by Sean Platt
“You started the previews.” Jason looked from Julia to the TV. “What the hell?”
“You were taking too long. Besides, you never care about previews on DVDs.”
“Why do they put previews on DVDs? We wanted to watch the movie, not a bunch of advertisements.”
Julia looked back at him, then nodded: Exactly my point.
Anthony reached for a remote, dimmed the lights, then cranked the surround sound. The kid liked his movies loud enough to shatter glass and rattle all five of his fillings. Jason considered telling him to turn it down, but it wasn’t worth it. He just wanted to eat his damned pizza. He had plenty to bury in fatty, carbohydrate-laced good feeling. He had his Dercum's disease; he had the deal Bhoorman had screwed in Germany; he had that letter from the IRS (not taxes, but a troublesome audit); he had the matter of replacing his best man, Telford Hayes. And of course, he had Hayes’ killer haunting the front of his mind.
Benny and the guys at the gate hadn’t seen the odd baldy in over a week, but last Monday the freak spotted Kyle coming up from behind “as if he were psychic or something.”
He grabbed a slice, took a fat bite, chewed, and swallowed.
“Hey Anthony, why don’t you turn it up? I can’t hear anything.”
The kid actually reached for the remote before Jason waved him away. Thinking his teenage son liked things too loud was a sign that he was getting old, and couldn’t be far from standing on his porch in boxers and a wife-beater, yelling at kids to get the hell off his lawn. But what could you do? He was 45, obese, and probably had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, with all the money he’d ever need. He had earned his right to be crotchety.
Jason finished the first slice without even realizing it, then reached for another and showed it no mercy.
He looked at Anthony, then Marie, then his wife, Julia. They’d been having a fun time bunkered in over the past week, but their collective nerves were beginning to thin. They’d gone out for dinner once, but the tables to either side of were filled with large, well-dressed men. They’d gone shopping once in the mall, but all together, surrounded by the same large men, this time outfitted casually. Jason tried to spin the whole thing, convince his kids and wife that they were all hanging out together because they deserved some family time. Usually, he was always out of the house, working. Now, he had some time off (because Telford Hayes was dead and those above him were shuffling for a replacement), and they should spend time as a family while they had it. They stayed inside the grounds with the gate closed because they didn’t want to be bothered in the midst of so much family mirth. They went shopping together because it was fun. And they were constantly accompanied by six bodyguards because it was only prudent for a respectable vitamin water kingpin such as himself.
The pizza was half gone. He could see Tony’s flier under the wax paper. Jason thought the fliers were as obnoxious as the previews on DVDs. He hadn’t even watched the movie before they were trying to sell him on another, same with Tony and his pizza.
He pressed his fist to his chest and waited for a gas bubble to gurgle up his throat. He should stop, and would, if stopping didn’t mean thinking about his leukemia.
Jason finished the piece of pizza in his hand, wiped his fingers with the napkins, and looked at the large wall-mounted screen. Still previews. He was halfway done with his dinner, and the fucking movie hadn’t started.
His eyes wandered. He looked through the bulletproof sliding glass door, seeing the wall in the distance. Well-lit lawn stretched between house and wall. They were locked down, and if he reached for his tablet Jason could see live footage of the men walking the perimeter. The assassin had infiltrated Hayes’s security, but Hayes’s security, even after the upgrades, had been a joke. Jason’s was 10 times better. No one was getting inside. Still, the blue-robed man had cleaned Telford Hayes’s house in a way that was disturbing like a blood clot in the brain. Jason had seen the photos, and they’d made his gut clench — his gut, ample and used to blood from torture. He wondered where the man had gone. Could he have surrendered in the week gone by? He’d gotten to Hayes. Maybe that was enough to settle the man’s debt. Jason had no idea what the man’s grievance might be. Nothing strange had gone down in a while: a few monetary transfers, some purchases, a handful of ordinary lot sales, and a few loose ends that needed tidying. There was that girl who had needed cleanup, too, but Jason barely knew anything about that.
He massacred another quarter of the pizza.
Still bored by the previews, he looked into the box. The flier was almost entirely uncovered. He shook his head, annoyed, and earned a cursory glance from Julia. Jason was always irritated by something, and part of his irritation was making sure others knew all about it. He and Julia had been married for over 20 years. She didn’t like to play the game, and knew that ignoring his frequent annoyances was the best way to diffuse them.
Absent an audience, he slipped the flier from under the wax paper. They’d made it look hand-written, to trick people into thinking it was a special deal, a limited-time offer hand-written by Tony himself, rather than something passed down from corporate and slipped into thousands of boxes, like some sort of a …
But it wasn’t a flier. It was a note.
It read:
You have been dosed with a rapid-acting poison known as ricin.
You will be dead in 60 minutes. There is no antidote.
Meet me in 30 minutes, alone, and your family won’t suffer.
Under the words: a map.
Chapter 11
THE BLACK ESCALADE PULLED TO the road’s curve with three minutes to spare. A small smile crossed Amit’s lips.
He crossed to the vehicle. The window lowered. Amit told the driver and sole occupant to kill the engine. The fat man inside did as ordered, then flung his keys from the window. They tumbled through the air and disappeared into brush.
“I didn’t need you to throw away your keys.”
The fat man said, “I don’t need them if I’m dead.”
Amit closed his eyes and gave the boss a small nod, almost a bow. He looked sweaty and pale, as if he had the flu, but seemed unafraid. Amit couldn’t help but respect him. Not many men could confidently march to their deaths.
“Indeed,” said Amit. “Unlock the door.”
The man inside pressed a button, and Amit heard a click. He walked leisurely to the vehicle’s front and opened the passenger-side door to find himself staring into the barrel of a gun.
Amit reached up and took the weapon. Judging by the fat man’s expression, this wasn’t expected. Amit saw the man’s finger tremble through that first quarter second, after he saw the weakness in his poisoned eyes. Even if he could pull the trigger faster than Amit could react (which he couldn’t), he wouldn’t be confident enough to fire without asking questions. Not if he felt his family was in danger, and couldn’t be sure that the monk was working alone.
The gun rolled easily to the right under Amit’s grip, away from the man’s hand and his trigger finger’s best pull zone. His fingers were strong, but Amit’s were stronger. Seconds later, Amit clicked the safety and slipped the gun into his robe. When he looked up, the man’s mouth was open, hand still out and wrapped around nothing.
“Your hand will no longer be effective. I have removed the deadly part.”
The empty hand lowered. The boss faced forward and sighed. “You promised not to harm my family.”
“I did not. But I will, if you cooperate.”
“I have cooperated.”
Amit slipped into the spacious backseat and closed the door. He composed his robes. “We should drive somewhere more private.”
“I threw the keys away.”
Amit chuckled. “That is true. You must forgive me. Sometimes, I am forgetful. Oftentimes, during my morning meditations, I would forget that … ”
“The poison,” said the boss. “Is there an antidote?”
“I do not believe so.”
“You don’t believe so?”
“Wait. Are you talking about the TV show Breaking Bad?”
“Nisha mentioned it once, so I caught up while waiting for my solution to your problem.” He shook his head, as if in disapproval. “I was not accustomed to such extreme violence. But it did supply me with the idea for ricin. I figured a man with your medical record would be able to manufacture the symptoms of ricin poisoning on his own.”
“Are you saying that I’m not poisoned?” The fat man shook his head. “That I’m not going to die?”
Amit chuckled again. “Those are separate questions, with contradictory answers.”
The boss darted to his left, hands going toward the door handle. Amit casually reached forward, pinched the man’s Adam’s apple between his fingers and squeezed very hard.
“Please do not open the door. If I crush your Adam’s apple, you will be unable to speak. And we have matters to discuss.”
“Fuck you!”
Amit squeezed harder. Something seemed to crack under his fingers, and he had to move his grip to avoid something that suddenly felt like a sponge. The man screamed.
“Your name is Jason, correct?”
“Fuck! You!”
Amit sighed and squeezed again. Something else popped. The man screamed louder. What was in there, anyway? It couldn’t be bone. Was it cartilage?
“That’s it, right? Jason? Jason Alfero?”
Panting: “Yes.”
“Jason, I’d like to let go of your throat. It seems uncivil to do otherwise. When I let go, I’d prefer that you left the door handle alone. You are a large man, and I have trained every muscle in my body for my entire life. I am fairly certain that I can drive my first two fingers through the back of your neck if I strike you hard enough. If you go for the door, I will have plenty of time to try.”
“If I talk, you won’t kill me?”
“No. If you talk to me, I won’t kill your family.”
“You can’t reach my family.”
“I reached you.”
“With a ploy. I came out because you tricked me.”
Amit chuckled. “Rest assured that I am infinitely patient, and always pay my debts. You may choose to disbelieve this, but it would not be wise. Perhaps you heard what I did to your compatriots in crime, and hence what I could do to Julia, Anthony, and Marie.”
Alfero paused. Of course, he had heard. During Amit’s week at the hotel — drinking herb tea and watching Breaking Bad, while he checked in with doctors and pizza delivery places by day — the crime boss would have had plenty of time to converse with his inferiors and superiors to mine the many dirty details of what had happened to the so-called Right Hand. He’d know what one man was able to do. He’d know how merciless that one man was, and how patient he could be. He’d almost certainly believe that the crazy monk would harm his family if he didn’t cooperate, even though he never would. Amit was a man of peace above all else. Unfortunately, violence sometimes paved its way.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know who your boss is, and how to reach him.”
“My boss?”
Amit nodded, folding his hands in his lap. “Yes. ‘The Boss.’ Two moves ago, the Right Hand was ‘the boss,’ and until I learned about you, you were just ‘the boss.’ Now there is another above you, and that person will be my next ‘boss.’ I do not know how many bosses I must dispatch, but I am in no hurry.”
“Why do you need to know?”
“Because I have a score to settle.”
“I think it’s settled. How many people have you killed?”
Amit shook his head. “Not all who were responsible. With each ‘boss’ I uncover, I further see I’ve only met men following orders. All in the chain, but none started the pendulum swinging.”
“Responsible for what?”
“For Nisha.”
He was preparing to elaborate, but a thoughtful look crossed Alfero’s face — or at least the part Amit could see from the back seat. “Nisha. I remember that name.”
“You passed a command to have her killed.” It was the sort of thing most men would say with spite, but to Amit, when his anger was sufficiently quelled (“saving its strength for later expression,” Woo would have said), it was merely data. He was solving a giant puzzle, and had to keep slotting pieces in place as he found them.
“I handed it down like an order to a line cook. I barely saw what was on that slip.”
Amit nodded. “You know who gave you that order. And if you will tell me that, I will spare your family.”
“And me?”
“I can promise to kill you without unnecessary pain.”
The fat man up front sighed, then turned so he was mostly facing Amit.
“Look. You beat me. Fine. If you have to kill me, fine. There’s not much I can do about that. I’ve made my bed, as they say, and I suppose I can lie in it. God knows, I’ve done my share of bad things. But I can’t give you my boss. I am not much, but I am a man of my word, and I can’t let you continue what you’re doing. It stops here, with me.”
“Someone decided to kill a girl who mattered to me. I need to know why. Your boss has that reason.”
“Maybe and maybe not,” said Alfero. “My boss might also have been handing down the order without looking. It’s a big organization.”
“Then I will follow it to the top.”
Something seemed to shift in Alfero’s features. Suddenly, instead of a villain, Amit saw a father and a husband. He’d had time to research Alfero, and knew many things the man had done — murders he’d committed in blood over money, turf, drugs, and prostitutes. He deserved to die, and yet was still a man.
“What is your name?”
“Amit.”
“Amit, I’ve been in my business for over half of my life. It’s a bad world. It made me money, but it made me something else, too. I’ve been angry. I’ve been tormented by things I’ve seen. I’ve gone on quests like yours, determined to eradicate those who have wronged me. But revenge can never still your soul. It will not solve your problems, or bring back the dead. It can hurt those you hate for a while, but will hurt you forever.”
Amit shook his head. “You are wrong. Revenge leads to satisfaction, and sometimes satisfaction is enough.”
“It’s a hollow reward. A life of death.”
“My life is filled with death already. Because of you, and men like you.”
“Because of this … Nisha.”
Amit nodded.
“Because you need to know the reason. You don’t understand.”
He was almost as calm as he should be, but not quite. He felt something prying at the edges of his composure.
“Maybe you need to understand, rather than kill.”
Amit met his eyes. “I need both.”
“Money. It’s always about money. Follow the money, and you will find your reason.”
“I need the name of your boss.”
“No.”
“You are causing needless suffering. This could be easy.”
Alfero shook his head. “You don’t understand. My word is all I have.”
“Your boss would betray you.”
Alfero shook his head with a shocking conviction. “No. I’m certain he wouldn’t. You may think we’re hoods. And in the lower ranks, maybe we are. But higher up, it’s not true. No matter what you may have heard, there is honor among thieves.”
Amit made his fingers into two firm hooks. This was going to have to get unpleasant, and he hadn’t remembered to change into his already-stained robes. Soon he would run out of outfits. But worse, he almost didn’t want to torture Alfero. Not because the man didn’t deserve it, but because Amit almost understood. He thought of his own mentors in the Sri, and asked himself what it would take for him to betray them. The a
nswer was that he never, ever would.
“I have been wronged. Nisha has been wronged.”
“Follow the money, then,” said Alfero. “And follow the virgins.”
A tiny smile twitched at the corner of Alfero’s mouth at the word “virgins.” It was a slight on Nisha — something that rendered the man’s earlier speechifying disingenuous. His mocking smile strobed anger in Amit, and he almost struck a fatal blow. But that would be unwise; that would be using an insult laid down by his opponent to eviscerate himself.
What good is training your muscles if you can be undone with a word?
This needed to end, but Amit had to try once more.
“You are not telling me what I need to hear.”
“Then kill me already.” Alfero’s earlier calm pulled back in a smile. He didn’t look afraid, or remorseful. He almost looked like Amit felt — a man content on vengeance, about to get his due.
Then Amit saw why.
Three black Escalades rolled around the curve and barreled down the deserted road, two from Alfero’s compound and one more from farther down the street. All had their lights off, but once in range, clicked them on.
Headlights painted the field on one side and the small thicket of woods on the other, near where Alfero had tossed his keys. Windows lowered on all three vehicles. Black muzzles poked out like turtles from shells, all centered on Alfero’s SUV. The others parked sideways, so they could shoot without obstruction.
“I figured I was dead already,” said Alfero. “From the ricin.”
He smiled, then soldiers in all three Escalades — one in each front seat and another in the rear — started to fire.
Chapter 12
TEN YEARS AGO
“FOCUS.”
