by Michael Kerr
“I don’t know and I don’t care, Logan. My personal life is none of your fucking business.”
“So killing women is an acceptable pastime?”
“They’re just hookers, for Christ’s sake. Who cares what happens to them. They don’t contribute to society or pay taxes. They just feed off the system.”
Logan got the picture. Fallon wasn’t someone that you could rationalize with over anything. He was a full-blown psychopath.
Patrick blinked rapidly and shook his head. His eyes suddenly looked vacant, like a dementia sufferer who had forgotten his name or where he was. “I need to go now,” he said, turning to face the door. The situation was untenable. He decided to dismiss it by walking away from it. And then he stopped, looked back over his shoulder and said, “You’re fired, Max. You lured me down here to save your own worthless skin. Be my guest, Logan, shoot him, and please let yourself out, I have a migraine. I need to lie down for a while.”
Logan and Benny couldn’t believe what they were hearing. The man had seemingly lost the plot. They just watched transfixed as with a swirl of his flowing robe he marched out into the hall.
“Keep your eye on Dalton,” Logan said and followed Fallon out.
Patrick headed for the stairs, and began to run as Logan ordered him to stop. He was fast and made it up to the landing and almost into his bedroom before Logan caught up and grabbed the collar of his robe.
With his arms back straight behind him, Patrick slipped free of the garment and Logan staggered backward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Maureen no longer felt like the glamorous and refined young woman that had arrived at Ocean View as Candice Templeton. The initial sense of wellbeing had evaporated like a fast-fading rainbow as Fallon had first badmouthed her, then hit her so hard that she could not move her now badly swollen jaw, that seemed to be way offline and sent bolts of agony up into her head if she moved even a fraction. He had been raping her anally, and strangling her. She had passed out, to come round alone and in abject pain.
Her mind was almost at the point of meltdown. What could she do? How could she escape? Where had he gone? And would he start in on her again when he returned?
Forcing herself up into a sitting position, Maureen staggered to her feet on shaking legs and made her way over to the en suite bathroom. She felt light-headed and nauseous and thought that she was going to pass out, so leant against the doorframe and waited until her head cleared a little.
Inside the bathroom she looked for a weapon. Found a long pair of hairdresser’s scissors in a cabinet drawer and clutched them in her hand. Looking in the wall mirror, she wailed at the sight of her face. The left side of it was swollen like a balloon, and her bottom jaw was grotesquely out of place, over to the right. She looked like some kind of malformed freak.
Standing up and going back into the bedroom, she remained on her feet and just waited. Knew that Fallon would return, and was ready to stab him to death when he did. He had disfigured her, and abused her in a way that she found repugnant. Okay, she was a hooker, but regarded herself as a sophisticated escort that included sex in her relationships with men of a certain standing. She was not some uneducated slut without any principles.
Patrick entered the bedroom naked, to be faced by the bitch who had survived being strangled almost to death. He raised his hand to grasp her, but stopped abruptly with a sudden piercing pain in his chest.
Christ, no, not a fucking heart attack, he thought, clutching at his chest with both hands, to find Maureen’s fisted hand there. He pulled it away from him and the stainless steel blades of the scissors were withdrawn from his flesh, followed by a bright ribbon of blood. The bitch had stabbed him.
“Drop them and go and sit on the bed,” Logan said to the woman as he appeared in the doorway behind Fallon. “You’re safe now.”
Maureen backed up and stared at Logan. Started to cry and then let go of the scissors. “Promise,” she mumbled with difficulty. “Promise me that I’m safe.”
“I promise,” Logan said, but was not happy to do so. He had always believed unspoken promises were easier to keep, or try to. Voice them and you put yourself under an obligation that you couldn’t always make good on. But the young woman looked to be hurt bad and on the cusp of hysteria. She needed to be convinced that the danger was past.
Patrick had nowhere to go, and could taste blood in his mouth. He sank to his knees, placed his now red-smeared hands on the carpet and looked up at Logan like a pet dog that has shit on the kitchen floor and knows that it is in big trouble.
“I need help,” Patrick said, and crimson bubbles burst on his lips with each word. “I can pay you, Logan. There’s a floor safe under the carpet at the far side of the bed. Take the money and call for an ambulance. I’ll say that this was an accident; that I tripped with the scissors in my hand.”
Logan wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help Fallon for a million dollars. He had come here to kill him, but could not simply execute an unarmed and seriously wounded man.
Going over to the wall behind the bed, Logan pulled up the carpet and then a metal cover that was flush with the floorboards beneath it. The safe had a keypad and handle on it.
“Give me the numbers,” Logan said.
“Five-nine-seven-one,” Patrick said, and then coughed up more blood, for it to run down his chin and drip into the matt of gray hair on his chest.
Logan opened the safe and found what he guessed to be a hundred thousand dollars in banded bricks. There were also at least a dozen mini audio tapes. Within seconds he had transferred the safe’s contents into a pillow case.
Patrick saw a chance. He picked up the scissors and somehow found the strength to regain his feet. Maybe it was the power of mind over body. He would kill the man that had caused him so much grief, and the hooker, and then phone the emergency services. He could blame everything on Logan.
Maureen had closed her eyes against the pain. When she opened them, Fallon was rounding the bottom of the bed with the scissors held high, ready to strike. His naked body was coated in blood that striped his stomach and thighs. She screamed, ignoring the agony that doing so caused in her fractured jaw.
Logan swung the money-filled pillowcase as he spun round. The blades of the scissors missed his head by an inch, but buried in his shoulder.
Grasping Fallon’s fisted hand, he pulled it upwards, still clutching the scissors, brought the arm down, twisted it and drove the twin blades up under the man’s ribcage, into his heart.
Patrick felt a needle sharp pain. He fell back; knees bent beneath him, and lay still. He felt a morbid dread as his heart clenched and then stuttered for a few fast, desperate beats as it fought on his behalf to carry on pumping. And then it stopped, and all fear, hate, greed, lust for life, and the perversions he had enjoyed were erased. Patrick Fallon was dead.
Max knew that he had at most two or three minutes before Logan returned. He needed to act fast. He turned on his side and stared at Benny as he worked his wrists. When the plastic tie had been fastened he had kept them tensed and a fraction apart. And he was a physically very strong man. Ignoring the pain as the narrow plastic strip bit into flesh, he worked it down over the backs of his hands and felt it fall free.
“Get back down,” Benny said as Max shuffled round and got to his knees, still holding his hands together behind his back.
“Listen to me, son,” Max said. “You’re about to have the biggest decision you’ve ever had in your life to make. You and Logan did well to get this far, but as soon as I knew he was in the house I made a call. Help’s on the way.”
“That’s crap, Dalton,” Benny said, standing up and taking a couple of steps towards the kneeling man, and keeping his gun pointed at him. “We’re on Cape Cod, not in New York. Who’re you gonna call?”
“A local cop on the take. He and half a dozen others will be driving out here now. Deal with me or you’ll die tonight, and in an uncertain world that’s a gilt-edged guarantee.”
“What do
you have in mind?”
“Shoot Logan when he comes back. There’s a lot of money in the house. You get to take it and start a new life.”
Benny had lowered the gun as they talked.
Max was within striking distance, even with his ankles still bound. He lunged forward and up, grasped the barrel of the gun with his left hand and twisted it to the side as he smashed his right fist into Benny’s stomach.
The bullet hit Max in the neck, knocking him back down to the floor. It was a kill shot. His right carotid artery was torn apart, and the pulsing jets of blood waned as he writhed about, and then shuddered, became still and unconscious and bled out.
Benny turned to see Logan standing in the doorway. There was a young woman next to him, leaning against the frame with a sheet wrapped around her. Her face was swollen up and she looked deformed.
“What would you have done?” Logan asked Benny.
“What do you mean?”
“The deal he offered you.”
“Even if I’d believed him I would have turned it down. I had no intention of leavin’ here with him still breathin’.”
Logan nodded. “Go and fetch the car to the main gates,” he said. “I’ll finish up here.”
Benny got up and patted the front of the vest. “These are worth every cent,” he said. “I didn’t even feel the punch he landed.”
Logan smiled.
While Benny was gone, Logan found painkillers in a kitchen cabinet for Maureen. They were better than nothing. He then checked on Vic Fuller, who was conscious now, but had not moved from where he had been left. Logan removed the gag and said, “Where’s the chopper pilot?”
“Kyle is the pilot,” Vic said, not knowing that his friend was seriously wounded. He had heard shots when he came round, but had no clue as to what had gone down.
Logan left Maureen in the kitchen, sitting at a table in the nook. He then hauled Vic up, threw him over his shoulder and went out the door, to walk across the grass to the tree line and dump him. Ten minutes later Kyle ‒ who was unconscious but had a strong pulse ‒ and the body of Declan were next to Vic.
By the time Logan reached the big double gates, Benny was there, sitting at the wheel of the station wagon with the lights off.
Logan got in. “Drive round to the back of the house,” he said. “We’ll collect the girl and torch the place.”
A few minutes later they were good to go. Maureen was in the back, covered by a blanket and with a cushion under the undamaged side of her face, and the money-filled pillowcase and Logan’s rucksack were in the foot well in front of her.
Benny sat at the wheel with the engine running.
Logan returned to the house, collected Maureen’s clothes and purse from the bedroom, then went back downstairs and found a well-stocked bar in the den. He used a few bottles of hard liquor as accelerants to get a good fire going. He even took the time to pour some single malt on and in to the scissor wound on his shoulder.
He carried an old silver-plated Zippo lighter with NYPD inscribed on it, which had been a gift from his lost love, Maddie, back when he had smoked. He wasn’t superstitious, but maybe it was a good luck charm. It was the only memento of his past life. He flicked the top back, spun the wheel, then held the flame to a paper napkin off the bar and dropped it to the carpet.
The flames followed the trail of booze, to race around the room and climb the drapes at the sides of the French doors.
Logan left the house, climbed into the Malibu, and told Benny to get them the hell away from the scene.
The blaze could be seen for miles. And as they headed west to leave the hook of the Cape, Benny and Logan began to relax. It was suddenly over with. Trask, Quaid, Dalton and Fallon were all dead. And history had been changed, because now Patrick Fallon would never be mayor, or have the chance to use the power it would give him to his own criminal ends.
There were only a couple of things left for Logan to do, and they could wait for a day or two.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They stopped at an A&E in Providence and waited until Maureen had entered the main doors. Logan had got in the back of the wagon and helped her to dress. She had calmed down a lot. The painkillers had reduced the shock, and she was beginning to appreciate that a broken jaw and a sore neck and ass were a whole lot better than being dead.
She couldn’t talk, but gripped Logan’s hand and squeezed it hard. The look of thanks in her eyes said it all.
“You’ll be as good as new before you know it,” Logan said to her. “Just tell whoever asks, that you’d hitched a lift, and he stopped and attacked you: that you managed to get out of the car and escape. Think up a vague description and stick to it. Okay?”
Maureen had nodded. He helped her out of the vehicle and watched her walk slowly away.
Benny stopped at a diner. Neither of them was hungry, but they were both parched and drank three cups of coffee each.
“You did it, Logan,” Benny said. “It’s over.”
“We did it,” Logan said. “Now we can head back to the city, check in on Arnie, and then get back to Margie and Della.”
“I reckon I’ll stay in New York,” Benny said. “No one is tryin’ to kill me now, so I can get back to my place and pick up the pieces.”
“And do what?” Logan asked.
“Go straight,” Benny said. “I’ll try and get a job and keep away from trouble.”
Logan said nothing.
They reached the city as dawn broke.
Logan phoned the hospital. Purported to be Reynolds again and was told that Arnie was awake and asking for Margie.
“Tell him that she’s safe and will phone him within the next fifteen minutes,” Logan said and ended the call. He then phoned Margie and gave her the good news; that it was all over, and that Arnie was back from the Twilight Zone.
“Thank you, Joe,” Margie said through tears of joy at knowing Arnie was awake. “Are you and Benny on your way back?”
“Benny wants to stay here in the city. I’ll be back by lunchtime and drive you and Della home.”
He didn’t take Benny back to Brooklyn. Instead he got out of the car and made another call, then drove to Hoagy’s Place on the Lower East side.
They sat in a booth of the old converted railway dining car. Hoagy came by with a large pot of coffee and sat down next to Logan. Filled three mugs and said to Benny, “I’m an old buddy of this big lug. He says that you need a fresh start. Is that the truth of it?”
Benny frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “Why’re you askin’?”
“Because I need a hand to run this joint. Can you cook?”
“I was a short order cook for a while, so I know my way around a griddle.”
“So here’s the deal. You pull down a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. And we see what happens. Only big rule I have is no drugs.”
“Sounds good,” Benny said. “When do I start?”
“Day after tomorrow. And I have a spare bed if you need one, till you find somewhere decent nearby.”
“Thanks,” Benny said as he shook hands with Hoagy.
“Thank Logan. He said that you’re worth taking a chance on.”
Outside on the street, Logan handed Benny a wad of bills. Told him it was a gift from Fallon and smiled.
“Will I see you around?” Benny asked.
Logan shrugged. “Never say never, eh?”
Benny stepped forward and gave Logan a man hug.
Logan eased away after a few seconds, smiled at Benny and said, “Be safe,” before turning and walking back to the Malibu.
He needed a couple of hours’ sleep when he finally got back to The Maple Tree Resort. But before he hit the sack he told Margie and Della a condensed version of what had happened. Della checked his shoulder, used antiseptic to clean it, and then taped a bandage over it.
They left Logan sleeping for over four hours. Margie had been on the phone to the hospital, was allowed to speak to Arnie for a couple of minutes, and told him
that Logan had taken care of everything, without naming names or going into detail.
“Sounds like I missed all the fun,” Arnie had said. “When will I get to see you, hon?”
“A few hours. We’re up in northern New Jersey, and Logan is catching up on sleep.”
It was eight p.m. when Logan pulled into one of the hospital’s parking lots.
“I should think that they’ll only let close family in to see him for a day or two,” Logan said to Margie. “We’ll be in the cafeteria, so take your time.”
It was only a short visit. Arnie got tired. Talking was an effort and to Margie he sounded the way he sometimes had with one scotch too many; a little slurred. And his left side was weak. He had suffered minimal brain damage, but would be undergoing physiotherapy for a lengthy period, and have to walk with the aid of a cane for a few months.
Logan stayed at Della’s that night. They showered together and made out. Logan stayed up late and listened to all the tapes that he had taken from Fallon’s safe. It was three a.m. before he switched off all the lights, and another hour before he heard someone breaking in the kitchen door at the rear of the house.
He waited behind the living room door. Knew that the intruder would be armed and would expect him to be upstairs in bed.
As the figure edged silently past the door towards the stairs, Logan unleashed a straight right and knocked him off his feet, then took the gun from his hand as he bounced back off the facing wall.
Thumbing the light on, he smiled down at Detective Second Grade Dave Ellery and said, “I’m beginning to think I should have dropped you off the ferry. Especially now that I know who you worked for. And notice I used past tense. Don’t you and Reynolds know that Fallon is dead?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about.”
“Sure you do,” Logan said. “I knew when Margie was seen visiting, that Reynolds would be informed and would have her followed. You saw her get in the car with me and Della and followed us back here…”
Della appeared at the top of the stairs.
