by Derek Haas
It hits me there, watching the light and the darkness disappear into each other. The connection I need to sever isn’t the one between Mann and me. The connection I need to sever is the one holding me back.
I find a pay phone and dial a number from memory. After a brief exchange with Max, he puts me through to Mr. Ryan in Las Vegas.
“I agree to your offer.”
“You will let me represent you? Exclusively?”
“You have your Silver Bear.”
I hear an exhale through the line, like he is allowing himself a moment for this to sink in. It is a rare moment of emotion for a stoical man, and it pleases me.
“I am very happy. You will not regret this.”
“I’m sure I won’t and I am happy as well, Mr. Ryan.”
“Call me William. We are partners.”
“William.”
“You are finishing a job now?”
“Yes. It will be finished by the end of the week.”
“And after, how soon would you like to work again?”
“Give me two months.”
“Where would you like to work?”
“The Northeast, preferably.”
“Is that your home?”
“Yes, Boston.”
“Ahhh. There is a lot of work in New York right now.”
“That would be fine.”
“I’ll have a file for you in two months.”
“Great.”
He waits, knowing I have more to tell him.
“There is one other thing, William. One thing I need immediately on my current job. I don’t have Pooley any more, and I will give you his commission for this assignment.”
“Yes, that will be fine. What can I get you?”
“I need you to arrange a meeting.”
“Yes?”
“There is an East Coast fence named Vespucci. I worked for him originally. He brought me in. We had a bit of bad blood when we went our separate ways.”
“Yes?”
“I need a meeting . . .”
“Okay . . .”
“In Seattle.”
“I believe this will be difficult.”
“That’s why I’m joining you. Exclusively. Because your reputation is you handle difficulty very well.”
“Yes, I see. When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Yes. How may I reach you?”
“I’ll call you in twelve hours.”
“Yes. It will be done.”
I walk to the Pike Place Market, a short quarter-mile from the sea. As far as tourist traps go, this isn’t a bad one, and I find it sparsely crowded at this time of day in the middle of the week. I buy a newspaper and eat some grilled salmon and stare at nothing and think of nothing. The fish tastes bland. Outside, it starts to rain.
THE meeting is set for a bar at the Sea-Tac airport. This is a smart choice by Vespucci for obvious reasons. Shooters like to meet in airport terminals; security being what it is, it is damn near impossible to sneak in a weapon. I have yet to hear of a man killed in an airport bar; the locale is a safe haven for dangerous men to meet and exchange pleasantries. And information.
I purchase a ticket to Toronto I don’t intend to use and arrive an hour early to get my bearings. The bar is named C.J. Borg’s, a small place with a single entrance and exit, dimly lit and half full, just off the Alaskan Airways terminal. I pick a booth in the back where I can watch the entrance. Even in a high security zone, I don’t want to take any chances.
Vespucci is unmistakable as he waddles into the bar, squints as his eyes adjust to the absence of light, and then finds me in the corner. He hasn’t changed, his hair is still dark, and his weight looks the same. The only difference is his eyes; there is a weariness there I didn’t notice before, like whatever pleasure he once got out of life has long since evaporated.
“Hello, Columbus.”
“Hello.”
He keeps his expression, and his voice, even.
“You have been well?”
“No. Not very well, Mr. Vespucci.”
“Yes. I know as much. I am sorry about your fence.”
“Sorry doesn’t quite cover it.”
“No. I understand.”
“Here’s what I want. I want you to serve up Hap Blowenfeld or whatever his real name is. I know we got tripled up on this job and I know no one asked for it and I know we’re spending more time trying to kill each other than trying to eliminate the target. I’ve already disposed of Miguel Cortega. I will do the same to Hap.”
“Why should I . . . how is it you say . . . serve up my own man?”
“Because I’m going to get to him one way or another. And I’m going to finish this job.” I level my eyes at him. “And if you don’t help me, I’m going to finish you.”
He starts to say something but I interrupt . . .
“Jurgenson in Amsterdam. Sharpe in D.C. Korrigan in Montreal. Reeves in Chicago. Cole in Atlanta. You know of these?”
He nods his head.
“I put them all down. They were supposed to be impossible and I got to them all. I’ve never targeted anyone off-job, but if you don’t help me, you will be my first.”
He leans back, contemplating.
“You’ve changed,” he says at last.
“You changed me.”
His whole body sags a little in the chair, like I made the weight on top of his shoulders heavier. He leans forward, then pauses, like he wants to pick his words carefully.
“I know where she lives.”
For a moment, I say nothing. There is no need for him to explain whom she refers to; I know who she is without giving the name. It is a calculated move on his part, and if he is expecting me to blink, he played the wrong cards.
“I don’t care.”
“Ahhh . . . I think you do care, Columbus. I think you would very much like to know what I know.”
“You don’t think I could’ve gotten to her a thousand ways since that job eight years ago? I’m the one who sent her packing. Don’t forget that.”
“You sent her packing because you care for her. You kicked her in the stomach because you care for her. You haven’t tracked her down because you care for her. Maybe you haven’t changed as much as I thought.”
I start to say something but it is his turn to interrupt.
“You threaten my life, Columbus, but I can say to you truly, I don’t give a steaming pile of shit for my life. It is ending soon, and I am at peace. Whatever punishment I have coming, it will not be in this life, I can assure you. Whatever ways you can make me hurt, it will be a blessing. I have much . . . I have many regrets, I mean to say.”
His eyes are rheumy and his lids are heavy, but I am sure this is no ploy; he is searching for truth in a life filled with death and what he sees in the abyss makes him blink. He hasn’t finished what he wants to tell me.
“You think pulling the trigger is difficult? You think executing the job is difficult? Think of what I do, what your fence did for you. We research these targets, these men, these women, we find out every intimate detail of their lives so another may end that life. We make the blueprints of their death. We take away their free will. We know the future. We know as we study them in the present, they have little time to live. We know it, but they don’t know it, do you understand? It is a rare power, reserved for God.”
He moves his coffee cup from one side of the table to the other. “Pah. Forgive me. I am old and tired. I cannot explain what this means. My words do not represent me well.”
I stare at him as though for the first time. This old man who brought me into this life and now lives with regret. I had not thought of the toll it takes on the fence, the middleman, to compile those files I savor. I am able to make the connection and sever the connection, but he—and Pooley—only connected and then watched someone else do the severing. The fee exacted on them was both psychological and physical; I could see it now in Vespucci’s bloodshot eyes.
I discover here,
in this moment, I will fail. I let this assignment get the best of me, take the best from me. I let my rejected past overtake me and I ignored all the warning signs because of my own hubris. My threat to Vespucci has been rendered empty, and he knows it. Not because he manipulated me, but because he disarmed me by simply telling the truth.
I realize we haven’t said a word to each other for several minutes. He is looking at me the way a scolded schoolchild looks at a teacher, waiting for me to dole out punishment, waiting for a blow that will never come.
Finally, I stand up, lost.
“Are we finished?”
“Yes.”
He lets out a breath and stands. “Well. It was good seeing you Columbus. I mean that.”
I don’t answer, and he shuffles away. It is dark outside when I leave the terminal. The rain is relentless.
I return to my hotel like a man walking in his sleep. I have no plan B, no backup, no contingency for getting to Abe Mann. I have every confidence I can get a bullet into him, but I have no way to escape, and I do not make suicide runs. I have nowhere to turn. I am out of ideas.
I will have to go south, to Los Angeles, and observe, and hope Hap doesn’t sniff me out first, and look for an opening. If I have a chance for a clean shot, I’ll have to take it and rely on my instincts to keep me alive and out of jail. I have no other options.
I begin packing my few things, when there is a knock on the door. I snatch up a pistol, crouch low next to the doorframe, and say, “Yeah?”
Vespucci’s voice comes through softly from the other side of the wall. “Columbus. It is me. I am . . . unarmed.”
Something in his voice sounds dead and hollow, like he is damned, soulless. I lower my gun, stand up, and open the door without hesitation. He must have followed me here from the airport, but the tone in his voice is not dangerous.
He is holding an envelope; his eyes appear lifeless, just dark circles in a dark face.
“I will not give you Hap.”
I don’t say a word. He didn’t come here to tell me what I already knew. He extends his hand and I take the proffered envelope.
“Candidate Abe Mann will be alone in this hotel room exactly twenty-four hours before he is to address the convention. Do not ask me how I know this or why I know this. It is information Hap has, and now it is information you have. The playing field is leveled, as they say.”
I am unsure how to respond, so I just nod.
“I do not do this for you because I owe it to you. I do it for me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
It is his turn to nod. He studies my face, like he is trying to commit it to memory, like this will be the last time he looks upon it.
“It is too late for me.” And with that, he moves away, into the shadows and darkness and implacable rain.
CHAPTER 14
I stand in a field on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, with a thousand citizens, watching Abe Mann talk on a raised platform. He is angry and it seems, for the first time since I’ve been stalking him, speaking off the cuff, without notes, without a script.
“. . . Politics in this country have descended into a two-party demigod where lines are drawn on every issue before anyone can manage a true original thought. It is a system built on discord. A system fostering sticks instead of carrots. We talk about extending olive branches and meeting in the middle and working with the other side of the aisle but it’s all . . . well . . . horse-pucky.”
The crowd applauds nervously, like it senses something here is a little out of whack.
Mann continues like he didn’t hear the clapping. “I mean, come on, people. It’s like two dogs tied to the same chain pulling in opposite directions. They can’t get anywhere; they just stay in the same place, grunting and growling, impotent. Well, I tell you right now, someone needs to point those dogs in the same direction or put ’em both out of their misery.”
I am watching Mann’s handlers on the side of the dais as they stew uncomfortably, trying and failing to get their candidate’s attention. I notice him look their way, then his eyes go right back to the audience, ignoring their signals to cut it short. A fat guy standing to the side in an ill-fitting suit looks like he’s about to go apoplectic, but Mann just keeps on talking.
“Here’s the problem with that big capitol building on the hill. When the going gets tough, the weak ones cave. ‘The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’ No one finishes anything. Not how they meant to finish, I mean.”
His eyes scan the crowd, fall right on me like he’s singling me out, and then pass on.
“They start out with the best intentions but there you go, two parties digging at each other every chance they get and with the pork, and the gravy on the pork, and the salt on the gravy on the pork, by the time you’ve been kicked in the teeth a couple hundred times, what you started out doing doesn’t look a cock and bull close to what it ended up being. No one finishes anything. The center cannot hold. No one wants to . . .”
His microphone cuts out on him. It takes him a few sentences to realize what has happened, that he’s been emasculated. He looks over at his handlers hotly, but then defeat spreads across his face like a virus. I am reminded of that skittish dog outside of McDonald’s in Santa Fe trying to get to his feet, trying to force his legs to work again, trying to somehow shake off the brute force that had crippled him, and failing over and over and over.
Mann’s own men have choked him, put the muzzle on him, and he shrugs and walks off the stage, his eyes cast down. He has been silenced, but his words still hang over the crowd, hang over me, until all of us shuffle away silently, like we’re leaving a funeral.
I did walk off a job once without killing the target, without completing the mission. Just a year ago, last winter. I didn’t want to work, had decided to take a break and recharge my batteries, but Pooley fielded an offer double our usual fee and I figured I could rest later, when the weather grew warmer.
I was suspicious about the fee, double wages could only mean this particular job would be unusually difficult. I had been wary since Positano, and I refused to make the same mistake twice.
The target’s name was Jaquelle Val Saint, a French woman living in Dallas, Texas, a mistress according to the file Pooley cobbled together. She had changed her name to Monique Val Saint, though Pooley wasn’t sure why or what the significance was. He made notes in the file indicating the fence he was dealing with on the other side of the table had been extremely reticent about giving information. Nevertheless, Pooley had done his job well, painstakingly accounting for all the details in Monique’s life.
Her lover was Jacob J. Adams, a major real estate player in North Dallas. He had built a small fortune buying up factories, remodeling them, and then leasing the warehouses to manufacturers all over the Southwest. In the course of growing his business, he had greased enough connected palms to kindle small-time political aspirations of his own. It didn’t take a lot of deduction to imagine how Monique ended up with a price on her head.
From the file Pooley put together, I knew Monique lived in a loft apartment with a view of downtown Dallas out her living room window and a swimming pool on the roof so she could keep her skin tanned golden brown. I saw she exercised five times a week at a local health club, but that number had dwindled to only once in Pooley’s last week of surveillance. She had put on a little weight; maybe that had added to Mr. Adams’s dissatisfaction.
According to the file, Adams’s wife was unaware of the ongoing affair. Pooley was confident of it. This was important information; if the wife had plans of her own to confront Ms. Val Saint, it could cause me logistical problems. A heated exchange could conceivably complicate things at the wrong time, either bringing unwarranted outsiders—curious neighbors, or, worse, the police—into the equation, which would make my job all the more difficult. I wanted to move fast on this one: get in, get the job done, and get out.
I flew to Dallas, rented a car, and drove to
an area called Deep Ellum. A brick factory had been converted to giant lofts on Canon Street, and I’m sure Adams had negotiated a good deal on the rent for his mistress. She was just leaving as I pulled on to her street, so I followed her discreetly as she turned and headed south toward the highway.
Eventually, her convertible Mercedes pulled into one of her favorite destinations according to Pooley’s report, the Northpark Mall. I parked a few rows away and watched her as she crossed the lot.
Monique was beautiful, more than what I expected from the pictures Pooley had taken. She had natural beauty, high cheekbones on an unblemished face. Her hair was blond and stylish, not piled high like most of the Texas women heading across the parking lot. She wore baggy clothes over what must have been an athletic figure.
I followed her inside, trailing furtively. She crossed through the department store, Neiman Marcus, and headed into the mall proper. I waited while she window-shopped, using the glass of the storefronts across the corridor to watch her as she disappeared inside a Pottery Barn.
I waited for her to come out, but when she didn’t, I made my way over to the store as casually as possible, face blank, hands deep in my pockets.
I could hear shouting from outside the store, but the voices grew clearer as I moved closer. Monique was standing at the sales counter, her face contorted in rage, screaming obscenities at two clerks on the other side of the table. Her face had transformed; where I had seen beauty before, now I saw raw ugliness. The dispute had something to do with a promised item not being in stock, and the poor clerks were cowering from this woman, this privileged woman, this mistress, who was lording over them, raging over them, simply because she could.
She would not be raging for long.
I watched her across the parking lot with narrowed eyes, allowing my hatred for this woman to build. Pooley had mentioned a “difficult” personality in the file, but I had a special enmity for those who treat others like shit. The mark of character is how we treat people who can do nothing for us—the secretaries, the waitresses, the bank tellers, the check-out lady at the grocery store. She was making this job easier.
