by Derek Haas
Pooley popped the clip from my Glock, reloaded it, racked it, and placed it in my good hand. Then he cracked the window half an inch, just enough for me to wedge in the barrel of my gun. The third shooter pulled out a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, checked the address, checked his watch, checked the address again, furrowed his brow, and then . . . wham . . . my first and only shot caught him in the center of his head, shattering his nose and caving in the front of his face. He stuttered backwards, and then dropped onto the snow-covered asphalt.
Pooley and I quickly gathered my gear, everything we could fit into one large trash bag, and headed into the parking lot for my car. The third shooter still lay dead in the snow, his blood congealed like a halo around his head. The building was tucked into a small street off the main highway, where traffic was nonexistent this time of day. Luck was with us, no one had driven into the lot in the five minutes it had taken us to get up to my apartment and gather our possessions.
I looked at the dead body, and then noticed the paper still clutched in his hand, the slip he had pulled from his inside jacket pocket.
“Let’s go, Columbus. Now, before our luck changes.”
Pooley was right, I should have jumped behind the wheel of the Honda and gotten us out of there, but I wanted to know if that paper had something on it, some clue that would tell me who was trying to kill me and how I could stop it from happening again. I was only being cautious.
I grabbed the paper and sure enough, scrawled in pencil in a barely legible hand was my address here in Framingham, the target’s residence, nothing more. At least I thought there was nothing more until I flipped it over.
Scribbled on the other side in that same masculine hand was another address.
Pooley must have seen the color drain from my face. “What is it?”
“They have Jake’s address.”
I didn’t talk. I had the Honda’s accelerator mashed to the floorboard, ripping up the highway toward Boston like a missile locked on its target. I was racing blindly, ignoring the increasing amount of pain in my shoulder, my mind focused on one thing, only one thing: getting to Jake. I wouldn’t have slowed if God himself had tried to stop me.
“We don’t know if they went to her first.”
I didn’t answer, and Pooley gave up trying to talk to me. He just sagged back into his chair like the effort was too much.
I blitzed the car into Boston, and flew through intersection after intersection until finally I screeched to a stop outside of her apartment building. I left the car in the street double-parked, not bothering to look for a parking place.
“Columbus! Columbus! Take it easy, for Chrissakes. Do you know how you look? Like a maniac . . .” Pooley was shouting at me but the words weren’t registering as I took the steps on her stoop two at a time. I didn’t bother to buzz for entry; I just broke the glass door with my fist and twisted the latch from the inside, my hand sticky with blood. I flew up two flights of stairs before reaching her door.
I knocked with my bloody fist; I found I couldn’t raise my good hand, the bullet in my shoulder had rendered it useless. Where was she? Oh, God, please tell me they didn’t . . . I knocked again, pounded, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, over and over and over. Please tell me they didn’t touch her. Please tell me they didn’t. Vespucci told me to stop seeing her and I did, I stopped, I left town without saying good-bye, I didn’t phone her, I didn’t send her a letter, I was willing to let it die, but not like this, bam, bam, bam, bam, not like this, bam, bam, bam . . .
And then the door opened. Jake’s face filled the entry-way, Jake’s beautiful face, my God, she looked fine, healthy, unharmed, untouched, surprised to see me, about to be angry, but then she saw the blood on my shirt, on my hand. . . .
“What happened to you?”
She pulled me inside the apartment, her face a picture of concern. I was overwhelmed with relief, couldn’t open my mouth.
She spoke instead, “I’ve been so worried. For weeks, not a word, not a call. I didn’t know what I did to hurt you. I love you so much, I just couldn’t understand it.”
She was unbuttoning my shirt, and she gasped when she saw the wound to my shoulder. She didn’t think, just immediately darted to the kitchen and snatched up a rag, turned on the faucet, and let the water run warm.
I knew then I would have to do the hardest thing I had ever done, harder than killing a man. To end this, to make sure this was finished, to make sure they would never come for her, I couldn’t just run away and leave her behind.
She came back, holding the wet cloth, and began to clean my wound, but I grabbed her by the wrist and pushed her back.
“You have to move.”
“What?”
“You have to get out of here. Get your things, whatever you can carry with you in the next five minutes and get out of here. Go somewhere, anywhere, but get out of Boston and don’t come back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just do it!”
My voice must have been like a slap to her face, tears sprung to her eyes.
“I don’t understand!”
“I’m a bad man, Jake! I’m worse than bad. I’m a goddamn nightmare. You don’t know a fucking thing about me.”
“What, what . . . ?” she sputtered.
“I never fucking loved you. I’ve been using you as a fuck rag. Something to sleep with to get my mind off of all the other shit in my life.”
“What are you talking about?” Her voice was barely a whisper, a squeak as the tears spilled out and soaked her mouth.
“You think I give a shit about you? You think I haven’t been fucking twenty other girls just like you?”
“What are you talking about?” she said softer, her voice breaking.
“Now, I’ve gone and done it, too. There are people out there who want to hurt you, Jake. People I’m involved with. I fucking gave them your address and now they want to see your ass for themselves. See if you’re as ripe as I said you were. ”
She took a step back, sobbing . . .
“I can’t stop them from coming, Jake. And they are coming. I don’t know why I’m even telling you. I guess I just wanted to give you a sporting chance to get out of here.”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“I don’t give a shit if you understand or not. You don’t leave today, then they come for you.”
“I love you,” she said weakly.
“You gotta leave right now.”
“But I love you!” she screamed, her voice finding a strength that surprised me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but this isn’t you. I don’t know who this is, but this isn’t you. If you’ll tell me what happened, maybe I can—”
And right then I struck her, my bloody fist catching her in the jaw and cracking her cheek, knocking her down to the floor.
“Noooooooo . . .” She started to moan.
I kicked her then, hard, in the stomach. I heard my voice coming out of my throat, disconnected from my body. “This is everything you need to know, Jake. I’m not fucking around. The men I work with, this’ll just be the warm-up session. If you’re not out of Boston in the next ten minutes, they will be here themselves, do you understand?”
“Whyyyyyyyy . . . ?” She was whimpering now, the breath knocked out of her.
“Ten minutes. And you forget everything about me. You forget you even knew my name. And if I ever see you again, it’ll be the last thing you see. I promise you that.”
I threw the wet rag at her face, spun, and marched out the door, leaving her crumpled frame sobbing on the floor.
Pooley and I watched silently from a nearby alley as Jake limped to her car, threw in a pillowcase filled with possessions, turned it around in the street, and drove away.
I never saw her again.
CHAPTER 10
VIOLENCE defines all men. At some point in life’s wheel, men are tested. A spanking from dad’s belt, a slap across the face, trading blows outside
a bar, a broken nose, a bloody mouth, a black eye, a gun pointed in the face, a knife jabbed underneath the ribs. A man’s reaction to violence is imprinted upon him like words on a page. He might cower, or shy away, or watch unflinching. He might rise up, or be impassioned, or be aroused. Or he might become violent himself.
And what is the antithesis of violence? Love? Kindness? And can both of these opposites, kindness and violence, Cain and Abel, reside in equal parts in one man? Or does one side battle the other like opposing armies in a long-standing war? And if so, which is the strongest?
I make my way to Nevada, wounded, though not physically, and fatigued. I am no longer on the trail of the man at the top of the page, not yet at least. I am after a different quarry. I am hunting hunters now.
Congressman Abe Mann will not be speaking in Las Vegas, wary of its unseemliness to many voters, conscious of how being photographed in the American Mecca of gambling and money and prostitution will turn off the masses. Rather, he will be making only one stop in Nevada, in the capital, Carson City, before he moves north to Washington state. His press materials will only vaguely mention Nevada, and the dinner in the capital is private and barred from the press.
I do not know Miguel Cortega’s modus operandi, but I am confident Hap Blowenfeld will be shadowing the congressman’s movements. For that reason, though not that reason alone, Hap will be the first to die.
I drive into Vegas. A man I know lives here; I hesitate to call him a friend. Pooley’s job is . . . was . . . to know other middlemen, men looking for contractors to hire for their missions. Often, I meet directly with these merchants, like with Archibald Grant in the warehouse when he handed me the briefcase that changed my life. The middlemen like to eyeball me, see me for themselves, measure me, the way old ladies pick up and shake cantaloupes in the produce section of the grocery. Pooley always said five minutes in a room with me would be enough to shatter any illusions of cheating me, of holding back anything but my promised fee. I hope that is still true.
I drive down Flamingo, heading west toward Sum-merlin, until I reach a neighborhood inappropriately named “Wooded Acres.” Every house is built exactly the same way, a cookie-cutter paradise, a sea of beige stucco and rusty Spanish tile. Each house is adorned with a lawn the size of a postage stamp. The only “woods” in the neighborhood are the scrawny palm trees inconsistently spotting the yards.
The nice thing about Vegas suburbs is that discretion is part of the milieu, built into the environment. Everyone seems to walk around with eyes downcast, avoiding direct contact with neighbors. It’s like the heat and the barrenness of the landscape have infected the hearts of those who live in the desert. Or maybe too many people are involved in too many impolite occupations.
I park my car at the curb outside of a one-story house marked by the number 506. I’ve been here before, twice actually, under different circumstances. But this time is a first for me. This time, I’m looking for help.
The door opens before I knock, and a small Indian man fills the void. He is dark, balding, and has ears too big for his face. Although he is small, he is compact, muscular, like a pit bull. His name is Max, and his voice is raspy.
“Columbus . . .”
“Max.”
“Mr. Ryan is not expecting you.”
“I need his help.”
This causes Max to pause, blink a few times involuntarily. He waits for more.
“Can I come in?”
“Depends on the kind of help you’re looking for, I s’pose.”
“My fence is dead.”
That’s all Max needs to hear. He opens the door further and I step inside the foyer. Immediately, two large men frisk me, each with the same dark skin as Max. They could be his sons, or nephews, as they have the same balding pattern on top of their heads. I am directed to a chair next to the door, and I take a seat and wait. The two men stay on my right and left as Max heads away, bare feet shuffling silently over the marble floor. I keep my gaze steady on a spot on the wall five feet away. It is humbling asking a man for help, and I want the right measure of supplication on my face when I greet him.
He makes me wait, a signal he is the person in power in this situation. He wants me to know he recognizes the advantage. But I don’t fidget, or cough, or straighten my legs. I just sit in the chair and stare steadily at that spot on the wall. My two bookends want to speak to me, are looking for an opening to chat me up, but I give them nothing. After half an hour, Max returns to the foyer. “Mr. Ryan will see you in his office.”
A large window overlooking an immaculately landscaped back yard frames the office. A half-clothed woman reclines on a leather sofa pushed up against one wall; I cannot tell if she is awake, asleep, or bored. Ryan sits in a chair, watching a flat-screen television mounted on the wall above the girl. The volume is off, but the screen is alive with graphics showing what the markets are doing all over the world. He is wearing only a swim-suit, though he is not wet.
“How can I help you?” he says without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Pooley is dead.”
“So Max tells me.”
“I’m looking for one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Information.”
“What are you willing to exchange for this one thing?”
“I’ll owe you a favor.”
For the first time, Ryan shifts his eyes to me and I feel the full weight of his stare. He measures me, considering. The girl on the sofa stirs, but I don’t look, don’t drop my eyes; rather I hold Ryan’s eyes steadily, like they are connected to mine by a string. He is a man who deals in commodities, and I am dangling a big carrot.
“I take it the information is difficult to come by, considering the payment you’re offering.”
“I don’t offer it lightly.”
“I understand. What do you need to know?”
“In Carson City, a bag man is going to be looking to dispose of and replace a Beretta 92F nine-millimeter handgun. I need to know the supplier he will approach to make the exchange.”
He tosses these words over in his mind, calculating. “You got a beef with this bag man?”
“Like I said, Pooley is dead.”
“I see.”
He moves over to the sofa and pats the girl on her exposed hip. Without speaking, she gets up, stretches, and heads out of the room, long legs cutting a swath in front of me until she is gone. He takes her forfeited spot on the couch and sits down heavily, facing me.
“Now I understand. It is not that the information is difficult. It is that the information would be imprudent for me to give.”
“I find that prudence is relative in our line of work.”
This forces a dry laugh from him. “I agree with you. Here are my terms. Instead of owing me a favor, I wish you to work for me when your current assignment is finished. Permanently. I will be your new fence.”
“With what arrangement?”
“The same you had with Pooley. No more.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been looking to downsize, and you are what the Russians refer to in this business as a Silver Bear. Have you heard this term?”
I shake my head.
“You’ve never defaulted on a job. You take a full slate without resting, and you fetch top dollar on the open market. A Silver Bear. I can carry you as my only partner and I’ll make more than I’ve ever made in my life. And I’ve made quite a bit.”
“You caught me off guard.”
“Well, to use your words, I don’t offer it lightly.”
“Then I’ll make you this promise. In exchange for the name of this supplier, I will agree to consider partnering with you. I don’t think you can expect me to give you more than that.”
Ryan smiles broadly. “It would be imprudent.”
I join him with a smile of my own as respect passes between us like we’re exchanging currency.
“And you wouldn’t be a Silver Bear if you answered me any other way.”
“You’re probably right.”
He stands and folds his arms across his chest.
“Okay, Columbus. I agree to your revised terms. Go to a pay phone on the corner of Desert Inn Road and Paradise. There’s a strip mall there with a phone on the north end of it, outside a 7-Eleven. I’ll have the name for you by the time you get there.”
CARSON City is an uninteresting capital located where Interstates 50 and 395 collide. It is a tiny town, its only purpose to serve its neighbors Reno and Lake Tahoe and the skiers who frequent Squaw Valley and Diamond Peak and Heavenly. It looks like an afterthought, like a little brother making do with the family’s hand-me-down clothes. The buildings are old and pitiful.
I take the Interstate into town and head south, past a mall and a cemetery, until I find the exit for Colorado Street. I’m looking for an industrial park, a concrete slab with no windows, one of those blights on the landscape that looks like it was thrown into place with no more planning than a child scattering his blocks. This one isn’t hard to find; the man on the other end of the pay phone in Vegas gave me impeccable directions.
I find a discreet parking lot and roll my beige sedan to a stop. Before I left Vegas, I jettisoned the SUV at McCarran and rented a new car, a Taurus. Through my windshield, I have a view of the only door on the outside of the industrial building, a steel door, solid, with an electronic keypad affixed to the adjacent wall. As an assassin, I have learned about strike moments, about vulnerability, about timing. A fortified target is the most difficult to take down, like Richard Levine holed up in his mansion. A supplier like the one I wish to speak to, like the one I am currently waiting to see, will work out of a bunker, well protected, well guarded, difficult to assault. Which is why I will not attempt to enter the industrial building, the outside of which is just a façade for a fortress. Rather, I’ll lie in wait for as long as it takes.
A woman wearing a skullcap and wire-framed glasses emerges from behind the door several hours later. There is only one car in the parking lot, a vintage Mustang painted blue. She climbs inside, pulls the car out of the parking lot, and heads northwest, toward the mountains. She made a mistake choosing a flashy car; it’s as easy to follow as if it had a red light on top. I don’t know if she is going home, or meeting someone, or stopping at a grocery store, but it doesn’t matter; at some point this evening she will be alone, and I will be ready.
