The Professionals

by Owen Laukkanen

  Fingerprints were too plentiful to matter and witnesses were nonexistent, and frankly, D’Antonio’s contact told him, the homicide police would have been all too willing to run with the idea that the men had shot each other but for one minor problem: a shitload of extra blood on the floor of the hotel room. The conventional wisdom in Miami put a third person in the room while the killings went down.

  The kid. All that blood meant the bastard was hurting.

  D’Antonio stepped out of the Escalade and into the rain. He stared up at the Beneteau residence, wondering if the old lady was watching him. Lately he seemed to be living in her driveway or in her living room, taking phone calls and directing traffic while she brooded in the background, the kids wandering like ghosts through the home. Poor bastards lost their dad to this asshole, he thought. Who knows when they lost their mom.

  He walked up to the front door and let himself in. One of the kids, the youngest, met him in the foyer as he took off his shoes. “Your mom around?”

  The kid stared at him a second, then pointed to the study. Said nothing. D’Antonio nodded. “Thanks.”

  The kid followed him to the doorway, watching from a distance. D’Antonio opened the door and then noticed the kid staring at him. “What’s up, little man?”

  The kid’s eyes were cartoonish wide. “You’re going to get the men who killed my dad.”

  “That’s right,” said D’Antonio.

  “You’re going to make them pay.”

  “Yeah.”

  The kid said nothing more. D’Antonio hung there a moment and then let himself into the study, where Patricia Beneteau waited like a winter coat waits for a blizzard. “Close the door,” she said.

  D’Antonio closed the door. “We had a problem,” he said. “The Miami job didn’t play.”

  She fixed her cold eyes on him. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “The kid got away. Fired the help and stole their car.”

  “They don’t sound like good help,” she said. “What about the girl?”

  “I’m working on a Seattle connection. We’ll find her.”

  “Jesus,” she said. She walked to a bookshelf. Examined a row of books. Then she turned back to him, her eyes sharp and her voice like ice. “My husband is dead because of a couple of kids, and all the manpower in this organization can’t seem to catch up to them. So tell me, can you find these people? Or should I have Rialto send over someone better?”

  “There’s no one better,” he told her. “There’s me, and that’s it.”

  She stared at D’Antonio, her eyebrow raised. D’Antonio stared back. Waited her out. Mercifully, his phone rang. “Excuse me,” he told her, and he ducked out into the hall.

  It was his man at Detroit PD. “I have news.”

  “Go.”

  “FBI’s taking over your case.”

  D’Antonio felt his heart sink even further. “Bullshit.”

  “True story. Not racketeering, though. Different Feds. That homicide cop, Landry, brought them downtown from Birmingham, had ’em looking at vans in the impound lot. Two agents out of Minnesota working a kidnapping angle. They make your killers as a group, probably four people, working jobs state to state.”

  Those clowns? thought D’Antonio. No way. Those kids were barely out of high school. “Feds,” he said. “What does that mean for us?”

  “Means I can’t get you much more information unless Birmingham homicide stays involved somehow. Otherwise the Feds shut us out.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “We can feed them information,” said the man. “Small stuff. Just enough to keep the Feds around. We can admit Beneteau was kidnapped, for starters.”

  “Let me think on it,” said D’Antonio. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Got a name for your Seattle bird.”

  “No shit.”

  “Ticket was booked under the name Ashley McAdams. Flew out the day after. Might be a fake, but it’s probably worth chasing.”

  “We’ll chase it,” said D’Antonio.

  He hung up the phone and stood in the hall for a minute. Kidnappers. They thought kidnappers took Beneteau. Well, the theory made sense as far as Miami went. Those guys figured they were taking out one unarmed kid. Turned out they were walking into a viper’s nest. Interesting.

  D’Antonio let himself back into the study. Patricia Beneteau looked up at him from her desk. “Well?” she said. “Have you figured out how you’re going to catch these people?”

  “Yeah,” D’Antonio told her. “I’m going to Seattle.”

  thirty-two

  I killed a man, Pender thought. I killed a man in cold blood. Killed him while he was lying barely conscious and defenseless on the floor. I stood over him and shot him dead, and I would do it again if I had to.

  They holed up in a shitty motel in Hollywood, just up the interstate from Miami. Parked the Trans Am in the back of the lot and piled into a dirty little room with no air conditioner and no cable. They carried Mouse into the room and laid him on the bed and made sure he was stable, and then they left Tiffany to babysit while they hiked up the road to a 7-Eleven for supplies.

  “How bad do you think he’s hurt?” Pender asked Sawyer as they walked. “Do you think he’s all right?”

  “How the hell should I know?” said Sawyer. “He’s conscious, isn’t he?”

  “He’s maybe in shock.”

  “Nothing vital up there where he was shot, I don’t think. Probably hurts like a bitch, but he should be all right, right?”

  “I hope so,” said Pender. “You can’t just walk off a gunshot wound.”

  “You can in the movies,” said Sawyer.

  “Yeah, for whatever that’s worth.”

  They walked a ways farther. “We can try to bribe a doctor,” said Pender. “But we gotta make it quick, and we gotta keep moving. Those guys are going to come after us again.”

  “What about the girl?” said Sawyer. “Tiffany. How much do we tell her?”

  “How much do you like her?”

  Sawyer glanced at Pender. “I only just met her, dude. She’s some rich Princeton kid. Who knows what she’s thinking right now?”

  “Can we let her go?”

  They let the question hang there and kept walking. If we can think of a reasonable story, Pender thought, we can let her go. If we can be sure she’s not going to talk. But what happens if we can’t?

  “Maybe we tell her my dad’s someone famous,” he said finally. “Like a politician.”

  “Yeah,” said Sawyer. “Those guys were trying to kidnap you.”

  “That works, right?”

  They bought the 7-Eleven out of bandages and aspirin and grabbed some cheap snack food and alcohol, and then they walked back down along the dark road, honing the cover story until it was sharp as a prison toothbrush. They walked across the back of the motel, ready to feed the girl the lie and cut her loose.

  They opened the door to the room and found Mouse lying on the bed, still in his bloody bathing suit and bloodier homemade bandages, head propped up by pillows, and an action movie on the television. Tiffany sat beside him, her hand over his.

  Mouse looked up when Pender and Sawyer came into the room. “Hey, fellas.” He gestured to the TV. “These things are a whole lot cooler when you know what they’re going through.”

  Tiffany rolled her eyes at Pender. “What did you guys get?”

  “Bandages, drugs, Ho Hos, and vodka,” said Sawyer. “Everything our shot-up little bastard could ever want.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “I’m fine,” said Mouse. “I really just want to take a nap.”

  “No naps,” said Pender. “How’s your arm feel? You need a doctor?”

  “Shit, no,” said Mouse. “Just give me a shot of something and tell me if there’s an exit wound.”

  They gave Mouse a bottle of vodka and a plastic motel cup and told him to get ready while Tiffany spread bath towels over the bedspread. Mouse poured a
shot and forced it down and came up coughing and grimacing.

  “Lightweight,” said Sawyer.

  Mouse glared at him. “Screw off.”

  Pender poured him another double, just in case, and then they lifted up Mouse and deposited him gently on the bath towel lining. They rolled him onto his left side. Pender and Sawyer held him in place while Tiffany examined his back. She made a face. “Yeah,” she said. “There’s an exit wound.”

  “How’s it look?” said Mouse.

  “Fucking gross,” she said. “How should I know?”

  “I think that guy had a forty-five. That’s a big fucking gun.”

  “It’s a big fucking hole,” said Tiffany.

  Mouse reached for his cup and drained it again. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be fine. We just gotta stop the bleeding and keep it bandaged up.”

  Pender and Sawyer glanced at each other. “You’re sure?”

  “I think so.” He gestured to the plastic shopping bags. “Let’s see what kind of stuff you bought.”

  They plugged up the exit wound with the bandages from 7-Eleven and then wrapped up his arm and shoulder in the rest of the clean towels. Then they lowered him to the bed and told him to take a rest.

  “No more booze,” said Tiffany. “It thins the blood.”

  Mouse groaned, a stage groan. “At least let me have some Ho Hos.”

  “Eat up.” Pender tossed Tiffany a package of snack cakes. Then he turned to Sawyer. “You want to run her through the story?”

  Sawyer nodded. “Yeah, all right.”

  Pender turned back to where Tiffany was feeding Mouse the Ho Hos, laughing as he nibbled them in her hand. “Tiffany, why don’t you let me take over? You and Sawyer can take a break. Take a walk.”

  Tiffany looked up, her eyes wide. “You want me to take a walk with Sawyer.”

  “Nah, boss, let her stay,” said Mouse. “We’re having fun.”

  “Just for a couple minutes,” said Pender.

  Tiffany was pale. “You guys are going to kill me, aren’t you?”

  Mouse sat up. “What?” He grimaced and sunk back. “Who’s killing who?”

  She stood. “You think I know too much.”

  “Nobody’s killing anyone,” Pender told her. “I thought you and Sawyer could have a talk about the situation here. He could answer any questions. That sort of thing.”

  “No need,” said Tiffany. “Mouse explained it all already.”

  Pender stared at her. Then at Mouse, who shrugged and smiled weakly. “She forced it out of me, guys. Advanced interrogation techniques.”

  Tiffany blushed, but Pender kept his eyes on Mouse. “What exactly did you tell her?”

  “He told me the truth,” said Tiffany.

  “Uh-huh,” said Pender. “What truth?”

  “He told me you guys travel around kidnapping people for money,” she said. “He told me those guys who came into the hotel room were pissed because you tried to kidnap a mobster in Detroit, and now you’re on the run. That’s what he told me.”

  Pender stared hard at Mouse, but the kid was focused on Tiffany, still wearing that same stupid grin. Pender could have killed him himself.

  “So, what?” Tiffany’s eyes were on Pender. “You guys have a better story?”

  thirty-three

  Nancy was still awake when Stevens got home. He found her sitting at the kitchen table, an array of file folders and photocopies spread out before her. “Agent Stevens,” she said, looking up as he came in from the garage. “Back from saving the world?”

  He was back, that was true, but it was only a brief respite from the road. Windermere wanted to be on a plane to Seattle by noon the next day.

  “Kiss your wife, hug your kids, and pack a bag,” she’d told Stevens as they parted ways at the airport, and Stevens had spent the cab ride home wondering just what he was going to tell Nancy.

  Now he stood over her, bending down to kiss her forehead, and he still hadn’t come up with any kind of a plan. She looked up at him, smiled through sleepy eyes. “How’s your day?” he asked her.

  “Busy,” she said, closing her eyes as he rubbed her back. “I missed you.”

  “Yeah,” said Stevens. “I sure missed you.”

  He massaged her back for a few minutes, working out the knots and feeling the tension in her shoulders. She leaned back into his touch, a contented smile playing on her face.

  “The kids asleep?”

  She nodded. “Been about an hour.”

  “Rats. How’s J.J. feeling?”

  “Better. Fever’s down. You could wake them.”

  “Nah. Let them sleep.”

  She opened her eyes and stared up into his. “I guess you’re flying out again.”

  He blinked. “How did you know?”

  “I know you, Agent Stevens,” she said. “You look like you’re into something deep and you don’t think I’m going to like it.”

  Stevens stared down at his wife. “Some poker face I’ve got.”

  Nancy smiled. Reached back to rub his arm. “We can’t all be born liars.”

  “Seattle.” He sighed. “Couple days, maybe more.” He felt like nothing he could say would fix it. “I’m sorry, honey.”

  Nancy reached back to pull him closer. “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “I do.”

  “I knew what I was getting into when I married a policeman. It’s just crummy that it all has to come together this week of all weeks.”

  “It plain sucks,” said Stevens. “I figured when I joined the BCA I’d get to sleep in my own bed every night.”

  “We’ll get through it. Brennan will come back and you’ll figure out this case and we’ll all go back to normal. All right?”

  She tilted her head back, and he kissed her. “All right,” he said.

  She smiled up at him. “So tell me about this case of yours.”

  “This case of mine,” he said, walking around the table and taking a seat opposite hers. “We got these kids pulling kidnapping jobs all over the place. Minnesota. Detroit. Seattle, maybe. They’ve got aliases, fake addresses, credit cards. It’s insane.”

  “It better be, you leaving like this,” she said. “What time’s your flight?”

  “Eleven-thirty.”

  She stood, stretching, and walked over to where he sat. “Well, then, Agent Stevens, I guess you’d better fulfill your marital responsibilities while you have the chance.”

  She sat down in his lap and he tilted his head up toward hers and they kissed again, long and slow and deep.

  Was your wife upset?” Windermere glanced across the aisle of the Delta A320 as Stevens settled into his seat.

  Stevens fastened his seat belt and stared up the aisle, willing his stomach to stay settled. “We worked our way through it,” he said. “What about Mark?”

  Windermere frowned. “Mark. Yeah, he had some issues with it.” She smiled at Stevens. “He’s jealous of you.”

  “You tell him I’m married?”

  “I could have told him you were gay and he wouldn’t have cared.” She sighed. “We agreed to disagree.”

  “Yikes.”

  She sighed again. “He’s just moody,” she said. “Ever since we moved up here. He can’t find any work, so he just sits at home and mopes around all day. Can’t even go out because he hates the cold.”

  “You tell him about ice-fishing?”

  “I told him,” she said. “He told me I was insane and went to turn up the heat.” She dug around in her briefcase and handed him a sheaf of paper. “Anyway, we’ve got homework to do.”

  “Credit cards?”

  “Partly. That’s Ashley McAdams’s Visa statements for the last twelve months. Take a look.”

  Stevens flipped through the first few pages. He started from the front, working backward from the October statement. There was the deposit on the Avis rental car in Minneapolis, but apart from that single transaction, no activity whatsoever. Stevens looked back at Windermere. “They�
�re all blank.”

  Windermere nodded. “Same with the Wellman card. One charge in Detroit and nothing else.”

  “Maybe they’re new cards?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “Those cards were issued and activated about a year ago. The girl just never used them.”

  “Then why use them now?”

  “She has other aliases we don’t know about,” said Windermere. “She could have twelve, for all we know. Uses one card, then ditches the alias.”

  “Except Ashley McAdams got on a flight to Seattle a couple weeks after using her credit card.”

  “Yeah, but she paid cash. Maybe she didn’t think anyone would make the connection.”

  “Hot damn,” said Stevens. “Let’s hope she slips up again. Unless we want to start interrogating all the curly-haired girls in Seattle.”

  “In other news,” said Windermere, “Landry at Birmingham homicide called with an update. Someone in Beneteau’s household caved. They’re admitting he was kidnapped.”

  Stevens looked up. “And the kids asked for sixty grand, right?”

  “A hundred this time, but still. Just when we’d figured it out for ourselves. I thanked the detective, told him we were past that already. Told him we were headed to Seattle to check on the curly-haired girl, but keep us in the loop if they heard anything else.”

  The flight attendants closed the cabin doors, and Stevens filed the folio away while the plane taxied from the terminal. When the plane was pointed down the runway, Stevens gripped the armrests, his knuckles straining the skin. Windermere looked over at him. “You’re really hating this, aren’t you?”

  He glanced out the window and felt his stomach flip over. “I’ve been like this since I was a kid.”

  She reached over and touched his hand. “Look at me, Stevens. Forget about the airplane a second and just try and breathe.”

  He held on to her hand and stared straight ahead.

  “Let’s just talk,” said Windermere. “Forget about flying and talk to me for a minute. Your hobbies, Stevens. What do you do for fun?”