by Nick Thacker
“Did you hunt?” Joey asked.
I nodded. “A little. Not much, honestly. My mother never really liked us to do it, and my dad wasn’t into it. My granddad really just liked to camp, so we’d go out for a weekend and shoot at logs and stuff, but not really much else.”
“So your dead shot skills came from the Army?”
I laughed. “I wish I was half as good as my instructors, but yeah, I started putting things together during my stint. Never good enough to win any awards, but my skill set was in tactical movement and clearance. Back then I could sneak through a Chili’s on Friday night with a ‘free beer’ sign without getting noticed.”
“I take it we’re not going to be doing much sneaking today,” Joey said.
“Probably not, but that doesn’t mean we need to start blowing shit up and screaming like banshees. We’ll post up for a bit around the funeral setup, see what we see, then we’ll move in. We’ve got the advantage that they don’t know what we look like.”
“Or that we’re working together,” Joey added.
“Or that.”
We finished strapping up and getting set, then Joey turned to me, waiting. He still had his calm, collected look, but there was a certain look of questioning on his face. I wanted to tell him something, but I had no idea what I could come up with that I actually believed. I had no idea how this was going to go. It had been years since I’d anything even remotely this bold and stupid.
“Ready?” I asked. I kicked myself for missing the moment to come up with an awesome speech.
He shrugged. “Gotta go out somehow, right?” He forced a laugh. “Might as well be like this.”
44
IT HAD TAKEN THE BETTER part of two hours to get down the road and start in toward Hunting Island, mostly because I refused to push the car up over about 65. No sense going through all this trouble to stock up like we had just to get pulled over and arrested by some dipweed cop trying to earn a promotion.
Plus, I didn’t want to rush in — I was anxious about Hannah’s safety, of course, but I was also anxious for Joey’s. Against my natural bent, I forced myself to not be rash, to think things through. A nice, meandering drive through the countryside was a perfect way to get my thoughts in order.
My first thought to get in order was about how to get into the house. We could likely get onto the grounds without being seen; the car we were in had darkened windows, not quite a full tint but enough that I was confident we’d be able to drive straight up to the house unseen.
Then we’d head around to the back, just as I had yesterday, and start unloading. Both of us were in black suits I’d pulled out of my closet — one a bit tighter and smaller from many years ago that Joey mostly fit into, and another one that I’d had tailored for my wife’s funeral.
It felt odd to be wearing that suit once more, especially at another funeral, but then again I didn’t have the opportunity to wear suits during my regular job, so it was weird just to wear one regardless.
We’d dressed according to Joey’s Charleston friend; apparently there wasn’t a dress code for most of the pouring services around here. Catering was another thing altogether, and he’d told Joey that they had uniforms, matching aprons, and sometimes little chef hats to really ‘sell’ it, but for pouring, even at a funeral, we’d fit right in with just black-tie formalwear.
I planned to pay off whoever was in charge of the drinks, telling them I was here undercover and needed to just walk around and get some information. Extra hundred bucks if they’d keep their mouth shut to the other service staff. We weren’t going to be drinking anything, so I didn’t see how it would be a problem. We were both trained bartenders so we should be able to stay incognito for the duration of our time there, mixing and fixing when we needed to.
If it did happen to be a problem, we’d maneuver and figure something out. We were already dressed like we belonged there, so it would only be a matter of fitting in with some of the other service staff or just scrapping the whole damn thing and running inside and hiding out.
I was leaning toward scrapping the whole damn thing, but just because I was comfortable flying blind didn’t mean Joey was. He struck me as the type of guy who’d excel with a plan and make adjustments when necessary, so I wanted to stick to a plan, even if it wasn’t fully fleshed out.
Once we were in the house, though, I had no plan whatsoever. I didn’t know if any of the Rayburn extended family would be hanging around inside, or if they were still traveling and would arrive over the weekend. I didn’t know if the house had a permanent staff that would be suspicious of us, or if the guys that nabbed Hannah would be posted up watching the interior.
I didn’t really know anything about what we would do once we got there, except the two words I’d etched into the forefront of my mind and refused to let out of sight:
Get Hannah.
I would get her, I knew that much.
I would get her, and I would kill the bastards that took her.
“You okay?” Joey asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I’ll be better when we have Hannah back.”
We drove on in silence for another few minutes, until the highway bent around a few times, signaling that we were about to reach the last bridge and start out toward the state park. I could see the expanse of ocean ahead and felt the urge to just toss in the towel and hit the beach. The weather was nice, warm for this time of year, and I knew the water would be refreshingly cold.
I shook my head, forcing the peaceful thoughts away and replacing them with the terrible reality of what I was here to do.
I went over the plan one final time, solidifying it into my psyche for Joey’s sake, making sure I hadn’t left anything out or forgotten something — any minor detail I would normally ignore and not try to control had a carefully assessed set of criteria for dealing with it.
We crossed the bridge and I subconsciously watched for any signs of FBI activity. Naturally they would make it difficult for their presence to be seen or felt, but I knew what I was looking for.
Broken branches and brush signaling a purposeful concealment of a path off the main road. Unmarked vehicles, of any shape and size, parked in places that were meant to look abandoned but had a certain in-use quality to them. People — literally any sort, from grandmas to teenagers — walking around carelessly, yet intently, as if on a secret mission to nowhere.
I didn’t see any of these signs. In fact, there was next to nothing during the last stretch of drive that brought us over the bridge and onto Hunting Island. The land was quiet, and even the trees and grass seemed to know that something was coming. Everything was silently intense, a visible reminder of what I was feeling.
We pulled off the road and onto the same white, shining path I’d driven over last night, past the two sentinel-like towers marking the grounds and property of a man I had first heard of only days ago. In the sparkling daylight, the place had a miraculous sheen to it, like every stone in the long driveway had been daily polished and replaced. If the grass had been impressive by the light of the moon, today it was divine. I would have believed that it had been cut by hand, each blade painted a deep green.
Then the mansion — the place I’d been dreaming of ever since I’d seen it. It stood out from the rest of the scenery, dwarfing the beauty with its own regality that I did not know could exist in the United States. The windows glimmered and reflected the ground, and the perfect shade of pink-brown that was used on the entirety of the structure seemed to be alive, moving. The solid rock facade on the house was some sort of granite, and it was too far away to see individual characteristics of the stone, but the microscopic imperfections and pieces of embedded quartz danced and twinkled as we drove close.
I realized I had been ignoring Joey the entire time, and my eyes were hardly noticing the path and driveway. I didn’t want to take my focus away from the absolute wonder of it all, but I yanked my gaze away and looked at Joey.
He, too, was beside himself in awe. Hi
s mouth was even open a little, and I’m sure if I looked closer I’d see a little bit of drool pooling on the inside of his lower lip.
He swallowed, looked up and down the beachside resort property, and then swallowed again.
“I — wow,” he said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “That was pretty much my reaction, too.”
45
THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE was dead, but the back of the property was abuzz with activity. I wheeled the large sedan around the south corner of the lot, just as I’d done the night before in Joey’s car, and as soon as we pulled back to the north to start along the backside of the house, people started appearing.
There were servers and workers in black suits just like ours, as well as white-clad servants busy with chores and typical household duties. One woman was emptying trash bins into a larger receptacle, while another man was raking small leaves out from between the pieces of gravel in the walkway. Farther along I could see a group of men and women gathered around in a circle, each of them holding a notebook and taking notes while one of them dictated orders of some sort.
We drove on, dodging a couple of cars that had been parked on the left side of the driveway closer to the house, but not veering too far to the right so as not to hit the cars parked diagonally there. There were probably twenty vehicles, and I suspected that at least some of the workers here had carpooled and that some of the servants and house staff lived inside.
That meant there were already at least thirty people milling about inside and in the backyard areas. How Hannah could have been held here against her will was beyond me, but we were here and we weren’t going to leave until I’d had a good look around. Joey sat up straighter in the car, either trying to method act his way into his new persona or just steeling himself for the grueling work to come.
I kept on for another few hundred feet, finally coming to a stop at the end of the driveway in front of a stand of palm trees, right at the start of the gravel path that led down to the beach and the Wassamassaw docked there. In the daylight I could see that the beach on either side of the boathouse was pulled up farther inland a bit, and had been dug out and dredged to allow space for the boat to slip in and out. I was amazed at the engineering feat; the sheer cost would prohibit most people from accomplishing this, but the luxury of it alone — to want to be able to park your boat on the beach, closer to your house — was impressive.
Joey’s eyes widened at the sight of it.
“You see that last night?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t take a close look at it. Wish we were here by invitation, we might be able to swing a tour.”
He flashed me a grin. “Well, technically we are here by invitation.”
I put the car in park and opened the door. “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got some drinks to serve.”
There was a large white tent erected on the north side of the property, and I could see ten or so people underneath, setting up tables and tablecloths and a few stacks of dinnerware. I pointed at it. “That’s it, I think.”
“Yeah, that’d be my guess.”
“You ready?”
He nodded again. “Think so. Locked and loaded, if that’s what you mean.”
I walked to the back of the car and popped the trunk. No real easy way to do this if I was trying to keep my activity on the down-low, but I was still a bit leery about just swinging it wide open and letting anyone in the house see our little arsenal.
Joey seemed to anticipate this too, so he stepped up to my right side and glanced left and right, then at the house. “Seems clear,” he said.
“Clear enough. Hurry up, and don’t take too much. We don’t want to be loaded down.”
I had packed the rifle in the trunk along with another bucketful of ammunition, and though my belt and pockets were full, I grabbed two magazines and stuck them in my back pockets and considered slinging the rifle case over my shoulder. I wanted to have it in the trunk in case we had to post up in the woods, away from the house, and run surveillance. But getting inside the estate had proven to be a simple thing and the rifle was no longer needed. It wouldn’t provide any more help inside the house than the Sig Sauer I already had.
No wallet, no keys, no phone. Nothing else to weigh me down. Joey followed suit, testing the weight and feel of his own holster. He put on his suit coat and double-checked that everything was in place, then jiggled around a bit to triple-check.
I grabbed one final object, slipping it under the strap of my suspenders on the opposite side of my chest, and put on my own coat. I slammed the trunk closed and whirled around to my left, just in time to be ambushed.
“Can I help you?”
The man strolled over, a concerned smile on his face. He looked us up and down for a moment, then stretched out a hand.
“I, uh —” I stuttered for a half-second and then remembered my manners. “Sorry. We’re here with, the, uh,”
I looked at Joey.
“Rogers’ Service.”
The man frowned.
“The beverage and catering company? We’re the bartenders. Did they not…”
Joey pasted on his own concerned citizen look.
The man stared again, then his face brightened a little. “Right, sorry. No, they must have booked that earlier this week. I just flew in, and I’m trying to help out where I’m needed. Trying to stay busy and all that…” his voice trailed off and he looked out to the water.
“Are you family, then?” I asked. The man wasn’t harassing us about our employment, and he wasn’t asking questions, so I figured he was here for the funeral.
He nodded once, still looking at the beach. “Yeah, my brother. Bradley was, I mean.” He stuck out a hand. “Thanks for being here. Let me know when you get set up, I’ll be your first customer.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And you got it.”
“And it’s on the house,” Joey added.
I prepared to sidestep him and start walking toward the tent, but he grabbed my arm. “What — what was that I saw you take out of the trunk, if I may?”
I felt my face flush a little, but I reached into my coat anyway and pulled out the object I’d slid inside. I twisted my hand around it and let it fall out, rolling it in my palm.
His eyes narrowed, then widened.
The shaker had been a gift from many years ago, one of the first pieces of barware I'd acquired, long before I’d had my own place. The metallic sheen and luster had long since faded, but I knew its grooves and crevices so well it had become somewhat of a token for me. A good luck charm, even.
I handed it to Bradley Rayburn’s brother and let him examine it. “They always have plenty of stuff like this already, but the company just buys the crappy gear in bulk. We like to carry our own ware sometimes, just to make sure we’re doing it right.”
He chuckled and handed it back to me. “I like that. You take pride in your work. Good man.”
I smiled, stuck the shaker back under my suspender strap, and started toward the tent. I could nearly feel Joey’s nervousness burning a hole through my back.
46
“I GOT THIS PART,” JOEY whispered as we stepped into the tent. My eyes adjusted and I saw that there was already a large amount of spirits spread out on the tables along one side of the white tent, and a few bartenders were working through and detailing — cleaning and prepping the bottles and getting them ready for service.
A woman, taller than me and rail-thin, beautiful but in a lived-a-hard-life sort of way, paced back-and-forth along the tent wall behind the tables. She held a clipboard, dragging the attached pen on its metal rope along the manicured grass floor.
I looked back at Joey. “You sure?” I asked, hinting at the sarcasm I was feeling. “Rogers’ Service? Really?”
He shrugged. “What? Better than your ‘uh, I, uh, well, uh —”
“Shut it,” I said. “What if they ask who we are? They’ll know there’s no such thing as Rogers’ Service. What kind of name is that an
yway?”
“All the fancy catering companies use a personal name like that. Makes it sound distinguished.”
“Yeah, but ‘Roger’ sounds like a guy who just got fired from a bank teller job but decided he was entrepreneurial enough to put out his own shingle.”
Joey shook his head. “No, see, that’s why I put the apostrophe after Rogers. There are more than one Rogers, because it’s a family name. Not ‘Roger’ like one guy.”
“You think he got all that from your apostrophe placement?”
Joey whipped his head around and stared me down. “Again, way better than your answer.”
“Fine. Still, what are we going to —”
“You’re not going to anything. I said I got this.”
Before I could grab him he ducked away and started toward the lady behind the longest of the tables, set perpendicular to the rest against one side of the closed-walled tent. He raised a hand in greeting as he drew near.
I had to hand it to him, the kid was confident.
I strolled up just as they started their conversation.
“— just got here, and wanted to make sure you were set,” Joey said.
“I, uh, where did you say you —”
“Looks like you’re fully stocked,” Joey said, “so I’ll check the wells. You have an ice machine around here?”
She frowned, then turned and pointed. “Over there, behind that truck. It’s portable, so we had to hook it into the hose. It’s going, but won’t be full until tomorrow morning. First drink service is right after a small get-together on the lawn, tomorrow afternoon. Then Sunday’s showtime.”
Joey made a face. “You’re making ice out of…” he stopped himself, then smiled. “Okay, I’ll check out the stations and jump in. Just holler if you need anything.”
