“Probably the same person who switched the coke for sugar,” Wayne replied in a deadly tone. “This fuck is trying to play with our heads. I don’t know who it is, but when I find out, I’m gonna rip his heart out.”
* * * *
Chris walked into Moe’s and spotted Jonathan seated at a small table in the bar.
“Hey, bud,” he chanted as he slid into chair across from Addley.
“Greetings to you, sir,” replied Jonathan, extending a hand over the table. “I must say, I’m happy you suggested we get together. I haven’t heard very much from you since we started this little project which is not how I usually like to work with my consultants.”
“Don’t take it personally, Jon,” Chris apologized. “I’m pretty independent by nature. You asked me to look after something, so I did. No sense bothering you every other day if I had nothing to deliver, right? Today, I have something for you.”
He proceeded to recount, in fine detail, the events of the preceding week, from his witnessing Greg and Wayne’s visit to pick up the wooden cases, to this morning’s conversation where Wayne and Bryan had informed Greg of Bob's untimely passing.
After having spoken for an hour, during which time Jonathan had not uttered a sound, Chris concluded his report with a slight grin.
“That’s what I’ve been up to, boss. How do you like my story?”
“It’s definitely a good story, Chris,” approved Jonathan, impressed by the progress his new recruit had made in just over a week. “Any suggestions as to where it goes from here?”
“I think that enough information has been accumulated to dump the whole thing on the police and have them handle it.” Chris suggested. “They’ll have names, dates, places, financial records, everything.”
“Does that fit with our hero’s regular pattern?” Jonathan queried with a smile. “Wouldn’t he have some kind of internal drive to eliminate these assholes himself?”
“I’ve retired from my Vigilante days,” Chris quietly replied. “I’m healed, remember? I’m willing to help my country, for a fee, but I’ve realized that I can’t single-handedly wipe out crime. Bottom line, it’s no longer my job, Jonathan.”
Addley nodded thoughtfully, now convinced beyond a doubt that Chris was as sane as they came. His violent past had existed for reasons which Jonathan could understand but Chris had completed his therapy and was now at peace. Enough had paid for his pain according to his terms.
“You’re absolutely right, Chris,” Jonathan stated. “We definitely have enough for the cops to take over. When can you get the disks and tapes to me?”
“I’ll get everything together tomorrow and we can meet somewhere on Saturday. I’ll give you call.”
“That will be fine,” answered Jonathan, waving at the waiter for the check. “I just want to say that you’ve done some incredible work. I hope that you’ll consider taking on some other contracts in the future. It would be a shame to let your talents go to waste.”
“I’m too young to completely retire,” replied a smiling Chris. "I don’t plan to go for any full-time jobs, but you can consider me as a free-lance consultant.”
* * * *
“You wanted to see me?” asked Matt from the door of Wayne’s office.
“Yeah, I did,” Wayne responded, looking up from the report he was reading. “Come on in, Matt. Would you close the door behind you?”
“Sure, boss,” Matt replied, complying with his superior’s request before having a seat. “What’s up?”
Matt was generally a nervous individual who did not function well under too much pressure. Wayne was therefore certain that if Matt knew anything, he would crack in no time.
“We’ve had a few problems that I need to bring you up to speed with,” announced Wayne, almost kindly.
“What kind of problems?” asked Matt.
His usual worried look appeared but he did not seem uneasy.
“Yesterday, we discovered that Bob was the one who had stolen those four keys of coke on Saturday,” stated Wayne, eyeing Matt carefully.
“What? That’s impossible, Wayne,” exclaimed Matt. “Bob wasn’t even in town on Saturday. He was gone ice fishing.”
“So I’ve heard,” replied Wayne. “Maybe he came back for something.”
“No, Wayne,” insisted Matt. “A few of the guys out back were up there with him. They were joking around and talking about their trip on Monday morning when we got in. I’m sure Bob was up there for the week-end.”
“Okay, then. Maybe he grabbed the coke on Monday when you guys went over to Rick’s place,” Wayne suggested, still intently watching his subordinate.
“No way,” Matt argued. “I was with him the whole time.”
“Are you sure, Matt?” questioned Wayne. “This is very important.”
“Wayne, I tell you there’s no way that Bob could’ve found the coke and taken it without my knowing,” Matt insisted, “Absolutely not.”
“Then, is there any way that he might have taken it and that you were aware of it, Matt?” enquired Wayne, staring at the young man through narrow eyes.
“What?” shouted Matt, jumping from his seat, his expression a mixture of fear, disbelief and anger. “Bob had nothing to do with that coke disappearing and neither did I.”
“Calm down, Matt, and sit down,” commanded Wayne, knowing that the younger man spoke the truth. “I had to check. Relax. I believe you.”
Matt returned to his chair, breathing heavily, clenching and unclenching his fists with rage and frustration.
“What did you do with Bob?” he asked sullenly, staring blankly at the floor.
“Listen,” said Wayne with a tone of finality. “An important customer told us Bob sold him the coke. We went to talk to Bob about it and found a big pile of cash. Everything fit. We had to take care of Bob. End of story.”
“You killed Bob,” Matt slowly mumbled, in a daze. “But you killed him for nothing.”
“Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t,” replied Wayne, not willing to admit his error. “Regardless, we have to move on. We can’t change anything.”
“Well, I think it’s wrong,” Matt announced with a sudden strength in his voice. “Don’t you understand? You killed Bob for nothing.”
“Let’s just get one thing straight, you little bastard,” Wayne hissed angrily. “We’re all in this together. Do you understand? That means we stick together and, if we have to, we go down together. You think about that real carefully, mister, because if I start getting the impression that I can’t trust you anymore, Bob is gonna be the least of your worries. Got it? Now, get the hell outta here. I’ve got things to do.”
* * * *
“What can I get you, sir?” politely enquired the barman at the Sheraton Hotel.
“White rum and Coke, please,” replied Chris.
“Here you go, sir.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank-you, sir.”
Drink in hand, Chris rejoined Paul Anderson, President of Andernet Communications, to resume their conversation. Peterson had been right about this Chamber of Commerce cocktail. In just under an hour, Chris had established three contacts with whom his consulting services showed definite promise.
“As I was saying,” resumed Anderson. “The direction our firm is heading in is definitely an area where your knowledge and expertise could come in handy...”
As Anderson spoke, Chris noticed Tony Bradley, his warehouse lessor, enter the reception hall at the far end. Suddenly oblivious of what Anderson was saying, Chris watched as Bradley greeted a few acquaintances. The latter apparently asked a question to which one of his buddies replied by pointing to the bar located behind Chris and Anderson. Bradley smiled, turned and headed directly towards them.
As if suddenly remembering something, Chris stared at his watch and exclaimed, “My God. Look at the time. Paul, you’ll have to excuse me. I have an appointment downtown at 6:30. I have your card. I’ll give you a call.”
With that, he rushed of
f to a nearby exit, hoping that Bradley would not see him. He made it safely to door and quickly left the hotel, cursing himself for his renewed stupidity.
This game was nearly over. Now was not the time to make such careless mistakes.
* * * *
As Tony Bradley approached the bar, he caught a glimpse of Chris heading towards an exit.
“Hey, Mr. Johnson,” he called out just as Chris was going through the doorway.
He hurried after Chris, but could not see him anywhere in the lobby beyond. He re-entered the hall and went to the bar to get himself a drink.
“Howya doin, Tony?” Wayne heartily enquired, sauntering up to join the warehouse owner.
He had witnessed Chris’ sudden departure as well as Bradley’s subsequent pursuit.
“I saw you running out there and thought you were leaving.”
“Nah,” Tony explained. “I was just trying to catch up with this guy I rented a warehouse to last week. Mr. Johnson. You know him?”
“Johnson? Johnson?” mused Wayne, deep in thought. “Don’t believe I do. What’s he look like?”
“Did you see the guy that walked out just before I did?” asked Tony.
“Blonde fellow?”
“Yeah, that’s the guy,” replied Tony. “That’s Johnson. So, you know him?”
“Nope. Can’t say that I do,” answered Wayne, a slight smile on his lips. “He looks familiar though. What kind of business is he in?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” was Bradley’s response. “All I know is that the guy rented one of my mini-warehouses to store some stuff and paid me ahead, three months, cash. My kinda guy.”
“I guess,” agreed Wayne with a knowing chuckle. “I just can’t remember where I’ve seen him. Maybe I saw him roaming around your place.”
“Could be,” Tony answered. “He took the last warehouse in the building; the one that gives right by your yard.”
“Yeah, that must be where I saw him,” nodded Wayne. “Well, I’m gonna mingle. Catch you later, Tony.”
* * * *
Chris settled back in the couch to watch Letterman with Sandy. Although the show was generally good every night, this evening’s programme would be particularly appealing as the musical guest was Melissa Etheridge, of whom both Chris and Sandy were major fans.
As Letterman started his monologue, the phone rang.
“Who’s calling at this time?” asked Sandy as Chris reached for the cordless on the couch beside him.
“Hello. Hello?”
The line went dead.
“Guess they didn’t want to talk to me,” shrugged Chris, tossing the phone back onto the couch.
“Unknown name, unknown number,” stated Sandy, verifying the call display screen on the phone’s base.
“Either a wrong number or one of your lovers,” quipped Chris.
“Probably one of my lovers,” agreed a smiling Sandy.
* * * *
Wayne cut the connection on his cellular phone and looked up at Bryan.
“Well, Mr. Johnson is home, so let’s check out his warehouse.”
They climbed out of Wayne’s Jag and crossed the rear yard of Quality Imports towards the neighbouring warehouse building.
“How do you plan to get in there?” asked Bryan as they approached the door to Chris’s warehouse.
“Our friend, Mr. Bradley, has an incredible love for money,” Wayne smugly replied. “I rented the key to Barry’s warehouse for the night for two hundred bucks. Another hundred bought me Bradley’s promise to shut up.”
He finished speaking as they reached the door and, after scanning the area to make sure they were alone, attempted to insert the key into the lock.
“Sonovabitch,” he muttered under his breath.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bryan.
“Either Bradley screwed me or that bastard Barry changed the fucking locks.” Wayne hissed through clenched teeth.
He hurried over to the doors of the next two warehouses and verified the locks.
“The others are Weisers,” he fumed as he returned. “This is a Medeco.”
He peered at the key in his hand and added, “This key’s a Weiser. Barry changed the locks.”
“So, genius, now what?” taunted Bryan.
“We go get a ladder and break a fucking window on the second floor,” Wayne shot back. “That’s what, asshole.”
Chapter 18 - Friday, January 31, 1997
It was 6:48 a.m. when Greg pulled into the parking lot of the Ste-Rose Diner. Getting up early was not one of his favourite sports, and doing so to have breakfast with Wayne and Bryan did little to render the activity more pleasurable. However, Wayne had sounded serious when he had called the previous night, or rather, very early that morning, and Greg had promised to meet them for breakfast at 6:30. At least, he had the satisfaction of arriving late.
After parking his car in the closest spot he could find, he hurried through the morning’s bitter cold and entered the restaurant.
“Those bastards better be here,” he muttered to himself, searching the dining hall for his two associates.
“Greg, back here,” he heard, then saw, Wayne calling and waving from a booth in the rear corner.
He reached the table and was greeted with Wayne’s “You’re late,” as he slid into the booth.
“I’m early enough,” he grunted back, signalling a waitress by pointing to his coffee cup. “What’s so goddamn urgent that it couldn’t wait until a reasonable hour at the office?”
“We’ve got a problem,” Bryan glumly announced.
“Yeah? Well, it seems every time we talk lately, we’ve got a problem,” Greg whined. “What is it this time? Your friend Jimmy rip us off with the coke?”
“No,” Bryan answered, realizing that they hadn’t told Greg about that problem yet. “But that deal didn’t completely pan out. Someone switched part of the shipment on us. Seven keys were powdered sugar when we delivered to Jimmy. He was not a happy man.”
“Holy shit,” whispered Greg, his grumpy disposition changing to one of fear. “You think it was Bob?”
“Actually, we’re pretty sure that it wasn’t Bob, or Matt,” Wayne informed him, “In fact, we probably whacked Bob for nothing.”
“Oh, great,” Greg buried his face into his hands. “Then, what’s going on? Who’s doing this?”
“We think it’s Chris Barry,” Wayne hesitantly responded. “You were right, Greg,” he added, not allowing his accountant friend the pleasure of saying ‘I told you so.’.
“What led you geniuses to believe that Barry might not be trustworthy?” enquired Greg, his tone heavy with sarcasm.
“Yesterday, at the cocktail party, I saw our neighbour, Tony Bradley, running after Barry,” answered Wayne, ignoring Greg’s shot. “Only, Tony knew our friend by the name of Johnson. It seems that Mister Johnson rented one of Tony’s mini-warehouses to store a bunch of stuff. Now, it turns out that the warehouse in question, which happens to overlook the back of our building, is empty. Anyway, now it is. Until last night, this was stored in there, right by the window that gives on our yard.”
He placed a video cam on the table before him.
“The bastard’s been filming us?” whispered Greg incredulously.
“It would seem so,” Wayne nodded. “When we got into his warehouse last night, the camera was running. The only thing is, there was no tape in it. It’s probably got some kinda transmitter set in it or something.”
“Jesus Christ,” Greg swore, visibly shaken. “Do you think he knows we’re onto him?”
Wayne was unable to hold off a grin. “Well, if he was filming last night, he’ll know as soon as he looks at the tape. The sonovabitch changed the locks on the doors so we couldn’t get in with the keys I got from Tony. We get a ladder and Bryan climbs up to the window on the second floor. He trying to see something inside and has got his face pressed up against the glass. He notices a small red light glowing right inside and suddenly realizes that he’
s got a camera lens about six inches from his mug. He nearly fell off the ladder. I never thought somebody Bryan’s size could move that quick.”
“Yeah, yeah, real funny, asshole,” muttered Bryan. “Next time you go up and we’ll see how you do.”
Turning his attention to Greg, he continued. “We think that Barry might have bugged our offices and phones. That would explain how he knew about the dope, the deliveries, so on and so forth; which means, we don’t talk at the office anymore until we fix this guy.”
“And how do we plan to go about that?” Greg asked, once again wishing he had never gotten into this business.
“Presuming that he hasn’t seen last night’s tape yet, he’ll be in the office this morning,” Wayne hopefully replied. “If that’s the case, we’ll invite him to lunch and stash him somewhere until we figure out what to do.”
“But what if he has seen the tape?” Greg insisted. “What then?”
“Then we’ll go over to his place and have a chat with him there,” Wayne quietly stated. “Either way, this piece of shit is not going to fuck us up. We’ve come too far to have some righteous ex-executive take us down.”
“What if he’s not in this alone?” an ever-worrisome Greg pushed on. “What if he’s a cop or something?”
“Oh, Jesus-Christ, Greg,” Wayne retorted in frustration. “The guy’s a well-known Montreal businessman whose been building his career for years. He’s had his picture in the papers dozens of times in the last five years. All of that was just a set-up for some cop? Come on, get real.”
“I guess you’re right,” Greg uneasily admitted. “It’s just that things have been pretty screwy over the last three weeks and I’m getting really nervous.”
“Relax, Greg. Take it easy," soothed Wayne. “We’ve identified the problem. Now we’ll fix it and everything will go back to normal. Don’t worry so much.”
* * * *
“Good morning, gorgeous,” Sandy greeted her husband as she joined him in the kitchen. “You’re up bright and early.”
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