Some Die Nameless

by Wallace Stroby

  Sergei looked back at Lukas. “Dva mesyatsa.”

  “Speak English.”

  “Two months.”

  “As of about two minutes ago, you’re unemployed. There’s nothing to be gained by taking a stand here. You understand that, right?”

  Sergei nodded.

  “Lose the sunglasses. I can’t talk to a man if I can’t see his eyes.”

  Sergei took off the glasses, folded them, set them on the table. Not wanting to put them in a jacket pocket, bring his hand near the holstered gun.

  “That’s better,” Lukas said. “Now try to follow me. Let me know if there’s something you don’t understand.”

  He nodded again. There was sweat on his upper lip.

  “I could have shot him,” Lukas said. “Made it easy. One in the forehead. But I didn’t, because I wanted him to know what was happening to him. You understand that?”

  “Da.”

  “English.”

  “Yes.”

  Lukas set the Walther on the table. He unclasped the manila envelope, shook out banded packs of hundred-dollar bills. He separated two of the packs, put the rest back in the envelope. “I liked the way you handled yourself. You stayed calm.”

  He put one pack atop the other, slid them across the table like a poker bet. Sergei looked at them.

  “That’s twenty thousand U.S.,” Lukas said. “Starting now, you work for me. How do you like that?”

  A slow smile came to Sergei’s face, the tension seeming to drain out of him. “I like it.”

  “Go ahead, take it.”

  Sergei reached for the packs, then stopped, his fingers inches away. He looked at Lukas again.

  “It’s all right. Go on.”

  Sergei took the packs, put one in each jacket pocket.

  “You can start earning it right now,” Lukas said. “Help Tariq get that piece of shit up and into the bathroom before he bleeds through the floor.”

  Sergei got up, went to the body. Tariq already had Penskoff’s wrists. Sergei bent and gripped his ankles, lifted. They carried him through the bedroom and into the bathroom, the wire still embedded in his neck, the garrote handles dangling.

  Lukas stood, picked up the Walther, came around the table. The cigarette still smoked on the floor. He ground it out with his heel, followed them into the cramped bathroom. As he watched, they got the body up and into the claw-footed tub, dropped it facedown. Both of them were breathing hard. Tariq caught his eye in the mirror over the sink.

  Sergei straightened, his back to the door, and Lukas stepped closer, raised the Walther, and shot him through the base of the skull. He dropped instantly, fell across the tub. Blood dripped down the wall tiles.

  “Loyalty is dead,” Lukas said.

  Tariq bent, lifted Sergei’s legs, tumbled him atop Penskoff in the tub, then pulled the money packs from his jacket pockets. Lukas picked up the casing, decocked the Walther, thumbed on the safety.

  The banded bills went back into the envelope, the envelope into the bag. They wiped down the room with rags they’d brought with them.

  When they were done, Lukas put on his jacket, tucked the Walther into his belt, the suppressor still warm. Tariq took the bag, unlocked the door, opened it and checked the hall, looked back and nodded. They went out. Lukas used a rag to pull the door shut behind them, wipe the knob.

  The stairs creaked as they went down to the lobby. The familiar childhood smell of boiling cabbage drifted up through the stairwell. It turned Lukas’s stomach.

  The desk was empty, but he could see the old man in the small cluttered room beyond it, cooking on a hot plate. He looked up when he heard them.

  In Hungarian, Lukas said, “Gyere ide,” and gestured. The man turned down the heat on the plate, came out wiping his hands on a towel. He had cigarette ashes on his shirt.

  “Mi ez?” he said. Suspicious of them, but alert, eager, in case there was more money involved.

  Lukas handed Tariq the rag, took out the Walther, slipped off the safety. The man saw it, raised his hands, and Lukas shot him twice, then came around the desk, fired once more into him as he lay on the floor.

  Lukas knelt. The fifty-dollar bill he’d given the man was still folded in a shirt pocket. He took it. Leaving it would raise too many questions.

  The Citroën was outside, engine running, Stenborg, their local man, behind the wheel. The Mercedes was gone.

  Tariq got into the back seat with the bag, Lukas in front. They pulled away from the curb, rain spotting the windshield. Stenborg turned on the wipers.

  “Just the one?” Lukas said.

  Stenborg nodded. “Is done. No trouble.”

  Lukas took the Walther from his belt, said, “Find a spot by the river. Give me yours too.”

  Stenborg reached below his seat, handed him a Steyr automatic. It smelled of burned gunpowder. As they drove, Tariq looked out at the empty streets.

  In his jacket pocket, Lukas’s cell began to vibrate. He got it out, looked at the number. It was Farrow. He brought the phone to his ear. “What is it?”

  “We have a problem. We need you back here.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  “You’ll tell me some of it now, if you want to see me anytime soon.”

  Silence. Lukas said, “I’m listening.”

  “Someone was supposed to take care of something for us. It didn’t happen. We need you to look into it. How soon can you get back?”

  “We’re on our way to the airport now.” He looked at his watch. “Plane leaves at midnight, but I won’t get back to the house until morning. I’ll call you when I wake up.” Tariq was watching him.

  “This is a priority,” Farrow said.

  “I got that part. Does the old man know about it?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just wondering. If something got fucked up, does he know what happened? Or are you hoping to fix it before he finds out?”

  Farrow didn’t answer.

  “What I thought,” Lukas said. “I have one more thing to do, then we’re out of here.”

  “How did the other situation go?”

  “It went. About ten minutes ago.”

  “You cut it close. Any problems?”

  “Nothing that couldn’t be handled. You can tell him our Russian friend asked about him.”

  “Call me as soon as you land.” Farrow ended the call.

  They were on a street that ran parallel to the Danube now. Dark warehouses faced the waterfront. Across the river, the brightly lit Royal Palace and Parliament Building. A world away.

  Farther up, the lights of the gleaming Chain Bridge were reflected in the water. A line of taillights moved across the span.

  “Up here’s good,” Lukas said. “Pull over.”

  Stenborg steered the car alongside the seawall, into the shadow of a construction crane.

  “Kill the lights,” Lukas said. “I don’t want anyone coming along, wondering what we’re doing.”

  Stenborg dimmed the headlights, left the engine and wipers on.

  “Good,” Lukas said, raised the Walther, and shot him twice above the right ear.

  Even with the suppressor, the shots were loud inside the car, like pine boards breaking. A shell casing landed on the dashboard, rolled into a heat vent. Then it was quiet, except for the hum of the Citroën’s engine, the swish of its wipers.

  Lukas picked up the casings, got out carrying the two guns. While Tariq wiped down the car, Lukas went over to the seawall in the drizzling rain, found a spot where the crane hid him from the street. He disassembled the guns, tossed their parts and the casings out into the river, listened for the splashes.

  Tariq was waiting by the car, holding the bag. They walked toward the bridge in the rain. A beautiful city at night, Lukas thought. I’ll have to come back here someday.

  Two blocks later, he hailed a cruising taxi, looked at his watch. They had plenty of time. Even if they were late, the Learjet
would wait for them. They would be the only passengers.

  Seven

  You’re a mess,” the doctor said.

  Devlin sat shirtless on the treatment table. She touched the ribs on his left side with gloved fingers. The pain was deep. “Where exactly did you fall again?”

  She was in her early forties, he guessed. Long black hair tied back, a single streak of silver running through it. She wore a white lab coat over sweater and jeans. He’d been to this walk-in clinic on Singer Island in the past, but had never seen her before.

  “On my boat,” he said. “Coming down the cabin steps. They were wet. I was a little drunk.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “I know.”

  Her name tag read D. STEFANO. Up close, he could smell her faint perfume, something like violets. She touched his face, the puffiness there, turned it toward the light.

  “You’re going to have a nice shiner. Not much we can do about that. Ice will help, or try a bag of frozen peas.”

  She took his wrists in her hands, gently rotated them to examine the bruises on his forearms.

  “I tried to break my fall,” he said.

  “I can see.” She released his hands. “You live on your boat?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ever consider one of those Lifeline buttons?”

  “‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’? Don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

  “Then you need to be more careful. Look up the accident statistics for people who live alone. Even a simple household fall can become a terminal event if there’s no one else around. Not to mention a stroke or heart attack.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “No signs of concussion, so that’s good. And you seem to be breathing all right. But even without seeing the X-rays, I think it’s a safe bet you’ve got some cracked ribs.”

  “What do I do for that?”

  “Nothing. Sleep on your back for a while. Cold compresses to bring down the swelling—the peas are good for that too. We don’t tape broken ribs anymore. If the X-rays show you’ve got some splinters poking around in there, then that’s something else. But if you did, you’d probably be in a lot more pain right now—or dead. So chances are you don’t.”

  “Small favors.”

  “These scars, though.” She touched the puckered circle beneath his left collarbone. “If I had to guess, I’d say this was a GSW.”

  “It is. From a long time ago.”

  “And this one on your stomach?”

  “Knife. Small blade, though. Didn’t go deep.”

  She put a thumb on his left eyebrow, pulled up the loose skin there. He blinked. She took her hand away.

  “Shrapnel,” he said.

  “You were about three centimeters away from losing that eye.”

  She peeled off the gloves, used the foot pedal to open the waste bin, dropped them in.

  “I said you were lucky. But looking at you, I’m not sure that’s the right word. Should I ask?”

  “I was in the military.”

  “What branch?”

  “Army Airborne, Eighty-Second.”

  “What was your MOS?”

  “Eleven-B. Infantry. How’d you know to ask that?”

  “My father was in the Army. We lived up near Fort Bragg for a while. You too, I’d guess, if you were in the Eighty-Second.”

  “I was at Bragg in ’80 and ’81. Then Germany and some other places. Korea—Panmunjom.”

  “You didn’t get those scars in Panmunjom. Not unless an angry mama-san shot you for not paying your bar bill.”

  He smiled at that. “No. Not Panmunjom.”

  “Were you Special Forces?”

  “I wasn’t special anything.”

  “You’re out now, I take it. What was your rank at discharge?”

  “E-Six. Staff sergeant. Never got beyond that.”

  “Given your age, where would you have been in combat that got you those scars?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Grenada?”

  “Missed that one.”

  “Panama?”

  “Missed that too.”

  “I get the hint. I’ll stop asking questions. I probably wouldn’t get much more out of you anyway, right?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I would be. You can put your shirt back on. Someone will call you when we have the X-ray results. You’re going to need to come back, regardless.”

  She took a prescription pad from her coat pocket, began to write.

  “I may need to go on a trip soon,” he said.

  “I’d rethink that, if I were you. You’re going to be in a world of hurt the next few days. It’ll be worse if you’re traveling.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “I’ll want you back here before you go anywhere. We’ll need to go over your lab work, make sure there’s no blood in your urine.”

  “I’ve had that before. I know what it looks like.”

  “I’m sure you do. You’ve had a busy fifty-four years. Let’s make sure you see fifty-five.”

  “To be honest, there was a time I thought I’d never see forty.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think you’re kidding.”

  She tore a sheet from the pad, handed it to him. “Percocet. You’re going to need it. Go easy with it if you’ve never taken it before. Don’t drink, don’t drive. Don’t take more than two a day if you can avoid it.”

  He looked at the printing at the top of the form. “Deandra. That’s a pretty name.”

  She put away the pad.

  “I’ll see you again in a few days, Mr. Devlin,” she said. “Try to stay alive until then.”

  His cell buzzed as he drove back to the marina. When he answered, Karen said, “What do you want?”

  He was surprised at the relief he felt. There was a chance Goldman, the lawyer, wouldn’t have passed on the message. Or that, even if he did, she wouldn’t call back.

  He steered into a Denny’s lot. “I know you’re not happy to hear from me.”

  “An understatement.”

  “But I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. We have to talk.”

  “About what?” she said.

  “It’s probably nothing but—”

  In the background, a man’s voice said, “You get him?” Muffled noises as she covered the receiver, said something he couldn’t make out. He waited. When she came back on, she said, “Vic wants to talk to you.”

  “Wait a minute. I need you to—” But she was gone.

  Vic came on the line, said, “What’s this all about? Why are you bothering us?”

  Devlin inhaled, let out his breath. She and Vic had been married for five years, but it still hurt to be reminded of it.

  “Are you still with the state police?” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I assume that means yes. Just hear me out, okay?”

  “Go on.”

  “Somebody might be looking for me.”

  “Like who? A collection agency?”

  Devlin took a slow breath, trying to tamp down his anger. “Please, just listen. It’s likely nothing, but if someone is looking, they might try to find me through Karen. Could be they search a public records database for my name, that address comes up.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Might not be anyone. But it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out, be careful. If you see any strangers around, get any odd phone calls, anything like that.”

  “You need to tell me what’s going on here.”

  “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  “You’re a piece of work. Why are you dragging your crap into our lives again? Didn’t she get enough of that over the years, your drinking and your bullshit?”

  Another long breath. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “You know I am. Was that your message? Why you called Goldman?”

  “It is.”
/>   “Then I got it. Anything else?”

  “How’s Brendan?”

  Vic gave a short laugh. “You’re something, you know that?” he said, and hung up.

  When he got back to the marina, Bell’s car was gone. He parked and walked down to his slip. It was a clear day, the sun high, and most of the boats were out. He wondered if Delburton, the marina manager, had seen him drive up. If so, he’d be down here soon, Devlin guessed, to ask him questions. Maybe ask him to leave.

  The owner of the Chris-Craft four slips down was on his deck, taking cans of beer from a twelve-pack, planting them into a cooler filled with crushed ice. He was one of the few people at the marina Devlin knew. Crew-cut, with beer-belly fat over muscle, he wore a Confederate flag T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He nodded at Devlin. “Everything all right?”

  “What do you mean?” Devlin said.

  “I see the law was here.”

  “They were.”

  “Anything I need to be concerned about?”

  “No.”

  “None of my business, then,” he said, and stuck another can into the ice.

  Devlin stepped down onto the boat. They’d left the cabin door open, and strips of crime scene tape hung from the hinges. Flies buzzed around the dried blood on the deck and engine cover. The gloves were still there.

  Down below, the casings and the yellow triangles were gone. They’d taken Bell’s jacket as well.

  He took the spiral notebook from his back pocket, sat at the fold-down table. He turned to the second page, got out his cell. He called the number written there, the 215 area code. On the third ring, a woman answered, crowd noise behind her, said, “Dugan’s.” So it was a bar or a restaurant.

  He broke off the call, then dialed information. He got a listing for a Dugan’s Tavern in Philadelphia. It was the same number. The street address matched one of those on the page.

  A breeze moved the curtain over the broken window. He’d have to tape plastic sheeting over it until he could replace the glass. He got up, opened the toilet stall door. There were mirror shards on the floor, raw holes in the bulkhead where they’d gouged out the spent slugs. They would have to be patched, the trim repaired.

  He went back topside, waved away flies. He would have to mop up the blood, scrub the last traces of it from the deck. The thought sapped what was left of his energy. He sat on the starboard engine cover, felt cold despite the heat of the sun. His right arm began to tremble, like an electric pulse he couldn’t control. Delayed reaction, he thought. A little dose of PTSD for you. He thought about the therapy groups he’d gone to when he first got back to the States. His symptoms then had been different, but the reasons were the same.