by Rob Ashman
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m the person who can stop all that happening. We have someone on the inside who can make certain bank transactions disappear.’ Lucas tried out his first lie of the day.
Jameson was so bewildered he bought it. Lucas could see him weighing up his options.
‘Not here,’ Jameson said. ‘Meet me in the middle of Cabrillo Bridge on the south side at 2pm. It’s at Balboa Park. Come alone.’ Jameson pushed the door shut.
Lucas walked the two blocks to where Harper had parked his ass in a burger bar.
He slid alongside him in the booth and ordered coffee.
‘Well?’ asked Harper, stuffing the last third of a double cheeseburger into his mouth. His face looked like a hamster.
‘He’s shaken but wants to talk. He suggested a place in Balboa Park at two o’clock.’
‘Is it safe?’ Harper mangled the words through his partly eaten burger, spitting meat and bun on Lucas’s sleeve.
‘Is anything we do these days? He said come alone, so we’ll drive there, and I’ll go on foot.’ His coffee arrived.
‘Have a burger, they’re great.’
‘No thanks. I just had some.’
Jameson paced up and down his living room, it was 11.45am. Who the hell was that guy and how did he know so much? He picked up his car keys and slid a 9mm revolver into the back of his belt. Killing Lucas was not part of the plan, at least not for now. He had to get to grips with how much his mystery visitor knew and blowing a hole in him was not going to help.
He wanted to get to Cabrillo Bridge as early as possible to recce the place. In his experience, when people said they would come alone they invariably didn’t.
As he pulled the door shut he heard the phone ring. He ignored it, got into his car and sped away.
The answer phone clicked in, Mechanic didn’t leave a message.
Cabrillo Bridge runs west to east of the main entrance to Balboa Park. It was built in 1915 and spans Cabrillo Canyon, which cuts through the park. It has a two-lane roadway with a pedestrian access on either side and is modelled on an ancient aqueduct. It is one hundred and forty yards long. Jameson didn’t give a shit about any of that, all he knew was that when he stood in the centre of the bridge he could spot someone coming from seventy yards away in each direction.
Harper drove over the bridge and passed through the main entrance. The tourist car park was on the right.
‘You want me to tag along?’ Harper said.
‘No, it’s best we keep this simple. Jameson is unlikely to turn nasty. I’m an unknown quantity and that’s got to be burning a hole in him. I told him enough to make him piss his pants. He won’t risk trying to take me out, he doesn’t know what he’s up against. You stay here.’
Lucas got out of the car and checked his watch, 1.45pm. He walked to the south side of the bridge and made his way along it.
There were groups of excited tourists taking advantage of the panoramic view of downtown San Diego. The sun was shining and cameras snapped away creating happy holiday pics, to be taken home, stuck in an album, and forgotten. Up ahead Lucas could see Jameson leaning with his hands against the anti-suicide fence which ran along the length of the bridge. The fence spoiled the view but had probably paid for itself many times over in reduced admin.
Jameson was staring at the high-rise buildings in the distance. He didn’t acknowledge Lucas as he approached. Lucas adopted the same pose. Just two guys admiring the view.
‘What do I call you?’ Jameson broke the silence.
‘You don’t.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I told you. We want to hire the person who made the hit on the eighth floor of the Bakerville car park in Tallahassee on 28 April last year.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Stop playing games, Jameson. If that were the case you would not be here.’
‘You know about my business activities. You know about my apartment. You know about Sheldon Chemicals and Helix Holdings. But that does not make me a hitman.’
‘No, it doesn’t, but you launder money and that’s worth a long stretch in the big house. However, you are right, you’re not the hitman, but you are the fixer. On 28 April you supplied the location, the rifle, the ammunition and the finger on the trigger. And that’s all we want. We are not interested in making life difficult but you need to cooperate.’
Jameson’s facade was cracking. How much does this guy know?
‘Why go to the trouble of digging around in my personal affairs? If you wanted to hire someone, why not just ask?’
‘You are a careful man, Captain Jameson, and you might have refused. We wanted to make sure you said yes.’
‘And what if I don’t?’
‘We don’t make the call and you get an early morning wakeup from the cops.’
‘I don’t like being strong-armed.’
‘Don’t look at it like that. I’m just making it easy for you to say yes. Look at it as a win-win situation. You get to avoid the close scrutiny of the law and my client gets what he wants.’
‘You don’t get to choose the one who pulls the trigger.’
‘Oh, but we do, Captain Jameson, that’s a deal breaker. My client has admired your work for some time and is insistent on that point, it has to be the same shooter.’
Jameson gritted his teeth, his mind doing backflips with the implications.
‘Why?’
‘That’s our business. Let’s say it’s important to my client.’
‘Is your man reliable – the one who can make the money trail disappear.’
‘Yes.’ The lies were tripping off his tongue.
Lucas watched as Jameson wrestled with his options.
‘It’s twenty-five grand up front and another twenty-five when the job is done.’
Lucas shook his head and whistled. ‘That is way out of the ballpark. I tell you what, fifteen up front and fifteen after.’
‘No way, the kit is state of the art and that costs. Plus my guy is the best, and for that you have to pay top dollar.’
‘Okay twenty and twenty, that’s the best I can do. And don’t forget, you get the cops off your back thrown in for free.’
‘Done,’ Jameson said staring into the middle distance.
‘How long will it take?’
‘That’s a “how long is a piece of string” question. It depends on the target and the location, the planning can take anything between a few days to a few months.’
‘Let me ask the question in a different way. When will you know how long this will take?’
‘I will have an initial estimate in the next few days. Who’s the target?’
Lucas pulled a sealed envelope from his jacket and handed it to Jameson.
‘There’s one more thing.’
‘What?’
‘This is personal for my client and he wants to enjoy the ride. For his forty grand he wants to know how and when the hit will take place. He doesn’t want a ringside seat, but he wants to know how it’s going to go down.’
‘Your client is your business. I don’t want to know who he is.’
‘You don’t have to. You keep me informed and I can keep him informed. My client is a very detail-driven man and he loves to get his rocks off on the small print.’
Jameson thought for a few moments.
‘I can make that happen.’
‘Good.’
‘How do I contact you?’
‘You don’t. I’ll be in touch,’ Lucas said.
They separated and walked in opposite directions.
Moran turned her key in the lock and almost fell into her hallway. She felt as if she’d been ripped open at the seams and the stuffing torn out. She dumped her bag on the coffee table and headed straight for the fridge.
The bottle of wine stood no chance as she grabbed it from the shelf and snatched a tumbler from the draining board. She lay on the couch, bit into the cork and yanked it free. She poure
d herself a measure big enough to lose someone their driving licence in an instant, and sank half of it in one go. The cold liquid felt good against the back of her throat, which was raw from retching. She slugged the rest back and topped up the glass.
After her unexpected visit to the ladies’ room, she had returned to the office and worked a little longer. Then she told Mills she felt dreadful and went home.
‘A few hours’ sleep and I should be good to go in the morning,’ she told him.
Mills was genuinely concerned and was being overly attentive. Normally when people were sick they were disregarded in a ‘no time for weakness, we have criminals to catch’ type of way, but not this time. He told her if she needed anything to give him a call. He had handed her a Post-it with his phone number scribbled on it. She of course accepted it with a weak smile.
She was also grateful that throwing up her breakfast meant there was no chance of her having to endure another evening of cold beer, corn chips and mind-numbing conversation. Her charm offensive had paid off and he now looked at her with puppy dog eyes whenever they were together. She needed him to be malleable and distracted, and he was certainly both.
Moran emptied her glass and filled it again. This bottle was way too small. It was half past two in the afternoon. She no longer felt as if she was going to vomit and no longer felt the need to collapse in a gibbering heap on the floor. On her journey home she told herself over and over that she’d made the right decision. If she told Mills about the account transactions she would have placed herself in the firing line.
Find Mechanic and they find me. The phrase buzzed around in her head. And besides, who did she have more faith in? Mills and his catastrophic approach to law enforcement or two retired police officers, one who was unable to run for a cab and the other who was unable to pass a bar. There was no competition, the two cops won hands down.
The inner turmoil she had felt for the last twenty-four hours was gone and she was enjoying the relief. The wine tasted good and Moran was at last feeling relaxed and thinking straight.
She lifted the phone off its base and dialled. The synthetic warble at the other end went on for ages. Eventually someone picked up.
‘Can you put me through to Ed Lucas, he’s staying with you.’
She could hear soft clicks as she was transferred to his room. The phone rang but no one answered.
‘I’m sorry caller. Would you like to leave a message?’
‘Yes, can you tell him I did the right thing. And can you pass on my number please.’ She reeled off the digits and thanked the receptionist.
‘Who shall I say called?’
‘No name, just pass on the message.’
Moran drank what was left of the wine and settled into the soft cushions.
The phone burst into life. Moran jumped from the sofa and for a second couldn’t work out where she was. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked at the clock, it was 6.25pm.
‘Hello.’
‘It’s Lucas, I got your message.’
There was a pause, both of them conscious that a coded conversation was in order.
‘I wanted to let you know I did what you asked.’
‘That’s good, because our fish has taken the bait.’
Moran didn’t speak.
‘You still there?’ Lucas asked.
‘Yes, I’m here. I want in on the fishing trip.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I want to be in on what you two are planning. And that does not mean being on the end of the phone when you need something, it means I want to be properly involved. I want to know what’s going down and when.’
‘I think that’s fine, we can do that. Why the change of heart?’
‘That’s for another time, for now I want to be in the loop.’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
Lucas hung up. To the trained ear it was probably the worst coded conversation in history.
20
Mechanic parked her car across the street from the 24-hour mini-mart on a derelict piece of waste ground. The rain scythed down, bouncing off the road and hammering on the roof. The red digits on the dash said 9.15pm.
The store was small, with wraparound windows spilling shimmering cones of white light across the wet road. It was nestled between a pet shop and a carpet warehouse in a parade of shops, all of which boasted super savings and 70% discounts. This was a run-down area of San Francisco, but not so run-down that people didn’t shop in the middle of the night. For groceries that is, rather than hookers and drugs. Mechanic could see the shop worker inside dressed in a red T-shirt and a cap with the company’s logo sprayed on the front of both. He was busying himself with the tills and stocking the shelves.
Mechanic figured there had to be a gun somewhere on the premises. But with what she had in mind it would stay tucked away under the counter.
The car was a brand new Ford with less than a thousand miles on the clock. That new car smell filled the interior. It had been rented using cash that afternoon by a man with a fake driving licence. He had left it on top of the multi-storey three miles away, as instructed, with the keys on top of the front wheel. The ticket to get through the exit barrier was hidden in the sun visor.
In the trunk, buried beneath the spare wheel, was a hard black case containing a Glock 17 handgun, a cartridge with nine 19mm bullets and a silencer. Mechanic had the case next to her on the passenger seat. She snapped open the catches and lifted the weapon from the foam interior. She drew back the slide and checked the chamber. It was empty.
Mechanic pushed down the slide locks and the top of the gun lifted off to expose the barrel and the recoil spring. She removed them both and inspected them. With three swift movements she reassembled the weapon and examined the cartridge. From the weight she knew it was fully loaded. She checked the tension and alignment of the top bullet and snapped the cartridge into frame. Mechanic wound the suppressor onto the threaded barrel, pulled back the slide and the top shell entered the chamber. She was ready to go.
She thought about Jameson. How the hell he made things happen so smoothly was beyond her. All she knew was, when he said something would happen, it did, just like he said it would.
Mechanic hated walk-by hits, there were so many things that could go wrong. She played the scenario like a film in her head: Cooper would pull up outside the store in her Jeep Cherokee and bump the front wheels against the parking kerb. She would get out and enter the mini-mart saying ‘Hi’ to the guy behind the till. Grabbing a shopping cart she would do a mad dash between the aisles, filling the trolley with the same food she bought every week, and head for the checkout. That was the signal for Mechanic to make a move.
While Cooper was piling food into bags and chatting about the weather, Mechanic would head across the road to the far right of the carpet warehouse. Once there she would double back towards the store, keeping tight against the front wall. The first obstacle to overcome was the rotating CCTV camera set up on the front of the building.
Mechanic would stop short of the mini-mart to put two slugs into the camera and watch the red LED at the back go dim. Cooper would pay for her goods, say goodbye to the man and hurry from the store. She would flick open the tailgate of the truck and throw the bags into the back, spilling groceries over the floor as the rain stuck her hair to her head.
Mechanic would wait until she was in the driver’s seat, shaking the water droplets from her hands and face. Then she would stroll over to the driver’s window with her gun drawn and put a neat hole through Cooper’s head. One shot, maybe two.
The side window would shatter, but given the noise of the rain the man in the store would never hear it.
Mechanic would continue walking across the road back to her car. Ten minutes later she’d retrieve another ticket from the barrier to the multi-storey and slide it into the sun visor. She would park the car in the same slot, put the Glock back in its case, hide it under the front seat and leave the keys under the driver’s mat. She
would swap into her rental car and drive out of town to the Holiday Inn next to the airport, get a few hours’ sleep and be on the first flight back to San Diego in the morning.
With any luck the guy in the red T-shirt would only know something was wrong when he noticed his CCTV had gone blank or that Elaine Cooper had been sitting in her car for longer than usual. By which time Mechanic would be well gone.
Despite the mental rehearsal, Mechanic hated walk-bys, there were so many things that could go wrong.
The black and white patrol car pulled up outside the mini-mart. Two officers ran from the car into the store. They greeted red T-shirt guy and went over to the coffee station to get a well-earned caffeine injection.
‘Shit,’ Mechanic said to no one and slid down in her seat.
The clock said 10.17. It was still early and the cops would be long gone by the time Cooper arrived.
Mechanic was running the scenario in her head like a loop. She could visualise every detail, right down to the look on Elaine Cooper’s face when she realised someone was standing next to her car holding a gun.
The clock said 11.34. The intel report said Cooper was a regular timekeeper and would arrive ten minutes either side of midnight. The cops had stayed twenty-seven minutes and had drunk enough coffee to make them pee for the rest of their shift. All was quiet and Mechanic was calm and relaxed. She pulled on a pair of black gloves.
Not long now.
The rain had eased but was still coming down fast. The sound of fat water droplets striking the roof no longer filled the car.
Mechanic was distracted by a noise to her left. She flashed a glance through the side window but saw nothing. The noise happened again but this time it came from the right. Mechanic drew the Glock and cracked open the door.
There it was again. A grating sound.
She stepped from the car and did a three-sixty. The waste ground was empty, the only noise was the rain hitting the ground. She got back into the car and placed the gun on the passenger seat.
