by Chuck Hogan
“I get their phones. I give them to him. He does whatever he does, gives them back to me. I replace.”
“Ghost phones. He builds in snoops. Or do you even know that? Maybe you’re just a pretty pair of hands.”
She said quietly, “You’re as big a fraud as I am.”
“Am I? Am I fucking around on somebody else’s say-so?” He stared at her. He didn’t want to see her shame, he wanted to feel it. “Where does he get his information? Before you come in, I mean. How does he know to point you to these guys?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just follow orders. You do as you’re told. With anybody.”
Now she started to push back. “I. Don’t. Know. Or care.”
“You should. Could be our necks, the way things are going.”
“What does that mean?”
He couldn’t tell her about the DEA. He couldn’t trust her with anything now.
Maven said, “Is he having you do this with me … to keep me here?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. He doesn’t know jack shit about us.”
“Why, then? Why us?”
“Why do you think?”
The pain on her face was real. Whatever they had—she needed something in him. That made this even harder for him.
“How much money do you have put aside?”
“Money?” she said, surprised. “None.”
“He gives me everything I need. I don’t do it for money, Neal.”
The use of his given name stung him. “Then what do you do it for?”
“Why the fuck do you do it? Do you do it for the money?”
“No.”
“But you get money. I don’t. But you’re not a whore, right? You’re doing a good thing—right, Robin Hood? Mr. Innocent.”
“I’m not saying I’m innocent.”
“You’re saying you’re more innocent than me. The guy who’s fucking his boss’s girlfriend.”
Maven was speechless.
“Do you really think you want to know where he gets his information? Really? Even if you find out it’s something you don’t like?”
“Tell me what you know.”
“What do you care? And why now, all of a sudden? You’re out past your curfew on this one. It’s too late.”
“You’re wrong there. It’s over. We’re ending it. One last gig, then—out.”
She said, “Bullshit.”
“Look at me. I mean it. Everybody. Splitsville.”
“He said that?”
“He doesn’t have final say anymore.”
“Who does? You?”
Maven didn’t answer, leaving the question open.
“I don’t like this,” she said. “I don’t like change.”
“So here it is. If there’s anything left between you and him—”
“Oh, Jesus, don’t do this—”
“I’m doing it. I can’t be taking you from him. That’s not me. Even if it is me … I’m not going out on him like that. I’m not. It has to be your decision. I can get you out of this. But you need to make the move.”
She looked away, closed her eyes. He had dropped too much on her.
“I don’t want an answer now,” he told her. “I want you to be sure.”
A car horn in the street got their attention, opened her eyes.
“You need to get out of here,” she said. “Before he comes back.”
The stairs were too risky. Danielle opened a door off the kitchen that led up six steps to the roof. Maven went out into the sunlight, shoes crunching stones. Instead of moving straight to the fire escape, he stood and took in the city from above.
He wasn’t sorry to leave it. He had no choice now. Instead of feeling depressed—at the ruination of his relationship with Royce, and the truth about Danielle—he felt strangely, cautiously elated. All the strings were cut. The lack of a choice made his path clear.
LOOSE ENDS
THE MOVERS WERE GONE. MAVEN REASSEMBLED SAMARA’S BED AND hooked up her wireless router and screwed in her curtain rods. At her insistence he checked the bathroom for landlord cameras and helped her test the intercom. While she unloaded her kitchen glassware, he walked to Chef Chang’s for takeout, rehearsing what he was going to say when he got back. He returned and, over orange-flavored chicken eaten off paper plates on a cardboard box, he broke up with her.
He said all the things you say, about how great she was and how sorry he felt, and he meant every word.
She sat there stunned, staring at the open boxes and empty walls. “This isn’t happening. How can I live here now? This place you got me. Everywhere I look … every time I walk in that door …” She looked at him as though he had morphed into someone else. “There’s something wrong. I’ve felt it.”
“No. Well—one thing. This client. Long story, but … see, I’m being sued. It’s a bullshit case, but they’re trying to serve me, you know, and they don’t have my address, so …”
“They don’t have the address of your office?”
“No, they have that. They don’t know that I live upstairs from there. So—remember my motorcycle registration? I’m just saying, if a guy comes around, a tall guy, black, older, pretty smooth—he might even try to show you a badge or claim he’s law enforcement or something—just know that you don’t have to tell him anything, okay? You don’t know me. I don’t want to see you dragged into this.”
She stared at him in such a way that he wasn’t sure she’d heard a word he’d said.
“Okay?” he said.
“Did you take money from someone?”
“What? No.”
“My dad, I didn’t tell you this, I don’t tell anyone, but he took some money from some clients, there was a scandal. He went to jail, I mean prison, for almost a year … and we had to move. But he paid it all back, and so I know how it is to fall behind sometimes and maybe get desperate …”
“Jesus—no, it’s nothing like that. I just … I just want to tie up all our loose ends.”
She stared, openmouthed. “God, that’s an ugly phrase.”
“I’m sorry.”
He had unpacked the contents of her desk with an eye out for anything linking him to her. His number was still in her phone, but he was going to dump that mobile. And with the bandits disbanding, there soon would be nothing to trace.
She stared at him, darkening, actively trying to read his mind. “Is it your boss’s girlfriend?”
Maven was stunned. He thought about lying, then blurted out, “Yes.”
“What?” She was more stunned than he had been. “What do you mean, yes? What the hell does that mean?”
“You just said—”
“I wasn’t serious. Oh my God …”
And on it went for another hour, Samara vacillating between sadness and anger, between self-examination and self-righteousness, the argument running its course until it ended as only it could, with her ordering him to get out.
He lingered at the stoop outside, letting the night air get at him. Knowing he had acted in her own best interest didn’t stop him from feeling like a shit. But if this was the worst of it, then he would be lucky.
THEY WATCHED THE DR. WHO GUY, CURT BELLSON, HIS COMINGS and goings. They listened to calls he made and received. The usual drill, but executed with more care this time. A bit more respect for the process.
They staked out his South End condo. They double-tailed his Saab 9-3 convertible all around town, keeping an eye out for other tails: bounty hunters, or DEA. They even played “flat tire” outside a rambling old farmhouse in the rural suburb of Easton, surrounded by acres of cranberry bog, where the deal was set to go down.
Things fell into place quickly as Bellson moved up the timetable. This busy Boston dermatologist was on the verge of financial ruin, needing the proceeds from this deal to pay off partners in a real estate venture that had gone bust in the recession.
Maven focused on the work, pouring all his extra energy into hating this guy. Taking him down
was going to be a pleasure.
SPANKING
THE WINDOWS OF THE CORNER OFFICE OVERLOOKED GOVERNMENT Center and Downtown Crossing. Lora Jeffers, the special agent in charge, came around from her desk and gave his hand a good shake, called him Marcus. Lash knew what was coming. She sat down and closed her laptop to see him better.
She started by listing his procedural lapses. Never registering his confidential source with the DEA. Using an informant with whom he had a personal connection. No Form 356 payment authorizations.
“I never paid him a cent,” said Lash. “He never asked, until this. Yes, we had a personal connection. He owed me his life.”
“No Form 512, the CS Establishment Report? No prints on file?”
“I knew who he was.”
“That’s not the point, Marcus, and you know it. No 473 Cooperation Agreement? Not one DEA-6 report? Nothing memorializing any of your contacts with him?”
“No paper whatsoever. He was too highly placed to go on the registry.”
“Not so far as the DEA is concerned. Not so far as I am concerned.” She placed her palm flat on top of her desk. “We use interdiction and eradication, Marcus. Title Three intercepts, surveillance …”
Lash tuned her out, looking over at the M. C. Escher prints on her wall. The hand drawing the hand; the stairs rising up and leading down at the same time.
When he came back, she was telling him, “You’ve got plenty of years in, enough to know the consequences. Nothing will happen officially until things settle. When it is to be done, it will be done quietly, out of respect for you. You’ll just have to dangle until events run their course.”
“You’re shutting it down. Just say it. The machine needs to run the way it’s always run. Someone will come in with orders to drive it into the ground until it can be called a failure and taken apart for good. Windfall is kaput.”
“Marcus, I do believe we have a case here where the old ways, the accepted ways, the proven ways, bear out. You lost a very valuable informant, and we have three agents in the hospital. You should count yourself lucky they will all survive.”
“What went wrong at the Black Falcon terminal had nothing to do with tradecraft. We walked into an ambush. That Jamaican wasn’t waiting for us. He wasn’t looking for cops to shoot. He was lying in wait for these Sugar Bandits who’ve been raising hell all over town.”
“These so-called Sugar Bandits are as much myth as they are substance. There is a turf battle going on—”
“If you’re going to make me eat crow here, then you’re going to listen to me talk with my mouth full. What I am saying is that there are big changes afoot. A sea change coming to the local scene. It is fully within your power to smack me down, but Windfall or no Windfall, something has to be done out there.”
Jeffers was just waiting for him to finish. “Be that as it may—”
“Oh, fucking Christ. Can I go?”
“What did you say?”
“I’ve taken my spanking. Am I excused?”
She fixed her eyes on him a moment, then reopened her laptop. “You are.”
LASH PULLED UP TO THE GATED DRIVEWAY ON BRUSH HILL ROAD IN Milton and turned off his car. He scaled the stone wall and dropped down onto the other side, pulling out his badge in anticipation, heading straight up the driveway of crunchy gray stones.
Two gunmen came out of the trees near the circular arrival court at the head of the driveway. They carried AKs and wore inexpensive dark suits. The best-dressed gunmen in all of Milton, Massachusetts.
“I’m DEA, motherfuckers,” said Lash. “I’m here to talk to Crassion.”
“This is a private residence,” said one.
Lash showed them the badge again. “Shoot me or get the fuck out of my way.”
The house was a Victorian with a Boston flavor, three gables with deeply overhanging eaves, just short of a BBC-miniseries mansion. Lash counted five chimneys. The carriage house to the right was the size of a normal suburban residence, with room for more than four vehicles and living quarters above. Gardens and footpaths began behind.
The arched front door was unlocked, and he let himself into the foyer, under armed escort, getting angrier by the minute. Busting up one of the gunmen was a temptation, but it wouldn’t make him feel any better in the long run. He kept himself on simmer instead. Tricky’s death weighed heavily on him.
“Whatever happened to protocol, Agent Lash?”
John Crassion, a portly gent in his sixties, entered from the living room to the left, wearing a merlot-colored robe and slippers, a thin newspaper tucked beneath his arm. His gruff voice was the only indication of the South Boston boy he’d tried so desperately to leave behind.
Lash said, “Tell these two boys to go play.”
Crassion nodded to his men, and they stepped back. “At least let them frisk you.”
Lash shook his head. Not today.
Crassion shrugged. “This is criminal trespass anyway, so any recording you might be making, legally it would be about as admissible as a drawing of a gun. In here.” He pointed at his library with the newspaper.
He closed the twin doors behind them. Lash looked at the books lining the walls. “These come with the house?” Crassion sat in one of the tall-backed, leather chairs, but Lash remained on his feet. “Who is it you’re trying to fool with all this?”
“I am a person who never expected to breathe a day past age thirty. When I did, I looked around me and I smartened up. A man matures, Agent Lash. Not you?”
“You’re the regular American dream.”
Crassion frowned, realizing that Lash wasn’t in the mood for bullshitting. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to let a little light in. About these fucking bandits.”
Crassion nodded. “Heard of them.”
“Think I can’t read a fucking pattern? Who’s getting hit, who’s not? Broadhouse is out there arming himself to the teeth for a war. Lockerty brought in some crazy, fucked-up Jamaican to try and collect his own bounty.”
“The Jamaican who died at the Black Falcon terminal. I hear he has a half brother. I hope you’re going to visit Lockerty as well.”
“I am here to say that I am onto you. And these fucking bandits. I’m not going anywhere, is what I want you to know. I am not going to stop.”
Crassion digested that. “They’ve taken Windfall away from you, haven’t they?”
Lash weighed the pros and cons of taking apart Crassion right here in his study. But Lash needed to stay out of trouble in order to stay out on the street—to give himself a chance to put this fuck away.
Lash said, “I wouldn’t worry about my survival. I’d worry about your own.”
AFTER LASH WAS GONE, CRASSION WALKED CIRCLES INSIDE HIS library, hands deep inside the pockets of his robe. He knelt at a lower row of books, dumping gilt-edged antiquarian volumes of Hawthorne to the floor until he found the door to a small safe.
Inside was a mobile telephone, nothing else. He swapped in the battery from the wall charger and dialed the only number stored in the memory. The call went straight to voice mail, aggravating Crassion. He left a stern message before slipping the phone into his pocket, awaiting a call back.
THE BOG
MAVEN CREPT TOWARD THE FARMHOUSE THROUGH THE FLOODED cranberry bog. A late-afternoon fog rolling in from the surrounding trees, smoking the surface of the eight-inch-deep water, helped obscure him.
The slow drag through an acre of floating berries gave him time to think. About this, their last job; about the chill in the early-fall air; about all the changes the coming weeks would bring. He and Royce had had a reconciliation of sorts during the weapons check back at the pad, Royce admitting that Maven had been correct to question the Black Falcon job. Maven was more optimistic about the prospects for an honorable separation, with no bad feelings. This whole thing might end with handshakes and respect, as it should.
Closing in on the house, Maven saw vehicles parked at the end of the long dirt driveway
in front, angled in from the country road. No movement anywhere: no birds, nothing. He reached the edge of the bed and slithered onto the muddy field. He crawled behind a large piece of harvesting equipment, stopping there to undo the strap on his wet bag. As Maven pulled out a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun and three full magazines, Glade emerged from the bog, ruby traces of water streaking his vest and mask like blood. Suarez came out last, wide right, setting up with Glade behind irrigation equipment and fitting in his earpiece.
Termino was the point. Maven checked his Oris watch, waiting one minute past go time, squatting there, shivering in the mud. Then he turned on his radio. They were conservative about unsecured broadcasts.
Maven said, “Big Dog, read? Over.”
Nothing.
“Big Dog, do you read? Over.”
Nothing. Not a click.
Suarez said, “No one out in front.”
Glade said, “Fuckin’ freezing here.”
Maven said, “I’ll go around front. Wait for my go.”
Maven curled out. The lawn up to the house was on a slight grade. He rushed to the underside of the wraparound farmer’s porch, along a cord of stacked wood. The closer he was to the structure, the better.
Three vehicles out in front: a boxy blue Honda SUV, a small, white conversion van, and Bellson’s silver Saab 9-3 convertible. The rear of the backed-in van was windowless, so Maven came up on the blind side, using the mirror to check the cab, make sure it was empty. The SUV had plenty of glass and was also empty. Maven came up low and fast on the front seat of the Saab, also unoccupied.
He scanned the trees, watching for some sign of Termino. Could be that he was inside already, forced to take a different position. Could be a radio malfunction, a broken watch.
It could have been any of those things, but it wasn’t. As Maven turned back to the farmhouse, he noticed something on the floor in the back of the Saab. A curled-up body, facedown, with Bellson’s telltale Dr. Who scarf wound around its neck.
Maven dropped low again, scanning the trees. He retreated to the broad side of the van, checking the house, then going to the back of the vehicle, trying the door.
