by Erik Carter
The satisfaction was short-lived, a fractional moment before there was fresh pain.
Searing heat and a crack-crack-crack from his wrist. Lowry screamed. The gun was gone, vanished faster even than the rifle had. His hand was bent backward.
Damn, this guy was fast.
And as quickly as the Colt had disappeared, a realization took shape.
This was the end.
“You’re a killer,” Lowry said. “So am I. The only difference is, I’m getting paid and you’re getting revenge.” He stopped and let a wave of ache ripple out of his dead hand. “Whatever your mission is, at the end of the day, we both kill people. Show some professional courtesy. Make it quick.”
The Quiet Man didn’t reply. He placed his hands on either side of Lowry’s head.
A blur of movement. An electric, mesmerizing current of pain.
And all was white.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As Matthew Hardin stepped out of the brisk air conditioning and into the thick night, he was feeling surprisingly good.
Sure, his plan had failed.
Sure, he’d found Lowry dead in the cheap sailboat he’d purchased last week.
But that was all fine.
Why? Because Hardin was keeping things in perspective. There were several reasons to count his blessings, the chief reason being the fact that he was even alive with the Quiet Man in town doling out justice for the arson attacks—undoubtedly how Lowry had ended up with a broken neck
Nothing could be traced back to Hardin. He’d made sure of that. There were no written communications between him and Lowry. He’d purchased the sailboat with cash and had done so wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses to hide his increasingly recognizable face.
The only loose end was Adriana. She’d spoken to the Quiet Man. She might speak to him again. But she could be dealt with. Hardin’s preferred muscle was dead, but Lowry wasn’t the only lowlife in Sarasota.
Adriana would be easy enough to dispatch.
Yes, things weren’t so bad. Plenty to be thankful for.
He was in shirtsleeves, tie removed, and his bare feet padded the elaborate brickwork as he took a slow, strolling tour of his pool area. He couldn’t turn in any direction without being reminded of his blessings.
Just look at this place.
Oversized planters full of lush greenery. Palm trees shifting languidly in the sea breeze. The sound of waves in the distance. His property was far enough outside the city hustle and bustle that the sky was a deep, inky black speckled with bright stars.
He took a sip of bourbon, shoved his free hand into his pant pocket, and stared into the illuminated pool, sparkling and blue. A steaming hot tub, also illuminated, lay a few yards beyond. There were two separate seating areas. A massive propane grill. A fire pit.
Not bad for a lower-middle-class kid from a ho-hum part of Miami. It was especially impressive considering his self-imposed late start in life. After college, he’d done very little for two years. Then a stint in retail management. Then law school, savior of the disillusioned and aimless. He’d done well at the Miami firm, not quite making partner but making a lot of connections, and his sudden decision to head across the state to Sarasota, of all places, shocked people.
Hardin had always known he was destined for big things, bigger things than making partner at a prestigious Miami criminal law firm. And his early life choices had hobbled him, stunted his inevitable success. He’d needed a fast track.
A casual conversation at a cocktail lounge in South Beach had provided the answer he’d been seeking, a throwaway line from a drunken coworker. This was when Hardin had learned about Sarasota’s governmental structure. He’d found his fast track.
He continued around the pool, took another casual sip of the bourbon.
And stopped. Tumbler at his lips.
A man appeared. Materialized. From the shadows among the small palm grove behind the tiki hut.
Tall and dark. Walking toward him. There was only one person it could be.
The Quiet Man.
Hardin’s top lip cooled in the icy liquid. If he kept the tumbler at his face much longer, he’d look frightened, weak. He couldn’t have that. So he lowered it. The ice cubes rattled.
“Welcome to my home,” Hardin said with his best public smile, the same one he’d used an hour ago at the candlelight vigil. He kept his posture erect and proud, not a hint of the fear swarming through him.
The other man continued toward him, measured steps, creeping forward, glacial determination. His arms were at his sides, hands empty.
“The Quiet Man. The vigil was lovely, wasn’t it? Very touching. Part of me was expecting something a bit more exciting to happen, though. Say, a gunshot. I have you to thank for the disappointment, don’t I?”
The man didn’t respond.
Hardin took a longer sip from his tumbler, his hand shaking harder. “Aren’t you gonna tell me to ‘talk’?”
The Quiet Man shook his head, slowly. His eyes smoldered, his mouth went tighter as he stared into Hardin.
Hardin went for another sip, stopped himself, put the tumbler on the small, glass-topped table next to the wicker sofa. He brought his hands together, rubbed the shake out of them.
“Did you know that the mayor of Sarasota is a largely ceremonial position? We have a council-manager form of government. Three districts, five commissioners, with three of the commissioners being district representatives and the other two voted at-large. The commission chooses the mayor and the vice-mayor each year. Not an altogether uncommon system. Even some big cities use it—Dallas, San Diego.
“But you hear the title Mayor of Dallas or Mayor of Sarasota, and the average person doesn’t stop to consider how the person got their office. This was my fast track, man. Making up for lost time. Sizemore was just selected mayor a month and a half ago. I don’t have another year to wait for the chance at becoming mayor. So my plan was to link up with Lowry, create a panic, badmouth Sizemore’s ceremonial leadership, and then have him whacked, forcing a new mayor to be selected from among the commissioners. Of course, the logical choice for Sizemore’s replacement would be the commissioner whose strong leadership has been visible in the papers, the one who decided to unify with Sizemore at the vigil, shortly before his assassination, cementing how sincere the commissioner was about getting Sarasota through these difficult times.
“This commissioner would then become mayor of a recognizable city, a desirable vacation destination with worldwide name recognition. A year of that, then the local hero would be a shoo-in when he’d run for state legislature. He’d rub state government shoulders for a while, just a while, his last stop before landing on the national stage.”
He waited for the Quiet Man to respond. Nothing.
“You’re a man of action; that’s clear. I’m sure you can appreciate what I’ve done, nothing more than anyone else who’s making a name for himself. Gotta get ahead in this world, am I right?”
No response from the Quiet Man.
“Say something, dammit!”
The man reached beneath his jacket, pulled out a pistol, raised it in Hardin’s direction.
And fired.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Silence was in the shadows of Adriana Ramirez’s living room, dappled by swatches of streetlight coming in through the thin drapes. He slouched far back in the chair, forearms stretched out on each of the chair’s arms. One hand lay casually on his suppressed Beretta, his index finger resting on the outside edge of the trigger guard.
He felt anger boiling his face, considered a meditation, decided against it.
Sorry, C.C. No meditation this time. I need this.
That ticking. That damn loud ticking that he’d noticed when he was last here. Even louder now, as the clock was only a few inches from him, on the end table to his right. He picked it up.
Centered on the lower half of the face, in elaborate script font, was:
Bradshaw Fine Clocks
B
ristol, England
Earlier, Adriana had told him she and her son worked for Bradshaw Incorporated. She hadn’t been able to tell him what her employer manufactured, and Silence hadn’t found the company listed in the phonebook.
He remembered how she’d casually, almost imperceptibly, glanced to the side, toward the clock, when she’d begun her story. She’d quickly found a random name to inject into her fictitious bullshit.
I just spun him a story, Adriana had told Hardin.
Silence scoffed.
His fingers went rigid, the tips curling in. More of that anger rippled through him, this time directed at himself.
He was good at reading people, so why hadn’t he sensed Adriana’s deception the first time he sat in this room, listening to her woes, watching her weep?
Years prior, when he’d been a police officer, there had also been times when he’d been fooled, and he blamed his damnable tendency toward believing in people’s decency. When he’d expressed his frustration to C.C., she’d told him it was an asset, not a liability, this humanity of his.
Sometimes this quality still presented problems, even as a paid killer. But Silence was quick to correct his errors.
And did so well and fully.
A sound from outside. Footsteps tapping on the front porch, a person’s weight bringing squeals from the boards. A key being inserted.
Silence returned the clock, placing it next to the framed photo of Adriana and Benito on the latter’s graduation day. There was a small clank as the crystal met the glass table topper. He returned his hand to the Beretta.
The thumb turn on the front door’s simple deadbolt lock—that Silence had easily picked a few minutes earlier—clicked into the unlocked position. The door creaked open. Adriana entered. Two steps in, and she jumped, gasped, came to a halt. Her eyes went to Silence’s gun.
And his eyes went to the door behind her, a non-verbal indication.
“Shut it,” he said.
Her arm quivering, Adriana reached behind her and closed the door.
They looked at each other. Adriana’s breaths were loud, wispy. Her body shook.
“Cash,” Silence said.
No clarification necessary; she immediately went to the small bookshelf on the opposite wall, opened an antique cigar box.
“Slowly.”
She slowed her movements and raised her free hand into the air, an extra display of submission.
When she retrieved the stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, she held it up for him to see.
“Toss it.”
He lifted his left hand, kept the right on his pistol. She tossed the cash. He caught it and laid it on his lap.
“I wondered why you would leave me here alone, earlier this evening when you took off,” Adriana said, her voice cracking and small, barely a whisper. “You didn’t fully trust me. You were watching me, weren’t you? Monitoring me.”
Silence nodded. “Talk.”
A few sputtering attempts at words came out. She licked her lips. Tried again.
“He’s my boss. Hardin. I work in his home. He approached me. Told me his plan to create panic in the city, to make Sizemore look bad, how he’d brought Lowry onboard to burn down homes and businesses, make it look like they hadn’t made protection payments. Hardin thought he could give the narrative a more human touch if his own housekeeper was one of the people Lowry attacked. Hardin’s a powerful man, and he asked me for help. What was I supposed to do?”
Silence just stared at her, not blinking.
“I don’t have a son. There is no Benny.” She pointed to the frame beside him. “That’s Adam, my nephew. But just because I don’t have children or a man doesn’t mean I don’t want something more than all this.” She did a big sweep of her head, indicating the humble surroundings. “They were gonna burn it down, and I’d get a big insurance check. I had my shot at a better life, given to me by a city commissioner. How could I turn it down?”
Silence watched her.
“Are you going to kill me?”
Silence still didn’t reply.
“Listen, none of it was real.” Her voice cracked. She watched him, unblinking. Her lips closed. She swallowed. “The company that doesn’t exist, the son I don’t have. No one was gonna get hurt because none of it was real!”
Silence twitched his finger over the trigger guard.
Adriana shuddered, wide eyes staring at the gun.
A sharp sound in the distance. Police sirens.
Silence focused on her, narrowing his gaze. A small grin of cold satisfaction materialized at the corners of his mouth.
The sirens grew louder.
Silence was an assassin. But not every criminal he encountered needed to die. He didn’t always have to squeeze his trigger. Sometimes he just needed to make a phone call.
A call to a Specialist. Someone with a normal voice, not Silence’s destroyed growl. Someone who could use the Watchers’ technological advantages to place an encrypted, untraceable call to a local police department.
The sirens wailed outside. Closer.
Silence stroked his trigger.
Adriana shook. Her eyes pleaded with him. “I’m telling you, none of it was real!”
Red and blue lights burst into the room through the drapes.
“Those are real,” Silence said, nodding toward the window.
Adriana whipped around, looked through the drapes and saw cop cars zooming up to the house, coming to screeching halts.
“What have you done?” she said.
Silence didn’t reply.
When Adriana turned back to the chair, it was empty.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Silence still had to pay his bill.
He stepped through the door into Bobbie Sue’s Family Restaurant. There was the hum of late-night quiet. No customers.
Halfway across the dining area, Val was cleaning a table.
And she was crying.
One hand flung a dingy, wet rag over the tabletop; the other brushed tears from her cheeks with crumbling dignity.
She saw Silence. Her wet eyes went dark. A forearm gave a vicious final wipe to her face, then she stormed toward him.
“You!”
She stopped a foot away from him, glared up into his face, arms rigid at her side, fists clenched.
“What the hell do you want?”
“To pay my bill.”
“A little late now! You got me my last point. Kevin fired my ass.”
Silence looked past her at all the empty tables and booths. “Why still here?”
She turned away, mortified. “He said I could finish my shift, and … I’m gonna need the money.”
Silence sensed motion at his periphery. He glanced to the left.
Kevin appeared in the kitchen doorway, as he had earlier. And, as before, he quickly scurried away.
Silence stormed off.
Val called out from behind him. “What are you doing?”
He pushed through the swinging door into a grimy kitchen with a grimy cook behind a bank of grimy stainless-steel grills. The air was hot, moist, smelled like grease and industrial cleaners. The floor stuck to his shoes.
“Hey, man!” the cook shouted, approaching. “You can’t be back here.”
Silence ignored him, came to a stop, scanned the kitchen.
And spotted it.
At the back of the space. An office door, half closed.
He bounded across the kitchen, smacked the door open, and stomped inside.
A tiny room almost as grimy as the kitchen. Papers thumbtacked to the walls. Shelves with stacks of binders above a battered filing cabinet. A noisy, scuffed-up computer humming warm air from its dusty vents.
And Kevin, sitting on the matted red cloth seat of a swivel chair.
The little worm jumped. He literally jumped. His ass lifted three inches off the seat cushion. And he screamed.
Silence grabbed him, yanked him to his feet. There was hardly enough space in the room for the two of
them, and Silence kept him close, hands on his shirt, glowering face inches away from the smaller man’s.
“Here to pay.”
“What?”
“My bill.”
“You pay out there! Pay your waitress.”
“She’s not fired.”
“Val? Oh, yes, she is! When you left without payment, that was her fifth point, and—”
Silence slammed him against the shelving. A binder fell. It slapped against the concrete floor.
Kevin screamed again. “Okay! Okay, I … I’ll bring her back. I’ll take off that last point.” A wobbly smile. “I mean, you did come back to pay. It’s only fair, right?” He laughed nervously.
“All her points,” Silence said. He swallowed. “Clear them.”
“But I—”
Silence didn’t slam him into the shelves again. He just leaned in closer, let Kevin see the dark sincerity in his eyes.
“Okay,” Kevin gasped.
Silence lessened the anger in his expression. He gave Kevin a slow nod and released him.
“Come with me.”
Silence marched him through the kitchen. The cook looked on in awe.
A moment later in the seating area, they approached Val, who wore an even more stunned expression than the cook had.
When they stopped before her, Kevin avoided eye contact, and Silence reached into his pocket, took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet, handed it to her.
“There. Paid,” he said to Kevin. “Tell her.”
Kevin finally brought his eyes to Val before quickly looking away again. “Valerie, given your, um … due to your exemplary performance, all of your points will be erased. Bobbie Sue’s Family Restaurant and Old-Fashioned Fun Incorporated would be honored if you would continue in our employ.”
Val nodded, but she looked at Silence, not Kevin, when she gave her reply. “Thank you.”
Silence acknowledged her then faced Kevin. “Apologize.”
Kevin looked at Val for a long moment, took in a breath. “If I’ve ever made you feel like I’ve critiqued your performance more critically than others, or if I’ve ever made your work environment feel in any way less comfortable than the established standards set forth by—”
