by Mark Dawson
“Shit, dude!” he exclaimed. “That hurts.”
Milton relaxed his grip a little but he didn’t let go. “Have a think about it,” he said, his voice quiet and even. “Think about Madison. If you care about her at all you give me a call and tell me how I can get in touch with the agency. Don’t make me come and find you. Do we understand each other?”
“Shit, man, yeah––alright.”
Milton took a pen from his pocket, pulled a napkin from the chrome dispenser and wrote his number on the back. “This is me,” he said, putting it in the boy’s hand. “Take the rest of the day to think about it and call me. Okay?”
The boy gulped down his fear and nodded.
Milton released his grip.
23
MILTON DROVE THEM as near to Headlands Lookout as he could get. Trip was nervous, fidgeting next to him, almost as if he expected them to find something. The police had blocked the road a hundred yards from the parking lot, a broad cordon cutting from the rocky outcrop on the right all the way down to the edge of the cliff on the left. Half a dozen outside broadcast trucks had been allowed down to the lot and they were crammed in together, satellite dishes angled in the same direction and their various antennae bristling. Milton slowed and pulled off the narrow road, cramming the Explorer up against the rock so that there was just enough space for cars to pass it to the left. The skies were a slate gray vault overhead and rain was lashing against the windscreen, pummelling it on the back of a strong wind coming right off the Pacific. Visibility was decent despite the brutal weather, and, as Milton disembarked, he gazed out to the south, all the way to the city on the other side of the Bay.
They made their way through the cordon and down to the parking lot. There were several dozen people there already, arranged in an untidy scrum before a man who was standing on a raised slope where the phalanx of cameras could all get a decent view of him. Milton recognised him. It was Commissioner William Reagan, the head of the local police. He was an old man, close to retirement, his careworn face chiselled by years of stress and disappointment. The wind tousled his short shock of white hair. He pulled his long cloak around him, the icy rain driven across the bleak scene. An officer was holding an umbrella for him but it wasn’t giving him much shelter; he wiped moisture from his face with the back of his hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said into the upheld microphones, “before I get into my remarks let me identify those who are here with me. I got Chief of Detectives Stewart Webster, everyone knows the Chief, and I got Inspector Richard Cotton.” He cleared his throat and pulled out a sheet of paper. “As you know, we’ve found two bodies along this stretch of the headland. I wish we hadn’t, but that’s the sad fact of it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two bodies ended up in this area. It appears that they were taken down from the road into the foliage and hidden there so that they wouldn’t be seen. We’re assuming they were dumped here by the same person or persons.”
A brusque man from cable news shouted loudest as he paused for breath. “You identified them yet?”
“No,” Reagan said. “Not yet.”
“So you’re saying you’ve got a serial killer dumping victims along this stretch of land?”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two ended up in this area, but I don’t want anyone to think we have a Jack the Ripper running around with blood dripping from a knife.” He blinked. “Which might be the impression that some people would get … ” He trailed off. “This is an anomaly,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“You expect to find anyone else?”
“That’s impossible to say. But we’re looking.”
“There’s snow forecast for the weekend. Does that add pressure?”
“It doesn’t help. We want to make sure we don’t miss anything.”
“So are you or are you not looking at it being the same guy?”
“Well, you know, I’m not gonna say that but, certainly, we’re looking at that.”
THE PRESS ROADSHOW decamped and moved to Belvedere. A slow crawl of traffic worked slowly along the narrow road, Milton and Trip caught in the middle of it. Their purpose in driving out of the city had been to go and speak to Brady but Milton had not anticipated all this extra company. It made him nervous. The vehicles turned left and headed north, taking the right and doubling back to the south. Milton gripped the wheel tightly and ran the morning’s developments through his mind. It wasn’t surprising that they had reached the conclusion that Madison’s disappearance must have been connected. Why not? Two working girls turning up murdered just a few miles away, another working girl goes missing: it was hardly a stretch to think that she was dead, too, and dead at the hands of the same killer.
As they reached Pine Shores it was obvious that the prospect of a community of potential suspects was just too tempting to ignore. The gates stood open––it looked as if they had been forced––and the cavalcade had spilled inside. Reporters and their cameramen had set up outside the two key properties: the house where the party had taken place and Dr. Brady’s cottage. Police cruisers were parked nearby but the cops inside seemed content to let them get on with things. Milton parked the Explorer and joined Trip at the front of the car. They watched as two reporters for national news channels delivered their assessments of the case so far––the discovery of the two bodies, the fact that a third girl had gone missing here––and suggested that the police were linking the investigations.
Milton looked at the cameras.
“We shouldn’t be here,” he said, more to himself than to the boy.
“What are they doing outside his place?” Trip said, his eyes blazing angrily as he started up the street towards Brady’s cottage.
“Trip––stop.”
“They think he did it, right? That must be it.”
Milton followed after him and took him by the shoulder. “We need to get back in the car. They’ll be all over us if they see us and figure out who we are.”
Trip shook his hand away. “I don’t care about that. I want to speak to him.”
He set off again. Milton paused. He knew he should leave him, get back into the car and drive back to the city. He had been stupid to come up here. He should have guessed that it would be swarming with press. It stood to reason. He didn’t know if they would be able to identify him but, if they did, if he was filmed and if the footage was broadcast?––that would be very dangerous indeed.
Milton’s phone vibrated in his pocket.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Smith?”
“Speaking.”
“It’s Aaron Pogue––from this morning.”
Milton put his hand over the microphone. “Trip!”
He paused and turned. “What?”
“It’s Aaron.”
The boy came back towards him.
“You there?” said Pogue.
“Yes, I’m here. Hello, Aaron.”
“I’ve been thinking, about what you said.”
“And?”
“And I’ll tell you what you need. The agency, all that.”
“That’s good, Aaron. Go on.”
“I don’t have a number for the agency––the number they use when they call, it’s always blocked, so there’s nothing I can do to help you there. But Salvatore, the guy who runs it, I know he owns the pizza house in Fisherman’s Wharf. That’s just a cover––the agency is his main deal, that’s his money gig, he runs it from the office out back. That’s it.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll keep my name out of it?”
“I’ll try.”
“I hope you find her.”
Milton ended the call.
“What did he say?”
“He told me where to find the agency.”
The thought of confronting Brady seemed to have left his mind. “Where?”
“Come on,” he said. “It’s in the city. Want to come?”
24
MILTON PARKED THE CAR on the junction
of Jefferson and Taylor. He had explained his plan to Trip during the drive back into the city and persuaded him that it was better that he go in alone. He had objected at first but Milton had insisted and, eventually, the boy had backed down. Milton didn’t know what he was going to find but, if the agency was backed by the Mafia, what he had in mind was likely to be dangerous. He had no intention of exposing Trip to that.
“I won’t be long,” he said as he opened the door. “Wait here?”
“Alright,” Trip said.
Milton stepped out and walked beneath the huge ship’s wheel that marked the start of Fisherman’s Wharf. He passed restaurants with their names marked on guano-stained awnings: Guardino’s, The Crab Station, Sabella & LaTorre’s Original Fisherman’s Wharf Restaurant. Tourists gathered at windows, staring at the menus, debating the merits of one over another. A ship’s bell clanged in the brisk wind that was coming off the Ocean, the tang of salt was everywhere, the clouds pressed down overhead. It was a festival of tacky nonsense, as inauthentic as it was possible to be. Milton continued down the road. The Classic Italian Pizza and Pasta Co. was between Alioto’s and The Fisherman’s Grotto. He climbed the stairs to the first floor and nodded to the maitre d’ as he passed him as if he were just rejoining friends at a table. It was a decent place: a salad and pasta station, tended to by a man in a chef’s tunic and a toque, was positioned beneath a large Italian tricolour; string bags full of garlic and sun-dried tomatoes hung from a rack in the area where food was prepared; a series of tables was arranged on either side of an aisle that led to the bar; the tables were covered with crisp white tablecloths, folded napkins and gleaming cutlery and glassware. Two sides of the restaurant were windowed, the view giving out onto the marina beyond on one side and the Wharf on the other. It was busy. The smell of fresh pizza blew out of the big wood kiln that was the main feature of the room.
He went into the kitchen. A man in grimy whites was working on a bowl of crab meat.
“I’m looking for Salvatore.”
The man shifted uncomfortably. “Say what?”
“Salvatore. The boss. Where is he?”
“Ain’t no-one called Salvatore here.”
Milton was in no mood to waste time. He stalked by the man and headed for the door at the end of the kitchen. He opened the door. It was a large office. He surveyed it carefully, all eyes. First, he looked for an exit. There was one on the far wall, propped open with a fire extinguisher. There was a window, too, with a view of the Wharf outside, but it was too small to be useful. There was a pool table in the middle of the room and a jukebox against the wall. There was a desk with a computer and a pile of papers. A man was sitting at the computer. He was middle-aged, burly, heavy shoulders, biceps that strained against the sleeves of his t-shirt, meaty forearms covered in hair. Both arms were decorated with lurid tattooed sleeves, the markings running all the way down to the backs of his hands and onto his fingers.
The man spun around on his chair. “The fuck you want?”
“Salvatore?”
He got up. “Who are you?”
“My name is Smith.”
“And?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“You think you can just bust into my office?”
“We need to talk.”
“Then make an appointment.”
“It’s about your other business.”
The man concealed the wary, nervous turn to his face behind a quick sneer.
“Yeah? What other business?”
Milton looked at him with dead eyes. He had always found that projecting a sense of perfect calm worked wonders in a situation like that. It wasn’t even a question of confidence. He knew he could take Salvatore, provided there were no firearms involved to even the odds. Milton couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost a fight against a single man. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost a fight against two men, either, come to that.
“Your escort business, Salvatore.”
“Nah.”
“Fallen Angelz.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It would be better to be honest.”
“I don’t know nothing about it, friend.”
Milton scanned for threats and opportunities. There were drawers in the desk that might easily contain a small revolver. No way of knowing that for sure, though, so he would just have to keep an eye on the man’s hands. There was a stack of cardboard trays with beer bottles inside, still covered by cellophane wrap, but Milton wasn’t worried about them. Bottles made for poor weapons unless you had the chance to smash them and it would take too long to tear through the plastic to get at these ones for them to be useful. No, he thought; the pool table was the best bet. There were the balls, hard balls made up of six ounces of phenolic resin that were good for throwing or for using as blunt weapons in an open fist. There were half a dozen cues held in a vertical rack on the nearest wall. A pool cue was a good weapon. Nice and light and easy to wield, balanced with lead shot in the fat end, long enough to offer plenty of range.
Milton watched the Italian carefully. He could see from the way that the veins were standing out in his neck and the clenching and unclenching of his fists that it would take very little for things to turn nasty.
So––let’s talk about it.”
“Don’t you listen? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So I wouldn’t find anything in those papers if I were to have a look?”
“Reckon that’d be a pretty dumb thing to go and try to do.”
Salvatore reached down slowly and carefully pulled up the bottom of his t-shirt, exposing six-inches of tattooed skin and the stippled grip of a Smith & Wesson Sigma 40F. He rested the tips of his fingers against it, lightly curling them around the grip.
“That’s not the first time I’ve seen a gun.”
“Could be your last.”
Milton ignored that. “Let me tell you some things I know, Salvatore. I know you run girls out of this office. I know you distribute drugs on the side. And I know you sent Madison Clarke to a party at the house in Pine Shore.”
“Yeah? What party was that?”
“Three months ago. The one where she went missing.”
He stared at him. A flicker of doubt. “Madison Clarke? No. I don’t know no-one by that name.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You think I care what you believe?” He stood up now, his right hand curled more tightly around the grip of the handgun. He pointed to the telephone on the desk with his left hand. “You know who I’m gonna call if you don’t start making tracks?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“I’m gonna call an ambulance. I’m telling you, man, straight up, you don’t get out of here right now, you won’t be leaving in one piece. I’m gonna fucking shoot your ass.”
“I tell you what––you tell me all about the escorting business and maybe I won’t break your arm. How’s that sound?”
He slapped his hand against the gun. “You miss this, man? Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?”
“Let’s say I’m someone you don’t want to annoy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m a concerned member of the public. And I don’t like the business you’re running.”
He assessed the distance between them––eight feet––and couldn’t say for sure that he would be able to get all the way across the room before the man could draw and shoot. And if he could get the gun up in time and shoot, it would be point blank and hard to miss.
That wasn’t going to work.
Plan B.
Milton stepped quickly to the table, snatched up the eight-ball and flung it. His aim was good and, as Salvatore turned his head away to avoid it, the ball struck him on the cheekbone, shattering it.
Milton already had the pool cue, his fingers finding it at the thin end.
Salvatore fumbled hopelessly for the gun.
Milton swung the cue in a wide
arc that terminated in the side of his head. There was a loud crunch that was clearly audible over the ambient noise from the restaurant and a spray of blood flashed over the computer monitor. Salvatore slid off the chair and onto the floor. Milton stood over him and chopped down again three more times, fast and hard into his ribs and trunk and legs until he stayed down.
He discarded the cue and started to look through the papers on the desk.
TRIP WAS LISTENING to the radio when Milton reached the Explorer again. He opened the door and slid inside, moving quickly. He started the engine and pulled away from the kerb.
“You get anything?”
“Nothing useful.”
“So it wasn’t worth coming down here? We should’ve stayed in Belvedere?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I made an impression. There’ll be a follow-up.”
25
MILTON HEARD THE buzzer as he was cleaning his teeth. He wasn’t expecting a delivery and, since very few people knew where he lived, he was about as sure as he could be that whoever it was who had come calling on him at eight in the morning wasn’t there for the good of his health. He put the brush back in its holder and quietly opened the window just enough that he could look downwards. The window was directly above the entrance to the building and he could see the three men who were arrayed around the door. There was a car on the corner with another man in the front. It was a big Lexus, blacked-out windows, very expensive.
Four men. An expensive car. He had a pretty good idea what this was.
Milton toggled the intercom. “Yes?”
“Police.”
“Police?”
“That’s right. Is that Mr. Smith?”
“Yes.”
“Could we have a word?”
“What about?”
“Open the door please, sir.”
“What do you want to talk to me about?”
“There was an incident yesterday. Fisherman’s Wharf. Please, sir––we just need to have a word.”
“Fine. Just give me five minutes. I work nights. I was asleep. I just need to get changed.”
