by EC Sheedy
He got in.
Circling the front of the car, his eyes and gun on Black, Henry made for the passenger seat. Settled there, he took a good look at Black’s face. The guy oozed fear, looked about ready to shit in his pants. Obviously the sister got the guts, too. Again Henry scanned the lot. A woman entered from the other entrance, medium height, dark hair, sunglasses. She didn’t seem to notice them, just got in her car, and drove out the entrance she’d walked in from.
Henry flipped Black the keys. “You drive.”
Black’s hand shook so bad he could barely get the key in the ignition. When he did, he looked at Henry, ran his tongue over his lips to dampen them, and said, “Where? Where do you want me to go?”
Henry smiled, lowered the gun, and rested it on his thigh. He settled his sunglasses more comfortably on his nose. From this angle, one shot would gut the bastard. Make a hell of a mess of his new suit though. “Out aways. Somewhere we can talk private. Yeah.”
“What do you—”
“Drive.”
It wasn’t long before Henry found what he needed, a patch of isolated desert: Sand, rock, scrub, and not a soul in sight. Nevada’s geography didn’t disappoint; north on old route 604 was enough emptiness for any man—or a convenient disposal. “Turn here.”
Black turned.
Henry let Black drive the pitted road for maybe five minutes—until the dust got to him. Good enough. “Stop here, and get out of the car.” An old falling-down shed, piles of rock, and debris from what looked to be an old aborted excavation did the job of hiding them from the road.
Outside it was white-hot. Blinding. Had to be a hundred and twenty out here and not a cloud or shadow in sight.
He’d better get this job done fast or the sun would stew both their brains. The two men stood facing each other.
Not wanting to waste a second—in hell’s own heat— Henry shot Black in the knee.
Black dropped like a stone, smashing into a jumble of sand-covered planks propped against the shed. Hell of a racket. Henry, thinking he heard another sound in the din, one that didn’t belong, swung around and did a quick scan of the tan and gritted landscape.
Nothing but his own nerves and the Mojave.
Black cried out, “Jesus, who the hell are . . . you? And what do you want?”
“I want to know where Phyllis Worth is.”
He opened his eyes, looked confused as hell, then he said, “Fuck you.”
Henry was impressed at the late-breaking display of guts, but he was undeterred. Saying nothing, he looked down at him, watched him twist and moan, while the dust swirled and clung to his black suit, sticking in dark clumps to where the blood soaked his pant leg. Pain always heightened after the first shock, so Henry watched him a minute, giving the little shit time to see how serious his situation was, but when sweat beaded on his forehead and started dripping under his arms—staining his expensive silk shirt—his limited patience ran out.
Damn the bastard. He’d just bought the damn shirt. “Tell me about Phyllis Worth,” he said. “I want to know everything you know—and it’s fuckin’ hell-hot out here, so don’t waste my goddamn time. If I’m in a generous mood, you’ll walk out of this”—he gestured with the gun to Black’s blood-gushing knee—“well, crawl maybe . . . with nothing worse than shit-stained underwear.” Henry gave a little shove to his sunglasses. Sweat had them slipping down his nose. “Which, by the way, is a lot better deal than I gave your whore of a sister. Yeah.”
Black’s eyes, which he’d again closed against the pain, opened. “You sick bastard.”
Henry pointed the gun at his other knee. “That I am— now talk.”
Walking back to his car, Henry slipped the Glock into the inside pocket of his suit. Damn fine piece, he hated the idea of tossing it somewhere in this wasteland, but no way was it going on a plane. He’d pick something up on the other side of the border. Yeah.
Rounding the corner of the shed, his thoughts focused on a place called Tofino, airplanes, mega mils, and the sweat drilling itself out of every pore in his body, he again pushed his sunglasses up his sweat-slicked nose.
Then he blinked, blinked again; the glare, with the sun centered high in the sky, made the sand look wavy and unstable. But she was there. He wasn’t imagining things.
What the fuck . . .
The dark-haired woman wearing sunglasses, a baseball cap, turned-up jeans, and sneakers—and built like a Hollywood couch slut with muscle—was leaning against the driver side door of his car. And she didn’t look like she was going anywhere. They were maybe ten, twelve feet apart.
Quinlan’s tail. Had to be.
Henry stopped, pulled some Mojave-fried air into his lungs, and slid his hand inside his suit jacket.
“Leave it be, fat boy.” She raised a hand with a pistol in it and aimed it at his chest.
Fat boy. Henry’s blood surged. He glanced at her gun hand. Steady. He pulled out his hand, empty, raised it and the other one. Fat boy . . . What the fuck was it with bitches these days? Goddamn ball-breakers.
“Do I know you?” Recognition sparked in the back of his overheated brain. There was something familiar about her.
She shook her head, snorted, as if she was pissed at him.
“Name’s Mercy.” She smiled at him. “A real misnomer, by the way.”
The name meant nothing to him, and he had no idea what the hell a misnomer was. But he knew he was in deep shit. “You’re Q’s bitch.” He stated the obvious, knowing if she’d heard Black spilling his guts seconds before, she knew everything she needed to know—and Henry was dead meat. Expendable.
“He thinks so.” She pushed away from the car and jerked her chin in the direction he’d just come from. “He dead?”
“Last I checked.” He rolled his head, got psyched to rush her. If he was going to take a bullet, he’d try to take it where it did the least damage, so he could take her down. “What the hell do you want, bitch?”
She rolled her eyes. “A little on the slow side, aren’t you? I want in, dick-brain. Say seventy/thirty? I guess you know who gets what.”
What the hell. . .
She took a step toward him, her face as grit hard as the sand they stood on. “Although thanks to your sophisticated interrogation techniques and your big mouth, I have pretty much everything I need to go for the gold on my own.”
“You’re the fuckin’ hooker I had—”
“And you’re the worst fucker I ever had the pleasure to know.” She leveled the gun at his heart. “So? Are we partners, fat boy, or is it ‘Bye-bye, Love’.”
Nobody was touching Henry Castor’s four mil. Nobody. Least of all a shit-mouthed skank named Mercy. His brainwaves blood-red, Henry put his head down for the tackle.
Mercy blew it half off. Half was enough.
Henry had a last disjointed thought—A woman did me. A bitch. A scummy two-bit hooker—before he ate the desert dust at his killer’s feet. Yeah . . .
“You stupid ignorant asshole.” Mercy grimaced, kicked hard at Henry’s shoulder, and stomped her booted foot. “Fuck.” She screamed into the sun burnt air.
Still cursing, she spun away from Henry’s lifeless, crumpled body, then immediately back again. She stared at the body at her feet for a long time, her lips twitching and jerking as if they were on strings tied to a brain doing heavy calisthenics. Finally, she blew out a heavy breath, straightened, and firmed her mouth.
She pulled a cell phone from her tight jeans and punched in a number while watching Castor’s brain leak onto the sand.
“Charity? . . . . We have the info we need—most of it anyway. And we’re in for the full payday . . . . Castor’s out of the picture . . . . Yes, as in dead . . . . Well, things happen.” Her voice hardened. “It was him or me, Char. And we both know who I like better . . . . Quit worrying. Everything will be fine—better than fine . . . . A place called Tofino. In British Columbia somewhere.” She shook her head. “We know enough, the rest we’ll find out soon enough—whi
ch means bringing Q along.”
The voice on the other end of the phone got so loud Mercy lifted the cell from her ear. “There’s no damn risk. I’ll take care of things. I always do, don’t I? All you have to do is go on ahead. Find a guy named Noah Bristol. The woman’s most likely there already.” She frowned. “No. We do it my way . . . Fuck Q—which by the way sounds like both a plan and a hell of an idea considering the slime I’ve been messing with. And getting into a man’s pants is always the easiest route to his wallet.”
She kicked some sand over the gore oozing from Castor’s cratered skull, listened, and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah, I know he’s a control freak. They’re my faves.” Her full lips curled, and she raised a brow. “Don’t get jealous on me, babe. We’ve both got our parts to play. But like I said, I’ve got to go. Just get your hot little ass to Tofino. ASAP.” She clicked off.
Before she left, Mercy walked around the shed and put two fingers on Black’s neck where a pulse should have been—and still was.
She put a bullet in his head, making him and Henry a matched set, and muttered. “Dumbass didn’t even get this right.”
Two minutes later she went back to her car, parked just behind Henry’s. She got in, flashed up the air-conditioning, and focused on her next move. It was important she be word perfect.
Again she took out her cell phone and dialed.
“Mister Braid? Mercy here.”
Q’s phone was set to speaker, and because he was alone in his office, and confident enough in Mercy’s discretion that she’d couch her words, he left it that way. “You’re calling early.”
“Yes. I thought it best.”
Her usual businesslike voice came down the line, terse but deferential. Q was pleased with the woman’s work. So far his relationship with Mercy and Charity—two exceedingly unimaginative pseudonyms in his opinion—had exceeded his expectations, and as always, those expectations were high. “Your report,” he demanded. Leaning forward, he balanced his elbows on the desk, and interlaced his fingers.
“May I speak freely?” she asked.
He didn’t like the question, but again checking his locked office door, he said. “Freely, but carefully. No embellishments, please.”
Some silence came down the line, along with a rush of exhaled breath. “Mister C. disposed of the Black subject, but unfortunately he spotted me.” A pause. “I apologize for overstepping my mandate, but when he came at me, it was him or me.” Another pause. “It was him.”
Q put his head in his hands, briefly feeling overwhelmed. He wasn’t mourning the loss of Henry Castor; he was concerned about his next more. “I didn’t employ you for that purpose.”
“No, and I hope what’s transpired here hasn’t inconvenienced you.”
“Inconvenience is an understatement.” I need that woman’s name. Without it his life, everything he’d built remained at risk. He wanted to pound his desk, throw the telephone against the far wall. He did neither.
“However, as they say, all is not lost,” she went on as though he hadn’t expressed his disapproval. “I witnessed his interrogation of the subject—and I have a name. Perhaps a destination. And from your instructions, I believe this information was your primary goal.”
Q quickly picked up the phone, pressed the receiver to his ear. “The name,” he demanded.
“Phyllis Worth.”
He wrote it down, and even though it meant nothing to him, he was calmed by the act of writing it. Knowing his cause was not lost with the death of Castor, his heart again found its rhythm. “Go on.”
“According to the man Black, the Worth woman, a former showgirl and employee of his sister, Rusty, disappeared over a week ago. He said she knew Henry Castor was after her and that he wanted something she’d taken from Victor’s house. When Black spoke with her—just this morning apparently—she was already in Canada, on the west coast. He believes she was going to an island and a place there called Tofino.”
When she paused, Q, busy processing this new information—so much more than he’d hoped for—waited for her to go on. He appreciated that she took the time to get her thoughts in order. He found her style of speech, clear and confident, reassuring. Faintly arousing. It was, in fact, a style much like his own.
After a moment, she continued, “I hesitate to make suggestions, Mister Braid, but—”
“Yes.”
“The situation has grown more complicated. There are other people looking for the Worth woman—her daughter and her son.” She stopped. “While I’m happy to continue my surveillance work and assist you in any way you wish— for the appropriate payment, of course—I thought you should know about their, uh, entry into the situation, as it might require you to take a more direct involvement from this point on.”
“Will you hold for me, please?”
“Certainly.”
Q hit the hold button on his phone, set the receiver down, and stood. He went to the window and looked out over his perfectly manicured lawn and sun-drenched gardens. He considered the added number of people now in the equation. Every one of them upping the stakes, increasing the risk. Now, even Mercy knew more than was appropriate. So many loose ends.
His direct involvement?
That’s what she was suggesting—and exactly what he’d been contemplating since Giselle had walked out on him.
He rubbed at his throat, again turned the idea over in his mind, too aware of the adrenaline now releasing into his bloodstream and the danger it posed to logical thinking.
Yes. It was necessary.
It was illogical to hire an outsider at this point, perhaps another henchman the likes of Castor, whose swath of carnage had done nothing but make a serious situation dire, when he himself was expert in such matters.
With Giselle away for the next few days and only one pressing business matter he could easily deal with tonight, there was no reason for him not to take matters into his own hands—and many reasons why he should.
He’d known it would come to this, the need for him to act on his own behalf—as he had so many years ago. Back then he’d needed a stake, seed money on which to build his fortune. He’d found that stake in drugs and murder, and he’d taken himself from destitute to well beyond solvent in less than five years.
Q closed his eyes, filled his lungs.
Back then he’d lived by his brains, brawn, and gritty perseverance—and he’d never been more alive. Felt more vital. Finding the child Victor wanted and delivering her to him was to be his final piece of business. Two days after its completion, believing the operation successful, he’d left the Seattle streets, laundered his money, and become fully legitimate. Almost. He’d had nothing. Now he had everything.
Again he looked out over his serene gardens, his ideal life—the absolute quietude.
I want more. I want to feel again.
And while he might be in the clutches of misplaced nostalgia, he was sure of one thing: There was no one better able to look after his interests than himself. He could do it. And he would do it. Mercilessly and ruthlessly. That he would enjoy it was an added bonus.
He went back to his desk, picked up the phone. “I’ll be in Las Vegas tonight. We’ll talk more then.”
“Good. But you should know, Mister Braid, that Charity and I are experienced in termination work.”
She was smart, this Mercy woman. Considering he hadn’t said a word about “terminations.”
“I know.”
“From Victor?”
“Yes.” Something inside him settled. If the mysterious Mercy, a woman that like her sister Charity he knew only by reputation and a numbered account into which he’d deposited some very sizable amounts, proved to be as interesting as she sounded, he would include her—and perhaps bed her. It would take his mind off Giselle. “As I said, I’ll be in Las Vegas tonight. I’ll call you with the time of my arrival after I’ve talked to my pilot.”
“I’ll be waiting, Mister Braid. I’m looking forward to our meeting.” Her v
oice, unless he’d imagined it, had deepened, turned intimate. Intriguing—and vaguely familiar.
“While you’re waiting,” he said, “make yourself useful, Mercy, and find out everything you can about the Worth woman and that town you mentioned, Tofino. If she has a connection to it, I’ll want to know who or what it is.”
“Of course. Anything you want, Mister Braid.” Again the voice was smoky, vaguely sexual.
“One more thing.” He put the brief sexual tug aside. Business first. Business always first.
“Yes?”
“The others you mentioned? Her son and daughter. Get their names, please.”
“I already have them, Joe and April Worth.”
Q closed his eyes, the name April tumbling through his mind. April. . .
For the first time in days, his smile was real. Now he remembered more than her green eyes, now he remembered her.
April girl. Her stubborn little face, how she’d screamed, bit his hand, kicked his ankle—before he’d tied her to a chair in Victor’s den. She’d toppled the chair, he remembered, and when he’d set it to rights, she’d spit at him. All the time tears streaming down her grimy little face.
“You’re certain these two people are following Worth to this place, this Tofino?” He’d quickly considered his options. Now that he knew precisely who to look for, he may not need Mercy and her sister. Perhaps he could do the job alone. Although it had been a long time—and if there were several people in the way . . .
“They seem to be working on the same information we have. So yes, I’d say it’s a strong possibility that if they’re not there already, they’re on their way.”
“Find out exactly where they are, and keep me apprised of their whereabouts. I’ll see you in a few hours.” He hung up the phone.
He picked up a Montblanc pen, tapped it on the desk, and mentally reviewed the latest data: The three of them, Worth, her son, and the April girl together. Yes, that would work. Work rather well. All of the targets gathered in one acceptably remote location—in another country. Tidy. And very doable with a limited chance of witnesses—except Mercy and her sister, of course. He’d have to take care of them in due time. But for now, things looked positive. The precision of it—the exactitude—very nearly warmed his heart.
