by Michael Kerr
Walking through the door, Vic put his hand up to find the light switch and flick it on. He had no idea what caused the paralyzing bolt of pain in his throat, or how he got to be face down on the quarry-tiled kitchen floor, until he heard a voice next to his ear.
“If you want to live, nod your head,” Logan said as he knelt with one knee on the man’s back and removed the gun from the shoulder holster.
Vic nodded his head as he attempted to swallow. He thought that something might have broken in his throat. But he could still breathe, which was a good sign.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Vic,” he rasped.
“Okay, Vic, tell me how many are in the house, who they are and where they are,” Logan said. “And believe me, if you lie, you die.”
Vic told him in a hoarse whisper, and hardly felt the heavy blow from the butt of his own gun as he was knocked out.
They took the time to secure his wrists and ankles with plastic ties. Benny marveled at just what Logan carried in his rucksack. When Vic had been gagged, they hauled his slack body behind the large kitchen’s central island and made their way out and along the long, wide hallway to the room that they had been informed a guy was watching the grounds via CCTV monitors.
Declan was still reading his book. He didn’t hear the door open behind him, and his ass left the seat and the paperback flew into the air as something hard and cold was pressed to his neck.
Logan swung the chair round to face the man. Saw that fear had frozen him in place. He just stared wide-eyed at the muzzle of the gun that was now pointing at his heart, and his bottom lip began to tremble.
“If you want to live, you need to do exactly as I tell you,” Logan said. “Do you understand?”
Declan nodded. His mouth had dried up. He couldn’t speak.
“If you see something suspicious on one of the screens, what are you supposed to do?”
Declan worked his mouth to find some saliva. “Phone Vic or Kyle. Th…they’re the guards,” he said.
“Forget Vic, he’s incommunicado, Phone Kyle and tell him that you think you saw some movement at the rear of the house. When he comes to check, act natural. If you do anything stupid my friend here will shoot you.”
Kyle was lying on top of the bed, fully dressed apart from his shoes. He was dozing when his cell rang, but came awake immediately, picked up the phone off the unit next to him and answered.
“Hey, Kyle, it’s Declan. It’s probably nothing, but I think I saw something moving out back. I replayed it, but I’m still not sure if it was just a shadow of a branch swaying. Maybe you should take a look.”
“Why call me? Vic’s patrolling. I’m on stand down.”
“He always has his cell on vibrate. He isn’t answering me. Maybe he’s taking a dump..”
Kyle sighed and said, “I’m on my way.” He climbed off the bed, slipped on his shoulder rig, put his Nikes on and left the room.
When the door opened, Declan turned and gave Kyle a forced smile in greeting.
Something was wrong. There was fear in the man’s eyes: a tension in his features that was unwarranted. And the book lying on the carpet next to the desk was also out of kilter. Warning bells were ringing, and Kyle knew as the other man’s eyes slid momentarily to the right that someone else was in the room. The thoughts that passed through his mind were almost instantaneous. He had experience of unseen danger, and had survived two tours out in Afghanistan because he had learned to rely on his instincts.
Spinning on his heel as he dropped into a crouch and drew his gun, Kyle pulled the trigger without having the luxury of time to take careful aim.
Logan fired at the man, hitting him high in the shoulder as he reacted to the unexpected gunshot.
The bullet from Logan’s gun spun Kyle sideways, even as he pulled the trigger again. And the second wayward slug from Kyle’s Browning caught Declan in the chest, to knock him back into the monitors on the desk.
“You hit?” Logan said to Benny, after stepping forward and kicking the wounded guard’s pistol out of his hand, for it to spin through the air, hit the wall and drop down to land on the carpet.
“No, it went high,” Benny said.
“So much for stealth and a surprise attack,” Logan muttered, kicking Kyle Fleming in the side of the head, not caring if the bullet wound, kick or both proved fatal.
They didn’t even check on Declan. He was still seated motionless in his chair. There was a lot of blood, and his face had the vacant look of someone past worrying about all mortal ills.
At the other end of the house, Max heard the shots, used the remote to kill the TV, and drew his gun as he walked over to the door and switched off the light. He had no idea who had invaded the house, because only Dusty Quaid knew that they were at Ocean View.
And then Max’s phone rang.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The sound of the three shots echoed throughout the house. Patrick stopped moving. He was still joined to the hooker that he knew by the name of Candice. His fingers stopped squeezing her neck, and he listened for shouts or more gunfire, but apart from his labored breathing there was no further sound. Pulling back to withdraw his wilting penis from Candice, he climbed off the bed, not knowing or caring whether she was unconscious or dead. She was no longer a consideration. He was under attack. He was almost certain that Max and his men had probably already dealt with the incursion, but would not take that for granted.
Picking up his robe from the floor and putting it on, Patrick went to a bureau and took a Sig Sauer P226 pistol from the top drawer. It held a full seventeen round mag, and had been a gift from Max, who had liberated it from the Navy SEALs when he had resigned from the service.
Downstairs, Max answered his cell phone. The caller ID was Dusty.
“Hi, Dalton,” Logan said. “Do you want to come out of the living room with your hands empty, or go out in a blaze of glory? And before you answer that, take it under advisement that Vic and Kyle have both been dealt with.”
“Who are you?” Max said.
“The guy that Quaid said was dead.”
“Logan?”
“Correct. He died just after he called you.”
“What is it that you want?”
“You know what I want to; be sure that no one has any reason to harm Arnie Newman or anyone else that I’m looking out for. The best way to do that is by eliminating Fallon.”
“How do I know that you won’t kill me?” Max said.
“Because I don’t shoot unarmed men. Lose your gun and you get to stay in one piece.”
As he talked, Max smiled. There were two sets of double doors set in the wall of the long living room. And he had two guns; one 9 millimeter pistol in his shoulder holster, and a smaller Beretta in a holster clipped to his belt. Taking off his shoes, he walked towards the door nearest to him and shouted, “I’m going to switch on the light and throw my gun out, Logan. So don’t get trigger-happy.”
Logan said nothing, just waited.
Max hit the light switch and tossed the gun out into the hallway, then quickly made his way over the thick-pile carpet to the other set of doors that were forty feet away. He knew that Logan was a lone wolf kind of guy, and that he wouldn’t have anyone with him.
Edging around the partly open door, he saw the figure standing at an angle, waiting for him to walk out from where the gun had been thrown. He took one step forward, took aim and fired three times in quick succession, to see the gun fly out of the man’s hand as he staggered backwards, fell to the floor and rolled over onto his belly.
“Game over, Logan,” Max said, a sneer on his face as he looked along the hall towards the prone body, all set to approach it and make sure that Logan was dead by administering a head shot.
“Not quite,” a voice said.
Max knew that he had been outsmarted. He had no idea who he’d shot, but he knew that Logan was behind him, and that he would be pointing a gun at his back.
Dropping and rolling
back through the doorway, Max fired a shot in the direction that the voice had come from.
Logan did not hesitate. He ran forward to the open door, swept off the three light switches on the plate on the wall next to it and entered low and fast and jinked to the right, firing five times to keep Dalton from having the time to do anything other than take evasive action.
The room and the hall outside it were now in darkness. Logan edged sideways on all fours and then laid down, his arms in front of him, holding his gun two-handed. If Dalton stood up he would become visible against the outside lighting that lit the grounds through the large windows.
Max kept low. He was behind the large sofa, waiting for Logan to make his move. “You and I can both walk away from this,” he said. “Fallon is the guy you want. I stopped a doctor at Bellevue from making sure that your buddy Newman never woke up. And I told Quaid to back off. This can be resolved without anyone else getting killed.”
“Listen to this,” Logan said, placing the small digital voice recorder he carried down on the carpet and pressing PLAY, before moving a couple of yards to the left from where he had spoken from.
‘…That just leaves Newman. Latest on him is that he may make it and not be brain dead. We should have let that doctor deal with him. Make sure that he doesn’t recover’.
‘I’ll get on it. When will you be back in town’?
‘Within twenty-four hours. The boss is entertaining some high-class hooker we flew in. I doubt that she’ll be making the return trip with us.’
‘Okay, Max. I’ll have everything cleaned up before you get back’.
‘Sweet’.
Max knew that there could be no deal: never would have been. He or Logan would die in this room. Maybe both of them.
He took a deep breath, and then came up over the back of the sofa with his gun blazing as he fired at the spot where the recorded voices had come from.
Logan stepped in from the side and brought the barrel of his gun down on Dalton’s wrist with a powerful scything motion, to break it and watch as the gun fell to the carpet.
Max lowered his head and charged into Logan like a rhino would attack a safari Jeep. The move took Logan by surprise. The man was almost his height, and about the same weight.
Max grasped Logan’s right wrist with his left hand and jerked it savagely to the side as he head butted him in the forehead, splitting it open.
Logan felt the rush of blood, like a cataract of warm water running down into his eyes. He brought his knee up into the other man’s crotch, then stomped down with his boot, for the edge of the thick sole to rake the skin off the left shinbone through the material of Dalton’s pants, before it dug into the top of the foot, causing extreme pain and forcing him to transfer all his weight to his right leg.
Max did not loosen his grip on Logan’s wrist, just twisted it even harder, and by doing so brought Logan round so that the top of his thighs were up against the back of the sofa.
Logan lost his balance and fell over the substantial piece of furniture, to almost perform a backward tipple tail as Dalton came with him, still holding on, positive that if he could force Logan to drop the gun, then he would be able to finish him off.
Logan came to rest facing the front of the sofa. His hand was now free. Even Dalton’s powerful grip could not keep hold of the thick, perspiration-filmed wrist as they fell to the floor in a tangled heap.
Logan rammed the muzzle into Dalton’s left armpit, but did not pull the trigger.
Dalton stopped moving. Both men stared into each other’s eyes. Neither saw the slightest sign of fear. They had both seen a lot of action during their lives, and it had imbued them with an acceptance of their own mortality. It came sooner or later, and was no big deal.
“So do it,” Max said. “What are you waiting for?”
“You could be more use to me alive than dead,” Logan said as he rose to his knees. “Do what I tell you to and you get to be left here tied up.”
“You think I buy that?”
“Depends on how much you’d rather live than die, Dalton. I’m going to kill Fallon. That will make you temporarily unemployed, and with a lot of explaining to do when the police turn up here. And you won’t be able to lay it all off on me, because I’ve got the recording, which I’ll have you add to with more self-incriminating admissions.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“First, lay out face down with your hands behind your back.”
Seconds later Max had his wrists and ankles bound with plastic ties. Logan frisked him, found a knife that Max had not had the time to reach for and use, and also took his wallet and phone. There was a few grand in the wallet, which he pocketed.
Leaving Dalton where he was, Logan went out into the hallway. Benny was sitting up with his back against the wall. He had a pained expression on his pallid face.
“How’re you doing?” Logan asked.
“I think I’ve got a bust rib,” Benny said. “Those bullets packed a punch.”
“If you hadn’t been wearing the vest you’d be dead meat.”
“What if he’d aimed higher and gone for head shots?”
“Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Can you stand up?”
With Logan’s help, Benny got to his feet. His chest hurt, a lot, and he knew that he would be bruised badly, but also knew that the Kevlar vest had saved his life. Stopping at the military and police surplus store in the Bronx had been one of Logan’s better ideas.
“Did you kill Dalton?” Benny asked.
“No. I’ve got a job for him to do.”
Benny followed Logan into the living room and sat down on a chair with his gun pointing at Dalton, who had turned over onto his back.
“That was good grouping,” Max said to Benny. “Without the body armor your heart and lungs would’ve been chopped liver.”
“And if shit was gold we’d all be rich,” Benny came back.
“How do you contact Fallon?” Logan asked Max.
“The phone on the coffee table. I just punch in 3 to connect with the extension in his bedroom.”
Logan got the phone. Told him what to say and hit 3.
Patrick had waited with bated breath. Heard more gunfire, and just hoped and prayed that Dalton was as good as he thought him to be. After a while the phone on the bedside table rang.
He felt a deep surge of relief, and his heart rate dropped significantly as he lowered the gun, walked over to the table on still trembling legs and picked up.
“We had visitors, boss,” Max said. “But they’ve been dealt with.”
“Who the fuck was it?”
“Logan and some other guy.”
“I thought that Dusty said Logan was history?”
“He was told to tell me that. Logan is badly wounded down here. I don’t think he’ll make it. What do you want me to do with him?”
“Nothing. I want to finish him off. I’m on my way.”
He didn’t bother to get dressed. Just tightened the belt of his robe, unlocked the bedroom door and hurried downstairs, not wanting Logan to die until he had inflicted even more pain on the man that had been a thorn in his side.
Walking into the living room, Patrick was taken completely by surprise as the gun he held was taken from his hand. He just stopped and looked around the room. A guy taller than Max was standing a couple of feet to his side, and a younger guy was sitting in a chair pointing a gun at Max, who was lying on the floor.
Logan studied Fallon. He was in his fifties, of medium height, and still looked to be in good shape. His hair was styled and silver-gray. His dark eyes were unreadable; as emotionless and as devoid of empathy as a large bird of prey’s, or like those of a serial killer, which was more fitting, due to the fact that he brought women to this remote spot to fuck and kill.
“So you’re Logan?” Patrick said.
Logan said nothing.
“We can resolve this to our mutual satisfaction, Logan. It can end here.”
�
�It will end here,” Logan said. “You’re going to answer a few questions, and if I believe the answers you give me, we can deal. If I think that you’re lying to me, you get to kneel on the carpet and have a bullet put through your brain stem.”
A black kernel of combined anger and hate swelled like a piece of diseased corn in a deep unwholesome part of Patrick’s mind. He could not properly accept that someone was threatening him. He was far too important to die. He had big plans. This nonentity had no right to be in his house, invading his privacy.
“Do you know just who the fuck I am?” Patrick said. “I’m the next mayor of New York City. I’m a man of substance. I give to charity and do my best to make a difference to the lives of those in need. How dare you intimidate me like this?”
Logan could hardly believe what the man was saying to him with what seemed total conviction.
“You’re a murdering scumbag,” Logan said. “You have connections: people bought and paid for, but they can’t help you now.”
“Ask me your questions, Logan.”
“Did you arrange for Detective Arnie Newman to be hit?”
“No. I wanted the information he had on me returned. And I wanted him to be warned off. As far as I’m aware he shot one of Trask’s men, and in the resulting firefight he got hit, as did Trask.”
“How long has Travis Reynolds been in your pocket?”
“About five years. He gambles. Got himself in deep and I helped him out, so he owes me.”
“Did he tell you that Arnie was digging into your affairs?”
“Yes. I told Max to deal with it, but there was no reason I would have ordered him killed. There are a lot more ways to shut someone up.”
“Meaning?”
“If he’d kept pushing, we…Max would have given him an ultimatum. Newman was happily married. He wouldn’t have wanted anything to happen to his wife.”
“Where’s the woman you brought here?”
“Upstairs.”
“Is she alive?”
