by Jack Hardin
“Mr. Fagan,” the man said. “I typically make it a point to personally introduce myself to each new inmate that arrives at my prison. When they come here, it’s because they will be calling it home for the rest of their lives. I always want to make sure they feel welcome.” The man leaned back in his chair. “My name is Hal Dotson. I am the warden at this fine establishment. Please forgive me for taking a few weeks to welcome you.”
Fagan studied the man who was studying him. Dotson’s lips now formed a thin line, as though they were still deciding whether to curl into a smile or not. “Good to meet you,” Fagan said, although he didn’t really care about the warden’s formal welcome. Something told him there was more to this meeting than a simple “hello.”
A decanter sat on the far end of the desk. Dotson leaned forward and retrieved it, sliding it across the polished wood surface. He opened a desk drawer, withdrew a glass, removed the stopper from the decanter, and poured generously. Returning the stopper to its place, he slid the glass over to Fagan.
“You’re not drinking?” Fagan asked him.
“Quit fifteen years ago. The bottle took me through three wives and nearly smothered my career.” His smile came now, and it was sinister, revealing, and, given his position, a bit disturbing. “But I aim to be hospitable. As you’re aware, the Bureau doesn’t exactly serve you a nightcap after your evening meals.”
Fagan hadn’t had a good drink since that night at Kathleen’s house. He lifted the glass to his lips and closed his eye as he sipped. The amber liquid was warm in his mouth; sweet at first, and giving off notes of ripe black cherries and warm, toasted wood. The lingering finish had a hint of cedar wraps and light peat smoke.
Fagan’s eye snapped open.
He knew this whiskey. He had only had it once before—just a few weeks earlier. It wasn’t one that you easily forgot: it was sweet, with notes of ripe black cherries and brown sugar giving way to dried fruits and warm, and light peat smoke, giving way to a lingering finish. The knot returned to his stomach, much tighter than it had been earlier.
Dotson was watching him. “Relax, Joel. What’s the problem?”
“What do you make every year?” Fagan asked. “A hundred and twenty thousand? A hundred and thirty? How can you afford a twenty thousand dollar bottle of fifty-year-old whiskey?”
“I didn’t buy it. Your friend, Roman Baxter, sent it over.”
Fagan stared blankly at him.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked, Joel. Mr. Baxter...he’s nervous. And it’s you who have made him so.”
“What does he want?”
“The whiskey, it’s a gesture. As I understand it, you wasted an entire bottle of this very whiskey several weeks ago. Poured it down the sink, did you? Mr. Baxter was not too happy about that.”
Fagan looked away, his mind racing. He hadn’t seen this coming.
“Mr. Baxter is willing to put that behind him if, and only if, you are willing to parley. You know an awful lot about his organization. Now that you’re here for the long haul, he wants to know if the two of you can come to some sort of an… agreement.”
Fagan was no longer listening to what Dotson was saying. Instead, he was thinking about what Dotson wasn’t saying. The crystal clear message that Baxter could get to him even in here; that even Dotson, the warden, could be had for a price. And that Baxter could pay any price.
“What do you think, Joel? Are you willing to work with Mr. Baxter? Are you willing to keep your mouth shut?”
The folks from the Attorney General’s office were returning tomorrow morning. Fagan’s lawyer tomorrow afternoon. He would tell the AG that they had until the end of the day to make a deal or he would give them nothing. If they agreed, then he would spill his guts. He knew enough about Roman Baxter for six different countries to put him in jail for the rest of his days. Who knew? Maybe they would even bring him here. They could be neighbors, albeit worlds apart.
Fagan set his nose to the edge of the glass and sniffed before taking another sip. He swallowed, relishing the flavor before tipping the glass back and gulping down the rest as though it were a cheap vodka, not one of the most expensive drinks on the planet. He really did hate the fact that he would have to spend the rest of his days as a teetotaler.
Fagan dragged the back of his wrist across his lips. “No,” he said resolutely, slowly shaking his head. “I don’t think I will be quiet. I don’t think I will parley. Baxter is a pompous idiot. He deserves to go down. I see no reason why the two of us can’t go down on the same ship together.”
Dotson smiled again.
A tingle jittered on the top of Fagan’s tongue.
And then he knew.
He looked back to Dotson, who was looking serenely at him, as though Fagan were a Monet on display at an art museum.
The tingle reached its way to the back of his throat.
“Don’t worry,” Dotson said. “When it’s all over, the poison will be undetectable. But your heart will shut down. The autopsy will show nothing more than a fatal reaction to your postoperative medication.” He wore a full-on smile now.
Fagan felt an unnatural tremor run down his right arm, like a hellish bug was scurrying under his muscles, skittering over the bone. The muscles in his throat began to constrict, and he felt his heart start to slam inside his chest, like someone had taken the remote and turned the pump on full speed.
Beads of sweat broke out across his forehead, little drops of salty dew combating the sudden rise in body temperature.
“Mr. Baxter asked me to convey to you how displeased he was that you poured his bottle of scotch down the drain. He said it was a slap in the face. His wife had given him that for their anniversary.”
Fagan now found it difficult to breathe. His lungs seemed to be working fine, but the muscles that made up his diaphragm wouldn’t function. Tiny white dots floated across his vision.
His thoughts quickly sped to how foolish he had been. Of course Baxter would have done something like this. Baxter would have done something like this because Fagan would have too, had the shoe been on the other foot. And Baxter was ruthless, even more so than Fagan was.
He thought of all the regrets he suddenly and unexpectedly knew that he had: losing his relationship with Kathleen, killing Frank Blackwell just a little too early...and not being there for his daughter.
She didn’t even know that he was still alive.
But Baxter did.
And he wouldn’t stop until any and everything Fagan cared about was wiped off the face of the earth.
And as his body shut down on him, Fagan was suddenly glad that he had had the forethought to set up a contingency plan. Once his former colleague heard that Fagan was dead, he would send the letter.
Fagan hoped that Ryan Savage would get it.
He hoped Savage would read it.
And that the federal agent would find a way to keep Fagan’s daughter safe.
Because Baxter, Fagan knew, would be coming for her next.
As Fagan lost consciousness, he slumped forward out of his chair. His face slammed into the side of the warden's desk, the thin band of his eyepatch catching on the corner of a thick binder and flipping the patch off his face.
He fell to the floor. His chest rose and fell in a shallow, halting rhythm. Until it no longer moved at all. His body lay on the carpet, unmoving, a dark empty cavern where his eye had once been; a vacant hole as black as his very soul.
But his soul had departed his body; all that remained of Joel Fagan on this side of that great immortal dividing line was a body he no longer needed.
He was gone, and all his secrets with him. But Fagan indeed had been right.
Baxter was coming for his daughter next.
THE END
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