by Mark Dawson
It did not.
Russo sighed wearily, tapped return and sat back in the chair, all the strength drained out of him.
Milton felt the buzz of the phone in his pocket. He took it out and saw the message that had just arrived from Ziggy. The money had arrived.
“Thank you,” Milton said.
He took out the last of the restraints that he had made, told Russo to stand, moved his arms behind his back and cuffed him again.
“Up,” he said to Jessica.
“Where are we going?”
“Back to the pool house.”
He followed behind as they walked, and pulled the pistol from his waistband as they approached the pool house. There was no sound of movement from inside, but Milton carefully turned the key in the lock and stepped back, allowing the door to fall open. The sicario was still unconscious on the floor.
“Inside, please.”
Russo and Jessica did as they were told. Milton followed, then grabbed the unconscious man by the shoulders and dragged him outside once again. He coughed and then groaned. That was good; he was still alive.
For now.
Jessica drifted back to the door. “Please, John,” she said. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen the way it did.”
Milton put the gun back into his jeans, ignoring her.
“My father’s dying. He doesn’t deserve to spend the time he’s got left in an Italian jail.”
“It’ll be an American jail, I expect. You’ll both be extradited.”
“Please, John. Please.”
Milton turned and stared into her eyes. “I don’t have many friends. One of them was murdered because of what you and your family did. You’re lucky I live my life by a different set of rules now than I did before. Ten years ago, I would have killed him”—he gestured to the man on the ground—“and then I would have killed you. All of you.” He felt the flash of anger and paused to let it pass. “You and your father are going to wait in here. If you’re lucky, you’ll never see me again.”
“You’re going to leave us here?”
“I’ll send the police to get you when I’m out of the way. Now—step back.”
She did, fading into the gloom. Milton closed the door, twisted the key to secure it, and turned back to the man. He was awake now, his eyes open and staring balefully up at Milton. The hair on the back of his head was matted with damp blood, and a bruise had discoloured his ear.
“Who are you?” he said.
“You killed my friend.”
“The gringo?”
“The gringo.”
“What do you want?”
“We’re going to have a little chat,” he said.
Part V
85
A storm rolled in off the Pacific on the day of Beau Baxter’s funeral. The skies were leaden, and lightning had crackled through the clouds like veins, thunder booming over the ocean. Milton arrived at Mount Hope Cemetery just as the rain began. He didn’t have an umbrella, and as he left the car and made his way into the beautifully tended grounds, he was quickly wet through.
He made his way into the cemetery until he could see the proceedings. The funeral was well attended; Milton estimated that there were a hundred mourners gathered around the grave. Salazar was there, standing at the back beneath a dark umbrella. Chase Baxter was standing next to a woman, and from the way he had his arm around her shoulders, Milton guessed that it was his mother. He remembered what Beau had said to him as he lay bleeding in the back of the car as they made their way to the ER after the shooting. Milton had promised to deliver a message for him, and he intended to honour it.
Milton made his way a little closer, sheltering beneath the spreading boughs of a eucalyptus tree. The priest said a few words, and then Beau’s casket was lowered into the ground. Beau’s wife cast a handful of dirt down onto the lid, and then Chase did the same; some of the mourners waited to take their turn, and others started to drift away.
Milton caught Salazar’s eye and waited beneath the tree until the detective reached him.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” Salazar said.
“I wasn’t going to. But I want to pay my respects.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You going to the reception?”
“No,” Milton said. “I have a flight to catch.”
“Where to?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“But it’s to do with what happened?”
“It is.”
“You gonna tell me anything?”
“No,” Milton said.
“I didn’t think so.” Salazar nodded over to the parking lot. “Walk with me?”
They set off together. Thunder boomed overhead as Milton wiped the rain from his face.
“I got some good news for you,” Salazar said. “The security cameras at the ER didn’t catch anything, and the prints we found in the back of Beau’s rental won’t be matched to you. I made them disappear.”
“Thank you.”
“The only people who can tie you to what went down in the desert are Richard and Jessica Russo. Now, no one’s gonna give too much credence to anything they say, but it did cross my mind that she might say that she was on the security cameras with you and Beau at the El Cortez. I went over there yesterday before I got the plane here. You’ll never guess what they said.”
Milton shrugged.
“Said they had a break-in last week. Someone picked the lock into the back office and took the hard drives with the camera footage on them.”
“That’s a stroke of luck,” Milton said.
“Isn’t it.”
They reached the lot.
“What about the Russos?” Milton said.
“That’s underway. They’re being held in Florence until the extradition proceedings are finished. The DOJ told us the hearings are a slam dunk—they’ll be back in Nevada by the end of the month. We got a couple of nice cells waiting for them in Ely State.”
“And then?”
“They’ve been charged with fraud, and murder will be added soon. The email you sent with Russo’s statements has been helpful. On top of all that, we’ve got evidence of Mason Russo buying a Sako TRG M10 from Northwest Arms the day before the shootings, and we got forensics from all of them in the back of Beau’s rental, plus the fact that they bugged out to Italy. The story you and Beau came up with looks like it’ll hold up. We’ll say that Jessica Russo hijacked him and stole his car. The rest writes itself—she picked up the rest of the family and ran.”
Milton nodded in satisfaction. He didn’t care about the Russos now; Mason had been punished for what he had done to Beau, and Milton was happy to let the justice system deal with his father and sister. The family had made a series of catastrophic errors, and now they were going to have to pay the price.
“The Italians are still investigating what happened to Mason,” Salazar went on.
“It was the guy they sent,” Milton offered.
“The Mexican?”
Milton nodded.
“The Italians didn’t find anyone else there. What happened to him?”
Milton flashed back to that night in the hills outside Siena. He had taken the sicario into the woods and got all of the answers that he needed.
“He won’t be found,” Milton said.
The other mourners started to amble into the lot, the rain pattering onto their umbrellas. Milton saw Beau’s widow making her way to a waiting car.
“I have to go,” he said to the detective. “Thank you for your help. For everything.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“The man who killed Beau was following orders,” Milton said. “He’s responsible, but he’s not the only one. I’m going to make the others pay.”
Milton met Debbie and Chase Baxter as they reached the limousine that was going to drive them to the family reception. Beau’s widow was in her fifties, with long, dark hair. Her eyes were ringed wi
th red. Chase was holding an umbrella over his mother and eschewing it for himself; as a result, his suit was sodden and his hair was plastered against his scalp. He saw Milton and evidently recognised him; his jaw bulged as he clenched his teeth, and there was heat in his stare. Milton wondered about the good sense of speaking to the two of them, but knew that he had to; he had given his word to Beau, and there was no guarantee—given what he had decided to do—that he would ever get this chance again.
“Mrs. Baxter.”
“Yes?”
“My name’s John. I was a friend of your husband. I just wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”
“I saw him in the hospital.”
“My husband?”
“Yes. And he told me that if he didn’t recover, I was to make sure that you knew how much he loved you.”
“Thank you,” she said again, her voice trembling. She bit her lip and blinked back fresh tears.
“Here,” Chase said, reaching over to open the door of the car. “Get in, Mom.”
Milton nodded to the younger man, turned and started to walk away.
“Hey!”
He turned back towards the car to see Chase Baxter coming towards him. His face was twisted with anger and his fists were clenched. It wasn’t difficult to anticipate what might be coming and, to try to minimise the potential for the mourners to witness an embarrassing scene, Milton stepped around the side of a large SUV.
Chase followed him. “You got a fucking nerve,” he said. “Coming here after what you did.”
Milton faced Chase head-on. “I didn’t do anything, Chase.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry about what happened.”
“Yeah? Really?”
“I am.”
“Why don’t you prove it? Start by telling me what really happened to my dad.”
“He was hijacked—”
Chase shoved him, hard, sending him back into the side of the car. “Bullshit!”
The younger man clenched his right fist and raised it. Milton could have taken him down with ease—his balance was all wrong, his weight on his front foot rather than spaced evenly between front and back, and his hips were turned a little too far—but he decided that he wouldn’t do that. If Chase wanted to strike him, Milton would allow it.
He didn’t.
“Tell me,” he said instead.
Milton knew he had a choice: stick to the story or give him the truth. The line that they had fed to the authorities was sturdy and would be difficult to disprove, and telling Chase would open up potential consequences that Milton would not be able to control. Chase might go to the police and tell them whatever Milton told him now. But how risky was that? Milton would be gone, and there would be no evidence that would prove one version of events over another. Milton knew that reassurance was there, but he set it aside. It was irrelevant. Chase Baxter’s father had been murdered; he deserved to know what had happened. It was his right to know, and he would be much better placed than Milton when it came to what Chase decided to tell his mother.
“I want to know what happened,” he insisted.
Milton nodded. “Okay. But not here.”
“Then where? When?”
“I’m booked on a flight tonight. Meet me at the airport. Eight o’clock.”
Part VI
86
The meeting was held in a social club in a leafy, upscale part of the city. It was a Twelve Steps Study Group and was advertised online as suitable for English speakers. Milton had attended many similar meetings around the world since he had stopped drinking. He looked around the room and saw that the others fit the usual archetypes: embassy officials, businessmen, tourists. Milton had waited at the entrance, weighing up whether to go inside or not. He had watched the others arrive. They had been shifty and nervous as they had turned off the street, but now that they were in the company of those who understood them, they had relaxed.
The meeting was ordinary and could have taken place anywhere: in London or Los Angeles or Paris. The secretary opened proceedings, a volunteer shared their experience, and then the men and women in the audience shared back, encouraged, as ever, to find the similarities and not the differences. Milton listened dutifully, but did not enjoy the peace that he had persuaded himself that he had come here to find.
He didn’t want peace, not now.
He wanted affirmation. He wanted to admit to himself what he was proposing to do.
“Does anyone else have anything they’d like to share before we close?”
Milton raised his hand.
The secretary pointed to him and smiled.
“My name is John and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hello, John,” the room responded as one.
It always felt unnatural and awkward; Milton was not one of the drunks who found it easy to speak about how they were feeling. He almost flinched at the sound of his own voice. He knew plenty who craved the attention that came with a share. He did not. He hated it, but he found now that he had a compulsion to speak.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t come to meetings enough,” he began. “I know I should try harder… It’s not as if I don’t know what happens when I stop. I haven’t been attending enough, not recently, and what’s happened is the same thing that always happens. Things have gone to shit, and I feel like I’m in a dark place.”
He looked up and saw that the secretary was smiling at him, encouraging him to carry on.
“I’ve been sober long enough to know why I drink. It’s like I have something on my shoulder. My worst self. The part of me that I tried to keep down with booze. I drank and drank so I could drown it out—the things it whispered to me, wanted me to do.” He paused, but he found that he wasn’t ready to stop. “It’s different this time. I don’t want to ignore it. I want to bring it back. I need it. Something bad happened to a friend of mine. It happened because of what I asked him to do, and now, because he was a good man and he wanted to help me, he’s…”
Milton didn’t finish the sentence; instead, he paused. There was an uneasy silence in the room. They had all seen these kinds of shares before: drunks, white-knuckling it, hanging on to sobriety, ready to let go. Some of them would have been lost forever, back to the drink, and then, weeks or months later, found dead in a fetid apartment that stank of alcohol, excrement, desperation and fear. Milton had seen plenty of men and women who had fallen off the wagon.
And yet…
The secretary looked over with fatherly concern. “But that’s not your fault, John.”
“No,” he said. “It is. It’s all my fault.”
“You can’t blame yourself. Drinking won’t solve your problems.”
Milton looked at him as if unsure of what he had just suggested. “It’s not that,” he said. “I’m not going to drink. I used to get drunk because I wanted to ignore what I am. There’s no point in ignoring it anymore. I know what I am.”
Milton had no intention of sticking around after the meeting. He had said what he had wanted to say, and he knew that the others would want to talk to him. Milton had no interest in their concern. He hadn’t come to the meeting to be persuaded that his course of action was the wrong one. He knew, with iron certainty, that it was exactly what the situation demanded. He had come to admit to himself that he had made the decision to embrace the demon that he had been stifling for so long. The decision bore risks. He knew that he might not be able to go back to the uneasy truce that he had established with his dark side since he had stopped working for the Group. That, in turn, might lead to more nightmares and then back to the bottle.
He would deal with the consequences of unshackling the demon if he had to. For now, he needed what it offered: the amorality, the capacity for violence, the disdain for his own safety.
There were people who needed to pay for what they had done.
They would have to account for the deaths that h
ad been authored in their names.
A doctor.
A cop.
A security guard.
And Beau.
Those people were dangerous. Milton needed his worst self or else he would stand no chance.
He stepped outside. It was midday in Amsterdam, and the sun was shining down from a clear blue sky. Milton took out the Ray-Bans that he had purchased at the airport and slid them onto his head.
Milton took an Uber to P.C. Hooftstraat and made his way to the Prada store. He had purchased a new suit the previous week and it was ready for collection. He took it into the changing room and put it on. He hadn’t worn decent clothes for months, but it felt good on him. His outfit—the suit, a crisp white shirt with double cuffs fastened by solid gold studs, and a pair of Gucci loafers—had cost the better part of eight thousand dollars. The platinum Rolex Daytona on his wrist had cost another eighty thousand. Milton was not used to such ostentation, but he had an image to establish. His new legend was rich, flush with the proceeds of a successful and illicit business, and not ashamed of flaunting his wealth.
The clerk put Milton’s previous outfit into a bag and wished him a good day. Milton put the shades on and stepped outside. He looked left and right, searching for any sign that he was being watched, and found none. He didn’t expect to be tailed, not yet, but he intended for that to change. Drawing attention to himself was anathema, but, this time, it was going to be necessary.
He took out his phone and called another Uber.
Milton had rented a penthouse apartment in the Pontsteiger building. It was a spectacular new block in the Houthaven district, an up-and-coming area that had once been a port where lumber was unloaded. There were new houses and houseboats, surrounded by green spaces and water. Many properties—including the one that Milton had rented—were exorbitantly expensive.
He got out of the Mercedes and looked up at the vast building. There were two towers, each ninety metres tall, with a ‘bridge’ hung between them. It was a striking design, the sort of place that could only attract the richest clientele. Milton would be followed as soon as he made contact with the go-between and his circumstances reported upon. Living in a place like this was exactly the kind of statement that he wanted to make.
