by Ty Patterson
He would eventually find out Ajdan’s connection to Boiler.
Boiler didn’t waste energy on recrimination. Ajdan and he had been through a lot together.
‘Find him before he finds all of us.’
Milton Mills knew that Zeb was back when Olivia Wade spotted him returning from his early morning run.
She dashed down to tell her mom who listened distractedly while she got her breakfast ready.
Jenny Wade taught in the local school and also worked part-time in the post office. ‘Get dressed, honey. Mr. Carter will be here for a few days, I guess.’
Olivia scrunched her face in disgust at her mom’s indifference and ran upstairs.
She had spoken to Mr. Carter. She knew his first name. Not a single other person in the village had got that far.
She peeked through her window that looked into his backyard. It was empty. She stared at the glass door in the rear, willing him to appear, but he didn’t.
She reluctantly turned away when her mom called from beneath, urging her to get ready.
She hurried when it struck her that she was the only one who knew of his arrival. It would be hot news in school.
Late that evening, Jenny Wade stood in her daughter’s bedroom and glanced at her neighbor’s backyard.
It was dimly lit, light from the inside leaking through the rear door, turning dark to pale yellow.
Olivia endlessly speculated on who he was, what he did.
‘Maybe he’s a firefighter,’ she had exclaimed. ‘Or a cop.’
‘Honey, he might just be a banker, or maybe he works in some government office.’
Olivia had shaken her head forcefully, her blond curls flying around. ‘Not even close, Mommy.’
Jenny straightened the blanket over her sleeping daughter and stroked her hair tenderly.
She was inclined to agree with Livy. Mr. Carter didn’t look like a banker or like someone holding down an office job. He was a fixture now, but the gossip about him hadn’t died down.
She massaged Livy’s feet, remembered a time when she had come up to her daughter’s room to hear strange sounds.
She had peered cautiously and had gaped at the sight.
Livy was in a boxing stance, no not boxing, a martial arts stance, her tiny hands flailing, her legs rising to kick invisible opponents.
Jenny had followed her eyes and what she saw had made her go still.
Mr. Carter was in his backyard, bare-chested, lightly covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
His head was still, just his hands and feet moving in complicated motions, strikes and parries, reaching out, drawing back, in waves, slow, fast, slow, fast, till they blurred in motion.
He had stopped after a few minutes and had bent to sip from a bottle of water.
She had sucked in her breath when she saw his back. There were scars. Pock marks.
She had seen such marks before, on someone else, in a different lifetime. They were scars. Bullet wounds.
She saw Mr. Carter - she, and in fact the entire village called him by that name - when she was driving out to school the next day.
He was hauling boxes through his front door, nodded at her when she waved, and then she lost sight of him.
They had never spoken even though she and he had been the only two patrons in a restaurant in Milton once. He had sat in a corner having his dinner while she was being served.
That evening was fresh in her memory even though it was more than a year back.
The waitress had been a young girl who was a student in Jenny’s school.
Midway through their meal, a couple of men had come in, high on something, maybe alcohol, or on life itself.
They behaved the way young men sometimes did. Talking loudly, looking around carelessly, making comments about women.
The waitress served them, smiled gamely when one of them said something to her while the other man laughed.
She came back with their order and this time she left iron-faced.
The men didn’t let up. One of them signaled her.
She moved reluctantly, took his order, returned with their drinks.
Jenny didn’t see what happened. Something must have, a hand must have groped or tried to, because the girl moved back suddenly, her face flamed, the men laughed.
Jenny rose, but before she could take a step, Mr. Carter had moved.
He brought his plate, his glass, and seated himself at the table opposite them.
He didn’t say a word. He dug into his meal and ate slowly. Looked at nothing in particular.
The men’s laughter dialed down a notch.
Not for long.
A hand waved. The waitress didn’t move.
One of the men called out loudly.
She came reluctantly, stood at a distance, her pad ready.
This time Mr. Carter raised his head.
He looked at the men directly and something happened.
Jenny Wade would swear to herself later that he didn’t speak, he didn’t move a muscle and yet the men seemed to shrink.
Their voices lowered, they became polite.
They left shortly without looking back.
Jenny had spoken to the waitress the next day. She had felt something, but couldn’t describe it. All she knew was that Mr. Carter’s presence had tamed the men.
Jenny spoke about the incident to Pike, who brought it out every time Mr. Carter’s name came up in conversation.
Jenny Wade shook her head to clear her thoughts and drove into the school’s parking lot.
Zeb tightened the nylon ropes outside his home and tested them.
The ropes ran from the roof to the ground where they were knotted securely in steel hooks. The ropes were white in color and blended against the exterior of the home.
They didn’t look it, but each one could bear thousands of pounds in weight.
Their tautness ensured they didn’t sway with the breeze and were visible only if someone stood really close to the house. Fifty such ropes circled the home and at least a couple were in easy access from each window.
Decoration. That would be his answer if anyone asked. No one had.
He looked up and down. No one was in sight.
He went inside to a bedroom window, swung a leg over the sill, gripped one rope in his left hand, swung his body out, slid quickly, reached out with his right and swung over to the next rope.
He repeated the maneuver several times till he got it right.
Not quite Tarzan, but he was getting there.
He could exit from one window at the top, in the front, and could swing around and enter the house from a rear window.
He dusted his hands and looked back at his day’s work before heading inside.
One never knew when a fast escape would be required.
Sarah Burke was fuming. Her task force knew it, kept their distance from her. Even Mark Kowalski, who was the closest to her, stayed in his cubicle.
They had pursued the leads Carter had given them but hadn’t gone far with those.
They had gone back to basics and had run a grid search for CCTV camera images in Chicago. Had run a facial recognition program that compared the assassins’ photographs Carter had given them.
That had narrowed down the images to fifty possibles.
Good detective work – digging out identities, making calls, checking travel records, financial records – had narrowed that down to fifteen.
One of those possibles was a brownstone in Lincoln Park.
Burke had wanted to mount surveillance. She had organized the teams and was readying to send them when Kowalski came running to her, pointed to a TV.
The brownstone was trashed; its occupants were missing.
Which was why she was fuming.
Carter. Who else could it have been?
She called Chicago P.D., got more info, read the reports that came to her a few minutes later and mussed her carefully styled hair.
At the least, I can get him for impersonatin
g the police.
A second later, she deflated.
Yeah? Who’s going to back you up, Burke? Director Murphy? He’s best buddies with Carter.
She exited her cubicle, ignored the ducking motions by her crew, went to the water cooler and drank deeply. She had water bottles on her desk, but she needed the motion or else she would scream and throw something.
Special Agent Sarah Burke didn’t scream. Not in front of her crew.
It was while she was applying wet fingers to her temple that Director Murphy appeared in the corridor, talking animatedly to a woman.
Burke couldn’t help noticing the woman. She was tall, maybe five eleven, with fine features, but it was her eyes that held Burke’s attention.
They were grey ice. Cool, sharp, a cutting edge to them.
They approached Burke who stood aside to let them pass.
They didn’t.
Director Murphy stopped and introduced her to the woman.
‘Clare, meet Special Agent in Charge, Sarah Burke. She’s not only our ace investigator, she also heads the task force that’s investigating the Parker murders and all those related to it.’
Burke felt she was being read, the way the grey eyes probed her.
‘You are the one who almost pulled a gun on Zeb?’ The woman asked with a slight smile.
Zeb, not Carter.
‘You know him, ma’am?’
Clare inclined her head. ‘Very well.’
‘In that case, could you ask him to co-operate, please?’ She didn’t care that her tone was abrupt. She had enough of the kid glove treatment meted out to Carter.
Clare’s smile grew wider. ‘He is,’ and with that she walked away with the director.
Burke dug her nails in her palms, closed her eyes, flashed them open when Kowalski tapped her shoulder.
‘I think you should see this.’
He led her to her cubicle that now had a package on her desk.
It was the size of a briefcase, heavy, and was addressed to her. It had no return address.
She sliced it open, her crew crowding behind her, removed the bubble wrap and removed a laptop.
She studied it for a second before flipping it open.
A sheet of paper covered the keyboard.
She lifted the sheet and saw that it had an address on it.
The brownstone’s address.
Lambo and Diesel, Boiler’s two-man crew had covered several hundred miles in their Toyota Land Cruiser.
It was silver and shiny when they had left Chicago, but was now scratched, dented, and the shine had faded to a dull gleam.
Lambo and Diesel were tired and cranky. They had covered twelve towns, now only two remained.
They had spoken briefly to Boiler. He wasn’t happy, but there was nothing they could do.
It was not as if they could produce Cezar out of thin air.
Diesel spread a map on the hood, at a rest stop on the outskirts of Connecticut and traced their route.
Lambo stifled a yawn and nodded. His attention lingered on a woman who walked by. He watched the way her jeans stretched over her bottom, nudged Diesel and the two of them stared hungrily.
Damn. It had been a long time since they both had women.
Boiler’s commands had been explicit however. They had to remain clean, not draw attention to themselves.
Lambo hauled his ass in the driver’s seat once the woman disappeared and floored it.
Connecticut.
If Cezar wasn’t there, then the last town.
Brookfield in New Hampshire.
Chapter 16
Union, in Connecticut, population close to nine hundred, was a waste of time.
Diesel came close to capping the gas station owner when he laughed, showing blackened teeth. ‘Diesel? What kind of name is that?’
Diesel smiled politely, paid him and left before he rearranged the man’s face.
Polite. Boiler had told them to smile a lot and be polite.
It wasn’t easy. But if one wanted to recover thirty million, some changes in behavior were necessary.
Lambo and Diesel spent three days in Union before giving up. They drove through the entire town, which didn’t take a lot of time, spoke to people, mentioned their cover of buying a retirement home for their folks.
They bought a lot of drinks.
Zip. Nada. Cezar wasn’t here.
Diesel brought out the map again, which was coming apart at the folds by now.
He scratched his ass, put a dirty nail on Union and dragged it to Brookfield.
‘Toll roads on the way.’
‘Screw that,’ Lambo flared. ‘Boiler won’t pay us back, besides they have cameras at the booths. Let’s go the longer route. It’s not as if we are working to a timeline.’
They were.
Big G was becoming impatient. Boiler told him to stay put, he was handling it. Big G knew that, but if Boiler didn’t find Cezar soon, he, Big G, would break out of prison and lead the hunt himself.
He had it all planned out. He knew which prison officers to bribe, how the escape would happen, who would rendezvous with him, everything, down to the getaway vehicle and the flight from Mexico, was in his mind.
Boiler protested.
Big G escaping would bring unwanted scrutiny on the gang.
He didn’t mention that Big G was unstable and would likely leave a blood trail across the country, a blood trail that would bring down the Feds on all of them.
He did mention that Cezar would change identities yet again, once Big G’s escape flashed on TV screens all over the country.
That was the clincher for Big G.
He calmed down. But then he gave Boiler a deadline.
One month. If Cezar wasn’t found in one month, Big G would hunt him down.
Lambo and Diesel got lost.
In trying to avoid toll roads, Diesel took small country roads that wound through acres of fields and valleys and hills.
Lambo’s phone died and he had lost his charger along the way; Diesel’s phone didn’t have a maps program on it and that worsened matters.
By the time they saw a signboard, they were hungry, tired, and grumpy.
‘Milton Mills,’ Lambo read aloud. ‘I saw this on the map. Place has got like three hundred folks in it.’
‘How far is it from Brookfield?’
Lambo shrugged. ‘Let’s grab a bite, rest our asses, and then we’ll figure it out.’
Chuck was loading barrels of beer beneath the bar when the strangers drove up. He heard the sound of the engine first and frowned. It was early, barely ten in the morning, the bar normally started filling up around noon.
He rose from behind the bar; saw the silver SUV back up into a parking space. Two men stepped out, adjusted their belts, and stepped in the direction of the entrance.
They entered seconds later and while one of them headed to the john, the other ambled across to him, scanned the menu and placed an order for hash browns and coffee.
Strangers weren’t uncommon in the village and Chuck took no notice of them till one of them asked if there were any houses for sale.
For sale meant buyers. Buyers meant money.
There weren’t any homes for sale really, but that didn’t stop Chuck giving the men a low down on the village. It was the first time he had spoken freely.
‘You fellas be staying a few days?’
The older one, who said his name was Lambo, hesitated, wiped his mouth with a napkin, looked at his partner, and then replied.
‘We’ve been looking at some towns for our boss to buy a home in. He’s a big-shot attorney in New York who’s always wanted to have a retirement home in a town like this. We were actually heading to Brookfield, but we got lost.’
Chuck felt opportunity slipping away. He made his pitch. ‘Milton Mills is a great little village. You’ve got everything here. Quiet life. A river to paddle in. if you’re boss hankers for the bright lights, then heck, Milton is just across the street.’
<
br /> ‘Brookfield ain’t got anything on our village,’ he snorted.
Lambo held a palm up in acceptance. ‘You’ve sold us. We’ll stay a few days, make a list, send our report and then move onto Brookfield. After that it’s outta our hands.’
Chuck nodded sagely as if he knew how these deals went down.
‘You’ll find me here in case you need more information.’
Lambo grinned. ‘We might take you up on that. Say, can you give us a rundown on who stays here? The residents? The boss likes to get a feel for his neighbors.’
Chuck went behind the bar, grabbed a pot of coffee, poured three cups, hauled a chair for himself and began.
‘Why did you say we’d stay here?’ Diesel hissed at Lambo.
‘Anything to get him off our backs.’
Diesel watched the bartender go about his business, polishing glasses, arranging them in pegs behind him. ‘We might as well rest for a day here. Brookfield ain’t going anywhere.’
Lambo raised a glass to that. ‘My ass feels like a car seat. It needs to fill out again.’
They had mapped out the village by the second day, knew almost every resident by sight and were spending big money, by the village’s standards, in Chuck’s bar.
They went to the post office the third day, parked outside, enjoyed the fading sun for a few moments and then went inside.
Lambo had bought a map earlier, along with an envelope and some picture postcards. He addressed the envelope, placed the postcards in it, sealed it and went to the window.
The blonde behind the glass smiled at him, took the envelope and stamped it. She took his money, returned his change, and looked behind him for the next customer.
There wasn’t anyone behind him. Diesel had been crowding him earlier, but he had walked out.
His partner had the engine running and floored it the second Lambo seated himself.
He drove fast, without saying a word and it was only at the motel that he uttered his first words.
‘She recognize you?’
‘Who?’ Lambo asked stupidly.
Diesel took in the bewilderment on his partner’s face, dug out his jacket and removed one photograph.
He tapped it. ‘That’s Cezar’s woman.’
Lambo stared and then stared again.
Cezar’s woman was the lady behind the glass.
