Salvation Row - John Milton #6 (John Milton Thrillers)

by Mark Dawson

  Ziggy had been invited, too.

  They stepped out of the car into the sticky heat.

  “What are you going to do?” Izzy asked.

  “There isn’t much to do. We just wait. I—”

  He stopped mid-sentence and reached for his phone.

  Izzy’s eyes were wide. “Is it him?”

  He took it out and looked at the ID.

  It was displaying the number of the burner phone that Ziggy had been using.

  He nodded at her, accepted the call, and put it to his ear.

  “Hello, Milton.”

  Milton felt his stomach drop.

  Izzy looked at him enquiringly.

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  “I am?”

  “The job’s over. You lost. Get over it. Move on.”

  “I told you. This isn’t about the job.”

  He put his hand over the phone. “Go inside,” he said to Izzy. “I don’t know where he is. It might not be safe out here.”

  “No—” she began.

  “Please,” Milton interrupted, raising his voice a little. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  She bit her lip, nodded, and crossed the lawn to the porch.

  Milton turned away and walked ten paces down the street. “You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I said you’re wasting your time. It isn’t going to work. I’m leaving tonight.”

  “Bit callous, Milton, even for you. What would your friend think about that?”

  “I don’t care what he thinks. He’s just a technician. He’s not my friend. He doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “It won’t matter when I peel his skin off, then, will it?”

  Milton gritted his teeth. “Do what you want.”

  “But it won’t end with him, will it? I’ll kill your friend, and then I’ll kill the girl, her brother, her family. And then I’ll kill anyone I can find who you’ve ever cared about. And then, when I’ve done that, when you’re drowning in guilt and misery, then I’ll kill you.”

  “You really want me for an enemy, Bachman?”

  He laughed. “Save it for someone you can frighten. Do you remember anything about me at all?”

  Too much, Milton thought. Much too much. “What do you want?”

  “You killed someone very dear to me.”

  “I just put her lights out. She was killed when you pumped bullets at us. A ricochet.”

  Bachman screamed down the line, “You’re lying!” His voice was suddenly torn and ragged, with an undercurrent to it that made Milton think of madness.

  He spoke calmly. “I’m sorry about what happened to her. But it wasn’t me.”

  If Bachman heard him, he didn’t acknowledge it. “We have a score to settle.”

  Milton left the phone at his ear and zoned out. He stared at the colourful houses, hearing the rustle of the wind through the trees on the lots that had still to be cleared, absently heard the call of a bird in the sky overhead. He had no doubt that Bachman meant every word he said. He felt as if he was being dragged back down into a world that he had only just been able to leave. It hadn’t been so long since Milton had found his freedom, putting an end to the threat from Control and the Group, and now he would exchange that for a pursuit by one of the most dangerous men in the world? A man who had been considered extreme, even by the extreme standards of the Mossad? A man good enough to fake his own death and elude Israeli intelligence? It would be just as bad as before. It would be worse.

  And that was before he thought about Ziggy, Izzy, her mother and father, Alexander, and anyone else who got in his way.

  “Fine,” Milton said. “How do we settle it?”

  “You need to come and see me. You do that, alone, and I’ll let him walk. The others will never see me.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a Six Flags.”

  “Six Flags? What?”

  “A fairground. Northeast of the city. They closed it after the flood. No one up here any more. There’s a central courtyard. A carousel. Meet me there.”

  “When?”

  “Midnight. And come alone. There’s nothing up here, Milton. Nothing and no one. I’ll see you as soon as you get within a mile of me. Anyone comes with you, I’ll put a bullet in your friend and I’ll leave. And then I’ll come after you and the others on my terms.”

  “I’ll be alone.”

  “Don’t be late.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  ELSIE BARTHOLOMEW had cooked them another Creole feast, but, this time, Milton had to struggle to finish his plate. It wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry—he was, very—it was that he had no appetite. Izzy had known better than to tell her parents what had happened and, when they asked where Ziggy was, she had lied that he had business to attend to in town. There was no sense in worrying them. She had shouldered the burden of conversation, filling the awkward spaces when Milton had missed the questions that were directed at him, giving him a moment to recover and respond with the kind of useless platitude he knew would have them think that he was vacant or distracted or, more likely, just rude.

  He thanked Elsie and Solomon when he had finished and, excusing himself on the pretext of wanting a smoke, went outside. He sat on the edge of the porch and put a cigarette in his mouth and then forgot about it, leaving it to hang there, unlit.

  He was angry with himself. No, he corrected, not himself, with his helplessness. One of the core principles of recovery was the self-awareness that, as a drunk, his disease would make him try to control everything. The inevitable failure from trying to do that would usher him closer to the one solution that every drunk knew was infallible.

  He felt the bonds on his sobriety start to loosen, a notch at a time.

  Milton thought back to what had happened in London, after he had told Control that he was going to retire. He thought of Elijah Warriner, a boy who had been teetering on the edge of a gang life, throwing away his future, and how he had tried to help him. How had that turned out? Milton had been arrogant, thinking that his intervention would be enough to solve Elijah’s problems, but his involvement had just made them worse. He had fled to South America, eventually did some good in Juarez, and then to San Francisco and the Upper Peninsula. He was trying to learn, to teach himself the limits of intervention, what he could and couldn’t do. Should and shouldn’t do.

  He thought that he had been getting better at it.

  He thought that he had done good work in New Orleans.

  Really?

  Perhaps he had been wrong.

  Hubris.

  Ziggy was going to pay for his conceit.

  For the first time in weeks, his resolve was weak. The urge to take a drink was strong.

  “What’s happening?”

  It was Izzy. She sat down on the porch next to him.

  “I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  “Doesn’t matter where.”

  She was close enough to him that he could feel the heat of her body. Milton fixed his stare ahead, not trusting the strength of his determination should he give in and look at her.

  “Where, Milton? What did he say?”

  “No, Izzy.”

  “Six Flags?”

  He turned, quickly. “You were listening?”

  “Don’t get sanctimonious. All the lies that you told me, you’re not in a position for it.”

  He turned all the way around, put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight at her. “You’ve got to stay here. You have to let me deal with him myself.”

  “Deal with him?” Her face said she knew exactly what that word meant.

  “I don’t know. Hopefully not. But he might not give me a choice.”

  “So, call the police.”

  “You already told me that was pointless.”

  “But this is—”

  “Even if they’d come, they’d make things worse. He’ll see them coming.”

  “Then let me come with you. I know Six F
lags. I’ve been there dozens of times.”

  “No, Izzy. No way. He’ll see you, too. I’m not putting you in harm’s way.”

  “I could stay outside—”

  He shook his head and replied with complete conviction. “I have to go alone. If he sees anyone else, if he even sniffs anyone else, he kills Ziggy, disappears, comes after someone else when I can’t predict it. He could come after your parents. Alexander. You. All of you, just to get to me. It’s me he wants. Just me.”

  “But you go, and, what—he kills you? Right?”

  Milton shrugged. “He’ll try.”

  “You can’t just walk into that. I can’t let you just walk into that.”

  Milton squeezed her shoulders. “Yes, you can. One way or another, it will end. If he gets what he wants, he’ll leave.”

  “Gets what he wants—”

  “And if I get to him first, there’s no more threat.” He held her shoulders between firm hands. “You have to promise me you’ll stay here. You can’t help me, not for this. If you go, I’ll have to worry about you, too. You’ll make it worse, not better. More dangerous for me and Ziggy. For you. Stay here with your parents.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Izzy, look at me. Look. I can take care of myself. You know that, right?”

  She raised her head and looked into his eyes. He saw fire and passion and a film of wetness.

  She didn’t answer him.

  He didn’t think that he had reached her.

  “Izzy.”

  She stood, anger flashing.

  “You have to promise me.”

  She didn’t. Instead, she brushed his hands away and stood. “When is this going to be over?”

  “Tonight.” Milton stood, too. “One way or another, it’ll be finished tonight.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  MILTON DROVE northeast to Michoud Boulevard. The entrance to the park was marked by a huge red and yellow sign. It had been jolly once, but the colour was faded now, and some of the letters had been prised off by the greedy fingers of the wind.

  S X F LGS – CLOS D OR STO M

  A ticket booth stood beyond that, the glass long since gone from the windows and yellow graffiti sprayed all across it. He saw the skeletal track of a big roller coaster in the middle distance and, behind that, a Ferris wheel. The road ahead was blocked by a chain-link fence, but, as Milton drove slowly through, it didn’t take long to find a weakness that he knew he would be able to broach without difficulty.

  He parked the Corolla and got out. It was still hot, even as late as this. He put on the ballistics vest, slipping his shirt over the top of it. He had the Sig Sauer and two spare magazines. He kept the pistol in his hand and shoved the spares into his pockets. He doubted that he would get to use the gun, but he was damned if he was going to a meeting with Avi Bachman without one. He thought about the MP5 in the trunk, but decided against it. He doubted the night would proceed in such a way that spray-and-pray was going to be a legitimate, useful option. Avi Bachman was in control. Milton knew that he wouldn’t let that happen.

  Milton approached a spot in the fence where it had been sliced open. The opening had been yanked back, folded back onto itself so that the ends of the jagged wires were hooked onto the stretches that remained intact. Milton bent down and slipped through the opening.

  He scouted the park beyond. The whole area had only been sheltered by an eight-foot earthen berm, and Katrina had made short work of that. It had been one of the first places to be overwhelmed and, since the pumps had flooded within hours, it had stayed that way for weeks afterwards.

  The place was completely empty. There was enough moonlight for Milton to make out the buildings that had once housed attractions, circular booths that had dispensed food and drink, and, above all of them, the rusted stilts of roller coasters. The walls had been daubed with graffiti, screeds that decried the city council, FEMA, the federal government, anyone who had anything to do with what had happened here.

  It was apocalyptic.

  Milton walked, scanning ahead carefully, but aware that his caution would be pointless if Bachman decided to take him out now. He was a sitting duck, and he knew it. But he didn’t think that he would snipe him from a distance. He remembered a conversation that they had had, a lifetime ago and on a different continent, when Bachman had explained how he liked to get up close when he killed a man. Milton remembered one phrase in particular: Bachman had said that he liked to “experience” the moment when “hope drained” out of the eyes. Milton had thought there and then that Bachman was a psychopath. He had met many men and women who would have fitted the description during his bloody career—and he, himself, had merited it—but Bachman, maybe, was the worst.

  Even the Mossad had wanted him dead in the end.

  He headed deeper into the park.

  He skirted the huge, disembodied, fibreglass head of a circus clown. It was resting on its side, a horizontal tideline of scurf from its flamboyant ruff to its blackened nose. Milton eyed it warily, knowing that his fear was foolish, yet still unable to ignore the sensation that its dead plastic eyes were following him. He reached the Mega Zeph roller coaster, the struts stretching a hundred feet above him, vines clasping halfway to the top as if they were trying to drag it down into the earth.

  Milton walked down Main Street, with devastated buildings on either side, passed the Big Easy Ferris wheel, and then, finally, he reached the carousel. It was tall, eighty feet high, and constructed at the far end of a wide square. The seats were suspended at the ends of long chains, dozens of them, and they rattled and clinked as the gentle breeze bumped them against one another. It was eerie, other-worldly, and Milton knew that he was being watched.

  “Bachman!” he called out.

  Nothing.

  “Bachman! I’m here!”

  He had only taken another few steps into the square when his cellphone vibrated in his pocket.

  He took it out.

  “Drop the gun.”

  “Let him go. I’m here.”

  “The gun.”

  Milton knew he had no choice. Bachman would already have something aimed at him. He swivelled, scanning the buildings that would once have been a restaurant, a ticket booth, the entrance to a gift shop. Doors stood open, some creaked in the wind, impenetrable inky blackness within. He couldn’t see anything. He held up both hands, the gun in his right and the cellphone in his left, and then, slowly and deliberately, rested one knee on the asphalt and placed the gun there.

  “Step away from it.”

  Milton did.

  “Wearing a vest?”

  Milton gritted his teeth.

  “Take it off.”

  He took off his shirt and then removed the ballistics vest. He dropped it onto the ground beside him.

  “Leave the shirt off,” Bachman said. “I don’t want any surprises.”

  Milton dropped it onto the ground next to the vest and the gun.

  “Good. Now—keep going. The carousel.”

  Milton walked over to it.

  “Bachman?”

  The call went dead.

  Milton was thirty feet away from the pistol before Bachman emerged from a ticket booth. He had his own pistol in his right hand, aiming it with loose and casual confidence in Milton’s direction. He dragged Ziggy Penn out after him, his left arm looped around his torso. Milton could see at once that Ziggy had been badly beaten. His head hung limply between his shoulder blades, and his shoes scuffed and caught on the ground as he tried to keep his feet beneath him. Bachman hauled him all the way out into the square and then dumped him there.

  “Had to rough him up a little,” Bachman called over, no need for the phone now.

  “Of course you did.”

  Milton was very aware that Bachman still had his gun.

  He came closer, twenty feet away, saw that Milton was looking at it and held it up. “What? This? Sorry. I forgot.” He tossed the gun aside. “We won’t need guns, will we, John?”
/>   Milton tried not to give away his surprise. “So how do you want to do this?”

  “A nice fist fight, sort this mess out, get things straight. Man to man.”

  Milton blinked hard. This was unexpected. He looked at Bachman and weighed him up: maybe an inch taller than him, ten pounds heavier. They were evenly matched. Milton watched as he came in close, ten feet away, unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it behind him. He was wearing a vest. His arms were solid with muscle, coloured by full sleeves of tattoos. His chest was thick, his waist tapered, his legs powerful.

  Milton laced his fingers, stretched them, unlaced them and let his arms fall loose to his sides.

  “Ready?”

  #

  “SIX FLAGS?”

  Izzy had stayed just inside the door and listened to Milton’s side of the conversation with the man who had taken Ziggy. His outrage at being eavesdropped on would have been funny in different circumstances. He, after all, had lied to her about the most fundamental things, including who he was. He had tried to get her to say that she would stay behind, had tried again and again to get her to say that she would, to swear it to him, but the most she had conceded was a small nod of the head. Just a nod? She hadn’t sworn it. She hadn’t promised, hadn’t even said it. And she wouldn’t have paid any attention even if she had. After everything Milton had done for her and her family, how could she let him take off to be shot?

  She could not.

  She watched as Milton drove away, and then hurried to her own car. She drove north on Franklin Avenue and then turned to the east, following I-10, and caught sight of him as he passed the turn-off for Lakefront Airport. She knew that he was careful, and guessed that he would be looking out for signs that he was being followed. And, in the event that he was, she turned left onto Morrison and followed the route of the interstate one road removed. She turned back on I-10 as she reached Gannon, but, as she stared frantically ahead and then back in her mirrors, there was no sign of his Corolla.

  Had he turned off? Accelerated away?

  She drove on. She thought about what had happened over the course of the last few days. Joel Babineaux, Jackson Dubois and their cronies were in custody, their reputations shredded, with just jail time to look forward to once the scale of their corruption became obvious. And who knew how deep down the rabbit hole that would go? The police, certainly. Detective Peacock was just the first domino to fall. The mayor. Who else?