-down white shirt, and black oxfords. It took a little bit of work, and Willis had to empty out the contents of Honda’s trunk first, but he was able to position Patterson inside the trunk so that he could close it. He had found a safe place to park a mile away, and would transfer Patterson to his car’s trunk there. Willis had stolen plates on his car, which he would be replacing, so it wouldn’t matter in the remote event that someone stumbled upon his car and paid attention to his license plate number. Nor would it make any difference whether the police or The Factory found Patterson’s Honda in that same location.

  *

  Patterson had woken up by the time Willis opened the Honda’s trunk to move Patterson to his own car. At first, Patterson glared hotly at him, but then something clicked as he recognized Willis, probably from a Factory memo. His eyes opened wide and became liquid, and the fear that rushed over him was palpable. Willis didn’t bother saying anything. Once he had Patterson moved to his car trunk, he headed off to Winthrop.

  Traffic moved sluggishly, at times coming to a standstill, and what should’ve been a forty-minute drive took Willis over an hour, but he was pleased with what he saw when he arrived at the address Hanley had given him. An old, dilapidated Victorian set far back from the road, and as it turned out, with a separate brick garage in the back so that Willis’s car would be well hidden. Hendrick’s Malibu was already parked in one of the bays and Willis pulled into the other one. They had agreed to call each other only if they ran into problems. Willis’s disposable cell phone rang. It was Hendrick.

  “No problems on my end,” Hendrick said, his voice unnaturally tight. “I want to make sure you’re the one who just pulled up in back. I can’t get a good view from the window here.”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Yeah, okay. Jared and I have been sitting around playing with our dicks the last hour and a half,” Hendrick complained, his voice turning whiny and surly. “What the fuck took you so long?”

  Willis ignored the question. “I’m going to bring Patterson in through the back door. I don’t want him seeing your guy,” he said.

  “He won’t,” Hendrick said. “And fuck you. It’s almost nine o’clock. You were supposed to be here an hour ago. I want to know why the holdup—”


  Willis disconnected the call. He got out of his car and, with Bowser following closely behind, walked around to the back of his car and opened his trunk to find Patterson crying softly, his sobs muffled by his gag. Willis had planned to flip the man onto his shoulder and carry him into the house, but he didn’t want Patterson’s snot and tears staining his clothes. He got Hendrick on the cell phone again and asked him whether he or Gannier could come outside and give him a hand with his man. Hendrick hung up without saying anything, but a minute later Gannier came out the back door carrying a crumpled sheet under his arm. As he approached, Willis could see that his nose and jaw were bruised. Gannier nodded to him, then looked into the trunk, his lips pulling into a tight smile as he did so.

  “Fucking pussy,” he swore under his breath.

  Willis grabbed Patterson under the arms and dragged him halfway out of the trunk before Gannier tossed the sheet over him and grabbed him by his feet, then the two of them hustled Patterson to the house and through a back door, which put them in the kitchen. Bowser scooted into the house behind them. Hendrick wasn’t there.

  “Where do you have the others?” Willis asked.

  Gannier smiled thinly over Willis asking about the others as a way to keep Patterson clueless as to how many Factory supervisors they had grabbed. Since Patterson had a sheet draped over his head, he couldn’t see the smile.

  “We got them upstairs.”

  Willis nodded to a door that was off the kitchen and led to the basement, and they carried Patterson down the steps. While the house still held some furniture covered with sheets, the electricity had been cut off and there was no heat. It was a cool October morning, and the basement was a good deal colder than it was outside, at least by ten degrees. Or maybe it just felt that way because of how dank and musty it was, and how little sunlight penetrated the dirt-encrusted casement windows.

  They dropped Patterson on the floor and headed back upstairs. Bowser stayed behind to sniff at the sheet that covered Patterson. When he started to push his nose under it, Willis whistled for him and the bull terrier turned and scurried up the steps after him. Once they were out of the basement with the door closed behind them, Willis asked Gannier where Hendrick was.

  Gannier rolled his eyes, grimaced. “He’s upstairs sulking. I know it doesn’t make any sense, and I’m sure he knows it also, but he’s gotten it in his head that it’s your fault these spooks killed Cam, and maybe Bud, too. You know, with you once working for them.”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know. But you need to remember all of us have been tight since fifth grade, and what happened to Cam and Bud hit me and Charlie hard. But he’ll be all right. He just needs a little more time to process than I did. In my case, the thought of some cocksucker out there doing what he did to Cam and Bud and walking away with our money was all I needed to get me to focus properly. Charlie will come around, too.”

  It confirmed what Willis had picked up in Hendrick’s tone, but he still didn’t like what he was hearing. It was going to be hard enough tracking down The Factory hit man who had stolen their money without having to deal with irrational behavior from Hendrick. It would be so easy for Willis to just get in his car and drive back to Ohio, and maybe he would’ve done that if it wasn’t for his recent close call in Florida. He needed his share of the money and the new face it would buy him.

  “Either of you try questioning Finder yet?” Willis asked.

  Elliot Finder was the name of the other Factory supervisor. Gannier shook his head. “You told us not to, so we didn’t. We dumped him in a bedroom upstairs and left him alone.”

  “You made sure you didn’t bring him here with his Factory badge?”

  “What do you think? We did just as you asked.”

  “Was he carrying a briefcase with him when you jumped him?”

  Gannier nodded. “Yeah, he was. His spook badge was in it.” His eyes glazed and his tone shifted and took on a more cautious note as if he thought Willis might not be happy with what he was about to tell him. “We left it behind. We didn’t know what else might’ve had tracking chips hidden in it.”

  Willis couldn’t blame them for that, but it was unfortunate. He still needed to go back to his car for Patterson’s briefcase so he could search through it, and it would’ve been good to have had Finder’s also, but it was his fault for not prepping them better. He nodded towards the bruises on Gannier’s face. “Finder do that?” he asked.

  “Yeah, he was feistier than we expected. We had to bust him up somewhat, but he’s conscious and can talk. You ready to question them?”

  “In ten minutes,” Willis said.

  Chapter 11

  Willis searched through Patterson’s briefcase and found budget reports and department forecasts that showed the Boston office was falling short in meeting their quarterly murder goals. Also in the briefcase were profiles of upcoming targets and other assorted interoffice memos, but nothing that helped in naming the hit man assigned to Howlitz, or whether Patterson was the one supervising the killing. While Willis came up empty in that regard, he did find a memo with the name of The Factory’s Northeast regional manager and the address for the New York office, which he planned to make use of when the current business was over and he could focus on his war against The Factory. He also found a small device the size of a smart phone, which he knew from experience was used to track Factory employees by inputting their badge numbers. Hendrick and Gannier hung around while Willis went through the briefcase’s contents, Gannier standing relaxed with a smart-alecky grin, Hendrick seething.

  “You’re wasting our time here,” Hendrick complained, his voice coming out in an explosive burst, his eyes shining brightly with violence. Like Gannier, he showed signs of Finder’s feistiness. In his case, he had scratch marks along his right cheek and some swelling under his eye. “We’ve had our guy on ice here almost two hours while you’ve been dicking around.”

  Willis folded up the two memos he planned on using in the future, and tucked them into an inside jacket pocket. He also pocketed the employee tracking device, then dumped the rest of Patterson’s papers back into the briefcase. He didn’t bother explaining to Hendrick that he had spent less than ten minutes going through the contents of the briefcase as he had promised Gannier. There was no point in doing so. The guy was all set to go off the same as if someone had touched an exposed nerve.

  “I’ll question Patterson first, then Finder,” Willis said.

  Hendrick made a disgusted face. “I could’ve beaten the truth out of both of them by now. Chrissakes, I could’ve been working Finder over for the last two hours, and I would’ve had him begging to tell us everything he knows.”

  “You don’t understand their mentality. You would’ve gotten nothing out of them. If you want to join me with Patterson, fine. But stay away from Finder until I’m ready to deal with him.”

  Willis ordered Bowser to stay where he was. The bull terrier, who’d been laying by Willis’s feet, let out an angry pig grunt, but didn’t move from the floor as Willis headed toward the basement door with Hendrick and Gannier tagging along. Earlier, when Hendrick saw that Willis had brought Bowser to the house, he gave Willis an earful about it until Willis ordered him to shut up. Since then, Hendrick acted as if the dog wasn’t there.

  Patterson still had the sheet covering him, and had tried wiggling like a snake across the basement floor, but hadn’t gotten far. Maybe six feet from where he’d been left. Possibly he was trying to find something sharp to cut the tape binding his wrists. Or it could’ve been simply panic that drove him into action whether it made sense or not. Whichever it was, Willis didn’t care. He pulled the sheet off Patterson and saw that the man was sweating badly even in the dank coldness of the basement, his face dripping with it. While there wasn’t much light, there was enough for Patterson to recognize Willis, and he shrunk into himself at the sight of him. Willis crouched low so he was just about sitting on his heels. After he dried off Pa
tterson’s face with the sheet, he removed the gag, then grabbed Patterson by his jaw so he could force The Factory supervisor to face him.

  “You know who I am,” Willis said.

  While it wasn’t said as a question, Patterson still nodded bleakly, his eyes red-rimmed and teary.

  “Tell me who you think I am.”

  “You used to be employed by us,” Patterson said, his face puckering up as if he was fighting to keep from bawling. “You killed your supervisor. Tom Barron.”

  “And you know how many others I killed because of your outfit, right? Let me remind you. Twenty-five. All innocent people. I’m reminding you of that so there’s no misunderstanding on your part on what I’m willing to do. Just so you know, I could’ve taken your wife and two girls also, but I waited so I could take you alone. If you give me the slightest provocation, I’ll bring them here.”

  Patterson lost his fight and burst out sobbing. “Please,” he pleaded, “I was lied to also. I didn’t know who we were really killing until six months ago, and I don’t believe in what we’re doing any more than you did. I needed a job and got sucked in the same as you. I hate being a part of it. I swear. If I could’ve quit, I would’ve. But I can’t. Not with a wife and my girls. You have to know that!”

  Willis had no sympathy for him. He guessed that Patterson was lying, at least about when he found out that the people they were killing were the unemployed and not terrorists. Management, even at the lowest levels, had to know that. Willis didn’t bother saying the obvious. That even if Patterson was telling him the truth, once he discovered what The Factory was up to he had a moral obligation to do something about it. In Willis’s case, he had no evidence that he could’ve taken to the media, but Patterson would’ve had access to countless files and other hard evidence that could’ve been used to bring what The Factory was doing to light. By simply continuing on with his job the last six months, he was no different than all the Nazis who after World War II tried claiming they were simply following orders.