by R. A. McGee
“I tracked you,” Lucy said. “Broke the encryption of a VPN server and followed your IP address right to your front door.”
“That’s almost impossible,” Darren said. “You really did that?”
Lucy nodded.
“Respect,” Darren said, taking a step toward Lucy. “That’s really amazing. Maybe some time you can tell me how you did that. I’d love to hear.”
“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Lucy said.
Miri cleared her throat again. “Why Butterfield? Who put you up to this?”
“You kidding? Dude showed up, said he was a Special Agent in Charge. He said if I didn’t do what he wanted, like ASAP, he’d have me tossed in jail again. I can’t go back. I’m not built for that shit.”
Lucy walked past Darren and turned the folding chair around to face the man. “This SAC, what did he look like?”
“He was old, like really old. Said his name was Smith. John Smith. He was about yea tall,” Darren said, gesturing with his hands. “Dressed nice, white hair. He was in pretty good shape for an old dude.”
“John Smith? You actually believed his name was John Smith?”
“Sure,” Darren said, “why not? I know people use that shit fictitiously, but eventually someone’s going to be named that. I didn’t want to insult the guy and bag on his name. Besides, it honestly doesn’t matter who he was. If he knew where to find me, I figured that was good enough.”
“Can you remember anything else about him?” Lucy said. “We’re trying to figure out who he was.”
“Man, not much. I wish I had a picture for you, that’d be sweet. No, he was pretty much normal.” Darren shook his head, eyes glazed over as he stared into the distance, as if trying to recall. “No, nothing weird. Except for his walk, I guess. He had a limp. Said the drive in made his hip hurt.”
Miri and Lucy exchanged glances, but didn’t say anything.
“Like I said, I wish I could tell you more. I like talking to you,” he said, looking at Lucy again.
This time, Lucy blushed. Miri stifled a laugh.
“Thanks, Darren, that actually helps us a lot,” Lucy said.
There was a knock at the door.
“That’s got to be Jimbo,” Darren said.
“Who?” Miri said, hand moving to the butt of her pistol.
Darren laughed. “The pizza guy. I’m sure you can tell, we’re pretty friendly.” He pointed at the pile of pizza boxes he’d tripped over. “Let me pay for this and we can keep talking. I have enough to share, if you’re hungry.” He smiled at Lucy.
While Darren went into the kitchen for his wallet, Lucy stood and moved closer to Miri. “You think he’s talking about McHenry?”
“Gotta be,” Miri said.
“But why? I don’t understand why he’d pin all the Russian contacts on Butterfield,” Lucy said.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Miri said. “McHenry is a dead man once I get my hands on him.”
Darren unlocked the top deadbolt and looked back at Lucy. “I hope you like pineapple.”
He unlocked the second deadbolt and pulled the door open. He was still smiling at Lucy when a silenced pistol barrel smashed into his face and drove him backward into the trailer.
Before Miri could draw, the pistol was aimed at her. She held her hands low in front of her.
“You might want to rethink your plan. You pull that piece and I’ll win. I’d hate to put a hole in that pretty face.”
Miri gritted her teeth, but didn’t move.
“See? That’s not so bad. Now, real slow, take it out and toss it. Make sure not to startle me.”
Miri pulled her pistol, two fingers on the grip, and tossed it away.
“Now that the business is done, I think we can all relax and get to know each other a bit,” the man said, an enormous grin on his face. “This feels like a party I should be part of. I mean, the ratio is pretty damn good.”
He looked at Darren, his left eye not quite focused on the young man. “You know what, come to think of it, I think I’d like to handle the two of them alone. Ménage, if you get my drift.”
Darren was about to say something, but Keever swung the pistol from Miri to the young man’s head, squeezed the trigger, and had it back on Miri in a fraction of a second.
The bullet passed through Darren’s face and turned it into mush, blown out all over the pizza boxes behind him.
Lucy screamed, and Miri fought the urge to pull her pistol, to hell with the gun trained on her.
“Don’t do that, you tall drink of water. There’s somebody here I’m not supposed to kill, but it ain't you. Be stupid and you die.”
Miri lowered her hands to her sides, hands still curled into fists.
“Good,” the smiling man said. “Good. Now let's talk about this threesome of ours.”
Forty-Four
Clark consulted his phone several times, ensuring the directions he was following were correct. His route from the medical center had taken him from the well-lit and populated roads near Union Station, nearly a mile away, to a several-block stretch of small rowhomes, their color impossible to discern in the dull yellow glow of the street lights.
He walked past a man leaning on an old Cadillac Eldorado with a for sale sign in the window, sparking a cigarette. Clark stopped for a moment, then turned around to talk to the old man. He was thin, wearing blue jeans and a pair of white tennis shoes that practically glowed in the dark. A graying afro perched atop his head. Clark spoke from several feet away, so as not to startle the man.
“You mind if I buy a couple of those from you?”
“These?” the man said, waving the box of menthol smokes.
“Yeah.”
“Shit. I thought you meant my car or something. A real score.” The man fished a couple of cigarettes out of the box and handed them to Clark.
“Let me buy them,” Clark said.
“Why? They’re just cancer sticks. Shit, I should pay you for taking them off my hands. You really doing me a favor. I should be telling you no. Save both our lives.”
“Life’s too short not to, from time to time,” Clark said. He handed the man a folded bill.
The man shrugged and fished out a couple more cigarettes, adding to the ones already in his hand, and gave them to Clark.
“Got a light?”
The man leaned over and sparked a disposable lighter in Clark's face, lighting the smoke.
Clark took a drag, his face feeling the small spark of warmth on the chilly evening. “Thanks.”
“Your funeral,” the old man said as Clark turned to walk away.
He got several steps down the sidewalk when the man called out after him. “Hey, man, this is a hundred. At least let me give you the rest of the pack.”
Clark didn’t answer, instead following the path he’d plotted out.
By the time he’d chained his third cigarette onto the end of his second, he was feeling a pang of guilt. If Miri knew he was smoking, she’d kill him. She always hated it when he did it, and despite his objections, she always trashed his cigarettes when she could.
He thought of his partner, hoping she was having luck getting what she needed from the hacker, then stopped in front of the house he was looking for. It was as nondescript as every other place on the street. Clark was sure it was in need of a new paint job and a strong pressure wash of the concrete stairs. The area was damp and smelled of mold.
He weighed his options. The last time he and the occupant of the house had talked, things hadn’t ended well. There was always the chance that he could knock on the front door and everything would be fine, anger lost and forgotten by time.
“Best not to chance it,” Clark said to himself. He turned around and jogged back to the spot he’d left the old man, hoping he’d still be there. Clark wasn’t disappointed: he found him holding up the side of his Eldorado.
“I was rude earlier,” Clark said. “I didn’t introduce myself. Mike Barnes.”
“Reggi
e. You back to buy the Caddy?”
“Maybe later. Quick question.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you want to earn out the rest of that hundred?”
“Hey man, no Indian giving. Hundo’s mine now.”
“No doubt,” Clark said. “I’d be glad to give you a couple more. You interested?”
“What I gotta do for it? You’re a handsome fella, but I ain't into that freaky shit.”
Clark laughed. “Nothing like that. I just need you to knock on a door.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. That’s all. Knock on a door and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Well, point me at that mother,” Reggie said. “I’ll be a knocking fool.”
Clark walked the man back to the house he’d stopped at. “That house right there. All you need to do is go and knock, and keep knocking until someone answers. No matter what.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s it,” Clark said. He pressed two more bills into Reggie’s hands. “I’ll even prepay.”
“Let me at the mother,” Reggie said, starting up the walkway to the stairs.
“Whoa, wait a second,” Clark said, grabbing the thin man by the collar. “Look at your watch and give me ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?”
“Exactly. You got that?”
Reggie stuffed the hundreds into his pocket. “I’m on it.”
Clark clapped the man on the shoulder, then jogged up the street and disappeared around the corner.
Reggie stood and looked around, then pulled the money out of his pants pocket. He counted the bills, thumbing through them as if to make sure his luck hadn't changed. He looked up the street, but it was empty. Mike Barnes was long gone.
The time passed quickly; when Reggie looked at his watch again, ten minutes had elapsed. He walked up the steps and banged on the door. From inside, he could hear a television with its volume up high.
Reggie hit the door again and again, not stopping. For five minutes he smacked the front door, his pounding ringing hollow on the cheap aluminum door.
Finally, a voice from inside bellowed out.
“Hey, yo, can you come to the door?” Reggie said.
The door swung open and a big man in sweatpants and a wifebeater answered. He was sturdily built and fair-skinned. His face was red and grew redder as he screamed. “Why the fuck are you banging on my door?”
“Hey man, listen—”
“No, you listen. You better have a good reason for waking me up, or I’ll kill you,” the man said, his face a deep crimson and his chest heaving.
“I knocked because he told me to,” Reggie said.
“He who?”
“Him,” Reggie said, pointing over the angry man’s shoulder.
The homeowner spun around and Clark was standing there. “Hi, David.”
Reggie watched as the man he knew as Mike Barnes wrapped the wifebeater-clad man in a chokehold and strangled him down to the floor.
“Thanks, Reggie, we’re good. Enjoy your money.”
“We good as long as you don’t do none of that ninja shit to me,” Reggie said, and took off down the stairs and away from the house.
Forty-Five
“At least close the door,” Miri said, acting calm. “It’s freezing out there.”
Keever reached behind him and pushed the door to the trailer shut, never once taking his eyes off Miri. “That’s not a bad idea. Let’s keep it nice and toasty in here.”
Miri looked at the young man on the floor in front of her. There was no saving him. Her only goal was finding a way to get both her and Lucy Gordon out of this trailer alive.
The man in front of her was a good size, obviously athletic and quick. His dark skin served to highlight his enormous, blinding grin. “So you’re Keever?”
“You know me? I’m very flattered. I prefer Lester. My momma gave me that name and I like to use it. Grew up answering to Lester my whole life. Go into the Army and it’s like I worked at a factory in a mill town. Last names only.”
“Maybe they just didn’t want to say Lester, you know?” Miri said. “I mean, only one thing rhymes with Lester.”
“Don’t. Just don’t,” Keever said. He looked from Miri to Lucy.
The younger woman was shaking, her hands raised straight up in the air like she was in an old-school stick-up.
“You don’t need to worry none,” Keever said to Lucy. “I’m not supposed to kill you. I mean, I’m bringing you with me when I leave, but you’ll at least be alive.”
He turned his gaze back to Miri. “You, on the other hand, I don’t have any orders about. I suppose I could just kill you, but it seems like a waste of such high-quality ass.”
Miri noticed Keever’s left eye didn’t follow as quickly as his right eye did. “Hard to tell what I look like with only one eye, right? I mean, maybe I’m disgusting and you just really can't tell.”
Keever’s breath picked up, and Miri saw him fighting to stay composed. Several breaths later, his breathing slowed and he took a step toward Miri. “You noticed my eye, huh?” He pulled a syringe out of his pocket and pulled the safety cap off with his perfect teeth.
“Hard to miss. What's that, glass? Pretty old school. I thought they had better technology these days.”
Keever smiled. “What can I say? I like the classics.” Without taking his eyes off Miri, he reached out and pushed the syringe into Lucy’s arm.
“Ow,” Lucy said. “What the hell was that? What did you stick me with? Oh my God, no. What is that? Miri? Miri, what did he do?”
Miri had inched herself closer to Keever, but could only do so much. “It’s okay, Luce, don’t worry. It’s just a little something to make you sleep. Right, Keever?”
“You got me. If I’m taking her all the way home, I don’t want her trying to kick my trunk open.”
Lucy's eyes blinked hard and she sat on the metal folding chair, then slid off and slumped on the floor.
“See, here's the thing. I’m not supposed to kill her, but I think I have a better use for her.”
“If you touch her, you sick—”
“Whoa,” Keever said, raising the gun towards Miri’s face. “You stop moving around or you’ll get it.”
Miri gritted her teeth but froze in place.
“I was just supposed to follow this kid and see what she was doing, but once I saw her with my old buddy Clark, I thought maybe I can use her for something else.”
“Clark told us he saw you in the bathroom. Said you’re a weirdo,” Miri said. She remembered Clark saying he tried to get Keever riled up. She had no clue why, but she decided to follow his lead, and try to piss Keever off. “Something about you being a creepy asshole. Not sure what he meant.”
Keever smiled. He’d dropped the empty syringe and was balling his hand into a fist. The redness around his face was creeping down his neck. “That’s just Clark for you. We go way back, me and Clark, did he tell you that?”
Miri didn’t answer. She was looking at the barrel of the silenced pistol that was pointing at her face, calculating whether or not she could risk making a move.
“He tell you he was there when I lost my eye? It’s his fault, really, but he doesn’t like to admit it. Yep, good old Czerny Clark. He looks like he’s pretty close to that sleeping girl on the floor. I was watching when you guys came through the airport. She just hugged him so tight, I couldn’t help but be a little jealous. I wish I had a tiny white girl that liked to hug me. Like a pet or something.”
“Probably be a lot easier if you weren’t such a grotesque scumbag. I mean, come on, stabbing people with syringes? That’s a little rapey, don’t you think? You can’t expect anyone to hang around with you if they could get drugged.”
Keever took a few deep breaths, the red moving around his forehead as he flushed with anger. His big smile faltered briefly, but then was plastered across his face once more. “Rapey? Clark told you about me, then?”
“He told
us all about you. Hard to see how you can still call yourself a man at this point,” Miri said, gambling that she’d get under his skin.
“Oh, I’m a man, all right. No problems there. And people should really not speak out of school until they have all the facts. Innocent until proven guilty.”
“Maybe. I’m more concerned about you, though. I mean, think about what you’re doing to yourself. Always drugging girls, getting used to the way that feels. You need to worry about impotence. If a girl was awake, do you think you could even get it up?”
Keever's breathing grew more ragged and his eyes opened wide. He stuck the pistol into the holster on his hip, the silencer sticking out the bottom. Without a word, he launched himself at Miri.
Forty-Six
As Keever charged her, Miri front-kicked him in the chest. The powerful man barely stopped, but the kick knocked him off course just enough that Miri slid to the left and out of the way.
“Whoa, Keever, did I strike a nerve?”
Miri stood, hands up and ready. She was as tall as Keever, but not nearly as heavy. He charged again, this time bull-rushing her into the cabinets in the kitchen. He slammed her into the cabinets, then backed off slightly and swung a right hand at her. Miri ducked and his hand went crashing through the cabinet door.
As Keever struggled to pull his hand out, Miri hit him three times on the left side of his face. She knew there was no way his glass eye would let him see the blows coming. After the third punch, she slipped behind him and went for his holstered pistol.
Keever jerked his arm free, smashing an elbow into Miri’s face. The combination of her forward momentum and the force of his backward elbow stunned her briefly. She backed off, shaking her head to clear it.
“That’s the problem with you women. You always say things you shouldn’t,” Keever said. “Bigmouthed bitches.”
Keever charged again. This time, Miri stepped to her right, circling around toward Keever’s blind side. She fired several short punches at the soft area of his neck, but he raised his shoulder and tucked his chin, and the blows fell harmlessly against the thick muscle of his shoulder.
