Monsters

by Matt Rogers

  ‘Do you have the photo of the board member? What was his name?’

  ‘Jack Sundström. And no. Heidi only showed it to Mary in a flash. Didn’t send it to her for obvious reasons. And I’ve been refreshing the news. He’s still missing.’

  ‘Could it have been a fake?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not the way she spoke. She was absolutely sure.’

  ‘Then you need to be on guard. The moment your plane touches down. You don’t beat someone to death unless you’re sending a message. A bullet is infinitely cleaner. There’s a reason they did it that way.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  He sighed. ‘Probably more for my own reassurance than yours.’

  ‘You take care with that list,’ she said. ‘Based on what happened with Kian Grant, I’d wager every scumbag on it knows each other. Maybe it’s all connected, the whole underworld, all the way across the country. You know…six degrees of separation…that sort of thing. Maybe all monsters know their fellow kin.’

  That set him straight-backed, gave him an idea, but he tucked it away for future contemplation. He noticed her finger tracing a line up his thigh, felt himself grow hot in response.

  She lowered her voice, mouth spreading into a half-smile. ‘What’s that line about living like it’s your last day on earth?’ She looked into his eyes. ‘Might be that way for us both. You never know…’

  Tyrell appeared from the hallway and hustled past, slinging his backpack over one shoulder on his way to the garage. He didn’t seem to notice how close they’d been sitting. ‘Goin’ to the mall, guys. Meetin’ Liam and Andreas there.’

  Slater said, ‘Liam scored some good weed again?’

  ‘Shut up, man. Get off my back.’

  Slater chuckled as the garage door slammed. Alexis lowered her finger back to his thigh, continued tracing.

  She whispered, ‘How’s that for timing?’

  He put on his best fortune-teller voice, said in a low baritone, ‘The universe wanted it to happen.’

  She laughed.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist as he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.

  15

  As he kissed Alexis goodbye, he tallied the day’s exercise.

  Deadlifting for a three-rep PR.

  Thirty minutes of boxing rounds on the heavy bag.

  And, finally, sixty minutes of cardio that had left both he and Alexis sweaty and exhausted.

  If he pushed it any further he’d run a serious risk of overtraining, so he fetched his laptop off the kitchen island and carried it to the sofa. He stretched out, draped the chinchilla throw over his legs, relishing a rare stretch where he had the house to himself. Isolation used to be his modus operandi. Things were different now.

  What Alexis said earlier still burned at the forefront of his mind. He couldn’t shake it away. Maybe all monsters know their fellow kin.

  Maybe.

  He figured he’d put his new bag of digital tricks to the test, work on researching the remaining members of the list in his possession. As he powered up the laptop, useless intrusive thoughts tried to force their way in: What if that was the last time you saw her? What if it’s more serious over there than you thought? How will you go raising Tyrell on your own?

  He understood exactly what the questions were.

  Subconscious bait, desperate to sink their hooks into his mind, steal vital brainpower away from more important tasks. He relaxed into a meditative pose with the laptop on his thighs, and sat with his eyes closed for ten minutes before getting started. He pushed his thoughts away, emptied his mind of clutter and rot. When he opened them, he was still.

  There were no questions anymore, because he understood almost all questions were useless, mere barriers to action.

  He brought up a Word document he’d used to digitise the list:

  Kian Grant.

  Curtis Dunlap.

  Dominique Newton.

  Sebastian Day.

  Donald Ayers.

  Valentino Moretti.

  Myles Vaughan.

  Aiden Hall.

  Frankie Booth.

  Jacob Khan.

  Jaxson Hoffman.

  Robert Holland.

  Six to go.

  He set to work.

  A month and a half of recuperation from injuries had left him with significant downtime, and he’d put it to good use. He’d met with Alonzo five separate times, roughly once a week since he got back from Mexico. Each session ran north of two hours, time which Alonzo had spent bringing him up to speed on the most useful tricks in the “black hat” book. Slater was ruthless enough with self-analysis to know he would never be competent with the latest technology, let alone anything close to a hacker, but he could focus and follow instructions better than anyone. It was a talent that had kept him alive hundreds if not thousands of times, made him a unique specialist in a wide range of fields. The computer sessions kept his mind occupied, and before long he was adept with the deep web, Tor browsers, and a host of black hat programs that Alonzo didn’t want anyone else knowing about.

  Slater figured he could now commit digital crimes with impunity, but instead he used the newfound knowledge to investigate.

  He worked his way down sequentially.

  Curtis Dunlap was a prominent defence lawyer in Boston.

  Sergeant Dominique Newton was a distinguished member of the Boston Police Department.

  Sebastian Day was a life insurance titan with seven companies under his belt, all preceded by the “Day” trademark. His head offices were located near the Institute of Contemporary Art, overlooking the Boston Main Channel.

  Aiden Hall was a tech entrepreneur and mogul. He owned three content marketing agencies that together controlled almost all the branding and paid sponsorships for Boston’s most prominent social media influencers. In this new world, he was probably more influential than the dwindling news stations in the prime time slots. At first he stood out from the other men on the list, but Slater quickly realised how Dwayne Griggs might’ve put him to use. He who controls the narrative controls the people.

  Frankie Booth was in San Francisco.

  Slater froze with his finger on the trackpad, sat bolt upright. The deep web results hovered on the screen, displaying details about the man that he’d certainly rather keep secret. He was using the alias “Frankie Costa” to escape a smorgasbord of prior convictions and recent allegations. Among them were assault, battery, racketeering, and some nasty allegations of severe domestic violence. Slater read a couple of transcripts of court proceedings and closed straight out of them, a lump in his throat. He didn’t need to read anymore. The guy deserved a slow and painful death if even half the stuff he’d been accused of was true. But, as usual, the justice system had done a stellar job of dropping the ball, and he was somehow out, free to flee to another state and change his name.

  And his vocation…

  He owned and operated a warehouse-style mixed-martial-arts gym in the grungy industrial suburb of Hunters Point, near the naval shipyard. The business was no-nonsense, its marketing unflattering (only a simple and ugly website that was hard to find), but it seemed successful. Several established professional fighters used his tutelage, all the men and women advertised competing in the highest tier of combat sports organisations. None were champions or household names, but that was no surprise.

  Professional fighters, Slater thought. Something he’d said to Alexis came back to him.

  ‘You don’t beat someone to death unless you’re sending a message.’

  He said, ‘Huh,’ out loud. At first he wrote it off, but the more he thought about it, the more his suspicions grew. There couldn’t be many high-calibre gyms willing to stoop so low, if any. Just because Frankie was in SF didn’t mean Dwayne Griggs hadn’t sought him out based on reputation alone, hired him for the messiest jobs that needed the clearest messages.

  Either it was an insane coincidence, or all the monsters really did know each other.

&nbs
p; Like some dark premonition, his phone rang.

  Jason King.

  16

  The Dodge RAM’s cabin was a capsule of silence before King dialled.

  He tried to convince himself it was an ordinary check-in. It didn’t work. The hunch he’d got that morning at the Dunfields’ was different, just like the shrilling of the outgoing ringtone was different. Something activated, awakened. He’d come out to the car to make this call for a reason. He thought it might go a particular way, a way he didn’t want Violetta overhearing yet.

  His rational mind told him there’d be no update. Slater was still recovering from Mexico, after all. But a deeper crevasse of the mind said otherwise. The instincts that rested in that crevasse were usually right.

  Slater answered with, ‘My man.’

  King said, ‘Thought I’d check how the shoulder’s progressing.’

  A quiet pause. ‘Any reason for that?’

  ‘The fact I care about you?’

  ‘Touching. Truly. But you know what I mean.’

  King did. He also knew he’d deflected with sarcasm. ‘I wondered if you maybe needed help with that list.’

  A quieter, longer pause.

  King said, ‘Slater?’

  ‘Are you keeping tabs on me or something?’

  ‘You’re more tech-savvy than I’ll ever be. You really think I’m tracking you?’

  ‘It’s just an awful coincidence.’

  King didn’t know what Slater meant, but he already knew the instincts in the crevasse, as usual, were spot on. ‘And why would that be?’

  ‘I came back to the list today. I found out, minutes before you called, that one of the guys is in San Francisco. Frankie Booth. He’s an MMA coach. Runs a gym out of Hunters Point, trains some budding professionals.’

  ‘Why’d you precede that with the fact he’s in California?’

  ‘Alexis is flying there today for a job.’

  ‘A job?’

  ‘Maybe not the right way to put it.’ He filled King in on the morning’s proceedings, everything he knew.

  When he finished, King said, ‘So that’s why you sounded relieved.’

  ‘Relieved?’

  ‘You were looking for a way to justify going.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Slater admitted. ‘And now we have it.’

  ‘Where are the rest of the men on the list?’

  ‘All here in Boston.’

  ‘Then isn’t that a better place to start?’

  ‘King.’

  One word said it all. It said, I understand what you’re trying to argue, and you’re right. But I’m going anyway.

  ‘Sure,’ King said. ‘I’ll tag along.’

  ‘What’ll Violetta think about that?’

  ‘She’ll be fine. It’s gorgeous California. Not Mexico.’

  ‘Surely you’re not being—’

  ‘Of course I’m not being serious. There’s scumbags in every corner of the world. She knows that as well as we do.’

  ‘And she’s fine with it?’

  ‘She will be. She knows who I am.’

  ‘How’s Junior doing?’

  ‘Healthy. Happy. He’s obsessed with his feet. I think he’s just discovered they exist. He keeps grabbing at them…you know, staring in amazement.’

  ‘Babies are weird.’

  ‘Yeah. You skipped this part. On that note, what are you doing? Just leaving Tyrell on his own?’

  ‘He’s thirteen. He can handle himself for a few days, make his own meals.’

  ‘What about the house parties? You’ll get back and the whole place’ll be trashed.’

  ‘I don’t even have to say anything about that. He knows not to take that chance.’

  ‘You don’t seem like the type to discipline your kid. As strange as that sounds.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Slater said. ‘I lead by example.’

  ‘You must’ve told an old story or two. About the womanising days.’

  ‘It’s come up occasionally, in a roundabout way. I’m not going to pretend I never enjoyed the hedonistic side of life.’

  ‘So if he chooses to?’

  ‘Then that’s his business. I only care that he stays on track generally. And even that won’t appeal to him if I’m too forceful about it. When did we ever want to do what our parents told us as teenagers?’

  King hesitated. ‘You went through that? I thought you told me your parents...’

  Slater said, ‘Well, not my parents. They were out of the picture by then. But there’s that general sense of authority everywhere. Foster homes, care facilities, juvenile prison. You want to do exactly what they tell you not to.’

  ‘So if Tyrell says, “I’m thinking of throwing a party while you’re gone.”’

  ‘He wouldn’t.’

  ‘Humour me. What would you do? I’m conducting research for the future, in case you didn’t know. Junior’ll be a teenager one day.’

  Slater had to pause. ‘I don’t know what I’d do. But we’d figure it out.’

  King said, ‘I’m going to tell him to throw a party. I need the answer to this.’

  Slater couldn’t hold back the laugh. ‘Then he’d be taking after his…’ He trailed off.

  ‘Dad,’ King said. ‘You’re his dad. You can say it.’

  ‘Doesn’t feel right. Not yet.’

  ‘It will.’

  ‘I hope.’

  ‘I’ve got to go tell Violetta I’m going to San Francisco.’

  ‘At least there’s a silver lining.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘You can take a few selfies for Alice Dunfield. Helps the cover story.’

  King laughed.

  Slater said, ‘You go tell Violetta. And I’ll sell it to Alexis.’

  ‘She won’t believe you.’

  ‘That Frankie Booth is in San Francisco?’

  ‘That you’re going solely for Frankie and not to keep an eye on her.’

  Slater said, ‘I know.’

  ‘And she’d be right in that assumption.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  ‘You going to do this forever? Or are you going to get her to stop trying to be you?’

  Slater thought about snapping at that but decided better. After a pause to calm himself down, he said, ‘This is who she is. If it wasn’t, she never would have chosen to be with me. She hasn’t been forced into any of this. Who am I to stop her trying to help people? I’ve taught her to fight. Taught her to kill.’

  ‘So then why are you following her there?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are.’

  Slater sighed. He’d never anticipated an easy conversation with King, but it still cut through to the depths of him each time. They pushed each other, prodded each other, made each other better.

  Finally he said, ‘I don’t know. I’m human.’ He thought he heard King breathe a smile. ‘What?’

  King said, ‘Never heard anything truer. We’re both human.’ A pause. ‘See you soon.’

  The line went dead.

  17

  Slater had only been off the phone for a couple of minutes when Tyrell came into the kitchen through the garage.

  Tyrell looked all around, noting the silent house, then jolted when he did a double-take of the sofa and saw Slater stretched out, motionless, watching him.

  He said, ‘Man, you look exhausted.’

  Slater said, ‘I am.’

  ‘From deadlifts? Or somethin’ else?’ A brief wink before he turned away to run a glass of water under the tap. ‘I been gone a while.’

  Slater sighed. ‘Thought teenagers were allergic to talking about that.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Tyrell said. ‘Not me. It’s weird. You feel like my dad, but you also feel like a brother.’

  ‘I think that’s the way it should be. I want you to feel like you can talk to me about anything.’

  ‘I do feel like that.’ Tyrell emptied half the glass down his throat, took a gulp of air. ‘Where’s Alexis? Already gone?’
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  ‘She’ll be in the boarding lounge by now.’

  ‘Maybe I shoulda been home earlier, said goodbye…’

  ‘It’s not that big of a deal.’

  ‘It might be.’ Tyrell winced as the words left his mouth, aware of the effect they might have. ‘Man, I didn’t mean it like that…’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘That’s what threw you off, right? Wonderin’ about things that might happen.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Slater took a breath. ‘King and I are chasing our own stuff. It’s taking us to San Francisco, too.’

  Tyrell put the glass down as he processed. ‘You helpin’ her?’

  ‘Not directly. But something tells me it’s all connected.’

  ‘What’s your own “stuff”?’

  ‘That list we spoke about. One of the men on it runs a gym in SF. I think he might be involved with whoever’s trying to intimidate Ava’s niece.’

  ‘You ain’t told her yet, have you?’

  ‘Who?’ Slater said, even though he knew.

  Tyrell rolled his eyes. ‘You know who.’

  ‘That’s my problem. Not yours. You’ll be okay to fend for yourself for a couple of days?’

  ‘Of course, man. I took care’a myself for years. Dad ain’t never did shit for me.’

  Slater nodded.

  Tyrell stared across the open plan space. ‘And if it ain’t a couple of days?’

  ‘I can’t see it taking much longer than that. King and I don’t like to waste time.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  Slater hesitated. ‘I know.’

  ‘Humour me,’ Tyrell said. ‘I know you say it ain’t gonna happen, but it might. What then?’

  ‘You’ll get all of this. The house. The money. You’ll be set. And you’ll have King, Violetta.’

  ‘King’s going with you. What if you’re all gone? It’s unlikely, but it’s possible, yeah?’

  ‘You’ve met Alonzo a couple of times. He’s the one who got you into Harvard. He’ll keep you on the right path. Maybe he won’t fill the same role as me, but he’ll do what’s necessary.’